#faux stone fire pit

[8o8sims]

San Diego Water Slide Pool

Water slide - large tropical backyard stone and custom-shaped infinity water slide idea

[thecraptacular]

Transitional Pool - Above Ground

[katsu28]

summer's golden haze - chapter two

pairing: lando norris x reader

summary: backyard barbecues, the local market, and an unexpected discovery that has you wondering what exactly you may have just gotten yourself into. (5k)

warnings: angst (this early on, i know i'm sorry but it's for the plot i promise <3), lando and max f bickering like an old married couple

a/n: she's here!!!! sorry it took a little longer than expected but i hope you all enjoy this chapter :) pls feel free to come chat in my asks if you want to, i'd love to hear what everyone think about it so far!

previous chapter | masterlist

“Are these guys rich or something?”

Camille voices exactly the thought running through your mind as you roll to a stop to the address Lando had texted you yesterday, gawking out at the sprawling acreage in front of you. 

You peer at the impressive villa through the windshield, taking in everything with baited breath. She’s absolutely right. 

This house has to be two, if not three times the size of the one you’re all staying at, and that’s just what you can see so far. Vines bursting with colorful flowers crawl up white stone walls, curling around trellises of even more foliage, shutters on huge windows. There’s even a massive fountain in the middle of the courtyard, pristine marble, spewing crystal clear water in streams. 

It’s a classic old money countryside villa—worth millions, you assume, not even taking in the gathering of vintage and expensive sports cars parked along the cobblestone driveway. You suddenly feel so, so small compared to the extravagance of just the exterior of the place. 

Who are these people? 

A guy with brown curls similar to Lando’s pulls open the door when you ring the bell, in the middle of yelling something at someone further inside the house, before turning his gaze on you all. His face lights up in recognition at the sight of you. “Oh, hey, you’re the girl Lando won’t shut up about! I’m Max, but I’m sure he’s told you all about me, hasn’t he?” 

So this is Max. Lando’s told you a little about him, but mainly just funny stories. You wonder if Max knows his best friend is going around telling girls he’s just met about the time Max walked into a glass sliding door. 

“A little bit, not much. It’s nice to put a face to the name though!” You say politely. 

Max sighs dramatically, shaking his head in faux disappointment. He and Lando must be close. “I’m the best part of his life, and he doesn’t think to share it! What a knob. Anyways, welcome, come on in, make yourselves at home!” 

He ushers you all inside, leading you through the house and out huge double French doors leading to the backyard. The rest of their group sits on couches gathered around a stone fire pit, drinks in hand, chatting amongst themselves until they see you all coming. Max does the introductions between your two groups, but there’s one person missing. The one person you were looking forward to seeing again is nowhere to be found. 

Max must notice how your eyes search for Lando, because he grins knowingly. “He’ll be out in a bit. Work called.” 

“Oh, what does he do?” Samira chimes in. You fight the urge to throw a stone at her, because you know what she’s doing. She’s getting information on Lando because you haven’t got the guts to do it yourself yet. 

“Has he not told you yet?” Max raises a brow, taking a sip of his drink. When you shake your head, he presses his lips together, like he’s debating whether or not to tell you himself. “Yeah, sorry, I think I’m gonna stay out of this one. He gets pissy when I meddle with his budding relationships.” 

Budding relationship. Your face flames hot at the insinuation, but Samira takes it in stride, raising a skeptical brow. 

“What, is he in the mafia or something?” 

“‘Course not, that’s ridiculous. Pretty boy like him, he’d never make it in the mafia,” Max snorts. “No, he’s…look, it’s not really my place to say. I’m sure he’ll tell you when he’s ready.” 

Lando materializes from inside at that very moment, brows furrowed. There’s a tic going off in his jaw and he looks a little pissed off about something, but as soon as he looks up and sees that there’s company, he composes himself in a split second. 

“Hey, guys!” He chirps, hand raising in a wave. He makes his way over to where you all are, plopping down in the empty spot beside you without hesitation. “Glad you could make it.” 

“Thanks for the invite,” Maren replies, ever the polite one. “And the coffee yesterday.” 

Max makes an offended noise from the back of his throat at his friend. “You bought them coffee yesterday? Where was mine? You never buy me coffee.” 

“Mate, you don’t even drink coffee!” 

“Maybe I would if you bought it for me!” 

The two boys continue to bicker with each other in the same way all evening, which leads you to believe this is just how they are with one another. It gives Lando another dimension in your mind, and you like it.

There are a handful of common interests amongst your friends and Lando’s, ones that spark conversation immediately. As the night goes on, it feels like you’ve all been friends for a while, and you’re glad. Part of you was worried things would be awkward between everyone, but thankfully that isn’t the case.

It passes the time quicker than you expect. Soon enough it’s nearing midnight and you’re close to nodding off onto Lando’s shoulder, fighting to stay awake and looped into the ongoing conversation despite the sleep threatening to overtake you.

It certainly doesn’t help that he exudes warmth from where you’ve wound up pressed against each other on the small couch. You turn your head to look at him, to take in the little details of him. The angle of his jaw, the slope of his nose. The smattering of moles across his face and neck.

One wayward curl hangs over his forehead, and you want to reach out, brush it away. You don’t think you’re quite at that stage of comfort with each other yet, but then he tears his attention away from the rest of the group and meets your gaze with what you can only describe as pure fondness dripping from his lazy grin. 

“You alright?” He says softly, shifting his body to face you a little more. 

You nod, because you’re more than alright. For the first time in a while, everything feels just the way it should be. “Are you?” 

“Hm?” Lando replies noncommittally, sipping his drink. “Fine, why?” 

“Earlier, after your phone call, you seemed…upset. I don’t mean to pry, I just wanted to see if everything was alright.” 

“Oh, that? Nah, that was nothing, just my boss. Wanted to talk work stuff, but I wasn’t feeling it, y’know?” He shrugs. It feels like there’s more to what he’s saying, but you don’t want to push too hard. You’re still familiarizing yourself with him. “You’re sweet to check on me, though.” 

“Okay. But if you, um, if you need to talk or anything, I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

Lando traces a finger briefly over the thin strap of your dress, just over your shoulder, before dropping his chin into his palm. You already know he’s about to change the subject. Involuntarily, you shiver at his touch, and he definitely notices, because he suddenly looks a little smug.

“Pretty dress,” He hums, tilting his head. 

You weren't trying to make a good impression on Lando, but you weren't exactly not trying, if that makes sense. It doesn't really make sense to you, but you’d gone for cute but comfy with a dress you’d borrowed, hoping it says you’d made an effort, but not too much of one. 

Suddenly you can’t remember what you were just thinking about not being at a certain stage of comfort with one another. Is it weird that you're secretly pleased he liked it enough to mention it?

“It’s not mine,” You say softly. Lando lets out a noise of question. “I borrowed it from Maren.” 

“Ah. Well, you should definitely get one for yourself then. It’s a nice color on you.” 

You want to say thank you, or really just say anything at all, but the moment your gaze flicks back up to his, you’re lost in his eyes again. Everything around you blurs into the background until it feels like it’s just the two of you. You’re teetering on the edge of something, and fuck, it would be so easy to just go over. To let yourself fall and fall and fall into his waiting arms at the bottom. 

Suddenly you hear your own voice in your head.

Don’t get attached. 

Clearing your throat, you pull back from Lando as smooth as you can manage with him muddling up your brain like this. “It’s late. We should get going,” You say, a tad louder than necessary. 

“She’s right,” Camille chimes in, taking note of the slight urgency in your tone. “We’ve got a guided hike in the morning—sunrise, can you believe it?” 

Lando’s mouth dips into a tiny frown for a moment, but it disappears as quickly as it appeared. He nods understandingly. “Sure. I’ll walk you out.” 

You all say your goodbyes and thank you’s, to which the boys wholeheartedly agree you should all do this again sometime before you part ways. 

Lando trails behind a bit like he’s unsure, but catches up to you quickly on the way out, shoulder bumping against yours lightly as you fall into step with each other. His hand brushes yours and lingers a little, pinkies almost intertwining. 

“Tonight was nice,” He says casually. 

“Yeah, it was,” You agree, bobbing your head. 

“Would you—I dunno, maybe want to hang out again?”

“With you guys? ‘Course we would, I’m sure the girls would love to.” You smile, casting a glance at your friends. They’ve all coincidentally already gotten into the car, but if you squint hard enough you can see them gawking at Lando and yourself through the windshield.

How very not subtle of them. 

Lando rocks on the balls of his feet almost nervously, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “No, I meant, like…just the two of us.” 

“You mean, like, alone?” 

“A date. I’m trying to ask you out on a date,” He blurts, nose scrunching. “And failing miserably apparently.” 

“Oh!” You feel your face burn hot, yet you couldn’t wipe the smile off your face even if you tried. You’re about to take him up on the offer, but before you can say a word, another voice pops into the conversation. 

“Yes! She says yes! Whatever you’re asking, her answer is yes!” Samira yells through the window enthusiastically, muffled through the glass but still very audible.

Neither you nor Lando can stop the laughs that escape your mouths, especially when you turn around and all three girls are shooting you excited thumbs ups. 

“Guess that’s settled then,” You giggle, turning back to face him. 

“It’s a date.” He pushes forward, catching you by surprise when he presses a soft kiss to your cheek. As cliche as it sounds, the touch of his lips against your skin, although fleeting, sends a flurry of butterflies through your stomach. “I’ll text you later to plan, yeah? Get home safe.” 

He waits for you to pull around the circular driveway, and as his waving form gets smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, a glimmer of hope worms its way through you. 

In the back of your mind, you know you should keep it in check. This could be totally casual. A short summer fling that won’t hurt anyone no matter how it ends. But maybe, just maybe, it could turn into something more. 

-------

Your schedules don't end up giving you a free afternoon together until a few days later, though you come to realize it only makes you look forward to seeing Lando again even more. 

You're supposed to be meeting him at the local market in the center of town at half past one, but you find yourself there early, wanting to get a lay of the land before he gets there.

Evidently Lando had the same idea, because you spot him within the first few steps into the open air marketplace, squatting next to a stand with crates and buckets of bright flowers. He’s already got a bouquet clutched in his hands, but still he browses through the different bunches. 

“Flowers for Max?” You joke. 

Lando shoots to his feet so fast he nearly hits his head on the lightbulb hanging above, only managing to miss it by mere inches as he startles at the sudden voice. When he realizes it’s just you, he snorts with laughter. “He wishes! They’re for you, actually.” 

“Me?” 

“Yeah, you,” He says teasingly. You don’t even know what to say. Flowers on the first date might be normal, yet nobody’s ever done it for you before. You’re touched, but he must take your silence as something else, because his smile drops the tiniest bit. “Unless you see something you like better? I can still put these back.” 

You study the flowers he’s picked out already. A little on the smaller side, it boasts a beautiful mix of both soft and brighter colors while still being simple—it’s exactly the sort of thing you would’ve chosen if you were buying flowers for yourself. “They’re perfect.” 

He pays for the flowers and passes them over to you with the biggest smile on his face, one that grows even bigger when you tuck them carefully into the crook of your arm after giving the delicate blossoms a sniff. 

You notice the camera hanging around his neck at that moment, despite knowing close to nothing about golf, you do know a thing or two about photography. “Golfer and photographer? Impressive.” 

“Amateur at best.” 

“Oh, I’m sure you're just being modest.” 

“Not even a little bit. I just enjoy taking pictures of things I like.” 

He swings around to face you fully, bringing the camera up to his eye and pausing only a second to make sure you're in focus before snapping a photo of you. The shutter clicks twice before you have the sense to hold up a hand out in front of you, a surprised laugh spilling from your mouth. Even then he grins, takes another one before lowering the camera. "What, you don't like having your photo taken?" 

“I’m just not very photogenic!” 

Lando scoffs immediately, shooting you a pointed look. “That is such a lie.” 

“I probably just broke your fancy expensive camera,” You joke. 

“We’ll just have to wait til I get it developed and see. I think it’ll turn out wonderful.” 

“And if it doesn’t?” 

“I’ll buy you dinner. If I’m right, then…you let me buy you dinner.” 

You let out a noise of surprise. “Well, that doesn’t seem very fair, does it? You’d have to buy me dinner either way.” 

“I can think of worse things than taking a pretty girl out for a nice meal.” His words take you by surprise, but judging by the smug grin on his face, Lando takes pride in eliciting a reaction from you. “Shall we?” And just like that, he’s sauntering off down the path like he didn’t just leave you at a loss for words, pep in his step even as he turns around to shoot you a roguish smile. “You coming or what?” 

You push aside the fluttering in your chest, giving your head an amused shake before catching up with him. It’s cute that he thinks he’s funny. Even cuter that he seems rather eager to take you out on a second date before the first one has even started. 

The two of you wander through the market aimlessly, stopping here and there at various stalls to have a look around. If you had the means, you’d buy everything you see. You wind up picking up some gorgeous looking fruit and a bottle of locally pressed wine, a few small souvenirs for your family back home, but the most important thing you buy isn’t even for you. 

Lando had lingered at a stall selling handmade jewelry early on, seemingly interested in a woven bracelet of blues and whites, but didn't pick it up. Part of you wonders why, but it sparks an idea in your head. 

You tug at Lando’s arm lightly, smiling guiltily when he turns to look at you. “I think I left my phone at that fruit stand a few stalls back.” 

“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached to your body, you muppet,” He chides, shaking his head fondly. “C’mon, let’s find it.” 

“No, I can get it. Why don’t you find us something good for lunch? I’m starving.” 

“Are you sure?” Lando cocks his head, shoulder bumping against yours. “I don’t mind.” 

“I’ll be right back,” You promise. To sweeten the deal, you make the bold move of pressing a kiss to his cheek. He freezes under your touch, but you pass it off as him not expecting it and being taken by surprise. “Two minutes, okay? Maybe less.” 

As soon as you confirm he isn’t paying any attention to you, you slip back through the crowd, finding the same stall and buying the bracelet he’d been looking at. You tuck it safely into your pocket, quickly making your way back to Lando before he realizes you’ve been gone long and comes looking for you. 

“All good?” He asks upon noticing you reappear by his side. 

You wiggle your phone in the air. “Never better. What's for lunch?” 

Lando grins happily, reciting the spiel that the very friendly older man at the food stand gave to him when he’d decided on the delicious looking food. Sure, maybe he stumbles over his pronunciation a little bit, but you find his giggled embarrassment sweet. 

You find a semi-secluded bench a little jaunt away to enjoy your food, and you do enjoy it. You think it might be one of the best things you’ve ever had, and when you tell Lando, he looks pleasantly surprised. As you continue to savor every bite, Lando’s eyes light up with amusement, so much so that you wonder what’s suddenly got him all smiling big like this. 

“What?” You say incredulously. 

He gestures to the lower part of his face. “You’ve got a little…” 

Mortified, you mirror his actions on your own face, searching for the food you’ve somehow gotten smudged on your chin. After a few tries that have him shaking his head, you whine, “Help me, please?”, to which he obliges with a soft chuckle. He reaches out, thumb rubbing at the corner of your mouth briefly. 

This moment almost seems too intimate, but then again, so have a lot of moments between the two of you. The way he’s looking at you makes you feel like you’ve still got something on your face, but then his gaze flicks down to your lips again almost imperceptibly, and you have an inkling of what’s about to happen. 

“Did you get it?” You ask softly. You’re not sure why you break the silence, but it's definitely not because you don’t want him to kiss you. If you think about it, you’ve wanted Lando to kiss you this whole time. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I got it," He replies. His hand lingers, long fingers splaying flat under the curve of your jaw now. You surprise yourself by shifting forward slightly, as if encouraging Lando to close the gap. He leans in closer and closer still, and your eyes fall shut on their own accord, heartbeat hammering against your rib cage. 

You nearly melt the moment his lips touch yours, held up only by the firm grasp of his hand cupping your face. It’s a little awkward with the food in between the two of you blocking you from pushing closer to him, but you make it work, reaching over it to wrap your fingers around Lando’s forearm. You feel like you need it to ground yourself, because holy shit, you’re kissing him. 

Well, more like he’s kissing you, because you’re definitely not the one leading the way. Lando kisses like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and judging by how you feel weak in the knees when you’re not even standing, he does know exactly what he’s doing. 

You’re falling, falling, falling, getting lost in him, until— 

“Wait, hang on,” He breathes, pulling away. Your eyes flutter open in an almost dazed sort of way, focusing on him in hopes of finding him in the same state, but all you’re met with is…guilt? Sadness? Shame? Maybe a mixture of everything, you’re not sure. All you know is that it has your heart plummeting in your chest. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” 

Everything hits you at once, and suddenly you’re crashing back down to reality. Lando thinks kissing you was a mistake. You were so sure he liked you back, sure enough to go on a date with him, and now here you are with egg on your face, feeling unbelievably stupid. Hurt. 

“I’m gonna—I have to go,” You mumble, scrambling to your feet. You don’t even have an excuse prepared, you just need to get out of here, get away from Lando before you spontaneously combust from the sheer embarrassment. 

His hand encircles your wrist before you can make it even a step away. 

“No, no, don’t! Please, just let me…let me explain. I promise things will all make sense in a second, if you’ll just hear me out,” He says pleadingly. Despite your better judgment, you sit back down, expression guarded. Lando blows out a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. “Look, I like you. I really like you, and I wish things were as simple as that, but there’s things I’ve not told you. Things that, if you knew, you might not want to be with me.” 

You squeeze your eyes shut as hard as you can, burying your burning face into your hands with a muffled groan. “Oh my god, you are in the mafia, aren’t you?” 

“The—what?” Lando blurts, sounding wildly confused. “No, I’m not, I’m not in the mafia. Are you mad? I’m a Formula 1 driver!” 

You crack one eye open, then the other. “Formula 1.” You repeat, disbelieving. “Like, the racing thing?”  

He nods enthusiastically, tells you everything—how his childhood dream turned into a career, how he gets to travel all around the world doing what he loves. The fame, the lifestyle, the opportunities he’s worked so hard for, all while sounding entirely humble and grateful for everything and everyone who’ve gotten him to where he is today. 

It’s impressive, to say the least. The fact that he’s still fairly young and has already accomplished more than what some people have in a whole lifetime. Then he gets to how the chaos that doing what he does at the level he does it at wreaks havoc on other parts of his life, and you feel a wave of sympathy roll over you. 

The tradeoff for all that success is not getting to have a normal life in almost every aspect, and given the downward set of his brow as he tells you about it, this isn’t the first time he’s had this conversation with someone. 

“It makes being in a relationship…difficult, is the best way I can describe it. I’m never in one place more than a week most times, and the whole time zones thing makes it harder too. And after these two weeks are up, I’m already off to somewhere else, jumping right back into the second half of the season and hitting the ground running.” 

Realization hits you like a truck at this point, and you have to fight the urge to laugh out loud. Of course Lando is who he is. Of course you had to form a connection with someone with a life as complicated and as far away from your own as possible, someone who couldn’t be in a normal relationship even if he wanted to. 

“I wish it were different, but I just—I wanted you to know what you might be getting into if we…” He trails off, but you know what he means. If we want to get involved with each other. If we want to be together. 

“So like, long distance, but infinitely harder.” You’re doing your best to put a light spin on the massive amount of new information you’ve just acquired, but you’re barely managing to process it all, let alone even think about what it would be like to date someone as well known as Lando. 

“Yeah, something like that,” He says softly, shoulders creeping up towards his ears. “It’s—well, it’s a lot of baggage for anyone to have to deal with. Lots of eyes and ears, pretty public. Not really your cup of tea, I’ve noticed.” 

He’s right. You’ve never been one to enjoy being the center of attention, preferring to fly under the radar. Blend into the background. And you hate to say it, but knowing all of what he’s just told you changes things. You don’t think you can handle being thrust into the public eye, and it makes you feel like the most selfish person in the world to walk away from him just because of who he happens to be. 

Your life would be forever altered, your sense of privacy and security gone, and that isn’t something you want to compromise. You’re comfortable being nobody significant. With Lando, that would change, no matter how many measures you take to make sure it doesn’t. 

As much as you’ve come to like him—and you really like him—it’s just not something you can see yourself being fully okay with. 

“I’m so sorry, Lando,” You say quietly. He just smiles sadly, like he already knew it was coming, and you can't help but think about how many relationships—platonic or romantic—that he's lost out on because of his status. The thought alone makes you feel even worse. “I like you too, but I can’t—I don’t think I can be what you want me to be. It’s not me, it’s not the way I can live my life.” 

“Don’t be sorry. You haven’t got a reason to be,” He murmurs, thumb rubbing across your knuckles comfortingly. “Knew it was too good to be true, didn’t I?” 

“I’m sorry,” You say again, hoping that Lando knows you truly mean it. “I wish it were different, but—”

Lando shakes his head, interrupting before you can grasp for any other ways to apologize. He squeezes your hand reassuringly again. “Hey. It’s alright, I promise. I’d never ask anyone to do something they aren’t comfortable with. Especially not you.” 

Even when he’s sad, he’s still so thoughtful. It would take a different kind of awful monster not to want to be with him. Apparently that monster is you. 

You wish you were someone else, someone who could take huge changes in stride and never miss a step, but you’re not. Someone who knows what they want and goes for it—who knows who they want and doesn’t let anything get in their way. 

Unfortunately, you’re not that kind of person. 

“What do we do now?” 

Lando drops your hand to run his fingers through his curls, down to the back of his neck sheepishly. “Dunno about you, but I’ve—d’you think there’s any chance we can still be friends? I really do enjoy spending time with you lot, we all do.” 

“Friends would be nice,” You say softly. It feels strange to agree with him so wholeheartedly. 

Maybe it’ll be awkward between the two of you, maybe you won’t even be able to sit next to each other with what’s happened today, but you can’t bring yourself to care all that much. The only thought running through your mind is that you don’t want to lose Lando, even as just a friend. 

You’ve gotten attached. 

The bracelet you’d bought Lando burns a hole through your pocket. It would be weird to give it to him now, after you’d just turned him down, but you can’t exactly just return it either. You don’t really want to. 

Maybe it won’t go to him, but you’re sure you’ll find something to do with it someday.

The girls are waiting in the living room when you finally make your way home, gathered on the sofa with identical innocent smiles like you hadn’t seen them with their heads poked through the curtains. Samira bounces off the cushions with what you can only describe as a gleeful cackle to grab your flowers, showing them off to the other two like a game show host before grabbing your hand and dragging you into the center of their blanket pile. 

You know they're expecting good news and you wish you could give it to them, but you can’t. 

“So??? How’d it go?” 

“He got her flowers, obviously it went well!” 

“Okay, spill, now,” Camille presses, easing the bouquet out of Samira’s hands and setting it on the coffee table. “What’s he like, what’d you do—” 

“When’s your second date?” chimes in Maren excitedly. The other two nod their vigorous agreement. 

“Lando’s amazing,” You sigh, letting yourself fall back against the plush pillows. “He’s super sweet and really funny, we walked around and looked at all the vendors, and then we had lunch and talked for ages, and…there won’t be a second date.”

“What? That’s impossible, you guys were like, made for each other!” 

You sigh, rub at a flower petal that’s fallen away from the bouquet. “It’s complicated. I don’t—I’m not ready to get into all of it again this soon, but long story short, our lives are just too different. Being with him would mean compromising things I’m just not ready to lose right now.” 

If any of them wants to push for a better explanation, and you know they do, they refrain from doing so. They know you’ll tell them when you’re ready. 

But even Samira can tell you’re not quite as okay as you insist you are, and she’s been rooting for you extra hard. She leans her head onto your shoulder, squeezes your hand reassuringly. “You did what was best for you, and that’s all that matters.” 

“We agreed to still be friends, so we can still hang out with the guys and stuff like that, but—I mean, yeah, it just didn’t work out.” You don’t think you sound very convincing at all, but it’s the bed you've made, you’ve got to lay in it. “I just don’t really want to talk about it right now, but it's fine. I'm fine.” 

It has to be. You have to be. You’ve made sure of it.

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[ghostisun]

cw: kind of force fem; slight mommy kink; suggestive // short and incoherent rambling (again) :D

swiss calls aether and tells him that he's got him a gift.

"i wrapped her all up for you," he croons and the words fall from his lips in a way that was just teasing and degrading enough that aether stops whatever he's doing because he realizes swiss' call wasn't intended for aether.

no.

it was intended for whoever it was on the other line, surely trapped between swiss' legs, and made to listen as swiss reduced her into nothing but a prize for aether.

aether's breaths come out in rasps, his pants straining at his quickly-fattening chub. he balls his hand into a fist, nails biting at his palm, and it was enough to draw him back, voice trickling into the base of his throat.

"is that so?" aether replies, words lilting, his voice sticking onto his tongue. "will she wait f'me?"

“of course,” swiss hums, faux dismissive. "she's real good at it." there was a shuffling on the other side, a familiar voice hissing something weak.

oh.

"oh," aether repeats out loud, his mind catching up to his libido.

that's—

"yeah," swiss trills. "ain't dew such a good girl?"

aether doesn't remember replying. hell, he doesn't even remember wrapping things up and running back to his room because he knows this drill already. he knows that swiss tugged dew into aeth's room; he knows that he used the way dew always found comfort in aether's den as a leverage to force dew to comply.

to be good.

to be obedient.

because that's one thing they learned together—how dew's fire always seemed to cool and waft into something so achingly soft at the mere drop of aether's name. aeth, himself, doesn't even know why little dew found too big of a comfort from aether but it was something he cherished, holding it dear in the pockets of his ribs.

he slams his door open, the wood creaking against the stone. two bodies turn to him.

his eyes rove over dew, cataloguing the pretty slip of a dress that he fills up well—it must have been borrowed from aurora, then—and the sheer stockings that are wrapped around his legs. he's on the floor, his head tipped onto swiss' thigh, using it as a pillow. he looks soft, beautiful, catastrophically so.

aether turns to the other ghoul, his chest heaving as his desire bloats, expanding in the pit of his stomach. swiss grins, and it is too wide and full of teeth, and mean.

"look, mommy," swiss sings. "aether's home."

he leans forward and brushes dew's golden strands away from his face. "it seems like we got him all riled up, huh?"

aether—he doesn't know why he's still standing by his door like a fucking fool but there he is—turns to dew, waiting for the fire. for the vitriol of his anger.

but dew doesn't do that. no. instead, he blushes, cheeks turning bright and warm as he flits his pretty eyes to aether, shy. beckoning.

aether watches as dew licks his lips, his little forked tongue a tease on its own, before he murmurs, "kiss mommy, aeth?"

“please,” he hears his own voice ring. it sounds desperate, all choked-up. “please, mommy.”

swiss giggles at the scene they make, his eyes glinting with danger. now, turned onto aether too.

oh, he realizes. i’m the prize, with dew as the bait.

[dragonbanexxi]

Soul of Bronze; Blood of Fire

Helaena Targaryen x OC Targaryen Royce

***!!!NOT CANON COMPLIANT!!!***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Heir of Runestone would often joke that he should be referred to as Rhaegar Stone. Seeing as his father (Prince Daemon Targaryen) had no want for him and his mother (Lady Rhea Royce) was long dead. All jokes end when he and Ser Gerold Royce are summoned to the capitol by none other than King Viserys the First of his Name. The King wanting nothing more than to bring his estranged nephew into the fold, Viserys offers Rhaegar his so called Targaryen Right. A betrothal to the Princess Helaena and the chance to claim a dragon. Will Rhaegar be able to claim such a beast? Even if his valyrian skills were lacking? Prince Aemond seems to think so. Though he’s mostly is just thrilled to finally have someone around who’s willing to be his friend. Also the court begins to notice that the Princess Helaena seems to have taken a liking to the new prince. Much to her mothers dismay, who’s fighting tooth and nail to have the girl be given to Aegon. Something neither sibling wanted. To Rhaegar everything was going smoothly until the news of Laena Velaryon death had dampen everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 19: Rhaegar

The morning air was chilly against the young man’s skin. Seagulls were raging above in the cloudy sky, crying out annoyingly. In a distance Rhaegar could hear the grumbles of his annoyed obsidian beast.

‘Čàłm ÿôürsëłf ćâññîbâł’ Rhaegar thinks to himself hoping his dragon feels his message through their telepathic bond.

His Cannibal had taken well to relocating to the Vale. Opting to nest in an inhabited isle off the northern coast of Runestone. Luckily that little isle had belonged to Rhaegar or else the dispute over the small isle with the other Valeman nobles would have been long and tedious.

The work Rhaegar had been putting onto his dragon was proving fruitful. For the small time his Cannibal nested in King’s Landing not once did the obsidian beast make move to harm the other dragons in the dragon pit. Though the dragon keepers were struggling with the language barrier between them. The Cannibal being responsive with only the First Tongue. Rhaegar had been summoned a great many of times to put his mount to heel. Whether it be in the crisp early light of the morning or deep into the late night. The Heir of Runestone made the Cannibal his greatest responsibility, using his telepathic bond to convey honor and restraint to his behemoth of a dragon.

“BOAT IN COMING!” The guard of the dock yells to announce the incoming party.

Usually one wouldn’t make a fuss about about such a small insignificant boat. However when said insignificant boat carried a prince of the realm, the commotion was necessary.

“Heave Ho Boys!” Yells another guard to the sailors upon the small boat.

The grandeur ship of Corlys Velaryon stationed stoically far into the sea, waiting for the smaller one to return. Speaking of Lord Corlys, the Sea Snake stood up smiling cockily at too the Heir of Runestone as the man held a firm grip on Lucerys Velaryon’s shoulder. The boy’s skin flushing an olive green, definitely not made for the sea that one. The Sea Snake’s eyes holding a cool expression. Soon the Lord of Driftmark and his grandson touched ground making their way to the young Valeman.

“Ser Rhaegar!” The older man says offering his hand to shake.

Rhaegar still feels intimidated by the Sea Snake but doesn’t let it show. Instead the juvenile accepts his hand with equal firmness. Giving a faux cool smile.

“Lord Corlys welcome to the Port Rune.” Rhaegar can’t contain his own laugh as they take in the dock. It was no Port, not yet at least. The Heir of Runestone had plans to make it so however. A private port at least. Easier to ship his famed calvary steeds out to Essos and other parts to Westeros.

“The space has potential” was all the Sea Snake says.

The man’s shinning blue eyes fall upon his grandson.

“I have come to deliver my grandson upon the King’s orders.”

Rhaegar locks eyes with his cousin, it doesn’t last however Lucerys looks down at his feet quickly as if in shame.

“We are honored to foster a prince of the realm.” Rhaegar says warmly “I hope you like it here Prince Lucerys.”

The prince gives his older cousin hopeful look and nods, bearing a small smile.

“I think having both princes squire together was a genius idea Ser Rhaegar.” The Sea Snake drawls. “It pleases me to know my grandson will train under the tutelage of Knights of the Vale.”

Glancing down at little Lucerys with optimism.

“Prince Lucerys is the heir to Driftmark. He needs to be strong, wise, make a man out of him Ser Rhaegar. A man.”

Rhaegar feels a chill down his spine. Doubt clouding his mind. How could he make a man out of Lucerys when he himself still feels like a boy? The words of Ser Gerold ringing loudly in his head.

‘I need you to become the man your were always destined to be’

Rhaegar would and he’s going to make sure Aemond and Lucerys do too.

“Aye Lord Corlys. I swear it.” The determination in his voice surprising even to himself.

“Very well” The Sea Snake ruffled the boys hair and was on his way. Unknown to anyone else; but the Step Stones were calling the Sea Snakes name.

Rhaegar and Lucerys stood alone now. Rhaegar stood a good foot over the younger boy. Still a child of barely seven. Half Rhaegar’s age, the age of his little sisters. A boy who escaped the wrath of the law for simply being part of the favored kin of the King.

“How good are you at riding?”

The child clears his throat “I haven’t ridden Arrax yet” he squeaks as if scared of the older boy.

Rhaegar chuckles lightly taking in Lucerys confused eyes.

“I meant riding a horse cousin”

“Oh… not that well.”

“Well today is your lucky day, today you learn to ride.” Motioning a two handsome steeds, with the shiniest, richest bay colored coats.

Rhaegar sees the boy gulp nervously. He ignores it and begins to make his way to the two steeds.

“Cousin…” he hears behind him.

“Yes Prince Lucerys?” Not bothering to look back the child.

“Is Aemond…” his question falters.

Though Rhaegar understands.

“Aye he’s in Runestone lad.” He confirms. “Don’t worry yourself cousin. I’ve spoken to him.”

Finally turning to the boy, Rhaegar helps him mount the horse. It won’t be an easy task to get these two boys to reconcile but he will try his hardest to see that it’ll happen.

The Cannibal grumbled, a comforting sound to Rhaegar. The juvenile sees his obsidian dragon ascend into the air making way towards the direction of Runestone.

“Let us tread carefully little cousin. Runestone isn’t too far.”

They ride quietly into the thick forest in pleasant silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And the Runestone Chronicle are about to begin! I’m so excited! Also there’s a certain wedding *wink wink wink* coming up! Though it’s still a few chapters away it’s exciting for me nonetheless!

Comments are always welcomed ❤️ Thank you guys once again! Appreciate all the support ❤️

[firepitfeast]

6 Advantages of a “Faux” Stone Top Fire Pit Table… Do you want an upscale fire table for your backyard - without having to spend a lot of money? This stone top fire pit table looks more expensive than it costs, plus it's easy to use, functional and versatile... High Style Fire Pit at a Budget-Friendly Price: I like bargains, and this fire pit table is one of them. It

[nationstateconcrete]

10 Space-Saving Concrete Patio Ideas for Small Backyards

Designing a functional and beautiful patio in a small backyard may seem challenging, but with the right ideas, even limited spaces can be transformed into cozy and stylish outdoor retreats. Concrete patios are an excellent choice for small backyards, offering durability, versatility, and endless design possibilities. Whether you're looking to create a simple space for relaxation or a stylish area for entertaining, concrete provides the perfect blank canvas.

Here, we’ll explore 10 smart concrete patio ideas for small backyards that maximize space while enhancing both aesthetics and functionality.

Why Choose Concrete for Small Backyards?

Concrete is a fantastic material for small backyard patios because of its flexibility in design. It can be stamped, stained, or shaped to create various textures and patterns, allowing you to tailor your patio to your personal style. Concrete is also long-lasting, low maintenance, and cost-effective, making it a great choice for homeowners looking to invest in their outdoor space.

1. Stamped Concrete for a Stylish Finish

Stamped concrete is an excellent option if you're looking to add some style to your small patio. This technique allows you to mimic the appearance of more expensive materials like stone, brick, or tile, but at a fraction of the cost. Stamped patterns can bring depth and character to your outdoor space, giving it a high-end look without overwhelming a smaller area.

Faux Stone Patterns

For a more natural look, choose stamped concrete with a faux stone pattern. It’s perfect for creating a rustic, yet elegant, feel that makes your small backyard patio appear larger than it actually is.

2. Concrete Pavers for a Modular Look

If you prefer a modern aesthetic, concrete pavers are a great solution. These individual blocks can be arranged in various geometric patterns, creating a unique, contemporary design that adds personality to your patio. Concrete pavers can also be spaced out with gravel or grass in between to create visual interest and give the illusion of more space.

Grid Layout

A grid layout using concrete pavers can provide clean lines and a minimalist vibe. This design is especially effective in small backyards where you want to keep the space organized and open.

3. Multi-Level Patios for Dimension

One way to make the most of a small backyard is to create different levels in your patio design. A multi-level concrete patio can give the illusion of more space by breaking up the flat surface into distinct zones. Use one level for seating, another for a fire pit, and a third for plants or decorations. This layered approach adds dimension and maximizes your backyard's functionality.

Zoned Areas for Different Uses

Incorporate specific zones for lounging, dining, or even an outdoor kitchen, ensuring that every square foot of your patio is used wisely.

4. Stained Concrete for a Pop of Color

While natural concrete is typically gray, stained concrete allows you to add a pop of color to your patio. You can opt for earthy tones to blend with your garden or bold colors to make a statement. Staining also enhances the texture and pattern of the concrete, giving your small patio a customized and polished look.

Earthy Tones for a Cozy Atmosphere

For small backyards, choose soft, earthy tones like browns or tans to create a cozy, intimate space that feels inviting and warm.

5. Concrete with Grass or Gravel Inlays

For a more organic look, consider alternating concrete slabs with grass or gravel in between. This design breaks up the solid surface of the concrete and adds a natural touch, making the patio feel lighter and more integrated with the garden.

Eco-Friendly and Stylish

This design not only looks great but also helps with drainage, making it an eco-friendly choice for your backyard.

6. Circular Concrete Patio

A circular concrete patio can make a small space feel more intimate and dynamic. It breaks away from the typical rectangular or square designs and gives your backyard a more organic flow. Use the center for seating or a fire pit to create a cozy gathering spot.

Softening Sharp Edges

The rounded shape softens the overall look of your backyard and adds a unique focal point to your outdoor area.

7. Concrete Bench Seating

In a small backyard, every inch of space counts, and incorporating built-in seating can help save room. A concrete bench along the edge of your patio eliminates the need for bulky outdoor furniture, creating more open space for movement.

Seamless Design

Concrete benches can be poured directly into the patio design, creating a seamless, integrated look that maximizes your available space.

8. Concrete Fire Pit Feature

Fire pits are a great way to make your backyard patio functional year-round. A small concrete fire pit can serve as the centerpiece of your patio, adding both warmth and ambiance. Opt for a simple, circular design that complements the overall aesthetic of your space.

Cozy Gathering Spot

Even in a small backyard, a fire pit creates a welcoming spot for friends and family to gather, especially on cool evenings.

9. Concrete Planters for Vertical Gardening

In a small backyard, you may have limited ground space for plants. Concrete planters can be incorporated into the patio design to create vertical gardens. These planters can be built directly into the patio, serving as decorative features while maximizing your growing space.

Add Greenery Without Sacrificing Space

Concrete planters allow you to add lush greenery to your patio without taking up valuable floor space, making your outdoor area feel vibrant and alive.

10. Minimalist Design with Smooth Concrete Finish

Sometimes, less is more. A smooth, minimalist concrete patio can provide a sleek and modern look. Keep the design simple with a smooth finish and minimal furniture to avoid overcrowding the space. The result is a clean and contemporary backyard that feels open and uncluttered.

Simplicity for Small Spaces

A minimalist approach works well in small backyards, as it focuses on open space and functionality without overwhelming the area.

Conclusion

Designing a beautiful and functional patio in a small backyard is entirely possible with the right ideas. Concrete patio ideas for small backyards offer endless customization options, from stamped patterns and stained finishes to modular pavers and built-in features. Whether you want a modern, sleek look or a cozy, rustic vibe, concrete provides a versatile solution that maximizes space and adds lasting value to your home.

[realtorjamier]

How to Host a Banner BBQ!

If you aspire to have your friends and family describe your backyard barbecues using words like “epic” and “legendary,” our hosting guide will help you plan a shindig that’s sure to please. The popularity of the neo-Western television series “Yellowstone” will undoubtedly elevate interest in this entertainment option. Take it up a notch and draw from these tips to create an unforgettable BBQ bash.

Pre-party Pump-up

Create a buzz early by sending fun invitations out to your guest list. Include cute graphics and catchy phrases: “Grill and chill,” “We’re fired up,” “Pig out at our cookout,” “Smokin’ hot,” – you get the idea. Consider asking your guests to dress the part in denim and cowboy hats!

Set the Stage

Your decor will help guests get into the spirit of the party. When gathering items for decorating, think thematically: cowboys, ranches and farms, upscale rustic, the wild west, “Yellowstone.” Here are some ideas to keep your design unified:

Gingham tablecloths, table runners

Bandana napkins

Faux cowhides

Denim

Rustic wood

Wildflowers (buckets of daisies, Queen Ann’s Lace, etc.)

Mason jars

Lanterns

Hay bales

Galvanized metal

Set the Tone: Music

If you Google “Yellowstone playlist,” you’ll be able to create yours based on all the songs that have been included in the hit series. You’ll also find other options within the same musical genre. If you want a “Yellowstone” vibe, here’s a sampling of what you can include:

“What Cowboys Do” by Casey Donahew

“Summertime Blues” by Zach Bryan

“Watermelon Moonshine” by Lainey Wilson

“Last Call” by 49 Winchester

“Hands on the Wheel” by Willie Nelson

“Life of Sin” by Sturgill Simpson

“Wrong Side of the River” by Myon Elkins

“Far from Home” by Aubrie Sellers

“Off the Wagon” by Isaac Hoskins

“Dance the Night Away” by Shane Smith and the Saints

“Mule Skinner Blues” by Dolly Parton

“Peace in the Pines” by Kolton Moore & the Clever Few

“Chess” by Honey County

“Dear Rodeo” by Cody Johnson

“The Cowboy in Me” by Tim McGraw

“West Texas in My Eye” by The Panhandlers

“Cowpoke” by Colter Wall

“The Low Road” by Shooter Jennings

“Hey Delilah” by Blackberry Smoke

Fun and Games

When it comes to backyard BBQ games, let’s face it: you’ve got to have horseshoes and cornhole. Consider creating a customized cornhole board and/or beanbags.

Let kids pan for “gold” by setting up a kiddie pool filled with sand. Bury coins in the sand, add water and provide metal pans for kids to search for their loot.

Set up a checkerboard station. You can use black and red painted stones and a flat stump painted with a checkerboard pattern or create an oversized checkerboard table using painted mason jar lids as checkers.

Make an Instagram-worthy photo “booth” for guests to take pictures behind a giant “WANTED” poster frame.

Here are more ideas to keep kids and adults entertained:

Wild West themed Trivial Pursuit

Croquet

Lawn bowling

Giant Jenga

Water balloon bin

Fire pit for s’mores

Ring toss using old soda crates with vintage glass bottles 

9-hole mini golf using the naturally challenging elements of your yard

Sidewalk chalk

Be a Pitmaster

 

Make sure to prepare as much food in advance as you can. Marinate meats and vegetables, cut and refrigerate meats, fruits and vegetables, and chill beverages. Make sure to also offer vegan options like grilled or Buffalo cauliflower wings, vegetable skewers, mushroom BBQ ribs, Portobello mushroom fajitas, mushroom burgers, etc.

Create menu item signs with fun names that go with the BBQ theme. Some possibilities include “Grazing Board” (charcuterie), “Cowboy Caviar,” “Cheesy Ranch Potatoes.”

Make a “Watering Hole” beverage station and a “Soda Float Bar” for fun refreshment. (For less work during the party, ice cream can be pre-scooped into cupcake liners and kept frozen until ready to serve.) You could also create an old-fashioned lemonade stand with optional spiked varieties.

Freeze red and black water-filled balloons and place them in galvanized metal tubs for a fun take on a beverage cooler.

Party Favors

Gifting your guests with inexpensive but useful items will make your event even more memorable. Consider packaging these items in a bandana, cowboy hat, or other cute container:

Cheap sunglasses

Bug spray

Sunscreen

Hand wipes

Bubbles

Hand fans

Sidewalk chalk 

Post Party 

Store all your reusable decor to make the next BBQ bash even easier!

And to make the BBQ buzz linger longer, your post-party plan can include social media posts featuring flattering pictures of your party guests having fun!

[votivecandleholder]

The Ultimate Guide to Spooky Outdoor Lights for Halloween

New Post has been published on https://lightsforparty.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-spooky-outdoor-lights-for-halloween

The Ultimate Guide to Spooky Outdoor Lights for Halloween

Boo! It’s that time of year again when the air gets crisp, pumpkins adorn every doorstep, and ghouls and goblins come out to play. Yes, Halloween is just around the corner, and what better way to set the mood than with some eerie outdoor lights for Halloween?

Setting up outdoor lighting is like casting a spell that enchants your home with a bewitching aura, ready to delight trick-or-treaters and amaze your neighbors. In this guide, we’re about to embark on a journey to illuminate your Halloween with glowing ghouls and luminous pumpkins. Join us on this thrilling journey through the mysterious world of Halloween lighting, and discover how you can make your Halloween decor electrifying!

Types of Halloween Outdoor Lights

When we talk about outdoor lights for Halloween, string lights are versatile lights that come in various spooky shades, such as orange, purple, and green. Fairy lights with tiny bulbs add a touch of magic to settings. Globe string lights provide a modern look with round bulbs, while Edison bulb string lights offer a vintage, industrial feel.

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Large Decoration With Ground Led Spotlights

Solar-powered and battery-operated string lights offer portability and eco-friendliness. Wrap them around trees or bushes, drape them along fences, or let them cascade from your porch or patio for a more enchanting atmosphere.

Solar powered halloween outdoor lights

Projector lights can turn your home into a haunted mansion, complete with ghostly apparitions, creepy crawlies, and other spooky scenes. Consider the desired effect and theme you want to create when choosing the right projector to make sure that it has the appropriate brightness, image quality, and special effects capabilities, for a thrilling Halloween display. Additionally, check for suitable lenses, mounting options, and weather resistance if using the projector outdoors.

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Orange Accent Lights

For a more rustic and old-school Halloween ambiance, lanterns and candlelight are your best friends. Add a personalized touch to your decor and repurpose items like mason jars, wine bottles, and tin cans to craft unique lanterns, each with its spooky charm. Witch hat lanterns and miniature haunted house lanterns add a touch of whimsy to your display. Explore these DIY options to create a one-of-a-kind, chilling outdoor lighting experience for Halloween.

Spooky Outdoor Light Decoration Ideas

Elevate your Halloween outdoor decor with spooky lighting ideas that send shivers down the spine. Guide trick-or-treaters safely along your path with eerie pathway lighting, featuring glow-in-the-dark stones or ghostly lanterns hanging from trees. Select colors like purple, green, or orange to add an otherworldly feel. Set the mood with an inviting yet sinister porch and entryway lighting using black lights and window silhouettes using cut-out shapes such as witches, ghosts, or zombies, or create a ghostly atmosphere with props that cast creepy shadows on your walls and ground.

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Front Lawn Ground Lights And Decorations

Illuminate DIY tombstones with spotlights and add a colored gel for an eerie effect. Hang spectral lanterns for a haunting touch, or add LED eyes to your bushes to make it seem like mysterious creatures are watching. Consider a cauldron fire pit with faux flames using orange, red, and yellow lights to give the illusion of a bubbling witch’s brew. Use a projector to cast ghostly apparitions, witches flying on broomsticks, and eerie patterns on the exterior of your house. Hang spooky figures like witches, bats, or zombies from tree branches or your porch. Illuminate them with spotlights for an eerie and ominous appearance.

Safety Tips

Prioritizing safety when setting up outdoor lights for Halloween is crucial for creating a fun and secure environment. Begin by adhering to electrical safety guidelines, using outdoor-rated extension cords and outlets, inspecting cords and plugs for damage, and avoiding circuit overloads. To weatherproof your outdoor lights, protect connections from moisture and secure anchor lights. Safeguard against open flames by choosing flameless LED candles or battery-operated alternatives, or ensuring real candles are in safe, non-flammable holders keeping them away from curtains or combustible decorations.

Led halloween outdoor lights

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Garden And Skeleton Decoration Lights

Stable surfaces are crucial to prevent tipping, never leave lit candles unattended, trim wicks to a quarter-inch, and utilize holders with drip trays. Ventilate the area and keep flammable materials at a safe distance from open flames. Proper cord placement and the use of timers or smart plugs can reduce tripping hazards and automate lighting operations. Regularly inspect your setup, always turn off lights when not in use, and be prepared with fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, and carbon monoxide detectors in case of emergencies. These precautions ensure your Halloween display is both spooky and safe for all to enjoy.

Where to Find Halloween Outdoor Lights

When on the hunt for Halloween outdoor lights, you have several accessible options to explore. Local stores and retailers, including hardware stores, home improvement centers, and department stores, offer in-person browsing, expert advice, and the opportunity to inspect the products up close.

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Front Door Decorations

Seasonal Halloween specialty stores, as well as pop-up shops, are dedicated to all things Halloween, providing a wide array of spooky lighting choices. Online shopping through different platforms on the internet allows for easy comparisons, detailed reviews, and the convenience of doorstep delivery.

DIY outdoor lights for halloween

Party supply stores and craft stores are additional options for festive lighting needs, with craft stores particularly suited for DIY projects. You can also check thrift stores and garage sales for secondhand Halloween decorations and outdoor lights, offering both affordability and sustainability. For the ultimate personal touch, consider DIY projects, found in online tutorials or craft books, to create your very own unique Halloween outdoor lights.

Outdoor Lights For Halloween Front Lawn Decoration

Halloween is a time to let your creativity shine as brightly as your outdoor lights. We’ve shown you the way to transform your outdoor space into a spine-tingling masterpiece that’ll have the whole neighborhood talking. Now it’s your turn to bring your spooky vision to life!

Finally

So, dust off your cauldrons, put on your witch’s hat, and let’s get those outdoor lights for Halloween shining like the eyes of a watchful cat on a moonlit night. Keep the Halloween spirit alive and may your celebration be filled with the magic of Glowing Ghouls. Happy Haunting!

[coreymichaelsmithson]

Debussy in the Boneyard

I've always been drawn to the gardens of the dead.

McEwen, the town I live in, has two cemeteries. The smaller one, technically speaking, is a graveyard, as the property belongs to a nearby Irish Catholic church. Its oldest section holds parishioners born in the early 1800s, emigrants from Kilkenny or Galway or Cork who might have fled the '40s famine and the crushing poverty that ensued, or those who followed the promise of work on the Nashville and Northwestern railroads. I imagine that many of the second wave who arrived in the '90s endured the traumatizing queues of Ellis Island, maybe even squeezing through the inoculating bottleneck of quarantine on Swinburne. All of them died as Americans in Tennessee.

The graveyard is just a few blocks from my house on Main Street, and I often go there when I need to take long phone calls or clear my head. The stones dating back to the 1850s are attractively mossy and worn, with many words eroded into illegibility, while the ones from this century feature elaborate etchings, embedded photographs, or even mounted souvenirs. There are a few shade trees, some benches to sit upon, and a surprising number of memorials with only a single date. The most touching grave belongs to Beau, stillborn on Valentine's Day, now attended by toy trucks and a teddy bear. Children's graves often bear gifts.

The younger and grander of the two boneyards is McEwen Cemetery. The walk there is also fairly short, but it's a far more satisfying journey, especially during the late afternoon. I like the cross-section of town it provides, its string of small but evocative details. Most of my route follows Railroad Street ... which, as you might imagine, runs alongside the train tracks, rising and falling for less than a mile before terminating in the cemetery. The road takes me past a few plain little prefabs, an ancient tupelo tree, a pink crêpe myrtle as gay as a spray of confetti, a mildewy white trailer, some crooked toolsheds, signs reading WELCOME in wooden letters, and hooded signal lamps hanging from the crossbucks.

Autumn is here, and the maples are the first to announce themselves. Throughout the town, people are lighting the fires of fall: leaves, trash, burn pits. The smell of their smoke seems specific to autumn ... perhaps it's the first snap of cool air, that quality people describe as "crisp", that lends these odors such vividness. You have a sense of things being taken in, the harvest nearing completion, a withdrawal into the warmth of home. Even the tacky décor of Halloween ... the orange wreaths, the faux skeletons, the polythene witches ... somehow hints at the shift towards winter and its gelid quietude, the annual death that is not really death but rather dormancy, of the inevitable cyclic renewal that requires some form of sacrifice from all living things. If you were to live long enough, for millennia rather than decades, you'd see everything sped up, as if you were holding the fast-forward button on a remote ... the rails obscured by ivy, the ravine choked with thistle, the lawns conquered by sumac, the asphalt shattered by dandelions, the road blocked by blackberry, the houses darkening with mold and falling inwards. At such a scale all human concerns would shrink to the busyness of ants, while the sun and moon chased each other through the flickering sky.

The plants along the railroad embankment are engaged in a battle for supremacy, with kudzu emerging as the obvious winner. I see long seedpods drooping from catalpas, a forgotten tire swing, a ramshackle trampoline. I hear the high school's marching band, and distant gunshots, and that insistent cricket song which sounds like power lines. There is one last yard, a pair of rusted tractors, a joyless swing set, some hollowed gourds meant for martins and wrens, a row of fruit trees, and then an empty field that somehow suggests Elysium. Finally, the narrowing and now nameless lane lifts above a long pond in a copse. I've come to think of this puddle as McEwen's version of the river Styx ... for as soon as we cross it, we'll be wandering among the departed.

While exploring the cemetery, I'll connect my phone to its earpiece, while keeping the other ear free for birdsong and barking dogs. Lately, I've been playing a few of my favorite pieces by Debussy ... "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", "La fille aux cheveux de lin", and especially his "Danse profane". The lilting strings and rippling harp create a soft but stirring soundtrack for my communion with the dead.

Strangely, though, this place doesn't feel funereal. In fact, the cemetery throbs with life. I watch as a monarch lifts from the knotweed. A pit bull from the nearby farm trots over, tail wagging, to greet me. Behind a fence, a swaybacked mare nibbles on some fescue. Caterpillar nests gleam like silver on the elms, and poison ivy stamps its scarlet on the undergrowth. The orderly rows of monuments get disrupted here and there by natural features, such as hills or trees, and the ground settles unevenly, revealing the mounds of coffins. A few families elect to delineate their plots with low blocks of masonry or ornamental gates ... though the worms and beetles and mycelia will observe no such borders. Flags and plastic flowers abound. I visit a man who died on his 29th birthday, and a mother who perished on the same day as her two toddlers. A lone tombstone leans against a Spanish oak. Some of the smallest markers say, simply, "DADDY" or "MAMA" or "WIFE". As the sun sinks lower and drops behind trees, the remaining alleys of light grow narrower, until only the tallest obelisks stand bright and orange in the beams.

I look to the sky, at a froth of cirrus blown sideways, and think of how thin our atmosphere actually is. All that protects us from the chilling vacuum of space is this fragile blue blanket of vapors, doomed to disappear in the next 2-3 billion years. We'll be long gone by then, along with the oceans and plants.

I consider the blip we represent in the galactic timeline ... and of the ecologies that must be thriving elsewhere in the cosmos. I think of the countless beasts on distant planets that are swimming or flying or fighting the peculiar battles of their biomes, beings as ignorant of us as we are of them, each creature obeying its native imperatives, each destined to its private oblivion. I think of asteroids and rogue proto-planets and unfortunate trajectories. On some ill-fated world somewhere, ruminants will stop grazing and lift their shaggy heads, blinking with incomprehension as the conclusive comet plunges and ignites in their atmosphere. But their nullification will not be for naught. The atoms that fashioned them will still exist. Heat and electricity and magnetism will still exist. All their matter will be recycled, each molecule being torn asunder so that new and more exotic configurations may be born, each particle playing but a bit part in an endless continuum. Death is only a singularity, a point through which life contracts and expands again. Dying stars seed space with carbon, magnesium, calcium, zinc. The hare surrenders to the grass, and the mushroom heralds a miracle, and bone meal betters our roses.

Meanwhile, I keep tapping on my phone to repeat the Debussy. Something about his music in this setting feels both melancholy and warming, plaintive and romantic. The word that comes to mind is "bittersweet". Claude Debussy has been dead for over a century ... yet he accompanies me now, on this fine autumn evening, chaperoning me as I consider the illusory boundary between life and death. His ghost makes for good company.

As I stroll among the graves, it occurs to me that the lives buried between these markers are not just a bunch of discrete units, self-contained and aloof from the stirrings of the world, but rather they form an occulted plexus of connection: families, businesses, churches, catastrophes, commencements, picnics, reunions, love affairs, scandals, marriages, maladies, baptisms ... and, of course, funerals.  The space between the stones seems at first to be measured by the standard span of coffins ... but in truth the cemetery chronicles a cumulative tale, a ceaseless and bewildering concurrence of human narratives, forever bubbling and piling and collapsing upon itself like foam on the surf. There is a message to be found in the muster of plots.

One of the best things you can do for your spirit is to spend some time in the presence of the deceased ... so I suggest that you avail yourself, at the next available opportunity, of the boneyard's splendid gifts, preferably during the golden hour that leads to dusk, and as you pass through the gate please make a point of turning towards the setting sun, and watch as its last slanting ray sets fire to the trees and outlines the edges of leaves and lights the Brownian dance of gnats ... and in this one enormous expanding instant, you may apprehend, in its entirety, life itself, life ever surging, ever swarming, proliferating, bursting free of rocks and ponds, rising from the loam in long unfurling gestures, clutching at the sky, vying for sunlight, and in all likelihood you will fall in love with the naked face of existence all over again, even with its grim chaotic terrors, even with its throttling vines, its tumors, its housefires, and you will find every process to be in order, every animate thing to be in perfect alignment with its purpose, and your mind will assign equal merit to the acorn and the oak that opens from it, and you will consider with an untroubled eye the upended armadillo, the ruined document, the torturous divorce, the smoke that curls into the sky, the vulture with clotted blood on its beak, the limping dog, the sagging porch, the leaning fence, and you will find mirth in the collapsing leer of the Jack O' Lantern, and you will see the world for all of its punctual cycles, its fecundity and decay, its apparent tumult and hidden patterns ... and you'll understand that one day, a day not very far from now, your newly unfettered consciousness will be at liberty to roam, to go further, to fly far from the shore towards the middle of the ocean, and that your mind may arrive at a calm expanse, a place with only one horizon, and there you will be truly free, free to explore, free to swim without the need for body or breath, to plunge beneath the surface and zip among the wriggling fish, to go below the bloated whale, to praise the cetacean that falls in soft white clumps towards the benthic midnight, to descend the cold column of dark that spans from blue to indigo to black, to sink amid the snowy detritus of plankton and hake scales twirling into the depths, to be gobbled by hagfish and crabs or lost among the fronds of sessile things, to be broken by worms, to molder into bare and quiescent motes, to become a carbonate slush on the sea floor ... and then you will know, know for certain, that nothing ever ends without beginning anew, and that you have always been and will always be, and you shall find yourself satisfied once again by the transitional nature of death, pleased to greet yet another death in a long unbroken line of them, and you will await with serenity all the deaths to come, and you will treasure the fleeting lives between them, and you will be at peace, assured that nothing dies forever, for life is forever, and forever is forever, amen.

[jwscrobbles]

Top 50 Songs Scrobbled for the Week Ending 1/22/2017

TW LW ARTIST - SONG 1 1 The Weeknd/Daft Punk – STARBOY(3 weeks @ #1) 2 2 Disclosure/Nao - SUPEREGO 3 3 Solange/Samphaa – DON’T TOUCH MY HAIR 4 4 Calvin Harris – MY WAY 5 5 Spencer Ludwig - DIGGY 6 6 Craig David/Sigala – AIN’T GIVING UP 7 7 Janet Jacks0n – BROKEN HEARTS HEAL 8 8 Bruno Mars – 24K MAGIC 9 10 P!nk – JUST LIKE FIRE 10 9 Lady Gaga – PERFECT ILLUSION(1 week @ #1) 11 11 Troye Sivan/Alessia Cara - WILD 12 18 AlunaGeorge – NOT YOUR LOVE 13 14 Alessia Cara – SCARS TO YOUR BEAUTIFUL 14 12 Sia/Kendrick Lamar – THE GREATEST 15 13 Cookin’ On 3 Burners/Kylie Auldist – THIS GIRL(1 week @ #1) 16 16 Hailee Steinfed/Grey/Zedd - STARVING 17 17 Twenty One Pilots - RIDE 18 15 The Chainsmokers/Halsey - CLOSER 19 19 Tinie Tempah/Zara Larsson – GIRLS LIKE 20 25 Gourdan Banks – KEEP YOU IN MIND 21 21 The 1975 – THE SOUND 22 22 The Chainsmokers/Daya – DONT LET ME DOWN 23 20 Jon Bellion – ALL TIME LOW 24 23 Tory Lanez - LUV 25 27 Emeli Sande - HURTS 26 30 Kari Faux - SUPPLIER 27 24 Empire of the Sun – HIGH AND LOW(2 weeks @ #1) 28 32 Rae Sremmurd – BLACK BEATLES 29 26 Twenty88 – ON THE WAY 30 31 Meghan Trainer/Yo Gotti - BETTER 31 29 Tinashe - SUPERLOVE 32 37 DJ Cassidy/Chromeo – FUTURE IS MINE 33 28 Frank Ocean - SEIGFRIED 34 33 Drake/Rihanna – TOO GOOD(2 weeks @ #1) 35 34 Kiiara – GOLD 36 36 Beyonce – HOLD UP 37 35 SG Lewis/Gallant – HOLDING BACK(2 weeks @ #1) 38 38 Maxwell – 1990X 39 44 Gallant/Jhene Aiko – SKIPPING STONES 40 39 Marc E. Bassy/G-Easy – YOU & ME 41 40 DJ Khaled/Drake – FOR FREE 42 41 Monifah – ONE MOMENT 43 42 Classixx/Passion Pit – SAFE INSIDE 44 43 Khelani/Chance the Rapper – THE WAY 45 45 Halsey – ROMAN HOLIDAY 46 --- GoldLink – PALM TREES 47 46 Flume/Kai – NEVER BE LIKE YOU 48 47 Tinashe – COLD SWEAT 49 48 Jill Scott – CAN’T WAIT(1 week @ #1) 50 49 MIA/Zayn - FREEDUN

[esamastation]

Roy doesn't know exactly when the new alchemist joins them on the field.

It's a bad time - they're establishing a new camp in the town and the area is under constant assault, it seems. Small strikes on all sides, seemingly from nowhere, taking out a man there, another there, crippling a truck, taking out a road… The Ishvalans are using some sort of network of tunnels, the brass thinks, and it's Roy's job to smoke them out. So that's what he's been doing, seemingly all week… smoking out the supposed tunnels.

There are no tunnels, though. The Ishvalans are just getting desperate and in their desperation they're figuring out new methods. They have home field advantage and new tricks of camouflaging themselves in the rubble that used to be their home. Ruins of a people, blending in the ruins the Amestrians had made of their houses. They're learning to live with it, to work with it, because it's all they have - and they're getting good because they have little choice in the matter.

No one is listening to Roy when he points it out, though. There's a dismissiveness to the higher ups, when it comes to the evolution of Ishvalan tactics. "What are they doing now, praying for better guns?" As though this war, hasn't already gone on three times as long as originally projected.

Roy is thinking about it, staring at a crooked, unlit cigarette someone had put into his shaking hands, when he's introduced to the new alchemist.

"Good news, Mustang," Hughes says, with absolutely no joy in his cheerful smile, and less so in his cheerful voice. It sounds like he's chewing charcoal. "You're getting partner."

Roy looks up, his mind still in the meeting room, thinking about numbers on a map, how they didn't quite capture the reality of charred skeletons. It takes a moment for what he sees in front of him to sink in.

Another blue uniform, still pressed sharp and bright new under the beige overcoat that's supposed to protect it and it's wearer from the dust and heat of Ishval. What stands before him isn't a soldier though - it's barely a man. It's a short blond boy, no older than sixteen at most, with heavy non-regulation boots and silver watch chain at his hip.

The horror and disgust that wells up it's barely a blip before it's smothered under, oh, of course, and shit, are we here already? Then Roy stands up, puts the unlit cigarette away and holds out his right hand.

"Major Roy Mustang - the Flame Alchemist."

The blond boy smiles, crooked and sharp and just as mirthless as Hughes beside him. "Nick Flamel - the Fullmetal Alchemist." His grip is tight and brief, his hand gloved.

He'd be the newest youngest State Alchemist then. Roy had heard his record had been beaten, though he hadn't really paid attention to who or how.

Hughes looks between them and for a moment his eyes show a certain desperation. Then he covers it up and pats Flamel's shoulder. "Fullmetal here is stationed under you until he gets a hang of things - you'll show him the ropes, teach him what's what."

Keep him alive, is what Hughes' eyes say, and no wonder. Being as young as he is, the kid can't have much in the way of training. Alchemists don't need to go through basic, after all - they're not there to march or shoot guns or stand in lines. Flamel had probably just gotten his watch, his uniform, and a one way ticket to Ishval. To one of the worst, most contested zones at that. Shit.

Did the brass send the kid here to die?

"What's your specialty - metallurgical transmutation?" Roy asks.

"I don't have a speciality, really," Flamel says and pushes his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. It doesn't quite fit him right - too wide across shoulders, a bit too long. They'd either left some growing room, or they just didn't have a uniform small enough. "But I'm damn good at environmental alchemy, which I figure is what I'll be doing the most around here."

Roy blinks. "Environmental alchemy," he repeats.

"I can make the battleground my bitch," Flamel says, his crooked smile sharpening.

And abruptly Roy is already exhausted with the kid. He's one of those, then, a cocky little sumbitch, top of his class and talk of the town, so used to being the top dog of his little bubble that he has no concept of what the real world is like outside that little bubble. Guys like him come swaggering in all the time, all big talk and smug grins, so sure they're going to be carrying their little superiority complexes spotlessly over the finish line that they walk into the first fucking landmine that comes across.

Roy sees himself holding the kid's hand after he gets gunned down, still thinking himself invulnerable, and it's exhausting.

"What?" Flamel asks, suspicious at his silence.

Hughes, giving the kid the exact same look Roy must be, clears his throat. "How about you show us?" he suggests. "So we'll have an idea what we're working with here."

Flamel arches a brow at that and then looks around, light brown - or are they burnished gold? - eyes narrowing in thought.

Their camp is still a mess from the last attack - they're fixing the fences and filling the holes in the road that got busted in the smattering of mortar fire from two days ago. The perimeter is more secure now, for a given value of secure. They'd chosen the highest spot in the town, the temple mount, to give them a high vantage point - better than being penned into a valley. It leaves them pretty damn open though.

Flamel looks over the houses they'd taken over, the tents pitched in the streets and the flag of Amestris hung over the prayer hall, and clicks his tongue. Then he claps his hands together, and crouches down.

For a split of a second, barely a blink, it looks like he's praying.

Then he slaps his hands on the street beneath their feet - and in a crackle of alchemical energy and rumble of displaced earth, the street reforms. The dirt flattens, grows perfect paving stones, shifts to form neat walkways on the sides, even forming gutters. Between one breath and the next, they have a perfect Amestrian city street, formed from the dust of Ishval, surrounded by Ishvalan buildings.

While the soldiers on the newly reformed street let out shouts of shock, Roy just stares, his mind trying to jump hoops figuring out how the kid just did that. Circles in his skin, under his sleeves, inside his gloves…?

Hughes whistles, hiding his wild eyes in a squint. "Nice. You know, it doesn't rain much around here," he comments.

"So?" Flamel asks.

"The gutters aren't really necessary."

Flamel looks at the street he'd made, hands resting on his hips, and shrugs. "Eh, can't hurt," he says and motions at the street. "Anyway, imagine that, but spikes instead of paving stones."

Roy swallows and looks at the kid, who's just standing there, seemingly in no way bothered. Fullmetal doesn't look smug or proud of what he'd done, only grinning a little bit at the way the soldiers throw away their shovels, no longer needed. If this isn't something for the him to even brag about, then…

Roy has in his head an image of the kid doing a field of spikes under a charging assault force, eviscerating people by the dozens, and it's clearly not Flamel's only trick. It's probably not even in his top five.

Fuck, the kid would end up with a three digit death toll by his first engagement.

"Right," Roy says. He isn't sure what his face is doing but going Hughes' expression, it's probably not good. "You can make gutters. How about trenches?"

Flamel grins, his eyes like molten metal. "Try me."

-

By the end of the week - no, by the end of the day their camp is hugely improved by Flamel. The fence is turned into a solid stone wall, constructed within minutes from the remains of bombed out houses. Another pile of rubble is turned into a watch tower. They have trenches, they have pits, Flamel even adds a moat and spikes around the camp, like they're in an ancient fortress or something. Hell, there's even gargoyles in the corners of the wall.

They go from one of the least secure camps to one of the most heavily fortified seemingly overnight. It's a huge boost to troop morale - not so for Roy's sanity. Flamel doesn't even look winded by the end of his improvements.

"How are you doing the circles?" Roy asks finally - bit of a social Faux Pas among alchemists, especially military alchemists, but he has to ask. Flamel made entire buildings, and he hadn't stopped to draw a single sigil.

"In my head," Flamel says, shrugging. Like that makes any sense.

Roy looks at him and then at the changes he's made, and can't say it's impossible - he can see the results with his own eyes. And they're more than impressive, they're…

Flamel isn't going to be here long, he realises. Whether the brass send the kid here to get rid of him or not, the moment word about Flamel's real abilities spread, he'd be snagged by the first general with any fucking sense. The kid's a powerhouse. Roy is too, of course, that's why he's here - but Fullmetal is a different kind of powerhouse. Just by himself, he would be able to establish a secure foothold in the middle of enemy territory and that's not someone you just let sit idle.

Roy looks at the kid and feels torn between feeling sorry, jealous and a little bit bitter. If only he was a bit higher in rank, he could keep Flamel and make a full use his abilities - and maybe keep him from becoming a mass murderer in the process.

"What was your exam like?" Roy asks. There's no way the kid showed even a fraction of these abilities, he wouldn't be here at all if he had. "How'd you end up with a name like Fullmetal?" From what he'd seen something like Earth Moving or Groundbreaking would've been more apt.

"I made a spear in my exam," Flamel says, not looking at him. "And pointed it at Bradley."

"... And they didn't arrest you?"

Flamel smirks a little and looks at him. "What did you do?" he asks. "I bet you scorched something."

Roy had. He'd been welcomed in on the spot. "Training dummies," he agrees, giving him a pointed look. "Because I don't have a death wish."

Flamel shrugs. "It got me what I wanted," he says and stretches his arms. "So, what comes next?"

Roy looks at their newly secure camp. "Depends on the Colonel, but I bet you'll be doing more road work. We need a clear path in and out of the town."

Even though the town is officially theirs, that doesn't stop the guerilla attacks - but now, with a secure camp, all they needed was a clear path for troops to move in and then it'd be only a matter of time. If the two of them weren't already reassigned by then, they'd be after the supply line was secure. Alchemists weren't wasted in safe stations.

"But that's tomorrow's problem," Roy decides. "Come in, kid - let's get something to eat."

- - -

Nostalgia is doing rounds in my brain.

[bakumu-archive]

to capture a star

rich!Daichi x fem!reader

wc: 13k

summary: when daichi asks you to go with him to his family’s cabin during spring break, the last thing you expect is to be greeted by a giant mansion. Will the money and social life scare you away or will you be able to find love with daichi, despite being thrown into a world of fast cars and expensive clothing?

cw: rich people, SMUT (daddy, praise, biting, feral daichi, unprotected sex, creampie), pining, racing, one punch, blood (from the punch), alcohol, insecurity, mild jealousy, possessive daichi, side kiyoko x tanaka, probably ooc

a/n: this is for the rich boy collab hosted by @bakugohoex​! be sure to check out all the other submissions! you can find the link to the masterlist here

terushima is an asshole in this and i'm sorry, i love him but i needed a captain to be sleazy and he volunteered. he told me he couldn't resist hitting on a cutie like you, and who am i to stop him.

check out the mood boards i made here and shout out to my beautiful beta reader @winniethepoohloathesyou​ for working so hard on this with me!

minors do not interact. this work contains mature themes and if you continue reading you have agreed you are willing to see such content

When Daichi sat down next to you in your econ class last week and asked you to come to his family cabin during spring break, this is not what you imagined. 

You thought that you would be able to spend some time alone with him, enjoying nature together in a small house nestled in the forest, spending enough time together to finally put a label on whatever the spark was between the two of you.

But no.

You blink rapidly and take a good look at your new surroundings, trying to make sense of what your eyes see. Before you stands the largest house you have ever seen. But just calling it a house would be an extreme understatement. 

This place is a mansion. Three stories of white brick detailed with elaborate stone embellishments. The gray mansard roof’s steep slope meets at the top with a fenced stone parapet. An elaborate garden extends between you and the house and you swear you can see an Olympic-sized swimming pool nestled into the courtyard. And this isn't even the front of the house. You blink in disbelief when you spot a giant race track off to your left and what looks like a massive, ten-car garage. The scent of sea air assaults your senses and when your gaze flickers to your right, you can see the ocean and the mansion's very own harbor. 

And none of that even includes how you got here: on a private jet, landing on a personal runway where you currently stand. 

The beat-up duffle bag you use for your family’s camping trips that hangs from your shoulder suddenly feels very wrong in a way you can't explain.

You turn to face Daichi as he joins you on the tarmac. “Daichi, this is your family cabin?” you ask wide-eyed, your voice sounding so high-pitched that you barely recognize it. 

He rubs the back of his neck, one of his nervous habits. “Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing. I used to spend all of my summers here with my siblings but now the house barely gets used,” he says sheepishly.

Before you can ask any more questions, the loud rumbling of car engines interrupts your conversation and you see two sports cars taking two corners on the track before barreling down the straight of the runway towards you at top speed. 

“Ah, those two are here already, I see,” Daichi grins. He takes your duffle bag from you, throwing the strap over his shoulder and pulling you closer to him while wrapping his arm around your waist. 

The cars roar to a stop right behind the jet, creating the perfect image, an Instagram influencer’s wet dream. 

Daichi leans over to whisper in your ear as they both get out of the cars, “The one in the red Ferrari LaFerrari is Kuroo Tetsuro and the one in the white Lamborghini Aventador is Bokuto Kotaro.”

The two are pointing fingers at each other as they get out of their cars bickering and you can see the wealth dripping off them. The man with the spiky black hair, that Daichi told you was Kuroo, is pointing back in the direction they came from as he closes his car door, while Bokuto, with his spiky gray hair, pouts, throwing his hands up in mock innocence. Both of them grab a bag from the trunks of their cars, still arguing with each other before Kuroo places his arm around Bokuto in a show of faux peace before they start walking towards you and Daichi.

“They're both idiots,” he pauses to watch Bokuto swat at Kuroo’s arm, “but they are actually really good guys.”

The two of them are still heated, poking at each other's chests as they reach you and Daichi, only stopping when he coughs to grab their attention.

“Are you two done yet?” he questions with a raised eyebrow.

“Daichi, I was faster, wasn't I?” whined Bokuto, giving Daichi and you a small pout as Kuroo pats his shoulder, leaning slightly closer to you.

“This must be Y/N. She’s cuter than you said Dai,” Kuroo says with a laugh.

You miss the way that Daichi’s cheeks start to turn pink because you were so taken aback at his statement. Daichi told his friends about you? His apparently super rich friends?

Daichi’s grip around your waist tightens slightly before he responds, “Guys this is Y/N L/N. Please, don't annoy her too much.”

Both of their heads perk up at that.

“Oh yeah Daichi, we will be perfect saints,” Kuroo smirks.

Bokuto matches Kuroo’s playfully devious look, suddenly over his apparent loss on the track. “Oh yeah, nothing but angels.”

Before Daichi has time to wipe the smiles off their faces, you hear the sound of helicopter blades whirring above.

You look around until you see it fly directly overhead. The sound fills the air as the helicopter starts its descent onto the helipad next to the parked jet.

The helicopter blades whip up the grass and plants all around, and you have to place your hand on your head to prevent your own hair from being messed up by the whirlwind. 

You look over to Bokuto and Kuroo to see them fiercely trying to protect their hair spikes from the wind and failing. Daichi follows your gaze and when he sees them, he lets out a laugh in full force.

The helicopter makes a soft landing and the blades slow down when the engine turns off and two people step out. 

The most beautiful girl you have ever seen in your life hops out from the operator's seat, throwing her gorgeous black hair over her shoulder as she walks over to the man holding his hand out for her, hoisting their designer bags over his shoulder.

“Kiyoko, Tanaka, I'm so glad that you guys could make it,” Daichi smiles at the couple as they approach.

Daichi lets go of your waist so he can give the two of them a proper hug, before introducing you.

“This is Y/N.”

Kiyoko walks up to you and grabs your hands in hers and smiles at you, “Finally another girl. It's about time.”

Tanaka laughs, “What, babe? Are you getting tired of us?”

She lets go of your hands so she can give Tanaka a playful slap to the chest, “You know that's not what I meant, Ryu. It'll be nice to have someone to get ready for the gala with!”

You feel Daichi slightly flinch next to you at the mention of a gala.

Your brows furrow as you ask, “A what now? Daichi never mentioned anything about a gala.”

You turn to him, questioningly, and he moves his hand to the back of his neck for the second time in ten minutes. 

“It's nothing really, just this huge party my family has hosted for years. We really wouldn't even have to go if you don't want to…” the last few words trail off before he is interrupted by Kiyoko.

“What are you saying Daichi, you have to go! It's your family's gala.” Her brows are furrowed and she is looking at him suspiciously.

Daichi lets out an exasperated sigh, “Well that's a discussion for the future. Let’s go settle into our rooms.”

Daichi puts his arm around your shoulders as he leads the group up to the back porch, walking through the garden and around the giant swimming pool and fire pit area. 

“I assume you four are taking your normal rooms?” Daichi asks the group.

They all nod before splitting in different directions, obviously understanding the intricate layout of the house after what you assume is years of friendship. 

Daichi leads you through the first floor, pointing out various rooms and points of interest as you take in the vastness of your new surroundings. Most of the rooms have white or cream-colored walls with very intricate crown molding. Some have very distinct and uncomfortable furniture that looks like it has never been used, while others look like they are ready for a full day of lounging. He even takes you past the bowling alley and the in-home movie theater.

Eventually, he leads you to a huge staircase that circles around the main entryway to the house. The whole room looks like it's made out of marble and you take a twirling step to bask in the grandness of the space. 

Daichi calls out to you, pulling you back into reality. He has one foot on the first step and his hand is outstretched for you to take.

“You coming?” he smiles at you, wiggling his fingers, waiting for you to take his hand. 

When you do, you hold on to it like it's your lifeline, the only anchor you have in this unfamiliar territory. He leads you up two flights of stairs to the third floor and then down a large hallway filled with doors and golden crown molding.

He stops in front of a door before saying, “Well, this is you,” and moving your duffle bag back to your shoulder, letting his hand linger on your skin until he forces himself to pull away. 

“I’m right here across the hall if you need anything, alright?” he reassures you with a smile.

You nod at him, trying to process all of the new information you've just taken in, before putting your hand on the doorknob and turning away from him.

He calls out to you before you go inside, “Why don't you take an hour or so — take a shower, there's a bathroom attached to the suite — and then when you come down to the kitchen, we can get some snacks?”

You turn to face him again, narrowing your eyes at him with a pout, “Is this your way of telling me I smell?”

His laughter fills the hallway. “No, I just want you to relax. This is your vacation too, ya know?” His smile is contagious and you can't help but smile back at him, really hoping that a shower will help as he says.

“Okay Daichi, I'll try.”

With that you enter the bedroom, closing the door behind you before resting your head on the wood, letting out a very small sigh.

You try to relax like Daichi said by taking a warm shower, but everything was way too nice. The grand marble shower and the elegant tile tub just serve to remind you that you are in a world different than your own, giving you more anxiety than relaxation. 

You manage to get through your shower: fiddling with all of the button options to turn the water off, grabbing a plush towel to dry off, and then changing into some of the clothes that you packed.

You head back out to the bedroom in a huff and take another look around, half expecting the room to have transformed into a new one completely, but you are glad that it's just as you left it. 

The massive four-poster bed sits against one wall next to the room's giant floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the afternoon light, casting long shadows on the fireplace gracing the opposite wall and the plush sitting area in front of it.

You flop yourself on the bed, arms stretching out and you curse at how comfortable the mattress is. 

Who would have guessed the handsome boy you met in your econ class was this filthy rich.

You don't want your brain to fantasize but your thoughts drift there anyways as you sit up to sort through your clothes; it dreams of a future where this could be all yours. It's not like you weren't dreaming about a future with Daichi before, but now you’re imagining paying off your student loans, using some money to help your struggling friends and family, or maybe going even bigger than that, like starting a business or a charity to really help people. 

You have to stop yourself from going too far. You shouldn’t spiral with these thoughts because that's the big issue: you and Daichi, what are you really?

You were instantly infatuated with him when he smiled at you during your first economics lecture together just a few months ago. Sitting next to each other, passing a notebook back and forth drawing little doodles together when you should have been paying attention. The chemistry between the two of you only grew when you started studying together and he invited you out to party with some of his friends. 

The two of you have even shared a few make-out sessions together at said parties, but the next day when you expected things to be awkward or to at least have a discussion about what it meant, Daichi always acted like everything was normal, like the two of you hadn't had your tongues down each other throats the night before. 

And that's not to mention how he always seems to be holding your hand, or hooking his arm around you, giving you butterflies at every turn. He always seems to be more touchy when other guys are around, but you can say that you do the same. Hugging him back tighter when other girls look his way.

In the beginning, the small touches and longing glances you shared in class slowly turned to long hugs and holding hands. You thought that maybe Daichi was this way with all of his friends, but when he introduced you to his roommates, Asahi and Sugawara, you noticed that he isn’t that touchy with them. It seems to be something only reserved for you.

You think of all the shared touches that you've had just today and your heart flutters. It's like when the two of you touch, your heart is instantly filled with happiness that calms your soul. His touch just feels right and being with him feels as easy as breathing.

If soulmates do exist, you can imagine that this is what it feels like. 

You let out a deep sigh, shaking away your thoughts, before you decide to make your way down to the kitchen to meet up with the others.

You follow the voices through the maze of corridors and staircases to the kitchen, thank god they are a noisy bunch. 

Everyone is gathering around the huge kitchen island, with bowls of chips, candy, and other snacks scattered around, and there seem to be two different conversations going on.

Daichi has his back to you, and you walk up next to him, putting your head on his shoulder. He looks down, throwing his arm around you, pulling you into his space more before whispering, “How was your shower?”

You wrap your arms around his waist before shrugging your shoulders, choosing to instead focus on the conversation that Tanaka and Kuroo are having. Daichi grabs a few of the bowls of snacks and pulls them closer to you, taking a big handful of food for himself.

Kuroo lets out a loud annoyed groan before explaining, “Oikawa just texted me that he’s going to dock here for the night.”

You sense the mounting tension in the air and take a handful of snacks, ready to take in whatever drama that was about to unfold.

The mention of the name you are unfamiliar with seems to bring the other conversation to a close as everyone focuses their attention on Kuroo and his phone. 

Daichi lets out an exasperated sigh. “I could have sworn I told him to keep that thing away from here,” he says, rubbing his hand down his face in annoyance. 

“He's bringing that party boat here? During gala week?” Kiyoko adds, blowing hair out of her face with a huff. 

“Eh, I'm not going to complain, it's always full of hot babes,” Tanaka says right before a smack lands on his chest from Kiyoko. He pulls her into him, playfully kissing her cheeks, “No one is hotter than you babe, you know that.”

She rolls her eyes at his response but seems to accept his apology.

Not having any idea about who or what they are talking about you pipe up, “Who’s coming?”

Daichi lets out a big sigh before explaining, “Oikawa is this guy we grew up with, he’s a big flirt with an even bigger yacht. It's pretty much a giant party boat that he fills with supermodels.” You can practically feel the way Daichi’s eyes roll at the notion of a party boat stacked to the nines with supermodels.

Bokuto moves to Daichi’s other side, leaning over the island looking around him at you with a wide smile and adds, “Not to mention the alcohol and drugs.”

“Yes, yes, Bokuto, we all know why you enjoy Oikawa’s visits,” Daichi retorts, shaking his head and laughing.

“He just texted again,” Kuroo says with an annoyed groan. “Says he's going to be docking in three hours.”

“Well, what do you guys want to do until he gets here?” Daichi asks, taking a big handful of pretzels from a bowl close to him.

“We could go for a race around the track,” Kuroo says with a devilish smile.

Bokuto lets out an excited yell before pointing at Kuroo and exclaiming, “Hell yeah, lets go!”

Everyone heads outside into the evening sun. The warmth that the sun provided during the afternoon seems to be fading, giving the air a slight chill. 

Kuroo and Bokuto run with their hands in the air from the house to their cars before starting them and speeding off towards the track while Daichi leads you, Tanaka, and Kiyoko to the large ten-car garage that spans the side of the house.

He opens a side door leading everyone into the garage, pressing a big button on the wall causing all of the garage doors to begin opening, filling the space with light.

Your eyes widen when you look at the millions of dollars worth of vehicles equally spaced with precision in front of you. While you recognize some brands: Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, and Mercedes, there are more that you don't, and your eyes glaze over at the pure wealth displayed in the garage.

Tanaka's excited voice pulls you from your haze as he practically jumps up and down in place, “Can we take the Bugatti?” he shouts questioningly, making you jump.

“Sure thing,” Daichi replies as he takes the keys to the Bugatti Veyron SS off the hook and tosses them to Kiyoko.

You watch her unlock the car and climb into the driver's seat as Tanaka jumps into the passenger seat next to her. The engine roars to life and she carefully pulls it out of the garage before she peels off towards the track, leaving you and Daichi alone in the garage. 

“So, do you see a car you like?” he questions, his eyes following the car as it barrels around a corner.

The first real time alone with him since landing here and he decides to ignore the elephant in the room? You wouldn’t be surprised if there was actually an elephant around here somewhere.

You ignore his question and turn to face him, “Dai, what the fuck. What is this place? How are you so rich?” 

“I'm not rich, my parents are,” he quickly retorts, turning to face you.

“That's exactly what a rich person would say,” you roll your eyes at him.

“I know you must feel pretty deceived right now; it was so nice when I was just Daichi to you, not the heir to this big conglomerate worth millions of dollars,” he walks close to you, moving to place his hands on your shoulders but stopping himself, and lets his hands fall to the side almost in defeat. 

“My dad is this huge businessman and he has all these women who throw themselves at him because of his money. He's never been in love, even when he was with my Mom, and I didn’t want that. I don't want that. I want to be in love. I want to marry someone I'm in love with and not because it is what has been decided for me.” 

Of course, he would have a real reason that you couldn't get mad at. And of course, it’s romantic as hell. At least he’s being open about it now.

You look up at him, and you realize that this is the same Daichi that he's always been. Those are the same eyes that you've been looking at for months, the same hands that have held you so many times, the same Daichi as always, just a different setting.

“You know I'm not like that Dai, you could have told me,” you reply, your voice softer than it was earlier.

He takes a step closer, his hands reaching out and rubbing away at the stress in your shoulders.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry that I kept this hidden from you. I should have told you.” He sighs, closing the remaining space between the two of you and moving his hands to cup your face. “I just want you to understand what getting into a full relationship with me would mean.”

The way Daichi is looking at you makes your heart melt. His eyes reach your face in desperation, half expecting you to push him away but you just lean into his hands, closing your eyes and savoring his touch before you match his vulnerable gaze.

“What would a full relationship mean then, Daichi?” you practically purr at him.

“It means all this,” he says before kissing you lightly. “All the fun stuff, the cars, the houses, the private jets,” he kisses you again. “But it also comes with a lot of not fun stuff too.”

You take a deep breath before responding, heart pounding from the intimacy of the moment. “And what would happen if I said that I still wanted a relationship with you? Even with the not-fun stuff.”

His breath hitches before he smiles. “I'd give you everything,” he whispers, eyes searching yours again, thumbs caressing your lips softly as he still cradles your face in his hands. “I'd buy you the moon if you wanted it.”

“Good thing I don't want the moon then.” You grab his shirt, closing the gap between the two of you before kissing him.

His hands fall to your hips before he starts to push you backwards towards the Ferrari behind you, until your ass hits the car, never disconnecting from the kiss.  

His lips feel warm on yours as you get swept away into the moment with him. Your lips moving in tandem before his tongue expertly sweeps out at your bottom lip. You let out a moan, allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth. 

His grip on your waist only gets harder when he starts to move his body against yours, rutting his hips against yours, letting out a small moan into your mouth.

If the two of you weren't so caught up in each other, you would have heard Kuroo pull up to the garage and step out of his car before just staring at the two of you locked in each other's embrace. He rests his cheek on his short car door before he reaches a hand inside his car to honk the horn. You and Daichi startle at the sound, pulling apart as Daichi sends Kuroo a death glare.

Kuroo lets out a loud laugh unaffected by Daichi’s glare. “Thanks for the show, but are we going to race or what?”

Daichi waves him off, looking back down at you, his eyes bouncing from your lips to your eyes, with a smirk, “Do you want to drive?”

You hear Kuroo drive away as you playfully smack Daichi’s chest before you exclaim, “God no!”

His eyes close as he chuckles at you, “Okay, fair. But which one do you want to take?”

You look around at the cars not really knowing too much about them, so you ask, “Which one is the fastest?”

He smirks at you and says, “That’s my girl,” before throwing an arm around your shoulder and grabbing the key for the white Koenigsegg Regera off the hook.

He walks you over to the passenger side of the car, opening the scissor door for you and watching you take a seat before pulling it closed and jogging to his side, getting in the car. 

The brown leather of the interior is a stark contrast to the white of the outside paint, and you find your body being cradled in the expensive bucket seat. Daichi leans over you, grabbing your seat belt and buckling it for you, bringing his face inches away from yours, teasing you before he buckles his own seat.

He pulls out of the garage slowly before putting the pedal to the floor and driving off towards the airstrip, racing around a few tight corners before he drives towards the runway where the other three cars are already lined up. 

Bokuto jumps off of his side fender when he sees you and Daichi approach and makes his way inside his car with an excited spring in his step. Kiyoko kisses Tanaka before making her way into her borrowed car and Kuroo, who was sitting cross-legged on the roof of his car watches the two of you pull up before jumping down and walking towards you.

Daichi meticulously lines up the front wheels with the other cars, before letting the engine idle, rolling down the window to talk to Kuroo.

When the rooster-haired man leans down to talk into the window, you don't miss his glance at you, before his eyes dart back to Daichi, and a small dusting of pink appears on his cheeks.

“We've decided we're doing a mile drag, first to cross the line wins, the loser has to make dinner and wash the dishes,” Kuroo announces.

Daichi looks over to you, intertwining your fingers and bringing them up to lips, kissing your knuckles, and a determined look crosses his face, his mouth turning up on the corner in a smirk. “Winner gets to pick what's for dinner, so you better decide what you want.”

His competitive side is something that you rarely see, usually only coming out when he's challenged, and the charged air around him has heat pooling between your legs. 

Daichi lets your hand go and starts going through the settings of the car, setting up the launch control, mumbling to himself as he remembers how to set it up, as Kuroo heads back to his car.

You hear the roar of the other engines as they come to life and look through Daichi’s window at the other drivers, all giving thumbs up, ready to start.

Before Daichi gives his thumbs-up, he turns to you, “Just keep your head back, alright?”

You give him a worried look, but comply, placing the back of your head on the headrest behind you. You're concerned about what to do with your hands so you decide to place them in your lap.

Daichi gives the thumbs up and rolls his window up, giving the engine a few revs before hovering his foot over the gas in wait.

You watch as a now shirtless Tanaka walks out in between the cars. You can barely hear him as he starts to count down from five, but when he gets to one, he starts waving his shirt in the air wildly and Daichi slams on the gas.

The world starts to blur as the car accelerates. The loud roar of the engine assaults your ears as your heart starts to beat faster from the sudden adrenaline rush. 

Time seems to slow as you go faster. You watch the speedometer increase: 60, 80,100, 120 and it’s still climbing.

The noise of the air rushes past as the car seamlessly cuts through and you feel your heart beating in your throat. 

You look over at Daichi to see a big smile on his face; he knows he’s winning and you take the time to look back as Kuroo is being passed by Kiyoko, and she's getting closer to Daichi.

You let out a laugh: the crazy speeds and all the adrenaline pumping through making your body seem like it's on fire.

You glance at the speedometer and watch it hit 240 mph before you and Daichi cross the finish line first and he slams on the brakes. You are very glad you listened to him about keeping your head back, or else you're sure you would have whiplash.

Daichi stops the car, putting it in park before turning to look at you, your eyes full of bewilderment as your body tries to process the fact that you're in one piece after such a rush. 

“Holy shit Dai! You won! We won! That was amazing!” you exclaim frantically to a smiling Daichi, laughing along with you as you stammer on about how fast it was. 

The other cars form a circle with the hoods facing each other, and you watch as everyone starts to get out.

Daichi nods his head towards the others, “Come on, let’s go gloat.”

Everyone sits or leans against the hood of their cars, and Daichi once again has you tucked under his arm. You laugh along with the group and their antics as they argue over the standings. The official decision was that Daichi won, which was unanimous, with Kiyoko taking second, followed by Kuroo and Bokuto. 

Bokuto said something about his launch control was being finicky before all of you hear whooping and yelling coming from a very out-of-breath Tanaka. He had apparently started running after the cars had left and was just now reaching the group.

Everyone is in high spirits as you talk for a bit and you seem to mesh seamlessly with them, throwing out a few quips that make Bokuto and Kuroo snort, teaming up with Kiyoko when the boys get too rowdy. It almost seems like you're not the new person in the group, that you’ve known them forever, and you are really happy that Daichi has surrounded himself with great people.

The rest of the evening was spent driving the cars and having long chats afterwards, about nothing and everything all at once. 

When it came time for dinner, since you and Dai were the winners, you got to decide what Bokuto was making for everyone. His attempt at your favorite dish left the kitchen filled with smoke and Daichi surprised everyone with pizza, even before talks of a back up plan for was discussed.

Then you heard the horn of a ship, followed by mixed reactions as the five of you clear up dinner and get ready to leave the mansion for the ‘sex ferry,’ as Bokuto called it.

Daichi gets closer to you and murmurs into your hair, “Watch out for pervs on the boat, stay close to me, yeah?” You nod, as you wrap your arm around his ready to leave.

That is, until Kiyoko stops Daichi before the two of you make it out the door, “I’m stealing her for a second, she can't go on a yacht dressed like that!”

You look yourself over in the mirror and you have to admit, Kiyoko did an excellent job dressing you up.

Your hair is perfectly styled and your face has just the right amount of makeup. Kiyoko crosses in front of the mirror applying the finishing touch: a shimmering lip gloss that is the perfect shade for you. The oversized, white knit sweater that she had you put on hangs loosely over your curves, tucked in perfectly into the brown skirt that she picked out for you. It's not a look that you would usually go for, but you have to give her credit, she did a good job, you look stunning.

On the way up to this ginormous closet, she had explained to you that Daichi’s sisters had this closet stocked with every size and designer label known to man, just in case any of their friends needed a last minute change of clothes. 

At first, you didn't believe her, but when you saw the enormous room with a rainbow of color-coordinated clothes hanging from floor to ceiling you changed your tune. You were even more shocked to find that all of the clothes still had their price tags on, wincing at the $1,000 price of one pair of pants.

Kiyoko gives you one last glance over before she starts to get herself ready, dressing in a black long-sleeved dress, the hem of the skirt falling just at her thighs and fishnet stockings, the exact opposite of the aesthetic she chose for you. 

She applies her red lipstick with a pop before turning to you, “Well, what do you think?’

She takes your hand and twirls you around so that you are facing the mirror before she rests her chin on your shoulder.

You laugh at her antics, before replying, “I think we look hot!”

The two of you make your way down to the boat, exiting the mansion through a side door and make your way down to the dock.

Now that you are up close to the boat, you can see the massive amount of people on board. The four decks are filled to the brim with people dancing, talking, and making out, all with various drinks in their hands, and you can see Aoba Johsai written in cursive on the side of the boat.

The two of you step onboard and you hear him before you see him, “Kiyoko, over here!”

Tanaka is calling out for her through the crowd of people, leaning along the railing of the boat, dressed in all black and holding two beers.

She makes her way through the crowd with you close behind. Tanaka wraps her in his arms, kissing her on the cheek.

“Looking good babe,” he growls into her ear as she takes one of the beers from his hand.

The two of them look like they are about to start making out with all of their flirty touches, and you would like to find Daichi as soon as possible so you clear your throat and ask, “Do you know where Daichi is?”

“He's usually in the second-floor pool room; it’s up the stairs, second door on the right,” Tanaka replies while gesturing toward the stairway back by where you just came from.

You nod and take your leave, making your way to the stairs, bumping into people on the crowded deck. After the first few steps, you look back at Kiyoko, wondering if she’s coming with you. Too late, you think as you watch Tanaka pull her hips closer to his, whisper into her ear, and start kissing down her neck.

You shake your head and continue on, happy that she's having fun, but wishing you still had her company by your side. 

At the top of the stairs, you only see one door that opens to an empty hallway. You decide to take your luck with it, even if this isn't the right place, it's a nice space to take a breather from all the people. 

You open the door and what you thought was a quiet hallway turns out to be an echo chamber for the bass echoing off the walls. Where is the music even coming from; you barely heard it outside?

Leaning against the wall, you take a few deep breaths, which are immediately interrupted by the smell of cigar smoke wafting towards you. Part of you wants to leave but the other part of you says stay, stay for him. 

This is so much to process, you can already feel a migraine coming on. The smell of cigar smoke and the thumping bass echoing off the walls of the ship isn't helping your stress levels. Where is Daichi? This would be so much easier if he would just appear by your side magically.

The door you just came through opens and shuts with a squeak, and you hope that your prayers have been answered, but when you turn to look at the person who just joined your space, it is very much not Daichi.

His blonde hair and very noticeable tongue ring are the farthest from Daichi as you can get, and you really wish that you weren't in this hallway alone with him right now.

He makes his way closer to you, getting in your personal space, leaning one arm against the wall next to your head to look you up and down, before licking his lips.

“Hey baby girl, are you lost?”  

You start to look for an exit as he moves closer to you. “No, I'm just looking for someone,” you reply.

His arms cage you in, not giving you any room to move away. “Aw, don't be like that, I can show you a good time too,” he insists. “The name's Yūji Terushima, you'll need to know it when you're screaming it out later.”

You try to move away from him but he won't let you pass, until you hear a door open. 

Daichi comes out of one of the side rooms and the instant he sees you trapped by this man, his eyes turn red with anger.

He rushes over to the two of you, yelling out, “Hey! Get off of her!”

Terushima isn't quick enough to respond, turning to face Daichi, but Daichi is already at his side sending his fist flying towards the blond's nose with a mean right hook. 

Your body sags with relief as Daichi pulls you into his arms and Terushima is on the floor withering in pain, gasping at his probably broken nose.

Daichi is frantically looking over you, checking your arms and face for any sort of harm, “Did he touch you? Are you okay?” he questions you rapidly.

You bury your face in his chest and nod, “Yeah, I'm ok.”

He puts his arms around you before pulling you away towards the door he just came from.  “We're down here,” he says, glaring at Terushima covered in his blood on the floor, leading you away from him.

The room that Daichi was in is stuffed full of people. People line the walls, getting very personal with each other, while others sit on the couches in the center of the room with people pulled onto their laps or under their arms. There are two pool tables on either side of the couches and you spot Kuroo and Bokuto playing what looks like a game of strip pool with four girls, and, from the looks of it, they are losing badly. On the other end of the room is a large bar, with glass bottles lining shelves behind it and a few empty bar stools.

Daichi chooses to ignore his almost naked friends and heads towards the bar, pulling out a stool for you before taking the seat next to you.

The bartender has very fluffy brown hair with matching brown eyes and once he's done serving up drinks to the couple down the bar, he makes his way over to you.

He starts to gather a glass for Daichi without even asking him what he wanted and then looks at you expectantly, “Well cutie, what can I get for you?”

Daichi levels his gaze at the man, and you can feel the deep grumble vibrate from his chest before he turns to you, “This,” he gestures to the bartender, “is Oikawa.”

Oikawa gives you a wink before scurrying out of Daichi’s reach as he playfully tries to grab him, causing Daichi to let out a huff. 

With the weird environment you're in, you think it's best to forgo alcohol, at least for now, so you ask Oikawa for water.

He hands you a glass with lots of ice in it and you watch the way the two of them interact. Their friendship looks to be built on a bed of mutual annoyance, but you can see how they care about each other hidden in the undertones of their speech. 

The night goes on and you spend a lot of it with Oikawa and Daichi at the bar. Oikawa asks you lots of personal questions, some of which you choose to ignore, and some of them you indulge him a little. If Daichi trusts him, it's okay for you too, right?

Just as your ass is starting to hurt from the barstool, a younger man comes up to Daichi, his orange hair bouncing in the wind as he practically vibrates in place. You catch his name, Hinata, and some of what he's trying to explain. There seems to be trouble between him and another guy, and he came to Daichi to be the mediator. 

You can't blame him; in fact, if you were having any sort of trouble, Daichi's the first person that you would seek out. Daichi is so strong and dependable, he makes the rest of the world feel safe and easy. It's not that he makes problems go away but he seems to take in the situation for what it is and find a solution that seems so blatantly obvious you can't believe that no one else thought of it first.

Daichi is that and so much more. His playfulness and competitiveness are something that you saw today when he was driving that car. Not to mention how hot he looked behind the wheel, his arms muscles were on full display and you barely even got the chance to stare at them. You think about going back in time just so that you could watch them flex as he gripped the steering wheel.

You shake your head, trying to pull your brain away from the horny thoughts, but all that manages to do is send you back to the memories of your hot makeout session in the garage earlier. How his hands were all over your body, his lips pressed to yours...

Daichi’s laugh pulls you from your daydream and you realize that he, Hinata and Oikawa are all staring at you. His hand is waving in front of your face, “Earth to Y/N.”

Your shocked expression tells you everything he needs to know so he repeats himself, putting his hand on your knee, “You good here for a minute? I gotta help Hinata with something.” You nod at him and the two walk off together.

Oikawa talks to you in between serving people drinks and you manage to have a decent conversation about your university studies. Turns out, he is studying a major very similar to yours.

Oikawa pulls his phone out and answers it, before putting it down on his shoulder, turning to you, “I have to take this, I’ll have one of my boys take you to Daichi.”

He turns to one of the nearby couches close to the bar before barking out, “Mattsun, take her out to where Daichi is. I have some shit to deal with.”

The man he called out to kisses the blonde sitting on his lap before moving her off of him so that he can help you find Daichi. His tall body leads you out onto the deck of the boat through hordes of drunk people dancing and making out until you spot an orange mess of hair and Daichi standing next to him.

As you get closer you notice a small, but rather important detail that you couldn't see when you were farther away, Daichi is surrounded by tall, skinny, gorgeous-looking supermodels, and all of them seem to have their hands on him.

Daichi seems not to notice the touches, he's too focused on a boy with black hair laying upside down on a lounge chair, his hair softly caressing the wooden deck with every small gust of wind. 

You notice another woman start to touch his hair before Daichi swats her away like she’s a fly before he's kneeling to look at the chair guy again. 

Mattsun leads you closer to Daichi, announcing your arrival before saying his goodbyes and heading back where he came from. You yell out thanks as he is leaving and he waves his hand in the air as he walks away.

Daichi stands from his kneeling position and moves to your side. He has to get closer to your ear to talk as you are now closer to wherever the loud music is coming from but you don't mind, wrapping your arms around his waist possessively, eyeing the other girls.

“Kageyama had too much to drink, he's absolutely wasted,” Daichi says loudly, making sure you can hear him over the bumping bass.

You wished you would have grabbed your water before you left the bar. Just when you're about to suggest someone go get him some water, Oikawa bursts out onto the deck from a side door, exclaiming, “That little shit!” before running off towards the upper decks. You see that he's being followed by Mattsun, the guy who just helped you, and two other men, one with spiky black hair and the other with short pink hair. They all look extremely pissed.

You hear the sound of helicopter blades before you feel a blast of wind, causing the water to start rippling around the boat. You look curiously up at Daichi before he's turning and barking orders to Hinata to get the drunk guy some water and crackers before he's grabbing your hand.

“There's only one man that could be, and we better go make sure Oikawa doesn't kill him.”

By the time you two make it to the upper deck where the helipad is, there already seems to be a standoff in place. A tall man with dark olive hair stands with a large briefcase tucked under the arm of his suit coat. He does not look like he's dressed for a party, but instead like he's about to go into a courtroom.

This new man's face is void of emotion as Oikawa is practically snarling at him, lip upturned like an angry dog.

Daichi runs between the two warring factions, putting up his hands to Oikawa before turning to the tall man.

But before Daichi can say anything Oikawa is yelling over his head, “Who said you could land here, get lost!”

The tall man completely ignores Oikawa, walking up to Daichi, “Ah, Sawamura, just the man I was hoping to see.”

Oikawa's face turns red with anger, if this was an anime you are sure that there would be steam coming out of his head.

Daichi looks at him quizzically, “All this just to see me? Should we go talk in private?”

Ushijima gives him a confirming grunt, nodding his head and Daichi leads him around Oikawa and his men, stopping to whisper something in Oikawa's ear, looking at you, before making his way over to you.

His hand cups your face and you nuzzle into them as he speaks, “I have to go talk to Ushijima. Oikawa said he'll watch out for you so stay here until I get back alright?”

You don't want to leave his side again, but this must be important if a guy is willing to land on what seems to be his mortal enemy's boat only to talk to Daichi. You give him a small pout before you nod, and he kisses you before turning and jogging after the mysterious Ushijima.

Oikawa throws his hands up into the air making his way over to a bar. Damn, he really has these things on every level, doesn't he?

This bar is smaller than the one in the pool room, and only has two stools, but there is a long couch next to it where his men sit down. He motions for you to take a seat at the bar as he starts pouring drinks for the other three, before offering to do the same for you. Taking him up on his offer this time he makes you both matching fruity drinks with cute umbrellas before he joins you, sitting at the barstool next to you.

Oikawa still seems to be on edge from his confrontation with Ushijima, or the lack of one, so the two of you sit in comfortable silence for a bit. You watch some of the party-goers stumble around on the lower decks, and you see women and men come up to talk to the three sitting on the couches. You pick up their names after a bit — Iwaizumi, Makki, and Mattsun, are what everyone calls them — and you eventually watch Mattsun get pulled away by the busty blonde you saw him with earlier.

Oikawa seems to pull himself out of his mental slump when he finishes his drink while you've only been sipping on yours, so you are nowhere near close to finishing it. He makes his way back over to the bar side and washes his cup before he starts making another concoction for himself.

He breaks his silence, “So, you and Daichi are pretty cute together.”

You hum at him in agreement, taking another small sip of your drink.

He continues, “He must be pretty serious about you if he's bringing you all the way out here. He's never brought a girl here before.”

Daichi and you haven't talked about your past relationships, but you aren't really surprised to hear that with what he told you earlier about wanting to be in love.

You don't want to pry, but you do want to know more. This side of Daichi’s life is still a mystery to you. 

“Not even one girl?” you ask him in all sincerity.

Oikawa smirks, glad that he caught your attention with that one. “Well, he did date a girl from our neck of the woods, if that's what you want to call us rich shits. She was hot and smart but they never really seemed to mesh.”

You give him a curious look so he continues, “She was all business, no heart. And you know Daichi, his heart is ten times too big. They just didn't work.”

You nod taking in your new information before you feel someone next to you, the man with the pink hair, Makki. 

He opens his mouth before he leans on the bar to stabilize himself, the alcohol apparently starting to kick in. His words are slurred together. “Are you two talking about Daichi? I heard some models say they would pay $10,000 to lick one of his thigh muscles!”

Oikawa pushes the drunken Makki off the bar and he stumbles back to the couch before slumping over into a woman's cleavage.

“Don't mind him,” Oikawa says, trying to bring back the lighter mood from earlier. “He doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Oh, but you do know what he’s talking about. You've been avoiding the thoughts since you landed, but now there's no holding back the dark thoughts you've been trying to suppress. 

How are you supposed to be good enough for him? For Daichi and his big heart? You've seen it so much tonight, the way he laughs and takes care of his friends, like it’s second nature, coming easier than breathing for him. He's so caring, compassionate, fun and you're just you. 

How are you supposed to compete for his attention when you are up against literal supermodels? 

You swipe at frustrated tears forming in the corner of your eyes before speaking to Oikawa, “Can you tell Daichi I’m gonna go back to the house, I'm tired. But it was nice to meet you.”

You were very much not tired. This was the most wide-awake you have felt in quite some time. Your mind races with all the things that are wrong about the situation you find yourself in. You would laugh at how being on a billionaire’s floating sex boat is what made you feel this insecure if you weren’t feeling so pathetic.

You find your way off the boat with ease, pushing past people grinding on each other to get back to the dock so you can make your way to the safety of your bedroom. 

As you get to the house’s side door you hear a familiar voice calling out your name.

Turning around, you see Daichi running up the path you just took, before he stops next to you, out of breath. 

“Did you sprint all the way up here?” you ask him.

“Yeah…” he pants out in between breaths. “I wanted ... to catch you.”

“I told Oikawa I was going to bed, it’s been a long day and —,” you try to explain but he interrupts you. 

“Are you actually tired?”

You are fidgeting with your hands, not wanting to lie to him, “Well, not exactly...”

“Come somewhere with me.” It flows out of his mouth like a demand but you can see the question in his eyes as they gleam in the darkness. You look at him quizzically before he continues, “Don't worry, no one else is gonna be there.”

Your lips turn in a small smile at his statement, “Just us?”

He takes your hands, placing them both between his own and brings them to his lips, giving your knuckles a light kiss. He keeps them there when he replies, “Yes, just us. I promise.”

You think for a minute, and then give him a hesitant yes. 

His face lights up, “Okay, let's get some supplies.”

He takes your hand, pulling you into the kitchen, grabbing the snacks you like, and a nice chilled glass of water along with two glasses before motioning to a cupboard, telling you to grab the best blankets. 

When you rub the blankets on your skin to test which ones are softer, Daichi smirks at you. 

“Cute,” he says before making his way over to you, “but make sure you grab one of the big sturdy ones too.”

He grabs a basket for all the stuff and wraps you in one of the soft blankets before heading to the elevator that was tucked away in the corner of the kitchen.

“An elevator, really?” you grin at him, your earlier frustration easing away the more time you spend with him and his smile.

“To be fair, it was installed before we bought the house, but my grandma does use it a lot.”

The two of you ride the elevator to the top floor where Daichi starts running a hand along the wall looking for something. When a secret door pops open, he laughs at your shocked expression before motioning you to follow him inside.  

A hidden staircase leads the two of you up to the roof and you take in the sight of the grounds. You can see the race track where you spent your evening, the large yacht floating below filled with people still bumping away to the music, and the stars... You swear that you've never seen the stars shine so bright before. You can see them weaving patterns in the night sky, their stories unknown to you but you enjoy their beauty nonetheless.

When you look over at Daichi, his eyes are soft as they trace your features, and you love the way his gaze makes you feel.

He leads you out to a small section of the roof near the middle of the house where he lays the thick blanket on the ground, setting out the snacks and taking off his shoes before sitting down on the blanket, patting the spot next to him as you take off your shoes and join him.

The two of you sit together, eating snacks, sharing stories for a while, staring up at the night sky together, before he turns to you with a playful glint in his eyes. 

“Let's play a game,” he proposes.

You look him over and nod, waiting for him to explain the game.

“It's easy, just ask me anything, whatever you need answered and I won't hold anything back.” He seems very confident, obviously wanting to make himself an open book after keeping this big secret from you. There are so many things you could ask, you don’t know where to start. 

You raise an eyebrow at him before asking, “What is the worst decision you've ever made?”

He rolls his head to look you in the eyes, before raising his eyebrows at you, “Going right for the hard-hitting questions then?”

“You said you'd answer Daichi, are you gonna take that back?” you say with a little smirk.

He thinks for a moment before replying. “Fine,” He says before rolling his eyes, “I let Bokuto give me a tattoo once when we were both drunk.”

He sees your quizzical eyes as you try to suppress your laughter, “It’s on my ass and it’s a smiley face. Stop laughing!”

You can't stop the laughter that comes from you as you imagine your big strong Daichi with a funky little tattoo on his ass cheek. You are wiping the tears out of your eyes as he takes his opportunity for revenge.

“Okay, my turn!” he exclaims, rubbing his hands together.

You have to stop laughing so hard so that you can retort, “Wait, wait, you never said that I would have to answer too!”

He smiles and shakes his head, laughing. “Yeah, I guess you're right. How about I get to ask you a question for every two questions you ask me? And you don't have to answer if you don't want to.”

You look at him questioningly and you are very curious as to what Daichi would want to know about you so badly he’s willing to put himself on the line first. “Sounds fun,” you smile. 

“Good, what's your second question?”

“What were you talking about with that guy, Ushijima?”

He looks uncomfortable as he tries to think about how to answer you. “Well, he mostly just saw Oikawa's boat and wanted to annoy him,” he chuckles before continuing. “But he also wanted to talk about a deal that our fathers are trying to make to secure our family ties. It's something that we both are very against.”

His answer leaves you with more questions, “What do you mean, ‘family ties’?”

He smoothly switches from his uncomfortable state and offers you a coy smile, “Do you want that to be your next question, sweetheart?”

Rolling your eyes at him you respond, “Ugh, no.”

“Okay, good because I really don't want to think about it. My turn then.” He thinks for a second before asking, “Do you think this,” he gestures into the air, “is too much for you? You know, the cars, boats, houses, money?”

You pause to gather your thoughts, staring up at the night sky again.

“I think that it's a lot to take in all at once,” you say slowly, calculating each word before it comes out of your mouth. “Especially the sex party boat,” you chuckle, “But I could get used to it.” You let the ‘for you’ hang in the air unspoken. 

He grabs your hand, looking up to the stars, “I’m glad. Okay, what's your next question?”

You don't want to ruin the mood and ask about the ‘family ties’ between his and Ushijima’s families, so instead, you choose a safer route. 

“What was it like growing up?”

He seems taken aback at first before a simple smile adorns his face, “My parents didn't love each other, not really. They had me, and then my brothers and sisters, but when times got hard they didn't support each other. They divorced pretty early in my life, I was still a kid when it happened.”

He pauses when you squeeze his hand in reassurance, but he's still smiling as he continues, “They split the companies between them, got us a nanny, and we bounced back and forth between houses every few months. I eventually just ended up as the caretaker for my siblings, making sure they didn't turn into spoiled brats.”

His laugh at the last part is so genuine it makes your heart flutter, but even so, his life has been far from perfect. “Wow, Daichi, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“It wasn't that bad, I got to have a lot of fun.” He shakes off your concerned look before he gets to ask his question, “My turn again. What was it like for you growing up?”

You explain to him about your family dynamic, watching how his eyes seem to light up when you make jokes and then fall when you mention your hardships. He squeezes your hand like he never wants to let go when you finish telling him your stories, a playful smile returning to his lips before he tells you to ask your next set of questions. 

You think of what to ask next, and your face grows hot as your brain churns up a question that you have never talked about with Daichi before. 

Your tongue stumbles as the words flow from your mouth, “Have you had sex before?”

He tries to suppress his smile, “Yeah a few times, not with anyone really special though.”

Your lips part in surprise and you find yourself asking in a breathless tone, “What’s your number?”

Daichi leans closer to you, erasing the distance between your bodies as his hands move up the skin on your exposed thigh, leaving goosebumps in their wake, “Is that your next question?”

You're breathless, the heat from his fingers distracting you from the fire brewing inside you,  “Yeah, it is.”

Daichi’s lips are so close to your own you can feel his breath on your soft skin, his voice dipping an octave when he asks, “Why, do you want to be one of them?”

You clear your mind enough to retort back at him. “Is that your next question?” you say, brushing your nose against his teasingly.

“Yes,” he answers before his breath hitches in his throat as you move your hands to his thighs.

“You first,” you giggle as his cheeks turn a bright shade of pink.

He answers as quickly as possible, his words almost too fast to hear but his tone is so low it sends shockwaves straight to your core. “It’s four, Laney in high school, this girl Kay at a party, Hime my ex and then Jackie in college a year ago. Your turn.”

Your mind clouds with his scent as you bring your hands up to his chest. Why is he so hot when talking about other people he's fucked, and why aren't you more jealous? 

“I- uh, yeah. I would love to be your number five,” you stammer out. 

He smirks at you, both of you are very obviously in need of each other's touch, more than you were getting and you can't deny how good it feels to have his undivided attention like this. Something about Daichi makes you forget your sense of self, and his touch instantly sends your heart racing.

“Do you have any more questions, sweetheart?”

You nod, biting your lip, “Are you going to kiss me, Dai?”

He nods before his eyes search yours. The stars tonight are reflected in his dark irises and you swear that you could get lost in him if you looked long enough. 

Daichi moves closer to you at an agonizingly slow pace, and you savor the electricity that is simmering in the distance. It's enough to have your heart skip a beat before he closes the gap.

His lips meet yours and it's slow at first. His touch and kiss are reminiscent of the way that stars seemingly burn for eons until they can't take any more heat and explode in a fury of passion.

You grab the collar of his shirt, bringing him impossibly closer to you, wanting to erase any remaining space between the two of you. You seemingly throw him off his balance as he almost falls on top of you. You can feel him smile into the kiss before he starts to reposition your body with his big, strong hands. 

Daichi sits back, before pulling your body into his lap, wrapping your legs around his waist before continuing the kiss. His tongue swipes at your bottom lip and you moan at the contact, allowing him access, while you snake your hands into his hair, giving his roots a slight tug to get him to kiss you harder.

More. You need more.

His hands move up your body from your hips with a slow drag of his fingertips up to your neck, cradling your head in his hands, angling your head to kiss you deeper. 

Your body burns at the contact with him, your soul reaching out for his through your kiss. Hearts melting and colliding into one supernova as your lips push and pull against each other. This heat that ignites within you that only he can seem to control, grows and grows until you feel like you're going to go insane if you don't touch him more soon. 

Grinding your hips down on him, you can feel how much he is enjoying this, and you can't help but smile when he lets out a small whine into your mouth. Kissing him harder you start to move your hips against his as he ruts up into you at the same time. The delicious friction you've been craving but it's not enough, you need more.

His mind must have melded with yours because he stops kissing you, pulling away with your bottom lip caught between his teeth until you let out a small gasp. 

“Pretty girl, tell me you want this,” he asks breathlessly.

You feel your cunt clench at his praise, needing more from him, needing everything. 

“Dai, I want all of you.”

His breath hitches in his throat, and his eyes take in the sight of you on top of him with the endless backdrop of stars above you. 

The look he's giving you melts any remaining pieces of your heart into a giant puddle, his eyes are soft and a small smile is on his lips as he whispers, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

You rest your forehead on his, looking him in the eyes and reply, “me too.”

He smiles at you bigger and you can't imagine feeling any happier than you are right now, his eyes crinkle in happiness before he buries his face into your chest, wrapping around you and hugging you with a huge amount of strength. 

You let him hold you like that for a few seconds before the need growing in your stomach becomes unbearable.

You move your hands to cradle his head, pulling him from your chest so that you can look at him. His eyes are half-lidded looking up at you in awe, like he can’t believe that you're here with him on his lap.

“Daichi,” you practically purr, “please, fuck me.”

His eyes flutter at your words, and he bites his lip. He looks like he's fighting some sort of internal battle.

Before you can register his movement, the world is tilting on its axis, and your back is now on the soft blanket. His strong arms caging you under him and your legs are around his waist as he leans over you.

You can see why he was staring up at you earlier, he looks heavenly with the night sky as his backdrop. The soft glow from the house illuminating his features and he looks beautiful and so fucking sexy. 

His eyes land on your lips and you watch as one corner of his mouth tilts up in satisfaction at your reaction to him. 

“Aw, my girl thinks I'm sexy,” he says, nuzzling his nose against yours as he taunts you.

You can't believe you said that out loud, but it's true so you nod, worried what else will come out of your mouth if you choose to open it. 

He leans down so that he is right next to your ear and he growls, “I think she’s fucking sexy too.” 

He gives your earlobe a small nip before he starts kissing your neck. You turn your head, giving him more room, and he takes full advantage of it, tracing his tongue along your pulse before moving his lips against your skin. His lips search your neck until he finds that spot that makes you gasp, and then he focuses all his attention there, biting it lightly before his tongue swipes away the sting. 

You moan for him, moving your hand to his hair, gathering some between your fingers before he sucks hard. Your hips jut up, grinding on him in pleasure, and both of you moan into each other as your clothed cunt brushes against his hard cock.

“I’ve been so fucking hard for you since our kiss earlier.” His mouth kisses down to your shoulder which is still covered by your sweater. “Do you want my mouth or my fingers?”

His hands make their way under your sweater and over the skin of your stomach, before teasing your nipples through your bra and you let out a gasp when he gives one of them a squeeze, a warning for you not answering him.

“I asked you a question, answer me,” he says in a stern voice that sends shivers down your spine and makes your eyes flutter.

Your mind tries to calculate a response, as the assault on your nipples increases, sending shocks of pleasure right to your core.

Unable to focus on anything but how his fingers feel on your skin as he trails a hand down your body, “your fingers, please” you moan out for him.

He leans back and pushes your skirt up around your hips before he starts to tease his fingers along the cloth covering your core. 

His gaze on you makes you want to cover yourself up, but when you move to close your legs, his hand grabs your knee and pushes you back open for him.

He uses both of his hands to pull your underwear down, staring at the string of slick that connects them and your soaked folds. He tosses them somewhere over his shoulder, before taking in the sight before him. The cold night air meets your warm cunt and sends shivers up your spine, but the cold is quickly replaced with the heat of Daichi’s warm hands on your thighs.

“God, you're beautiful,” he groans, as he watches your cunt flutter around nothing at the depth of his voice. Fingers moving back to your slit, teasing your folds before he moves his fingers up to circle your clit.

You let out a gasp when he finally touches you where you've been needing him. Your hips jut up in search of more contact. 

He teases his fingers through your folds before sliding one into you. You can feel how wet you are and it makes your face heat up but he feels so good inside you, you don't care.

He thrusts his finger into you a few times before adding a second, watching your face morph into pleasured bliss before focusing his attention on the way your walls are trying to suck him inside.

Your hands move to your chest, kneading the flesh there as he increases his pace, finger-fucking you until he finds the spot that makes you scream.

The pleasure in your body continues to build as he focuses all his attention on that one spot. Your nerves are all on fire and you can feel the building pressure, just waiting to be released. Daichi is making you feel so alive, his fingers working magic on your body, weaving their way into your soul and imprinting his mark there where it can never leave.

All of the muscles in your body tense and you hear Daichi say, “cum for me,” before the coil inside you snaps and your body convulses in pleasure, singing out his name in praise as he sends you to the stars. His voice and fingers still work you over, sending more pleasure into your system before you feel yourself gush around his fingers, your body almost folding in on itself as you grab at his wrist to hold him still inside of you. 

Your breath comes out in short bursts as you relax onto the blanket with him still kneeling between your legs. When you look up at him, he has the cockiest smile on his face, obviously proud of himself.

You weakly smile and nod at him, hoping that he understands that he just sent you into orbit before you stretch out your hands for him. 

He reaches out, and you pull him down on top of you. You kiss him roughly and he eagerly ruts his hips into you, moaning into your mouth when he can feel your wetness seeping through his pants.

You reach down between your bodies, unbuckling his belt and undoing the button on his pants. You try to get to his cock, but with the angle you're at and his boxers getting in the way, you can't seem to reach, and you let out a small whine. 

Daichi seems to understand, and he pushes his pants and boxers down past his thighs, giving you the perfect view of his cock. 

It makes your mouth water and you want to taste him so bad. Your hands move to stroke him, gathering the precum that leaks onto your fingers before you pop them into your mouth, lapping up the flavor eagerly.

You moan at the taste, sucking on your fingers, wishing they were his cock. You vow to yourself to take him down your throat and have him at your mercy before the end of this trip.

Daichi’s hand pumps his shaft a few times before he runs the tip through your folds, gathering your slick, before circling your clit with the head of his cock. 

You moan at how thick and heavy he feels against your soft folds. “Please Dai. I need you so bad, please, fuck me.”

He lets out a groan. “When you ask so nicely, how can I say no?”

He lets go of his cock, and moves his hands up to hold yours, interlocking your fingers together before his lips connect to yours in a hungry kiss. He holds eye contact with you as he slowly moves his hips into position as the head of his cock slowly presses into you.

You watch him bite his lip as he fights the urge to buck into you, his half-lidded eyes concentrating on your face, watching your mouth form into a beautiful ‘o’ and your eyes flutter as he pushes more of himself inside you. 

When his hips are flush against yours, he stills, wanting to give you time to get used to his girth. He can't help but savor the way your walls are squeezing him and sucking him into you. You give him a slow nod before he starts moving again, slowly pulling out of you and before pushing back in with more power.

You can't help but dig your nails into the back of his hands, forming crescent-shaped indents. The way his cock hits all of the spots inside of you perfectly has you questioning if this is a dream, but the way he sounds and looks as he moves above you is something so hot that your brain could never imagine it this perfectly.

His lips scatter kisses along your jaw until he's at your neck again, savoring the feel of your still tender flesh against his tongue. He’s taking his time focusing on leaving his mark at the top of your collarbone, sucking and nipping at your skin.

His head falls to your shoulder and his breath turns uneven as he pants out, “if you keep squeezing me like that I'm not gonna last,” in between thrusts.

You aren't going to last either, the coil in your stomach is already dangerously close to snapping again.

“Da-Daddy,” you moan, completely lost in your pleasure.

He pauses above you with his cock still fully sheathed in your dripping cunt, his head snapping up off your shoulder to look into your eyes, his brow furrowing. “What did you just call me?”

It takes a second for your mind to process what you just said. His hips being completely still as his cock continues to stretch you is not helping your brain processes. 

And then it hits you, why did you just say that, oh no. “I’m sorry it slipped out — I’m so —” you panic, stopping when you realize he is shaking his head with a gleam in his eyes you haven’t seen before.

Daichi angles his hips before thrusting into you at an even harder and rougher pace. “Say it again,” he commands, each word accentuated by a heavy thrust.

You bite your lip as the pleasure takes over you once again as he pounds into you. The sheer strength he has is evident in the power behind each thrust.

You can't help yourself when you start babbling out a mixture of his name and new nickname, the two words becoming interchangeable on your tongue and streaming together. 

Daichi releases your hands so that he can get a better grip on your hips, pounding into you without abandon. His eyes go dark as he loses himself in the feeling of your cunt, so soft and pliant and warm all around him. All his.

He can feel you tensing around him, squeezing his soul out of his body as his cock begs for release.

He speaks through his teeth as his whole body is clenching, hold out his orgasm for you, "Fucking cum on my cock baby girl. I need to feel it."

He lets out a primal growl as you feel the pressure inside you release as your pussy milks his cock. Your orgasm crashing through you, forcing you to grip onto his strong shoulders, leaving dark circles that will eventually turn into bruises into his perfect skin. 

You cry out for him, chanting his name as your vision clouds over, and you swear you can see the universe unfolding and refolding in on itself as your body is propelled through time and space.

Your mind is hazy as your muscles twitch. Daichi is still pounding into you, babbling about how much of a good girl you are and how much he's going to fill you up, claim you as his. 

Your body is still shaking with pleasure when you feel Daichi’s thrusts start to waver, your pulsating walls still pulling him even deeper until he lets out a moan of your name above you. His eyes lock with yours as he spills his cum inside you, filling you up completely until it seeps out around his cock.

You both are panting as Daichi leans down to kiss you, his soft lips a stark contrast to the pounding your cunt just received. 

You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling his weight on top of you and keeping him sheathed inside you. 

The stars shine down on you in their infinite beauty and you wish you could stay in this moment forever with him, breathing in his scent, the two of your souls merged into one, with your breathing in sync. All you need is him, you think, only him and you could be happy forever.

Daichi wakes up to the sound of his phone buzzing on the nightstand. He looks down at your sleeping form on his chest and debates on whether or not he should move you to turn the assault of buzzing off. 

When his phone quiets down, he lets out a small sigh of relief.

After last night on the roof, the two of you managed to sneak to his room without anyone seeing you. Kuroo and Bokuto almost caught the two of you, but with women on each of their arms, they were a little too preoccupied trying to navigate through the mansion to pay attention to you and Daichi hiding in the shadows, giggling at their antics. 

After the two of you got cleaned up, you both got comfortable under the covers, talking the night away, exchanging small kisses and playful jabs before you fell asleep on his chest.

He looks back down at you, and you look so cute sleeping in one of his shirts, the little bit of drool pooling on his chest is adorable and he wishes his phone was closer so he could take a photo.

The incessant buzzing starts again and he lets out a small curse. 

Whoever is calling him must really need him. He takes a deep breath, inhaling your shampoo before he very slowly moves your sleeping body off him.

He grabs his phone off the nightstand before heading to the bathroom, not wanting to disturb your sleep with whatever this phone call is.

Finally looking down at the caller ID, he wishes he would have just thrown his phone out the window but nevertheless, he answers after letting out a big sigh. 

“Dad, what do you need?”

His father talks to him through the phone before Daichi has heard enough. He says one phrase to his dad before hanging up the phone and turning his phone off and slamming it on the counter.

“Drop it, I am not meeting with Hime.”

the blonde sitting on issei’s lap? that was me uwu

who wants a part 2? i couldnt finish the other half in time for the deadline🙏 please forgive me 

send me an ask to be added to my tag list

@matchamintmochi @unlimitedpastapass @eijirosriot @strawbub @thathoneybee3​

[gryffindors-weasley]

Starlit Confession

Young!Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: On a camping trip tradition, your friends have got other plans neither you or Sirius are aware of.

Requested by @expelliarmusmyass : “can i request a classic enemies to lovers "there's only one bed" sirius x reader where all the marauders (+lily!) have a sleepover or camping trip of some sorts and lily and remus finally decide they need to get reader and sirius already and plan to get them to sleep in the same room/bed/tent ? thanks !!”

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: little bit of jealousy, mutual pining, fluff, kissing

A/N: Thank you for my first Sirius request!! I absolutely loved everything about it, I hope you enjoy!

July 1979

The breeze swept coolly across your face against the warm summer sun as you stuck your hand outside the window, the air gliding over the back of it. You were headed to the stretch of woods that you’ve all come to know so well, something that was highly anticipated the moment the summer season had begun. Camping. It was something you and your friends had made into tradition without much discussion against it for the last three years. Lily had saved up for the very Volkswagen bus you’d been sitting in, knowing for a fact she’d get more use out of it than a simple small car; she knew her four closest friends were in it for the long haul and that was something that would always remain true.

It was mostly a golden yellow color, near orange, its roof white with a matching tire cover on the front of it between two round headlights. It was adorable, it was perfect, and most importantly it was big enough to fit a boisterous group of friends that surely needed the space. It’d already housed jovial memories that would be cherished for years to come.

You’d each packed up a bag or two, tossed them in the back and set off to the ever familiar place the five of you had found to be the perfect spot. A clearing amongst the woods, a place not far from the waters edge. It looked near enchanting when sunbeams filter through old yet thriving trees, as much as it could be for being a place without the very magic you’ve known all your life. It was perhaps your favorite tradition out of all others that had been created, one that you never failed to look forward to. No matter what’s been going on with any of you, traditions were never missed or forgotten. That was one thing that was constant and one thing would never change.

Another thing that had been just the same was the constant need for Sirius Black to get under your skin. You’d known him ever since you both were fourteen years old, and every day since then had been a battle of who’d been more witty and your three best friends had yet to determine who had been the rightful owner of that title. You were always bickering about something or another, always tossing narrowed stares and scrunched noses, grumbling under breaths and eye rolls. Even despite that, James, Remus and Lily especially had been convinced that there were feelings amongst it all. It hadn’t been too terribly hard for them to jump to that conclusion. They had their suspicions with each and every look Sirius had found himself giving you when your attention was fixed elsewhere. At the very same look you’d cast upon him when he wasn’t looking. They were absent minded actions to you both, and that was all the more reason for them to think there was something there.

It drove the tight knit group absolutely mad to see their two dearest friends love each other without even knowing of that very fact—James found himself far too close on multiple occasions to flat out complaining of the sheer obliviousness between you two. To simply tell them how blind the two of you must be. But each and every time he’d nearly done so it was promptly stopped by a stern Lily Evans who was not to be defied. They felt another day of this was simply not an option, too painful to watch a second more.

Even now, as you sat in the back with the raven haired wizard, the seating arrangement proved to make for an interesting trip. There was a flurry of jests and quips to match them; it was inevitable when he’d taken the seat right next to you, Remus on his other side. It’d been something entirely intentional on Lupin’s part, though the bickering was something to be expected.

First it had been over who was taking up too much of whose space, something accompanied by a lighthearted series of shoves and stifled laughter when you looked away in hopes the other wouldn’t see it. Then it had been when he’d changed the radio from your favorite song to his with a simple twitch of his fingers, a back and forth battle of rock and ABBA that nearly broke the radio, one that nearly drove your friends insane.

But now, Sirius had found himself staring as he so often does, at the way you waved your hand with the breeze, the way said breeze sifted through your hair and the way you sang along with James to the very same ABBA song that’d been on repeat for the past fifteen minutes. He’d reckon your voice far better than that of the brunette behind the wheel. He doesn’t know just why he always finds himself settling his attention upon you every moment he gets the chance. Or maybe he does and just refuses to admit the reasons for it. But there was something about you, there was always something about you to be admired. You were utterly enamoring even when you’ve got your brows scrunched over something entirely because of him. They never seem to stay furrowed for long.

“If you take a picture, it just might last longer,” you suggest with a raised brow and a smile indicative of your teasing, effectively pulling him from his thoughts.

“I’m sorry, it’s just you’ve got a bug in your hair,” he counters quickly, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.

Your eyes are quick to widen slightly as your hand rises to your head in mild panic, combing your fingers through your hair in a hurry. His laughter was a telltale sign of his deception, that ever so familiar frown pulling down your lips as you swat at his shoulder. “Sirius Black, you’re a pain!”

His laughter was immediate as he caught your wrist from swatting him once more, “I’m not lying! There is something in your hair.”

He releases your arm in favor of reaching upwards, the tips of his fingers pinching the delicate flower petal tangled within your hair. Your words fell silent as his fingertips traveled down to the very end of your hair, a gentle action that had your cheeks staining what must have been an obvious pink as you found yourself looking at the smile on his lips. One that was soft and lopsided, one that grew as he held up the small pink petal before tilting his head at you. You hadn’t even realized you’d been holding your breath until that moment, hadn’t realized the new found quiet had drawn everyone’s attention.

“Told you so,” he states confidently, blowing away the petal and leaving it to flutter to your feet.

You squinted at him and mimicked his words to quickly move on from dwelling on your burning cheeks, something that brought a different kind of smile to his face mere seconds before you’d ruffled his own hair in retaliation.

“I meant what I said,” you remind him, trying to fight your grin as you watch tangled strands of black hair fall back against his cheeks once more.

“I am so terribly hurt,” he scoffs, placing a hand over his heart in a display of faux offense.

In that moment you settle for shaking your head, biting the inside of your cheek in a pitiful attempt to conceal your smile. A smile so awfully contagious he found himself mirroring it, having lingered on his lips even when you’d looked away from him in favor of looking out of the window. In doing so, you missed the way James had been glancing at you both in the rear view, at the way he shared a knowing grin with Lily, who’d then done so with Remus. It was a moment missed by you both, how could it not be with the way your thoughts had entirely been about each other unbeknownst to you.

It’d been quiet after that, save for the radio and James’ occasional startling outburst of song should a part come on that he’s fond of. It’d been peaceful and upbeat as Sirius crossed his arms over his chest, trying desperately not to think of how you’d made his stomach twist and flutter with butterflies. It was nothing, that’s what he told himself.

—

The place was just as beautiful and just the same as you’d left it the previous year, the sun still beaming through tall trees and the birds still chirping just as contently as they always do. Upon closer inspection, your initials had been carved in the very same tree, untouched since the five of you had left your mark on it the very first time you found it. Of course, it’d become weathered over time, moss having flourished over the bark, but the engraved letters remain regardless of that very fact.

The fire pit that James and Sirius had made still sat in the center of it all, it’s crumbled stones and charred logs and sticks sitting in a heap within it, waiting to be lit once more. Even the logs circling around it to serve as seats had still sat untouched by anyone else, unmoved from how they were left the previous trip out there.

It was exciting to finally be back there, to finally be out of the car in a place you longed to see again. All was well, except one thing.

“That is absolutely not happening,” you state matter of factly, the twigs snapping beneath your foot as you frown at Lily before narrowing your eyes at Sirius. One look at his smile, just one look, and you return your displeased gaze to the two in question, James making no effort to stifle his laughter at the situation. “No way, that is ridiculous!”

“Lupin must have forgotten to pack a third, Y/n/n,” Lily sympathizes with the softest of frowns to accompany her words, though you hadn’t missed the grin she’d tossed her friend’s way as he scratched the back of his neck and fought his own. “I’m sorry!”

“Then I’ll sleep in the bus with Remus,” you state quickly with a raised brow, crossing your arms over your chest stubbornly as you squint at Sirius’ very obvious grumbling behind you. His reasons for doing it were entirely unknown to you.

“C’mon, Y/n. Pad’s won’t bite,” James chimes in with a laugh, earning a swat to the back of the head from Lily before he protests her actions in return, shrugging his shoulders and rubbing his head. “Not very hard, at least.”

You purse your lips at the brunette and glared, biting the inside of your cheek to hide your smile. A smile that quickly faded as you glanced over your shoulder at the little tent that hadn’t stood very tall on the other side of the fire pit. Your heart leapt and raced within your chest at the thought of being so close, lips tugging downward as you looked back at them with a huff.

“I would say I can’t believe you, but I can,” you groan, brushing past them to get to the lake before they could become aware of your smile.

—

The last traces of sunshine were warm against your skin as you sat along the water’s edge with Lily, taking a moment to yourselves away from the utter chaos that came with the trio in the water. It was still a bit too cold to swim in but that’d never stop them from doing just that. Despite the chill that ran through you from it, everything around you had been exactly how it’s always been.

Wildflowers had bloomed just about everywhere you could imagine amongst patches of green and overgrown grass, framing the lake in varying hues of blues, yellows, purples, and pinks. When you sat at just the right angle, the reflection of the sky over the water had been absolutely wondrous, painting the water orange and pink. The ongoing breeze had been sifting through the leaves in the trees, leaving some to fall to the ground in its wake.

It was absolutely perfect, and you couldn’t think of just anywhere else you’d rather be in that moment than right where you are. You wouldn’t want to be there with anyone else.

“I think this is our best trip yet,” Lily states, leaning back on her palms as she tips her head back, allowing the sun to sweep across her skin.

“I think so too,” you sigh, letting your eyes fall closed as you hear another aguamenti spell used, followed by a bout of laughter that had a smile pulling at your lips at the sound. Her absence in conversation was sure a sign something was on her mind. It always was without fail.

She hadn’t left you to sit and wonder for too long before she spoke up.

“What do you think about Sirius?” There it is.

Your eyes squeeze shut at the question you anticipated, at the one you hadn’t expected her to wait so long in asked you. A soft huff left your lips as you opened your eyes, brows furrowing as she gave you an expectant look.

“Why do you ask?” You say, the corner of your mouth quirking up at her nosiness.

She shrugs her shoulders as she sits up more, heaps of red hair falling to splay against her back. “Just wondering.”

Her smirk was more than obvious as she looked at you, her smile widening. Lily and Remus had kept an eye on you both for quite a while, they knew that something had been there, it wasn’t that hard for them to figure out. Even if you hadn’t been aware of your own foolish love yourself, they’d certainly picked up on it. Because after every witty remark and every scoff and glare, there was always a smile to follow. After every frown and and nose scrunch as one of you stuck their tongue out at the other, there was always a lingering stare just moments after. Anyone could see that, anyone but to two involved that are far too stubborn and argumentative to realize that.

“Well?” She continues.

“Well what?” You ask, pulling your knees to your chest as you look at her.

“You can’t possibly have nothing to say about him, not after all the banter you do. What do you think of him?” She repeats.

You roll your eyes as you avert your gaze from her, resting your chin on your knees as you look ahead. You mull over your words as a laugh leaves your lips, your head shaking slightly as your eyes fall upon him. He’s got strands of wet black hair stuck to his face, cheeks reddened ever so slightly from the combined heat of the summer sun and the chilliness of the water. His smile was beaming and bright as he tips his head back and laughs at something James had said.

“He’s a pain, Lily,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek to hide your smile. “He’s a pain.”

She laughed at your words, though she took note of the smile that’d been on your lips as she followed your gaze to the very one in question. She hadn’t failed to notice the smile he had returned to you after having done a double take, an action that was far less subtle than he’d hoped. He couldn’t help it though. Not with the way you’ve got flowers tucked in your hair and the way the sunshine made you glow. But when he found himself looking for what he felt was far too long he’d stuck his tongue out at you, wiggling his fingers before you rolled your eyes.

“Oh really?” She inquires, her smile evident in her voice, laughing when you narrow your eyes only briefly.

You pluck a flower from the ground and hold it under your nose for a moment, twirling its stem as it sat pinched between your fingers. You shook your head once more.

“Yes, really.”

—

The tent was rather average, having danced dangerously on the edge being too small. Every gust of wind, no matter how gentle, had puffed against its very walls, rattling the zippers and the flap of the door until you’d finally closed it completely. You knew for a fact your friends had to have done this on purpose, at this point there was no way they couldn’t have judged by the smiles they’d done a terrible job at hiding.

It was becoming increasingly obvious when you sat around the campfire that evening when Lily sat with James, and when Remus managed to take up the entirety of the log he’d claimed his own. It left you no other option than to sit next to Sirius, his chin in his palm as he hid his taunting smile behind his fingers.

You could tell by the way their gaze fell upon the two of you more often than not, and by the way James had displayed his emotions a little too obviously each and every time Lily had whispered something undoubtedly about the two of you in his ear. By the very way that no matter how much your group of friends could talk and bounce from topic to topic with ease, the conversation would always, without fail wind up circling back to the two of you. You were becoming painfully aware of the plan made by none other than Lily and Remus.

You should have known they’d do something like this; they’ve done it at the spring ball in sixth year. It was the very first time Hogwarts had done something like that, it was magnificent. However, you thought your date had stood you up as you sat with Lily and Remus, the mysterious date they’d set you up with. Said date had finally showed up by the side of James, and your eyes nearly rolled to the back of your head upon realizing just who they’d set you up with. You’d frowned as you danced with him, accompanied by a few laughs when he twirled you, accompanied by a few eye rolls when he said something witty. The night had been far better than it started, but you hadn’t spoken of it since.

They’d done it at Hogsmeade. They’d told everyone to meet at the Three Broomsticks, having diligently reminded everyone to do so. You and Sirius had been the first ones there, having sat awkwardly across from each other as you sipped your butterbeer. It was quiet until the two of you began to bicker over something too trivial to remember, one smiling when the other wasn’t looking. It took about thirty minutes for you to realize that the rest of the group hadn’t been coming, thirty minutes with Sirius Black.

So yes, you should have known better than to think that they wouldn’t do something like this again.

“Sirius?” His only response is a hum in that moment, a rather dismal one at that. “How do you suppose I’ll get any sleep if you keep huffing and puffing? It’s rather hard to ignore, you know.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” he quips, though you could hear the very smile in his words even without seeing him.

You shake your head at that with a huff of your own, but he could see the shake of your shoulders from your stifled laughter that you had fought so hard to keep at bay. No, he most certainly could not know that he’d been making you laugh, that would be absolutely terrible to your cause for he wouldn’t forget that he’d been able to do something other than make you grumble.

It was quiet for a few moments after that, nothing but the crickets singing just outside the little tent and the whisper of the wind in the trees. He hadn’t huffed anymore after that, and you quickly came to realize that it was in fact not the cause of your restlessness, though a part of you already knew that. You knew as you lay in that tent that you hadn’t hated his company, not in the slightest as much as your protests would beg to differ otherwise on the matter.

“Would you really rather spend the night with him than me right now? Remus?” He asks quietly, curious after a little while, and you didn’t miss the small bit of offense in his tone. It was the most subtle of indicators that he’d been jealous. Not terribly so, but it was enough to have your words stick in his mind for a few lingering moments longer than it should. He found himself to be just a little offended, because while he hadn’t expected this to be the sleeping arrangements, he’d hoped maybe you wouldn’t dread it as much as you seemed to have.

“In this particular moment, yes,” you quip softly, a smile beginning to tug at the corners of your mouth when you hear his displeased huff. “I might even sleep outside with the bears should you continue being jealous.”

“That is not happening,” he says, quick to add more once he realizes just what you’ve said. “And I am not jealous.”

As much as you two may have bickered near incessantly, as much as it may have seemed as though you couldn’t stand each other, he didn’t want you to do such a thing. It was dangerous after all. He knows a flimsy tent would do little to protect you, he knows you’re more than capable with magic, but he’d much rather prefer you weren’t out of his sight. It was safer that way.

“Who’s to say?”

Your back remains to him as you close your eyes briefly, your grin having gone unseen. It’d always been your personal mission to get under his skin ever since he was just a boy who had made it a point to get under yours, and now that he was nearly twenty your goals were no different. Maybe they weren’t as childish and filled with a certain annoyance as they once had been in the very beginning, but the habit was still very much there.

“Y/n/n, could you be serious just once in your life?” He asks.

“You know,” you start, rolling over to lay on your other side. Your breath hitched upon realizing your closeness, his face mere inches from your own and you nearly lose your train of thought as he’d done the same. But you quickly gathered yourself as you swallowed thickly, a smile gracing your lips. “I don’t believe I could if I tried.”

He rolled his eyes as he moved to lay in his back once more, his smile bright as his hair splays across his pillow and you follow suit. Your heart had still been beating wildly in your chest at the closeness you’d shared just seconds earlier, cheeks flushed a soft shade of crimson as you dare not look over at him. He supposed he’s grateful for that because he’s too caught up in looking at you, that same smile on his lips that he knows shouldn’t be there. One look at him and you’d have days, even weeks worth of material to tease him with. But he can’t help it.

He also can’t help it when he laughs, his eyes squeezing shut. “What is it?”

He shakes his head as he continues, your own curious smile forming in your lips as you turn your head and look at him. “I’ve got that bloody ABBA song stuck in my head.”

Your smile widens and a giggle falls past your lips as you return your gaze to the sky, the mingled laughter between the two of you having been something not uncommon as of late. “Well I’ve got that dreaded AC/DC song stuck in mine.”

“It is not dreaded, it’s a classic,” he defends, scoffing lightly as a lingering chuckle accompanies his words.

“And so is mine,” you counter, just as much defense in your voice as he held in his.

“That is absolutely false.”

“It is absolutely not.”

He responded with a heaving sigh, a smile on his lips despite it but he let you win the argument this time because surely there would be more. There would always be more when the two of you were together, but he feels as though he can hardly count on one hand the amount of times you had argued over something serious.

Your shared laughter had since died down to silence amongst everything else, leaving you know choice but to think of how close the two of you were. To think of the fact that never in a million years did you believe you’d ever share a tent with each other. You will admit, only to yourself, that you hadn’t hated it as much as he may have thought. A part of you had found yourself thinking that maybe you’d even miss him had you not been less than a foot away. You thought that a lot lately, unbeknownst to everyone else, or so you thought.

It was then, as you lay beneath the stars in a tent you’d felt was far too small to house two, that you felt his knuckles brush against your own, the very tips of his fingers soon to follow it. The simple touch felt far more electrifying than you had cared to admit to, especially for a simple accident caused from the sheer closeness of your proximity. To be quite honest, you felt rather foolish with the way your heart had skipped a beat and fluttered relentlessly within your chest.

And it was then that you risk a glance to your left the same way he had risked one to his right, eyes meeting in a gaze that’d been shared for the very same reason. You both looked away from the other almost immediately, smiles pulling at your lips as you focus your attention on the sky. No attempts had been made to move.

“Something funny, Y/n/n?” He asks, humor in his tone that only made you smile more than you felt you should have been.

“Yeah,” you start, a soft laugh leaving your lips as your eyes flutter closed. “Are you desperate to hold my hand?”

The laughter he exhaled was immediate at your words, but not out of mocking. “Love, if I wanted to hold your hand I wouldn’t waste my time brushing my fingers over yours.”

That most certainly was a lie, it was absolutely false. As brave as Sirius Black can be, as bold as he always was, he was nervous to hold your hand. He felt as though he was tempting fate already by the mere nudge of his hand over yours. To him, the thought of being in love was both exhilarating and terrifying all the same. To care deeply for someone was in his nature despite his hardships, though he’ll never ever admit it aloud. He didn’t need to.

Sirius could and would risk his life for his friends without a drop of hesitation, he always would. But the idea of slipping his hand in yours, of telling you just how he felt—it was a feat that proved to be difficult. You, you were terrifyingly wonderful and breathtakingly beautiful. You always have a quip to counter his wit, and you would never hesitate to cast a harmless jinx upon him.

He hadn’t realized just how much he wanted to tell you until that very moment, that very day for that matter. With the way you sung that song he swears he dreads every time it plays on the radio. With the way you smiled at him, your cheeks stained a rosy pink when you told him he was a pain. Or the way you’d been beaming as you tucked flowers in your hair with Lily by the lake. He hasn’t known how he made it quite this far without telling you, it was beyond him how he did it.

You weren’t just the girl he’d bicker lightheartedly with on a daily basis over the most trivial of things, always ending in scoffs and eye rolls and narrowed gazes that were more humorous than intended. You weren’t just the one who’d turn his hair every shade of the rainbow given the chance, who could outdo him on the scale of stubborn bravery. You were the girl he found himself following wherever you went, who he found himself thinking of far more often than he told himself he should.

He’s pulled from his thoughts at your soft laughter, turning to lay on his side once more. Before he could ask the reasoning behind it you’d already reached up, your fingers brushing through his hair to grab the lone petal tucked pretty and yellow amongst the strands of black. His gaze never left you, gray and admiring as you tucked his hair behind his ear, the tips of your fingers lingering for just a moment before you pulled them away.

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile, his breath fanning warmly over your lips. “Can I kiss you?”

The question was soft yet confident, having had enough of the question merely sitting at the edge of his tongue for days, weeks, months on end. It’d made your heart skip a beat, and you were nearly unsure if you’d heard him correctly. Because Sirius Black, the boy who’d never failed to get under your skin, who never failed to make you roll your eyes or purse your lips, the one you’d seemingly loved all along was asking to kiss you.

The grin on your lips was nothing short of an indication that your words would be that of something jesting. “It depends.”

“Do tell, on what?” He inquires, the glow of the moon illuminating the mischief dancing in your eyes.

You moved to prop yourself up on your elbow, your grin widening a fraction the more you look at him. “Just how long has it been that you’ve wanted to ask me that?”

“Who’s to say I’ve ever given it thought before this very moment?” He counters, though he knows he has a million times. You roll your eyes then, tipping your head back only momentarily before looking at him again.

“Could you be serious just once in your life?” You ask, copying his earlier words.

“I don’t believe I could if I tried.”

You shook your head as your hand settled on his cheek, quieting his further mocking as you pressed your lips on his. His laughter sounded softly against your lips, soon dissolving in favor of finally kissing you, of finally doing just what he’d longed to do for an amount of time he’s far too prideful to admit. He found himself smiling when your hair brushed against his skin, at the feel of your nose nudging his own and your fingertips just barely tangling in his hair.

His hand came up to rest over your own, the action soft and distracted as you parted from him only briefly. Brief enough for you to smile against his lips, for your giddy laughter to puff softly against his skin. Fleeting before he kissed you again—once, twice, three times more.

You pulled away completely then, his hand falling from yours as you swipe the pad of your thumb across the dimple in his chin, your cheeks flushed and his lips kiss swollen and pink. He followed after you for just one more, gray eyes sparkling and smile blissful as you lay back on your side.

“I love you,” he murmurs, “bloody hell I do.”

“Sirius Black,” you say, taking your lip between your teeth as you looked at him. “I love you too.”

With that he tugged your hand gently, pulling you back to his lips in a soft yet lingering kiss, one that made your heart pound and another bout of butterflies to flutter in your stomach as he held your hand to his chest. He’d waited too long to ask you just that, wasted too much time bickering over this, that, and the next thing.

“Our friends will never let us hear the end of this, you know,” he murmurs, forehead resting on yours. “They’ll go on for weeks, love.”

“Let them.”

—

Tags: @vogueweasley @ch0colatefr0gs @anchoeritic @amourtentiaa @hahee154hq @snitches-at-dawn @dracosathenaeum @harrysweasleys @awritingtree @writeroutoftime

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