#hilarious anecdote about the fic part

[dreamingofep]

You know how Elvis would “smoke” those cigarettes but not really smoke them because he said we just wanted something to do with his hands/mouth? It got me thinking about how much Elvis seemed to have an oral fixation as you can always see him putting things in his mouth (fingers and body parts included). I just thought this was funny because I am now imagining vampire Elvis using cigarettes as a way to calm his need to suck blood. Like he’s trying to cut back sucking on necks by instead sucking on cigarettes 😆 This was just a funny little thought I had that I thought you would appreciate lol

Anon you just made my whole day 😂 Oh my god I can’t stop laughing this is hilarious! This was very unexpected but I love it! I love this anecdote! I think that’s a great way to look at it of why he smokes as a vampire. I have written some parts where he is smoking a cigar because, 1.) he looks so hot when he’s smoking, dear god! [I believe the first time I mentioned he smoked a cigar in the fic was where he was sitting there naked right after some intense love making 🫠] But 2.) I chose to make him do that because I thought it would remind him of his human side and make him feel like less a monster. But the way of thinking that he does it to distract himself from feeding! Oh this is fantastic 🤭 Thank you for sharing your thoughts about vampire Elvis with me! He never fails to make us✨think✨huh?😏😮‍💨

[lunar-years]

hi! love your blog. I was wondering if you have any fic recs? I’m especially looking for royjamiekeely but I’m flexible :) thank you!!

Hi! I have read a lot of the R/J/K tag, and gosh, there is seriously so much incredible stuff in there. It sort of depends on what kind of vibe you're going for, but here are a few* to get you started.

Note: many of these are rated M or E, so please check the actual warnings and ratings and summaries before reading :)

Start with author inlovewithnight and literally just read everything they've ever written, it is all completely brilliant and there is something for all tastes. My personal favorites are the blood in my mouth, I wish it was mine and they threw me a whirlwind and I spat back the sea, but do be aware those are definitely darker/heavier fics and heed the tags!!! (the first has quite bit of noncon [not between RJK] and the second involves physical abuse initiated by James Sr.). For a lighter option I recommend Follow the Hearts and You Can't Go Wrong which is a lovely future R/J/K fic about the end of Jamie's career

from there move along to @valonia47 (Ao3) and @belmottetower (Ao3) and Mixtape Star (Ao3) and also read everything they've written :) I wanted to single out favorites for you but how could I when it's all so very good?

our bodies touch and the angels cry by lennynards: R/J/K that starts out with Roy & Jamie having to stay within 10 feet of each other at all times after both accidentally drinking a weird tea Jane brewed up for Beard. Yes it sounds like a completely ridiculous premise but it is one of my favorite RJK fics ever, 12/10

In Colour series by lyricl: this one feels so very true to canon and it just gets them all so right, I don't know how else to describe it. It's not a complete series though and nobody has actually gotten together as of yet, fyi. They're all far too busy having a lot of complex (& horny) feelings about each other from afar.

This might be a long shot that's not quite what you're looking for but, For Now series by Wild Wren. It's actually mostly a Roy/Keeley series, and I started reading it on a whim because I literally ran out of new things to read in the R/J/K and Jamie tags at one point, lol. Then it ended up being some of my favorite fanfic of all time. It's Roy/Keeley but like, in a not normative and also very kinky way that does a great deep dive into their respective ~issues~. Also Wild Wren had them break up even before the show had them break up, and in a much better and far more detailed way, just saying!! Part 4 is pre-ot3 in the messiest possible way. What a brilliant series, I cannot recommend it enough.

Outgrow the shoes of expectations by @destinationtoast : Brilliant on the ot3 side of it and even better on the character study of each individual within the ot3. Sooo so good. I think about it all the time.

another box with a question mark by irishmizzy: going to be completely honest when I say I don't fully remember this one, but I do know it was very funny and excellent and it is also rated T which makes it different from a lot of the others on my list, so i wanted to include!! It is in my bookmarks and I'm going to be rereading it asap now :)

something that's so close by @ohlafraise : s3 outtake that is very funny and perfect and lovely and also happens to be rated T :) also check out one night upon the shore by the same author. It's Jamie/Keeley, but don't worry Roy's there in spirit. You'll see. That one is very much not T though, lol

by any other name by renecdote: Jamie accidentally wears a Kent jersey instead of his own jersey on the pitch and the internet thinks they're dating (spoiler: they are dating). Who cares if it's not realistic because it's so hilarious and wonderful, amen.

Oh Lord, You've Never Been so in Love by asexual-fandom-queen. I literally just read this one, it's hot off the presses and it is so sexy and tender and also just gets these three so very right. the perfect anecdote to the end of s3.

Anddd of course I have to self promo a little and recommend you Waterfalls (between seasons 1&2 canon divergence), The Full Picture (s3: Jamie attempting to parent-trap RoyKeeley while avoiding his feelings for both of them) and my new one Confetti (ot3 fluff where they celebrate Phoebe's favorite holidays)

*I said I'd give a few and then proceeded to be really long about it, but like, what else is new? For that reason I've tried to stick to strictly R/J/K fics, but if you'd like Roy/Jamie or gen fic/Jamie fic recs also let me know because I could totally make a whole separate post about those, lol.

[pancho-pinto]

Messages In Paper Boats

Fic based on this MASTERPIECE by @150en wrote this like a month ago and forgot to put it on tumblr. i think the tumblr people will like it too

Fandom: 3rd Life Words: 2,362 Rating: General Warnings: No Warnings Relationships: Etho/Joel, Grian & Joel Additional Tags: Modern Setting, Mentions of Everyone/Joel, Mentions of drinking, Slice of Life Summary: It's another week, another meet-up. It goes the same way it always does, of course. But the special drama of today is Grian being nosy in Joel's business. Hey, are those wedding bells? Joel says no, but no one can be sure.

Fic under cut

It's a random Tuesday when everyone gathers. The only day their schedules aligned, only for a couple hours though because Pearl has her part-time security job at seven while Gem and Bdubs have some botany-related assignment to finish—they rest, luckily, couple spare the couple hours of freedom. Between jobs and college work, Tuesday has to do, even if it means no drinking and absolutely no chance to do anything stupid.

As they talk loudly over greasy pizza and fizzing drinks, it's hard to ignore how much they've all changed. They are older now, whining and scoffing about college work, about part-times jobs and taxes, about annoying coworkers and pesky roommates (even if said roommate is sitting just two seats away), and more importantly, this is a chance for them to let out steam.

Free to complain and whine, for a couple hours. Which, all things considered, is a little fun and relieving as they group up and shit-talk everything.

The day reaches a point where they move on, having let out enough steam for at least another week before their meet-up again. It's a slippery slope, really, because Jimmy is the first to bring an anecdote about their past, then Grian is teasingly bringing another embarrassing anecdote of Jimmy's, and then it unravels from there.

The same dance and song. Their highschool days, their primary and kindergarten days. Old crushes, old relationships. Their time back at home, when the worst thing that could happen to them was having their phones taken at home. Between laughs, they bring up their sneak-outs late at night, hanging about at the park until early morning before sneaking back in with the tips of their noses and ears frozen.

Joel laughs, a little meanly, at the time Grian and got caught making out with Mumbo under the bleaches, and Grian glares at him, flustered.

"Oh, yeah, you of all people laugh."

Joel offers a smirk as the group falls silent, like scavengers watching a fight, ready to have their fill of drama. He kicks his legs on the edge of the table, ignoring the side-eyes and gasps despite the pizzas being devoured a while ago.

"Of course I laugh, it's hilarious." He taunts, and Grian's eyes darken. As he waits for Grian's response, he wipes his hands on a tissue, crumpling it then tossing it to Grian's head, whooping when it hits him dead-center in the forehead.

Impulse puts a hand on Grian's chest to keep him from jumping up, and Joel almost looks disappointed at that. After a breath, though, Grian finally replies.

"Let's talk about your relationships, why don't we?" Grian smiles, faux friendliness in this lips. Joel knows what Grian is about to bring up—despite not wanting to talk about it, he let's it happen because he kinda deserves it. He will retaliate later anyways, one way or another. They know where the other lives after all.

"Which one?" Cleo tacks in, laughing into the edge of her paper cup.

"Good question," Grian nods, pressing his index to his chin in thought. He makes a show to look around the group, everyone seemingly interested. It's nearly the end of their time together, with the trio who needs to leave first glance at the time on their phones. Grian spares a glance at the clock on the wall too, but continues regardless. "What about Lizzie? Longest, healthiest relationship you've had yet didn't work out. How about Jimmy? Your 'best bud', no homo there. Your drunk hook-ups with Impulse, Skizz and Scar? Those seven minutes in heaven with Martyn? I'm surprised nothing's happened with BigB and Scott yet—"

"Oh, it has," Scott chips in, devilish yet innocent smile on his lips.

Grian looks surprised for a moment, eyes wide as everyone else, looking between Scott and BigB for answers. Scott only smiles, and BigB sheepishly ignores everyone's eyes with his phone.

"Alright, there's that. We can find out next week." Grian states, cutting the curiosity short. He claps his hands, pointing at Joel as he squints. "Or that time you were supposed to help Gem get ready for her date and ended up taking her to dinner yourself?"

"Not my fault that loser couldn't measure up," Joel shoots back.

"Those two months were you and Cleo pretended to date?"

"Okay, but that was fun. I still remember your horrified face."

"And Pearl."

"What about Pearl?"

"You know what about Pearl."

Pearl huffs, rolling his eyes as Joel does. Like Vegas, no one talks about that. In fact, Joel rarely talks about any of this. Despite still being close friends with all of them, despite knowing they sometimes bring it up, he doesn't. Not because of shame, or some other feelings. He just doesn't, for whatever reason.

Grian brings no more details, squinting a little more. Joel can tell he's getting frustrated, because this is a topic that won't get under his skin. He knows, too, that Grian is running out of time. It just isn't the same once Pearl, Gem and Bdubs leave, even if they will find out by text later.

Just two more people to bring up.

"Okay, what about me."

Joel raises his brow, tilting his head slightly.

Grian grimaces, and visibly looks like he regrets even thinking about it. His eyes flicker beyond Joel, everyone knows.

"Okay then, why don't we talk about your situationship with Etho then."

Joel knows exactly which moment Grian is leading to. Everyone knows, too. It's something he's talked about a couple beers over his limit, red face and slurring slightly, stupid grin on his face and leaning against the closest person around.

It's a dumb memory, one he talks about fondly when tipsy and outright boasts about when drunk.

Summer camp, when they were kids. They had been assigned camp-mates, and their first activity was to create their own emblem. They had assigned themselves as Boat Boys, because Joel had snatched a tent with a ship print on the bottom. Joel had poked himself with the needle a couple times, Etho had twice as much, but they hadn't been the last to finish to that was good enough. A long hexagon with a green border, the letter B messily threaded, their little emblem then sown into their sleeves. Joel had poked Etho when he sew it in, Etho had tried to not poke him but threatened to, because they had been dumb enough to not take their shirts off.

For Joel, that was a sign. A good one. They were both idiots.

So they spent time together, wearing the same clothes as all the other kids, with only their emblems to show that they were paired up. At first, with their bickering and hard to agree decisions, they spent little time with each other. But they had drifted back every night, sharing one tent, unable to sleep and ultimately talking under they were both too tired and passed out.

Aside from that, their day activities involved them being by each other. Always in pairs, during hikes and afternoon walks. Paired up during kayaking and always sticking with each other when they had to split into bigger groups. They would sit together during breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, stealing bits from each other's tray just to annoy themselves and the other. But Etho would take the carrots from Joel's plate, and Joel would take the mushy peas. They would trade half-drank milk cartoons just so they could make sure to try all flavors. Etho would get them extra servings of food because he 'looked skinny' and Joel would get them bigger pieces of dessert because he was a sweetheart to the staff.

So it made sense that they became friends.

They got closer, in all senses of the word. They stuck with each other, getting into petty fights like stealing Bdubs' horse plush (even if Etho and Bdubs got along), throwing buckets of water on Martyn and Jimmy (mostly avoiding their partners because they couldn't find the right moment), ravaging through Grian and Scar's tent for a block of chocolate they divided among the other kids (when Etho also had one, sharing it only with Joel between giggles), and many other activities that could technically be excused under guise of playing around.

The others knew they were being malicious. Joel thought he was having the time of his life. Etho looked satisfied, too—at some point, he'd even stopped deflecting and accepted the blame proudly, which seemed to make the others madder, Joel just smiled wider each time.

"So?" Grian asks, sending everyone to look at Joel.

Joel thinks about it a little longer, humming briefly.

He remembered the camp counselor's cabins, the places they weren't allowed to be at. Joel knew they had booze, but he didn't really care for any of that. They already had trouble sleeping, and he doubted drinking would help. But he would drag Etho along sometimes, just to hide from everyone for a bit, doing nothing. They couldn't be loud because they would get caught—in fact, they could nothing but sit and chill out, which was fine. Etho never complained, so Joel assumed it was fine.

They had, however, stolen some markers from inside the cabins just for the hell of it. And they had drawn on the walls. Lines of green mixing into blue, blue mixing into green, some orange to represent their artistic rendition of the campfire they had both got burnt in. The mark on his right hand was present, on the outer-most right side, two inches below his wrist. Nothing big, and it didn't hurt after a couple days, but when he wrote 'Joel was here', his eyes drifted to the burnt mark.

He added a smiley face, because he was grinning despite having being hurt.

Near the bottom, Etho sit down to write something too. Joel threw himself on Etho's back, arms around his neck and chin on his shoulder, and Etho had stopped writing, almost having expected Joel's surprise clinginess. Etho finished writing after a couple seconds, neither talking.

'Boat boys 4 eva'

Joel thought the '4 eva' was lame, but he smiled at the overall message, giving a nod of approval. They were the Boat Boys, menaces of camp, and they would always be as promised under the stars, even when camp was over.

On their last afternoon, they had met up beside the counselor's cabin again. Etho had been the one to invite him this time. They sat a while, talking about the activities they did, their pranks, their friends and temporary enemies. They talked about going back to school, about extracurriculars and classes, about things they missed back at home and their beds. Etho talked a lot about his bed, Joel noticed and teased appropriately.

When the sky got darker and the chill snuck under Joel's shirt, he rapidly rummaged through his pocket, pulling out a paper boat. It had a small heart sticker on the hull, which Joel also stole from the cabin. He gave Etho a sheet of stickers too, grinning proudly when Etho's eyes lit up at the shimmering stars.

Etho rolled his eyes a second after, because he also pulled a sticker sheet and gave it to Joel. It was gold stars, compared to Etho's silver ones.

Joel gloated about the paper boat though, because Etho didn't have something like that. Etho only sighed, but he smiled under his mask, because Joel was happy.

"What about it?" Joel says eventually. He blinks back slowly to current life, the too bright summer afternoon sun, everyone stuck inside Cleo and Scott's flat. Different, because everyone was there, not like in that little camp hide-out.

"Oh, don't play coy. We all know what was inside that boat."

Joel stretches his arms over his head, arching his back as he bumped shoulders with Jimmy and Mumbo. He smiled, "Oh, don't you know, it's all make believe." He closes his eyes for a moment, the tension easing from his arms once he brings them down, sighing as he rolls his head. He has homework too, he remembers idly, wondering if he can put it off until the weekend. "We were just kids playing pretend. You know a playground proposal isn't real."

Grian looks at him with a glare disguised as a squint, meanwhile the others dance between hesitation and belief.

Until footsteps cut the momentary silence, stopping right behind Joel. A hand snakes around his neck under his chin, firmly yet gently guiding his head back, and he closes his eyes as lips crash into his. He opens his eyes when the other pulls back, catching Etho pulling his mask back on. He doesn't miss the dumb smirk on his lips though, but he does miss the hand touching him when Etho walks back to his spot on the couch.

"You liar!"

Grian screeches, Impulse too slow to stop him from jumping to his feet. But an alarm go off, and there is a collective sadness. It's quick goodbyes and threats to meet up again, then the trio is dashing out first, the rest following a short while after. Scott complains about the mess while Cleo accepts defeat, everyone hurrying a little faster to spill out.

"I know where you live," Grian says as they walk out.

"I know where you live too," Joel retorts.

But Jimmy is pushing Grian to his car quickly, giving waves and smiles, Tango and Gem trailing behind. He waves at them shortly before being pulled in the opposite direction. The walk is short, the unspoken agreement that he is not going back to his own place for a bit. Can't risk Grian walking from his room to Joel's to strangle him after all.

"Is your room locked?" Etho asks.

"Of course it is," Joel replies.

"Just checking."

Etho's arm lets go of Joel's side, pulling to the side where he finds Joel's hand. And Joel is more than happy to hold hands, despite how sweaty their hands will get.

Quietly, as they discuss dinner with the sound of their footsteps, a metallic clink goes ignored as their hands find each other.

Etho + Joel | Sick fic

"You're sick."

Etho states, rather firmly. Joel only looks at him, eyes slightly squinted, trying to focus the three Ethos into one—and absolutely failing—still, he points at one.

"You are sick," he retorts with a more accusatory tone in his voice.

Etho lifts his head with a probable eye-roll, though Joel is too busy fixating on his neck. Etho's Adam's apple, the line of his jaw pointing to his chin, the muscle that cuts diagonal. He squints a little more, grounding himself on pale skin as he feels himself wanting to throw up or pass out.

Etho moves closer, and Joel now has a face full of Etho's chest, not having realized they had been standing so close to begin with. Where are they, anyways?

He pushes back to look around, very slowly, and sees… walls. He nods like he understands, like everything makes sense, because of course, he is—

Well, could be anywhere, he is not sure.

"Did you kidnap me?" He accuses when he looks back at Etho, looking up at him—more so the line between his face and mask, such a sharp contrast that is. He raises a hand to touch, like Etho is a statue or some sort of unmoving thing for his enjoyment. Cool skin and soft fabric graze his fingertips, then he pokes him back slightly. "Where am I, Eefo? You're so obse—"

Joel headbutts Etho's chest as he feels another wave of nausea, the impact enough to keep everything down at the expense of a throbbing head. He whines or groans or makes some sort of noise, a pathetic one because it makes Etho snake an arm to hold him up, a hand on his back rubbing soothing strokes.

"There, there," Etho almost mocks, and Joel is sure the little tug of neck muscle is him rolling his eyes again. "And please don't throw up on me."

Joel thinks Etho deserves it.

"'m not sick," he says instead.

Etho hums, placating him.

In the meantime, Joel closes his eyes, breathing out hard as a wave of heat washed down his body like a chill. Awful because he can feel the sweat on his skin, the slightly dampness of his clothes that are not already sticking to his body. And Etho's hand on his back is nice, very, but it is also creating heat.

He chuckles, "You're hot. Stupid, silly Canadian man."

Etho hums again.

If Etho thinks not replying is going to get him to settle down and even rest, then—

He is right.

At some point, between breaths and mental nags, Joel slugs against Etho, held up by him. He breaths slow and shallowly, and Etho waits another second before checking to make sure, tilting his head to the side to look down at a peaceful face.

Despite the sweat, the hairs sticking to his forehead, flushed cheeks on too pale skin, and dark bags under his eyes, Etho thinks Joel looks peaceful. Or at peace, at least.

Carefully, he maneuvers and picks him up, taking the two steps to the bed Joel had rolled off once already. This time, however, as he wraps and tucks him into bed, he slides beside him, holding him against his chest to make sure he does not make friends with the floors again.

Fleetingly, as he drifts off himself, he thinks about his plans for the day—thoughts rapidly overtaken by the memory of Joel practically crashing through his door and passing out at his feet. He huffs, smiling under his mask as Joel sighs under him.

At least Joel went looking for help and did not push through his current state alone.

[astridthevalkyrie]

U want lds thoughts? I gotchu 🫡

I really like all 3 boys, but I'm leaning Zayne bc he's just so husband coded. He's the only one I could see a long-term relationship w. I love Xavier and Rafayel, but I just can't picture them as husbands or dads (at least w my MC/myself). I also desperately need them to interact in game and in the main story, there's just sm potential for chaos and funnies.

I honestly dk what will happen next. Obviously, MC is gonna want to investigate Onichynus and her heart, but idk how that story will unfold or how they'll tie in the stories w each li and their separate myths/reincarnation bit. (Also, the fact that the myths happen in the future doesn't make sense to me yet, so I hope they plan to really flesh that out and not give us questionable writing like most mobile otomes do). Idk how I feel abt Sylus (and possibly Caleb) becoming lis, ig I'll have to see what they're like and if they appeal to me at all, bc so far we haven't had enough Caleb content for me to actually get attached (I was also convinced he was MCs brother so idt I'll ever be able to see him romantically 😭).

I hope we'll get to see more of the side characters and what MCs life is like outside of just the three guys, but I honestly doubt it lmao (more for me to hc abt ig lol).

I have more but this is already rambly and idk how to be coherent rn. This game is giving me brainworms and I'm def thinking abt it too hard. Oh, well. I don't consume media, media consumes me.

i'm telling you it's xavier boyfriend zayne husband and rafayel sneaky link. that's exactly the look and vibe they give off.

i think as of right now zayne is the most popular, at least on ao3 him/mc is the most popular ship. which is just to be expected when you have a levi ackerman coded character LOL. like you said, he's a husband. he just is. he's a doctor and he's successful and he cares for the mc so deeply it just makes sense. i started the game for him because. i mean he looks like THAT. he acts like THAT. he has ice powers and you get to melt the ice in his heart and make him love you i adore that shit see my pinned post for the kind of romance i write you could make a zayne x reader set in the aot universe and it would be my fic. and dooooooon't get me started on dawnbreaker zayne. DON'T GET ME STARTED i gasped during the anecdote when the truth about the kid comes out. he dreams about his past life what the fuck bro what the fuck.

surprisingly, though, while i do love him, he's probably the one i've had the least amount of thoughts about (that's still clearly a lot of thoughts so that's not saying much). i think it's partly because my gacha favors xavier and rafayel a lot more and right now i pretty much am just heavily thinking about whichever guy i consumed the content for last.

xavier and rafayel have me obsessed. i thought xavier would be completely meh because zen from mysme was meh for me. but um. he was not meh. my levi hawks pattern has told me that i love a man who was forced into fighting because of the stupid goodness in his heart and manipulative outside forces. and even though that's not exactly what's going on with xav, he does have that vibe. his is the only myth i've watched in full and i'm just. they should have been able to go to uluru together. the scene where they're both lying on the ground i have watched it so many times. i love love love the royalty x captain of the guards trope so much. the fact that they both serve in both roles is insane. i've read the anecdote about her first life on philos too there's a fucking part in there that talks about how he shares his EARBUDS with you?????? end me.

and rafayel is beautiful. like he's actually beautiful. his english voice actor makes him sound so fucking bisexual + the bi wife energy whenever you're with him is just. UGH. the game is hilarious whenever he's on screen and obviously with the way the main story has ended for now he's the most intriguing. and while you can feel the pining energy from all three of them, his is just. lowkey the most pathetic. and i eat it up. bro started TEACHING AT HER COLLEGE just for the chance to see her. i like that he's not possessive per se but he is very whiny and attention seeking the sassy man syndrome is real. i need to unlock his myth but i'm not patient so i may very likely just watch it on youtube. i need to see hunter rafayel. i need to see him right now.

the main story is genuinely fascinating. i was a little bit bored up until the explosion happened and it really kicked in. bc suddenly it's not just 3 guys and you doing your best, but you actively investigating and them helping you. like i said i don't have raf's myth and i haven't finished zayne's yet (need more fucking upgrades to his card) so i don't have the full story but at least what i'm getting right now is okay. they're all from the past or future. they all remember?? xavier and rafayel definitely do. zayne knows something about grandma who seems kinda shady to me. i've seen the caleb=sylus or at least caleb lives theories. i saw someone say the man at the end isn't sylus though? and his english va is the same as caleb's but in other languages it's someone else. idk.

idk about the others but xavier's myth being in the future makes sense. i'm pretty sure the timeline goes: in our current timeline, earth is about to go bye-bye and become inhabitable bc of wanderers -> survivors go to philos -> xavier and a new mc are both born -> she dies bc of something in her heart and is reborn bc she's the only one who's truly immortal (everyone else on philos lives forever naturally but can still be killed i think??) -> new lightseeker mc and xavier are meant to become guard and prince respectively but philos is dying -> to save mc from being sacrificed again and again xavier decides to go back in time to find another way where he after at least like 200 years meets current timeline mc

i know what you mean about not being able to see caleb as a love interest. the first time i saw him i genuinely thought they had no need to make my brother this hot what the fuck. and then i realized he was just her childhood friend and i went

and then he blew up 😭

i neeeeeed to see the love interests interact. i mean mc barely thinks about the others whenever she's with one but i really hope in the next arc we actually see them meeting each other. beefing or working together or whatever, i need to know (i may also have already started a fic about what's gonna happen next bc i'm mentally ill). xavier has a tracker on her so he should be able to find her and zayne kinda disappeared off the face of the earth but i want them all back. i want interaction. i want it so bad.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I just finished The Heart of the World, literally a day after receiving it. It's so good! I love the way that you reinterpreted the characters in the fic so that you can still see them in the characters of the book. I'm also intrigued by Death-who's-not-Lily.

I have a couple questions. First, how and why did you decide on Iff, Theyne, Wheyne, and Annde as the humans' names? Second, Lily doesn't really get along well with Snape, if I remember, so why does she get along with Ilyn now?

And finally, when is the next book coming out???

Oh my god, look at you go! Thank you, I'm very flattered and glad you enjoyed it.

And now, your questions.

The Names

So, a fun fact, I hate naming characters and things. It's generally not something I have that much interest in and am not that attached to. Sometimes, you get a really great name and you're never letting go of it for that character, and sometimes you could honestly call them "Boy with Stick" and be done with it.

I now needed a lot of names and I wanted readers at a glance to be able to know, generally, which character belonged to which group. Which meant I needed themes.

There's a hilarious anecdote to be told where @therealvinelle on editing, wanted to go all out and come up with real, non-existent, but believable names for characters where you can tell a whole lot about their society by naming them.

I, um, said "Uh, these people will have backwards common English names. And these people will have QWERTY keyboard smash names. And these ones... Fuck it, he'll be Questburger."

So as for the human nobility, Lily got her name first, as Iff, the idea being a stupid joke/pun that isn't funny on my end where "iff" in mathematics is short for "if and only if". What it gets at is that Lily, as we see her, is the product of a very particular chain of events, that we're in a very particular world, and that there's something to follow that "if and only if" that is integral but that we're currently missing.

But then I have to come up with names for everyone else. And so we got the House of Prepositions and Conjunctions. Very serious they are.

Theyn was next up, as the next central royal character, and his name has a similar "har har but not really because it's not that funny and kind of weird" theme to it where the idea is he's "then BLAH", you're always waiting on something to occur with Theyn, unwittingly passing over him for the more interesting context in the sentence. He's there to set up something else, and by himself feels incomplete/not that interesting. Poor poor Theyn, even the universe doesn't think he's interesting or important.

Annde was next as he's the next important character we meet from this background after Theyn. Similar joke with him, he's "And... And?" You're waiting for the rest of the sentence with him, you can't end a sentence on "and" nor can you start it on one. He's just there to fill the gaps, to not be that important, and oh look a spoiler.

Wheyn (the regent) was next and was in part because a) I needed a name b) he's a bit of an inevitability in the universe. When one has a shake-up in a monarchy that holds all the power/isn't a constitutional monarchy, there's always going to be backstabbing nonsense and power plays. Wheyn is an unimportant inevitability, one that shocks no one (except Theyn, poor Theyn) and the answer to "When blah happens expect rain".

Which leaves us with, I believe the last, Whye, Lily's father. Him it's a similar gag but three-fold. There's the "WHY?!?!?!?!" in that no one really understands why he gave up the throne, married a sun elf, and scandalized absolutely everybody. Then there's "why?" as Lily's reaction, she's ambivalent about her parents and not sure how she should feel about them, and shields herself from feelings of abandonment by telling herself she's indifferent. As a result, she tends to approach any information about her parents with a "why should I care?" and gets very uncomfortable when anyone brings either of them up (and there's also that every character so far has brought up Lily's mother much more than her father leading to that question of "why are we talking about him?") Then there's the fact that there's a question to be asked that implies he has some kind of an answer to it a "why?" drifting off out there somewhere in the backgrounds.

And that's all the human nobility from our fantasy universe so far. (Elizabeth is noticeably an Elizabeth and sticks out like a sore thumb.)

Lily and Ilyn

The short answer is that Snape and Ilyn are different people fundamentally. They're in similar roles, took similar actions for various reasons, but they're very different as people.

And that goes for a lot of the things in the book. Elements of the fic remained, and some elements of HP, but not as much as people probably suspect even with the things that are very clearly taken over (believe it or not, I would call Elizabeth and Hermione different).

As for the long answer, well, for other people read the book and I hope it's explained.

When Next Book?!

I'm flattered but I don't know yet. Have to write it then edit then cover art and all that jazz.

I'll let people know.

[ragdollrory]

Let's get the tea on these other Bumi ships: Bumizumi, Linumi, Bumon, and Bumi x sleeping his way around the world but happily single.

Ohhhh I like this, yes yes. Thank you for the ask!!

🧡 Bumizumi: the non-bender kids of the gaang, growing up together, feeling a bit isolated at times, feeling it's unfair they didn't get to be as awesome as their parents? Slowly helping each other to move past that, grow stronger, smarter, push one another to be their best version? What's not to love about that, right?

Two things to add to this-

1. The bittersweet potential of it when Bumi gets airbending... would love to see that.

2. It's kind of hard for me to actively ship them when I have my heart 93% sold on Bumiroh.

💚 Linumi: I feel these two work perfectly as best friends, roommates is a hilarious idea I could get behind, and of course the absolute perfect wingman for the other. You tell me Lin and Bumi don't go to bars to leave everyone else in ruins, I won't believe it.

Would they fuck? Surely, I don't see why not. But I can't see them long term. Maybe while Bumi's in the UF, and they have the time and distance to let them miss the things about the other that grates on their nerves when they spend too much time together. But I do think they love each other dearly, and would do anything for each other.

🤎 Bumon: Is this- Bumi and Amon?? I- 👀 Is this a ship? Like, are there fics about this?? I'm intrigued now. Are you pulling my leg anon? 😆

Anyways, I'll answer, but if I'm totally misinterpreting this, do let me know.

Bumi and Amon... uh. Well, Amon is good looking, and Bumi likes good looking people. Oh, this is hard 😅 but a part of me is desperately trying to find an angle. I guess, oh!

Bring the only child of the Avatar without bending into the fold to make him a poster for the cause. What he doesn't know is that Bumi's going willingly in an undercover mission to bring them down frol the inside. Feelings and angst happen. Okay. I know this wasn't a plot ask, but my brain needed it.

I do hope this was the ship, and I'm not forgetting the name of another tlok character.

❤️ Bumi/sleeping his way around the world but happily single: Ain't this the dream... lmao.

This is absolutely Bumi, and I'd say ties very good with his nomadic way of living life, the need to explore and learn and collect all the experiences and anecdotes possibles.

This "ship" is definitely part of the 7% of my heart that's not sold on Bumiroh.

Ship game!

[dayurno]

do u remember that post you made a few weeks(?time isn’t real idk) ago about. kevin being like a dog around wolves in kerejean. well that lives in my head rent free so much that im actually playing with a kerejean fic idea in my mind palace of jerejean werewolves and kevin…. Well :) he has to be the token human and he has to feel intimidated and lost and strangely affected by it. and i just thought u should know that post changed my life

THIS IS REALLY FUNNY I LOVE IT i think i am a terrible woman for all the ideas ive put in you cuties' heads but i 100% sign under this i think kerejean's purpose is to invert kandreil and so it should also invert kevin's role of being the oldest the teacher and the voice of reason

and you know i was never really into werewolves until recently because ive been reading on lycantropy as a metaphor for transgenderism/an overall feeling of being isolated from your peers. and i know i know i know im sorry im going to get to the other part but it's just become so much more interesting to me on the idea that it's a physical realization of someone's sense of isolation. that being said i see that you want to see kevin day experiencing monster dick and for that of course you are my sibling in flesh and blood. i think he would be very interested in the dynamic of it all

this is just an anecdote but if youve read my fic casket fresh andrew is a werewolf in it and my favorite bit of worldbuilding is that on full moons him and kevin go to the woods and kevin just lets andrew chase him around. it's hilarious and it's cute and probably 100% sexual at some point. can you imagine that with jeremy and jean? they would need to give kevin a five minutes headstart. i can't imagine he's winning this one

[ambrossart]

Hi, I know I've said it a lot of times, but I really love your writing. It seems like watching a movie because while reading I can actually picture it in my head.

I wanted to ask you how you plan your characters or stories. I mean, do you immediately get an idea and start working on it or you have to think and rethink about it until you find the right inspiration?

like you mentioned in a previous ask about how you created Vic, and you said you were flexible because he wasn't really described in the novel, but still he had to fit in some image. But what about implementing new characters to an existing universe? I'm thinking about dwm reader, Scottie, Evelyn, Hannah-Beth etc, they all feel like they belong there and I'm wondering how you decided to create them the way they are.

Also, if I think about DWM everything is falling into the right place and when I read a knew part of the story I'm like "oh this was hinted chapters ago" and I think it really is amazing or also the little references here and there, I think it shows how much effort you put in that story. And..I'm curious to know...are the reader and Jason actually friends? He had some kind gestures towards her, but were they out of kindness or because she is his girlfriend's bff?

Regarding the future fics... I'm kinda loving all of your ideas, I'm looking forward to read the one where he gets jealous, or when she gets high because I strongly believe it's going to be hilarious and super cute, and you know everything involving Scottie or Gareth and the other guys.

I always write too much, so I get it if you want to skip this one 😂

Hi! First of all, I would never skip one of your asks (or anyone else's for that matter). If someone takes the time to write me a question, they deserve a well-thought-out response. Always.

Anyway, regarding how I approach my stories, I usually get an idea (or a random scene pops into my head) and I build off that one idea. With DWM, for instance, it was the image of Eddie hanging out in the bathroom with a girl at prom, and I just built the rest of the story around that. "Who is this girl?" "Why is she here?" "Why is Eddie here?" etc. I always have a general outline before I start writing, but it's not rigid because I always come up with new ideas and directions for the story as I write. For example, I was always planning on having the reader have a little crush on Eddie, but it wasn't supposed to be as deep as it ended up being (certainly not one she was harboring for 6 years 😂). That changed while I was writing Pt. 3 and then by Pt. 4, I had their relationship and history completely figured out, and that ultimately changed the entire direction of the story.

I have a similar approach to characters. With DWM, I knew instantly that I wanted the reader to be Chrissy's best friend who's kinda stuck living in her shadow. I think she plays up her sarcastic, snarky persona in an attempt to stand out from Chrissy. She wants to be the sour to Chrissy's sweet; otherwise, she would be even more invisible than she already is. I also gave her a lot of my own qualities and flaws, and most of her personal anecdotes are taken directly from my life. Yeah, DWM is completely self-indulgent. I basically created a fictionalized version of myself and had her date Eddie, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

With Paper Men, most of those characters were born out of necessity. I needed a main character to guide us through the story, and Richie already had a sister (who doesn't appear) in the movie, so that was an easy starting point. I just created my vision of his sister, taking a lot of his qualities and twisting them around to suit her. Since I decided to make Evelyn a very friendly and outgoing person, I needed to give her friends, so I made Hannah, the shy Christian girl who's obsessed with trashy romance novels and lives vicariously through Evelyn (I love her so much), and Paul, the professional slacker who's always sabotaging her grand plans with his laziness. Because most of the story takes place at school and Evelyn is so involved in school, I needed the school to feel real, so I created a bunch of students to populate it. Gradually, a lot of them developed their own unique identities, and I let them go crazy.

Another thing I like to do is create a lot of shared history between the characters. I think that's an easy way to make all the characters feel like they exist in the same world. That's why both DWM and Paper Men make so many references to the past.

Speaking of references, I'm glad you appreciate all my foreshadowing and callbacks to earlier stories/scenes in DWM because that's one of my favorite things to do when I write. Whenever I'm working on a new story, I always try to think about how it relates to what's already happened and how it will affect future works. For instance, the most recent fic "Out of the Loop" has set the foundation for a lot of future fics. The reader is definitely going to find out about Claire Dunnock, the girl who Eddie absolutely slept with 😬. Claire said she had a class with Eddie last year, well... guess who else was in that class? The reader and she saw them flirting. I don't have it on the list, but it'll be a story. The reader has already expressed discomfort about Eddie's previous sexual experiences, and this will only make that worse.

Finally moving on!

To speak about Jason and the reader's relationship. They are truly friends and not just because of Chrissy (although that is a huge factor). They've known each other since elementary school. They weren't "hang out outside of school" friends, but they were friends. I've mentioned this before, but the reader used to have a crush on Jason back in elementary school, but once she found out he liked Chrissy, she had to let that crush go. She can't compete with Chrissy. Nobody would ever choose her over Chrissy. So she had no choice but to step back and surrender. She doesn't have romantic feelings for him anymore, but she still admires his good qualities (and Jason does have really great qualities). That being said, Jason does truly care about her as a person, which is why he bought her a corsage and danced with her at prom. It wasn't just because he felt sorry for her or because he felt obligated to do it. He genuinely cares about her, and he thinks she can do a lot better than Eddie.

Lastly, regarding future fics, the one where the reader finally gets to high school is going to be funny (because Scottie's in it and he knows that Eddie has been pining for the reader for the last two years) but it's also going to be really sad. They're both so excited to see each other and are secretly hoping to jump back into their friendship again, but as we know from the main story, that doesn't happen. They don't talk to each other. Nobody apologizes. They just fall into their expected roles and go back to being strangers. It's almost as if that summer never even happened. It's really sad and Eddie takes it very hard.

Holy crap, I wrote too much. Gold star to anyone who finished this! ⭐️

[megaerakles]

Are you going to eventually go back to the DCEU au with Tim interacting with the other Leaguers? Bc lemme tell you, I hyena laughed when Tim opened his door and asks “What in the goddamn fucking hell are you doing here?” to Bruce, then makes sure to tack on an “asshole” at the end. I LOVE how bother Bruce is by Tim and his situation (it’s hilarious how Bruce starts by making him sound down right villainous and then you find out it’s really that his dad senses are screaming).

I am simply dying to see how this would play out!! Who would be the next one to interact with him? Superman bc he was curious about what has Bruce’s panties in a twist about the kid next door? Arthur going for a swim in the lake and spotting the kid on the shore? I can’t even think how Diana would run into Tim but I sure do hope to find out!

Also what’s the importance of the Drake coat of arms? I think that’s such an interesting anecdote to include in the story , and such a funny thing for Bruce to also clock when he confronts Tim.

Please please please tell me this will eventually be picked back up😩

😅 glad you enjoy that au! It’s a really fun one for sure. I’ll definitely be back to it as some point. Maybe soon maybe in six months, I literally can never predict my writing whims, sorry 🫣 for this first fic, I have the general plot/how and why each hero introduces themselves to Tim figured out and am excited to share them, as soon as I can make myself write them lol. Chapter Two will actually be Victor, who will quickly earn himself the spot as Tim’s New Very Favoritest Superhero Ever, Suck On That, Batman for the purposes of this au. And even after this fic finishes, I have a really fun idea about how to incorporate the Shazam movie, so I’ll probably get another fic out of it as well. Plus I have a few hundred words hanging out in a doc that’s basically a post-Resurrection Jason being like “Talia says Bruce replaced me but those appear to be grown ass adults with superpowers not scrawny preteens in tights so this does not compute???”. I’d eventually like to publish that as part of a longer fic but if I never figure out how I’d be open to posting it as a ficlet. So. Fun things to come! In time.

The original purpose of the Drake dragon coat of arms (soon to be officially christened Pebbles in the story!) is that I got a little carried away trying to come up with the most obnoxious things his parents could have done with their remodel and paying someone to create your family a coat of arms but then deciding you didn’t like it and getting it redone seemed to be just that sort of thing. The reason I spent a significant portion of time on it narratively is that I decided it was the perfect Emotional Support Inanimate Object for Tim to grow attached to and have conversations with. That way, when he has scenes where he’s hanging out in his house, I can still reasonably work in dialogue, which is absolutely my strongest area of writing and is the thing I have the most fun with. Picture Tim and the Dragon crest as the meme from The Good Place with Jason and his Ariana Grande poster; “Oh, Pebbles, we’re really in it now.”

[tempobrucera]

Thomas's backstory from Trick or Treat and anything else you want to say about it.

Oh yes, Trick or Treat :)

So, first of all I wanted to write something with Ethan x Reader x Thomas that is completely different than "All My Friends" and also has nothing to do with it and I wanted to write temperature play.

I wanted to write some Halloween smut that's how the idea came about, because I knew my other Halloween fic wouldn't be smut

It was fun to put all four of them into Halloween costumes. Like coming up with the angel costume for Ethan or the nun costume for Vic and to put Reader and Thomas into outfits from characters out of films

I wasn't quite sure first how to write it. I had the option of Vampire Ethan x Human Reader x Demon Thomas (which it ended up to be), Demon Ethan x Human Reader x Vampire Thomas and Vampire Ethan x Demon Reader x Human Thomas (that and the first one were the two options I was mostly between). Obviously the latter would have had a different dynamic

I really wanted to write temperature play and what is better than a vampire that is cold and a demon that heats up? It just made sense in my head

I wanted to give both of them cool paranormal features. We have Thomas' changing eyes and that he can posess people and his wings and Ethan who can eat thoughts (instead of drink blood) and with that knows what the person is thinking and that he can snip his fingers to change locations and that he can control someone in that way that people are finding him when they want to

You know, I love writing Vic and Thomas together because they are similiar, friends since they were kids, both loud but still so different that they complete each other somehow. While Ethan and Thomas is fun to write because they are so different in most things but they balance each other out. I kinda tried to bring this into this fic as well, with how they are different as vampire and demon and as Ethan and Thomas

It's always fun to write sex with more than two people. To keep track of what they are wearing (like, it's almost hilarious how many times I sometimes ask myself if someone already got out of their underwear or here I made sure to keep track of the lipstick on Ethan and the lipgloss on Thomas)

It was a Halloween fic and I wanted to have some darker elements in it, that's why Thomas' soul snatching is mentioned and that he touched Reader's when they had sex, which Ethan isn't happy about

I wanted to write about Thomas' wings so badly that I had to

Ethan's and Thomas' stories how they became what they are. I wanted it to be for the same reason which was love but Thomas doing it out of freewill (at least that's what he says and thinks) and Ethan not

I could have just stopped after the smut part but I noticed I enjoy stories that have a plot behind it much more than just pure sex. Writing and reading to be honest. I wanted to give them a background, I wanted to shape them into characters and explain why they are how they are and why they do and say stuff

I just found it fitting and a bit fun to have Ethan be one of the first people who opened a bookstore in Italy and that it had a "forbidden section" or that he didn't get turned by another vampire or by a bite and that Ethan can't remember anything and isn't traumatised in any way

On the other hand Thomas knows exactly what happened to him, I love the anecdote about the pope that alledgly played dice with satan to become pope (I love putting things like this into stories), that's why I had Thomas play dice with Satan (and somehow it felt right to give them a female gender, but maybe I watched to much of Netflix' Archie Sabrina 🤪)

"In return she kept me in hell for fifthy years and had the pleasure to turn a fallen angel into a demon unwillingly." -> I'm not quite sure if that did translate for anyone. But turning them unwillingly and stuff like clipping his wings, means fifthy years of torture in hell for Thomas. Which he does remember, he can't just shake that off, a reason why he couldn't and can't take care of his wings, he can't see them, he doesn't want to be reminded of it

Ethan as a vampire stealing a cake from a party because it's shaped like little bats sounded like a good joke to me when I wrote the fic

"Thomas tells you something about another stint in hell because he refused to get a soul from someone who didn’t want to let it go, but that after this he met Vic." -> You wouldn't believe how much I would like to write this Demon Thomas meeting Vic and I did a little for myself because I had to get it out of my system

I needed the end to be conciliatory, which is why they fall asleep under Thomas' wings and he isn't hiding them away. Everyone being comfortable with how they are and with showing what they went through

And Ethan's flower crown -> I love flowers, I love flowers so much. And I love the symbolism they can be used for which is why I do it sometimes

[mego42]

Top five lines or parts of your own fanfics,top five songs from the early 2000’s?

my own????? have I written fic ever????? in my life?????? that was a serious question I saw this and was like what are words even who knows not me. ummm okay:

I enjoy when Annie calls Mick Michael in listening and have now started calling Mick Michael in my own head as a result

I still giggle a little about high!Beth telling Mick they’re in the yard in as the world turns 

I v much enjoy how extremely correct Rio’s texting style is in got a kiss

Am fairly obsessed with the backstory I gave Mick and Rio for hi-yah!

Oh! in smoke, fire when they’re airing their grievances and beth’s like you mailed me body parts! and rio’s like you blocked my number! and beth’s like that is not a proportionate response! bc honestly

top 5 early 2000s songs (YES!!!!! also it turns out everything I immediately thought of was late 90s so it’s cool to be old I guess)

Maps - Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs (2003)

B.O.B. - OutKast (2000)

Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz (2000)

Hurt - Johnny Cash (2002)

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston (sort of cheating, originally came out on Whitney in 1987 BUT it was re-released on Whitney: The Greatest Hits in 2000 so I’m counting it)

Marrow - Ani DiFranco (2001)

Stan - Eminem (2000)

Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch (2001)

Firewalker - Liz Phair (2003)

Work It - Missy Elliot (2001)

top 5!!!

[littlemisslipbalm]

“it’s not that important”

Summary: Y/N is in Harry’s band and one night they have a drunken hook up. One thing leads to another and they find themselves engaging in a friend’s with benefits type of situation. spoiler: it is important

AKA: A friends with benefits to lovers story :) with some angst in there

This is for @stylesharrys fallinharry10k celebration so my trope is friends with benefits! prompt is “you have no goddamn idea what you do to me. when i’m around you, i have no control of my emotions or my thoughts” and the tenth picture ^ i kinda just used it in the beginning to descripe what he was wearing - i got really carried away with this story but the prompt is in there !! lol, not proofread tho but would love your feedback !!!! :) love y’all very much 

oh boy i’ve had this done for agesss but i hadn’t written the smut until today so now we’re here i dont even remember what happens - i vaguely remember not loving the end but I hope yall enjoy

Word Count: 15.4k (longest fic to date) | Warnings: smut, angst, fluff, alcohol consumption? i dont remember but i dont think theres anything too heavy in here.

-

“Hey Harold!” You smile as you easily hop over the side of the couch and settle beside your bandmate.

Harry groans, yet can’t keep the small smile off of his face when he sees it’s you. “How many times have I told you to never call me that?”

Your eyes narrow at his faux glare. “And how many times have I told you, I simply do not care?” 

You reach a hand out and tousle his already disheveled, unstyled brown hair. Despite his lack of styling, his hair still looked perfect. His chestnut hair fell into a middle part when he did nothing to it and you found it endearing. It made him look far younger than he truly was, like a boy you might have pursued when you were in your early days at college. The waves slightly framed his prominent cheekbones and chiseled jaw that was sporting a tiny amount of stubble.

He moves his arm from around the back of the couch to pat at his hair, trying to put it back in its nondescript position you had just messed with. After he’s satisfied, he uses the same hand to push up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. They’re chestnut brown Gucci frames that match the natural highlights in his hair. You can safely assume that’s why he bought them. The lenses are clear, but you know they don’t hold any prescription. He looks incredulously at you from behind them still.

“Nice glasses,” you mention offhandedly as you reach out to the coffee table to grab the drink you had left there earlier.

Before Harry had arrived, you had been taking up residence on the couch, in the spot he had actually taken up. You had ventured to the restroom for a moment and gotten held up in a conversation when asked your preference for the Beatles. Having to defend your staunch stance for the Beatles and against the Rolling Stones, you had gotten swept up into an argument with Adam. He believed that because the Rolling Stones toured for longer warranted them the title of best rock band. While you countered that despite their long touring and production of music, the Stones had a rotation of members. The Beatles maintained the four of them and held such a large impact even though they were barely together for a decade. They were one of a kind, or at least the first of their kind, you’d allow. You weren’t really in the mood for intellectual conversation tonight, so upon seeing Harry taking up your seat, you had told Adam you’d continue the discussion at a later date and returned to your spot.  

“Thanks,” Harry mumbles as his gaze flits around the room. He wasn’t sure if you were actually complimenting him, but he would take it as one either way.

The rest of your friends are all up and about, drinking, talking, dancing. It was the usual house party scene: a relatively intimate gathering, music you all actually liked, some friends of friends feeling slightly out of place. There was no pressure in this type of gathering but still Harry wasn’t necessarily in the party mood tonight. Usually, Harry was the one instigating these types of get-togethers with his friends and bandmates. He liked to be the life of the party, but as the tour loomed closer and closer, he felt some tinge of longing for quiet and solitude. He knew he wouldn’t have much quiet while on the road, which mostly didn’t scare him. He loved the stage and the high he received from performing and the gratification he felt from all the people in the room being there to see him. But there was also that other part of him that liked the quiet, the privacy. As the lack of alone time nudged itself around the corner, he had been hoping to enjoy solitude, or at the very least peace before he was on the road. Some sort of blissful state before technical chaos ensued. When Charlotte, the host of tonight’s soiree, had texted their group chat about tonight, Harry had politely declined. Then came the slew of private texts from Charlotte giving him all the reasons he should come tonight. He tried to say no again, but had shown up after the continued begging from her.

His appearance mirrored his expression, choosing a not perfectly fitted white t-shirt and random trousers rather than picking something he really loved, like usual. You could tell something was up and as his friend you were wondering what was wrong with him.

“Don’t sound so excited, Harry, someone might mistake you for somebody who’s happy to be here.” You stick your tongue into the side of your cheek, gauging his reaction.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re not very funny?” He quips, green eyes flashing to meet yours.

Your banter is probably how the pair of you communicated the best, never really falling into the whole serious side of friendship. You never shared those late night talks about the future or your fears. It was a fun friendship, so you didn’t fancy yourself one of his closest confidants. When it came to music, you and Harry were a bit more serious which formed a sort of paradox because the music you would share with each other gave a far greater insight into your souls than you probably realized. As a member of his band, you would discuss his music and what was going on with that sort of business part. But the sharing and discussion of other music that you did was part of your friendship, even if you didn’t see it like that. Because of the countless albums you had recommended to each other and the specific songs you had made note of, Harry and you knew each other much better than you thought you did. Music connects to something deep inside yourself and you have to like it enough and know the other person well enough to believe that they will also enjoy it to recommend it. As much tongue and cheek that you partook in with Harry, deep down, unbeknownst to either of you, you were that friend he shared his hopes and fears with, through the way he knew best, music.

“No, most people find me hilarious...”

You take a sip of your drink, trying to cover up the sting that his remark actually left. Most of the time you were great at keeping up with anyone’s banter, especially Harry’s, but tonight you weren’t feeling it. His tone had sounded so harsh it almost sounded like he meant it. His features soften when he sees the way your face falls, despite your sarcastic tone.

“‘M sorry. I’m just not in the best mood tonight. Didn’t want to come, but Charlotte…” He shifts to face you, arm retracting slightly around the couch, landing his hand at the edge of your shoulder. His fingers fiddle with themselves absentmindedly, he turns his rings around his fingers and they ever so slightly brush against your shoulder. You don’t mind, you know its his nervous tick that he did whenever he didn’t have something to clink them against.

“Yeah, same here, actually.” Your tuck an out of place hair behind your ear, returning your gaze to Harry, who’s tilting his head at you curiously. “But might as well make the most of it, though. After all, this is our last week before tour starts.” You raise your glass and tilt it towards him before taking a sip.

You really didn’t have a plan, you were just trying to make him feel a little better. It was seldom you saw him so solemn at this type of gathering. He usually was the one bouncing from group to group, entertaining everyone with his dazzling charm and quick wit. Sometimes he would bring a date and spend the night with them in the corner, but that was usually at bigger parties than this. At these types of gatherings you often found yourself talking with Charlotte for most of the night. You were both new additions in the band and you had clicked immediately. You would travel in a pair between different groups and talk with everyone. Sometimes you would tell a humorous anecdote about your life and everyone would laugh wholeheartedly. Your ability to retell a story and make it hilarious every time seemed to be your secret talent. You could make any experience into a ten-minute retelling and it always sounds like the funniest moment of your life. It ranged from your embarrassing audition for Grease as a tween to your supermarket run in with an old acquaintance or B-list celebrity the day before. It didn’t matter what it was, it just always had the entire circle of people laughing and wiping their eyes with joy. You’d laugh a little with themselves, but usually you just had a triumphant smile on your lips for the rest of the night.

He nods, sipping his own drink for the first time since you had settled down beside him. “Well, I’m all ears.”

“What?”

“Give me your suggestions on how to make the most of tonight.”

“Drinking, mostly, was my plan,” you laugh nervously as Harry continues to stare at you intently.

“Mostly?”

“I mean, what do you want me to say? I didn’t think to pack my bouncy castle, my bad.”

He bites back a laugh but lets some air escape his defined nose, before staring with a deadpan face at you.

You like to tease him. You simply liked him. Harry was different from other men you knew. You were pretty sure most people could say that though. Harry was just different. It seemed like no one could not have some sort of affection for him. With the playful friendship the pair of you had, you always skirted the edge of flirtation. But you also didn’t particularly ever want to cross any lines with him. He was the employer of you, technically. He had brought you into his backing band and you wouldn’t do anything to harm that position. As well, at the end of the day you knew Harry. His tendencies and the choices he made.

When you were around him at parties like this, you had to try really hard to keep him at an arm’s length. Because on one hand, you would drink and suddenly the boundaries you put up didn’t seem that important, instead his lips started to look rather inviting, but on the other, you knew that he was extremely emotionally closed off to any relationship that was more than either friendship or a one night stand.

Harry doesn’t give you a response, just swings back his drink. The pair of you sit and drink in silence. Before you know it, Harry and you are five drinks in, finally talking after the second. The pair of you decide to move to the balcony outside and continue your conversation there after the third. After the fourth, you're getting really handsy and by the end of the fifth, Harry’s arm is wrapped tightly around your waist and you're laughing breathlessly into his neck. It looks like he’s just shielding you from the cold night air, but both of you seemed to be enjoying each other’s embrace for other reasons.

Finally catching your breath, you lean back and pant softly as you meet eyes with Harry. His pupils have blown out from the alcohol and dark light. The emerald green barely surrounds the black and you swear there’s flecks of gold or maybe brown in them. Your brows scrunch at the revelation and Harry asks what you’re thinking. You don’t respond, too entranced and drunk to even hear him.

“Oi,” he bops your nose, “What is goin’ on in there, little lady?”

Your hand reaches up and widens Harry’s eye manually. His inebriated state has no qualms about you doing such an odd thing. “Why’s your green not actually green?”

“What?” He asks before moving your hand away from his face, it instead falls to his chest. The pair of you shift until your caged between his body and the balcony’s ledge. You pout as you stare up at him. His skin looks soft and taught over every inch of his face and neck. The urge to kiss him keeps nagging at the back of your mind. The idea keeps creeping up closer and closer and the drunker you are the less likely you are to suppress it.

“Do you want to fuck me?” You blurt out.

“Sure.” Harry isn’t taken aback. He had been thinking about asking for a while, so he was glad you had asked first, made it easier for him.

“Okay, let’s go.”

He takes you back to your place, the pair of you catching a cab the short distance between yours and Charlotte’s flats. No one blinks an eye at the pair of you leaving together. Everyone watched the pair of you sulk all night about being there and only enjoying the other’s company, so they weren’t keen on either of you staying. Charlotte was simply glad the pair of you had stayed for as long as you did.

The two of you walk casually until you’re inside your bedroom. Once inside, Harry throws you on the bed and fucks you. Hard. He’s got you spread out in more ways than you had ever thought possible. He’s got you saying things you had never even dreamed of saying. And he’s got you cumming and screaming more than you could have ever wanted. He enjoys himself as well. He loves the way you feel around him and the way your eyes look up at him while he fucks you straight into the bed. He loves the way you sound whispering dirty things and screaming his name. He loves the feel of your soft skin all over your body as he pushes deep inside you. He loves the way you’re able to rip a guttural moan from him every time he cums. And he cums three times that night. While it wasn’t quiet, he did find that blissful state he had been in desperate need of.

After the third round, Harry feels spent. He brings himself into a sitting position, legs hanging off the edge of your bed. You’re lying in your bed, completely overstimulated, cumming at least twice as many times as Harry. He scratches at the top of his head, his bicep bulging as he folds his arms around himself.

“That was fucking good, Y/N. Just what I needed.”

You can only hum in response.

Then he takes your blanket and lays it over you. After that he begins to stand up, getting ready to grab his things and go.

“You don’t have to go…” your voice raises when you realize what he’s doing.

“Yeah, I do. This was just a one time thing, yeah? I enjoyed it, but you know...”

“Erm, I guess?” You rolled to fully look at him, he was pulling his t-shirt back on now, his marked chest disappearing beneath the white fabric. “Do you really not stay over at your one night stands?”

He thinks about it as he begins with his shoes and his glasses at the same time. “Yes? Usually I don’t know the person and I don’t particularly want to sign an autograph when I leave in the morning. Best to leave immediately afterwards.”

“That was exactly why I wanted you to stay...Shit! No chance you’ll give me an autograph now? Could sign my tit, right next to your hickies.”

He laughs, automatically in a better mood after the catharsis of having sex. It was also a relief for him that you didn’t seem to be weird about the hook up. “Shut up!”

“You’re a twat, Harold.” He groans instinctively at the annoying nickname, not caring about the ‘twat’ part. “But be my guest, you can freeze your arse off while waiting for your cab outside at this hour.��

“Rude..” He mutters, standing in your doorway now. “You wouldn’t actually make your employer stand out in the cold at this time of night. I haven’t even got a jumper. Could get a cold and ruin my voice. ”

“You’re the one who says it’s best to leave immediately. Get on it, mister.”

Your hand makes a shooing movement, but he doesn’t budge. You sigh as he makes a puppy dog face - eyes wide and a puckered pout with his flushed cheeks and lips - playing into your actual kindness, that he knows is somewhere. Your sweetness that you were keeping hidden from Harry right now. Nothing was serious between you so it made sense that you were trying not to let your innate ability to care show as he’s about to walk out on you.

“Ugh, fine. Stop looking at me like that. Just grab one of my coats from the bottom right, they’re all oversized so one should fit.” He doesn’t relent on the face. “And you can stay inside until your cab comes.” You sigh and throw one of your pillows at him. He catches it easily and throws it back, much softer than your throw. “Also never pull the employer card on me again when I’m naked in the bed you just fucked me in,” you call as he looks through your closet.

Returning with a patchwork coat you had thrifted tight over his shoulders, he looks at you seriously, “Yeah sorry about that part. Definitely wasn’t trying to exert my power over you, it sounded better in my head. Meant more like you could ruin my voice and both of our jobs.”

You nod and chuckle slightly, finding how inarticulate Harry could be as an endearing trait. His explanation didn’t actually make it sound better. “The jacket fits.” You say, choosing to move forward from Harry’s weirdness, knowing he didn’t mean any harm from his initial statement.

“Yeah, thanks. I think my cab is here,” He glances at his phone, “So I’ll go...See you?”

“I’m sure.” You smile, “We do in fact work together and will soon be touring the world. Would be a bit weird if I didn’t see you.”

“Right.” He nods and adds a peace sign before he walks out of your sight. You know he’s gone when you hear the door click shut. What an interesting night.

-

Love on Tour had just started and Harry couldn’t lie. He couldn’t keep his mind off of you. You were both his most recent partner and the best he had had in a while. He found himself rubbing over the spots on his neck and clavicle that you had given particular attention to during the night you had shared together. When he went to bed it was your body he pictured to get himself off. So, after the first show he’s beelining to you at the beginning of the after party. He’s got an adrenaline high and he needs a release. You’re the solution. He’s whispering in your ear, asking if you’d like to meet him in his dressing room. Your eyes study his face when he pulls back and they widen slightly when the realization of what he’s implying dawns on you. Then you’re nodding and excusing yourself from a random conversation five minutes later.

Inside Harry’s dressing room, you find Harry already unbuttoning his shirt. He grabs your face and shoves his lips onto yours once you lock the door. As he kisses you he tries to make one thing very clear, “This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Got it.” You begin to finish Harry’s job of taking off his shirt.

He pulls back to look you in the eye, “Are you okay with that?”

“Jesus fuck, yes, Harry, just shut up and fuck me senseless again!”

He listens to you and begins to kiss down your jaw and neck. His open-mouth kisses leave a searing trail across your skin. He settles on a spot at the base of your neck and begins to suck and nip at it with vigor. You set to work on finishing his job of unbuttoning his shirt. Then you pull off your own shirt, reaching behind you to untie the bows at the back. The new skin exposed grabs Harry’s attention and he moves down to suck over the cleavage of your tits. He’s happy to be back with his ‘bosom friends’. You smack his head when he says it and he chuckles darkly, only sucking harder on them causing you to moan louder than you would like.

Once you’re both in only your underwear, you find your back pressed up against the mirror behind the dressing room counter. Harry’s body is nestled between your spread legs as he kisses down your skin. His fingers dance along the line of your thong as he looks up from beneath his lashes for position, you only push his head closer to your heat in response. He laughs mischievously before tugging them down off your hips.

“Missed this pretty little cunt...All I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout,” He mutters as he begins to latch onto your dripping core.

Your brows shoot up at the thought that Harry’s mind has been stuck on you for the past week. You definitely had thought about your drunken hook up a bit, but hadn’t thought it had left a lasting impression on Harry, you assumed he had that lovely of a night with every person he chose to spend intimate time with. These thoughts are forgotten when Harry’s warm tongue is lapping at your swollen bud. You’re already panting for Harry and now you’re heaving with moans and whimpers leaving your mouth with every lick and nip of his expert mouth.

“Fuck Harry, feels so good,” you whine as his tongue travels down your folds and swirls and dips into your hole.

He moans at your words and the way your legs squeeze at his head. His hands move to spread you open wide to maintain his control and he smirks at the way your body rolls due to the friction of his voice against your pussy.

“Be a good girl f’me,” he growls still pressed against your wet heat.

Your body rolls again as you get closer and closer to your first release. Your bite your lip trying to contain all of the sounds that are trying to escape your mouth. Harry notices the new silence and glances up seeing how you’re trying to behave. As much as he likes you obeying his words, he also wanted to hear how he was pleasuring you.

“Tell me how you feel, princess,” he demands.

“So-so good,” you hiccup as his fingers caress over your folds now as he looks you in the eyes, his lips wet with your slick. He kisses you hard, his tongue diving into your mouth and you kiss back passionately, loving your taste on his tongue.

He pulls back and your hands trail down his chest, swirling around his familiar tattoos and hair that grace his lower torso as you move. He grins, enjoying the feeling of you on him and how he was affecting you.

Soon enough, his cock is finding its way back to your glistening folds, wet with your own liquids as well as his saliva. His mouth waters at the sight. He only pushes into you a few times like this. Then he catches sight of himself in the mirror in front of him and can’t resist. He pulls out and flips you over, your squeal leaving your mouth before you can stop yourself. His dick finds your entrance once again, not wanting to be without the wonderful warmth for any longer than he must.

“Ahhh,” Harry groans when he slips back inside.

Your head throws back on your neck, the feeling of him as well as the sight of him gripping your hair in one hand and your fleshy hip in the other. His rings dig into the skin as he’s able to slam more forcefully in this position. You gasp and whine at his motions. The sounds coming from between your legs are turning you on even more and they seem to make Harry happy too. He picks up the pace and drops the grasp of your hair for a second. Your head falls down as you try to keep yourself up on your elbows.

Gripping both of your hips, Harry growls, “Look at me while I fuck you. C’mon now.”

You moan in response and tear your eyes open to see your reflections in the mirror. One hand goes up to hold onto the mirror to give yourself more traction, causing your back to arch even more. The new position has Harry’s cock slamming into you deeper.

“Fuck!” Harry practically yells and can’t keep himself from landing a harsh slap on your ass. You jump forward at the sting but his other hand keeps the pace steady. He keeps burying himself into you all the way to his base, his balls slapping at your now slick spread thighs. He rubs over the red handprint he had just left on your ass. You whimper and bite your lip, truly enjoying the sensation.

Still staring into the mirror as Harry commanded, your eyes water slightly and Harry makes eye contact with you through the mirror. You smile widely and he grins back. “This feels so fucking good. Your pussy takes me so well. Fuck…” Harry babbles, still pistoning into you. You had noticed how vocal he was the first time you had fucked, but thought it had just been the alcohol. Apparently not. But you didn’t mind, you much preferred it to partners who barely spoke or didn’t even moan. Like how were you supposed to know what was going on in their minds? With Harry, you knew he was having a good time.

A few more heavy thrusts and you felt yourself nearing the edge. Your panting was getting faster, exceeding the speed of Harry’s thrusts and he could also feel you were close. Your cunt began squeezing him tighter so he hooked a hand under your knee and brought it onto the table. He hunched over you slightly and snaked his hand to your clit. “C’mon darling, I know you're close. Can feel that little cunt putting a choke hold on my cock.” He rubs at your clit with the vigor of strumming a quick paced song on the guitar. It’s enough to overtake your senses and the laugh that had bubbled from his words turns into your orgasm moan. You try to muffle it into the arm that is holding you against the mirror to avoid a full on scream because it feels that good. You felt like you were having your first ever orgasm, it felt that new to you.

A few more thrusts and you’ve come down from it, but Harry still hasn’t finished. It’s your turn to be the partner coaxing the other to get off. “Faster, Har. Want you to cum too.” He grunts, picking back up the pace. He had slowed to let you ride out your stay. “That’s it...want you to cum in me. Your cock feels so fucking good.” You whine, meaning every word. He smiles again at you and closes his eyes, focusing on chasing his high. You watch as his smile widens to that open mouth grin, “Fuck,” he almost whispers. And there it is. There’s a twitch in his hips that mirrors his expression and then he’s pulling out and cumming on your back. His voice is now even lower and raspier than before as he babbles how good that was and how tight your pussy was. It was sweet nothings, but extremely explicit and you sighed heavily, feeling a small orgasm wash over you again. His final thrusts and voice pushing you off the cliff again easily.

The two of you take a minute to bring your breathing back to normal and Harry goes to clean your back off.

“So..how do you feel about maybe doing this regularly?”  Harry asks sheepishly as he begins to pull his pants back on.

“Like a friends with benefits kind of thing? Or bandmates with benefits, rather.” You laugh breathlessly at your not really funny joke, but you’re now truly exhausted. From the show and the fuck, you felt thouroughly worked out.

“I guess that’s what it is, yeah.”

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

“You’re honestly so chill, Y/N. It’s fuckin’ hot.”

You laugh and flip your hair dramatically. You’re only in your bra and panties right now and Harry licks his lips, finding your playfulness to be a turn on. “What can I say?” You laugh.

“But like I said before...it’s just sex.” He’s buttoning up his shirt and looking at your reflection through the mirror now. He watches you slip the pants you had been wearing back on.

“Oh, Harold, I know.” On cue, he groans and turns around to face you after fixing his mused hair in the mirror. Interrupting yourself, you turn your back to Harry, “Can you tie this, sorry it’s hard for me to get the -” Harry walks to you without any hesitation and begins tying the silk ribbons on the back of your shirt. “Thanks. Anyway,” you turn to face him when he’s finished and you place both of your palms on his chest. “Trust me, I know you’ve got your issues and I’m not looking to be the girl that tries to change you. I know what this is. I only ask that you let me know when you sleep with other people, because once you do, you won’t need me.” Harry nods and you pat your hands against him. You both smile and go your separate ways when you leave the dressing room.

-

Harry and you fucked almost every night on tour. Sometimes it was right after, on the counter in his dressing rooms. Sometimes it was later in the evening in his hotel room or yours. He stopped leaving immediately after your hook ups. He never kicked you out of his room so he decided it was fine for him to stay in yours. Especially because you weren’t a stranger who would be weird with him in the morning. He also didn’t like trekking through the hotel halls late at night.

The first few times you stayed in the same bed, the two of you stayed on opposite sides of the bed, not touching after you were finished engaging in your sexual endeavours. Rigid bodies against the edges of the mattress. Then one particularly long night, filled with multiple rounds, Harry was so exhausted from his performance on stage and off that he collapsed on top of you. He fell asleep there and you didn’t particularly mind. It felt nice to be slightly compressed and held. He shifted in his sleep and when he woke up he wasn’t upset to find you nestled into his side with his arms wrapped around you. After that, cuddling sort of became part of the routine. After you were done having sex, Harry or you would get up to clean up and bring back waters. Then you would settle in his arms. Sometimes in a spooning position and sometimes you cradled softly into his chest. You didn’t talk about it, it just happened.

One night it was your head directly on top of his butterfly tattoo, one leg thrown over his lower torso and your arm snuggly wrapped around his middle. He liked to pet your hair when you laid against his chest in that way. His fingers would fiddle with the strands and you liked it because he usually took off his rings before he would do it and his hands felt so soft and delicate against you. Harry liked the way he felt when he would hold you afterwards. It was calming to fall asleep against your soft skin and feel your fingertips trace lyrics to songs he wasn’t sure the name of against his own.

No one knew about how your friendship with Harry worked. To the rest of the world, you seemed to be someone who had become another close friend in the band. You were similar to Mitch in many respects. Except for when Harry winked at you during a show, it wasn’t a friendly wink, it was a ‘this song makes me horny and I can’t wait to relieve the pressure by fucking you later’ kind of wink. You knew this because Harry had gone over and whispered it in your ear during a quick break, when you had only looked at him weirdly after he did it.

Before the show tonight, you pulled Harry aside, “So what are we thinking tonight? I feel like I might want to ride you...Haven’t been on top in a while.” In the darkness of the backstage, you crane your neck to take Harry’s earlobe between your teeth. He groans softly and grips your hips to guide them against his for a second. “Sounds fuckin’ fantastic, love.” You twitch back, releasing him immediately at the word. You always told him not to call you that and he tried to reason with you, that it was just something he called people. But you disliked it a lot, adding it to the growing list of rules the pair of you had for the do’s and don'ts of being friends with benefits with each other.

“Harold,” you groan and he steps back at that pet name. While he hated this, you refused to let him put it on the list because it didn’t cross any lines with your physical arrangement. Not that there was any physical list to put it on, it was more of a theoretical list that the two of you would speak of occasionally.

“Sorry.” He says eventually, “Didn’t mean it.” You both laugh.

You think about how other relationships were sometimes desperate to hear their partner express their love for them and you believe you’re grateful for the simplicity of your arrangement. The term relationship regarding what you and Harry were doing was also in the ‘don’t’ category on the list. If either of you were being honest, there should be no need for a list and you should be questioning yourselves why you felt the need to set boundaries if one part of it was physical and the other part was your friendship and job. If it truly was just physical why were boundaries constantly needing to be set and followed? But right now honesty was not in the cards.

-

After the show Harry gets delayed with press or fans or something that you don’t really care about. You barely read the text that he sends, only caring about the ‘sorry got held up’ and the ‘be there in thirty’.

You let yourself into his room and wait on the bed, flipping through your phone, completely unbothered by the rest of the world. When you hear a knock on the door, you don’t think twice about getting up and opening the door. You only realize your terrible mistake when it’s Mitch and not Harry standing at what you’re also just realizing isn’t your door, but instead Harry’s.

“Shit!” you say under your breath as Mitch looks at you confused.

The room is dark behind you because Harry would have just entered and gotten down to business. He might turn on a side lamp, but you hadn’t felt the need to have light on while you waited. Forgetting all of that, you had just gone to the door and opened it.

Mitch tucks some of his hair behind his ear as he stares at you. “Is Harry here?”

“Er..No?” It comes out as a question. You rub the back of your ankle with your foot, feeling nervous.

“Is he actually not here or?” Mitch trails off, narrowing his eyes at you.

“No, no he’s really not here. I’m waiting for him, too.” You rush your words, but try to remain calm.

“You have a key to his room. And you’re waiting in the dark.” He says. They’re not questions and you’re not sure just how guilty you look.

“Yeah!” You try to come up with a non suspicious response, hoping there’s a way to still salvage your’s and Harry’s secret, “He gave me his key because he wanted to talk about something and I kept it dark because my eyes always hurt after shows. Kind of like a migraine.” You scratch at your head and smile, trying to convince Mitch. He seems to believe you as he nods slowly and opens his eyes more.

There’s a little bit of an awkward silence and Mitch shifts his weight between his feet, looking at you still. Just as you're about to invite Mitch to come wait inside with you, Harry steps out of the elevator and begins to walk down the hall. His key card is already in hand and your eyes widen. Harry’s expression mirrors yours when he realizes Mitch is standing outside of his door and that you are standing with him. “Mitch!” Harry says, placing his hand on Mitch’s shoulder and sliding his key card into his back pocket with the other. Mitch turns to Harry without seeing him put away the other key card and you look at the pair of them.

“I was just telling Mitch how you gave me your key card so we could talk about...that thing.” You interject, flicking the lights on in Harry’s room as casually as possible. Harry shoots you a look about how you couldn’t come up with an actual reason for being there. You shrug your shoulders helplessly.

Mitch looks between the two of you and feels some weird tension and he’s not sure if it's always there and he’s just noticing or if something is going on right now.

“Yeah, well, I came to stop by to talk about the riff in Canyon Moon. Something is wonky with it.”

“Oh! Sure,” Harry nods to Mitch and then glances at you, “Y/N, we can talk about that other thing later. It’s not that important anyway.” His tone is so casual and nonchalant. You stare at him, thinking he can’t be serious. You had been almost sure he would send Mitch away, but instead you were being kicked to the curb. When he doesn’t say sike or anything of the sort, you nod. “Okay,” then you mumble a ‘good luck’ with figuring out the problem with the song. Mitch walks in the door, but Harry’s eyes stay fixed on your figure retreating down the hallway. He watches you disappear and is only pulled from his thoughts when Mitch calls his name from the couch in the room.

After reaching your floor, you key into your room and get ready for bed. Just as you’re about to drift off to sleep, completely alone for once in a long time, there’s another knock. This time you check the peephole, a habit you realized you were going to have to get better at. It’s Harry. You open the door and walk away immediately once he’s entered the room.

“Why are you here?”

“Thought we could still...” He follows you into the room, trying to make out your face in the darkness.

“I’m not in the mood anymore.” Your tone gives away your annoyance. You couldn’t hide that you were mad at Harry for sending you away. It made you feel weird. The way he did it so easily made you feel like you were extremely disposable and unwanted.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs as he lays down beside you. You turn to face him when he places a hand on the small of your back. You’re face to face and your noses are almost brushing. It’s not really possible to see each other’s features, but after months of hooking up you knew each other’s faces pretty well. You could reach out and pinpoint all of Harry’s freckles and moles on his face and neck right now and be correct. He could likely do the same. The theory is proven correct when he reaches out and his hand dances down your cheek. “Just thought it would be less suspicious if I didn’t get rid of him. Couldn’t make him wait either…”

“I know,” your voice is small and soft, just above a whisper, “I forgive you.” You scoot closer to him and Harry instinctively wraps his arm around you, bringing you tightly into him. You sigh into his neck and he shivers at your warm breath on his slightly clammy skin. When you lick your lips, they brush lightly against his skin. He laughs at the feeling, so you decide to press an intentional kiss to the hollow in his neck. In response, he presses a kiss to your hairline, his lips slightly chapped after the concert.

The kisses are tender, filled with that thing neither of you dare attribute to anything the two of you did in the dark. The word you told him time and time again to not call you. So is just about every touch and word that has been exchanged in this room since Harry entered it. You fall asleep wrapped up in his arms, a soft smile resting on both of your faces. Neither of you seem to mind that you didn’t actually have sex tonight or anything even close to it.

-

When you wake up you feel especially well rested. You shift around and realize your bed is empty besides you. It depended on the day, but it was always a toss up between Harry being there when you woke up or not. However, lately, you had found it was usually the former. You would linger longer and so would Harry in each other’s rooms, lounging in each other’s embrace under the soft glow of the morning light peaking through whatever windows the room had. Today you were cold at his absence. Then you look up and realize you aren’t completely alone. Harry is standing at the end of your bed, staring down at his phone, smiling.

“Hey.”

You wait for his reply, but he doesn’t look up from his phone. “Hey, Harold,” you repeat. His head snaps up, a grimace on his face at the name. He slips his phone in his pocket and ruffles his hair. “Hey.” He finally responds. “I’m gonna head out.”

“Okay.”

Neither of you seem to find it necessary to talk about what happened last night. Harry definitely seemed a little off to you this morning, but you try to shake it from your thoughts. There was no reason to be upset with him being quiet. He didn’t owe you anything, you hadn’t even slept together last night, so if anything it was weird he stayed as long as he did.

It was the second night at the Forum in Los Angeles. This means no travelling necessary. No day off either, tomorrow you’d have a day off before the third and final show at the venue though.

Harry and you were talking normally at the venue, mostly about the setlist - him and Mitch had changed something for whatever reason last night, which was fine. Your banter was to a minimum, but you were trying to convince yourself that nothing was off. Even though it felt like something was different, you couldn’t place your finger on what it was, so you thought it was best to ignore it.

When Harry is about to go out on stage, you don’t pull him aside and when he introduces the members of the band to the audience, he doesn’t say anything fun or silly about you. He doesn’t wink or come up to you at any point in the performance. It’s so unusual the rest of your bandmates are giving you funny looks. Charlotte looks at you from across your keyboard in a way that she’s asking if you’re okay. You shake your head at everyone trying to signal that you’re fine.

Mitch goes over to Harry and whispers in his ear to check in with him, Harry looks at him with a bright smile on his face and says “of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Mitch looks between the pair of you, thinking back to last night and how weird the pair of you were being then. Maybe it dawns on him then what might be going on between the two of you, but if he did, he wouldn’t mention it for a long time.

You falter a bit on your back up vocals tonight. You’re trying to give it your all, like always, but for some reason your voice isn’t sounding the way you want it. About halfway through the show, when your voice comes out the exact opposite of how you would like, Harry finally gives you a second glance. His face practically emotionless, save for the single arched brow. He’s concerned, but not concerned enough where he would go over to you. He just doesn’t understand why you keep missing the right note tonight. You make a shake of your hand to say I don’t know either. He just shrugs and turns back around to continue the show, his lively smile returning while he turns his head.

After the show, Charlotte, Sarah, and you are all checking in, going over what had happened during the show in general. They’re both worried about your voice and you’re simply trying to tell them that it was just an off night. Nothing was wrong. As long as you told everyone else that, then it might turn out to be true.

“It’s fine, maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” you fib, having gotten more sleep last night than most other nights on this tour. They both nod, seeming to take that as a reasonable answer.

Then Charlotte gets quieter as she whispers to the three of you, “Did you guys notice anything weird with Harry? He was super lively, but he barely interacted with you, Y/N, which is so unlike him...”

Sarah nods while you look skeptically on. Sarah adds, “He kept looking up to the boxes, too. More than usual at least. I don’t know though…” She trails off and you cross your arms over your chest, not really enjoying the conversation topic. “I mean, what do you think, Y/N?” Sarah adds.

Your eyes dance between the two women, your fellow bandmates, your friends. You sometimes wished you could share with them what you were doing with Harry. The secret was fun, but it’s also nice to be able to share with your girlfriends about the guy you’re seeing, even if it is a casual thing. The friendly gossip of it all is something fun to share, but sadly that was another thing you couldn’t do. You sigh, “You never really know what’s going on in his mind, y’know. He’s just Harry.” Your response is half-assed at best. You figure they’ll both give you shit for the non-answer you just supplied, but instead someone else speaks for them.

“I am in fact, just Harry.” He says and you swivel around to find yourself almost chest to chest with him. Charlotte laughs while Sarah simply smiles. Your eyes are huge as you stare up at him and you hope your blush doesn’t come out too strongly after being caught talking about Harry by himself. “Enlighten me on when I was being ‘just Harry’ though?” You bite your lip and take a step back from him, forming more of a line with the other women. He shrugs when no one offers a response, laughing lightly.

“Oh and Y/N, I can’t talk about that thing again tonight, I’ve got-”

“A date?” Charlotte asks, trying to understand why Harry was acting a little different tonight still. The part that Sarah had mentioned about him looking up into the boxes had given her the idea that he might have plans with someone after the show. Harry scratches his head, his hair slightly wet with sweat right after the show. He’s taken off his coat so he’s just in the almost completely unbuttoned, sweat soaked shirt he had been wearing underneath. It sticks tight to his skin and you can make out all the muscle lines that hide beneath the fabric that you usually get to caress. Your eyes flit from his body back to his face when he speaks again.

“Erm, I wasn’t going to phrase it like that...but yes, I suppose, it’s a date.” He says finally, he avoids your eye contact and you look at him very confused, trying to hide the hurt. He shoves his hands in his pockets trying to look and sound as casual as possible and ignore the strain he sees on your face. Is that what had held him up yesterday? Making plans with someone else? And he hadn’t told you until now? The past twenty four hours stung a little bit more now that you knew why Harry was being so distant. It simply felt icky finding out this way and it didn’t even seem like he was going to tell you it was a date.

“Okay,” you say simply and walk away. You hear Charlotte asking him details about his date, but you try actively not to hear any of it. Sarah watches you walk away and sees the way you wrap your arms around yourself to comfort you. She feels a twinge of sadness as she watches the scene unfold, seeing something she hadn’t realized was there before.

Harry doesn’t text or call you that night. You hang out with everyone else for a little while in Charlotte’s room before heading to bed, saying you think you need an early night tonight. Before you’re able to walk out of the door, Mitch stops you. “I heard Harry blew off whatever conversation the two of you have been trying to have again. Just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” You try to smile but it comes out as more of a grimace. There is no conversation Harry is blowing off, it’s simply you. “It’s fine. Like he said yesterday, it’s not important.” Mitch nods, but still looks at you with concern. What he had seen last night, then on stage today, and what Sarah had told him about your interaction after the show it all strung together in his mind. It didn’t seem unimportant at all. But he didn’t know how he could tell you that. He felt like he should talk to Harry about the way you looked when you left Charlotte’s room tonight, but he didn’t know how to bring it up to him either.

You don’t realize you’re crying until you're in the elevator, and it’s slowly rising to your floor of the hotel. You’re only one level up, but it feels like an eternity in there. You already weren’t a fan of elevators, but this ride felt impossibly worse. The walls are all made up of mirrors and you see yourself in the reflection, but you don’t exactly recognize the girl in there. Your eyes are tired from the show, dark circles already formed. Your hands are aching, clenching and unclenching on their own accord. Your body is slumped against the back wall, likely leaving a slight imprint from the smoke residue and dust on your clothes. Worst of all are the tears running down your face, smudging at your makeup, the black mascara you had applied dripping down in sinister raindrops against your skin. The sad girl stares back at you as you sniffle slightly, confused at what you’re seeing. “Why are you crying?” you ask yourself, your voice creaking and then breaking at the end as you struggle to get out the word ‘crying’ before a sob wracks through you. You roll your eyes when your reflection offers no explanation for itself. You laugh at your own patheticness and try to shake the feelings you’re experiencing.

Inside your room now, you flop on the bed and stare straight up at the ceiling. Your arms spread to your sides and your legs lay limply below you. You think about every night before last, every night since the tour started. Every night where you weren’t alone, where you were with Harry. Your mind flits to last night, how Harry’s lips had ghosted over your skin after his apology. How you had told him you forgave him and it had felt so peaceful, so simple. It was all so easy. Thinking about him and the things the two of you did together brought a smile to your face, unbeknownst to you. When you realize it’s there, your face drops immediately, deciding not to think about Harry.

But trying to not think about Harry makes you only think about him more and what you think about him now most definitely doesn’t bring a smile to your face. You’re thinking about him out on his date with some person you chose to learn nothing about. Maybe out of fear of what is happening right now. By knowing nothing about the person, you can’t compare yourself to them. Can’t see what’s different about them that would make Harry go out on a date with them. But it doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like because at the end of it all you know one thing for certain. They’re not you. You correct yourself, you know two things actually, because you also know that Harry chose to be with them instead of you tonight.

You fall asleep with tear stained cheeks that night and absolutely nothing positive on your mind. You want to sleep but know it only brings whatever is bound to happen tomorrow, which doesn’t seem very promising.

-

It’s noon when you wake up and you wake to a knocking on your door. You grumble and throw a sweatshirt over your body to hide the underwear you slept in. Not remembering your new habit, you swing the door open without any hesitation to find Harry. He looks wide awake and happy, the way he almost always looks, a fresh beautiful flower of a man. You look at him groggily, “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“Because I was asleep?” You tilt your head and look at him incredulously. “What about this,” you gesture to your appearance, “looks like I just went for a 3 mile jog for fun and I love the morning?”

“Can I come in?” He ignores everything you just said and enters the room when you leave the door to get back in bed. You often did that with him, you don’t know why, but when he asked to come in the room it was just simpler to let him in then say anything. He knew what you meant.

He sits at the edge of the bed as you reclaim your spot in the middle of it, tucked slightly under the covers, but still sitting up. “How was your date?” You try to sound nonchalant and it seems to work. Harry doesn’t notice your tense figure, but you notice how he tenses up when you ask.

“Good…Her name was-” You don’t let him finish, you already know the answer to this next question and you don’t need her name in order to ask it, “Did you fuck her?”

He’s silent, green eyes staring straight at you. You meet his gaze, your eyes almost burning holes into him. His eyes are begging you to not make him answer the question, he doesn’t want this to end, even if he also didn’t want the commitment he had felt himself exhibiting the other night.

When he had come to your room the other night after Mitch had almost caught you, he knew he shouldn’t have stayed. He didn’t want you to feel bad so he had come to apologize, but when the pair of you didn’t have sex, he should have left. But he didn’t, he stayed and it wasn’t for you, it was for himself. It was for him to hold you in his arms because he liked to. But when he woke up the next morning he knew he needed to leave. Solely cuddling wasn’t part of your arrangement together. It’s probably on the list of don'ts that the pair of you had. So after he realized the line he had willingly crossed with you, he quickly sent a text to Jeff who had tried to set him up with a model they were acquaintances with the night before - the reason he had gotten held up. Harry had initially declined, not very interested in seeing anyone else but you. But looking back on that choice in the light of day seemed to solidify what this relationship was - a relationship - and Harry didn’t like that. The commitment wasn’t part of the plan, so he told Jeff to set that date up for after the second show at the Forum and give the woman a ticket. That’s why he was smiling at his phone the morning after only cuddling with you, that’s why he didn’t joke around with you during the show, and that’s why he wasn’t in your bed last night.

You watch him expectantly, silently waiting for his answer, your veins cold as ice. He finally starts his answer and he wants to make it clear that it wasn’t as good with the other woman, but he’s not sure how to work that part in. He’s not sure how to explain to you it meant nothing if your arrangement also apparently meant nothing. You barely even let him get in a sentence. “Yes, but it was just a one time-”

“Alright.”

“What?” He doesn’t understand what you mean when you nod your head and cut him off.

“I told you at the beginning, Harry. Tell me when you sleep with someone else because when you do this is over. It doesn’t matter if she’s the love of your life or a one night stand. I will not be a backup plan, so if you’re able to find other people to sleep with, you don’t need to be sleeping with me.”

He sits in silence for a moment, his jaw dropped open slightly. He’s unable to keep it shut as his mind races about what to say. “Are you mad with me?”

“No, I’m fine. This was just sex. Charlotte will be happy that I’ll be going out with her more.”

Harry’s brow furrows as you shift away from him on the bed, grabbing your phone and beginning to flick through it. You feel numb and you’d like to not think about why.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks because he does care about you, worry is written all over his face. He just can’t commit, not now.

“What would I be mad about, Harry?” You look up and your eyes widen at him, silently asking him to truthfully say why you should be so upset about this revelation. You always knew it would eventually come to an end, you just hadn’t expected so soon. You hadn’t known the last time would be the last time and it broke your heart even if you knew it shouldn’t.

He shifts to reach his hand out to touch your exposed knee. You move away from him and he sighs, looking exasperated. “I- I don’t know. It just seems like we should talk about this.”

“You didn’t even think it was necessary to tell me you were going on a date last night, so I think it’s best if we just left it at ‘it’s fine, see you around’.”

He spreads his hands out across the sheets, examining his rings and painted nails thoroughly. You’re right, he doesn’t really want to talk about this. Well, more so, he’s conflicted. He would like to talk enough that you want to continue your arrangement but he doesn’t want to talk about feelings or emotions. Even if he has those feelings and emotions, they’re just not part of the things he’d like to talk about. “But-” You set your phone down at his first word, “Were you even going to tell me you fucked someone else today if Charlotte hadn’t asked you if it was a date last night? Would you just have come to my room tonight and acted like nothing had changed?”

“I would have told you.”

“Sure.”

“I swear I would’ve. I would never break a promise to you.”

“But you would make a decision that affects the both of us without telling me until afterwards?” Your voice breaks a little and you beg yourself not to cry right now.

“I thought you said this was just sex?”

You laugh humorlessly, in disbelief, “Of course it’s not, Harry! And it hasn’t been for a long time and that’s why you got scared and went and fucked someone else.” He looks at you blankly, unsure what to say, knowing you’re right. You continue, “But I also told you at the beginning of this, that I wasn’t going to try to change you. So this is me not trying to change you.” You sigh when he still says nothing, his expression completely unreadable, even to you. “Why couldn’t you have left it at ‘it’s fine’?” You say finally, barely above a whisper.

He blinks a few times after your final question. He flexes his hand one more time and then stands up from the bed. He adjusts his clothes and stares at you. You feel helpless, but you’re still trying to look pulled together, even after your outburst. You stare back. A thousand words floating through your heads, all the things you want to say and likely never will.

“I know, I’m…” he pauses, trying to get himself to say it, but he can’t. He can’t admit that he’s completely ruined whatever messed up paradise you had created together. “I’ll see you later.”

The apology or lack there of hangs in the air as he walks silently out your door. You don’t move, you barely even blink, still staring at the spot he had just occupied. Your breath finally escapes you, a large sigh. Then some nervous laughter. It was over...just like that. But things like this, left like this are never really over.

-

It’s awkward for a good amount of the rest of the tour. You hang out with your bandmates more and Harry rarely ever comes out with them after the shows. He either hangs out with Mitch on his own or is going out with random people he knows on the road. You and him speak, but it’s never a lot or about anything relatively meaningful. It’s not the fun back and forth of before or the fiery heat of sneaking around. You try to be normal with him, act like his casual friend and bandmate.

He does his best to do the same, but it’s difficult for him. He doesn’t know how to talk to you anymore. He misses being with you, but can’t bring himself to fix it. He doesn’t do much to right his wrongs with you. He also doesn’t even know what he would want if he did apologize. It scared him to think about the step that came after ‘sorry’ so he saved himself the trouble and never did that part either. One night he texts you: “I’m trying, it’s just hard.” and that’s it. You don’t give him a response, he doesn’t need one. You know he’s trying and he knows you know.

Near the end of the tour, he comes out with the rest of you for drinks one night. Only Mitch is between the two of you in the booth, so you feel closer to Harry than you’ve felt in a long time. The group of you are chatting and having a good time. You somehow get onto a story from when you were still in college. You explain how you had narrowly avoided getting Chlamydia right before your Christmas break junior year. You act out the conversations you imagined would have happened at all your Christmas events if you had indeed gotten it. Your impressions of your mother, father, and sister have everyone laughing the most. Harry is shaking with laughter from your story and you smile at him in appreciation when he says, “That is the funniest story I’ve heard in a long fucking time.”

The rest of the night goes really well, for the most part. No one bickers or is short with each other. Everyone is laughing and drinks are flowing. Eventually Mitch gets up to go to the bathroom and you feel Harry slide back into the booth closer to you after letting Mitch out. Your hand had taken up residence next to your thigh, resting on the vinyl of the booth. You sense something next to it now and notice Harry’s hand is resting close beside it. He shifts his hand closer when he sees that you’re looking down at it. He’s almost touching you and you look up to his eyes, wondering if he’ll close the distance. He makes an imperceptible shake of his head, but you know what he means. As you’re about to shift your hand so that your pinky connects with his, Mitch returns and your head shoots up to his figure. You instantly remove your hand from the vinyl and shift closer to Charlotte. Harry gets up, but doesn’t sit back down once Mitch is settled. He instead walks off to get another drink, risking one last look at the table where he makes eye contact with you, but he doesn’t come back. Mitch informs everyone that Harry went back to the hotel because “he was tired” after Harry doesn’t return and Mitch gets a text. You roll your eyes, sure that you saw him slip out of the side door with a woman he found at the bar after he had gotten his drink. If that’s what ‘tired’ looked like on Harry, it was fine.

You start to speak to Harry on a more regular basis after that night out. It’s not funny or lighthearted. It’s just ‘I saw this song the other day, thought you might like to listen’. It went back and forth, it wasn’t everyday but it was something. The last text between the two of you before you began sharing songs again was his ‘I’m trying it’s just hard’ text that he had sent randomly one night. Then after one of you would listen, you would see each other at sound check and mention the song and what you thought about it. It can be noted that it was Harry who sent the first song.

For Harryween, Adam couldn’t be there. He has some family emergency the day of and doesn’t come with the rest of you to Madison Square Garden or the hotel you were staying at. Thankfully, Charlotte also plays keys and you can play bass. The band had to shift around some things on stage and make minimal changes to the setlist since you weren’t rehearsed on the covers Harry was doing. You spent the whole day running through the chords of those songs with Mitch, trying to memorize them so you didn’t mess it up during the show.

It was weird because for Harryween the setlist was switched up a little from the regular set for Love On Tour. Harry was playing the entire new album as well as half of the first album, Medicine, some of his other unreleased stuff, and about six covers, including old One Direction songs. It was going to be a long show and a challenge for you.

Before the show, Harry pulls you aside, to a dark corner backstage, and your mind flits back to the last time you had been in this type of position. The last time he had called you ‘love’, the last time you bit his earlobe - which always drove him crazy, the last time he ground his hips against yours, those and more and you had no idea that it was the last. By then you had already had sex with Harry for the last time, kissed his lips for the last time. It made your heart race to be so close to him and so alone once again. But it’s nowhere near the same as it once was. You shake the memories from your mind and look up expectantly at him.

“Have you got this?” He asks seriously, tone concerned. Of course it’s a music question, nothing more. Like it always was now.

“Yeah, of course.” His stare is unwavering and you try not to falter from it.

“I can get someone else to cover tomorrow, it was just such a short notice today. You know bass really well too, it made sense.”

“I’ve got this. Seriously, don’t worry, Harold.” You pat his chest lightly and for once Harry smiles at the sound of your nickname for him. You had stopped using it after the end of your arrangement. It never felt right to use when you were talking about music, and that was about the only time you had been talking. In this moment though, it felt right. His warm, large hands held your upper arms as you stared up into his big eyes. You missed staring into them, the shimmering emerald of his irises were constantly intriguing. You instinctively reach up to move back a curl that has fallen onto his forehead. He doesn’t shy away from your touch and continues to smile down at you.

“Y’haven’t called me that in forever.” He grins, his lips a shiny pink from the lip balm he had on.

“No, I suppose I haven’t. But where was the groan? The whole point is to annoy you.” You smile coyly. He tips his head back and laughs, releasing your arms from his grasp as he laughs wholeheartedly.

Then he does a soft groan, a playful sound, “How was that?”

“Eh. I’ll give you a four out of ten. Not enough emotion behind it.” You slide from the area the two of you have been occupying and make your way onto the stage to start dealing with the bass you would be playing. You hear Harry call out to you, “I think I deserve at least a five, maybe even a six!” You turn back for a second to look at him with an unimpressed expression and shake your head no. He laughs again and you hear him even when you walk out onto the stage. You smile to yourself as you pick up the bass.

When he introduces the band, he waits to talk about you last. “And sadly this evening Mr. Adam Prentergest, our usual fabulous bassist, was unable to attend our fancy dress party! However! Our lovely Y/N L/N is also a superb bassist and was kind enough to step into his place. - Anything to add?” He saunters across the stage to you and you laugh kindly, feeling at ease in this part of the stage even though you were usually on the opposite side and further back from the crowd. You nod at Harry and he leans his portable mic towards your lips. You wet them quickly and eye Harry before turning out to the crowd. “Just please go easy on me if the bass sounds a bit wonky. It wasn’t on the job description that I’d be playing songs I didn’t know, with a few hours notice, on not my main instrument.” You say this in a kind of list format, holding up your fingers as you tick off all the ways that this was out of your comfort zone. You scratch your head dramatically after you’re finished and the whole crowd laughs and cheers. The rest of your bandmates chuckle along and Harry nods and smiles at you.

“You’ll do great, love.” He leans into your ear and says without the microphone. Then he winks and turns to go back to the center of the stage. You press your lips together to contain your smile, both happy and concerned about the flip your stomach just did.  

The show is going great. Harry is killing it with the crowd. Everything is electric. You’re entirely focussed on your bass playing, but Harry has been coming over every so often to do something fun or have you tell a joke.

“She’s truly the funniest person I know! And I know a fair amount of people I think.” Harry says as he walks over to you have you tell another joke. Mitch has been looking at you and Harry interacting all night and he’s sure that it isn’t your different position that has him coming over and talking to you so much tonight. Something has definitely changed once again. First the pair of you were always together and having fun, then it was silence and stolen glances that neither of you realized you were taking, now it was back to the beginning.

“That’s because you think puns are part of the top tier levels of comedy.” You say easily, “Here, I can guarantee Harry will love this and the rest of you will likely groan.” Then you stop and act as if you’re thinking for a little, everyone’s waiting expectantly. “Sorry, thinking...Well, I’ve got some skeleton puns I could do, they’re very humerus or y’know classic vampire ones..eh but those ones kind of suck. What do you think, Harry?” You look out at the crowd, face deadpan, as Harry laughs beside you. You roll your eyes playfully and push him back to the center of the stage. Leaning into your own mic now, you say, “I told you.” That’s when everyone laughs. Harry throws another look at you over his shoulder and laughs a little more, his smile wide and eyes bright.

A little over half way through the night, it’s time for ‘to be so lonely’. You already knew the bass chords for it before today and you were confident in yourself by now. It wasn’t as hard a song so you were happy for the little break. This song allowed you to not be looking down at the notes you had stuck to the floor in front of you. Harry’s voice comes in after Mitch’s intro and you watch the way his lips move against his mic. You laugh a little as you watch the crowd yell the first “arrogant son of a bitch” line. You used to not particularly like when people did that, but after it had ended with Harry you had started to enjoy it a bit more. Having those people yell the words you couldn’t, but truly felt about him sometimes, was cathartic. Tonight you weren’t angry with him, but you enjoyed the energy in the room when everyone said it. We’ve all got our own ‘arrogant son of a bitch’ that we want to scream at sometimes. Tonight yours wasn’t Harry for the first time in a long time. The song moves along and Harry takes the microphone off its stand, he walks towards your side of the stage. When the lyrics get to:

“I miss the shape of your lips, your wit, it’s just a trick, this is it so I’m sorry”

Harry isn’t looking at the crowd, he’s looking straight at you. You don’t understand the way he’s looking at you. Or maybe you don’t want to understand it. This song, its lyrics, explains Harry really well. You saw the relationship you had with him in the words. Maybe not precisely, but a part of it was in it. Harry had unknowingly foretold your lives with his words. You know he has trouble connecting and committing, you know his issues, and you accept them. But you knew what had happened between the two of you was far more serious than meaningless sex and you knew Harry couldn’t bring himself to be that serious. He ran off and that was fine, but the face that he couldn’t even apologize hurt you the most. But the song lays it all out for you, he’s not one to be able to apologize quickly. The fact that he looks at you and means the apology he sings in the song for you, it’s a big step, but it’s not enough. The banter, the technical apology, it was all a good start, but it’s just that - the beginning. If Harry wants to make things better with you, a lot more needs to be discussed. So when you sing backing vocals for the following chorus you mean the words for Harry completely.

“Don’t call me baby again, you got your reasons, I know that you’re trying to be friends. I know you mean it, but don’t call me baby again it’s hard for me to go home and be so lonely”

His eyes flick to you again and see your lips moving around the words as you play the bass. He sees the emotion in your face and understands what you’re saying. It’s hard for you to go to your room at night and be alone while he’s out with someone else. It’s hard for him to act like everything’s all fine and perfect, back to normal, because for you it isn’t really. He can’t call you ‘love’ and tell the world you’re funny and expect it to be enough. He can’t sing his sorry that was initially for someone else to you and expect you to accept it. And he knows it, too.

After the show everyone decides they’re exhausted and need to rest before tomorrow. You all planned to celebrate the whole day and you knew it was going to be a wicked Halloween. Knowing this, you’re surprised with the knock on your door after about an hour of being back at the hotel. You’ve given up the habit you had once hoped to cultivate and swing the door open haplessly. Truly having no idea who to expect, you are still surprised to find the man standing before you.

“Mitch.”

“We need to talk.” He stares down at you, his shoulders slumped from tiredness.

“Come in,” you usher him in when you hear the urgency of his voice. He saunters in before you and you close the door. You move to the small couch in the room and sit down. Your hands gesture for him to sit as well, but he shakes his head. He stays standing and brings a hand up to smooth his hair back on the right side. His eyes staying on the floor and flickering up to you every so often.

“What is going on with you and Harry?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh come on Y/N. You’re seemingly best friends with him for a good portion of tour, then you’re barely on speaking terms for the second half, now you’re joking around again. What is going on?”

You sit there in a stunned silence, “I don’t know what to say.” Your arms go to hug your body, feeling anxious about being confronted about this topic.

“Were you seeing each other?” His voice is soft, eyes taking in your body language and knowing it’s a difficult topic.

“I wouldn’t put it like that…”

He holds back the ‘I knew it’ statement because of  how sullen you look, b..ut in his mind all of the pieces he had watched unfold came to fit in a perfect puzzle. He decides to sit beside you when you don’t say anything else.

“We were having sex,” it felt weird to say it out loud, no one but you and Harry had actually known, “But it ended. I don’t know what today was...but it felt different than how it’s been.”

“Why are you so sad if it was just sex?” He places a hand on your shoulder and your tear-filled eyes meet his. “Oh…” He knows why.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” You sob at his apology because he’s not the one who should be at your door apologizing. You sniffle and lean your head into his chest. He takes you into his arms and holds you as your cries become muffled sounds in his shirt.

You cry without words for a few minutes, Mitch coos some soothing words, his voice soft and kind. He was always a good shoulder to cry on for all of your bandmates, he was extremely strong and you made a mental note to thank him thoroughly when you actually were capable of forming coherent thoughts. “I’ve never told anyone before. It feels so weird even saying it out loud,” you say as you pull back from Mitch’s embrace. You're thankful his shirt is black, no tear stains can be made out.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks gently, gauging your reaction. You wipe at your eyes and nod.

Taking a deep breath, you decide to start from the beginning. “Do you remember the party Charlotte had a week before we left for tour?”

Mitch nods and his eyes widen at what you’re saying as he remembers the night. “It started back then?” He’s unable to contain his incredulous question. He had suspected something, but hadn’t thought it had been going on for that long. He was truly astounded. You nod, “Well sort of,” then you go on to recount the last couple of months. All the way up until the Forum shows. “That night, when I opened Harry’s door and it was you standing there...Harry and I didn’t have anything to discuss. It was just…” Mitch nods again. He hadn’t spoken much since you had gotten into the story, wanting to let you be in charge of what you were saying and believing he could probably ask questions at the end. “Then the next night he blew me off for his date with that model and I cried in the elevator because I knew what was going to happen next.”

“So that’s when it ended?” Mitch asks when you don’t speak for a rather extended period of time.

“Yeah, the next morning he came over and I asked if they had sex and he said yes so I told him it was over.”

“But I don’t get why he went out with that model. He had told me she wasn’t his type the night before…” Your eyes shot up and looked at Mitch. His eyes widened when he realized what he said.

“What?”

“When we were talking about Canyon Moon, he mentioned that Jeff had tried to set him up with some woman but he had declined. Said he wasn’t interested. I don’t get what changed between then and the next morning.” He figured it was best to put all the cards out on the table right now. You’d be going your separate ways for a while, now that the tour was over and he had seen how unhappy both you and Harry had been over the last part of the tour.

You shift your leg to have it folded beneath you as you continue to stare at Mitch. “He came over after you and him had your meeting,”  you say quietly. Mitch hums, waiting for you to continue this time.

“He apologized for choosing you over me to talk to. Then we slept together, but we didn’t have sex...I think that’s what wigged him. It had felt too real, sleeping in the same bed with me without having sex beforehand made it feel like something more than just two people fulfilling needs.” Mitch nods and sighs heavily. He looks around the room and then back to you, taking in your full appearance. Again he feels terrible for you, how he had felt the second night at the Forum even though he hadn’t known the full story yet. “Now we’re here.”

“Tonight, it felt like he was trying,” Mitch finally said and you smiled sweetly, thinking back to Harry’s behavior. No matter how far from him you were, all those good feelings you associated with him never went away.

“Yeah, it’s been getting better. He texted me once saying he was trying. Then he came out with us one night and it almost seemed like that would be the night he’d apologize, but then he didn’t. Then we started sharing music with each other again. Then tonight… was tonight. It’s just confusing. He’s confusing.”

Mitch smiles sadly and brings you in for another hug and you’re actually so thankful he

showed up at your door. It was your first time telling anyone all of this, because Harry didn’t even know how you felt about some of these things. It felt amazing to be heard and to be told it was okay to be feeling like this.

Pulling back, Mitch says, “He’s definitely different. But his differences are what make him special and that’s why I think he clings to them even if they sometimes can hurt other people. The fact that he’s trying is a good sign. I hope he can find it in himself to make it right between you two because I had never seen either of you happier than when you were apparently together. Especially those few weeks leading up to Los Angeles. Sarah had kept asking me why Harry was so smiley back then. When I had asked him, he had just said “have you ever found something and realized you wanted to keep it with you forever?” I had no idea what he had meant, but I feel like he meant you now.”

Your awestruck at what Mitch has just told you. He was right about the first part about Harry trying to change, but the last bit, that’s what had left you speechless. You turn your body to face the rest of the room and put your chin against your hand as you think.

“Mitch...I have to go.”

He understands what you mean and you walk out of the door with him. He walks down the hall to his room and you walk quickly past the elevator and opt for the stairs. Before you know it you’re running up the stairs, taking two at a time even though you’re not the most athletically inclined. You can’t stand to wait for the elevator and your mind is racing.

You knock on the door that is Harry’s after reaching his floor. It swings open and reveals a confused and sleepy Harry. Thankfully he’s still fully dressed because that would have been a whole other problem you would have if he hadn’t been. You push past him and walk straight into his room without any invitation. He follows behind you, still unsure of why you’ve come here.

“Have you ever found something and realized you want to keep it forever?” You ask him, repeating the words Mitch had just told you.

“Pardon?”

“You told Mitch that about me before we ended things. If that’s how you felt, why didn’t you do what you said?”

Harry sighs as the words register in his mind. The memory of when he had smiled at Mitch so giddily and asked the vague question, his thoughts only of you as he asked it. The shit-eating grin he had plastered on his face after Mitch had looked at him confusedly flitted across his mind. As well as the way he had gone to his dressing room and had a quickie with you after that conversation.

“It’s not that simple…”

“It is, Harry! Why can’t you just be honest with me for once?”

“Okay, fine. You want me to be honest?” you nod at his harsh tone. The two of you standing only a few feet apart. “You have no goddamn idea what you do to me, when I’m around you, I have no control of my emotions or of my thoughts. I pushed you away because I didn’t like feeling out of control. I got out because what had started as a fun time had turned into me longing to be with you every waking hour. I found myself not caring what we did as long as I got to hold you and be around you, but that wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Plans can change, Harry.”

You step closer to him and he meets your eyes. He had left his music playing softly on his phone before he had opened the door so now as the two of you stared at each other, he must have been playing his Etta James playlist because her voice faded out of the song “I’d Rather Go Blind” and straight into “A Sunday Kind of Love”. Harry had shared her At Last album with you over the Christmas holiday of last year and you had decided to listen to her entire discography afterwards, so you knew the songs. The transition was a little too on the nose and you wondered if Spotify ever listened to your conversations.

His emerald eyes examine your face and take inventory of your features, measuring whether anything had changed since he had looked at you this close up. Your hand goes up to cup his cheek and he nuzzles into it, dropping his head closer to you ever so slightly and closing his eyes at the feeling of you.

“I am sorry,” he whispers earnestly as he reopens his eyes.

You can’t take your eyes off of him even if you tried. He looks so soft in the moment, so vulnerable in this light as the music swells in the corner of the room. Etta sings about how she needs a love that is going to last as the pair of you inch yourselves closer together.

“I forgive you, Harry,” you whisper back.

He nudges his head further down and your lips finally press together, slotting back together after months apart. Your lips are eager to press back against their favorite companion. You oblige them, but pull back for a second, just far enough to say, “I will always forgive you, so long as you tell me when you’re scared so we can work through it together.”

He nods, “I promise to never let you go again.” Before taking you back against his lips and gathering your body up in his arms. His lips missing yours just as much.

-

[wistfulrat]

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[the soft boi list is here and truly i’m not surprised this rec is going to be the longest bc if there’s one thing a bitch is going to do, it’s yearn.

as always! if you love a fic, follow the authors, leave kudos & comments, send them nice msgs bc free art is still labor xoxo]

part 3: soft bois

mood: for when I need respite, a balm to the all-consuming shittiness of life

includes: fluff, comfort, low-stakes, slow-burn fics. a wistful look, a rainy morning, an unexpected grace, a stupidly disarming joke. i could live inside these fics. the smallness of human lives removed from the site of that which hurts & irreparably changes. the story-equivalent of a deep breath after a long day. pregnant silences & pensive mundanity & shy smiles. banter with bite but without the cruelty. the color lavender. weirdly whimsical. soft fics are not necessarily conflict-averse (no drarry fic rly can be, considering the context) but, they offer the reader a generous distance from the initial harm. they’re the quiet cleaning up after a storm. sometimes healing is an exacting surgical knife and other times it’s a slow scabbing. you read these fics to be reassured that the way forward is not always ruthless. and honestly?? they deserve a semblance of peace godDAMmit.

The Way Down by @letteredlettered - 65k - T “and I thought that if someone talked to you as though you were a human being you might—maybe you could act like one” --the way i think about this line daily. the characterization of draco in this fic is one my favorites bc he’s earnest and neurotic and tired of harry’s shit. which is to say, he cares so so much. and harry doesn’t know what to do with that bc he’s got a monster in his chest and lives as a recluse. but they both humanize each other in ways no one else can. “you’re just a person” has to be some kind of drarry ethics of belonging and it makes me CRY. -

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @greaseonmymouth and dustmouth - 96k - T “Maybe it’s not about deserving it? Maybe you just get to have it anyway. . .I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it.” --harry runs a daycare and also works at a library. draco spends a lot of time in said library. they bond over sci-fi books and therapy anecdotes and quiet philosophical conversations held over cafeteria soup. and harry’s struggling to understand his asexuality. draco’s learning how to live with anxiety and depression. they both want to be deserving of love. incredible fic with beautiful art by dustmouth. - 

Open for Repairs by @drarrytrash - 35k - T “A few leaves rustle in the gutter and the muggle world pays no mind to them, to two lost boys holding on for dear life.” --all of their fics feel exactly like this. like you’ve been allowed to look at something private, tender, unexpected. draco, known abba fan, is a repairman in the muggle world & harry can’t stop breaking thrifted things in order to see him? say less, i'm thERE. also “I think I have a crush on you” goddddd  - other faves by them: Counting Down By Ten - 2k - T: draco’s stepped outside of the party for a smoke. harry follows him bc of course he does. i could read this 100 times and not get tired of it. - Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - 36k - E: FUCKING HILARIOUS I CACKLED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. draco’s wolfy problem and harry helping him and harry being flustered by how much he likes draco and draco’s hot heroic moment. shutup it’s perfect. “He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.” and “It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely” --lines that live rent free in my head -

Harry Potter and the Future He Doesn't Really Want, Thanks by seefin - 70k - E “That was the only logical thing to do here, wasn’t it? It was the next step, it was the end of hurting each other and the beginning of the exact opposite.” --harry lives with luna and neville and also he dreams about the future sometimes? and he keeps running into draco. draco thinks this is sus as hell, until he doesn’t. feat. taxi rides, museums, cinemas, rooftop conversations beneath a lunar eclipse, mid-sex innocuous banter, draco and harry discussing nicki minaj. this fic charmed my ass off. seefin writes the most effortlessly hilarious dialogues. i smiled at my phone like an idiot at least 7 times. -  other faves by them: Wild - 93k - E: “he liked feeling needed, for the things that he was needed for back at the house in Ireland. For cooking and gardening and driving. Easy things.” --this shit makes me cry it’s so good. harry lives in Ireland with these three brilliant, hilarious, wandless witches and draco’s a potions student who's come to study under one of the housemates and the boys have so much shit to work through but their love becomes so tender and honest. draco yells at harry a lot and harry lets him and they both keep each other grounded in something real and fuCK.  - Divination for Dickheads - 7k - G: “I’m terrible at having crushes. I’ve never played anything cool a day in my life.” -- oh harry, we knOW. a bus ride, a fortune teller, an aquarium birthday party. god i love this fic. -

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic​ - 61k - E “But we’ve worked so hard at this, haven’t we? Yeah, I know it’s a horror to have to talk about it, but fuck it. We’re friends now, but it took so long to get here. Have you ever had to work so hard at something before?" --the steady blossoming of their friendship in this fic is so goddamn beautiful i want to yell. it’s draco and harry learning to trust each other and the whole thing unfolds so slowly, in this whimsical mix of london streets, wizarding politics, church halls feat. a Hot vicar, and a magical antique shop owner who’s married to literal poseidon?? goD the environment of this fic. immaculate. [also there’s a tender shower scene that makes me cry every single fucking time so if you read this fic pls dm me so we can be embarrassing about it together tbh] -

Nice Things by aideomai - 22k - M “He kept waiting for the weird shock of touch to not knock him clean out of his head, leave him quiet and warm and happy.” --8th year. harry forms an unlikely friendship with draco that begins with smoking weed on a windowsill. harry is touch-starved and draco touches him like he touches all his close friends - like it’s easy. the quiet affection in this fic, the way harry burrows himself into touch bc he’s been without it for his entire life. reading this is like being held. -

Running On Air by @tinyhistory​ - 74k - T “do you remember when we were eleven?” --alexa play coldplay’s the scientist it’s sad girl hours and we’re about to fucking yearn. you’ve seen this fic rec on every drarry list under the sun and i'm here to be redundant. the hype is so goddamn real. this story is a lyrical masterpiece held together by lines that act as refrains that will rattle around your brain until you die, probably. draco’s been missing for 3yrs. harry goes to find him. it’s their odyssey of homecoming. -

Title of Their Sex Tape by @cibeewastaken - 12k - T “But Draco, Draco was everything but boring. Draco made sitting in the rain watching an empty house fun.” --auror partners pining and draco being eccentric and harry being very earnestly gay about draco’s eccentricities!! god this fic is so genuinely fun skskd feat. undercover missions, murderous faeries, a book heist, a stunning navy dress, harry’s eyelashes. -

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by @thistle-verse - 14k - T “Draco is about to say something else— to thank Potter for what he’d done, however poorly— but Harry is smiling at him again, and it’s so soft and perfect that Draco holds in any inadequate words, lest he spoil it.” --draco collects tea cozies and of course harry has the one he wants. the sad and tender gays are at it again feat. conversations in the rain at a train station, melancholy Blaise, muggle photos, wizarding e-bay, the Dursleys.  -

Helix by Saras_Girl - 92k - E “Draco sighs in his sleep and Harry clings on to consciousness, needing to hold on, to give this tiny, insignificant moment the attention it deserves” --I think maybe you can describe every soft Saras_Girl story as giving tiny, insignificant moments the attention they deserve. like, this is an 8th year fic about snails and it’s full of whimsy, grief, compassion, and easy humor. an absolute must-read author in this genre if you want languorous, episodic fics full of distinct OCs and affectionate creatures. - other faves by them: Light up the Night Sky - 98k - M “Draco, sometimes you make my head feel like soup” --the one where harry is a fireworks artist and has a pet chameleon named ken. draco is on the wizarding arts council. they both pine like hell. - Headlights in the Snow - 71k - M “they stare at each other in silence, Harry’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he thinks the biddies must be able to hear it over the sound of their card game.” --the one where draco drives the knight bus and carts around the biddy club, a group of rambunctious old ladies who knit and drink tea and gossip. harry can’t help but fall in love with the everything about this. -

Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 - 38k - T “Harry’s heavy thoughts lift at the sight, like dark clouds blown away from the sun by the wind. The tent doesn’t feel so cramped and stifling now. It feels cozy. And safe. It’s the same feeling that Harry gets when he’s at the Burrow for Sunday roasts, when a group of people who care for each other deeply are crammed into too-small a space.” --harry wanders to the lovegood house on a sunday afternoon. he’s baffled to see that luna’s taken pansy, greg, and draco under her wing. what follows is a summer of forest walks, scavenger hunts, gardening, water fights, odd cakes, faerie rings, and picnics. so many picnics. i love the pace of this fic, the innocent return to childhood things, the way luna brings out the best in all her friends. reluctantly soft slytherins are just *chefs kiss*!! -

Going Postal (A 125pg comic) by dustmouth - T what. a. beautiful. ass. comic. the wizarding fashion, the textures, the character design!! harry travels a lot for his job as a resourcer. draco works in the regulations dept. they pine like a bunch of lovesick idiots via field report notes. god i love dustmouth’s art. -

All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre​ - 29k - E “Draco is twenty-seven layers of personality wrapped up in drama and humour, and a wit so sharp it still stings when he doesn’t see it coming. But there is something below that, too. Something that makes Harry ache just looking at him.” --the way i would lay down my little life for tepre’s characterization of draco, whom invented the word earnest. he’s a magical art theory expert and portraits are disappearing all over London and harry’s the auror assigned to this case. and well. they’re both so very avoidant about how gay they are for each other and it’s like!! shutup and kiss!! which they do in fact, shutup and kiss.  -

Trenches by sara_holmes - 3k - M “Somewhere in the distant part of his mind that hasn't frozen solid, he thinks that maybe he and Draco are about to become more than auror partners, smoking buddies, wine-mates and co-inhabitants of a snow filled trench somewhere in western Scotland.” --the plot line here is literally “it’s cold and i need a fucking cigarette” but let me tell you how I never tire of the shared loaded-silences of two emotionally repressed gays. -

The Years Before Love by lomonaaeren - 13k - M “That’s one of the meanings of peace, he thinks, as Hermione hugs him...That he can do things slowly, softly, without worrying that they won’t be there tomorrow.” --andromeda taking harry under her wing and harry finding solace in teddy. narcissa and draco showing up and the tentative relationships that slowly develop in the quiet calm of andromeda’s house. found families and kisses in the snow and special xmas gifts ugh what’s not to love -

The Moon Looks Lovely Tonight by Omi_Ohmy - 35k - M “I want this to be a house where people are welcome, where they don’t have to be any one way or another” --in which harry collects lost things--owls, best friends, inept bakers, potions experimenters--and turns the mausoleum that is grimmauld place into a home. feat. your fave drarry tropes like shared-beds and reluctant waltzing partners. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

[darter-blue]

So- I’ve been going through your blog for a few weeks now and reading your fics, but I just watched Endgame. I watched it yesterday and I need some comfort fics where it’s soft and the boys are in love because I feel attacked by the Russos and extremely disappointed 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 any fics you can recommend for a poor lost soul????

Hey there gorgeous Nonnie,

Oh, endgame will leave you in a nasty place for sure, but yes honey, I have a few fics that will put you right.

Here is a little list of fluffy fun for you, read and get your happy stucky vibes back. And let's pretend that other nonsense never existed, shall we? Good bub.

Becs fluffy recs:

they're gonna send us to prison for jerks by napricot

This is mostly inspired by this tumblr post and Sebastian Stan's hilarious look for I, Tonya in general. This was supposed to be a short lolzy undercover/mistaken identity type thing, but whoops. Now it's 24k of lolz and feelings!

Effects of Obliteration by geneticallydead

I wanted to write a Winter Soldier recovery fic, but with some kind of spin where there isn't the inherent angst of the Soldier, you know, trying to flat out murder Steve on several occasions.

So um, ta da?

*throws fic at you and runs*

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail by MusingsOnBuckyBarnes, owlet

The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

(Always rec this fic for comfort reading)

Sweater Weather by odetteandodile

hi all, i was in the mood for some lighthearted fall-themed shrunkyclunks and here's where we ended up!

enjoy some awkward flirting, banter, puppy-eyes, and fluffs.

The Right Wrong Number by giselleslash

Steve's one night stand blows him off with a wrong number, which just happens to be Bucky's number...

Steve Rogers. Cheerfully Slutty. by relenafanel

Steve Rogers. Cheerfully Slutty. But not going to take your shit about it.

Bucky Barnes. Voted most likely to fall in love first.

Red Carpet Rescue Mission by darter_blue

Just in case you, like me, are in the mood for adorable stucky shenanigans, I present this little bit of fun, based on the cutest anecdote I've heard in forever:

Irish presenter, Angela Scanlon, doesn't recognise Steven Spielberg at the BAFTA's

Subliminal Advertising by Kalee60

Hello and welcome to this absolute ridiculous story 

This came about from an actual visit to the supermarket when I not so proudly caught myself staring at a very nice looking man who may have had a wonderful shoulder to waist ratio that made me think of Steve... 

Love in Aisle Four by ixalit

When Bucky needs to swing by the supermarket after a long, hard day of work, the last thing he expects is to meet a cute grocery clerk named Steve…

When you say nothing at all by becassine

Sometimes the best conversations are never spoken aloud.

aka Bucky remembers some of his & Steve's more memorable kisses throughout their years.

Compatible - A Romantic Science Fiction Thriller in Four Parts by the1918

This fic was born into the world as a disgusting, smutty PWP plot bunny full of every a/b/o trope in the book. Then I watched it accidentally grow a plot and even sprout some world building. I apologize for what I have created.

night by the_gods_wife

Ch. 1: Steve and Bucky have to work together to neutralize a threat.

Ch. 2: Bucky is forced to defuse a tense situation

Stucky Tumblr Drabbles by TrekChik

A collection of Stucky drabbles, really a series of Meet-Cutes with an occasional high-context relationship, all about 1000 words or less.

Crash and Burn by HaniTrash

When you're the most feared assassin in the international spy world, who happens to also be an Omega, it's not exactly easy to scrounge up a willing partner. After all, everyone assumes you're an Alpha based on your size and generally grumpy nature. The website is an online matching service that seemed doubtful to his skeptical mind, but all he's looking for is a cock to ride out his heats with instead of doing all the work himself. Should be simple enough, right?

💗💗💗

There you go nonnie, lots of juicy fun fluff and smut for you to sink your teeth into. As always, mind the ao3 tags and ratings and enjoy!!!

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

Do you have a favorite scene or bit from CYOA that’s already been posted? 😊 my favorite was James’ swan anecdote and the way Skylar and Lily both responded. It was 1) hilarious and 2) such a cute moment to see how he and Lily are very similar (especially with the placement of it after their “I see you” conversation)

I'm glad that you noticed that part with the swans, because it was definitely deliberate and intended as a seal on exactly what Lily said to James about them both having "it." My favourite chapter so far is James's first POV chapter, particularly the ending, because writing it was incredibly cathartic. I've never experienced the feeling of unrequited love, but I was feeling pain and grief on the day that I wrote it and I feel like that pain made it in there somehow. When I read over it I can feel it. And this is me, who doesn't write angst and never will write real, traumatic angst. But I have definitely come to learn with this fic that being able to sit at my laptop and write during a time of great personal pain and strife has been beyond helpful to me. In a way it has been saving my sanity. I feel like I dealt with my pain that day in a way that was extremely healthy and positive for me.

Aside from that, Lily telling Paul to rawdog a Venus flytrap is one of those rare lines that popped into my head out of nowhere and that I knew would make people laugh.

[sokkas-honour]

An unexpected but welcomed visitor - Mako x kyoshi!reader

summary: for the lovely @biqherosix ‘s makyoshi writing challenge and the prompt used was Grandma Yin

word count: 2k

taglist (always open): @biqherosix @draqondance

notes: no tw here i believe, just a girl not knowing what the hell to name a fic and it’s unedited so my apologies

You stared out of Mako’s apartment window, watching the clouds slowly move across the sky above Republic city. You sat on the couch wondering when your boyfriend would return from his little rendez-vous with Kai on Air Temple Island. He’d promised the young boy that he’d help him set up a picnic for Jinora which was an absolutely adorable idea. Mako being close with the airbending monster, considering all the time they spend together arguing about obscure subjects. In theory, he did seem like the perfect choice to help him, you would have disagreed though considering he has a horrible track record with his romantic attempts going smoothly, which added to his charm in your opinion, but you hoped that he’d prove useful to Kai.

You had let yourself into the apartment what seemed like an hour ago. Bolin was visiting Zaofu with Opal which meant that his place was free for a date night hosted by the firebender, well more like a date afternoon but he still hadn’t shown up. He had promised to cook dinner for you and then you’d both play a game of pai sho with lots of cuddling and relaxing in between. You’d both had pretty busy schedules in the last couple of days with his job keeping the streets safe and your Kyoshi duties so a whole afternoon of just pure escape sounded amazing.

The sound of the door to the apartment slowly opening scared you at first but you quickly jumped out of your spot on the couch in excitement. 

“You’re finally here!” You exclaimed as you quickly ran to the bathroom to make sure you looked presentable. You called out to who you thought was your boyfriend from the washroom. “What took you so long Mako? Is Kai ready to absolutely blow Jinora’s socks off without airbending?”

When no one answered but you heard footsteps advancing into the apartment you closed the door to the bathroom and went to grab the closest thing to you to use as a weapon. You looked at the counter but only found someone’s toothbrush and since Bolin wasn’t in the city it meant it belonged to the firebender. As disgusting as it felt to use your boyfriend’s toothbrush as a weapon, you needed something fast. Before getting ready to exit the room to face whoever was outside you spotted someone’s comb and planned to use it as some sort of boomerang. With the toothbrush in close proximity, the comb in one hand, you went to open the door when an elderly voice emerged from the other side.

“Mako? Is that you? I hope I’m not too early. You might want to rethink the idea of leaving your door unlocked, stupid Mako, you take that after your dad.”

Your eyes widened as you opened the door, guard down at the voice that belonged to someone’s grandma. You still kept the comb in a tight grip as you opened the door. The newcomer made a sound that made you jump and throw the comb as you intended too. The now empty hand quickly went back to grab the toothbrush and you emerged from the bathroom when you heard a little yelp.

“My, my, Mako, where are your manners?” And then it hit you, you knew that voice, it belonged to Mako’s grandma, Yin. She looked at you with wide eyes and a shocked expression. “You’re not my Mako are you?”

You shook your head, surprised that she didn't recognize you. You had met when she was staying at the Sato estate and Wu had to hide during the whole Kuvira problem.

“No, I’m his girlfriend, we’ve met before.” You smiled slightly, cheeks turning a bit red when her gaze landed on the toothbrush that was in your hand. You shyly put it on a nearby shelf. “I was one of Wu’s bodyguards, we met when he was staying with you for a short period of time?”

She frowned, analysing you from your head to your toes, making you feel very on the spot and somewhat self conscious. She had a very puzzled look on her face as she just stared at your face in confusion.

“His majesty, prince Wu, only had Mako and some beautiful girl in a warrior’s uniform as a bodyguard. You don’t look like you’d be a bodyguard.”

“I am that warrior girl though, I’m a kyoshi warrior, I’m just out of my uniform.” Now it was your turn to be slightly confused at her words, you remembered not wearing makeup the one time you met so wouldn't she be able to recognise you?

“Oh, that’s very possible though you are very muscular for a woman.” She stated very bluntly and you suddenly regretted just wearing a simple tank top and casual pants for your date, not that you expected to see your boyfriend’s grandmother before even seeing him for the day.

“Uh, thanks?” Your thanks sounded more like a question, unsure how to respond to what you thought was a compliment from the elderly woman. You watched as she slowly made her way back to where you were sitting just a couple of minutes ago.

“Come, sit.” She looked at you with a smile and patted the spot next to her on the couch, inviting you to sit down. You made your way to your previous resting spot and took your place next to her.

“Please, tell me about my Mako. I haven’t seen him in a while and didn’t know he had a girlfriend, I’d love to hear about you two’s relationship.” Her warm, inviting smile made you relax which made you realise your shoulders were a bit tense from wondering what she’d say.

“Oh, well Mako and I met working for prince Wu-” You had barely started before she interrupted you, taking you aback.

“I don't want to know about how you two met, that's just boring. Tell me about a moment that makes you smile whenever you think about it, tell me how he makes you feel.” She stated as if it was the most obvious thing ever and made you feel a tad bit stupid for wanting to start at the beginning.

“Oh well, there’s this one time a couple of weeks ago that I’ll never forget.” You started with a smile on your face as the memory of the story you were about to tell came to you. You continued, a slight euphoric feeling was laced with your words which Grandma Yin most likely picked up on. “I’m sure you know that Mako and Bolin used to be a part of a pro bending team, their whole lives revolve around it for a while. I didn't meet the brothers till long after their pro bending careers had met but they’ve always told me stories about how exhilarating their matches were. I’ve only ever heard them through radio and they never really interested me until I found out the guy I loved the most used to be a part of a pretty reputable team before traveling the world with the avatar. So, Mako decided that as a surprise, he’d take me to see a pro bending match, it was the Laogai Lion Vultures versus the Ember Island Eel Hounds.”

You paused for a second to see if she seemed at all interested and to your surprise, she looked as if she was listening intently so you proceeded to continue your story. 

“Mako knew this guy from the Laogai Lion Vultures, their earthbender Ruohar, and managed to get him to let us see the match from the best seats in the house, the last spot where players go before being brought to the main platform. We had a direct view on the game. Before the match started, Mako told me a couple of stories of Bo and him, what they’d do before a game, a time they both messed up that they found hilarious, their old member Hasook. It was just so nice to see Mako smiling fondly at memories and just opening up about his past. Neither of us are great at that but seeing him just being nostalgic and saying absolutely everything that went through his mind just made my heart warm. Anyway, the game started and I could barely hear what the commentator was saying because of how much Mako was yelling at both teams. You couldn't go two seconds without him screaming ‘You had that!’ or ‘I could beat them in my sleep!’ and everything in between. Every once in a while hed realise what he was doing and would turn to ask me if it was bothering me and of course it wasn't, seeing Mako being passionate about something just brings me so much joy, he’d even show me how’d he do a play differently when he was really mad at the Lion Vulture’s execution. When the match was finally over and we’d congratulated the Lion Vultures on their win, he gave me a tour of the arena, showed me where he used to train, where he used to live and just let every single one of his memories come back. I’ve probably already said this but just seeing Mako be so open and just so giddy about his stories and anecdotes really made it a date to remember.” You finished, a pleased and content grin graced your features as you still felt stuck in your memory, finding it hard to get yourself out of that moment.

“That sounds absolutely delightful my dear, it makes me happy to see that my Mako is making you so happy.” She looked at you with a soft gaze.

“I have another fun story if you’d like?” You volunteered to tell another story, maybe even multiple if she wanted to because of how much you enjoyed just being able to gush about your partner and to your luck, she nodded eagerly.

You told stories that jumped to your mind from when Mako and you first went on a date, your last date together and everything in between. Before long, you heard the door open again as the sun was slowly setting out the window but you were both so engrossed in the story that you were telling that you failed to notice whoever entered the apartment.

“Y/n? Grandma?” The newcomer just so happened to be the subject of your tales and he seemed very confused as to why his grandmother and his girlfriend were in his home.

“Oh Mako! It’s so good to see you! I came by to tell you something but it seems like I’ve forgotten. I won’t keep you two lovebirds for too long.” Yin was the first to greet him as she stood up to hug her grandson who returned the gesture happily.

“Y/n, it was lovely to meet you, hopefully we can do this over tea sometime?” She suggested and you eagerly nodded, excited to share more stories of your stupid boyfriend and hopefully you’d learn a thing or two about his father if you stuck at it long enough.

You bid each other goodbye and watched as she closed the door behind her before turning back to your boyfriend.

“I’m just going to assume that something went wrong with Jinora and Kai. You can tell me all about it while you make that dinner you promised.” You said smugly, giving him a hug as he groaned, realising he’d forgotten all about your date.

“Shit y/n, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot about tonight. I was gushing about Jinora and Kai with Pema and got caught up, I’m so sorry.” You simply smiled, having forgiven him as soon as his grandmother and you started talking. 

“What happened between my grandmother and you? You both seem extremely happy.” He asked, suspicious of what embarrassing things you might’ve told her but you simply shook your head and teased. “What happens with Grandma Yin, stays with Grandma Yin my dear.”

He rolled his eyes, setting his head on your forehead as you both stayed in each other’s embrace as his eyes trailed around the room and found some misplaced toileterry.

“Hey, why is my comb on the ground and why the hell is my toothbrush on the bookshelf?”