#his special interest is definitely fucking number plates

[ferrymann]

tangerine DOES have autism your honour!!

everyone applauds me as i step down from the stand

[chaichaiiskai]

Jack hanma x male reader … you can just do wtv you feel like doing for this … this is probably gonna get ignored cz it’s just ‘jack x male reader’ but if you do .. Yk do smth, thank you 👍🏾

Gotta be honest, I don't remember jack shit about jack (pun intended) aside from his ability to not lay tf down despite getting his ass beat so--- he's very stubborn so I think I can do something with that... Ya didn't give me much to work with but I'll take the reins on this one.

Now, personally, I don't think jack would be too interested in romance since his number one goal is to beat the shit outta his father but for the sake of your request I'm just gonna feed into the fantasy and add a bit of spice. Jack's definitely gonna be ooc

Let's say this takes place a little while after he's defeated by Baki and he's a bit more humble, also he's at the heaping height of 7'11 aka 241 cm. I had no idea what to do!!!! But let's do this.

jack hanma! x male! amab! reader

warnings: amab reader, male reader, mlm, he/him pronouns, homophobes dni, overprotective behavior from jack, no smoot this time cause i wanna give jack the cuddles he deserves and male readers deserve fluff too 🥺

Working could have its downfalls and its moments of relief, especially in this special part of the city. It wasn't exactly the most rundown place, but it wasn't all that safe either. However, you chose not to let that bother you as you focused on doing your job, collecting tips, and then heading back home. Being a waiter proved to be easy enough when you weren't dealing with difficult, idiotic customers who had some kind of privilege problem, complaining about the food not being hot.

"Sir, I'm more than happy to have another meal prepared for you, it won't take too long—" Your insistent words were soon cut off by the sound of the angered man you'd been serving, slamming his fat fist onto the table. You could practically see the veins in his forehead and neck looking close to popping, his reddened face reminding you of Red from Angry birds, he even had the brows to match.

"NO! How dare you disrespect me with this fucking SLOP!" He shouted, and then moved his other hand. In a flash, and before you could brace yourself for what was to come, you grunted when a plate was tossed at you, a bloody steak and hot potatoes were thrown directly at you. Fortunately, you were able to bring your arms up to quickly cover your face, the food and plate hitting your arms before it all crashed to the floor after covering your uniform and shoes in the man's tantrums. A light burning sensation spread over your arms and elbows, but not harsh enough to call for medical care, thankfully.

"Where do you get off thinking you can get away with this, boy!?"

Before you can explain yourself, or even defend your character, perhaps even offer to refund him for the meal he seemed to have a problem with, you felt a heavy hand on your shoulder. Along with the weight, you smelt a familiar cologne, your senses being invaded with a sudden sense of comfort and relaxation. Though, the hairs on the back of your neck knew what was to come next.

Jack.

You looked up at the heap of a man and he didn't look at you, instead, he offered the cloth napkin that he had gotten from the table he'd been dining at. You took it and stepped back, starting to wipe your arms off, taking note of the remaining slight sting you felt from the hot food, you would live but you couldn't believe this guy had the audacity to lie about the food being cold. Why? Did he just want to cause problems on unsuspecting waiters and waitresses? Was it some kind of elaborate scheme to humiliate those that he deemed below him?

"And who in the fuck are you!?" The difficult customer suddenly asked, making a show of getting out of his seat to stand off with Jack even though the blond easily towered over him, but their physiques were somewhat similar. Two walls built of muscle. All that proteins seems to go somewhere.

"Just a concerned customer. You're disturbing my meal, and you're lacking manners." Jack replied, his tone calm and his features as nonchalant as ever. This seemed to anger the other man considerably, seeing how he suddenly thrusted a finger in Jack's chest, soon to be met with the sound of crunching.

He'd broken his finger.

It was his own fault for carelessly touching a man who seemed to be crafted from sheer marble and stone.

The man let out a scream, clutching his broken finger with his uninjured hand, cradling it against his chest. In response, you took another step back and watched, along with many other patrons and staff members. Jack, on the other hand, grinned and looked back at the witnesses who couldn't take their eyes away from the scene.

"You all saw who touched who first, correct? You're all my witnesses."

Before anyone could even confirm what the blond had said, he covered the entirety of the angry customer's skull with his hand and lifted him off his feet. With the swift, calculated movements of a seasoned pitcher, he pulled the man towards himself just by holding his head like an oversized baseball and tossed him forward... right through the restaurant window, much to the horror of everyone in the restaurant-- aside from Jack and you. No, you were already groaning at the idea of needing to find another job.

...

"You can't keep doing this, Jack! Do you know how many jobs I've had to resign from because of you butting into everything?! Those poor people can't even fire me because they think you'll come after them and bash their skulls in with your bare HANDS or something!!"

You exclaimed, lecturing your boyfriend on his repeated offenses when it came to protecting you and your pride at every restaurant you worked at, mostly doing waiter work. The massive man simply chuckled at your words, tossing his arm over your shoulders as he pulled you closer into his hardened side, the warmth he gave off was a nice contrast to the approaching winter night but you were still upset. The two of you were in the back of the van he had bought to accommodate his large stature, while his chauffeur drove you both to the apartment building Jack owned.

"I don't get why you need to work when I can easily take care of you. I already do, but you always insist on working. Are you planning on saving up money and leaving me or something, short stacks?"

You rolled your eyes at the pet name, wanting to ignore him for the rest of the ride, but you couldn't bite your tongue back from recanting. "No. I can't do that even if I tried because I somehow fell in love with you. But that doesn't make me want to stop from going out to work, I want to contribute. You already pay all the rest of the bills." You murmured, crossing your arms over your chest and sighing, your anger dissipating into saddened frustration as you looked down at the van's floor, frowning at the sight of your dirtied shoes.

Jack simply watched you for a few minutes, the gears in his head starting to turn about before he spoke up.

"Why can't you apply for any other job then? Do you have to be a waiter?"

"I don't know what else I'm supposed to do, Jack! It's not like jobs are just falling from the fucking sky and are ripe for the taking!"

He seemed to linger on your words, not effected in the slightest by the raise in your voice. Instead, he wanted to be a problem solver, even if he wasn't the smartest guy out there, he figured there could be something out there for you.

Before the conversation could continue, however, it was interrupted by the van parking, the backdoor opening and you climbing out, rushing out into the underground garage to head straight for the elevator so you could go up to the penthouse and bathe. Jack simply watched your retreating back, rubbing at the back of his neck before he finally climbed out after you. With a quick dismiss of his driver, he began the trek to the stairs, which he preferred to take instead of the elevator, despite living on the 20th floor. How could he even pass up on a workout? It already took a lot out of him to not try and run everywhere, but you insisted on getting a van because you didn't want his body to continue breaking down at such a fast pace. And you usually would have forced him to take the elevator with you, but you were too upset with him and grossed out by your soiled clothes to wait.

As soon as you got into your shared place, you took your shoes off and left them by the door, shuffling across the hardwood floor with your somewhat soiled socks and dropped your bag on the living room couch, making your way directly to the bathroom. Once inside, you didn't bother to shut the door behind you and headed for the shower, turning it on so that it could heat up to the proper temperature before stripping out of your clothes. You dropped the articles of clothing on the floor, knowing you'd drop them in the washer after you were done bathing, and hurried into the shower, instantly sighing in relief as the water began to shower off the stickiness of that asshole of a man's dinner from your skin.

The shower was pretty much a massive glass box, and like everything else in your home, it was meant to fit two Jacks inside of it, making it almost seem like a giant's castle with you inside of it. That was okay with you, everything was just extra comfortable, especially the shower that had sprayers behind you, in front of you, and on the ceiling, rinsing every inch of your body if you so desired. It was a great contrast to the frustration from the day. And you preferred to stop smelling like meat and potatoes.

Eventually, about halfway through your shower, Jack had finally made it inside, grunting as he kicked off his shoes haphazardly, entering and taking a brief look around. It didn't take a genius to know where you'd gone. He put on his house slippers and went further in, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark sweats as he entered the bedroom, deciding he'd be of some help.

By the time you came out of the shower, feeling more refreshed with your head a bit clearer, a towel wrapped around your waist and another emcompassimg your wet head.

You noticed Jack first sitting on the edge of the humongous bed, and then a fresh change of clothes splayed out on the mattress beside him. "Thanks, babe."

He hummed in response, removing his phone to unlock and look through it. Whenever he held something significantly smaller in his hand, it was always amusing, no matter what mood you were in. You sighed and shook your head to keep yourself from chuckling, moving to get dressed in one of his t-shirts that drowned you in fabric (no matter what size you are), and pair of comfortable bottoms you tended to lounge around. You decided to finish drying your hair, plopping down beside him, sinking into the firm yet soft bed.

The silence was comfortable in a way, with the sounds of him tapping and you lightly scrubbing away at the moisture on your head.

"How about this?"

You paused what you were doing when he suddenly put his phone in front of your face, showing something to you. You squinted in confusion and leaned in a little to get a better look at what he was showing you. A job listing for a remote job. Immediately, you took his phone from him and looked over the requirements, the description, and everything else in-between. It was almost too good to be true. How did he find something so easily in such a short amount of time? You decided not waste anymore time to rush over to gather your laptop, carrying along his phone, and went to apply for this job as quickly as possible. Luckily, you had a little desk you often used in the bedroom tucked away in the corner nearby the closet. If you got this job then that means you'd have to make up your own office. What were the odds? If you got this job, you might not be as frustrated with Jack as you were before... Who were you kidding? Even if he didn't present this golden opportunity you wouldn't have lasted much longer being frustrated with him.

With a new sense of determination, you were quick to upload your resume along with your application and a few other things you needed, a sense of hope settling itself on your shoulders. Alongside the hands that were currently resting their, Jack peering over your shoulders, not leaning any of his weight on you as he watched you diligently type away.

"Will I get a reward if you score this job?" He finally asked after you hit 'submit' on your application. Breathing out a sigh from your nose, you tilted your head back to look up at him, bumping into his hard abdomen. "Hm... don't know. You acted pretty hasty today, knowing I could have handled it on my own... I think I should punish you."

Jack blinked in surprise for a moment, his mouth soon forming an 'o' shape, followed by a cheeky grin that spread across his face like a forest fire.

"Punish me? Kinda wanna see you try. Doubt you could do anything though." After challenging you, he removed his hands from your shoulders and crossed them over his chest, raising an eyebrow in wait.

You nodded and then pushed yourself out of your chair.

"Bet."

And with the speed of lightening, you hurried over towards the bed and flopped onto your side, immediately getting comfortable and pretending to sleep.

Jack: 🧍

"You little shit."

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Strangers AU (2) Masterlist

part one

6:30 Special - dansphlevels

Summary: In a world where you and your soulmate both have constellations of dark blue freckles that glow when you’re together, Dan has been waiting for his whole life for it to finally glow. And when it does, he is stood face to face with a man Phil, who looks back in confusion, his own constellation unlit.

airport meetings (ao3) - pasteldanhowells

Summary: Dan is having a bad start to his morning, and you would think a stranger crashing into him, literally, would make things worse, but actually, it makes Dan's morning somewhat better when Dan sees how attractive the man is.

A Match and a Fuse (ao3) - waveydnp

Summary: Phil is twenty six years old and stuck in a dead end life. He works at Starbucks and may or may not be carrying a torch for his best friend of eight years. He doesn’t know who he is or what he wants–or how to go about figuring it out. That all starts to change when he happens upon the resume of a certain law school grad named Daniel.

Charmed (ao3) - hygge

Summary: Dan doesn’t understand Valentine’s Day. That is until he’s given an anonymous card with someone’s phone number in it. It takes months of talking with this anonymous person to learn who they are, and it ends up being the person that Dan least expects.

Close To You - succubusphan

Summary:Phil takes his friend’s child to baby ballet and meets a handsome dad. It was the first day of the rest of his life.

Golden Boy (ao3) - hygge

Summary: Phil takes a drawing class in university and needs a subject for his drawing final.

Ice Packs And Coffee Cups (ao3) - rainbowchristy

Summary: As part of the emergency staff for London's biggest concert venue, Phil knew how to manage a huge range of problems. When a certain brown-haired boy turns up unconscious, Phil doesn't think much of it, well, until the boy awakens, that is.

I Really Can’t Tell If I’m Dreaming Or Breathing - wavydanrises

Summary: Dan is an events manager at the Queen’s Garden’s, one of the city’s most renowned hotels, and he's organizing a Christmas reception with the cute reception planner called Phil Lester.

Lost (ao3) - BeeAreEff

Summary: phil goes to an amusementpark, no spoilers.

Lungs Filled With Flowers - botanistlester

Summary: Whenever Dan has a bad day, he always knows that Animal Crossing will be there for him no matter what. When he finds a friend code written on his desk, he immediately adds it into his DS, despite not knowing who it could be.

pastry chef attempts to steal phil’s heart (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: If anyone asks, Prince Philip’s sneaky morning journeys down to the royal pastry kitchen are for nothing more than the perfect cup of coffee.

Popping Corn With Your Ex-Boyfriend’s Ex-Boyfriend (ao3) - spencerwrites

Summary: Phil goes to the cinema by himself and finds his boyfriend with another boy buying tickets for the same movie he wanted to see. Phil and Dan both dump their boyfriend and go see the movie together instead.

snuggle up close, let me hold your pieces in place, even if just for a night (ao3) - natigail

Summary: It was just one thing after another really.

Broken down bus with a whole class of freshers. Dingy hotel room that was cold as fuck. No one wanting to share a room with Dan.

But then the TA Phil stepped up to the plate and defended Dan. Of course, it meant that the two of them ended up sharing a bed, and then the heater had to break. It's the perfect excuse for sharing body warmth and confessions.

Special Delivery (ao3) - phantasticworks

Summary: Dan Howell receives a package he definitely didn't order, but the man who did order it is... well, he's rather interesting. And the object he's ordered... well, it's odd, to say the least.

strawberries and cigarettes (ao3) - calvinahobbes

Summary: “Hey, mate, spare a light?” the guy says. He stops a couple of feet from Phil and holds out an unlit cigarette.

Swipe Right (ao3) - howellesterfics

Summary: Dan is tired of matching with sexually confused frat boys on Tinder. When he swipes right on Phil, he hopes that this time around things will be different, and well - they certainly are.

Try New Things (ao3) - PoisonedMind

Summary: Phil tries yoga for the first time and it’s an absolutely harrowing experience except for the cute guy at the mat next to him who sucks just as badly as Phil does.

Two Strangers Drinking Champagne In An Airport - dxnhowell

Summary: Dan and Phil in an airport terminal drinking champagne out of plastic cups with a bunch of those airport TV screens in the background with all the flights cancelled.

Up Close And Personal - dxnhowell

Summary: Dan is a famous dinosaur expert who has been studying dinosaurs his whole life, and gets the opportunity to work at Jurassic World (he works exclusively with the raptors). Phil is a very smart guy, like a genius, and he’s close friends with Louise who works at Jurassic World so he gets to go to Jurassic World and gets behind the scenes VIP treatment. There, he meets Dan. Unfortunately for Phil, things go wrong while feeding the raptors and an accident happens.

waffles (ao3) - kae_karo

Summary: phil goes to the 24hr diner with the hopes of seeing his favorite waiter (insp by me seeing a cute waitress at a diner. unfortunately none of the rest actually happened to me lmao)

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

you’re someone i just want around: III

“You can have me tonight or never

I thought you understood

Baby, some people are meant to be loved and others just naked

So take what I’m willing to give, love it or hate it.”

—Wrong, Zayn and Kehlani

A/N: alright SO!!!! the original part 3 ended up being at the cusp of 50k words (because i have no self control) and that is a LOT to read in one go so it’s getting split into parts 3 and 4! which means!! double update laidese and germs!!!! part 4 will be posted this SUNDAY, AUGUST 16th at 5PM PST/8PM EST :D we hope you enjoy this chapter, feedback is greatly appreciated, and please please PLEASE!!! if you like it, reblog it!!! and if you want, go nuts in the tags!! every single one is read!!! it keeps content creators motivated 💌leyla @sunflowervolvimp3​ took the liberty of making an incredible playlist to go along with our story, so feel free to check it out and see if you can find any clues as to what’s in store for the characters 👀without further delay, here she is...buckle up 👁👁this is gonna be quite the ride

ysijwa masterlist : andrea’s masterlist : leyla’s masterlist : ysijwa playlist

word count: 24.2k

content/warnings: cheeky banter over texts, The Crew dragging Niall to shit, more banter over a glass of cheap wine, vampire!harry showing up to “interior design” sessions looking like a runway model, some fwb smut, degradation kink, very mild mentions of blood, and some ugly tapestries that somehow lead to sexting

///

Y/N definitely puts Harry’s number to good use. Very good use.

In fact, during the span of the next month or so, Harry reckons that she pulls up his contact on her phone so often that she probably has him listed on speed dial. The assumption is dramatic and probably incorrect, on behalf of his arrogance, but with how much time they start spending together, it’s hardly a stretch.  

It all begins exactly a week after their first time meeting. 

Harry still hates clubs. 

He hates them more than he did last week. He hates them more than he did yesterday, more than he did this morning, and even more than he did a minute ago. He fucking despises them. 

And yet, as Harry stands here before the mirror in his enormous double-sink bathroom, fiddling with his damp hair as his flouncy dress shirt hangs unbuttoned from his broad shoulders, he’s absolutely positive he has never hated clubs more than right now. 

Niall got to pick the venue this time. He’d texted his choice in the groupchat (which is respectfully named Dinner Plans) about four hours ago, making sure to get the word out decently early so that everyone could start making their preparations, all in order for the crew to be on the move by nine P.M. 

It’s now nine thirty-seven, and everyone is fully set to leave at the agreed upon hour. Everyone except Harry. 

This, however, is not uncommon. He’s always the one that takes the longest to get ready, no matter how soon he starts. No one can remember an instance where Harry has ever been ready on time— which says a lot, considering most of the gang has years of memories from which they can pull. Mitch especially. With almost a century of friendship behind them, not once has the older vampire ever seen Harry stick to a deadline. His flare for being fashionably late is less a flare, and moreso an irritating burn. It always throws off their game a bit, but at this point, everyone has gotten used to the seemingly young vampire’s theatrics. 

So on this Friday night, there isn’t much more to do other than mold to his habits; Harry answers to no one except himself and it’s been that way for decades now, for a reason he’d rather not reminisce. He doesn’t owe anything to anyone, especially since he’s the one that always takes charge of getting them where they need to go, as well as getting them inside said destination. Complaining about their leader wouldn’t do the gang any good for a number of reasons, especially because Harry rarely ever listens. It is what it is— he’s just the way he is, and they’ve all learned to live with and respect that.

The funny thing? Harry does it on purpose, though his friends aren’t aware of it. He drags out the process of getting prepared simply so he can put off having to step inside one of those circus acts people refer to as clubs. He goes as slow as possible and does as much as possible, spreading seconds into minutes, and maybe— if he’s insistent enough and feeling particularly pesky— an hour. His record is an hour and twenty-eight minutes, which he wears with pride, much to his group’s unamusement. 

Harry knows no one will ever say anything about his annoying tendencies, unless they’re willing to volunteer themselves to take the reins for the night. Vampires are alert and productive, but only when they want to be— which is usually only when it benefits them— and only if they can muster up the patience for it. And frankly, none of the creatures he associates with have the patience required to deal with security, driving, and other obstacles the way Harry does. He’s indispensable, and therefore, everyone puts up with his shit. Quid pro quo has never been more effective. 

So here Harry stands, now thirty-eight minutes past the original time sorted for departure, carefully combing volumizing mousse into his slightly wet curls and spinning each ringlet around his index finger to give them the definition and bounce he’s so well-known for. Here he is, finishing up his post-shower routine as all of his friends mill around downstairs in his living room, waiting for him to come down so they can pack into his car and head out for the weekly hunt at whatever establishment has been deemed fit for the night. And here he is, taking his sweet time so he can be the signature pain in the ass that everyone hates to love. 

Once Harry has thoroughly coated all of his hair with the fluffy white cream, he pulls out his hair-dryer from the cabinet below his sink, snapping its accompanying diffuser into place and flipping his head upside down. He carefully scrunches his curls to his roots with the attachment, moving in thoughtful circles as he hums to the rhythm of a song he can’t be bothered to remember the name of. Staring down at his polished jet black heeled boots, he absentmindedly taps against the porcelain ground to the beat of the music, sighing wistfully as warm air circulates its way across his scalp. 

Harry turns his shoes to the side, admiring the detailing along the back of the heel. Across the curved surface is the word SUCKER, bedazzled onto the article with multicolored jewels, glitzing beautifully under the fluorescent lighting of his bathroom. The shoes had been a gift from a friend with connections in high places; more specifically, connections to the man who sits on the throne of the Gucci brand. Harry hadn’t questioned the present when he’d received it— only an idiot would bat a cautious eye at such a luxury. He’d fallen in love with them the second they landed in his palms, decked out in a gorgeous satin box and wrapped with sparkly black tissue paper. The only words that had dared leave his lips were, “Fuck, I think I just got hard.”

The shoes had fit like a charm, and he had wanted to save them for a special occasion. But given that he has hundreds of years worth of special occasions lined up for his future, he’d shrugged off his pickiness and yanked them out the back of his closet for tonight. What better way to show them off than at an overhyped disco hall? 

Harry flips his head right-side up once again, ruffling his fingers through his soft, shiny curls to check for any wet patches or stringiness. He rolls up the wire to his styling tool and puts it back in its designated spot, grabbing his favorite paddle brush and attentively filtering it through his hair until he gets the tousled waves that he’s grown so fond of sporting. He musses them until he’s satisfied with his appearance, nodding at himself casually in the mirror as he proceeds to wrap up the last few necessities he has left. 

Harry buttons his blouse, admiring it in the fogged mirror. It’s a flowy sheer black piece with holographic threads sewn through its expanse, the fabric continuously shimmering with every shift of his muscles from underneath. He leaves the last three holes empty to better show off the dark butterfly inking on his lean chest and the swallows suspended in flight along his collarbones. He doesn’t really have to leave the shirt open, given that the material is see-through to the point where it leaves very little to the imagination, obvious in how all the tattoos along his arms are clearly visible. But he does it either way— he likes it when people stare. He’s got the assets, he might as well flaunt them.

Harry loosely tucks the hem of the shirt along the brim of his high-waisted beige slacks, which he’d ironed with precision to an ideal fold. He opts out of a belt tonight, wanting to display the array of elegant buttons that line the front of his pleated trousers. The pants hang slightly flared around his ankles, and if someone’s interests were intent enough, they might catch a glimpse of his favorite socks underneath the cusps, the words FUCK IT printed across the dark cotton fabric. He always makes sure to have an aspect in his outfit that could make for neat conversation.  

The vampire pulls out one of his drawers, ghosting his fingers over his collection of jewelry before picking out a pearl necklace and his father’s gold-plated cross necklace, as well as a colorful array of rings. He makes sure to retrieve the most significant two, as always— his lionhead amethyst daylight ring and his mother’s opal. He never goes anywhere without them. 

After he’s slipped on those accessories, bending and stretching his fingers for good measure and feeling everything settle into place, he picks out the gold cross earring that matches his necklace. It used to be part of a pair that belonged to his sister. As he watches the gold twinkle in the artificial light, he briefly wonders what happened to its twin, but pushes the thought away before it leads him down a path of pessimistic speculations. 

Harry loops the dangly piece through his earlobe, sighing through his nose as his gaze jets around his entire look, searching for any possible faults he could tend to that would prolong the inevitable— another night of drunken morons and thick synthetic smoke. 

Harry decides to fold the cuffs of his shirt up to his elbows, knowing that it makes his veiny forearms look appealing. He rummages through his selection of colognes before deciding to go with his trusty Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille, spritzing a bit along specific pressure points on his neck where a pulse would otherwise be present, following along with the insides of his wrists. The scent of cloves, sugar-frosted vanilla, and cedar wood envelope him in a warm ambiance. After that task is complete, he fusses with his necklaces for a minute or so, settling the cross between his pectorals and resting the rosey pearls across his clavicle, fingering at their smooth surface in thought. Much to his defeat, everything seems to be in order, down to his freshly lacquered black nails. It’s not his fault he’s nearly flawless. His long— and unfortunate— extension on life had given him a plethora of years to work himself into a state of physical perfection. There’s only so much one can do to their appearance before it becomes superiorly stagnant. 

Harry tunes his heightened hearing for a second, listening in to the conversation his friends are entertaining on the first level of his condo. Niall’s voice is the first one that comes through, unsurprisingly. He’s always the loudest and has zero filter, present in how he’s freely ranting about Harry’s exaggerated mannerisms as he paces back and forth across the floor, footsteps heavy. No one seems to be paying him any mind— As usual, Harry thinks to himself, snorting softly— because everyone appears to be caught up in their own personal lives, too lost in gossip and exchanging opinions to give the Irish vampire any thought. 

None of his gang seem bothered by his lack of rush, but Harry knows he can’t keep them waiting forever. Fridays are the day they’d all collectively agreed to hunt together and it had been as so for almost twenty years. Being the leader, Harry can’t let his childish distaste for nightlife get in the way of what’s best for the group. He needs to hunker down on his selfish inclinations and be a responsible friend, or else a human might not be the only person Niall sinks his fangs into tonight.

With one final lingering stare at his reflection, Harry goes to retrieve his phone from its face-down position on the dark marble counter, simultaneously reaching for the light switch to begin powering down his apartment for the next couple of hours until he returns. Hopefully with a pretty girl hanging off his arm and less of a burn in the back of his throat. Although Harry may be cynical, he’s also practical; if he’s going to have to spend eternity on this planet, he may as well try to conserve enough energy to make it bearable. After decades of adjusting to electricity, the last thing Harry wants is to return to candlelit rooms and going to bed in time with the sun. 

The sudden chime that shrieks from his device causes him to jump a tad, brows furrowing in mild confusion for a few reasons. First, because it’s such an odd coincidence that right as he went to grasp it, his smartphone had gone off; it’s almost spooky. Second, because anyone who would normally dare message him at this hour is currently sequestered downstairs on the cushions of his sectional sofa, waiting for him to emerge from his room. Who else could possibly need to contact him this late, especially at the beginning of the weekend? 

Harry flips his red iPhone curiously (yes, he’d bought it in red for the purpose of irony), peering down at the unknown number shining back up at him from the screen. 

The text is simple enough: Hey, accompanied by three disco ball emojis. 

After a few seconds of blank blinking and adamantly searching through his mind for a clue as to who this could be, the answer smacks him square between the eyes. The memories come to him in quick flashes. 

A bald bouncer with a stupid name. A two-story room with seven foot tall speakers and a bar nuzzled in the corner. A group of loud, tipsy girls in stilettos and glittery dresses. One girl, sitting amidst the ruckus looking alone and indifferent while everyone around her gave into inebriated chaos. Mitch urging him to go talk to her. The overwhelming smell of honey and lavender. Gentle caresses placed across the tattoos painting his arms. Pretty lips the color of fresh blood, drained glasses of liquor, and witty banter exchanged between suggestive glances and cheeky grins. Shouldering through a crowded dance floor with the young woman in tow. Settling her into the passenger’s seat of his Cadillac and feeling heat explode across his cold cheeks when she’d yanked him down by his collar, kissing him like his lips were her only source of air. 

A quaint apartment complex, flickering lights in a corridor, and a worn couch. A warm mouth, smudged lipstick, teary eyes, and the gentle, shaky echo of, “I want to make you feel good.” High-waisted silk pants discarded on the floor, a cream lace blouse, and pastel pink lingerie. Thighs squeezing his head as her sweet taste spilled across his tongue. The mortal’s bare back pressed to his chest as he worked his hips roughly into her, mumbling dirty promises against her ear. Sugary whimpers and needy pleads. The warm, tangy flavor of her blood filling his mouth and sedating the burning in his throat. Childish giggles shared in a tiny flat, her warm fingers sewing between his icy own and tugging him into her room. A sleepless night full of steady breaths and only one heartbeat. A stupid tapestry and an ugly popcorn ceiling. A late morning strewn with sarcastic jokes mumbled over the rim of a coffee mug. Pulling his favorite t-shirt over his head and inhaling the sweet smell that had been glued to every thread. 

Making a drastic decision and typing his information into her phone. 

Harry doesn’t mean to speak aloud, but the name slips down his tongue as easily as he’d drawn moans from hers. “Y/N.”

It’s not like he didn’t remember her, because he did. And it’s not like he hadn’t thought of her since, because he had. But it’d been in passing and barely relevant— faint recollections in the form of fleeting seconds. 

He’d thought of her a couple days ago, when he’d been wandering around the mall with his friends. They’d passed by a candle shop where, among all the mixed scents, there had been the unmistakable aroma of lavender and honey somewhere inside, smelling vaguely like her. She’d unwillingly made her way to the forefront of his mind when he’d gone to do laundry, picking out his baby blue Marc Jacobs t-shirt from his hamper and feeling his eyes dilate and fangs protrude— a result of animalistic instinct. As it turns out, she had left a bloodstain along the inside of the yellow collar of his tee. It was dried and crusted over by the time he found it, but the effect it had on him remained the same as the night he’d drawn it fresh from one of her arteries. He’d chucked the garment into the wash carelessly with hardly any hesitation. 

The girl had even elbowed into his brain during an important self-care session. He’d been sitting in his glorified bathtub— which, in shallow honesty, is just a jacuzzi— with his cock twitching in his palm while his head hung over the edge, an orgasm teetering along the trench of his stomach as he’d repeatedly thumbed over his tip. When he’d finally coaxed himself into a climax, moans running freely across the empty halls of his home, the image he saw in those short moments of pure bliss was of her. It was Y/N, sitting in front of him with her hands clasped between her bare thighs obediently, his prick running along the length of her warm tongue as her eyes pleaded for him to cum. 

But, as he’d stated before, the picture had only lasted a handful of seconds. As soon as his high had died down, it had disintegrated to ash, and he’d been left with a slightly startled mental imprint in its wake, which had faded away within minutes. He hadn’t thought of her since. 

That is, until now. Until the surface of his jade eyes are reflecting the message his phone had just received at nearly ten P.M., her identity obvious in her choice of emojis. 

A disco ball. The exact same character he’d assigned himself beside his name in her contact list. It was an inside joke; a result of the hatred they both shared for clubs, juxtaposed by the fact that they had met in one. It was a cute determining factor in their minimal acquaintanceship, and he’s always a sucker for a good paradox. 

Harry continues to stare down at the text message, trying to conjure up some type of answer. She couldn’t have caught him at a better time, quite literally. She could be his saving grace tonight, if he plays his cards right. Maybe if he swoons her enough, she’ll invite him over again, and he can avoid another night full of shit-faced idiots and blinding strobe lights. 

After careful consideration, he swipes open into their new text conversation and taps back a reply he deems appropriate, satisfied with how it shows his personality— the same one the mortal girl had been so taken with upon their first encounter. 

Well, this is awkward. I don’t remember giving my number to a disco ball.

The vampire waits idly for a response, watching as the message delivers and is immediately marked by a read receipt. He doesn’t know why, but he likes that she has them on. 

A swift pause follows— in which he has no doubt she’s probably attempting to come up with some type of witty remark to his— and then the three grey bouncing bubbles pop up, signifying that she’s typing back. His device bloops with her response, vibrating in his large palms.

Funny as ever, I see. It’s Y/N, from the club last Friday. 

Harry’s slightly disappointed by her humor-lacking answer, but he’ll keep the interaction going for curiosity’s sake. Some people are fun in person and just not that bright virtually. Can’t always have it all.

Oh, hey, Y/N! So are you translating on behalf of the disco ball that wanted to talk to me or…?

He can practically see her eye rolling up at the grungy ceiling of her room and that notion makes his lips twitch. 

Ha. Ha. Hilarious! But no, I’M the one who wants to talk to you, actually.

Harry can feel her sarcastic tone through this specific message and that gives him hope. Maybe she does have social networking skills. 

Oh. Well, give the disco ball my best regards then, will you? Don’t want it to think I’m being rude and casting it aside.

The creature can’t see it, but now Y/N’s lips are the ones jolting as she sits on her bed in nothing but a towel, damp hair beading water down her naked shoulders and back.

How caring of you! I’ll pass on the message.

A full grin begins to edge across Harry’s cheeks as she returns his banter just as easily as she would face to face, dimples threatening to indent into place. That’s more like it. 

His fingers poise over the keyboard, mind flicking through the different scenarios he could steer this conversation towards. He has to be perceptive and respectful, but also keep her entertained. He figures asking about her intentions is the best route to take, but he’ll do it subtly. Being too direct could come off pushy. 

So...what gives me the honor of basking in your presence tonight, hm?

He adds a thinking face emoji to the end of the text as an afterthought. He rarely uses emoticons, but now is as good a time as any to start, especially because he has to seem like someone who belongs to her generation, rather than a Victorian era immortal.

Well, you said if I wanted more interior design advice to shoot you a text so...here I am, seeking your expertise.

Harry allows himself to break into a wide simper at the shrouded compliment. It goes right to his ego, just as he likes it. She’s smart. 

My expertise, huh? I take it that my taste in wallpaper left you pretty satisfied last time, then?

A similar grin buckles Y/N’s face at his playful smugness and she bites into the side of her index finger to try and suppress it. After a moment of thought, she releases her digit from between her teeth and taps back. 

Very satisfied, yeah. Your help was greatly appreciated.

Harry scoffs coyly, leaning his shoulder against the lightly fogged black marble wall of his bathroom, his friends and plans for the night all but forgotten. He’s having too much fun flirting to pay anything else much mind. 

My pleasure, love. I’d be more than happy to give it again, anytime you need it. Just make sure to fill out the customer service survey my boss emailed you. I’m shooting for a raise and could really use the brownie points. 

“Cute.” Y/N murmurs to herself in amusement, her chest fluttering as a result of the pet name, alongside how well they’re getting on. It’s almost like no time has passed at all. Almost as if they’re friends. 

She’d been nervous to reach out, fearing that he’d see it and ignore her— or worse, leave her on read. Needless to say, this is going way better than she could’ve hoped

Already filled that out. Gave you five stars and everything. Would’ve given you six if it was allowed. 

Harry shifts his weight against the surface he’s using for support, chuckling softly as he gnaws along the inside of his cheek. He feels like a teenager with all of this borderline childish back-and-forth. He’s not mad about it, though. It’s pretty enjoyable. 

Thank you so much for your input! It’s taken into deep consideration. VERY deep consideration, if I recall correctly.  

Warmth pours into Y/N’s cheeks at his innuendo, and she somewhat hates that he can get her all flustered without actually being present. He’s really good at this. A true lucky strike, to put it in his own words.

I’m glad my standards are held so highly, especially since I’m trying to book another advising appointment with you. 

Is that so?

Very much so. How about tonight, if you’re free? I’ve got a dire situation with some wood paneling that I just can’t handle alone.

The vampire’s irises flare crimson red in triumph. It looks like he won't have to put himself through another mortifying ordeal tonight, after all. 

I’m on a tight schedule, Y/N. These expertise are highly sought after, yanno?

Y/N snorts at his pompous joke. “Moron.”

Another text comes in from Harry before she can even think of a response.

However, I think I might be able to squeeze you in for a help session today. Say in about 10 to 15 minutes? 

With newly brightened eyes, Y/N gives the message five repasses to make sure she’d interpreted it correctly. She can’t believe he’d agreed, especially at an hour when most people already have weekend plans cemented for the night. And by the length of time he’d given her to prepare, she’s extremely thankful she’d decided to shower prior to attempting a booty-call. 

Sounds perfect. Do you need me to send you my address or do you remember, by some miracle?

Don’t worry about it, pet. I have a pretty good memory of that night. You made it hard to forget. 

Another layer of heat crawls up her neck and into her ears. She knows this is a casual thing, at best, but for some reason, the idea that he had deemed her unforgettable makes her entire body feel like it’s glowing. She tries to brush it off, chalking up his compliment to how they’d seen each other barely a week ago so of course he remembered. It was fairly fresh in both their minds. 

But Y/N is from an area where she was just another face in the crowd— another timid girl in an ocean of a hundred small-town carbon copies— and she’d certainly never referred to herself as anything particularly special. To have Harry, who is such a refined and attractive person, who most likely has dozens of hook-ups under his belt, call her that? Of all people? It just hits differently. 

She shakes herself out of her head, remembering that a very interesting boy is waiting for a response on the other end of her phone.

Alright, then. See you in 10 to 15 minutes, Mr…? 

Y/N comes to the realization that she doesn’t even know his last name. She doesn’t know the last name of the guy she’d let into her house and between her legs. God, if her parents could see her now...They’d blow California into a crater. 

The name’s Styles. Harry Styles. 

She immediately recognizes the reference, chewing at her bottom lip to keep a tab on a girly giggle. It’s probably not healthy how easily he reduces her into such a dopey puddle. 

Alright, then, Mr. Harry Styles. See you soon?

Very soon. Can’t wait to show you the wood samples I just found.

With a sly smirk dimpling his cheeks, Harry pushes off the elegant stone wall of his luxury bathroom, locking his device and absentmindedly tapping it along his palm as he does a quick mind-sweep of the interaction he’d just had. He’s going to get his needs taken care of—both intimate and carnal— by a girl with whom he meshes with so well, no less. This night has taken an unexpected turn for the better, and he’s never been more thankful for making such a rash decision the morning after a one night stand. 

The shrill boom of an Irish accent breaks Harry out of his flirty stupor, the sound bounding up the stairs of his flat and echoing off the tiles in his bathroom. “Harry, did you fucking desicate up there, you prick?!”

The vampire’s head snaps to the side towards where the sudden intrusion is originating, clearing his throat softly before answering, mostly to anchor himself back into the present. He’d been too busy floating in a daydream bubble to give his friends any proper attention. “I’m on my way down!”

Harry flicks off the light switch to his master bathroom, heading into his dimly lit bedroom and scooping up his wallet from its usual spot on top of the dresser. He tucks it into the wide front pocket of his slacks along with his cell phone, rounding the king-sized mattress at the center of his space, footsteps muffled by the thick maroon carpeting across the ground. He stops under the doorframe, giving his room one last calculating glance to make sure he isn’t leaving anything important behind. Once the creature is sure he’s set, he reaches over and slides the switch meter all the way down until the hanging lamps on the ceiling fade to black. 

Harry clambers down the glass and metal staircase, passing the collection of original paintings organized across the expanse of the largest wall in his home. His friends spot him from the huge couch once he’s halfway down the steps, and of course Niall is the first to make his presence audible.

“Fucking finally.” The blue-eyed vampire groans in exasperation, shooting up from his seat beside Xander, arms falling across his lean chest. “I thought you’d died. Really died.”

Harry dismounts the last stair carefully, heeled boots making a soft clicking sound against the polished light-wash wood of his floorboards. He pushes a few rogue curls out of his eyes, the corners of his mouth jilting upwards teasingly as he regards the fellow immortal. “If I have to keep staring at that shitty paisley button-up you’re wearing, I just might.”  

Niall’s irritated expression shatters into one of sheer hurt, hands fumbling with the silk fabric of his shirt, lips melting into a pained pout as he contemplates it sadly. His tone comes out whiney and defensive. “Hey! I really like this one!”

Harry side-steps the boy, giving him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Your fashion sense makes me question my friendship with you.”

Niall’s face pinches with anger, thick brows furrowing as he roughly swats the brunette’s wrist away. “And your dickhead attitude makes me question mine.” 

Harry’s jade eyes dance with evil glee as he returns his palm to where it had been resting before to give a curt squeeze, his rings playfully digging into the muscle beneath Niall’s top. “And yet here you are, sitting on my couch, waiting to get into my car. Funny how that works, innit? We benefit from one another. Mutualism at its finest.”

The Irish man shrugs himself free of his friend’s hold once again, glaring at him with darkening eyes, but there’s no true malice behind it. “More like parasitism.” 

“So are you two gonna kiss now or what?” Mitch’s soft, mocking voice butts in as he drifts up beside Niall, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark denim straight jeans and his long hair tied back into a low ponytail. He’s wearing a light-wash Rolling Stones t-shirt he’d gotten at a concert he and Harry had attended back in the eighties, along with a pair of scuffed up sneakers. Pretty casual for a club— too casual, in Harry’s opinion. “The sexual tension is killing the audience.” 

The green-eyed boy cranes his sight back onto Niall, raising his eyebrows in question and puckering his lips. “What d’you say, Ni? Wanna kiss this little disagreement better? I’m down.”

The pale young man makes a gagging noise, stepping away. “Don’t know where your mouth’s been. But if your bed fellows have anything to say about it, it’s nowhere good. I’m going to respectfully decline.” 

“There was absolutely nothing respectful in that response.” Adam chimes in, chuckling as he bumps Niall’s shoulder with his own, hands clasped casually behind his back. “You need to work on your people skills.”

“My people skills are fine.” Niall quips back sarcastically. “Harry just isn’t a person, he’s a demon.” 

“Technically, we all are.” The curly-haired vampire points out, walking over to his matte leather couch and retrieving a pin-striped, grey-black fitted blazer from its backrest. He tosses the jacket over his shoulders, shrugging it on and fixing the material over his torso, the curves of the piece accentuating the strong muscles of his back and the dip of his slender waist. “I just don’t care to hide it, really. Especially not when it comes to Niall’s taste in clothes. Which is rubbish, by the way. If that wasn’t clear before.”

“It was.” Niall deadpans, gaze half-lidded and petty.

Harry fixes the sleeves of his coat around his forearms, smoothing out any wrinkles and buttoning the cuffs. He momentarily ducks into the kitchen, his enhanced eyesight spotting the small digital time-stamp of the oven even from across the room. He has less than thirteen minutes before he has to be at Y/N’s flat. He should’ve suggested a longer time span.

Harry turns back around to fully face his crew, situating his collar into place by folding it along the back of his neck, appraising their expectant appearances. They’re all waiting for him. He’s the one driving, after all. 

The immortal clears his throat, hands dropping to pat at his blazer pocket, making sure that his keys are in his possession. He sighs lightly through his nose, a knowing grin trying to force its way onto his lips but he keeps it at bay, wanting to maintain a straight expression to garner less backlash for the news he’s about to break. 

“I’m not going.”

The pause that fills the atmosphere and the blank faces his friends dote are almost comical. Harry bats his eyelashes at them without a single twitch or jerk of his features. He wants them to understand he’s being serious.

After at least ten heartbeats— a guess, considering no one in the room has one to provide an accurate measurement— a raging exclamation explodes from behind the other three vampires in front of him. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Harry watches in mild amusement as Xander stomps up from behind the group, shouldering between Mitch and Adam and sticking him with a glower dark enough to instill fear in any living being. But Harry is hardly living, and he’s definitely not scared of a vampire who’s practically a newborn. Xander’s the youngest of them in terms of the immortality scale— he’d transitioned back in nineteen ninety-six when he was thirty, which gives the illusion that he’s older when in reality, he isn’t— so Harry’s strength easily outmatches his. Xander is basically the puppy of the circle, and he’s certainly yappy and annoying enough to support that title. His lack of age and wisdom is also probably why he’s the most explosive. 

Harry kinks an eyebrow up at the taller, tanned man, looping only one button through its designated hole in the middle of his jacket. That will allow him to show off what lies beneath it while also making sure the article won’t be a pest in the windy California night. “I’m not kidding. Something else came up that...peaked my interest.”

Xander’s fists momentarily clench by his sides and he then folds his arms across his lightly heaving chest, trying to hide his anger away along the insides of his elbows. He spits his words through gritted teeth, attempting to keep his cadence level. “What could have possibly come up so late that you only let use know after we waited for you for over an hour?”

Harry can’t stop himself from smirking this time around, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards with condescension. The statement that he produces is all too familiar to Xander, given that it mirrors the reply he had used on Harry exactly a week ago, when the leader of the group had asked him what his intentions were once they’d gotten inside their club for the night. “I have a date.”  

Xander’s entire face flushes a faint shade of cherry red. His forearms tighten across his body, tone more strained than before as he actively wills himself to remain calm. “A date?”

The shorter vampire smiles at him with fake innocence, working his every nerve like it’s his job. Harry doesn’t know why, but pissing Xander off is always such a delectable pastime. “Yup. With a girl I met last week, actually.”

“You don’t go on dates.” Niall pipes up, looking around at the other men in the room in confusion, almost as if his comment should be obvious. “You rarely even spend the night. Said so yourself.” 

Harry shrugs one shoulder indifferently, checking his reflection in the closest section of the glass wall that overlooks the city skyline, the lights of the cars and buildings below twinkling otherworldly. “I guess it’s less a date and more a booty-call, to be honest. I only agreed ‘cause it’s easier than having to drag my ass to that horrid club you chose to spend hours trying to find someone. This meal’s already prim, proper, and served. And I know for a fact I’ll enjoy it, so there’s no real harm.” 

He turns back to Xander, the man’s peeved reaction tickling him more than he thought it would. “What was that you said last time, Xanny?”

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“Oh, yeah! I'm just grabbing a to-go box for my already prepped meal.”

Harry’s friend’s cheeks dye a deeper shade of crimson, dark veins webbing across the iridescent whites of his eyes for a flickering second. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

Harry counters the angry expression with a bright smile, his dialect dripping with arrogance. “Girls dig it. And you seemed to dig it, too, if I recall correctly. Remember? You might not. Post-orgasm amnesia and all that.” 

Xander takes a measured inhale, releasing it slowly and allowing his anger to ebb away gradually, ignoring Harry’s blast from the past. His next question is physically directed towards their ex-chauffeur, but is truly aimed at the gang as a whole. “Who’s going to take us, then?”

The curly-haired vampire shrugs his shoulders once again, uninterested in the topic that is quickly growing old. “You could take Niall’s car. Problem solved.”

The whole clique lives in the same condo complex, mostly due to convenience. It’s already tricky for vampires to find others of their kind, so it’s a miracle that they’d all managed to end up together in the first place. And it’s an even bigger miracle that they got along well enough to form a tight-knit coven, which is the closest thing any of them now have to family. Living in close proximity is the ideal way of maintaining that rare bond, plus it allows them to help each other in staying safe and keeping their urges in line. 

Since they all live in the same building, Niall’s car is in the garage right beside Harry’s, so transportation shouldn’t be an issue. They just always take his vehicle because he’s the only one that actually enjoys driving. 

“Are you mental? Like actually, genuinely insane?” Xander sputters in appalled shock. “Niall drives like a lunatic!” 

“Oi, piss off! Maybe you should learn to drive then, huh? Instead of having all those guys you shag take you everywhere.”

Xander ignores Niall’s insult, putting his palms up in disgust, backing away. “I refuse to get in a car with him behind the wheel. Dying once was good enough for me.”

“Did I miss the memo?” Niall snaps, glimpsing around at all the monsters standing around him, attitude tight with annoyance. “Y’know, the one where you all just decided to shit on me tonight?”

Harry bursts into an airy cackle, listing his head to the side as he gives Niall a humorous once-over, his dangly cross earring dabbing across the crisp cut of his coat’s shoulder blade. “You don’t necessarily make it hard, love.” 

Niall’s jaw clenches as he narrows his icy blue eyes. “Xander’s right— you are an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, he’s also right about you driving like you’re on tranquilizers.” Adam sighs, running a palm up his face, using his index finger and thumb to massage either of his temples, despite the fact that they lack a pulse. “I guess I could drive? I hate it, but Mitch hates it more, so I’m our best bet. Better than Road Runner over here.” 

“Yeah, just keep talking about me like I’m not present. That’s fine. I’m spitting venom in all your drinks tonight.” 

“Well,” Harry boasts abruptly, interrupting the game of verbal ping-pong happening in front of him, taking a quick peek at his phone for the time. As much as he loves causing some good-natured chaos between his friends, he has less than ten minutes to make it to Y/N’s apartment on time and traffic’s a bitch at this hour. “I have nothing to do with this anymore, so I’m just gonna take my leave. You lot have fun figuring this out.” 

He swivels around on his heel, striding away with his usual haughty air straightening his back, heading towards the corridor that leads to the front entrance of the apartment. The softly lit hallway swallows his silhouette and for the first time since he’d left the secluded confines of his bathroom, he allows a giddy smile of excitement to tweak his lips. Just for a second and not a moment longer. If his friends had seen it, they would’ve taken the piss.

Niall’s accent cuts through the air, prickling at his ears as the glossy, cold doorknob comes into contact with his even colder fingers. “I can’t believe you’d abandon us just to get laid!”

“Lock the door on your way out!” 

///

When a sharp knock echoes across Y/N’s flat, she nearly screams. 

Her nerves have been on edge since the last text she’d received; only after reading that final cheeky message had the reality of the situation hit. 

This isn’t her. This isn’t her at all.

Inviting a total stranger into her home and into her bed was something she’d never experienced before last week. One night stands were very few and very far for her— she could count all the ones she’d had on a single hand, and even then they had been with people she had known to some extent— and it was due to the fact that this type of situation is slathered in mystery and unsureness. Giving herself up in such an intimate manner to someone she wasn’t acquainted to in some shape or form…It comes with a certain amount of risk, both physically and emotionally, which is why she hardly ever engaged in such activities before Harry.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with having that type of exhilarating fun in your life— she praises the women who can go around so confidently and express their sexuality however they please— but she herself had been raised under a roof that was moderate and conservative, and that environment had molded her into the person she had grown up to be. Those traditional concepts ran through the core of her being, and no matter how hard she tried to shake them, they refused to break loose. They weighed on her shoulders, constantly making her second-guess her motives and desires, most of which go against the status quo that had been implemented into her brain from a young age. This— whatever this is— is a huge step for her; it’s the first attempt she’s made to take over her own life and go against the grain she’d been accustomed to her whole existence. 

From the second Y/N had arrived here in Los Angeles and set a foot off the plane, she had been alone. Everyone who cared for her was miles and miles away and she was starting a new chapter on a completely blank page, with no one to guide her hand as she wrote. For the two months she’d spent settling in and trying to meld into her new environment, she had gone at it with a sense of emptiness hollowing the pit of her stomach. No one was there to comfort her during the rough patches, and no one cared enough yet to assure her that things would turn out alright. No one had bothered to tell her she was safe and that nothing would hurt her. No one made themselves available the way people did back home. 

That is, until she met Harry seven days ago. 

Their encounter had been purely for sexual gratification, but during that short time they shared, she vividly remembered him telling her that she could trust him. It was a preposterous statement to make— asking someone to trust you when you didn’t even know their last name— but the gaze in his emerald eyes had seemed so genuine and encouraging, and his voice had been so gentle and soothing, and his touch had been so delicate and consoling...That strange young man— with the pretty curls, intriguing tattoos, and dazzling smile— had somehow managed to untie the knot of unease that had been sitting in her belly for the last couple of weeks. She’s stumped on how he’d managed to wriggle it free; the only thing she can effectively say took a part in it was his eyes. There was just such a glass-like quality to them that reminded her of a mirror. It was like they were reflecting all her emotions back at her, using their familiarity to compel her into a state of mental peace. She’d appreciated it more than she’d let on. 

Something tells Y/N that this is the reason she had contacted him. She wanted to feel that safety net he had provided her with once again. She didn’t need an emotional connection from Harry, she just needed a bit of mental relief. She wanted something to take her mind off all her troubles. Something to distract her, even if it was only for a few hours. And with the way Harry had handled her last time, she knows he’s more than capable of helping her reach those goals. 

Y/N doesn’t think anyone has ever made her feel how Harry had that semi-drunken Friday night. She’d been with a few other people before, and had even been in a long-term relationship with someone she had once thought would end up being her husband, but none of those men came close to this peculiar stranger. 

In the town she was from, it was typical for people to marry their high school sweethearts. It was a small region where everyone either knew one another or knew of one another, so it wasn’t difficult to find someone that could fit into the role that needed to be filled. The person she had found was a boy by the name of Bradley, who she had begun to date their freshman year of high school. 

They’d met through mutual friends and he’d invited her to their first ever homecoming dance, where she had felt like everything was falling into place almost like in a movie. He was cute, with hazel eyes, sun-bleached hair, and freckles that jolted every time he laughed. He was polite, funny, and treated her with enough respect and dignity to keep her hooked for a while. Things had gone pretty well the four years they were together in high school; their relationship wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exciting either. It was just...secure. He was there, and he was willing to give her his attention, and that’s all that really mattered to her at the time. She thought that was all she needed. 

Then graduation came and went, and so did Bradley. He left for college, set on the intention that they would make long distance work somehow. To keep a long story short, it hadn’t worked out how they expected. As the months passed, she noticed he started to separate himself from her more and more. The video chats are what disappeared first; what used to be a daily FaceTime call turned into a weekly one and then, if she was lucky, a monthly one. Phone calls followed the same fate. Texting became a chore rather than something to look forward to and she could feel him slipping, which left her feeling helpless because he was in another state, far away and too out of reach to appropriately solve anything. Energized conversations slowly faltered into five-word messages, which eventually teetered into barely any communication at all. 

When Y/N heard the news that he’d cheated on her, it didn’t even come from him. It came from his roommate. Things ended swiftly after that, which was the saddest thing of all. Almost five years of her life, completely gone to waste. Handling the pain was a whole other misery she’d had to shoulder, alongside the embarrassment and humiliation, which stemmed from the fact that she was aware her peers had heard about the whole ordeal. With the help of her family and friends, she’d eventually gotten over the heartbreak. The weird thing is, she doesn’t think she loved him. She loved the idea of him— loved that he represented everything she had been raised to seek in a relationship. They’d grown up together, their families knew one another, they shared the same friends, they had common hobbies. It was like a match made in heaven, though after it broke off, she quickly came to the realization that it hadn’t been made in heaven at all. Made in a test tube was a more fitting analogy. 

Y/N’s love life after that painfully slow cliche disaster consisted of random boys around town she recognized from school and work. The hook-ups were fleeting and hardly satisfying, but at least they were something. She soon found out that she could do better on her own, but whenever she craved someone else’s touch, she was grateful to have anyone she could get. She’d mainly stuck to the same guys for the sake of consistency; it was easier having people she already knew how to please and vice versa, though she’ll admit it was mostly a one way street. Men can be so clueless sometimes that it’d be funny if it wasn’t so irritating. 

Then Y/N had skipped town and closed off sexually for a while. She had stayed shut down until Harry had walked into her life with that stupid sly smirk and his unorthodox— yet surprisingly attractive—fashion sense, sipping straight tequila like a fucking psycho from the cup in his jeweled fingers. He’d waltzed right onto the stool beside her at the bar, right out of the club with her hand in his, and then right past the doorframe of her apartment, kindly gifting her the best sex of her entire life. He’d worked her every desire with a certain skill and awareness she had never experienced (not from any of her past lovers, and definitely not from Bradley’s vanilla tendencies), dismantling her body as if he’d known her for decades, leaving her sore and aching in a way she didn’t know was humanly possible.

And now here Y/N is, pacing back and forth from her small living room to her even smaller kitchen, chewing along the knuckle of her forefinger as she tries to tie down the jitters running amuck in her belly. 

She repeatedly smooths down the dress she’s wearing, claiming that it’s to get rid of the wrinkles, but in truth, it’s to wipe the dampness from her palms. The outfit had been a birthday present from her cousin the year before and she’s rarely worn it since the move, which is a direct result of her lack of socializing. She only ever really leaves her home for groceries and to attend work, neither of which call for a pretty sundress and strappy tan sandals. Despite having gone out to the club a few times, the dress doesn’t fit that scene either. LA gets a bit chilly at night and she has yet to grow accustomed to the city’s weather. Wearing this after-hours would surely end with her acquiring a mild case of hypothermia. 

The garment is a light blue baby doll design, littered with tiny daffodil prints of varying shapes and colors. It stops about three-fourths down her thigh, fluttering outwards in layered flares, its bandeau-style top held in place by thin straps of the same fabric. She figured she’d deck herself out nicely; from the one interaction she’d had with Harry, she can tell he’s a person of refined taste. It was evident in his expensive clothing and his wide variety of precious rings. She doesn’t know why, but there’s a toiling in the pit of her tummy urging to impress him. 

Y/N’s hair has been freshly washed and blow-dried, her legs thoroughly shaved into silk, and she’d applied a light layer of makeup, done in anticipation that anything heavier would likely end up smeared across her face— a result of sweat and Harry’s dominant persona. Simply reflecting on his commanding sensual presence makes her self-pedicured toes curl in her sandals. 

Y/N hadn’t been sure on how to prepare for his arrival. She wasn’t versed in advanced hook-up culture— her raunchiest experience was in the backseat of someone's 2004 Toyota Corolla. She doesn’t want to get this wrong. Going overboard would make him feel smothered and awkward, but underselling would give him the impression that she doesn’t have any respect for him, save for what lies between his legs. Those are the last two things she wants him to gather from this. 

She’d settled for pulling out a bottle of red wine that had been a house-warming present from the landlord. Not too shabby, but not too loud. And who doesn’t enjoy a cup of half-decent wine on a Friday evening, right?

Y/N had just finished arranging two glasses— which she’d found at the thrift shop down the street for a steal— onto the counter of her kitchen when that swift rapping sound had broken through the tense air of her home, echoing from the front door and causing a yelp to lodge in her throat. 

Ice shoots through her veins. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She takes a handful of penetrating breaths, concentrating on how the cool air feels expanding her lungs. The technique aids in calming some of her nerves, grounding her just enough that she can will herself to move without her knees giving out. Y/N tentatively makes her way down the corridor that leads to her front door, heart hammering against her ribs. She shouldn’t be this riled up— he’s literally already been inside her. There’s pretty much nothing she can hide from him at this point. 

On the other side of the door, Harry is blissfully ignorant to the panic attack threatening to overcome Y/N. 

The vampire leans his shoulder against the frame of the somewhat raggedy door, arms crossed over his thick chest as his gaze bounces judgmentally around all the patches of peeling paint. He chews at a piece of gum— which he’d popped into his mouth on the drive over to make sure he tastes as delectable as always— in slow, lazy motions, jaw flexing as he unconsciously pops an array of tiny bubbles with his teeth, waiting for Y/N to emerge. 

Harry glances up at the flickering light bulb in the hallway of the complex, nose scrunching in distaste at the annoying flashing. She really needs to get a better place, he thinks, reaching up and dragging the pad of his middle finger along the curve of his bottom lip, absentmindedly wiping off a bit of extra chapstick that had colored outside the lines when he’d applied it. He always tries to keep his mouth soft, especially when he knows he’s going to be using it. Plus, the vanilla bean flavor pairs well with mint. 

The sound of a seal cracking open yanks his attention, the door before him slowly swinging inwards. Cool air pours from inside, bathing him in a scent that his frenzied instincts had been subconsciously craving the last couple of days. Harry cranes his neck over his shoulder, spitting his gum out and not bothering to watch where it lands. He turns back just as Y/N’s familiar figure comes into view.

The first thing he notices is the dress. 

Fuck, the dress. 

It’s nothing too fancy, just a casual sundress, but it fits her like it was made specifically for the purpose of testing his restraint. He rakes his gaze up and down her body shamelessly, much like he had on the night they met. 

The light blue background and rainbow miniature floral print compliments her skin tone nicely, making it stand out below the dingy light hanging above their heads. The piece lands about halfway down her thigh, fanning around her legs slightly in frilly folds, tempting him with that bit of innocent exposure. An image of him ripping the dress up her thighs races across the forefront of his mind and he can feel his fangs momentarily break through his gums.  

As Harry draws his sight upwards, the minimal throbbing between his legs only amplifies. The dress cinches just below her bust, accentuating her chest, and he comes to the painful realization that she’s not wearing a bra underneath; she doesn’t need it due to the bralette-like top. One simple tug of his index finger would leave her completely bare and that conclusion causes a sweltering itch to erupt along the back of his throat.

Harry’s irises finally come to rest on her face, finding that the rest of the human girl’s look appears just as it had last week. Minimal makeup, no accessories, and the smell of chamomile shampoo strung through her hair, though it’s easily smothered by her natural scent of flowers and sugar. He also finds that while he had been blatantly undressing her with his eyes, she had delighted herself in doing the same. Watching her gawk at him hungrily caresses his ego immensely, evident in how the edges of his mouth kink. 

Y/N doesn’t mean to ogle, she really doesn’t. But from the instant he’d come into view, standing there propped against her threshold with his ankles crossed and his lean arms folded over his strong chest, she couldn’t control it. He just looks so fucking good— better than last time, which she didn’t think was plausible— and she gets the feeling that he knows he looks borderline godly. 

Harry’s clad in what appears to be a sheer mesh flouncy button-up with holographic threads speckled through the material, shimmering under the dim atmosphere of the hallway. The last three holes of the shirt are left open, exposing his tanned pectorals and thoroughly inked chest. Last time they had been together, she’d been too distracted by the aching between her thighs to properly notice the swallow tattoos along his collarbones and the giant butterfly at the crest of his stomach. But now, she stares at them freely as they expand and contract with his easy breaths, her mouth beginning to water. 

The blouse is covered by a dark pinstriped blazer, the crisp shoulder blades of the jacket complimenting his broad frame as the curves dip along his waist alluringly. The loose top is tucked in along the brim of yet another pair of high-waisted trousers, though they are creme-colored instead of copper. The ironed pants give way to a pair of glossy black heeled boots, which are bedazzled along the back of the two-inch elevation, the jewels twinkling in the shape of a word that she can’t make out at this angle. 

Harry’s collection of luxurious rings and necklaces adorn their usual spots and she gets the impression that he never leaves home without them. His gold cross earring sways back and forth lightly, her warped reflection cast across its surface and staring back at her numbly. 

Harry breaks through the haze his physique had cast on her brain.

“Nice to see you again, Disco Ball.” 

A shiver slithers down her spine at the deep baritone of his voice, English accent slathered across every syllable and dripping with suggestive teasing. She’d forgotten how sultry he sounds, even when he’s not actively striving for it. 

Y/N’s attention jets up from where it had been pasted to his body, the expression across his handsome features one of snarky self-assurance, which tells her she’d been caught. Indents cave into his cheeks, twitching with glee as he bats his lashes slowly, eyes going half-lidded in amusement. He looks so sinful with those shiny ringlets curling around his small ears, framing his sharp jaw and kissing the nape of his neck, alongside those raspberry red lips and the emerald hue sparkling around his pupils. She can’t tear herself away.

After an elongated second of silence on her part, Harry raises one of his sculpted brows expectantly, letting her know he’s waiting for a response. Heat overflows Y/N’s cheeks and buzzes across the shells of her ears.

“H-Hi. Uh— Nice to see you. Too. Nice to see you, too.”

An odd sense of déjà vu flags in the back of her skull and she’s reminded that this is exactly how they’d met the first time around— with her making an utter fool of herself, much to his entertainment.

The crescent above his top lip curves upwards as a result of his grin widening. He taps the tip of his elegant shoe patiently against the cement ground, arms shifting against his chest and she can see the way his biceps strain the fabric of his coat. He’s just so fit.  

Harry’s tone comes out playful and lighthearted. He doesn’t need to be invited in again since she’s already explicitly allowed him in before, but he asks anyways, out of courtesy. “Can I come in? Or are you planning on taking me dancing or summat?”

The laugh that escapes Y/N is dense with a nervous edge, but it’s better than a stuttering jumble of incoherent words. She moves out of the way, flushing her back to the wall of the tiny entrance corridor and leaving just enough room for him to squeeze by. “Yes, come on in! Sorry.” 

“You’re alright, darling.” The tall vampire steps forward into the mortal’s home, turning sideways as he does so, chest pressing against her own. He glances down at her lips for a flash of a moment, then back to her eyes. “Thank you.”

Y/N’s grip on her doorknob tightens. She looks up at him through her lashes, bottom lip barely trembling. “No problem. Thanks for coming over on such short notice.” 

Harry runs his tongue across his teeth, pressing it to the inside of cheek as he absorbs the mildly erotic image of Y/N decked out in a frilly dress, glancing up at him shyly as her chest heaves slightly against his own. “Well, I couldn’t leave you to handle that pesky wood paneling all on your own, now could I?”

A smile ghosts over her delicate lips as she shuts the door and locks it, not breaking eye contact. “How generous of you. My hero.” 

Far from it, love.

Y/N slips out from where Harry had wedged her to the wall, beckoning him after her with a gentle turn of her head. The creature tucks his hands into his front pockets, following her down the narrow stretch. They drift past her room (he makes sure not to look in and spare himself the horror of seeing that dumb tapestry) and past her bathroom, into the expanse of her living area. It’s just as small and cozy as he remembers it and he can’t stop himself from scoffing lightly as his sight drifts over the couch. Good memories. 

“Would you like some wine?” Y/N’s question carries softly from inside her kitchen. She’s already gripping the glass bottle in her hand, attempting to pull out the cork, and she hadn’t thought of needing a wine-opener until now. Fuck. 

Harry makes his way to join her, passing underneath the archway and taking the spot across from the girl. He leans his lower back on the counter, hands remaining perched casually in his slacks. “I’d love some.”

“Great.” She huffs, twisting stubbornly at the spongy cap with all the might she can muster, the rough surface scratching her palm. “Let me just— just get this open.”

Harry’s head lists sideways as he wards off a chuckle. “Want some help?” 

Y/N releases an irritated grunt, shoulders slumping a tad as she fails to get the top loose. She holds out the bottle towards her visitor, titling it from side to side in surrender. “Be my guest.” 

The immortal pulls his hands out from his pockets, taking the container from her grasp and the human notices how they dwarf the bottle. It shouldn’t be hot, but it is. 

Harry wraps his ring-clad digits around the cork, giving it one easy twist and Y/N’s jaw nearly falls off as she hears a pop tinge the air. Harry offers her the wine and cap in return, licking his lips to avoid laughing in her face. Supernatural strength always delivers. 

“How…?” Y/N’s owlish eyes flicker back and forth between Harry’s cocky expression and the object in his hands. “How did you even...?”

The brunette gives her a nonchalant shrug. “Guess you loosened it up for me, Thor.” 

She gingerly takes the beverage and its accompaniment from his outstretched palms, blinking at him in mild shock. Her slight unease is swiftly phased out, however; a result of his cute banter. It was probably just a lucky coincidence. “I guess so.”

Y/N pours out two glasses of the dark red liquid, handing one to Harry, feeling her heart skip a beat when he wraps his hold around the stout flute and their fingers brush. He stays like that for a heartbeat, with his icy digits sifted between hers, the amber specks in his irises glittering like diamonds. Then, the moment is over and he pulls away slowly, guiding his drink up to his plush lips. She hates how he can leave her so breathless without a single hitch. 

The girl watches as Harry takes a leisurely sip of the alcohol, his gaze dancing around her kitchen curiously as she finishes recapping the bottle and scooting it into the corner of the counter. 

A thought dawns on her as soon as she focuses back onto the boy before her. Harry looks weird. He looks so weird standing in her small, dingy kitchen with its worn wooden cabinets and fake marble tabletop. He looks so out of place, dressed head to toe in designer brands and fancy fabrics, hands and neck decorated with posh jewelry, and the unmistakable smell of an expensive cologne wafting from his masculine throat. And he most certainly is out of place when it comes to who he’s associating with. He’s out of Y/N’s league, not only physically, but in his behaviors, as well. It’s so obvious it almost hurts. 

Yet here Harry is, looking polished and stylish, while she’s sporting a mere sundress that was probably bought off the clearance rack at Kohl’s. It just doesn’t mix, and she finds herself wondering why he’d chosen her in the first place. When she had voiced similar concerns the day they’d slept together, he had told her it was because she was timid and he wanted to see if he could break through that. But Y/N isn’t stupid. There has to be some other reason. Why else would a rich bachelor pay attention to a small-town runaway in a measly floral—

“I like your dress.”

Y/N glances up at Harry from where her mind had fallen, startled by the sudden interference in her dark thoughts. She’d been tracing across the slope of his structured jaw, mesmerized by how it would grow taut every time he swallowed down a gulp of his beverage. 

She had ambled so deep in her head, she barely manages to mutter a passable answer. “Oh, thank you! I’ve had it for a bit, but I barely wear it.”

The edges of the vampire’s mouth quirk around the rim of his glass, creases wrinkling along the corners of his bright eyes. “It suits you nicely. A beautiful dress on a beautiful girl.” 

Y/N’s belly somersaults, a sheepish giggle running along the undercurrent of her next mumble, so low it’s hardly audible. “Thank you. Again. Thought I’d bring it out for a special occasion.” 

Harry’s eyebrows jump upwards at her comment. He draws his wine glass from between his lips, resting it against his hard stomach and gifting the human a cheeky once-over. “So I’m a special occasion, now, am I?”

Y/N looks down at the straps of her sandals, fighting off a grin. She shrugs one shoulder offhandedly, bringing her cup to her mouth and taking a long drag of the sweet liquor, feeling it wash across her tongue and leave a warm glow in her tummy. “Maybe.” 

Harry hums teasingly in his throat, tapping his pinky pensively along the bottom of his glass, opal ring clinking against the crystalline surface. The color of his drink makes the black polish on his nails stand out almost artistically. “I’ll take any compliment I can get, especially from those pretty lips.”

Another wave of heat flushes across the apples of Y/N’s cheeks. “You really know how to flatter a girl, don’t you?”

The monster tips back another swig of wine, savoring the notes of wild cherry and pomegranate in its palate. Not bad, especially for what he can tell is a ten dollar bottle. 

He cocks his head to the side, irises glitzing knowingly amidst his long lashes. “I think we’re both aware that I most certainly know how to flatter a girl.” 

Y/N’s stare snaps up to lock with his, the faintest whimper stringing her vocal chords. If it wasn’t for Harry’s heightened hearing, he would have never known it’d happened. But he does, and he can feel the throb between his thighs spike as a result. The sounds she makes are just as wonderful as he remembers.

The sexual tension suspending in the room is practically palpable. After a bundle of her heartbeats— which is gradually rising in intensity— echo in his ears, he decides to speak up again. 

“I’ve been thinking about you.” 

The statement can be taken into so many different contexts and that’s why Harry chose it. She could interpret it as innocent admiration on behalf of a smitten lover, or as another layer of sensual praise. It’s versatile, successful either way. 

Y/N blinks at him exactly three times in surprise. “You have?”

She’d been thinking about him, too. Non-stop. And now that she knows it’s mutual, she doesn’t feel so nervous anymore. It reassures her that they’re on the same page of this messy novel written about their undefined association. Or that they are at least within the same chapter.  

Harry bobs his head in confirmation, indulging another sip of wine, letting it filter through his taste buds slowly. His glass is almost empty. “Mmhm. Walked past this candle store at the mall the other day and they had one burning that smelled just like you.”

His confession is sweet and it makes the tips of her fingers tingle. Y/N copies his action, taking another gulp of her beverage, attitude airy and inquisitive. “Is that so? And what do I smell like?”

Harry’s response is immediate and confident, almost as if he’s spent time thinking on the subject prior to today. “Honey and lavender.” 

Y/N nods her head in wonder, laughing gently. “That’s oddly specific.” 

Harry feels like he’s been smacked between the eyes with an iron rod. That was an idiot move. Absolutely moronic. 

He just now comes to terms with how intimate the comment he’d made had been. It suggests that he’s pondered on this topic, which gives the impression that he could be more interested in her than he actually is. He doesn’t need this loose connection turning into some type of cliche romantic comedy; he doesn’t have the space, patience, or emotional stability for it. And certainly not with someone he’s only fucked once. 

The vampire clears his throat, figuring that he can clean up this metaphorical spill by throwing a bit of crudeness at it. “Then yesterday I had a donut, yeah? One of those cream-filled ones. And when I took a bite of it, all the cream just came oozing out and I was like, ‘hm, this reminds me of someone…’”

The slightly endeared expression on Y/N’s face crumbles to dust, voice shrill and indignant at his lewd analogy. “You fucking perv!” 

Harry sputters into a round of boyish cackling, nearly wheezing when her foot reaches over and strikes him on the shin. He clasps over his stomach with his free hand, head falling back in glee as her features pinch in embarrassed disgust. He manages to speak between bursts of giggles, water gathering along his tear ducts due to how hard he’s laughing. “I’m just being honest!”  

“No, you’re being a gross little fourteen year old asshole!” Y/N exclaims incredulously, but she can’t keep herself from joining in on his boasts of amusement. 

His laughter is contagious. It’s loud and unapologetic in a manner she rarely sees in anyone and he just looks really fucking cute with his dimples jolting and smile lines creasing. It’s hard to stay mad at him, though it’s not like she’d truly been upset in the first place. 

Harry reigns himself in, inhaling deep breaths and wiping at his tears with the back of his large hand as a joyful groan rumbles in his chest. A few more giggles sneak out when he sees Y/N’s flat expression, but he manages to stifle the rest. His tone is jesting, poking fun. “If it makes you feel any better, I was respectful enough to wipe the donut down with a napkin, as well.” 

“Fuck off.”

Harry grins down snidely at the last inch or so of alcohol left in his glass, bringing it to his mouth and downing it all in one go. He places the cup down carefully on the counter behind him, his arms finding their way across his stomach, fingertips momentarily tapping at his elbows. He appraises a playfully grouchy Y/N, pursing his lips to hide a smirk. 

He watches as she takes another small taste from her drink, her pulse lulled by its contents. She’s not drunk by any means— not even buzzed— but it had helped calm the tittering in her throat that Harry had been able to detect earlier. She’s relaxed now, all anxiousness washed away by the small serving of liquor and his inappropriate (and extremely funny, if he does say so himself) jokes. 

The creature thinks it’s proper time he gets what he came for. 

“I really am glad you reached out, though.” Harry starts, an easygoing smile nudging across his alcohol-swollen mouth. “Truly.” 

Y/N snorts sarcastically, attempting to hide how his comment had made her pulse sharpen. He’d heard it anyways. “Oh, are you? Truly?”

Harry pushes himself off the edge of the counter, slowly sauntering over to Y/N, who instinctively draws back further against the tabletop behind her. She ogles at him from below heavy lashes, glass still perched between her tinted lips, excited anticipation written all over her body language. He can practically feel the heat radiating off her, rising a few notches the closer he gets. 

“Yeah.” Harry’s arms unfold, one stretching over her shoulder to prop his palm against the cupboard behind her head, the other fiddling with the seam of his blazer. He slides his forefinger and thumb along the single buttoned hole, giving it a rough tug and allowing his jacket to spring open. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun interior designing with anyone. Not for a while.” 

Y/N glimpses down at where his coat had parted, drinking up the sight of his lean torso behind the see-through material of his shirt. Now that he’s nearly pressed against her, his scent is stronger than before, burying her under smoky notes of vanilla and seasoned firewood. A familiar heat pools between her clasped thighs. 

When she pipes up, it’s shaky and whispered, covered in a dreamy undercurrent. “Yeah, me either. It felt...nice.”

Harry’s irises flash crimson for a millisecond, but she’s too occupied gawking at his tight stomach to notice. His dialect takes on a low, seductive twang, the breath of his words fanning across her face. All she can smell is wine, mint, and...vanilla chapstick? 

“It felt really nice.” 

Y/N’s view drags up to land on his lips. They look as soft and appetizing as last time, tempting her to just drop her flute onto the floor and replace it with his mouth. “Extremely nice.” 

An outside force suddenly tips her glass upwards and she realizes it’s Harry’s fingers. He nudges her cup until the liquid inside funnels towards her mouth, his intentions set on helping her finish it off. She drains the wine obediently, staring up at him dazed and moony, feeling a few drops escape along the sides of her mouth and tickle down her chin. The jade-eyed boy then gently pries the glass from her fingertips, reaching over and placing it inside her sink to be handled later. 

Y/N’s hands fall flat against his thick chest, feeling it rise and fall steadily below her grasp as he takes a step forward, their bodies completely flushing together. His palm trails up the exposed sliver of her thigh, diving a couple of inches below her dress and giving the outer area a hard squeeze. He doesn’t go any further; he won’t until she explicitly asks for it. He’s a prick about a lot of things, but never consent.

Harry leans down, running the tip of his cold nose along her clenched jaw, his warm tongue peeking out to collect the streams of wine that had dripped out. The contrast in sensations makes her knees buckle and what he murmurs hotly against her skin doesn’t help in calming those motions at all.

“Wouldn’t mind making you feel that nice again.” 

Y/N’s mind stalls, overwhelmed by his touch and smell. She can feel him sponging tender kisses at the corner of her mouth, and she can feel the palm of his hand massaging at her thigh needily. She can feel his breaths quickening in pace the longer he’s around her, and she can feel the foundation of a moan building in his lungs in the form of small vibrations, which run across her palms and twitch her fingers. She can feel everything; she’s never been more hyper-aware of her surroundings than now. And all because of this one mysterious young man. 

When Y/N finally speaks, Harry feels relief flood his system, though it is swiftly replaced by intense desire. 

“I wouldn’t mind it, either.” 

That’s full permission if he’s ever heard it. 

Harry’s other hand drops from its spot against the cupboard behind her, joining its partner on her opposite thigh. He coasts his palms fully below her flowy dress onto her hips, a lascivious simper crawling across his cheeks at the lack of extra fabric beneath her clothes. “No panties tonight?”

The human swallows heavily, shaking her head as she leans it back against the wooden cabinets, giving him access to her throat. At the sight, the vampire’s fangs protrude, cutting into the inside of his lower lip as venom fills his mouth. He wills himself to maintain control. It’s difficult, considering his sharp eyes can make out the chiseling of her arteries pumping blood just beneath her delicate skin, but he forces composure into his behavior nonetheless. With all of the lights on and Y/N completely sober, he knows he won’t get away with another mid-fuck stunt like the one he pulled last time they were in this position. 

Instead, he distracts himself with what he can draw from her at this very moment— another unbelievable orgasm. 

“Such a filthy little fucking thing.” Harry growls, smearing his lips down the center of her jugular, nipping love bites into her flesh but making sure not to split it open. “S’that how bad you wanted it when you texted me? So bad that you didn’t even bother to wear anything underneath?”

Y/N whines softly when he passes over a particularly tender spot along her neck, shuttering against his chest. “Y-Yes.” 

A low chuckle rolls from Harry’s wandering tongue as he hones in on the area that had coaxed such a delicious reaction. “Fuck, that was such a pretty noise. Are you sensitive here, baby?”

Y/N nods with fervor, running her touch up his pectorals and over his strong shoulders, diving under his coat and fisting at the mesh that strains across his muscular back. Her eyes roll closed, her next confession coming out in the form of a feathery sigh, legs parting wider for him to comfortably fit in between. “I just...I just need you.”

Harry eagerly accepts the invitation, sifting between her thighs and hiking them up onto his hips. The fact that he can suspend her so effortlessly, almost as if she weighs nothing, makes the pit of her tummy boil. “You need me now, d’you? How much, doll? Want you to tell me how much you missed my cock.” 

The young woman winces ever so slightly at the crude word and it amuses him to no end. “So fucking much, Harry.” 

He can confidently say his name has never sounded sweeter than when it trickles from Y/N’s tongue. 

When he speaks, it’s packed with all the pent up turmoil radiating deep in his abdomen. “Did you think about me the way I thought about you?”

Y/N’s reply falls breathily from her mouth without any hesitation. “Y-Yeah. Couldn’t get you out of my head.”

A cocky hum tinges the air on his behalf. “And why’s that?”

“Because…” The girl struggles to swallow, finding it difficult to match how easily brazen he can be. She pushes through. “Because you fucked me better than anyone else ever has.” 

The compliment is one Harry gets often, but for some inexplicable reason, it hits so much deeper coming from Y/N. “Mm. Poor baby just needed to get properly rawed, didn’t you?”

“Had no idea how badly I wanted it until you came along.” 

A dark chuckle rolls from the creature’s lips at her bluntness. He repeatedly passes his textured tongue over the pressure point on her throat, flames igniting in his chest when she releases another watery, desperate mewl. “God, look at you. Practically already dripping. Like it when I play with you like that?”

“Fuck, y-yes.”

“Want me to keep going?”

“Please.”

And so Harry keeps going, and he doesn’t stop. Not at her neck, and not anywhere else. Not until she begs him to hours later, when he’s whittled three orgasms out of her trembling body, each one more intense than the last. 

The first one takes place right there on top of the kitchen counter. He boosts her up onto the table, bunching her pretty sundress around her quivering thighs— as he’d fantasized prior— while she fumbles with his trousers. He tends to her every breathy whimper as she eases him out of his briefs, marking his teeth all over her throat with the assurance that his blood will fade the bruises by morning. He tears his jacket down his broad shoulders, panting into her mouth as she undoes all the buttons that line his elegant iridescent shirt, moaning softly when she breaks their kiss to paint her hot lips down the expanse of his heaving chest and tight stomach. Y/N ducks down as far as her angle will allow, wanting to taste as much of his skin as she can. She wants to memorize its salty smoothness for as long as she lives. 

Harry watches her with bliss-drunken fondness twitching his mouth, head falling back to hang between his shoulders as a low, “Such a good girl.” rumbles from his throat. His ring-clad fingers tangle into her locks and scratch at her scalp lightly, strained exhales encouraging her to keep going as she delights herself with tainting love bites all over him. He yanks the girl back up by her roots, grabbing her hips and roughly scooting her forward towards him, clammy foreheads pressing together as he fixes to fill her up for the first time in what feels like eternity. 

The monster’s voice is as dominant and thick as she likes it. “Eyes up here. Want to see you come undone while I fuck you.” 

The way he spreads Y/N open makes her choke out a scream like nothing else she’s ever heard. Harry simply clamps one of his palms over her mouth, continuing to ram into her at a harsh stride, gasping against her ear with every thrust as she rakes her nails across his back. “Gotta keep that pretty mouth quiet. Thin walls.” 

The human feels like her heart is going to break through her ribs and what she doesn’t know is that with every passing beat, Harry feels it tenfold. And it’s driving him fucking insane— she drives him fucking insane. Especially when she looks at him with that glossy, begging gaze, biting into the mound of his hand as he slams his hips inside her so hard, the glasses in her cupboard shake. “Like it when I give it to you rough? Yeah, I thought so. Just like that? Harder? Say please…Christ, you’re a fucking angel.”

Y/N is dirty. So fucking filthy, and Harry loves every second of it. Loves that anything he throws out, she returns with as much enthusiasm, if not more. Loves that she can take his cock as hard as he’s willing to give it, which says a lot, considering his stamina and strength usually surpasses most humans. He’d met very few mortals who can match his sexual prowess and she happens to be one of them. She not only takes it, but pleads for more. She doesn’t just seek her own pleasure, but insists on delivering his own. And though they’re polars opposites at their core— she’s timid, physically standard, and boringly normal, whereas he’s confident, attractive, and unusually superior in every sense of the phrase— they fit together better than he’d ever care to admit. They’re perfectly compatible, down to their personalities and their intimate needs. 

As Harry stands there— fingertips leaving welts across her waist as he grunts brokenly against her throat, stretching her out like she was meant to take him this deep, her moans sounding like classical melodies to his ears— he thinks that maybe...maybe he’ll keep her around. A friends with benefits situation would be the most ideal. And to quote his own clever motto from before, it would be mutualism at its finest. 

The alliance would be nothing emotional; simply for the sake of providing each other with requited relief, as well as providing Harry with a convenient feeding arrangement. Neither of them would have to submit themselves to going to those terrible clubs, they both already know what the other enjoys, and the banter they share is pretty fulfilling. Plus, her blood is one of the sweetest he’s ever had. Whatever magic lies in her veins tides over his cravings in a fashion he’s never quite experienced. They both get what they want and don’t have to deal with the disasters of real commitment; neither are in a place in their lives where they can shoulder such a big responsibility. Harry is emotionally unavailable, as he has been for the past two centuries and as he intends to be for the next dozen. Y/N has just started anew in a place where she has so little to give and so much to lose, dating is the last thing on her mind. A casual no-strings-attached arrangement would be a perfect gift, bow and all.

And with the way they make each other cum multiple times that night— once on the counter, and twice on that trusty old couch— there’s not a single doubt in Harry’s mind that this is most definitely mutualism at its peak. 

///

During the span of the next few weeks, Harry learns a lot about Y/N. It’s surprising how informational someone’s sex habits can be. 

The second week after they had met— and the first since their second very heated, very satisfying encounter— she shoots him a text on Wednesday, of all days. 

Harry isn’t doing anything particularly interesting when he receives her message. He had gone to see Mitch play at the bar that had recently booked him as a semi-permanent gig, sitting in the booth furthest in the back from all of the ruckus, fingers tapping along the waxed table to his best friend’s skilled jazzy guitar chords. Mitch always teases Harry about how he doesn’t have a job, which the vampire always waves off. Working for money is stupid and unnecessary; any materialistic wants and needs that plague him, he can get with the help of compulsion. Therefore, what’s the use in condemning himself the horrors of customer service or a constricting office cubicle? 

His best friend is halfway through his set when Harry’s device vibrates against the sticky surface before him, tittering fingers coming to an abrupt stop. He flips over his iPhone, eyes flickering over the screen, a coy grin spreading its way across his blushed lips. Y/N’s contact beams up at him in return. He’d set her profile as just her name alongside three disco ball emojis, for the sake of their little inside joke. 

I’m getting off work a bit earlier than I thought today and was wondering if you wanted to help me with my ceiling fan.

Harry bites into his bottom lip to muffle a chuckle, shaking his head lightly as he stares down at the comical request. 

That’s odd. Last time I was there, you didn’t HAVE a ceiling fan.

Y/N sits on her lunch break in the backroom of the cafe where she’s employed, a veggie wrap halfway suspended towards her mouth when Harry’s text bloops in, pointing out her embarrassing mistake. She blinks at his correction blankly, eyes closing in faint humiliation as her true intentions are now painfully clear. 

After a second of recollection, she types back some damage control, though it hardly has an impact. Harry’s already chortling to himself just thinking about how contorted her face must look at the moment.

I’m aware, thank you. I meant I wanted help picking one out. I’ve got a few tabs saved as potentials. 

He decides to be a little shit about this whole thing, continuing to mock her.

You could just send me the links right now and I can tell you which one I like. You know that, right?

Y/N knows that. She also knows, by the tone and texture of his response, he’d only mentioned that alternative to be annoying. He knows she’s not talking about ceiling fans, and he just wants her to chase after him. Unfortunately enough for Y/N’s pride, she’s more than willing to.  

I just think your opinion would be much more valuable and effective in person, since you’d be able to help me search for other ones at the same time. We’d cover more ground. Two heads are better than one!

We do make quite the team, don’t we?

I personally think so. A dynamic duo for the books, honestly.

A soft round of applause cuts through the air around the vampire, signaling the end of Mitch’s performance. Harry glances up to see his best friend mounting his guitar back into its case, smiling bashfully at the crowd and nodding his head in thanks to all their praise. Harry coins his luck; things couldn’t have wrapped up at a better time. 

Alright, Watson. What time will you be home?

Y/N stops mid-chew through a bite of her meal, cheeks puffed as the corners of her mouth twitch at his nerdy reference.

I’m off at 6:45. Should be home by 7. 

I’ll see you there, then. 

See you there. Also, why do YOU get to be Sherlock? Seems a bit sexist. 

Harry rolls his eyes at her quip, smirking to himself as he types out his final response.

Well, first and foremost, I’m literally English. Secondly, last time I checked, I’m always the one in control. And frankly, you seem to like it that way. See you at seven, darling.

And at seven on the dot, Harry’s outside her apartment. His friends would be amazed at his punctuality. He only shows it when it’s worth the trouble.

The creature walks up the steps to the mortal’s complex with his Ray-Ban sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, keychain tucked into the back pocket of his black skinny jeans, and his tan Chelsea boots clicking against the cement ground. A light wind whips his Keith Harrington Safe Sex t-shirt against the broad muscles of his back, drawing a soothed sigh from his lungs. He loves the California weather. 

He gives her door three swift knocks with his ring-clad knuckles, stepping back from the entrance and clasping his large hands behind his back as he waits. 

When Y/N answers, Harry tilts his chin down a smidge, looking at her over the brim of his chic black glasses with his signature dazzling smile dimpling his cheeks. He lists his head slightly in a formal greeting. “Detective.” 

The girl’s irises flit up to the ceiling as amusement twitches her lips. She plays along. “Nice to see you again. Detective.”

She moves off to the side, beckoning him to come in and he gladly takes the offer, striding into the flat and down the narrow corridor he’s grown quite familiar with. Y/N follows him back into her living room, gaze quickly drinking up his appearance. He’s casual today— less jewelry, more comfortable clothes— and he works the normal fit as effortlessly as he works his fancy brands. Especially with those tight dark jeans. They hug his thighs in a fashion that should be illegal. 

Harry twists around on his heel to face her, reaching up to remove his sunglasses and tucking them along the collar of his tee. A handful of curls fall across his forehead, framing his face and sculpting his jaw, as usual. A sweep across Y/N’s physique tells him everything he needs to know. 

She’s still in her work clothes, clad in a navy blue polo shirt and a pair of dark skinnies similar to his. Her hair is down, though the strands have a dent that suggests she’d been wearing a ponytail. Her mascara is smudged a tad under her seemingly tired eyes, but her attitude is as bright and lively as always. She appears messy, but he likes it. It’s a type of unconventional beauty that’s natural and genuine, which he can appreciate.

He contemplates her with a certain slyness that makes her shift in her socked feet. 

“I got a message earlier. Sounded kinda frantic.” He drifts closer to the human, a sultry tension growing taut between them. He glances upward for an instant, as if recalling a thought. “Something about ceiling fans…?”  

Y/N chews into her cheek to keep from giggling, allowing him to press his chest to hers. He slowly begins to back her up towards the shabby couch, which has seen this interaction happen one too many times. “Yeah, I’m thinking of getting one. Figured it’d help. It just gets really hot in here sometimes, y’know?”

“Mmm…” Harry thrums in agreement, deep in the back of his throat. His hands crawl onto her hips and grasps them somewhat roughly, index fingers hooking into the belt loops of her jeans as he leans down to brush his soft lips over her own. She’ll never grow tired of the electricity that passes through them every time their mouths touch. It kindles her needs unlike anything else. “It does get pretty hot in here sometimes. Especially if you’re working up a sweat.” 

He pushes her further towards the sofa, movements gradual as she drifts backwards, careful not to trip her. She glimpses down at where their lips are flirting, breath hiccuping when he licks his lightly in anticipation, his tongue just barely grazing her Cupid’s bow. “Absolutely. A fan would definitely help relieve some of that stress.” 

“Yeah.” Harry nudges the tip of her nose with his own, feeling her grab at his biceps for security as he continues inching her backwards blindly. “It can work wonders for when you’re all pent up, too. Especially when you’re really tight, which I know for a fact you are.”

The backs of the girl’s knees hit the edge of the couch and she topples into its cushions. She sits up onto her elbows, sheer need inking into her irises as he patiently begins to undo his belt. His long, nimble fingers work with ease and he seems to be in no particular rush, which pricks at her nerves because she feels completely the opposite. She’d been thinking about him since Friday night— or rather, Saturday morning, when he had actually stayed for breakfast that time around. 

Y/N had sat on top of her small dining table while he took the seat before her shirtless, leaning forward with his arms crossed nonchalantly over her lap as she fed him bites of lemon blueberry pancakes. The pads of his calloused fingers had drawn random shapes across the warm skin of her thighs, attempting to cheekily slip beneath her pajamas shorts and he’d giggle boyishly around mouthfuls of food every time she would swat his hand away. He looked so fucking pretty that morning, with his curls tangled in tuffs and the vague imprint of her teeth scattered across his grinning mouth, angry red scratches decorating his bare shoulders. That wholesome yet dirty image had left her head spinning for days. 

The sound of Harry’s zipper ripping open blinks Y/N back into the present and she nearly gawks as he grabs onto the hem of his graphic t-shirt and yanks it over his head, arms crossing as he does so. He tosses it onto her playfully, laughing as she smacks it away from her face and gives him a deadpan look. Harry leans forward, propping his palms on either sides of her head and bracketing her in, the unmissable scent of his delicious cologne invading her senses as his dark tattoos ripple over the lean tendons of his stomach and arms. His strangely cold forehead flushes against hers and he nips at her top lip, tugging it between his teeth and releasing. His voice comes out as deep and hypnotizing as ever. 

“Get undressed for me. Want your thighs wrapped around my head.” 

Harry comes to find that for such a reserved girl, Y/N has a pretty intriguing sexual mindset. She’s open to a lot of stuff he’d never expect from a rural-town escapee. Her kinks surprise him, but pleasantly so, considering they cross over with a lot of his own. She’s into choking, which he adores. There’s nothing hotter than feeling her pulse slam against the palm of his hand as his array of rings mark into the delicate skin of her throat. She likes being restrained, which translates into Harry pinning her wrists above her head while he slams between her drenched thighs. It’s difficult to achieve that on the sofa, so they end up rolling across the rug on the floor, her legs tangled around his hips like a vine as he pants into her mouth, damp hair flopping over his forehead and tickling her eyelashes. Ideally, he would have used his belt to tie her hands to a headboard. If they were at his place, he would’ve just reached for the metal cuffs he has hanging casually off the railing of his bed, which he keeps there for easy access. But they’re in her living room, so he makes do with what he can. 

The vampire doesn’t stay over that night, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he promised Niall he’d help him out with a car issue. Apparently the motor is making a weird noise and Harry isn’t shocked one bit. Niall barely has the brain cells to be alive, much less to handle the upkeep that comes with owning a vintage vehicle. He thanks Y/N for a good time as he slips into his tight jeans and recovers his sunglasses from the floor, pulling his tee over the already fading hickies littering his collarbones, fitting his accessory into his sweaty curls. 

Harry leans down to where she lays limply, splayed over the couch where he had placed her after picking her up off the ground (only after he’d made her cum twice). He plants a nonchalant farewell kiss to her parted lips, thumbing over her bruised nipples jestingly and grinning into her mouth when she whimpers. “I’ll see you later, Watson. Let me know which fan you decide to buy.” 

Two days later, Harry’s phone chimes again, this time with the unique ringtone he’d assigned just for her. 

He’s relaxing in his bathtub, submerged up to his chest in hot water mixed with Epsom salts and jasmine bubble bath, his locks sudsy with shampoo. He’s in the middle of shaving his face, dragging the straight razor (his time in the nineteen thirties made him picky towards any other tool, especially those simpleton plastic ones) down his jaw carefully, making sure not to nick the little moles under the corner of his mouth. When his device goes off, he halts all his motions, glancing over from the hand mirror he’s holding before his face. He’d changed her contact name to Watson as homage to their funny little dynamic, but he’d kept the disco balls in their place. He respects the roots of their acquaintanceship.

Fan came in. Wanna come check it out?

He had a nagging suspicion he’d hear from her today. It’s another Friday night, after all. He’s just happy she’d texted earlier than last time so he can flake on his friends without forcing them to wait for an hour. 

Wow, you chose two day shipping? You must be itching to see me.

Don’t let it go to your head. The only thing I’m itching for is your professional opinion. 

Right. Well, me and my professional opinion are washing up at the moment so give me thirty minutes and I’ll be there, yeah?

Sounds good to me, Sherlock. 

Harry decides on an outfit that falls at the center of his dressing spectrum— something comfortable but not lazy. Something semi-formal. He doesn’t really have to impress her anymore (not that he had to try that hard in the first place) but he wants to look good, either way. There’s nothing wrong with showing off what he has, both physically and wardrobe-wise. He chooses a horizontal-striped fitted tee made of thick cotton, the lines alternating between brown, beige, and a light caramel. He tucks the shirt into a pair of mid-rise corduroy flared pants that are a dark mustard shade, shrugging on an olive green jacket with red and white stitch detailing along the edges, large images of cacti embroidered along its expanse. His pearls, cross necklace, and he opts out of his earring this time. Rings, vanilla chapstick, mint gum. Keys, wallet, starch white Vans. 

Before he knows it, he’s being roughly pulled into her home from his spot just outside her threshold, his cherry-lacquer nails carding into the silky hair along the nape of Y/N’s neck as his teeth skim over the hollow of her throat. The human grapples to push his coat off his wide shoulders, backing further down the small hallway of her flat and kicking the door shut. She holds his head firmly to the sensitive spot in her neck that he’d toyed with a week prior, and he can’t resist the way his eyes blink crimson— a hunting impulse, stemming from the sound of her blood rushing through her carotid artery. He hadn’t fed last time— vampires only need to feed once a week to avoid desiccation— so he surely intends to tonight. 

Harry’s hands fit perfectly around the dip of her spine, pulling her body tight to his as he paints sloppy kisses over her jugular. He gets his teasing words out in between desperate gasps and breathy chuckles. “And here I thought this was genuinely going to be about the fan.”

“Shut up.” 

Y/N makes a sharp turn, tugging him into her room instead of the living room and it dawns on him that this is the first time they’re going to fuck in her actual bed. All those instances of sleeping together and not once had they done anything on the piece of furniture that was intended for that sole purpose. It’s ironically hilarious and he voices that opinion as they stumble onto her mattress. 

“You know,” Harry murmurs into her mouth as she shoves him flat onto the rumpled sheets (she hadn’t made her bed this morning and that’s endearing, for some reason), straddling his lap as she hurriedly pulls his t-shirt out from along the waistband of his trousers. “Out of all the times we’ve done this— which is quite a few— we’ve never done anything on your bed other than sleep.” 

That’s a lie. He’s never actually slept in her bed. After staring at the ceiling blankly two weeks ago for about eight hours, he had been smart enough to grab his phone from his pants the second time around. He spent that stretch of time playing Mario Kart and watching Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix with the volume down just out of human earshot, so as to not disturb her slumber. 

Y/N ducks in order to drag her wet, pillowy lips down the butterfly inking on his tummy and over the spines of the two ferns on his pelvis, licking across his happy trail. He jerks in response, a soft grunt gurgling in his lungs as she uses her index finger to trace the outline of his hardening cock through the velvet fabric of his slacks. Her voice is distant, giggle breathless. “Yeah, you’re right. How counterintuitive.”

Harry swiftly pops the button of his trousers, helping her coax them down his legs, releasing a stuttery moan when she immediately bends down and mouths at his prick over his briefs. The soiled stain forming around the tip of his cock would be embarrassing if he didn’t know she found it hot. 

His tone is tight but humorous as she continues licking at him eagerly through his underwear, nails digging into his inner thighs. “Am I your first?”

Confusion flickers in her eyes for a moment before she realizes the joke. He’s referring to if he’s the first person she’s slept with on her new bed in her new home. “Yes, you are, actually.” 

Harry’s juts his bottom lip out into an overly-sweet exaggerated pout, talking in a honeyed drawl. “Aw, I get to christen your bed with you? We’re practically married now. When’s the baby due?” 

“God, you’re a moron.” Y/N bursts into a fit of laughter as she mounts back onto his lap, pinching at his torso in fake spite and feeling her insides flutter at the airy giggles that escape him. She gnaws on her bottom lip thoughtfully for a second, watching with hunger as he finishes removing his shirt and momentarily sits up to chuck it onto the ground over her shoulder. 

Harry falls back onto the mattress, folding his taut arms behind his neck, biceps flexing with the movements as his strong chest and toned stomach look as appealing as ever. She runs her palms over his tanned skin, feeling the sturdy muscle shift beneath her touch. Shit.

The immortal slinks his head to the side, eyes going half-lidded in suggestive mischief as he sees the way she’s objectifying him. He doesn’t mind; he actually lives for it. “Are you just gonna keep staring or are you gonna fuck me?”

His lewd comment washes warmth across Y/N’s ears and spurs her into action. In less than a minute, she’s fully unclothed, bouncing on his cock with a type of need that boils the pit of Harry’s belly. His fingers are digging bruises into her waist, slamming her down onto his prick with enough force to make the old bed creak wildly. She may be on top, but he’s still the one pulling the strings. 

Y/N collapses forward, anchoring herself onto her forearms on either sides of his head, burying her face in his auburn ringlets. She bites onto her tongue, trying to keep a tab on the atrociously loud sounds threatening to spill from her mouth. They come out as broken whines instead, which Harry drinks up like a glass of aged bourbon. She fists at his roots, jolting with every thrust he gives upwards, her knees digging into his love handles to keep balanced. At this point, she’s barely riding him at all. He’s just ramming himself into her from below as he guides her hips and she doesn’t have an issue with that at all. She likes when he leads.  

His growl comes out low and raspy, riding on a moan, his warm, choppy exhales pebbling her bare nipples. “How’s that, darling? How’s that cock feel?”

Y/N nods her head frantically, not trusting her tongue to form an appropriate response. 

“Tell me.” He grits out through bared teeth, back arching a bit as he feels the knot of white hot pleasure in his stomach twist and turn. 

“I— I can’t. I’m—”

One of Harry’s hands coasts down the small of her back and onto her ass, giving it a harsh squeeze. She yelps at the new sensation, pain and bliss intermingling. “Yeah, you fucking can. You will. Use your words. Tell me how much you like it.”

A violent shutter runs through Y/N’s limbs and she instinctively pushes back against his palm. Harry’s eyebrows kink in question as he feels her draw her face back from his hair. One look at her eyes tells the entire narrative: She wants him to spank her. 

Harry slowly lifts his hand from her skin, brows raising a bit higher for confirmation. Y/N smears his lips against his forehead and left cheekbone, bobbing her head desperately, whispering a tiny, “Yes, please.” that sends smoky tendrils of hot air cascading down his straining neck. 

When the vampire’s hand comes down, it’s fast and hard, his cold rings biting into her flesh and leaving welts, the sound echoing off the glossy walls and tall bookshelf in her room. The cry that betrays her could probably be heard down on the main floor of her complex. 

The shattered noise makes Harry sanity slip and he’s lucky she’s too lost in her own bliss to see the way his eyes glow dangerously red. “Fuck, you’re such a slut for it.” 

Harry suddenly boosts himself forward, toppling Y/N backwards until she’s the one wedged against the bed. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, nestling her face into the crook of his sweaty collarbones, cracked cries pooling into the junction of his clavicle as he hikes her roughly up his thighs. He sinks further between her legs until he bottoms out with a loud garbled groan, pushing so deep she can feel him in the trench of her belly. 

“Oh my God, Harry— I— fuck, just—just— oh!”

His pace rises in intensity, strokes messy and unforgivable as he fucks her into the bed, the cracking of the frame warning him that it might give away. “Oh, so you liked that, did you? Like it when I call you a slut and stretch you out like one?”

Harry feels Y/N’s teeth rip into his shoulder in order to evade a scream; a strong shiver pin-balls down his spine as a result. Her voice is absolutely wrecked as she talks over her muffled mouth. “Loved it. Loved it so much. Want—Want more. Please, please, please.”

Harry holds her down firmly to the sheets, pounding into her with a form of unrestrained force he’s never exhibited. She just drives him to the brink like no one else has in nearly twenty decades. “Can you feel me in your tummy, pet? Can you feel how I fill you up?” 

“Yes, yes— it’s so good, Harry. You’re incredible.”

“Such a proper little whore.” He has to actively hold back from digging into her throat with his fangs, his eyes screwing shut in concentration as his orgasm begins to burn through his veins. “Begging me to fuck you like one, over and over. You’ve never had it this good, have you?” 

“N-No. You’re the only one who makes me feel like this.”  

“Hands off.” 

“W-What?”

“Hands off.”

Y/N obeys, throwing her arms above her head and letting them hang off the edge of the bed as he’d instructed. It’s not like he wants her to stop scratching down his back, but he knows that if she continues, he’s going to black out. He’s already teetering, obvious in the black webs he can feel materializing over the whites of his eyes.

“Ask for permission.” 

The mortal unclamps her teeth from his bruised shoulder and swallows heavily, her words sputtering out from how hard she’s jerking against the bed. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please—can I—can I cum?”

“‘May I cum.’” The boy corrects, half because he wants to be a cocky ass, and half because it’s automatic. He was raised during an era where intellectual accuracy was of utmost value in society. It’s hard to leave those lessons behind. 

Y/N hiccups another mewl, hands curling into loose fists above her head as he continues to fuck her deliberately into the duvet. She repeats his phrase shakily. “May I cum? Please?”

Harry’s lashes flutter open and as soon as he sees her, all doe-eyed, covered in his love marks, with her bottom lip trembling...It’s like a switch flips. When he speaks, it’s soft and encouraging; a drastic contrast from his mood a few seconds ago. “Yeah...Yeah, baby, go ahead. Cum for me.” 

That night, as Harry lays there awake staring at that awful popcorn roof with the taste of her blood fresh on his tongue and her steady heartbeat throbbing in his heightened ears, he catches himself smiling in the dark. It doesn't have to do with emotions or feelings or any of that complicated bullshit. It just has to do with the fact that he found some consistency in his life, as unattached and materialistic as it may be. They don’t have a complex bond or a deeper meaning. They simply just coexist. They provide some common stability to each others’ lives and it helps keep an important balance. Stability is so rare to find, especially for an immortal who is condemned to witness the world constantly evolve around them while they remain frozen in time. Society will change, people change, appearances change, alliances change, and though it can be exhilarating, at times, Harry never truly has a say in it. He’s always just strung along for the ride.

This is different. It’s static, and that’s all he really needs it to be. Sex can be so emotionally messy if lines aren’t drawn and boundaries aren’t set. But with Y/N, it’s like they have a silent understanding— an unspoken agreement signed by both parties. It’s a notion that could have spared Harry his life in the past, and it’s an ideal that— even in death— took him centuries to learn:

Some people are meant to be loved, while others are just meant to be naked. 

///

The third week is when things escalate for the better. 

Specifically, Tuesday night. That’s when the sexting starts. 

It’s a pretty calm evening and Harry finds himself with nothing to do. Mitch is out with Sarah, who had come into town two days ago due to the band she’s touring with being on a three week break. She’d said she wasn’t staying for long— maybe a week, because she has plans to visit some other bloodsucker friends in Canada. Even though Mitch tries to hide it, Harry can tell he’s bummed about Sarah’s short visit. The older vampire is good at hiding his emotions, but Harry’s known him for so long that he could read Mitch’s mood even if he was blindfolded and gagged. 

The jade-eyed boy had been honest with his best friend, asking him what the point was in continuing to see someone whose depth of interest in the relationship wasn’t as developed as his own. Mitch had simply shrugged one shoulder and told Harry that he wouldn’t understand. He mentioned something about how eventually, the freshblood high would wear off and Sarah would find herself wanting to settle down somewhere with someone she could trust for the rest of eternity. Mitch explained that he cared for her enough to wait until then. 

His best mate had been wrong. Harry does understand. He understands the concept of chasing after someone who, in the end, didn’t want anything to do with him. He understands it a little too well, sadly. He figures that’s the same fate Mitch is bound to suffer, just on a less extreme level. 

But then again, Harry’s perception of love is majorly skewed, so who is he to judge?

With Mitch tied up with Sarah (probably literally, though Harry doesn’t dwell on that; it’s none of his business), his options dwindle to the rest of the crew. Niall and Xander had invited him to a concert they were attending, but Harry politely declined the offer. The musicians were some wannabe indie band and Harry would rather swallow a nicotine addict’s blood than listen to a couple of morons sing in cursive. Adam had suggested he tag along with him, Ny-Oh, and Charlotte to a new art exhibit that had opened up in the next town over. It was a thirty minute drive, so it wasn’t that bad, but Harry declined that invitation, as well. He loves art, if the giant collection on his wall has anything to say about it, but he doesn’t get on well with Ny or Charlotte. They say he’s “too much of an arrogant dickhead” to be around for an extended period of time. They’re right, of course, but it still hurts. Plus, Ny has a mullet and Harry knows he wouldn’t be able to withhold from making a Billy Ray joke. It’s best he stay away, lest she end up with an achy-breaky heart.

So that leaves him here, all alone at eight P.M. on a Tuesday, plopped on his couch in nothing but a pair of maroon plaid boxers as Hamilton plays on the ninety inch flatscreen mounted on his glass wall. He had left the curtains open, not really caring that he’s practically naked. The sun’s already set and it’s almost pitch black outside; plus, he lives on the twenty-fourth floor of the condominium complex. The only living being risking an eyeful is a peepy pigeon. Even then, Harry’s more than happy to put on a show. He’s confident enough in himself that nudity is practically second nature. His friends can attest to that. 

Harry lays across his leather sofa with a large checkered throw cushion snuggled into his side, one of his hands slung across the backrest of the couch as the other remains submerged wrist-deep in a bag of Veggie Straws. His socked feet are propped up on his round marble coffee table, ankles crossed and posture anything but eloquent. The apartment is silent, except for the musical streaming through the speakers of his television set and the gentle pattering of rain just outside his glorified window pane, accompanied by the faint flickering of the city lights below. The atmosphere of the room is relaxed and cozy and it lulls his soul in a manner he can’t put into words.

Harry has always liked the rain. Ever since he was a child, he would sit by the small round window of the attic room he shared with his older sister, watching it fall from the sky in sheets of glittering sapphires, soaking into the dry ground and turning it into a slush of dirt he would later sneak out to play in. When he got older, he would prop his shoulder against the doorframe at the back of his father’s blacksmith shop and gaze at it, mesmerized by how it would trickle down the streets of the public market, washing away all the grime that came with a bustling city’s reputation. Sometimes he would stand in it, feeling its cool touch run down his arms and soak into the back of his sot-covered work shirt. He enjoyed how it would cleanse the sticky sweat from his face and neck, its gentle nature leaving him feeling like he could float through air. Then his father would call him back into the store and playfully scold him for allowing himself to get drenched, warning that his mother would kill him if he caught a cold. 

Harry’s changed a lot since then, he knows that, but it comforts him that his love for rain is the one aspect of his personality that two hundred years of Hell had failed to take from him. 

The melodies swimming out of his TV reign him back in from memory lane. 

Harry’s not really one to enjoy musicals, but back when Hamilton had first hit Broadway, he’d used his persuasive supernatural abilities to sneak into one of the first showings. He’d been curious as to what all the hype was about, and the play did not disappoint. The songs were catchy, the acting was good, and the characters were brought to life through raw emotion and comedy. He respected that. And the plot of the story itself resonated with him deeply, as well. A protagonist that rose from nothing, fell in love with the wrong woman, and made terrible life choices that seemed correct at the time, which would all eventually lead to his death. It hit a bit too close to home. 

If he had a dollar for every time he’s seen it since it had come out on Disney+, he could probably pay rent himself instead of compelling others to do it for him. 

The play is halfway through one of its most famous ballads when the monster’s phone dings with a familiar tune. A smirk is already etching itself across his face before he even unlocks his device. 

I need interior design advice. 

I’m still a little sore from our last help session. How’d you bounce back so quick?

Funny, but I need ACTUAL interior design advice this time. 

Harry’s brows furrow in mild confusion and slight disappointment. He draws his hand from the junk food container, dusting off the crumbs. Oh. 

Genuinely? 

Yup!

He guesses he’ll give it a go. He does have pretty exquisite taste; the modern gothic aesthetic of his condo proves that. It’s not like he has anything better to do.

Alright, shoot. 

Y/N releases the breath she’d been holding in. Thank God he’s agreed to help. As much as she’s ashamed to admit it, Harry’s really the only person in LA that she deems relatively close to a friend. She hasn’t managed to mesh well with her coworkers much, despite the fact that she’s been trying extremely hard. She just doesn’t wanna force herself into unfulfilling fake friendships for the sake of having people to flaunt. It’s not right and she knows she’d grow to resent it. 

So instead, she’d reached out to the one California resident who doesn’t make her skin crawl. 

Whew, okay, thanks in advance! So I went out yesterday and got a new bedspread and I wanted some help choosing a new accessory to go with it, which is going on my wall. 

Harry’s ears perk up and his back straightens at her statement. Could she finally, by the grace of fucking God, be getting rid of that shitty tapestry? 

Well, let me see it, then. Don’t keep a man waiting, I’m dying to play Property Brothers over here.

A picture comes through of the two new accessories Y/N is referring to and the way Harry’s face drops instantly is almost comical.

Which tapestry fits better? I’m thinking the Van Gogh style painting of a lighthouse. The blue goes well with the dark turquoise of the comforter. But then again, the forest canopy has those pretty exotic flowers that compliment the coral stitching. I can’t decide. 

The vampire’s face pinches in disgusted horror as he blinks down numbly at the image on his screen. He’s going to be sick. Those Veggie Straws are about to make a hideous comeback. 

…two new tapestries? Did the other one rip or…?

What? No!! I just saw these down at the thrift store and thought they were cute. Why? Are they really that bad??

They’re not just bad, they’re worse. He’s going to ask her to blindfold him next time he visits. 

They’re…kinda immature, dove. I just thought you’d go for something cooler this time, like a vintage painting or a couple vinyls to mount on the wall. 

Immature? 

Oops. He should have picked his words more carefully. Now he’s gone and offended her and she’ll probably bite down the next time he puts his—

Another message interrupts his spiraling negative conclusions.

I know you didn’t just call ME immature when you compared me to a cream-filled donut, Harry. 

The playful tone in the text delivers a wave of relief that is almost as pleasurable as what lies between Y/N’s legs. 

Can I speak freely for a second? Full disclosure, no consequences?

That preface makes me think you’re about to chew me out.

I’ll be gentle, I promise. I know it’s not our usual dynamic, but I’ll give it a go.

Y/N ignores the bristling across her cheeks. 

Alright, go head.

I just think tapestries are kinda stupid. They scream “confused teenager trying to find myself.” But that’s just my opinion. I’m only telling you so you know that I’m probably not the best bloke to go to with tapestry inquiries. 

Harry watches as a read receipt stares up at him for a few seconds. Just when he thinks he might have truly upset her this time, her message bubble pops up. 

So...the one I’ve had hanging in my room the last three times you’ve been over…

I had to actively restrain the urge to strangle myself with it.

Y/N breaks out into laughter. The image of waking up to Harry laying facedown on her bedroom floor, balls naked and mummified within a sunrise tapestry...It’s sending her. 

Well, you know what? That’s not fair! You can’t judge my house when I haven’t even had the chance to judge yours. 

Harry nods once to himself in surrender, reaching up to finger-comb a few rebellious curls out of his eyes. She makes a valid play. 

Fair enough. You’ll have to come over and give me your opinion sometime.

I’d be honored to. Now, would you be so kind as to put your own personal bias aside this once and help me choose which one to put up. I promise I’ll spare you any more tapestry-related problems in the future. I’ll remove it from my customer contract.

Harry sighs defeatedly. He can’t believe he’s giving up his integrity for sex. 

Fine. Send me a picture of both of them up on the wall. It’ll give some perspective. 

Y/N giddily obliges, deciding to send a video instead. That way, she can get all of the angles in one go rather than having to send multiple pictures. 

Harry waits patiently, shoving another handful of chips into his mouth as he taps his foot against the coffee table to the tune of Wait for It, which is playing in the film that has now become the backdrop of his night. When Y/N’s next message comes through, he’s mildly surprised to find it’s a video. He clicks play, watching intently as she circles the two pinned tapestries slowly, making sure to get a proper view from all sides. By the time the thirty second clip is coming to an end, Harry’s leaning more towards the tropical canopy painting. It’s not as loud and she was right about the flowers matching the stitching on the duvet. 

He’s about to tap back “the forest one” when something flashes across the screen that makes him choke on his snack, launching him into a coughing fit.  

It’s within the last three seconds of the video and if he had cut it off in order to text back, he would have missed it. But he hadn’t, and now it’s burned into the back of his eyelids, causing a buzzing sensation to string right to the area between his thighs.  

The last few frames of the video, Y/N had lowered her phone from the position she’d been suspending it, probably thinking she had already stopped filming. She hadn’t. And because of that, Harry gets a full frontal view of her body, covered in nothing except a pair of lace panties and a mid-thigh oversized Avengers t-shirt. The entire screen fills with bare, silky skin and raunchy lace and he can feel his fangs poke into his tongue. 

Harry’s not a pre-teen; he’s not going to drool over seeing a pair of legs. What really gets to him is the fact that it appears Y/N still has a few hickies across the inner area of her thighs, which have failed to fade as quickly as the others. They should be gone, given that anytime Harry feeds (like he had the last time they’d slept together), he always gives her a bit of his blood to heal. Meaning, normal bruises like that should be gone. Maybe he just hadn’t given her a high enough dosage, or maybe he’d marked her more than he remembers, but either way, the stains are there.

The vampire ogles at the paused image with a dry throat and wide eyes. Just seeing her like that, dressed in comfy yet effortlessly sensual attire with no bottoms on whatsoever, freely flaunting his love bites around her apartment, probably looking at them in her mirror, thinking about how his teeth had felt grazing her skin…

It’s enough to pop a stiffy into his briefs. 

Harry glimpses over the top of his phone, swallowing thickly at the large bulge beginning to tent his boxers. His socked toes curl as he feels a longing throb begin to swell at the pit of his clenching stomach. Great. This is just fucking perfect. 

He attempts to tap back a reply, but his hands have started quivering slightly, clumsy thumbs ruining his message to the point where he has to retype it three times.

The forest one. I agree with what you said about the stitching. 

Okay, thank you so much! Your input is highly appreciated, as always.

The immortal finds himself gnawing at the inside of his cheek, weighing on whether he should mention the little softcore porn moment she’d unknowingly shot, or if he should just let it slide and go take care of the issue that is literally weighing on him— he can feel it getting heavy against his thigh. 

His fingers seem to take on a mind of their own, printing out a quick sentence and hitting the send button before he can rethink his motives. 

Did you watch your video before you sent it?

Uh no...It looked pretty okay to me while I took it. Why, do you need a different one? Was the lighting too dark? 

The fact that she sent it by accident only adds to the appeal. She’s such a good girl. So fucking innocent and sweet, she could practically give him a toothache. 

Do me a quick favor and rewatch it all the way to the end. I think you’ll be surprised with what you find.

Y/N leans back against her bookshelf wall, chewing on her bottom lip as a sly grin ticks the corners. She doesn’t have to rewatch the video. She’s fully aware of what she had done, which had been completely on purpose. She’s only playing dumb to see his reaction, getting off on how flustered he seems to have become. Yes, her intentions for contacting him had originally been purely for his opinion on decor. But when she saw the chance, she decided to jump headfirst and take it. What are friends with benefits for if not for times like these, when you’re too lazy to come over but need a bit of relief? 

The human allows a full thirty seconds to pass, simulating that she’s watching the video, and then thoughtfully taps out her response.

Oh, whoops. Sorry for the indecent exposure.

Harry shifts in exasperation against his sofa, the radiating in his abdomen crawling up to his chest and down to his knees. He needs to take care of himself now.

It’s fine, babe. You just might wanna be more careful, cause this time around you got lucky that it was me and it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Could go south if it were someone else. 

Y/N rolls her eyes lightly at his scolding, but continues to play the clueless act, curious to see where it’ll take her. 

You’re absolutely right, I’m so sorry. 

Harry clears his throat, flinching as he feels a soft twitch run up the length of his cock. He exhales tightly, trying to steer the conversation into a lighter mood. He doesn’t want her to feel bad; it’s not like he’s angry about this. He’s hot and bothered and needy, but not mad.

I just think it’s funny you exposed the fact that you go around your house without pants. 

Oh, fuck off! No one ever wears pants around their own house, especially if they’re alone. It’s one of the laws of physics. No human resistance, no pants. 

Harry glances down at his body symbolically, where he’s clad in only his underwear, as well.

Touché.

Exactly. 

A pause befalls the conversation as both parties fish for something new to say. The situation’s become less lively and more intense now and neither are sure how to navigate without crossing a line. In a surge of courage, Y/N decides to just directly communicate her intentions, praying that he doesn’t take it the wrong way. 

I have an idea, just hear me out. For the sake of evening the playing field, I think that since you saw me pantsless, it’s only fair that I see you the same way. It balances out, right?

Harry’s jaw drops in an open-mouthed simper, impressed by her blatant suggestion, but also by how smoothly she had delivered it. He mumbles his next words to himself, voice amused and somewhat awed at how she had managed to spin this to her benefit. “You clever little minx. Bet it wasn’t even an accident.”

You did it on purpose, didn’t you?

Y/N purses her lips, shrugging her brows cheekily.

Maybe.

The vampire scoffs, taken aback not only at the ploy she’d pulled off, but at how unapologetic she is about the whole thing. It’s hot. 

Alright, l’ll bite. Tick for tack. 

The photo that comes through makes Y/N choke on her spit. It’s not anything too revealing, but it packs a lot. Literally. 

It’s a pretty casual picture, and she gets the feeling he took it as so just to be a tease. In the frame, all she sees is a snapshot of Harry’s lap, thighs straining against the flimsy material of a pair of crimson tartan boxers, the large tigerhead tattoo he totes somehow prominent in the low lightning. Of course it stands out, though. That’s to be expected; his thighs are thick in the most satisfying fashion and they’re one of his most defining features. She can also see the bottom half of his lean tummy, the cutoff being the crest of his belly button. His fern inkings are peeking out of from below the waistband of the Calvin Kleins, dark and matte on his lightly bronzed skin, and she spots the nonchalant position of his crossed ankles in the background. 

As appetizing as every little detail is, the centerpiece of the portrait is the obvious bulge pressing into the fabric of his briefs. The outline is so prominent, the picture borderlines on graphic. His cock looks pretty as ever, even when it’s covered; the thin underwear leaves very little to the imagination. 

Y/N has to bite down on her tongue to keep from making an embarrassing sound.

Wow, okay, well...Your picture was much more explicit than my video. That’s not fair at all. Throws off the equilibrium we were trying to establish. 

Harry chuckles aloud, shaking his head in amazement at how well she can bend the game to her will. Three weeks ago, when he’d first laid eyes on that shy girl at the club, he would have never expected her to be so bold. Now, she has him wrapped around her pinky like a string.

You’re absolutely right. My apologies. Maybe you should send one similar so we can even out the stakes. 

You read my mind.

Y/N’s next picture causes a hiss to stream through the cracks of Harry’s teeth, eyes glinting red.

It’s a picture taken on top of her bed, the angle set from above. She’s laying on her side, her torso twisted so that her backside is in the shot, her huge tee pulled tight against her waist so it creates an enticing cinching effect. Her thighs are clasped together, the collar of her shirt pulled away just enough that he can see where the valley of her chest begins to curve, and the cheeky lace panties are working utter wonders for her ass. He can’t stop staring. He physically can’t pull himself away, his eyes bouncing across every pixel, attempting to commit the picture to memory to keep it locked in the back of his brain forever. 

Y/N awaits anxiously for his reaction, biting into the pad of her thumb as the seconds list by, wondering if he had enjoyed the nude or if he was just sitting there judging all her flaws. It’s been so long since she’s sent a risky photo like that, she can’t help but stress. Sharing your body with someone digitally is almost as intimate as real sex and it comes with similar worries and insecurities. Was the angle good? Are her stretch marks unattractive? Are the dimples along her backside gross? Is he second-guessing their arrangement? Is he wishing they hadn’t met?

She practically drops her phone when it vibrates.

God, you look stunning. Like a proper fucking dream.

All of her concerns immediately disintegrate, replaced by an odd sense of pride. She’s happy that he enjoyed it, and she’s thankful for the caliber of his response. Most men don’t care to comment that nicely, if they comment at all, and Harry’s enthusiasm only excites her further. She wants to keep going. 

You look pretty fucking good yourself. Wish I could just kneel between your thighs, take you into my mouth, and make you feel good for hours. 

Harry struggles to get saliva down his parched throat, her words bouncing around the inside of his skull, sending a current of bliss directly to where he needs it. 

Hours? You want me down your throat for hours?

For hours, Harry. I’d literally just sit between your legs and let you fuck my face again. Let you use me to make yourself cum.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Harry’s broken whine echoes off the tall walls of his home, one of his big hands finding a path to his curls and tugging in desperation. He needs to keep composure. 

Harry’s next snapshot comes through and Y/N has to screw her eyes shut for a second to brace the bolt of electricity that zips down to her core. 

The boy’s thighs have parted wider, his feet now down from the table, knees hanging off the edge of the sofa. His free hand has delved below his briefs, pulling them up just enough to show a tad of the neatly trimmed area beneath. His fingers are cupped over his cock, hiding it from plain view, but the imprint of his knuckles on the fabric suggest he’s gripping it tightly. The longer she looks, the more she notices— specifically, a dark damp patch spreading at the middle of his boxers and she knows damn well what it is. The fact that she’d got him riled up enough that he’s leaking through like that...She can hardly breathe right. 

Shit, you look so good. How do you always look that fucking good? I just want to feel you stretch me out while you moan into my mouth. 

Harry slowly starts pumping his palm up and down his cock as he rereads her words, catching his lower lip between his teeth, his naked and flushed chest stuttering. He doesn’t want to be the douche that tells her to send another picture, but he really needs her to. He wants to see what she’s doing, how she’s fairing. Wants to know if he has her as fucked as she has him right now. 

It’s almost like they share a telepathic link because not even five seconds later, another beautifully filthy photo is decorating his screen. 

This time around, Y/N has decided to fully lay on her back, spreading her legs open and drawing her knees up slightly so that her thighs are not only flexing, but displaying all the love bites he’d left only a few days prior. They’re all different shades of purple and brown, scattered over the satin suppleness of her skin, painting a canvas of the heated night they’d shared. It’s art at its most prestigious, if he’s ever seen it. And she has her hand ducked below her panties, the outline of her fingers situated right over her clit. 

Harry’s own hand instinctively tightens around his length, pulling a weak groan from his parted lips. He throws his head back against the backrest of the couch, bucking into his palm and teasing his forefinger over his bubbling tip. He spreads the precum all over the sensitive head, whimpering when the draft from the air conditioning caresses it and sends a quiver toppling over his shoulders. 

Fuck, she’s driving him mental. There’s only one way to take care of this effectively, despite their distance. 

I’m going to call you.

Y/N gulps heavily, licking over her chapped lips and feeling her pulse jump at the realization that she’ll be getting to hear his throaty voice coax her through an orgasm. Not only that, but she’ll get to hear him cum, too. She’ll get to hear every shattered gasp and needy mewl, almost as if he were pouring all those sounds of pleasure right into her ears in person. 

The mortal’s heart hiccups when his contact pops up on the Caller ID, phone vibrating insistently. After a deep breath taken to ground herself, she slides her shaky thumb over the glass, slowly bringing the device up to her ear. Her voice is soft and timid as ever, a tremble running through its undertone. “H-Hello?”

Harry’s words come through the crackling speaker as dark and smoky as whiskey, pouring into her mind and intoxicating her as easily as the real liquor would.

“Flip onto your stomach and take off the lace. Now.”

[artaefact]

un-charmed.

↳ when you find excuses to spend time with him

➳ 760 words | angst, college au | jeon jungkook x f reader | pg-15 | swearings

author’s note: this is for bgw’s drabble marathon !! special thanks to @suhdays​ for beta reading this 🥺💕

prompt: college au (AUs)

“Y/N? Are you listening to me?”

You blink. “Huh?”

Jungkook lets out a sigh for the fifth time at the same hour. “You’re not even listening. So, why do you even ask me to tutor you?”

You honestly have no idea what makes Jungkook so passionate about all these numbers and letters. But just watching him explain it is so captivating that you find yourself unable to focus on his words.

Straightening yourself on your seat, you clear your throat. “My grades are failing and… Well, I asked our lecturer and he recommended you.”

The man in front of you rubs his temple in annoyance.

“And you agreed to it anyway,” you shrug nonchalantly. At the same time, your fingers fiddle under the table before you swipe your sweaty palms against your designer jeans.

It’s almost appalling how a mere man can shake your confidence so effortlessly.

Jeon Jungkook is a force to be reckoned with. Even now, clad in a simple white hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, he is a sight to behold.

You’ve known him for over a year now, ever since orientation day—not that you are complaining—where you got paired up with him for icebreaking. Jungkook being Jungkook charmed you right from the get-go with his doe eyes and bright smile, drawing you to him already.

But, of course, you refused to admit your “defeat” even if it’s a losing game you’re playing. As time passes, whenever you’re sharing class, you realise that Jungkook is everything you have ever wanted. Everything that he does makes your heart a tad beat faster, and it makes you excited for coding class (when you have zero interest in this subject).

No one else in your whole college can compare to him, and you have a high standard regarding men.

You want Jeon Jungkook, but, unfortunately, all your flirting attempts are shot down cold by him.

And you just don’t get it. You’re gorgeous, charming, rich— How on earth can someone be immune to that?

Once, you asked his best friend (who’s dating her childhood friend) what type of girls Jungkook likes. And, after an impromptu self-reflection, it starts to piss you off since, well, you don’t chase men, which is why Jungkook must be someone impressive.

Not to mention that Jungkook seems to impersonate a wall of steel so well. So, you have no other choice but to find another way to spend time with him (even when he actively avoids you these past few weeks).

“I agreed to this because Professor Lee promised to give extra credits.”

Typical.

Rolling your eyes, you cross one leg over the other, leaning back on the chair of the library. “So all it took is only extra credits, huh?” Jungkook’s brows furrow at your words. “Oh, please, you’re too smart to play dumb,” you scoff. “Why are you avoiding me?”

A sigh escapes his lips then he stands up abruptly. “This is not part of the tutoring. I will tell Professor Lee that you’re hopeless in this one.”

He turns away when you lunge forward and grab his wrist, standing up from your seat.

“Did I do something wrong?” You swallow a lump down your throat to prevent your voice from wavering. “Are you upset with me?”

Jungkook tugs his wrist free from your grasp, turning to you fully while he fixes his backpack on one shoulder. “No, I’m just tired.”

“That’s not a clear explanation.”

“Okay, I will explain myself clearer. I’m tired of having to deal with your antics. Every single time we hang out I’d almost always end up… I don’t know, in deep shit?” Jungkook spews on, “People like you don’t understand how hard it is to be accepted into this prestigious college. People like you don’t understand how easy it is to be kicked out if you only have your reputation and grades backing you up.”

Jungkook releases a breath. “Your definition and my definition of fun is different. We’re both too different. And if you please, just leave me alone. I don’t need other things stacking up on my plate. And—”

“Kook?”

He whips his body quickly, and your gaze falls to the girl behind him.

“Are you still tutoring her?”

Who the fuck—

“No, I’m done, babe. I was just leaving.”

Without giving you another glance, he puts his arm over her shoulders and walks out of the library. Even when he’s out of sight, you remain standing there, never expecting to have your heart shattered in the quiet library.

© artaefact 2021. All rights reserved. Copying, reposting, translating, and modifying in any platform or by any means is NOT permitted.

[gloryofluv]

Manor with Manners: The Dateables Reaction to Meeting Your Family

The Brothers decide to invite your family over for a party in the human world. Your two younger siblings follow you. Your parents are amused… and the reactions of the crew are mixed.

(For the sake of the headcanon, you have two GN siblings.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Escorting your parents and younger siblings inside the manor, you stop a moment. “So, as I told you, the exchange program was a bit odd. Because they were in the middle of nowhere, they all have… particular personalities.”

Your parents nod with smiles. “I’m positive it will be fine. After all, if they went through all this trouble, they must be worth it.”

“Yes, they’re all excellent beings. I know I’ve told you about them, but meeting them, well, they can be a bit much,” you laugh and breathe before walking them into the party…

Manor of Manners: Brothers

Probably the most comfortable about meeting your parents. He wanders over to them after the demons have made their own introductions. Your mother and father seem more than just at ease with him but enjoy his company immensely. They spend most of the time speaking about you and your accomplishments and how thankful he is that you’re alive and his companion.

Oh yeah, he was excellent with your parents. Of course, he is an angel, so that isn’t surprising. However, your siblings are another story entirely. Everything about him reads adult. So, they’re very hesitant with him and suspicious of him. At least until you tell them, he’s the writer of TSL. Levi may have had fans in them, but Simeon now had acolytes! He answered their questions and eased their perception of his lack of cool factor.

The brothers always monopolize your time, and this party was no exception. However, he did manage to check in with you and be positive you’re doing well. He would get you a drink and pull you aside, caressing your cheek with a smile. Thanking you for inviting him rolled off his tongue like golden praise. Let’s just say your dad was happy with his appearance and clear adoration of you.

Simeon and Barbatos made the desserts, and they are a major hit. Your family had never had such exquisite food and ask twice is this how you eat all the time??? You really don’t have an answer, but he recovers for you and claims this is a special event after all. Smooth. Your parents are quite enamored with the angel, and your mother says as she walking out that you should end up with a man just like him. Definitely not subtle. Definitely within earshot of him walking all of you out. Cue sweet blush.

Well, he is introduced as a gifted child and Simeon’s charge. He spends little time with your parents but does thank them for having such a wonderful child. They’re charmed by his sweet demeanor, and when he offers them cookies, they melt. Your parents praise Simeon for his skillful upbringing, and that about does it for him.

He ends up spending more of his time with your siblings. Not because he has to, but because children are fascinating to him. He asks them questions about their life, about their schooling, and dreams. Your siblings are interested in the small angel and ask him several times if he’s really a kid. Luke evades the question but instead talks about how he loves to bake and cook.

Your siblings teach him different games they like to play, and he finds out how rambunctious they are. Clearly, your siblings are more troublesome than you. He keeps that observation to himself and ends up babysitting the children more than needed, wrangling them.

He ends up asking you several questions on the normal state of children. You have to explain that your family isn’t quite average, and he agrees. He’s happy to finally meet your family and asks if he could come to visit them with you next time.

Archaeologist. You told your parents that. Seriously. Well, he knew enough about the world to probably swing such. He had no issue walking right up to them and starting a conversation. Obviously comfortable, he is the only other human here. Held excellent conversations with them about his adventures and their childhoods, your childhood, what you were like in your youth. Inquisitive. Charming.

Your parents find him odd but in a pleasant way. Talks to them more than most but a little less than Lucifer. Offers your father his card, which is fake, but still has a number to reach him. This was regarding if you ever had an issue and didn’t tell him about it. Tells them to leave a message, and his assistant would get a hold of him instantly. Parent approval rating is super high with this crafty sorcerer.

The children are similar. He spends time with the three of you and performs sleight of hand tricks for them. You’ve seen them before, but your siblings are instantly crazy about him. They beg him to do a show. He actually wavers and agrees, asking Asmo to assist him.

Before the show, he pulls you aside and hands you a red rose. He kisses your cheek and tells you he’s grateful to have an experience he hasn’t had in several years. He doesn’t specify what experience it is, but your mother definitely teases you about your not-so-secret admirer during the show. Just an ancient human charming the fuck out of your family and… well, you.

Spends very little time talking to your parents. Not because he doesn’t want to talk to them. No, he was quite busy keeping things in order for the party. You introduce him as the amazing assistant, foundation, and dedicated person that keeps everything with the exchange program in order. Blushes and accepts the showering compliments from you and your parents.

Your parents never go without a drink. He’s on it. He also is quite aware of the schedule, possible hiccups, and ways to create a smooth transition. Definitely seen as the most responsible of the group. Your mother offers twice to help him, but he politely refuses with a small bow. Charmed. Both your parents find him conservatively kind.

The children were another story entirely. Both believed from the beginning that he was a robot. It wasn’t until they tried to spill water on his shoes to see if he sparked that he acknowledged their ploy. Sparks did indeed fly from his fingers as he ducks down to them with a small smile. You stifle your laugh as he tells them not to say a word… probably scaring the bejeebus out of them.

When you enter the kitchen before dinner to check on things, he pulls you aside. He compliments you on your attire, your family, and your demeanor. Ending the conversation with a kiss on your hand, causing a blush to land on your face. With that, he continues preparing plates but does so with the hint of a smile and generally more enjoyment.

He must have studied with Lucifer a long time. Enter prince charming. He speaks to your parents with just the right amount of polite and genuine nature that he usually carries, but less rambunctious. You could almost see him keeping composure and trying to impress them (?) Well, it definitely wasn’t expected.

Your parents definitely enjoy his conversations about the exchange and how excellent their child represented their family. He compliments them on their rearing of you and how you’ve impressed him since the beginning. When you were a distance away, he not so slyly asks your father how he feels about you courting. (Courting, such an aged world, haha.)

Your siblings absolutely love how excitable he is. They teach him tons of little games and eventually drag him into the pool with them and Mammon. The games were ridiculous, loud, and fun. However, you being pulled into the water wasn’t in your plan. He laughs at your surprise and promises he brought you a change of clothes. Obviously, he plans ahead, likely due to Barbatos. Your siblings call him Dia, and he is so excited to have a nickname from them. He is glowing!

After you change into the pretty outfit he brought you, he pulls you aside before rejoining the party. He confesses how wonderful it is to meet your family and hopes you’d be interested in doing this more often. Maybe next time he could come with just you and visit them? Just for a simple dinner? Just the two of you, what do you think?

[drunken-drengr]

How bout cole 1, vivienne 5, varric 5, dorian 2, cass 4?

Ah yes the companions I really don't talk about enough!!

Cole

1. Before Cole’s personal mission, how did your Inquisitor feel about him? Were they comfortable or uncomfortable around him?

"Awh hell naw bro I don't fuck with demon shit man" - Inquisitor Herald Karrie 'Bjornsdottir' Cadash, right before proceeding to fuck with demon shit.

Yeah uh Karrie didn't like him at all. In truth she was about to slam the Haven gates in his face then she looked behind him and saw a fucking 10 foot tall magister and his army of templars and she was like 'o shit nvm bro u right my bad my bad' and said fuck it come inside lost puppy dog. She only kept him around after that because 1. he wanted to stay and he did kinda come in clutch at Haven so she owed that to him and 2. Solas said so and Karrie DOES NOT want to make Solas upset. If Solas trusts Cole, how bad can he be....? Horrible he's awful horrendous gross demon boy. Karrie DOES NOT appreciate him touching her brain thoughts those are HER juices. Eventually she gets used to him though, because despite not having any real personality the kid really grows on a person. Their whole relationship before his personal quest is basically 'Why do you push away everyone you love?' 'idk' 'Everyone in the inner circle wants to fuck you in one way or another' 'Damn dude fr? Tell me everyone's social security numbers'

Vivienne

5. How did your Inquisitor feel about Vivienne? Friends? Allies? Rivals?

Their relationship is back and forth. For the most part, Karrie dislikes her and how she uses the Inquisition for her own advantage. But she can respect how she carries herself as an independent woman, how she plays the Game with such cunningness, how she managed to rise above the odds and make the best out of being in the Circles, dominating her environment like an apex predator. A true shark behind a veil of elegance. They share some moments where they share their insights on matters, exchange advice and knowledge. Karrie can't say she isn't grateful for the advice Vivienne gives her, at least on the Game and how to deal with nobility. But they can't exactly call each other friends. They have a mutual respect, and a mutual understanding of not to get in each other's ways. They're always watching each other's every move and action like a hawk. Just two Queens on the grindset, y'know, gatekeep-gaslight-girlboss-ing, fighting, the norm.

Varric

5. Did your Inquisitor leave Hawke in the fade or save Hawke? How did that affect their relationship with Varric?

Honestly, Arrow didn't give Karrie much of a choice. She pretty much stepped up to the plate and took one for the team. Hawke understood that the world needed someone to lead the Wardens more than it needed her. She played her part, the world took everything from her, and the world would take her as well. In the end, Karrie did agree with Arrow, though it was saddening to see the hero to her end. Understandably, Varric was very heart broken, but he believed Karrie when she said it was Hawke's own choice, what she wanted in the end. "Figures, Hawke would do something stupid like that," Varric chuckled sadly as Karrie gently embraced the fellow dwarf.

Dorian

2. How did your Inquisitor feel about the Necromancy specialization? Were they intrigued? Disgusted?

It was definitely interesting to say the least. Karrie isn't a big fan of corpses, you see.... She wasn't too thrilled to see him reanimate them, even if they were just spirits. But it was intriguing, more so than plain magic she saw everyday mages using. Necromancy had its perks, though, Karrie just thought of all the amazing pranks it could pull off....

Cassandra

4. Did your Inquisitor agree with Cassandra’s vision for the Chantry? Did they choose her as Divine?

Yes, for the most part. Karrie did agree that the Chantry needed reforming, and she admired Cassandra's incredible faith and determination. But, despite that, Karrie made Leliana Divine Victoria in the end. Cassandra's goals were admirable, but the changes she wanted were minor in comparison to Leliana's visions, and could be undone by the next divine, no doubt. Also, choosing Leliana as Divine just felt... right. If she didn't have that gut feeling to support Leliana, she would have chosen Cassandra, but something just spoke to her. The one thing she disapproved of with Leliana was her abolition of the Circles, but besides that, she saw her changes for the Chantry as better than Cassandras, more radical.

[neonponders]

I started writing this very niche au ages ago that @booksfoxesandcoffee and @demogirlfriend tinkered with lol​ it’s not quite what I wanted, but at least it’s done ~

Based on my post for This Steve with This Billy:

vampire/musician!Steve and mobster!Billy.

TW for briefly mentioned drugs and all manner of vampire things.

💋 💋 💋 💋 💋 💋 💋

If Billy were being honest with himself, it wasn’t the man’s looks that hooked him. The way a superior dancer stands out in the ensemble, it was the musician’s energy that made Billy’s eyes keep finding him.

Every business that opened his his territory went through Billy’s strict legislature. And the whole city was his to play king.

He didn’t consider himself a strict businessman, but he did attend the new club with regularity to make sure they had what they needed to succeed. If they couldn’t succeed, then they’d have to rebuild elsewhere.

They did succeed. Because they had Steve Harrington.

On paper, he was lead guitarist. An instrumentalist. Vocalist if necessary. Billy Hargrove knew he shined in neon stage lighting and his special trick was swinging the instrument around his body so the guitar switched sides halfway through a song or riff, proving ambidextrous dexterity.

Billy knew Harrington was hard to get ahold of. So far, he’d hosted every member of the band and every guest musician at his VIP table. Harrington always had reasons for leaving directly after a show, which surprised Billy. The man’s band mates clearly revolved around him, looked to him for timing cues, and Billy even had the unique experience of seeing the man smack a drink out of the bassist’s hand because the guy could barely stand.

There was a personality there, and Billy wanted to see it up close. Taste it.

Somehow, Harrington had even avoided being invited to Billy’s table during the mid-show break. Always conveniently disappearing until the second he needed to be on stage.

Until now.

Billy’s guards stood up when Harrington approached with someone held firmly by the scruff of his shirt and jacket. Billy waved them aside, and the musician dumped the guy into Billy’s booth. Some heads turned in their direction, curious for drama but not for long. Anyone who hung around Billy, hungering for his attention, knew to be careful about annoying him.

“Is this one of yours?” Harrington prompted.

“Why would he be?” Billy inquired with a lethargic blink.

“I thought your sort had more class than distributing roofies.”

Billy’s pleased, large feline demeanor sloughed off as he turned his head to the man in his booth. Billy didn’t bother negating Harrington’s accusations. Anybody with sense knew who he was. The only thing that bothered Billy at the moment was the use of some nobody to get the musician’s attention.

“You’re right. He isn’t.”

Just like that, the guards lifted the sorry soul out of his booth and began ushering him out of the club. He made a weak attempt at promising an ability to make Billy money, but the latter wasn’t interested in a business centered around dangerous sex. Billy considered himself a purveyor of the opposite; of passion, and real passion only came when all parties were conscious for it.

“Steve.”

The musician paused to look back at him, already on his way back to the greenroom or wherever he hid in between performances.

“Sit with me.”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to the now available seat next to Billy. “No, thanks.”

As if he could - 

He did.

Steve walked away from the table. Billy saw the more discretely dressed guards loitering in the crowd turn and begin to approach Harrington...before distinctly letting him pass.

It was not a regular day that Billy Hargrove’s employees feared someone else more than him.

He pressed his back into the booth, and one of the women sitting along the back of the booth leaned down to hear him. “I want his file.”

“Yes, sir,” she purred. It took no time at all for her to return to his table with Harrington’s business papers. Typical tax form, resume, no cover letter but instead a CD with his music samples.

“What about his background?”

Her nails raked through her long, black hair. She played the part of groupie very well. “We don’t have anything yet.”

Billy found that hard to believe. “He’s worked here for weeks.”

She shrugged a bare, shimmering shoulder. “He hides very well. We’ll have something soon.”

Not soon enough.

Billy took to wandering his club instead of sitting. Why they didn’t just haul the musician into Billy’s office for questioning…no sensible person detonates a bomb without knowing the area is clear. They didn’t know enough about Steve. Whether he belonged to a family scouting the borough before encroaching on Billy’s property.

Would it be their fault for sending in a mole without honoring the proper channels? Yes.

Would it be Billy’s fault for starting an underground war for harming Steve first? Also yes.

So he watched. So he waited. And he began to enjoy this game he and Steve had developed. Because Steve wasn’t as oblivious. He looked pretty—the kind of pretty that some mistake as dumb—but Steve had proven in many, subtle ways just how observant he could be.

The way he managed his band members’ alcohol or obvious drug addictions.

The second time he hauled some petty dealer over to Billy’s booth.

When he flipped Billy off as he walked away after Billy tested, “I noticed you like brunettes.”

“No, you haven’t.”

Steve watched Billy. And Billy watched Steve. At least, Billy suspected. Billy hoped.

The confirmation arrived in the humid alleyway behind his club. He was already itching for a fight. For the last two weeks, a new asshole had been loitering around and inside his business. No one had yet been able to catch him doing anything—until Billy followed him out of the wrong exit. Nobody could use service doors at the back of the building; it was both a safety hazard for civilians to be in the way of delivery trucks, and any squeals about people coming and going from there would have the police riding Billy’s tail.

Then the bastard had the audacity to take two girls who were definitely sporting fake id’s outside.

He slammed the service door against the brick exterior to get their attention. All three of them were huddled and necking between two garbage bins. A real class act.

“Jail bait bimbos, get inside. This asshole can lock himself in a concrete box without your…help.”

The distinct memory of Steve delivering roofy dealers to him flashed in his brain at the sight of the blissed out girls using the alley walls to stay upright. The memory flew out into the main street at the glistening darkness on both of their necks, dripping into their low cut shirts.

In the window of Billy’s surprise, the guy attacked. Slammed Billy right against the other side of the alley, knocking the air out of him—

Billy’s brain couldn’t keep up. But his eyes could.

A large hand gripped the gelled hair and wrenched the guy’s head so far back that Billy heard a threatening pop.

Billy had never stood next to Steve before. He stood just a little taller than Billy—both smaller than the impressive figure he’d watched so many times on stage, but also bigger because he’d never been this close…

Billy was officially having trouble breathing as he watched the man’s wide eyes darting around his sockets despite his broken neck and the disgusting angle of his windpipe.

“This spot’s taken. Tell your hovel to skip town. You won’t get a fourth chance.”

Fourth?

Billy’s eyes stuck on the bloody, long teeth in the man’s gullet before Steve shoved him down the alley. The man landed several yards away—no ordinary shove—but he hauled ass to his feet, head lolling on his shoulders with more sickening crackles.

Billy remained stationary as Steve fixed the shirts and jackets falling on the girls’ shoulders went to hail a cab. One of them recovered faster than the other, and hauled her friend into the vehicle. By this time, Billy managed to say, “What will they do with those stained shirts?”

Steve looked at him, suddenly looking remarkably…normal. Even startled, like he’d forgotten Billy was there. He didn’t hold Billy’s gaze, instead looking a bit downward—

“What will you do about yours?”

Billy frowned, blinking twice before he looked down at himself. It took him a moment to see the difference in his dark blue button-up. But he glistened like the girls did. Slowly, his mind caught up and realized how warm the side of his neck felt, and how gross. Wet. Dry. Sticky. Crusting.

“How did I not even notice?”

Like a dream clinging onto his waking consciousness, the blurry numbness subsided, and Billy realized his throat really fucking hurt.

Steve’s gaze dropped even further, tilting away from Billy as he pointed at the doors. “Go and clean yourself up. Go home.”

Leave it to Billy Hargrove’s pride to stack his spine back together. He stepped off the alley wall and into Steve’s space.

“Don’t—” he turned his face further to the side.

“Explain,” Billy ordered, even as Steve’s hand lifted to cover his mouth.

Steve shook his head a little. “I don’t have to,” he muffled and lifted weary eyes. “Clean yourself up.”

The answers were right there. Yet it seemed…stupid to say any of it out loud. How many movies? Book? Shows?

Instead he said, “Show me.”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “You don’t play with bears like this.”

Billy laughed. He laughed Steve all the way out of the alleyway. Billy only regretted this when the next evening, the secretaries of the business ran through the week’s itinerary. Steve wasn’t scheduled.

A long week progressed of Billy thinking over that night. How the hell a guardian angel with teeth and no wings lived his nights in Billy’s cage and Billy had just…taunted him into slipping right out of the bars.

When another week presented itself with still no sight of his musician, Billy knew he would have more than one inconvenience on his plate. His customers liked Steve. Statistically, the club was fit to bursting since a third more clientele showed up for the band’s gigs. Steve made the barkeeps laugh in between numbers. Billy had always thought he used the alcohol in the greenroom instead of taking up the bars’ time.

Instead he dropped rats right into the king’s lap. Creatures Billy never would have seen unless Steve made them visible.

“Schedule Steve’s group on Sunday.”

His secretary frowned at him. “Am I missing something? We’re off on Sundays.”

“He knows that. Just use whatever number he gave you.”

Billy waited behind the club. Perhaps he should have arranged a specific meeting time instead of just the vague Sunday, but…Steve was punctual to his usual call time. Billy heard his footsteps the same moment the lighter in his hands crackled softly under his cigarette.

Steve approached with his hands in his jean pockets. Then he entered the harsh lighting of the motion-detected beams above the doors. “You don’t look good.”

Because he didn’t. Steve made tired look good but he had met the line between tired and haggard. His lips were chapped and the lights above him put his eye sockets into harsh contrast. Billy missed the lush face he watched bathed in neon stage lights.

Steve only met Billy’s gaze briefly before looking back down the alley. “Haven’t been to the grocery store lately.”

“By ‘groceries,’ do you mean my place?”

“And if I do, then what?”

Billy smirked as easily as blinking. “I don’t recall firing you. You didn’t have to run—”

“Yes, I did. Dipshit.”

Billy moved his tongue over his teeth while he grinned. “Why didn’t you finish what he started? Three easy meals right there.”

“And swell up like a mosquito? Gross.”

Smoke sputtered out of his mouth. “You’re not what I expected. In any regard. It’s a wonder my employees haven’t been inspired by your recklessness. Or my letting you get away with it.”

“There’s no letting anything happen. We’re not all teeth. There’s nothing you could do if we don’t want it to happen. It’s the same on your side for humans.”

Billy’s next exhalation seeped out of his mouth. Slow. “Are you taking your time? Circling a stronger prey?” He tapped the ash off his cigarette, and watched Steve’s irises flick to the movement. “Most people come to me for my looks, money, or power. Is it the same for you?”

“No.”

That might’ve caught Billy off guard, if he didn’t feel gently nailed in place by Steve’s eyes lifting to his own. It was Billy’s turn to look down—down at the fingers grazing Billy’s hand as Steve reached for the cigarette. Took it.

“You’re easy prey because you’re already dying. You smoke a pack of these a day. The rest of the criminal cityscape would celebrate your funeral. A wolf’s goal is to eat. Not bragging rights—well. For the smart ones. We go for what’s easy.”

Glass-blue eyes wandered Steve’s face as he took a long inhalation. “I’ve never been called ‘easy’ in my entire life.”

Steve shrugged and—politely—aimed his lips to the side. Billy wondered how much he’d mind if Steve’s smoke graced his skin. “What can I say? We hunt the same way lions, tigers, and bears to. We go for what’s attainable with minimum effort.”

“You’re lazy.”

That overarching fringe bobbed over his head. Of course Steve had taken the time to style his hair. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

Billy took his cigarette back with a huff. “I’ll decide later how insulted I should be. Until then, you’re the one looking like easy pickings.”

“You haven’t thrown anyone out of your place lately.”

That took an extra minute for Billy to process. “You…huh.”

Steve’s head moved with his eyes rolling onto him. “You don’t really think people in this city leave any bar without a fight, do you? I’ve had plenty of dinners on your tab.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

Steve’s mouth lifted slightly in a skeptical grimace. “What’s the catch?”

Billy took his time with the last drag and stepped on the filter on his way to minimize the distance between them. “Explain to me why some pervert bites me and I’m fighting a hard on for two weeks?”

A rigid second passed, and then Steve crumbled into laughter. He laughed like a kid. A really cute little shit.

As Steve recovered, he heaved, “I’ve never heard anyone complain about the bite boners.”

Billy followed him as he reclined against the alley wall. “How about, instead of avoiding what’s really at play here, you admit to wanting to bite me. You’re usually on top of the rats that enter my business. But not that night.”

Steve stood on his own feet, making Billy feel the one inch he had on him. “And what if I did? What if it wasn’t your smell that made me crave, but jealousy?”

His musician’s bravado flickered when Billy’s tongue traced the edge of his bottom lip. “How do I smell?”

“Like smoked peaches.”

Steve was proving an annoying skill at making Billy dumbfounded. “What?”

He giggled anew. “Are you the type to fuck without kissing?”

Billy absorbed that and returned, “You like to kiss after blowjobs, don’t you?”

Steve wagged his head, so his words drifted back and forth over Billy’s mouth. “Yeah? So what?”

Billy inhaled deeply to make a show of sighing like humoring Steve’s romantic ethics was tiring him out—

Steve’s hands cradled his head with care, the soft sound of Billy’s hair scrunching underneath his fingers filling his ears as Steve licked inside Billy’s mouth. The latter’s jaw went slack, letting Steve in and meeting his tongue to taste him right back. Apart from the smoke, Steve tasted mutely sweet. The way a clean mouth does; the way a man should taste. Billy had always thought the way a person tasted was a uniquely intimate thing. Like a special piece of DNA could only be read with the tongue.

Steve’s tongue retreated so he could fully kiss Billy’s lips. When the lazy, soft pecks seemed to be Steve’s only intent, Billy gripped his shirtfront, the only warning he got before Billy licked the seam of his lips, wanting more. Wanting what they started.

“Mhm…is everything…a power trip with you?” Steve mumbled, but his breath shuddered when Billy pressed his hard groin against Steve’s pelvis.

“Bite me and fuck me—”

The lights went out, because they were tucked far enough behind a garbage bin for the motion detectors to not see them. Steve’s attention moved between these details and he uttered, “Next to the trash?”

Billy growled, “Ughh,” and hauled Steve off the brick and into his off-day business. “I should’ve guessed you were high maintenance.”

But right inside the doors, Billy tapped in the access code to a private elevator. “Where are we going?”

“Top floor penthouse.”

Steve snorted. “You’re like my cockatoo bragging about the highest swing.”

“You have a bird?”

“Yes, I have a bird! A little asshole named, Orchid. He whistles to all of my songs.”

“You’re the strangest excuse for a vampire I’ve ever seen.”

“And you are easy. Thanks for showing me the key to your house.”

Billy looked at him and met a toothy smirk. “Pisces, huh?”

The elevator dinged and Billy was too deep to back out now. He couldn’t tell which of them was the hunter, but he was ready to share a hell of a meal.

[afeb]

Sebastian Stan - Sinful Things

Move to Pollark they said, it’s a great little town they said. Well that was a load of shit. It was hot, sweaty and uncomfortable and I was beyond miserable. I was used to cold, rainy London where people didn’t talk to each other and the biggest drama was whether I was going to miss the tube or not. Driving here was a nightmare too.

It was Sunday, just having gone midday when my care began to splutter along the old road just outside town.

“Don’t do this...” I warned as the car jerked before completely dying. I managed to steer it to the side of the road before I got out. “Piece is shit...” I muttered as I opened the bonnet and peered inside.

A truck reving in the distance caught my attention, but I quickly looked back down at the problem at hand. I ignored as the truck pulled up behind me, I ignored the handsome man walking towards me and I definitely ignored his muscles.

“Everything okay, darlin?” His voice was silky smooth and deeper than the ocean.

“Yep, thanks.” I shortly said before hitting a part of the engine that looked out of place.

He chuckled before scratching his head. “Really? Cos you don’t look too good.”

“Honestly...” I fiddled with the oil cap. “I’m doing just fine.”

“Okay...well...I’ll be on my way then.” He quipped before walking back to his truck. He drove past, slowing down as he drove away. “And it’s probably your radiator that’s died.” Was the last thing he uttered before driving away.

I rolled my eyes and set to work.

Hours. I’ve been here bloody hours. The car wasn’t budging, I’d even tried pushing it. My phone had no signal and about half an hour ago ran out of battery completely. Other than walking in a random direction in hopes of finding somewhere, I was stuck. Laying on the roof of my car I stared up at the sky hoping someone would drive past.

My ears perked, a car. Yes, a car! I scrambled off the roof and waved my arms to catch the drivers attention. The same truck from hours ago.

“You gotta be kidding me.” I groaned as the car came to a stop and the same man climbed out, only a smug smirk was plastered on his face.

“Well well well, who do we have here?” He quipped.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah, can you help me?”

He chuckled and nodded. “What with?”

“Can you drive me back to my place? Or give me your phone to call a tow?” I asked.

“No can do.” He leant against my car.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I only have enough gas to get back to my place, about ten minutes from here, and I don’t have a phone.” He answered back.

“You don’t have a phone?” I crossed my arms.

“No ma’am,” he sighed. “I’m an in the moment guy. If you got something worth sayin, well you can say it to my face.” He gave me a toothy smile.

I groaned. “Do you have a home phone?”

“Sure do.”

“Well can you drive me to yours so I can use that phone to call someone?” I asked.

He thought for a moment before nodding. “Hop in, darlin.”

I grabbed my purse from my car and climbed into his beat up truck, securing the seatbelt around my middle. He smiled at me before starting his car and pulling away.

“I’m Sebastian by the way.” He told.

“Y/N.”

“So what accent is that?” He asked.

“British.” I shorty replied.

“What’s a British girl doing out here?” He asked, making a few turns to go down a dirt path.

“I wanted somewhere new, and my family had been here before years ago so I moved here a few months ago.” I explained.

He shuffled in his seat. “How you finding it?”

I rest my head against the window. “Awful.” I grumbled.

He laughed a little but stayed silent. We pulled up to a large white farm house, chickens scurrying away from the moving car. There looked to be a small salvage yard and acres of land, small clusters of trees littering the field. He turned off the car and got out, beckoning me to follow him. He led me into the house, telling me shortly of the history of his place.

“Phone is in there,” he pointed to the kitchen. “Tow companies number is beside it.”

“Thanks.” I grumbled before heading into the kitchen. Dialing the number, a buzzing came from Sebastians pocket. He pulled out a sleek iPhone, answering it.

“Stan Salvage and Tow Company, how can I help you?” He smirked at me.

I slammed the phone down. “You had a mobile this entire time?” I seethed.

“No,” he drew out. “I had a works phone, a cell phone is for personal use.” He smartly said.

I huffed. “Well, Sebastian, you can help me by going to get my car, fix it for free because of this mess you’ve got me into, and then drive me back to my place.” I shortly said.

I approached him sternly, peering up at him. His arms crossed, brushing against my chest. “You know, you’re real cute when you’re mad.” He smirked.

“Now.” I ignored his statement.

He raised his hands. “Okay fine, gimme your keys.” I rummaged through my purse and handed him my car keys. “I’ll be back in half an hour, make yourself at home.”

After mooching round his house while he was out, the heavens opened just as he stepped through the door. “Can you drive me home now?”

“No can do.” He plopped down on the beaten up couch.

“What? Why?” I frowned.

“It’s raining.” He turned on the TV.

I snatched the remote from him and turned it off. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

He stood and took the remote from me. “It’s dusty round here, which gets all in the engine, so when it rains that clogs up the engine and it doesn’t drive.” He snarled before turning the TV back on and sitting back down.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“I dunno...” he shrugged. “Make dinner?”

My mouth fell on the floor. “You know, you’re a bastard. A cocky, arrogant, self intitled bastard.” He simply smiled at me. “I don’t need this.”

I stormed out the house, picking up my purse and walking into the rain. Sebastian followed behind me.

“It was a joke! I’ll make dinner.” He called after me. “Come back into the house, you’ll catch your death out here!”

“Go away!” I yelled back, brushing my damp hair out of my eyes.

“No! I’m not gonna let some young, pretty girl walk around when it’s getting dark-alone!” He yelled behind me.

“As opposed to staying in a guys house I met an hour ago!” I quipped back.

“Technically we met five hours ago.” He corrected me. I didn’t respond. We reached the end of his dirt track, and I peered down either side of the road. “Where you gonna go now, huh? Now can you stop making a point and come back inside.”

“No.” I turned left, walking on the muddy grass to stay off the road. “Leave me alone.” I snapped.

“For fucks sake, has anyone told you how stubborn you are? The fucking British, always coming in and thinking they know what’s best when in reality, they know nothing!” He insulted.

“I’d rather be that then some dumb American who thinks he can pick up random girls and have it his way!”

He scoffed. “I don’t mean to insult you princess, but you really aren’t-fuck!”

I screamed as I slipped on some mud and fell against the road, scraping my knee as I went down. I rolled over and looked down, blood seeping out my scrape.

“Ow! See what you did!” I yelled, dabbing at it.

Sebastian knelt down and cupped the back of my knee. The rain was streaming down his face as he looked at me. “I’m gonna have to clean you up now!” He quipped.

He stood up and leant down, scooping my up in his arms bridal style. “I can walk you know.” I said back.

“Obviously not.” He huffed before making his way back to his house.

He opened the door with his elbow, placing me down safely before turning to close it properly. I limbed over to the couch and sat down, leaning over to survey my knee. Sebastian walked into the kitchen, coming back out with a small medical kit under his arm. He sat on the coffee table in front of me and wiped the blood from my knee before grabbing a fresh cloth and pressing it hard against my knee to stop the bleeding.

“Thank you.” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.” He replied. “And I’m sorry about being...mean.”

I chuckled. “Me too.”

He gently pulled back the cloth and smiled. “Stopped bleeding, now go shower, upstairs on the right.” He told me. I nodded and scaled up the stairs. Half way through my shower Sebastian knocked on the door and came in. “I brought you a shirt of mine and some sweatpants.”

“Thank you!” I sang through the curtain, waiting till Sebastian was out the room before I shut off the water and quickly got dressed.

Walking down I found Sebastian in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar. “What you cooking?” I asked.

“Steak, potatoes and vegetables.” He listed off. “For both of us.”

I nodded and smiled. “Nice, thank you.” I watched his back muscles ripple as he prepared the meal. “And, I do want to properly apologise for earlier. You were being nice and I totally...shit on it...so I’m sorry.”

He peered over his shoulder before chuckling. “It’s fine, you had a bad day, I get it.”

“Still...” I murmured.

“Go sit and watch TV, rest that knee of yours.” He told me, to which I obliged.

Half an hour later and half an hour into a documentary about the domestication of dogs, Sebastian came out with two plates piled with food and cutlery.

He sat down and passed me the plate, grabbing a pillow and resting it under his plate on his lap. “What are we watching?”

“A documentary about the domestication of dogs.” I turned my nose up.

“Um...interesting.” He laughed. He leant over and turned it off. “Tell me about you.”

We spoke for hours, laughing and joking along with telling many stories from our childhood. After finishing a story of how I ended up swimming in the Ricer Themes on a night out, Seb looked at me.

“What are you really doing in Louisiana?” He grabbed my empty plate and placed it on the coffee table.

I shrugged. “Oh you know, the classic heartbreak, needed space story.” I shortly said.

“Was he...special?” He asked.

“Well...I thought so, for a while, but he had wandering eyes, if you know what I mean.” I sniffed.

“I’m sorry, guys can be shit.” He awkwardly said.

We sat in silence for a moment, the rain filling the void. “What about you though, a girlfriend I should know about?” I joked.

He laughed and shook his head. “No girlfriend, not many single ladies around here.”

“Single guys?” I raised an eyebrow.

He puffed out some air. “You know...I’ve never tried.” He joked back.

“Maybe give it a shot.” I winked.

He cleared his throat. “So are you...you know, looking?”

I lulled my head over to him. “Not actively, but if I were to stumble across someone I wouldn’t say no.” I explained. “You?”

“I’m a man. I’m desperately looking.” I laughed at his statement. “What’s your type then?”

I shrugged. “I dunno, I don’t really have one. Smart, funny, you know.” He nodded. “You?”

“Shorter than me, but otherwise I don’t really care. Same as you really.” The sun had set long ago and we sat in darkness. “I’m gonna turn on some lights.

Sebastian walked around the room and turned on small lamps, lighting the room in a soft orange glow. I was too busy arguing with him to realise just how handsome he was. How his long, dark, shaggy hair covered his sculpted face. His cheekbones were deep, his jaw cutting and his eyes a piercing blue. He was tall, easily six foot, with a broad and muscular body. He was sweet, when he wasn’t arrogant, and he did make me laugh. Oddly, for a stranger, I felt safe around him.

He informed me he was going to shower and change. I took the time to wash up, cleaning the mess he’d made but putting nothing away as I didn’t know where anything was. Sebastian had put my phone on charge, and I had a small amount of signal here. I didn’t have any messages, but I noted my location on maps and sent the address to my mum, just in case.

“So I’ve done up the spare room for you, I’ll dry your clothes and everything tomorrow.” Sebastian said. “I won’t kill you during the night, promise.” He joked.

“Only a murderer would say that.” I joked back.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” He followed me up the stairs, directing me to a large double bed room. “Extra blankets are under the bed, and my room is just across the hall.”

He lingered in the hallway. “Thanks for this, really.” I smiled shyly.

I went over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing his cheek warmly. His arms wrapped around my middle. We parted a little, bodies still close as his nose brushed against mine.

“Goodnight.” He whispered.

My breath deepened. “Night.”

He awkwardly coughed before retreating to his room and slamming the door shut. I closed my door gently and crawled in to bed, dreaming of the man across the hall.

It was pitch black out when I felt my bed dip by my side. I opened my eyes slowly, peering out the window above my head to see a bright clear moon, it had stopped raining. I looked to my side to see Sebastian sat near me, and I instantly shot up.

“I’m not killing you!” He defended, standing up and backing away.

“What the fuck were you doing in here?” I huffed, pulling the covers closer to my naked body.

“I-I had a dream about you and I came in here to see if you were awake!” He explained.

“Oh...well...is everything okay?” I asked, relaxing a bit.

He sat back down. “Yeah...” he whispered.

“What did you dream about?” The tension in the room shifted.

“You and me...in here...” he slowly shifted forward.

My breath hitched. “What were we doing?” I asked.

His forehead pressed against mine. “Sinful things.” He growled. “I can show you, if you let me.” His hand snaked under the duvet, feeling my bare knee. “Do you want me to show you?”

I fisted the blanket. “Please.”

Instantly he pinned me down, sponging wet kisses along my neck. I attempted to free my wrists from his constraint, but he pushed me deeper into the mattress. His hips began to rut through the duvet, gently pushing into me. The rough covers deliciously rubbed against my bare pussy, causing a high pitch squeak to erupt out my throat.

“You sure you want this?” He whispered into my ear, freeing my hands.

My fingers weaved into his long hair. “Yes.” I muttered against his lips.

His beard scratched against my lips as he kissed me, tongue forcing its way into my mouth as it dominated mine. His hands quickly shed the covers off the bed and onto the floor, parting our lips momentarily to remove his t shirt. My hands felt over his hot, sticky skin as his eyes bore down at my naked body.

“Sleep naked?” I shyly nodded. “That’s my good girl.” My legs twisted at his words.

His lips painted kisses across the plain of my chest, moving down to capture my nipple between his teeth. I jumped as he gently nibbled, soothing over with his tongue before gently sucking. He tweaked my other nipple with his collaused fingers, his other hand squeezing my hip harshly. He slowly moved down my body, kissing over my stomach and pelvic bone.

He came face to face with my weeping pussy, kissing absentmindedly across my thighs. “Please Sebastian.” I whined out.

He chuckled darkly. “Call me daddy.” His tongue immediately delved into me as he uttered those words, causing a scream to fall from my lips. He pried my thighs open, zig zagging up until he found my clit. His plump lips wrapped around me, sucking twice before flicking it continuously with his tongue. I attempted to clamp my legs shut but his strength over powered mine. “God, so sweet.”

“Daddy!” I muled out, running my hands through his hair.

His thick fingers teased my entrance before slowly wiggling in, his tongue slowly lapping at my clit. “Taste so good princess, so good for daddy.” He hummed against me, watching his fingers sink into me. “Jesus sweetheart, you’re so tight, how are you this tight?”

He fingers slowly retracted before sinking in again, his tongue going back to flick against my clit. Soft, continuous moans fell from my lips as I fisted the sheets next to me, arching my back off the mattress. He added a third finger, stretching me out in the most wonderful way. His eyes peered up at me, watching my reaction as he played with me.

“I’m gonna-oh! I’m gonna cum, daddy.” I cried out. My moans turned into screams as he rammed into fingers into me, his mouth harshly sucking my clit as he forced an orgasm out of me. My legs shook around his head as he continued to lap against me, my hands having to force his head away. “Daddy, daddy...daddy.” I chanted out softly, feeling his lips kiss up my body.

His lips sponged to mine shortly before he spread my legs again and teasingly ran his tip across my pussy. “This cunt ready for daddy’s cock?” He taunted. “Can my little princess handle daddy’s thick cock?”

My small hands cupped his face. “Please fill me up daddy, I wanna hurt.” His eyes nearly buldged out his head.

“Say something else princess, use that filthy mouth of yours.” He begged.

My eyes locked onto his. “I want daddy to fill me up with his cum, I want daddy to force me to take his cock, even if I beg him to stop.” I whispered.

His eyes rolled back as he let out a soft groan. “Fucking hell, you’re such a fucking slut.” He insulted as he pushed his tip into me. “Beg for the rest.”

My breathing picked up. “Please! Please daddy! Don’t tease me like this, I need all your cock deep ins-ah!” He cut me off filling me the rest of the way.

My arms wrapped around his shoulders as I hugged him tight, his cock stretching me beyond what his fingers had. He rest for a moment inside me, feeling my warmth.

“So fucking warm, daddy needed his cock warming tonight.” Sebastian whispered against my cheek.

His hips retracted as he slowly pulled out, pushing back in just as slowly. It went like this for the first few thrusts, but then something changed in him. His hand wrapped around my throat, his body sitting up slightly as he began to rut into me at a fast pace. My small hands clasped his bulky forearm as my body convulsed with pleasure.

“Daddy.” I groaned out, my face turning red from his hand around my neck.

“Daddy’s gonna fill you to the brim with his cum baby, and you’re gonna take it all. Every ounce of cum I give you’re gonna take cos it’s a gift baby, a fucking privilege to have me cum inside you.” He said deeply. “You want that? You want to get fat off of my cum baby?”

“Yes daddy! Give me everything, I want it daddy!” My pussy clamped around him, causing his hips to stutter.

“F-Fuck princess, holy shit.” He moaned. “Your pussy is the best I’ve ever had. It’s so wet, and warm, and fucking tight...I only want to fuck this pussy baby.” He fell onto me, his arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me into him. My arms wrapped around his neck, softly biting his ear. “I’m gonna cum, shit baby, daddy’s gonna cum.”

“Cum inside me daddy.” I whispered in his ear, taking his lobe and nibbling.

He groaned loudly, almost yelled, as his hips pressed into mine as hot ropes of cum leaked out of his cock into my pussy. His hips rutted a few more times, his cock fully leaking out into me as his moans and groans subsided into soft whimpers.

His head came to rest against my forehead, lips kissing mine before he moved down my body. I was about to question what he was doing but he opened my lips and shoved his tongue into my pussy. Once his mouth was full of his cum he moved up and opened my mouth with his fingers. He spit his cum into my mouth, licking his lips.

“Swallow daddy’s gift princess.” He ordered, a smirk gracing his lips as he watched me swallow. “Such a good girl.” He hummed, kissing my lips softly.

He body rolled off of mine beside me, both our chests heaving. My head turned to look at him, his hand finding mine and looping our fingers together.

“Wow.” I laughed out.

“Do you wanna go on a date?”

“Fuck yes I do.”

[dontcare77ghj]

Subtle

Bruce x reader x Tony

Tony did not know the meaning of the word, subtle. Subtle was an abstract concept to the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. 

The man had never worried about a bill in his life and often dropped thousands of dollars on the most trivial things.

Just last week Tony had decided he was bored with the color of the benches in the kitchen the three of you shared, and had the whole kitchen redone. The bedspread had somehow gained a small tear in the corner and instead simply throwing that one out, Tony had bought a custom-sized bed with custom made blankets.

You and Bruce were taking extra caution to not mention anything needing to be fixed or anything broken just in case you came home to a completely different home.

Tony liked loud things and liked to make ill thought out choices.

The two of you loved Tony. Your impulsive man, no matter how many times he changed the kitchen because he’s an indecisive fuck. No matter how many nights he spent down in the lab, tinkering and building his suits. But sometimes you wished you could show him the pleasures in little things.

Subtle things.

“Tony, what is all that?” Bruce questioned Tony as he entered with arms laden with boxes and bags.

“This, Brucie-bear, is what’s going to throw my back out.” Tony groaned, placing all the bags and boxes onto the couch and table.

“Tony what did you do?” Bruce sighed as you entered the room.

“Jesus, I thought fan mail collection day was on Fridays.” You joked, looking at the mess Tony had made in the living room.

“Not fan mail.” Tony denied, picking up a box and tossing it at you. “Gifts from yours truly.” He said, tossing another box to Bruce.

“What’s this for, Tony?” You asked, taking a seat and undoing the ribbon. “Holy shit, Tony!” You gasped, looking at the necklace in your hands.

“I am taking the two of you out tonight,” Tony smirked, leaning back. “There’s a gala tonight and instead of suffering alone, I’m taking the two of you with me.”

“Tony, I love you, and normally I support your ideas wholeheartedly, but I really don’t want to go to another gala with you. This isn’t a good idea.” You told him. In mock offense, Tony pressed his hand to his chest and looked scandalized.

“I always have the best ideas, everyone says so. Right Brucie?” Tony questioned him.

“Not in this case Tony,” Bruce said, fingers running over the cuff links in his hands. “You know what happened the last time we went to a gala.” He sighed.

“He has been banned from any gala in this city, trust me,” Tony said, reaching over and grabbing the scientists' hand. “I promise both of you, tonight is not going to be like last time. I want to spoil the two of you tonight. I want to have every one of those stuffy asses to see that I have the two smartest, most gorgeous, people in the world on my arms. Please let me take you to this.”

“No, don’t give us the puppy dog face.” You groaned, collapsing back into the couch.

“It’s the puppy dog face.” He said. “Please I just gave you that amazing speech and the puppy dog face, you kinda have to say yes now.”

You and Bruce shared a long look. You gave a tiny nod and Bruce let out a sigh.

“Alright, fine,” Bruce said. “We’ll go.”

“You’re the best, you won’t regret this.” Tony smiled, quickly kissing the two of you.

“I’m regretting this.” You whispered through a large forced smile. “I’m really regretting this.”

“If it makes you feel better, you look absolutely stunning.” Tony complimented you, pressing his lips to your cheek.

"Sweet words, Tony, but I am still regretting this." You smiled, tapping his cheek. "And I think Bruce is too." You added, pointing at an uncomfortable-looking Bruce.

"Well, I think we should fix that," Tony smirked before leading you both over to your boyfriend. "Excuse me, gentlemen, we require Dr. Banner for the moment." He said as you grabbed Bruce's hand.

"Thank you for that." Bruce sighed as you all walked away. "I can tell they weren't especially interested in nuclear physics."

"I can't thank you enough for coming with me tonight," Tony said sincerely. "I know neither of you really wanted to be here."

"Not particularly." You smiled.

"But we love you, so we came for you," Bruce said. "Though you're going to make it up to us."

"Am I now?" Tony asked with a smirk.

"Yep. We already discussed how you can make this up to us." You smiled, wrapping your hands around Tony's arm.

"And do tell me how I can I make this up to you both."

"When we get home, you're ordering the largest pizza you can and we're having a movie night," Bruce said.

"And it's a casual event, so no jewelry, no ties, and no pants." You added.

"I like the way the two of you think," Tony admitted. "Alright pizza and no pants it is."

"Tony, you are on the couch tonight." You said as he led you and Bruce through the restaurant. 

"The common room couch to be clear," Bruce added as the three of you were seated.

"Understood." Tony nodded, pouring three glasses of wine. "But I don't think you'll follow through."

"If another waitress stares at the two of you like you're something to eat, I think I will follow through." You commented, sipping your wine.

"I'll remember that." Tony nodded. "I know neither of you like these sorts of places, but it's our anniversary. I wanted to do something special."

"This is definitely special, Tony," Bruce said, taking Tony's hand. "And we do love it."

"We're just introverts." You cut in with a smile.

"I am not an introvert." Bruce denied as Tony laughed. "I'm not."

"Babe, if there's an option to stay home, that's the option you take," Tony told him.

"That's because- that's not. I give up you can both sleep on the couch." Bruce said, opening his menu.

"Welcome to the couch club, sweetheart," Tony said to you as you gaped at the scientist.

"I'm not going to be on the couch." You shook your head and opened your own menu. 

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" Bruce asked as you perused your options.

"Because you love me too much." You smiled sweetly at the curly-haired scientist.

"Accurate point." Bruce shrugged, taking your hand and kissing the back of it.

"Does this mean I can come off the couch tonight?" Tony asked.

"If you play your cards right, we'll see." You smiled as the waiter came over.

Though you and Bruce were not happy to be in such a high-class establishment, you could not deny, dinner was worth it. 

"I wonder if this place delivers." Bruce mused as the empty plates were taken away. "Because that was good filet mignon."

"I'm sure they'll deliver if we ask," Tony said, sipping his drink. "I hope you don't mind but I already ordered dessert," Tony said as a plate of macaroons was brought over.

"When did you do that?" You asked as the plate was placed on the table.

"When I reserved this table. The only reason I wanted to come was for these macaroons. Open them up and you'll see why." He smiled, pushing the two red ones to you.

You and Bruce shared a look before you shrugged and lifted the top off the macaroon in front of you.

"Holy shit." You gasped, throwing your hand over your mouth. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Bruce's mouth drop.

It was only when Tony began to kneel that either of you snapped out of your shock.

"Tony Stark I swear to god, you better not be piss assing around." You told him, cheeks burning bright red as people began to notice Tony on the ground.

"Not piss assing around in the slightest." He promised. "Y/N, Bruce, we've been together for three years and I know the two of you would hate me if I did a long speech about how much I love you. So let me make this simple, will you both marry me?" Tony questioned you both.

"Yes." You smiled, leaning forward and throwing your arms around his neck.

"Of course," Bruce said, pulling Tony into an embrace once you let go.

"I think this gets me off the couch, doesn't it?" Tony smirked, retaking his seat as the other patron's applause died down. 

"I think you're off the couch, Stark." You smiled as he placed the rings on yours and Bruce's fingers.

"Definitely off the couch." Bruce agreed, taking Tony's hand and throwing an arm around your shoulders.

It had been a year since Tony publicly proposed to you and Bruce. And now it was finally time for the three of you to marry. Yes, technically it wasn't legal but with the prince of Asgard leading the ceremony it might as well be.

Tony had said it best when he proposed, he knew the two of you very well. As an early wedding gift from the man, Tony had put the two of you in charge of the wedding and reception.

It was the best gift Tony could ever give the two of you because it allowed the two of you to have a simple event. It allowed this wedding to not be filled with people for the sake of having people around you, but people who each loved and wanted a part of this.

It allowed for a simple, subtle, affair.

The only people in attendance were the Avengers and a handful of friends you each wanted to invite. The number of guests was less than fifty and the three of you liked it.

Tony had been shown every detail of yours and Bruce's plans and he had admitted several times that he liked the idea of a small event.

A subtle event.

"Did I mention that I love you? Both of you?" Tony asked as the three of you sat at your reception.

"Several times, husband." You smiled, leaning over to kiss one of your new husbands.

"Did I also mention that I loved our wedding?"

"Once or twice," Bruce said, grasping Tony's hand and kissing it with a light smile.

“Maybe I should have made the two of you plan more dates.” Tony mused. 

“Even if we wouldn’t have left the house 9 out of 10 times?” You asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Darling, I don’t care if we never leave the house again. Means I get to keep the two of you to myself and none of us ever have to wear pants again.”

“You should have put that in your vows.” Bruce said, causing the three of you to laugh. 

The wedding was a small affair. There was no media coverage, there were no people you did not know in attendance and it was perfect. It was small and intimate and it was subtle.

And the three of you could not be happier with the day.

Taglist

@rvgrsbrns @smilexcaptainx @hopingforbarnes @starlingelliot @piper-koko-barnes-rogers @jelly-fishy-babie @skeletoresinthebasement @agent-barnes40 @reann-loves-sebstan @skadikh

Coming soon

Dean x reader x Cas

Steve x reader x Bucky x Natasha

Meg x reader x Cas

Wanda x reader x Vision

Steve x reader x Bucky x Peggy

[luna-eclipse2000]

Shingeki no Danganronpa

Chapter 1, part 1

So I started this story last year when the Danganronpa craze happened but I still wanna post it because I think it’s a pretty alright take on the game. I put a hashtag of the name of this series so the parts are easy to find. (ie. Shingeki no Danganronpa Chapter 1)

——————————————————————————

Hope’s Peak High. A school so large that it towers over all the other buildings in this bustling urban area. Some people say that the school is like it’s at the centre of the world, which I agree to. Except, it is at the centre of the entire world. Everyone knows about this school and how prestigious it is. Anybody who’s anybody dreams of getting that fateful acceptance letter from administration. They say that if you come here and manage to graduate, you’ll be set for life. I’m not the most interesting person in the world, so it was a complete shock when I got a letter saying that they want me to attend. The only award I’ve ever won was a runner’s up ribbon in a fishing tourney. My letter told me that I’m the ‘Ultimate Lucky Student’, which sounds like complete horse shit in my opinion.

I get good grades, sure, but nothing as skyrocketing as some of the people who get in for a purpose. I still accepted the opportunity because I’m not an idiot. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and there’s no way that I’ll give it up because I feel like I don’t belong there... which I definitely feel like. I would’ve just assumed that they got the wrong person but they don’t send acceptance letters to the wrong house, it hasn’t happened in the fifty years the school’s been running for, and I’m pretty sure that the name (f/n) (l/n) isn’t common in this area. So here I now stand, in front of the massive school. It’s even more impressive and intimidating in person. Before I arrived, I did a small Google search on who was going to be in my class and it ranges from more mundane things like the Ultimate Cleaner to the Ultimate Strategist. But, despite my uncertainty of my presence, I put on a brave face and walk through the entrance gates... only to start feeling dizzy and nauseous, like I’m in one of those crazy amusement park rides where you spin in a circle very quickly and the floor drops. No sooner do I start feeling this way, do I black out.

~~~~~

“The hell just happened?” I ask myself as I open my eyes and take a look at my surroundings. I seem to be in a classroom because of all the desks and the blackboard up front, but there’s no windows. Just big metal plates with even bigger bolts and screws holding them in place. “Huh. Weird. Maybe that just shows some new part of the school they’re building and they don’t want any one to see it until it’s finished?” I wonder as I stand up from the desk. I look around but don’t see any bags, even mine is gone. When I turned back to my desk, I notice a slightly folded piece of paper on it, so I pick it up out of curiosity.

Hey there, new kid! The next semester is about to start. Starting today, this school will be your entire world.

“Knew it was the centre of the world.” I think to myself and then place the card down. It didn’t look very professional as it was written in black and red pencil crayon, but it’s a high school so I doubt there are any kids. And if there were, I would have to report them to cops for child labour. I look up at the clock and see that’s it’s eight. “How long was I out for? An hour probably, maybe less. Wait, doesn’t this school start at eight? Where’s all the students? And the teachers? Maybe I read the time wrong on the letter.”

I then go out of the classroom and notice the weird magenta and purple look of the halls and cringe at the contrast. “Ok, what the hell is with this hallway? And, again, where are all the people? I know that eight am isn’t very early, at least not so early that it’s a ghost town. Oh, shit, maybe there’s an assembly!”

I begin to race down the hall and pass by a red door that feels too eerily out of place but I shake the feeling off and head towards the main hall. Once I arrive, I see that everyone else is already there. “Hey, look! Someone else is here!” Someone says. “So that makes fifteen of us.” Someone else points out. “So, you’re all new as well?” I ask them. “No, we’re here for shits and giggles.” A boy with black hair and sharp steel grey eyes rudely answers. I laugh awkwardly. “Who shoved a stick up your ass?”

He clicks his tongue in annoyance. “Anyways, I’m (f/n) (l/n).” I introduce myself. “Sorry I’m late. When I entered the school I just blacked out or some shit. It was really weird.”

“You too?” A short blonde girl asks. “That’s what happened to the rest of us! At first, I thought it was just nerves. But then everyone started to realize that we all blacked out.”

“Yes. This is rather a strange situation.” A boy with blond hair that’s tied back a bit and glasses says. “I’ve never heard of fifteen people blacking out at different times at the same place on the same day.”

“We were drugged!” Someone speaks up. Everyone goes quiet as we turn our attention to the person who spoke. She’s rather tall and has brown hair, and wears glasses. “Oh, come on! I was just joking to lighten the mood! And ease the tension that’s growing because it’s making me a biiiit uncomfortable.”

“So then how about we just introduce ourselves then?” A black haired boy with freckles suggests. “That way we can ease the tension without freaking everyone out.”

I immediately feel calmer after he speaks. He’s got some kind of... energy or something around him. The first person I go up to is the short blonde girl with blue eyes. “Oh, hello! I’m Krista Lenz.”

Krista Lenz. She’s the Ultimate Volunteer. She volunteers all of her free time to shelters, reading to kids, helping the city, going in to retirement/nursing homes, helping out in hospitals and keeping veterans company. She’s even gone abroad to help build homes. She’s known online as Angel, and I can totally see why. Not just because of her noble acts, but because she looks so pure and innocent. Like a little angel. “Well, it’s actually Historia Reiss but that’s hard for kids and seniors to pronounce and spell so I just came up with the fake name.” Krista explains. “No way, seriously?” I ask her. “Doesn’t it bother you that you’re popular with a name that isn’t technically yours?”

She giggles cutely. “Singers do it all the time, don’t they? Katy Perry’s last name is actually Hudson but she didn’t want to get confused for the actress, Kate Hudson.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” I say awkwardly and then move onto the next person.

I decide to go up to the the boy who suggested introductions. “Hi! I’m Marco Bodt. It’s nice to meet you!”

Ah, yes. Marco Bodt, the Ultimate Peacekeeper. He tries to help different countries bring peace to them so no more wars break out. He’s also proposed that they follow England in having a special force of officers who carry guns while the majority only carry nightsticks. He’s also won a Nobel peace prize. “So, what are you here for?” Marco asks me. “Oh, nothing special. I’m not that important.” I say. “Nonsense! You were accepted, right?” Marco says. “I got chosen by chance to be the lucky student.” I tell him. “See?” Marco says. “Out of everyone in the world that they put into chance, you got chosen! Not Diana across town. And the letter even said you were the Ultimate Lucky Student as a result, that accounts for something, right?”

I smile thankfully and go to say something else but hear shouting instead. “What the fuck did you call me, you suicidal bastard?!”

“I called you a horse face, horse face!” The other person responds just as angrily. “Oh, geez.” Marco says. “Sorry, I’m gonna go break them up so there isn’t a murder or anything.”

Marco then heads off to go calm the two boys down. I roll my eyes. “Teenage boys. Why are they like this?”

I head off to another boy, but he doesn’t have any hair. Or at least very little, short, stubby hairs. “Hi, I’m Connie Springer!”

Connie Springer is the Ultimate Prankster. He’s pulled pranks on a various number of people, none of which were very tame. He’s pranked politicians and celebrities. He’s helped talk show hosts prank their audiences and even pranked a military general. I honestly don’t know how he got away with his life for that one, especially since I heard how strict and unforgiving the general is. “It’s nice to meet you, Connie.” I say. “How’d you even escape General Shadis after putting Veet in his shampoo and then switching his toothpaste for actual sewerage?”

“Not easily, I’ll tell you that.” Connie responds with a laugh.

I then move onto the next person. A girl with black hair and grey eyes standing beside a boy with brown hair and beautiful turquoise eyes that I’m honestly jealous of. “Hi. I’m Eren Jaeger and this is Mikasa Ackerman.”

Eren Jaeger. The Ultimate Freedom Fighter. He leads various protests to allow people more rights and be more free, and he also runs different projects that aid in getting people free from their situation. Mikasa Ackerman is his adopted sister and is basically known as his knight in shining armour because of her saving Eren from all the aggressive people he’s encountered. She’s the Ultimate Protector. She protects students at school from bullies, and protects her brother, Eren, from everything. She’s been known to intimated police and SWAT teams, who are already trying to get her to join their force. Marco’s even been seen with them from time to time when he knows it could get very ugly. “What you’ve been doing is quite admirable, Eren.” I compliment him. “It’s great of you to stand up for complete strangers.”

He bashfully puts a hand on the back of his neck with a light blush and smile. “Thanks. Everyone deserves to have freedom so I just stand up for those who’s voices are drowned out by every day noise.”

I turn to Mikasa. “And you’re pretty brave to tell SWAT officers off.”

She just shrugs. “I don’t see it as brave.”

I nod and then go to the next person. Well, group. A tall boy with dark brown hair who seems to be sweating a lot, a blond boy who’s pretty buff, and a short blond girl who gives off as much warmth as an iceberg in a blizzard. “Hi. I’m (f/n) (l/n).” I introduce myself to them. They all look at me and I see the blond smirk. “Nah, cute is what you are.” He says to me. I can feel my cheeks start to burn at his pick-up line. “Oh, well, uh, thank you.”

“I’m Reiner Braun. This guy here’s Bertolt Hoover, and this is Annie Leonhart.”

Reiner Braun’s the Ultimate Blacksmith. He looks much more like a sports guy but when you see what he makes, you know that his talents lie with making armour and weapons. He makes them professionally for people who want a real replica of what medieval knights had, cosplayers, and medieval dinner shows. He’s won more than fifty competitions for blacksmithing. Bertolt Hoover is the Ultimate Deceit. He’s gotten away with a bunch of different crimes because of his shy and timid nature that makes him fade more into the background. Annie Leonhart is the Ultimate Fighter. Her father put her into boxing when she was a kid and beat the instructor on her first day so she started to train professionally. “So, what do you think about us being a thing when school really gets started, huh?” Reiner flirts. “Reiner, shut up.” Annie orders her friend. “Thanks for the offer.” I say. “It’s really tempting, but I have to decline.”

I quickly leave the trio to go introduce myself to a girl with auburn hair tied up into a ponytail. “Hi! I’m Sasha Braus!”

Sasha Braus runs a successful food critic website and tries food from all over the world including octopus, fried spiders and escamol. She’s friends with a bunch of different famous chefs like Gordon Ramsey and Rachel Ray. She’s also judged on a number of cooking shows and won every eating contest she’s competed in which is why she’s the Ultimate Foodie. “So, uh, when do you think we’ll get to eat?” Sasha asks me. I think for a second. “Not sure. We’ll probably have the orientation meeting and then be given a tour of the school, which will take a while, so probably not until at least eleven.”

She pouts. That’s when I notice a smell. “What the hell is that?”

“Oh, it’s a potato.” Sasha says and pulls out a whole baked potato from her jacket pocket. “Where the hell did you find a potato?!” I ask her. “Well when I woke up, I was really hungry. But my bag wasn’t with me that carried all my snacks. So before I came to the main hall, I decided to go find the dining hall. The potato was just kind of... there. Like it was waiting for me to eat it.” Sasha says and then breaks off a piece. “You want half?”

I look at the piece and see that it’s more like a quarter but I’m not hungry anyway so I politely decline. “More for me then!”

I laugh at her and then turn and see the black haired male with the stick up his ass. “Let’s get this over with.” I think to myself as I make my way over. “Hi.” I greet him. His cold eyes land on me and I instantly feel like I committed a felony or something. “Levi Ackerman.”

Levi Ackerman, distant cousin of Mikasa Ackerman, according to tabloids, who’s the Ultimate Cleaner. Apparently he grew up in the shittiest part of the city where the rats are almost the size of feet, which is where his obsession for cleanliness came from. He cleans up any vandalism from the streets and enforces no littering. He’s run mass city, beach and ocean clean ups. I decide that it’s best to leave him alone so I turn to the brown haired girl beside him who’s wearing glasses. “Hiii! I’m Hanji Zoë! The Ultimate Scientist! Also I’m non-binary, just so you know.”

Hanji Zoë definitely lives up to the title. They found a new element when they were ten and they had to do their science work from home so a university chemist and biologist could come tutor them. They even created a new cell that can protect the body from diseases like TB, certain cancers, and certain joint problems. She also won a Nobel prize. “It’s nice to meet you.” I say. “Great job on getting that Nobel prize for your cell creation!”

“Thank you, but it was nothing.” Hanji brushes my compliment off. “I don’t need an award to tell me that I helped millions of people for me to know it. Sorry, did that sound cocky?”

“No, no! It’s ok! I understand what you mean.” I tell them and then go off to the blond boy with glasses. “Hi. I’m Armin Arlert.”

Armin Arlert. The Ultimate Strategist who came up with his first strategy to get out of the orphanage he was placed in and go completely unnoticed when he was eight. After that, he started working with the military and with him on their side, there are much fewer casualties for them... but not for the other side. “So, your strategies are pretty damn good.” I say. “How on earth do you come up with them?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It just kind of happens.” Armin says awkwardly. “You get nervous about speaking about your brain, don’t you?” I ask him. He chuckles with a small blush. “Was I that obvious?”

“It’s ok. I get it. You help the military to make sure that they don’t lose as many soldiers as the other side.” I say. He nods shyly, so I move onto the next person. She has brown hair tied back into a flat ponytail. “Hi. I’m (f/n).” I introduce myself. “Ymir.” She introduces herself.

With the lack of a last name, and not hearing about her at all online, I just nod my head awkwardly and go introduce myself to the final person. He’s talking to Marco and has interesting hair. It’s ash blond with a brown undercut. “Hi, I’m (f/n) (l/n).” I introduce myself. The boy turns around and I get bit startled by his amber eyes. Eren has pretty eyes, but this guy is a full on pretty boy. He gives me a grin and I can tell he knows it, too. “Hey, Jean Kirschtein.”

Jean Kirschtein is the Ultimate Equestrian. He’s been riding horses ever since he could walk because he grew up on a farm. He entered his first equestrian competition when he was seven and has won first every year. He helps take care of horses from his own to others and even helps beginners with picking out which horse they should ride first. He even runs riding lessons at the farms for said beginners. “So, I heard that you’re the Ultimate Lucky Student, eh?” Jean asks. “Could I have some of that luck to take you horse riding?”

“Keep it PG at school, horse face!” We hear Eren mock. “I don’t have a horse face!” Jean shouts at him. “And I wasn’t implying anything!”

He’s obviously a bit embarrassed and flustered. “Alright, alright. Calm down. He’s just doing it to rile you up.” Marco says to Jean. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you look like a horse.” I tell him.

Just as I finish saying that, a bell goes off. “Ahem! Ahem! Testing, testing! Mic check, one, two! This is a test of the school’s broadcast system! Am I on? Can everyone hear me? Ok, well then...!” A voice speaks through the PA system. “Ahh, to all incoming students! I would like to begin the entrance ceremony at... right now! Please make your way to the gymnasium at your earliest convenience... That’s all. I’ll be waiting!”

“Is that voice not sitting well with anyone else or is my stomach feeling squirmy because of the potato I stole?” Sasha asks us. “No. It definitely feels odd.” Marco agrees with her. “We don’t have time for this, brats. Let’s just get on with this so I can clean. This place is absolutely filthy.” Levi says monotonously with a hint of disgust as he walks away from the group and towards the gym. I look at Jean and Marco and the three of us follow him, followed by everyone else. We all make it to the gym in a few short minutes. I see Hanji go towards the trophy case and look straight at this gold and purple katana. “Oo, pretty!” They exclaim and then touch the handle but immediately retract their hand. “Damn, that thing is absolutely coated in gold dust! My hand looks like El Dorado!”

“Um... anyone else find it weird that the hall’s are completely empty?” Krista asks as we enter the gym itself. “I haven’t even heard any other classes going in the classrooms.”

“Yeah, man. I’m getting weirded out, now.” Connie agrees with her. “And did anyone else notice that there were machine guns in front of the entrance which looked like a vault door?” Eren asks. “It’s probably nothing, Eren.” Mikasa says. “Why would they have machine guns in a school?”

He nods but I see him shift uncomfortably. “Hey there, howdy, hello!” The voice from earlier greets. “Is everyone here? Good! Then let’s get things rolling!”

We all look towards the stage which has a podium in the centre and the school crest above it, which are two wings; one white and one blue. As we await our headmaster to walk on stage, a black and white teddy bear pops up and lands on the podium. I hear Connie snort back a laugh. “A teddy bear?” Krista asks in confusion. “I’m not a teddy bear!” The bear says lowly. “I... am... Monokuma! And I am this school’s headmaster!”

I try to wrap my head around what’s happening. A teddy bear- er, uh, Monokuma is our headmaster who’s mouth doesn’t even move when he’s talking. I look around at all my classmates, particularly Connie, to see if this is a joke of his, but everyone looks just as confused as I am. Except Annie but she’s devoid of all of emotion. Hell, even Levi has an eyebrow quirked at the oddness. “Nice to meet you all!”

“Ok, Connie.” Reiner says. “This was hilarious, best prank you’ve ever pulled! But can you turn off the teddy bear now?”

“I’m not doing this, I swear! You guys can search me for a remote or whatever.” Connie responds. “I don’t think he has the intelligence needed to build that. No offence, Connie.” Armin says. I see Connie look slightly offended at the words. “I told you already, I’m not a teddy bear... I’m Monokuma! And I’m your headmaster!” Monokuma shouts angrily as he moves his arms up to display further emotion. “AH! It moved!” Sasha screeches. “No shit, Sherlock.” Levi mumbles. “Oh, calm down, everyone! It’s obviously just a remote controlled toy!” Hanji says. “How dare you compare me to a child’s plaything!” Monokuma says. “You’ve cut me deep. Deeper than the Mariana Trench... My remote control system is so complex, even the folks in the Military Police can’t recreate or even comprehend it! Then again, that place is full of nitwits! Now then, moving on! We really must hurry and get started... Everyone, stand at attention and bow! And... good morning!”

Marco does as he’s told. “Good morning, sir!”

“Marco, stand up.” Jean whispers and pulls the boy up from his bow. “Don’t fall for this shit.”

“Now then, let us commence with a most noteworthy and memorable entrance ceremony!” Monokuma says. “First, let’s talk a bit about what your school life here will be like. Now, ah, make no mistake- you few students, so full of potential, represent the hope of the world. And to protect such splendid hope... you will all live a communal life together solely within the confines of this school. Everyone will live in harmony together, and adhere to the school’s rules and regulations. Ah, now then... regarding the end date of this communal life... there isn’t one! In other words, you’ll all be here until the day you die! Such is the school life you’ve been assigned.”

“Until we die? What kind of fucked up bullshit is this?” Levi asks. “Oh, but fear not!” Monokuma assures us. “We have quite an abundant budget, so you won’t lack for all the common conveniences.”

“That’s still not very comforting.” I tell him. “You gotta be screwing with us!” Connie says. “I am not screwing with you!” Monokuma shouts angrily. “I am no liar, of that you can be 100% sure. Ah, and just for your information... you’re completely cut off from the outside world. So you don’t have to worry about that dirty, dirty land beyond these walls ever again!”

I feel my pockets for my phone. “They took our phones!” I announce. Everyone then starts to check themselves for theirs, too. “So, then... all those metal plates all over the school... they’re there to keep us trapped in here?” Reiner asks him. “That’s exactly what they’re there for.” Monokuma confirms. “No matter how much you may yell and scream for help... help will not come. So with all that in mind, feel free to live out your life here with reckless abandon!”

“Come on, what the hell is this? It’s not funny!” Eren asks. “You all keep saying this is a lie, or a joke.” Monokuma says. “A bunch of skeptics, all of you. But I guess you can’t help it, huh? You all grew up in an age where you’re taught to doubt your neighbour... Well, you’ll have plenty of time to find out whether or not what I say is true. And when that time comes, you’ll see with your own eyes that I speak the undeniable truth.” Monokuma answers Eren.

“I don’t want to live here forever! This is bullshit!” Jean shouts nervously. No one else looks pleased with the news. “Come, now. What’s the matter with all of you? You decided of your own free will to attend Hope’s Peak Academy, didn’t you? And now, before the entrance ceremony is even finished, you’ve already decided that you want to leave? Oh, but you know... I guess I did forget to mention one thing. There is one way for you to leave the school...” Monokuma leaves us in hopeful suspense.

“Spit it out, already.” Annie orders. “Ok, ok! Calm down!” Monokuma says. “As headmaster, I’ve crafted a special clause for those of you who would like to leave! I call it... the Graduation Clause! Now, let me tell you about this fun little rule. As I mentioned, in order to maintain an environment of harmony here, we rely on a communal lifestyle. And if someone were to disrupt that harmony, they, and they alone, would be allowed to leave the school. That, my students, is the Graduation Clause!”

“So by disrupting the peace, all we need to do is fling shit, literally, at people and we can just... go?” Levi asks with a hint of skepticism in his voice. Monokuma laughs. “No. Not exactly. But... if someone were murder another. (“Murder?!” We all repeat in shock) Stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning, crushing, hacking, drowning, igniting, how you do it doesn’t matter. You must kill someone if you want to leave. It’s as simple as that. The rest is up to you. Give it your all to achieve the best outcome in the worst way possible!”

The air goes suffocatingly thick as we all process the situation at hand. We’re trapped in here for life unless we commit murder. There’s no way to contact the outside world, all the windows are boarded up with giant plates of metal, and our headmaster is a complete psycho. No one wants to believe this. It’s something straight out of a horror movie or a TV show created by someone seriously fucked up. Monokuma’s laugh brings us all out of our stupor. “I bet that got your brain juices flowing! Beats the heck out of a human catching a salmon, huh? Like I said before, you guys are the hope of the world. But you know... taking that hope and seeing it get murdered creates a darkened shadow of despair. And I just find that so. Darn. Exciting!”

“You’re insane!” Krista exclaims as she starts to cry a bit. “You guys just don’t get it, do you?” Monokuma asks. “‘Let us go, let us go!’ You keep on saying the same thing over and over and over and over...! Listen. From this moment on, this school is your home, your life, your world. Got it? And you can kill as much as you wanna kill! So go ahead! Go on a kill-kill-killing spree!”

No one makes a move, or a sound, for a good few seconds until Mikasa walks up to the podium. She just stands there. “Eh? Well what do you want?” Monokuma asks her. When he finishes speaking, she grabs him by his little bear neck and lifts him off the ground. Monokuma waves his arms up and down. “I don’t know if you’re a toy, and, frankly, I don’t care, but you just threatened myself, Eren and everyone else here with murder. If it’s murder you want, it’s murder you’ll get.” Mikasa says and pulls out a pocketknife from her pants pocket. “Waah! Violence against the headmaster is in violation of school regulations!” Monokuma shouts. “You never said that before.” Mikasa says stoically. “And all we need to do is disturb the peace to leave, right? So all I need to do is pull out your stuffing and I’ll get to leave. And since you won’t be around, I’ll take everyone here with me.”

He doesn’t respond except for some kind of beeping. “Is he shutting down?” I question. The beeping then gets louder and more frequent. I then hear a gasp come from behind me. “Throw it!” Hanji instructs. “What?” Mikasa responds. “Throw the damn bear! He’s gonna explode!” Hanji explains. Mikasa immediately throws the bear away and then throws herself onto Eren so he doesn’t get hurt as Monokuma explodes.

I jump from the sudden sound and hear Krista squeak in surprise. “Well, shit. That really throws the reality of this situation in our faces.” Levi says with his usual emotionless voice, but there’s a hint of nervousness behind it. “Wait, guys, Mikasa still killed it!” I point out. “Yeah! The bastard bear’s destroyed!” Eren cheers. “Uh... I-I wouldn’t be so sure...” Armin speaks up as Monokuma reappears on the podium. “Nice try! But it’ll take a lot more than a silly explosion to kill me!”

“Oh, come on! What the hell is this?!” Reiner shouts. “So I was almost killed for nothing?” Mikasa asks. “Of course! You violated one of the school regulations, after all. I’ll let you off with a warning this time, but you’d better be careful from now on. Any naughty boy or girl who violates my rules won’t get off with just a little swat on the butt.” Monokuma threatens. I swear I see a vein on his forehead pop out from the anger. “Wait... if you exploded... and you’re back... does that mean that there are more of you?” Hanji asks him. “Mhm! Yup! There’s also surveillance cameras installed everywhere so I’ll be able to see if you break the rules. Then it’s bye-bye birdie! Now that that’s out of the way, to commemorate your joyous entry into our school, I have a little something for you...” Monokuma says and then flat tablets appear before each of us from the ground. “This is your official student handbook! Pretty cool, huh? As you can see, it’s fully digital. So naturally, we called it... the E-Handbook!”

“Wow... I wonder how many brain cells it took to come up with that?” Hanji says sarcastically. “Ignoring that rude comment, this handbook is absolutely vital to a healthy school life, so don’t lose it! When you start it up, it will display your name. Always make sure you have the right one! Now, this is not your everyday notebook. It has so many more uses than that! Also, it’s completely waterproof. Splash it, wash it, drown it, it’ll keep ticking! And thanks to its space-age design, it can withstand an impact force of up to ten tons. It’s very resistant! It contains all of our school regulations, so make sure you review them thoroughly! You’ll hear me say this a lot, but any violation of school regulations will not be tolerated.”

“This is gonna get pretty fucking annoying.” Ymir groans. “Well, then, don’t violate the rules and you won’t hear it often, sweets. (“Sweets?! Why you-!” Ymir growls but refuses to move so nothing else happens.) Rules restrict, yes, but they also protect. Society, for example, would be utter chaos without laws. (“It’s got a point...” Annie agrees with Monokuma). The same thing applies here! Which is why it’s crucial that we have strict punishments in place for violators. Ok, well... that brings our entrance ceremony to a close! Please enjoy your abundantly dreary school life! See ya!” Monokuma says before disappearing.

With him now gone, we all have time to properly process what we were all just told. I can feel the fear lingering in the air. This school is wrongfully named after Hope. Like he said, the opposite of hope is despair... which is the state that all of us are currently in.

[youdontloveme-yet]

Episode 8 analysis.

This is going to be messy, so brace yourselves. It took me 3 hours to completely analyze this episode, so if there are spelling mistakes fuck you, I’m tired and idc.

This is going to be intensely FULL OF SPOILERS, so whoever has not watched episode 8, better not read.

Okay, let’s start off with a warning. The series is heavily based on numbers and symbolism, which means that if you are not a huge fan of math, logical thinking and finding shit where nobody else is seeing it, it may once again not be your cup of tea.

Well then, have fun with this thing that wasted my brain for 3 hours.

Okay, first scene is tricky, I went back to it a few times throughout the episode, because it wasn’t adding up. We have this tied up man, being thrown in a burning barrel, right? Yeah, so this is basically where the flashback starts. Not when Supot starts talking or anything. This is a heavily symbolic scene again, as it represents us with the meaning of oppression. If one pays attention, it is explained later in the episode. The symbolism behind it is the oppression of minorities. It all starts back in 1984, when the people with special abilities had just been noticed and were heavily oppressed. Supot talks about how at the beginning it had been very hard for those of their kind, since they have been oppressed. And those who were not useful or were troublemakers were immediately being disposed of. Because we all know that humans go to extremes when they are afraid of things they do not understand.

While we are at it, and since I am not really going to do this in chronological order. This is where the flashback starts and where it comes to a conclusion. It is the exact same burning barrel as the one where Yuth supposedly dies. I’ll probably mention it again along the way.

Aside from the flashback we have a very interesting take on Pang and Supot’s conversation and later on young Supot and the minister. Idk if anybody has noticed the camera angles in this episode. They are quite important. First we have the room with the black board, where Supot and Pang are talking. The camera angle is slightly to the left, with Pang’s back facing us and Supot facing him, this, in my opinion, is a symbolism for who has the upper hand in the situation. You might think that I’m crazy and this is just reading too much into, but it’s not, because there is the exact same parallel with young Supot and the minister. Of course, later on in the episode we have the exact opposite, which is the minister having the upper hand and Supot slowly gaining the upper hand from Pang.

And the opposite:

Notice how much smaller young Supot and Pang look and how the minister and Supot suddenly seem more in focus :))

The next thing I am going to talk about is the number symbolism in this episode. The whole episode is based on the number 2. Everything starts in 1984, right? Then we have 1986, when  young Supot marches into the ministry. After that we have 1988, when they conduct their experiments. Fun numbers, right? Except there’s nothing fun here. It’s a number sequence – 4, 6, 8, and after 8 is 10, which in this case is 0. And which year is in the present? 2020. Now, you may think that this is just some game that the writers did or something, but it ain’t, sorry. The number 2 is in literally everything this episode. We have Supot and Yuth, who are 2 people, right? From here comes the cursed pattern, my dudes. They come in pairs of 2 – SupotYuth, ChanonPom, PangWave. Except that ChanonPom are an alternation to the pattern, which means we are back to the number 2. I’ll talk about this along the way, but let me finish with the numbers, before I forget my thoughts again. According to google the number 2 is a symbol of partnership and balance, but sometimes it may also be the symbol of opposition or conflict. Every single major event in this episode (’84, ’86, ’88) happen two years apart from each. Then in the house scene when Yuth disappears, we have two plates on the table, who are flipped upside down and a half empty/full plate, which for me, is symbolism for the two pairs that have fallen and the one (PangWave) that is on the line, meaning there’s a 50/50 chance 

history will repeat itself. I’ll come back to this scene again.

The next thing I’m going to talk about is why ChanonPom are an alternation. Well, WELCOME TO THE PARALLEL HELL! SupotYuth = PangWave. I know, I know, you all know that. But did you know that Yuth had the same potential as Wave? Less evolved, but the same regardless. Remember that scene in the house, when the phone rang and Yuth ran off? Yeah, that was Yuth. He can manipulate sound waves I guess, as it was foreshadowed with the whole sound equipment he was using for his and Supot’s experiment and we all know that that is how they tell us about their potentials. Now, this is not even all of it. The basic is: the leader, who can manipulate thoughts and the co-leader who can control technology. Okay, from here, we have the parallel of using their powers on each other. Supot had used his powers on Yuth (Pom also uses his powers on Chanon, even though they are an alternation to the pattern), and even though he doesn’t continue with the experiment, we know that he has used it. And remember the scene, when they are eating and Supot grabs Yuth’s hand? Yeah, that is a parallel with when Wave said to Time that Pang could use his ability on him, but wouldn’t, because Yuth makes Supot confirm that he will never use his potential on him. Yes, I know it is not exact parallel, but it cannot be one, because there are many more variable into the equation in the present, than there were in the past. Okay, here I am not that certain, but I think there is one more parallel. As we all know, nobody in this fucking series dies, so Yuth was not killed, he faked his death. Now, you may ask, where is the parallel with PangWave? Oh, man, it’s in season 1. When Wave faked the whole thing with leaking the Gifted information. They are parallels, because the aim of both actions are to provoke their partner to take action.

On a side note, or not really. You might wonder why I think that Yuth faked his death. Well, many, many reasons. A person cannot die to fire as fast is the first, because we are led to believe that he got killed and thrown into that barrel, right? Which is incorrect on so many levels. As I said, a nobody can die as fast from fire. But what if he got shot and thrown in, you might ask? Well, human flesh burns kind of slow and creates shit load of smoke, which was not there. Then there’s the fact that that barrel is not nearly big enough for fit a whole body, in order to do so, one will have to cut the body in parts. Next we have the neatly put glasses on the ground. No fucking cracks on them. Very suspicious. Fuck that, but they have metal frames, which upon contact with the ground should get disfigured. Another thing is that the only possible way for those glasses to be that intact is if the height from which they are dropped is below 1 meter, as we know that is not the case. Another tell tale sign is when young Supot is at the ministry and the minister asks WHEN he got there, which means it was not him who called, which also means that my theory about Yuth’s potential is cementing itself. He also asked WHICH friend and confirmed that he has no idea what Supot is talking about. So, basically Yuth has the same potential as Wave and faked his death.

I think that by now, you can see why ChanonPom is an alternation to the pattern.

Anyway, the next thing I want to mention is the similarities between Supot, Chanon and Pang. I’m going to start off with saying that all of them are very complex characters with very intense inner struggles. Starting from Supot, we have this bright young man, who has a vision, right? Well, he has a god complex. He is obsessed with his vision and disregards his loved ones and morals, because of his ideals and what he believes in. He is also very patriotic and self absorbed, which are all red flags for someone who has a god complex. He is convinced he can change the country and leave a legacy. And in his pursuit, he loses every single thing. Guess who else loses everything? Both Chanon and Pang. But here comes the difference. They are all the same basically, but they have the variables to the equation that is the Gifted program, while in the past Supot just shot in the dark with nothing but trial and error. Chanon and Pang have hero complex. Both want to save the people they love and keep them safe, which leads them to fucking shit up even more. And while Chanon is an alternation, Pang is steadily threading in Supot’s footsteps.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention about the ChanonPom alternation. They have switched roles, as you have already guessed. That is why they are the alternation to this beautiful pattern.

I have definitely not covered everything, but these were the most important parts of this episode. The whole thing was a weird foreshadowing.

Also, I am still not entirely convinced it was the ministry that leaked the information about the program, because it seems too obvious honestly. Yeah, the minister smiles when he sees the news, but like it bugs me… They either leaked it themselves, or enabled the A.G. or Darin coerced Punn to do it. It’s just too easy if it’s the ministry. And I think that it was done in order to lure Supot out.

I decided to not write down the whole psychological analysis I did of the characters, but rather do it another day in a post dedicated only on that.

Ah, before I finish. If somebody may be wondering what is on this board:

It’s the sound sequence that triggers the Gifted cells.

Huge fucking thanks to @thegiftedseries-incorrect-quotes​ and  @wxsuthorn​ for brainstorming with me and reading my crazy shit. 

So, peace and thank you for coming to my TED talk. Byeeeeee.

[desdemonafictional]

2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year 

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020. 

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title 

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

 What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020. 

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast. 

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

[fromtheringapron]

WWE WrestleMania XXVI

Date: March 28, 2010.

Location: University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 

Attendance: 72,219.

Commentary: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and Matt Striker. 

Results:

1. WWE Unified Tag Team Championship Match: ShoMiz (The Miz and Big Show) (champions) defeated R-Truth and John Morrison 

2. Triple Threat Match: Randy Orton defeated Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr. 

3. Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Jack Swagger defeated Christian, Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler, Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, Kane, Montel Vontavious Porter, Matt Hardy, and Shelton Benjamin. 

4. Triple H defeated Sheamus. 

5. Rey Mysterio defeated CM Punk (with Serena and Luke Gallows).

6. No Holds Barred Lumberjack Match: Bret Hart defeated Vince McMahon. Bruce Hart was the special guest referee.

7. WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Chris Jericho (champion) defeated Edge. 

8. Layla, Alicia Fox, Maryse, Michelle McCool, and Vickie Guerrero defeated Kelly Kelly, Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Gail Kim, and Eve Torres. 

9. WWE Championship Match: John Cena defeated Batista (champion) to win the title. 

10. No Disqualification Career vs. Streak Match: The Undertaker defeated Shawn Michaels. Per stipulation, Michaels retired.

My Review

WreslteMania XXVI is a difficult show to sum up. It’s a pretty good WrestleMania, but also one that happens to be all over the place in tone and focus. Perhaps its reflective of how indeterminate the future of the WWE felt at the start of the 2010s. The roster was such a mishmash of eras that you’d be forgiven of not having a clue where the hell the company was going. John Cena, Batista, and Randy Orton were at the top of the card after their rise to superstardom in the 2000s, but the spotlight was still shared guys who rose to stardom in the ‘90s like Triple H and The Undertaker. Then there was a new generation of talent—The Miz, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, etc. — bubbling in the undercard who seemed poised to rocket into the top at any moment. But wait! Time was also given to  . . . the 13-year-old feud between Bret Hart and Vince McMahon?!? Suffice to say, with the show splintering off in so many different directions, it’s not surprising it has some misfires.

Let’s start with the good stuff, though. The main event between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels is fantastic and I’m gonna throw it out there that I like it more than their match from the previous year. The stakes feel higher, the suspense level feels higher, and there’s more of a story here than just Shawn needing to beat Taker. He puts his entire career is on the line here, for heaven’s sake! And speaking of his career, like many at the time, I didn’t have a clue this would be Shawn’s last match. Most on-screen wrestling retirements are never legit, so there was plenty of basis to believe this one would be no different. But alas, this one was different, and we get about as good a sendoff as we could’ve gotten for someone who’s been dubbed Mr. WrestleMania.

On another show, the WWE title match between John Cena and Batista would’ve been the main event. Their match here is great fun. It’s actually an end of an era for the two men who were crowned as the leaders of the next generation at WrestleMania five years earlier. Batista would move on to Hollywood shortly after this and, while certainly not his last WWE run, it would mark the end of his career as a full-timer. Interestingly enough, Batista was really coming into his own as a heel at the time of his departure, even winning over fans who previously couldn’t stand him. He would resurrect his heel run in 2014 and 2019, again only for a short spell. A shame we haven’t been able to spend much time with arrogant heel ‘Tista and his impeccable designer fashion, but then I guess that’s what makes it so special.

As for what doesn’t work, I probably don’t need to go into much detail about the Bret/McMahon clash. The basics of the story are solid — Bret gets his long-awaited revenge on McMahon, with his family right by his side. It’s just not super fun to watch in execution, however well-meaning it may be. They match is dragged out much longer than it should and it takes the crowd completely out of it. Another misfire is the Money in the Bank match. This would be the final iteration of the match at WrestleMania before it becomes its own pay-per-view. It’s clear the concept needs some rejuvenation by this point as it’s now a lazy, bloated affair where everyone gets in their allotted number of spots and there are way too many participants. To cap it all off, the ill-advised decision is made to push Jack Swagger into the main event scene, an idea which would run out of gas in a matter of months.

The show seems to have some weird pacing issues as well. In the era of the Network, I’ve grown so accustom to Manias being stretched to the point of exhaustion, so it’s always little odd to go back and watch one that feels like it doesn’t have enough time. It’s almost like it’s struggling to figure out how spread out time across a card so stacked. The tag opener and Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk feel like abridged versions of the matches we would’ve otherwise gotten, while Bret vs. McMahon gets more time than either combined. Even Money in the Bank feels somewhat rushed. I’m definitely not a huge fan of WrestleMania becoming a seven-hour event, and WWE has proven they struggle with time management on longer Manias, but this is one show where it seems an extra hour absolutely would’ve been to its benefit.

At its best, WrestleMania XXVI is a nice sampler plate of eras, even if struggles to give you equal portions for all of them. The multi-generational makeup of the card ensures there’s a little something for everyone and even closes the books on a couple of legendary careers. You’re bound to dislike some it but for better or worse, and this is a cheeseball thing to say, it definitely puts the “showcase” in the Showcase of the Immortals.

My Random Notes

No joke, I really did not think this would be it for HBK and even seriously thought Taker’s streak was in jeopardy. Am I a fool for thinking that? Maybe, but I like that wrestling conned into believing it in a way it hardly ever does anymore.

I feel like the temple entrance set is something that should’ve been more impressive than it is in actuality. They just stacked LED screens on top of each other and just rolled with it. It looks like something from Minecraft.

Ah, this show reinvigorates my fond feelings for Matt Striker. Such a handsome chap! Not surprising at all he would appear on a Bachelor ripoff a whole decade later.

I chuckled at Bruce Hart being the special guest referee for Bret vs. McMahon. You just know he huffed and puffed his way into that one, much to Bret’s annoyance.

I also chuckled at Diana Hart-Smith walking down to the ring with her best “evil, vindictive femme fatale on the cover of a pulp novel” look. God bless her. She needs to write another book.

I know Rey singing Happy Birthday to his daughter is meant to be a heart-warming thing but if I were a kid in the same situation, I would be traumatized. Just think of how uncomfortable it is when a room full of people is signing at you and then think of enduring that in an arena filled with thousands of people. CM Punk did her a huge favor by crashing the moment, as far as I’m concerned.

Not saying anything new here, but the whole Spear thing with Edge is cringe as hell and it’s for the best that it’s been forgotten in the annals of his career.

I know some people like to mock Vickie Guerrero doing Eddie’s frog splash, but I personally thought it was a sweet moment while staying true to comedically heel Vickie.

The official theme song to this Mania is “I Made It” by Kevin Rudolf. A time-period appropriate choice, I must say. I feel like the dawn of the 2010s is the only time a Kevin Rudolf could be a success.

I identify myself as someone who will always be more embarrassed by John Cena haters than Cena himself and I gotta say him posing next to the guys in the front row hating his guts is fucking hilarious. Cena is funny sometimes when he just straight-up trolls.

On the Legacy fallout: The storytelling for this was weird as hell. Am I the only who remembers that one time on Raw where they teased Ted turning face and the crowd was actually kinda into it? Then they completely abandoned it for whatever reason and just had Randy be the breakout face (as if he needed it) and dunk on both Cody and Ted at WrestleMania. I feel like Cody’s AEW origin story more or less began here.

Awwwwe, this show has little baby Drew McIntyre. It’s so interesting watching this with the benefit of hindsight. I remember a lot of people Not Feeling It when he was anointed as the Chose One, and truthfully I wasn’t feeling it at the time either, but watching it back really makes you appreciate how much hard work he put in to get to where he’d be a decade later. A lot of folks were dreading the inevitable Drew world title run in 2010. The title run did happen, but it was much later and much more welcome than anyone back than anyone could’ve imagined.

[valkyriesryde]

Proud

Pairing: Mentor!Bucky x Teenage!Reader

Summary: Y/N needs to interview someone for a history assignment and who better to go to than Bucky.

Warnings: Swears lol

Request: By Anon - I think I just saw you wanted requests so what about a Bucky one where you’re like a similar age to Peter and you and Buck have a similar child to parent dynamic (like Peter and Tony). You dont have to do it, it’s just inspiration xx

A/N: This was so much fun to write! It’s shorter than I would have liked so sorry about that but I hope you all enjoy!

Word Count: 1,806

Masterlist

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Afternoon Mr Barnes,” the young girl jumped onto the counter behind where Bucky sat on the ground in front of his motorbike. He couldn’t get any peace and quiet in this godforsaken place, also since when are there so many children around, he thought to himself.

“Afternoon Miss Y/L/N” he turned his head to the girl on the counter and gave her a small smile which she immediately returned, “and what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Peter said I could come round and study,” she shrugged her shoulders and picked at the edges of the book on her lap, the smile on her face no gone, “needed to get out of the house.”

Bucky nodded his head and pointed towards the toolbox next to her, “well if you’re here you may as well help me, can you pass me that spanner,” she did as she was told, sitting on a stool after the task was done.

Y/N was always thankful for Bucky, he never asked her questions when she would show up with Peter at the compound, he would just put her to work and teach her new things about whatever he was working on. Bucky was thankful for Y/N, she never pestered him about how he was doing and she always helped him when he was working on his bikes. He was starting to understand why Tony accumulated a number of unofficially adopted children, they were nice to have around.

The two didn’t talk much, neither were big talkers, but it worked for them. Steve had joked that she was a mini version of Bucky which got a series of nods and agreements from the others.It also got a groan from Bucky but then a giant smile broke out on his face, they were right and he was goddamn happy about it.

Y/N was fascinated with machinery and how things worked, anything from a microwave to a car to society she wanted to know how it ticked. She wasn’t so much interested in Tony’s work though, she liked it sure, but it was much too advanced for her, she was much happier working on machines by hand and not creating her own. She liked to break things apart just to see if she could put it back together. That’s how she found herself in the garage of the compound one day after telling Peter she couldn’t go home just yet. He’d invited her to hang out at the compound while he worked with Tony, maybe she could join them he had suggested. It didn’t take long for Y/N to start wandering through the halls until she came across Sam pulling out stones from between the metal components of his wings. She stood and watched for ten minutes before he asked if she was okay.

“How do you get the wings to move like that?” She asked instead, her head leaning forward to get a better look at the mechanics in the wing. “Did you use references from a specific species of bird or several different species?” Sam stared at her with eyes wide not quite knowing how to answer. It’s not like he’d made the thing he just had a deal with Tony that he’d keep it clean. Before he could answer the sound of an engine sputtering to life came from behind him, or an engine attempting to sputter to life, it didn’t quite make it. This immediately got the teenagers attention, She moved around Sam’s workbench to find Bucky scratching his head and muttering an assortment of swears towards the motorbike.

“Whatcha’ doing?” She’d asked eagerly, “and can I help?”

From then on whenever she came to the compound Y/N found her way to Bucky’s side, most of the time it was at his workbench. Sometimes he would be cleaning his guns while she sat and did homework and assignments, every so often asking him a question and getting the same answer “I don’t know, fuck knows why you’re asking me,” other times he would be working on his own project of building his own bike and she would be sat there helping him, she had made an entire notebook of specs for the different parts and what they were doing. On a couple occasions, and after months of begging, Nat had walked in on Bucky teaching Y/N how to throw a knife, she got the hang of that faster than Nat would like to admit. However Bucky couldn’t have been prouder and bragged about it for a solid week to anyone that would listen to him. ‘The kids a natural’ he would tell them.

At this point in time Y/N was sitting on the workbench while Bucky puttered away with his bike,  she wasn’t quite sure how to ask him for help but she needed it.

“Hey Bucky,” he hummed in response, not looking up from his hands, “I have this history assignment due and I was wondering if you could help me? It’s just an interview,” her words were rushed but it caught his attention.

“I’m not good at helping you with school work you know that,” he looked at her pleading that she not ask for his help, he hated that he wasn’t able to help her with such a big part of her life but what did he know about what they learnt in school these days? It’d been a while since he’d sat in a classroom. “Why don’t you ask Bruce?”

“Because it’s about The Great Depression, I thought maybe I could have a first hand account of it,” she gave him a toothy grin, knowing he couldn’t actually say no to her. Bucky sighed as he put his tools down and wiped his hands on a rag.

“What about Steve?” he tried.

“Steve’s not here.” and he failed. Bucky rolled his eyes but stood up nonetheless and sat on the stool next to her.

“Fine then, what do you want to know?” Y/N opened her notebook to a blank page and paused for a second, her pen hovering before turning to Bucky.

“I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think I’d get this far,” she turned back to her notebook and pulled out a paper from the back that had the questions she wanted to ask on it.

“Good, it’s never happening again,” he chuckled.

“That’s a lie, okay first question…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Y/N sat at the dining table finishing her analysis of the interview she’d done with Bucky while he was in the kitchen making them food. ‘You need food to keep that brain ticking’ he’d said.

There was a decent amount of information to get through to be fair, once she got Bucky talking he would go on tangents about different things and tell her all sorts of stories about what he would get up to to pass the time back in the day. She’d written everything down, recorded it on her phone to go back over at school tomorrow just in case she had missed something. It was rare that Bucky talked about himself, let alone his life before the war, but it was a refreshing change that she hoped she could get more of.

“Eat,” Bucky said dropping a plate of cut up fruits on the table. Y/N muffled a thank you at the same time shoving a slice of apple in her mouth.

“Ohh oranges!” Peter jogged up to the table and reached across her to grab a piece of the fruit before sliding in the seat across from Y/N.

“Hey, you all done?” she asked, looked up at the boy smiling at her with the orange peel in his face and nodding.

“Yup, what are you doing?” he asked taking the peel out of his mouth and going for another piece. Bucky picked up the book in front of him, Y/N’s history textbook and started skimming through the pages.

“My history assignment,” she smiled, Peter thought for a second before he perked up, remembering what she was talking about.

“The one you have to interview a grandparent for?” he asked, feeling proud of himself for remembering what the assignment actually was, until he saw his friend’s panicked face.

“GRANDPARENT?!” Bucky yelled looking at Y/N with an unamused face.

“It’s not like that!” she exclaimed back, “thanks a lot Peter,” she mumbled under her breath and side eyed the boy who was sinking into his seat.

“Oh so you didn’t have to interview a GRANDPARENT for your assignment?” the sarcasm drooled out of his mouth with every word. Is that how she saw him? As some old coot?

“Okay yes that was the outline but I didn’t want to do that! I wanted to interview you! So I picked a time where I could use you and it would still fit the outline,” she looked at the man next to her, her eyes were wide and she had a slight frown. As soon as Y/N had gotten the assignment she wanted to interview Bucky, but she needed a piece of history to ask him about that would fit, so she found one. Was that so bad? That she just wanted interview him and not anyone else?

“You wanted to interview me?” his voice was softer now, he couldn’t help the smile on his face when she nodded. He felt a sense of pride that she had thought of him first, that she wanted him to be apart of her school work. He felt special, thought of, like she’d confirmed the special bond they had. “Suppose that’s alright then,” Bucky laughed at Y/N’s face lighting up, “but I better get a copy once you’re done, gotta make sure you’re not talking shit.” He pointed a finger towards her and passed her the textbook so she could put it back in her bag.

“Promise,” she smiled standing from her seat with Peter following, “thanks Buck,” Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck from behind before running off after Peter towards the elevator, giving him a final wave goodbye.

“Bastard kids get under your skin before you know what’s happening don’t they,” Bucky turned his attention to Tony who had sat himself where Peter had been.

“Yea,” Bucky agreed, picking up the last piece of apple from the plate, “suppose it’s not a bad thing.”

It was definitely not a bad thing and you can bet your ass that as soon as Bucky had that assignment in his hands he was shoving it in everyone’s faces exclaiming that his kid wrote all about him, “that’s right Steve, she picked ME for her history assignment!” and it was pinned to his board in his room from there on out, more permanent than on the fridge, he told her proudly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thank you for reading and as always, requests are open!!

[welcometotheocverse]

Henry in 2x05 at the dinner at Lorelai's?

Ooooh okay

So Henry’s arrival at Stars Hollow is actually heralded by a fight between Liz and her Current Boyfriend Number Whatever who is at this point helping support the expenses and getting sick of Jess “mouthin off” and both boys “being underfoot and doing nothing half the time but sit around reading they got no respect for me-” ( which is yknow Bullshit bc they’re 17 and 10 but whatever he sucks)  And right after there’s a fight between Liz and Jess “Why..hey?! Why are you packing up my stuff??” “You’re going to Stars Hollow. Tomorrow.” “Excuse me?!” “Your uncle Luke, he’ll take ya in. It’s all set up. Oh you boys are gonna love it there-” “Fucking Excuse Me?!!” “Jess can you just for one fucking time-” aaaaand  a  huuuge ass screaming match later during which he is Very Much Staying In His Room For:  “So...I guess we’re moving huh” ( this all happens either before or after Luke is done yelling at Liz over the phone like we see in the episode. Theres just... its a yelling heavy day and then they’re on a bus to the Hollow)

Which leads to him not meeting Lorelai until the dinner because he doesn’t step down from the apartment for the entirety of the first day because of the fight and the whole “being shipped to a relative he’s never met before.” he’s pretty nervous and just stays put where Luke leaves him and also while Luke bought the frosted flakes and “kid food” he didn’t think to specify they were allowed to have it without asking so neither him nor Jess really go for it ( Jess picks him up like  a sandwich while he’s scoping the town out) so he’s like really hungry when they go. He’s mostly excited about not having to worry about asking permission to grab food because they were invited and he can just eat what they serve him and also is mildly curious about Lorelai and co. because  Luke’s...nice enough and she’s friends with him and the others are friends with her and despite being in a bad mood and not saying much Jess didn’t really say much about her when Henry asked  past “she talks a lot” and like everyone talks a lot compared to Jess sometimes so

So they get to the dinner and Henry’s v polite and looking around. He smiles at Lorelai and she at him and his first ( if not lasting) impression of her is “huh she’s actually pretty nice” and like he mostly sticks to Jess because neither’s keen on being apart in a place they’re new at. Unlike Jess though he actually smiles a little when he meets Jackson and Sookie because yeah they’re freaking out about a lemon but it’s...it’s pretty funny. He takes a liking to them and asks Jackson about fruit and is scared kinda looking around and sticking to Luke like glue ( like the questions come out hesitant) but nice to them smiling and trying to talk a bit  ( which is like his general  setting tbh.)

He sticks with Luke while Jess and Rory meet ( I haven’t decided if Jess asks Rory to bail in this because while yeah he tends to go on his own a lot ( because he doesn’t wanna be around Henry when he can tell he’s angry and also he hated being home a lot and it just became a habit) I don’t think he would do so when Henry’s in a house with A Lot Of Unknown People specially with how I’m interpreting their life with Liz to be in this verse) 

The dinner scene is actually v cute with him because it like...takes him by surprise just how homey it all is Luke and Lorelai playfully arguing about the food on Luke’s plate and Sookie talking about this dish and that and Jackson offering up conversation here and there. It’s like  a legit family dinner and mostly he’s pretty thrown and sorta just smiles and enjoys it. Rory actually gets him to talk about books since he takes after Jess in that ( though he likes different genres) and mostly he’s just a little kid getting a glimpse at a family dinner and being cute and shy and mirroring Luke ( he starts eating when Luke starts eating he relaxes a bit when he sees how Friendly everyone’s being ect) and coming a bit out of his shell and going “oh these adults are nice and wanna talk to me” and its v cute. I kinda love it. t-t

He’s aware Jess is “getting a soda” but sorta figures Jess either IS getting a soda or is out smoking and will come back so while he’s anxious because Jes isn’t there and he’s alone with people he doesn’t know it’s mitigated by him knowing Jess would not just up and leave with these many unknown people and also like I said they ( Sookie Jackson Rory and even Lore at this point and how homey everyone is and nice and Happy) put him a bit more at ease even if he doesn’t realize it.

I think this is also when some of him and Jess’ past living habits start showing like Henry Demolishes his food but doesn’t ask for more and after exchanging a glance with Luke Sookie offers him more and he -hesitantly- accepts and Rory brings up the books she was reading when she was Henry’s age ( Henry lets it out that Jess read similar books but he likes fiction better and isn’t in a hurry to read Bigger Kid Books even if he Can and Jess ( who always ahead in reading) is always bugging him about how great they are and then Rory  goes on a tangent about the merits of Fairy Tales and Fantasy as story telling with Rory doing most of the talking ( and kinda smiling herself at having someone who wants to listen and looks Up to her bc she is the babie mostly in Stars Hollow so hey nice for a change  and also she’s just straight up infodumping which is just really fun and even more fun when the person’s interested ( because this might as well be when i mention I hc both Gilmore Girls as ND) ) while Henry smiles again and listens because now he has something to say back to Jess when he pokes fun at his book tastes  even if he doesn’t completely catch everything she’s saying bc she’s going full on Future English Major but she makes sure to try to level with him and also wow he really likes Rory and she’s really smart like Jess and she likes him and wants to hear him talk about his books and  ins’t that ....that’s really nice and  is completely unaware of what looks the adults at the table are giving and its just...Its Very Cute. Listen Im love them.) and then Jackson pipes up ( when he can tell Rory’s losing Henry)  with “you know when I was his age mom would just tell us to go run around the farm. We did use to have this ball to kick around though you like outside Henry?” and again Henry’s very taken aback by being Included and talked to like that but it’s?? Nice?? And the food’s nice?? And he’s actually having a good time all things considered and feeling less on guard since he got there and its just A Nice Dinner Wow.

Until Lorelai goes to get the garlic bread/finds Jess.

I don’t think he knows she’s out there talking to Jess or what’s said but with the hypervigilance both Mariano kids have going, he definitely hears Lorelai slams the door ( and he had been keeping an ear out for Jess as well) 

I’m not sure if he follows Luke because even  if they’re nice he still isn’t in a place he feels safe around everyone or if he gets up After Luke because Jess is missing and a door just slammed and these are things where it’s best to Know What’s Going On And Also What’s Coming but he hears Lorelai’s “that kid is way more screwed up than you think he is.” rant and his opinion of her immediately just falls. 

See and here I’m kinda torn because I can see him going “My brother’s Not screwed up! You don’t even know him!” like really upset ( because yeah Jess can be grouchy and moody but Jess Is His Brother and Henry is privy to Why he’s moody and grouchy and specifically “screwed up��� are words that really hit a nerve because he’s heard them before from people specifically about Jess and usually it means nothing good for either of them but also “screwed up” just Hurts to hear  and Lorelai realizes Henry’s listening and goes “oh crap” and Luke tells him to go sit back down and Then they keep arguing ( though Henry would still listen in on their fight because again Hyper vigilance) or if they just agreed as he watches and then when they hit “Go Find Jess” “Don’t tell Me what to do! I’m gonna go find Jess” Lorelai finally sees him and Then the “my brother’s not screwed up!” line happens

And on yet another hand I also don’t know if he would say it because while “I” would find it cathartic Henry’s character is Highly Not Confrontational like even when he’s not nice he would be scared to confront Lorelai because sassing is Jess’ thing and he’s seen what that can cause to happen yknow? So that I’m a bit fuzzy on.

But either way his opinion of her just kinda really falls really far really quickly ( remembering he was like “oh she’s nice” when the dinner started) and it doesn’t really go away until like after the accident when I have her shape up a bit. It really just sets up Lorelai for him as someone who A) does Not like them ( because to him if she doesn’t like Jess and doesn’t want Luke to take them in then she also must not like Henry and not want Luke to take him in) and B) someone who can Make Luke Send Them Back because their argument reminds him or Liz’ fight with her Boyfriend Number Whatever ( and a lot of past fights like “you know your kids are a hassle Liz.” “that kid of yours’ a fucking punk Liz” “Can’t  you keep ‘em out of the house? You know I work all day I pay all the bills-” ) which uh....Ended With him and Jess being shipped to their uncle so it’s not....it’s not great. From then on he’s pretty subdued and only really talks to Lorelai when she inquires things ( and this is the pattern that will continue until Luke and Lulu and Lorelai herself understand some things like he becomes really quiet around Lorelai and Cordial But Monosyllabic to the point shes like “wow they’re really brothers huh” at least once to Luke ( and is a really big contrast to how he is with Luke and Jess and some other people ) and pulls off some incredibly avoidant feats when she comes at the dinner ) and just on top of not liking her a lot from here on out sees her as Someone To Avoid/Someone Not To Be Trusted 

Anyways after the dinner all 3 head home and Henry ( when Luke is downstairs doing inventory or counting the till or some other thing)  shows Jess the garlic rolls he shoved in his pocket when no one was looking ( another habit he’s picked up)  and gives him some and it’s a nice moment between the two. Jess passes him one of his annotated paperbacks in return.

 Again ignore the caption gifs are hard to find lmao

Send me one of my OC's + a canon scene from the show and I'll tell you what they do in it/how they fit in