#i did much better with backgrounds this year. a trial to get through but nice to look at once i'm done lol

[nero-neptune]

i think this year’s art vs artist ended up pretty alright!

[twice-inamillion]

Honeymoon in Hawaii 

Fluff and Smut (Adventure, hiking, surfing, bikini, deep penetration, anal, cream pie, ahegao, sloppy sex, outdoor sex )

Chapter 212

2,953 Words 

(Honeymoon adventures with Jihyo and OC. Jihyo and OC have messy sex.)

After having your morning session, you and Jihyo make your way to the first destination, Stairway to Heaven. 

It has been Jihyo’s dream to hike the trail since she learned about it a few years back. With her wedding in Hawaii, she wanted to make that dream come true. “Babe, I’m so excited. I am looking forward to doing this hike.” 

“Haha, you’ve said that about a hundred times. It’s good that it’s just both of us, or else we wouldn’t make it.” 

“Yeah, I know. You’re the only one that can keep up.” 

“No, I just let you lead,” giving her a smirk. She looks at you, smirking, and slaps your leg, “Hey, that’s mean.”

The two of you arrive at the trail entrance and gather your belongings, a light backpack, each with snacks, water, an emergency kit, and extra clothes. You make your way to the travel and start to hike for a mile before you reach the base of the mountain.

“Wow, that’s really high.” Jihyo smacks you on the arm and says, “Come on. If we don’t hurry, we won’t get some good shots. “Okay! Coming!” as you see Jihyo picking up the pace.

With your GoPro on, the both of you record as you make your way up the slippery trail. “Alright, babe, let’s take a small break,” says Jihyo.

You’re almost two hours in, and the both of you are making good time. The hike up the mountain is about six hours, but you might be able to make it to five at your pace. 

After a small break, you begin to climb again, and without realizing the scenery of the surrounding mountains starts to show from the fog. “Look, you can see much better” Jihyo points at the closest mountain. You peek and see the steep drop, which makes you a bit worried for Jihyo’s safety. “Alight, that’s enough looking,” you grab onto Jihyo’s hand and keep her from getting too close to the edge. “Oppa, don’t tell me you’re scared.” 

“I’m not scared; it’s you I’m worried about. I don’t want you to slip and fall off.” 

“Haha, I’m careful, but I’ll try not to get too close anymore.”

With only the last leg of the trial remaining, you hike up the mountain. The higher you go, the better the view until you reach a wall. You see a long rope and footprints on the wall from the number of other hikers and decide to give it a go. 

“So you want me to go, or do you want to give it a try?”

“Hmm… I want to try,” as Jihyo grabs the rope and wraps it around her arm for support. She places her right foot, then her left, and climbs slowly. Midway through the climb, her foot slips, causing her to yelp suddenly. “Want me to give you a boost?”

“No, I can do it. Let me just get a better footing.” She finds a crack in between the boulder and makes it all the way to the top. “See, I did it. Here!” throwing the rope to you.

You grab the rope, wrap it around your arm, and make it to the top with little effort. 

“Alright, just a bit more, right?” 

“Yeah, excited?”

“Of course, I’ve been waiting to come here for a while; too bad we can’t go the other way.”

“Yeah… no one is allowed, but some still do it. It’s a nice view but not worth the risk.”

“I heard it’s an easier climb.”

“Yeah, I saw a couple of YouTube videos, and it’s way easier.”

 Jihyo and you hike for another thirty minutes until you reach a radio station, signaling the end of the hike. 

“Wow, it’s beautiful,” Jihyo takes in the view. She points towards the ocean, the cars passing through the highway, and the small buildings in the city. 

You can't help but take your phone out and snap a picture of Jihyo’s expression. You’re in awe of how beautiful she is and how your wife looks. She turns around and notices your camera, “Let me do a pose,” and holds a peace sign and squints her eyes. She does other poses and grabs your phone. She snaps multiple pictures of you with the great view as the background until you pull her to you. “Let’s get one of us together.”

Jihyo gets on one of the rails, wraps her arms around your neck, and gives you a kiss on the cheek. She grabs her GoPro and holds the gimbal's end to record her surroundings. Jihyo goes down the stairs to get a better background, making you laugh as you find it cute of her being a blogger. 

After ending your photo session, Jihyo, you sit and admire the view. It’s completely silent; no words are needed to express your feelings. You’ve made an excellent decision to marry your best friend and the mother of your child. You look at her, staring at the blue ocean, and pull her in for a kiss. 

The climb down is much easier, and it takes only an hour. Once you arrive at your car, the both of you are a complete mess, boots and legs full of mud. You grab a jug of water, wash each other’s legs, and change into sandals and new shorts. Jihyo takes off her top and tosses it in the back of the car, leaving her with a sports bra. “Come, babe, take that shirt off. I want to see your abs.” 

You arrive back at the house and take a quick shower before having brunch. The both of you sit on the back patio and enjoy the view of the ocean in front of the house. While Jihyo cleans up, you head to the backyard and set up the large hammock between two trees. 

“Want to take a small nap?”

“But we just ate.”

“Ahh, don’t worry about the small details. Come on, join me.” you grab her hand.

“Okay,” and climbs into the hanging hammock. 

“What do you think? Comfortable, right?”

“Yeah, not too tight. I like it.” 

“Maybe we should have one back home.”

Jihyo shoves her face into your chest and slowly drifts away after a tiring morning. You watch as Jihyo falls asleep and caress her hair before falling asleep as well. 

Three hours later, you wake up from your nap and notice Jihyo gone. You search around and see a small sitting by the shore. 

“Hey, you left. What’s up?”

“Woke up earlier than you and didn’t want to wake you up. You look cute when you sleep.” You can’t hide your embarrassment from Jihyo and pick her up, placing her on your shoulder. 

“Wait! Where are you taking me?”

“You said you wanted to have fun, right?”

“Yeah, but what are we doing?”

“We’re going surfing. There’s a pair of boards in the back.” 

“Really? We’re going to surf?”

“Yeah, I asked Nayeon to pack your swimming suit before we left.” 

“Yay!”

With the two of you in your swimsuits and board in hand, you head to the water. Jihyo is the first one to run into the water, “Come on, slowpoke!” 

“Alright, alright, I’m coming.”

Sitting on the board, you listen to Jihyo’s plan as you float in open waters. The first wave comes, and you watch her try to ride the wave but falls. She swims back to where you are and tries again, this time staying longer on the board. Time after time, she comes back with lots of energy and tells you her mistake and how she is going to do better. She gives you a couple of pointers before you head out to catch a wave. 

After a couple of times, you come back completely wet from falling so much. “Haha, finally something I’m better at.” She mocks you and comforts you on trying your best after getting her fill. 

“Okay, let’s try again. I think I can do it better this time.”

“Hmm? Are you challenging me, Oppa?” 

“I guess I am.” 

“Okay, loser does whatever the winner wants.”

You hesitate for a bit and see Jihyo’s smirk tease you. “That’s a bet,” and the both of you shake hands. 

You and Jihyo spend two hours surfing but also take a few breaks here and there. It’s sunset, and you two are enjoying the sun setting down behind the ocean. 

With your boards side by side, you two hold hands. “We’re finally husband and wife. I can’t believe it. It’s finally hitting me.”

“Haha, it hit me too when I saw you walking down the aisle; you looked beautiful. I think I’m the happiest man in the world right now.”

She can’t help but laugh at your comment, “Okay, okay, we get it. You don’t have to get all sentimental here.”

Eventually, you both return to shore and head towards the small outdoor shower to clean your board and rinse yourself. Jihyo removes her swimsuit as she tries to get the sand off, revealing her bikini. You do the same but can’t and stare at her tanned body.

Jihyo then takes off her top, which reveals her perfect breast, “Fuck…” She doesn’t notice you coming up behind her until she feels your lips on the back of her nape. “Babe, that tickles,” as she squirms around. You slowly move your hands on her ass, aim for the piece of string holding her bikini, and pull on it. Unaware that her bottom is undone because of your kissing, you pull down your shorts and give Jihyo a nice smack on the ass. 

“Ahh…” 

You pretend to lose your balance and press your body against hers. She places her hands on the wall to keep herself from falling, “You’re heavy, babe. Get off.” With your semi-hard cock in hand, you slowly align yourself to Jihyo’s entrance. She doesn’t notice what you are about to do since you keep her distracted by kissing her nape. When she does feel your hot cock’s head poking at the entrance of her slit, she lifts her butt. 

With her permission, you grab onto her waist and penetrate her cunt. You don’t feel much resistance since you warmed her up a bit with all the kissing and reached her deepest parts in no time. “Mmhh… ahh fuck!” You give her little time for adjustment and begin to thrust at a fast pace. Jihyo immediately starts to moan loudly since it is just the both of you around, “Ahh… yes! That feels so good! Fuck… you’re so deep inside my pussy!” 

Knowing she is enjoying it, you increase the pace and press her against the shower wall. You pull most of your cock out and immediately shove it back inside, causing Jihyo to grunt. “Omg! Your cock is hitting my womb! Keep fucking me just like that,” as she moves her right hand to her cunt and starts to masturbate. She rubs her lips at a rapid pace, aiming for her orgasm. It doesn’t take long for her to reach it, and she is the first to cum. Her legs shake as she orgasms and sprays the floor with her love juice. 

You don’t slow down or stop fucking her as she rides her orgasm but instead increase the pace. This makes all her senses go into overdrive, and she loses her balance in the process. After her orgasm dissipates, you pull out your cock and see her get away from the wall and move to the other side of the shower to get a hold on something firm to keep herself from falling, but you have other plans. 

You can’t but want to get back at her from earlier today. So grab Jihyo’s hand and say, “babe, one more, please,” giving her a puppy dog eyes. She looks at you exhausted but nods and places her hands against the shower window. She positions herself and spreads her legs to give you better access to her mess of a cunt. You have other plans, though, and get your cock ready. “Remember our promise, right? The loser does whatever the winner wants.” It takes her a bit to get her thoughts together, but when she does, it's too late. You align yourself to her entrance and press the tip against it. It is then when she realizes what you’re about to do, “Wait… babe… that’s the wrong…” doesn’t finish her sentence as she feels the tip of your cock against her puckerhole. 

You push your cock in slowly, and you’re met with some resistance as her walls try to push you back out. “Relax, babe. Just a bit more.” Jihyo turns around and sees your puppy dog eyes, and accepts your cock inside her ass. After that, her walls loosen, which makes it a bit easier for your cock. You press forward and insert more of your cock inside of Jihyo’s ass. 

Jihyo bites her lips as she feels her ass being split wide open by your cock. She’s always had a harder time with anal and has only done it less than a handful of times, and every time is the same. She would rather keep going a few more rounds with her cunt and remembers the number of times you have asked her for anal. She wants to keep her promise, accepts the temporary pain, and relaxes her body. 

With your right hand on your cock and the left on Jihyo’s waist, you penetrate Jihyo’s tight ass. You can feel Jihyo’s body relaxing, which allows you to shove more of your cock inside of it. Jihyo moans and grunts aloud as she takes an inch at a time, “Fuck! Your cock is too big! It’s going to destroy my ass, fuck!” 

Not wanting to make her suffer more than she has to, you decide to get it over in one go. You press her against the wall once more, grab onto her waist, and give it one final thrust. Jihyo opens her eyes wide open when she feels your whole length inside her ass in one go. Her walls tighten even more around your cock, and give her a chance to adjust to your length. Jihyo can feel the hottest of your throbbing cock inside of her. “Fuck… you’re so tight,” as you try to move. After getting her approval, you begin to thrust, increasing the pace little by little. It goes from a sharp pain to slight pleasure as she feels her insides getting rearranged. 

You place your hand against her lower lips and finger her cunt to make it easier. This helps a little bit and makes it more pleasurable for her. You then pick up the pace and give a couple of hard thrusts, and can feel your cock from the other side. You feel the bulge of your cock inside her ass with every thrust. It turns you on to see her bulging belly every time you press your cock against it. 

Little by little, Jihyo gets used to your cock inside of her puckerhole and begins to enjoy it. She can't help but touch the bulge in her belly every time it pokes out and finds it kind of hot. “Ahh… ba babe… you really want to mess me up like chaeyoung, huh.”

“Yes, I want your ass to give itself to me. I want to teach every inch of your body that it belongs to me,” and decide to pick her up. Jihyo is surprised and gasps when she’s placed in a reverse stand-and-carry position.

Now the both of you can see your cock creating a big bulge in her belly as if she’s pregnant once more. “Fuck… you're reaching all the way to my deepest part!” You can feel your cock throbbing and begin to fuck her ass while being carried. 

Jihyo moans as she’s carried in the air and enjoys getting railed in the ass. Every time your tip reaches the deepest part, it feels like ecstasy. Little by little, she gives in to the pleasure until she is a complete mess. She doesn’t realize her mind is fading away, and her body is riding on pure ecstasy. 

You give it a couple of thrusts before your orgasm reaches its peak. You see Jihyo’s face ruined by pleasure and say, “Babe, I’m about to cum” but there is no response, just random mumbling, indecipherable words. You ask, “Want me to cum inside?” She tries to come up with the words but can’t and just nods. “Okay, if you really want me to cum, then hold the peace sign.” 

Jihyo, with her remaining consciousness, holds the peace sign as you face her towards the mirror by the corner of the shower. You lift her up, only leave a head of your cock, wait a few seconds and drop her whole weight on your cock. Jihyo’s body immediately reacts, making her squirt all over the mirror as you drown her ass with your biggest load. The expression on her face is priceless as she does a messy ahegao expression while holding the peace signs. Her body loses all its energy and becomes limp and letting go of your cock, only leaving a gaping hole. 

After the messy session, you return to your room and let her rest. She cleans herself with your assistance by taking a proper shower before going to bed. Tomorrow, you both will wake up sore from being busy the whole day, Jihyo especially. 

[powdermelonkeg]

So, BO2W Breakdown

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Here we’ve got Ganon’s...energy taking over Link’s arm. Ordinarily, I’d call it Malice, but based on what it turns into, I’m just going to be calling it corruption. We don’t get much information from this scene besides this expression:

Link’s grabbing the corruption with his other hand, and wincing. It looks painful. I personally think it’s for cinematic effect that it was included, but it COULD be a gateway into a Phantom Hourglass sort of mechanic--Link has to function on a time limit, or using the corruption’s power could drain his life.

Next we’ve got a closeup of Ganondorf. F in chat to the rehydration theorists.

And the closeups of his jewelry. The only significant thing I can see is his necklace, which looks like a cross between the Gerudo symbol and a Fleur de Lis:

But what I’M most interested in is this tie on his belt:

For one, it’s WAY bigger than it needs to be, and that’s deliberate. Ganondorf’s got a jewelry aesthetic he’s already hit above; everything else is gold, why not this bit?

Most importantly, you can barely make it out, but the designs either look Sheikah or Zonai--they’ve got that same kind of swirly busy pattern to them. The red tint and tan-ish lines in it makes me think it’s possessed Sheikah tech.

Next, we’re shown Zelda falling. This looks like it happens right after these two caps from the first trailer:

So we reach for her as the ground collapses, and evidently, we fail to pull her back up. So my next question for that scene is going to be what the in-game reason is for us not diving in right after her. Maybe we won’t get one, since the appeal of the original BOTW was that you could fight Ganon whenever you wanted.

Up next, we’ve got a skydiving shot:

The first thing to notice is that Link’s pose while skydiving is just about identical to his pose in Skyward Sword:

Second is that, yes, he’s falling towards a floating island, and that in itself is noteworthy, but he’s FALLING. There’s something either above him that he jumped off of, or a force that carried him high enough TO fall, and I doubt Nintendo’s encouraging magnesis flying.

So, there’s a few options: Loftwings making a return (which is unlikely, but a hope I have), something like Revali’s Gale boosting Link up for a cinematic shot, indicating that the corruption arm has that kind of power, or islands higher than the one shown here.

Now the island itself:

In Skyward Sword, Skyloft looks like this:

And (spoiler alert) we loose this island here over the course of the game:

Now, it’s not a PERFECT 1:1 match, as most things between games aren’t, but a quick rotate and overlay shows it’s got the same kinds of shapes between the two. The same “W” shape along the eastern side, the same tiny island off the northeast point, the same relative edges.

Now, I don’t know what happened to the plaza at South Skyloft, or the Knight’s Academy isle, but it could very easily be drift away from the central island.

The presence of other islands through the clouds seems to support that theory. Now let’s look at Link here:

The outfit is new. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen one of this design in other games. My gut reaction to this image was “oh, we go back in time and we’re the first hero now!” because it’s vaguely reminiscent of Tapestry Hero.

But upon closer inspection, that theory’s null and void. Under Link’s tunic in the image above, you can see that he’s still wearing the shorts he woke up in in the first game. So either Sheikah boxers haven’t changed in 10,000 years, or it’s taking place in present day. Jokes aside, I’m curious to know if the outfit he’s wearing is modeled after Tapestry Hero.

Next thing to point out is the obvious:

Link’s arm here looks less prosthetic and more...withered, I almost want to say. The corruption here’s made his hand look frailer, and armored them up with Zonai patterns before it fades out at his shoulder. Based on how the tattoos look, I think they’re an artifact of the corruption taking hold.

Also, the belt here:

Aesthetic purposes, or specific function? The presence of the second, smaller one on the side reminds me of Skyward Sword’s adventure pouch, which could be how the new game handles inventory size:

Next we’ve got another flying shot:

It seems like he’s flying towards Ruined Skyloft, and you can see the bottoms of islands above it, possibly meaning that the sky serves as more than just a hub world like it did in Skyward.

Now let’s look at the paraglider he’s using. It’s new.

This is how the paraglider looks in the original BOTW. It looks like we still have the Rito symbol in the center, but other than that, there’s a LOT of changes here.

First off is the color. We’re now blue and gold. The shade of blue makes me think of the Kochi Dye Shop’s navy blue:

So, possibly a dyeable paraglider?

The new pattern surrounding the Rito symbol makes me think that it’s combining the paraglider with Skyward Sword’s sailcloth:

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say about the paraglider besides the handles looking like they’re made of bone. Craftable paragliders? God, I hope not.

Back to Link:

Here we have him in different gear than the last shot. He’s wearing the snow boots, he has a shield with a stylized Eye of Truth looking upwards, and he looks like he’s carrying a traveler’s sword and an unknown bow. The presence of the bow makes me think that the shield here is a lower tier item, rather than this game’s Hylian Shield equivalent.

Now, let’s get a better look at the horizon:

The trees here look a lot like the smaller trees you can find in Akkala, but there’s a distinct lack of red among them.

Then it looks like we’ve got some ruins at the furthest isle.

Whatever the rock formations are over there, they don’t LOOK natural.

Another thing I noticed is the bottoms of the islands.

These look a little too geometric to be natural, too. Now, this one, I’m a little muddy on, because it COULD be a stylistic choice. But it also reminds me of the Shrines if you clip out of bounds:

And a little bit of the dormant Gate of Time from Skyward:

My money’s on the cube-like nature of the islands’ undersides being deliberate, rather than just a far-off render.

And then there’s this thing!

What is it? It doesn’t look broken at all; look how nicely the roof(?) is kept. The ribbing on the sides makes me think it might be a Zonai thing, but the shape makes it difficult to figure out. A giant temple? An airship? A sloped coliseum? This thing haunts and vexes me.

Our next shot is presumably from one of the islands, based on the color. Here we can see that there are definitely ruins all over the place. Link is in the same gear as before, so I won’t touch on him.

This, however, has my interest. The design here has more geometric patterns--Zonai ruins?

We’ve got another one off in the distance here. Sky checkpoints, like Sheikah towers?

Now this guy here. There’s a LOT to look at. First off is the eye design, it’s the same sort of upward looking one that Link has on his shield in the previous shots.

The energy that’s pulling this thing towards its base looks like the same green energy that surrounds the arm holding Gan in place in Trailer One:

This stuff. That, plus the fact that the robot has to be pulled into its base rather than just existing, implies that either A: Link activates it himself, like a trial thing, or B: that the green energy here functions in the same way Malice does in the original BOTW.

This pattern at its base is intriguing, too. I don’t recognize the gold symbol in the center, but the green around it reminds me of the portals from Twilight Princess.

Which, yes, everyone’s already said that the Twilight Princess patterns look like Zonai things. But another thing this weird dial thing reminds me of is from Lanayru Desert:

On top of that, the color palette of this guy looks like that of the Lanayru Robots from Skyward:

BO2W robot on the left, Lanayru robot on the right. Given that Skyward is a lot more vibrant than other non-Toon Zelda games, I think this is a fair enough comparison to draw similarities from.

And then we get a closer view of the sky ruins from the last shot. I don’t know if the geometric pattern in the corner is a deliberate carving, or wear from time, but since the pattern looks ALMOST mirrored around the corner, I’m going to go with the former.

A better shot a few frames later. The robot has HANDS, which I do not like in any way shape or form. However, we get a better look at the sky ruins.

We haven’t seen this style of stairs before, to my knowledge. The pedestal out front looks like a light source, and it has the same floral egg thing the robot above has on each shoulder; the eggs could easily be a power source for Zonai tech. And at the top of the stairs, we see a pedestal, backing up the theory that these ruins function as our new Sheikah towers.

This is our next shot. Which...

Unikoblins. Can we talk about that? UNIKOBLINS.

Anyways, Link is here again in his old clothes. This is a very early game shot, because his right arm isn’t corrupted yet; this means we get to explore Hyrule before we embark on the main quest. Which gives rise to a question: Where’s Zelda?

The hopeful side of me wants to say that she’s a tutorial companion, like Navi or Tatl, at least for the beginning here. The pessimistic side of me thinks that she’s waiting for us at a predetermined location, and this is just part of getting to her.

Now the unikoblin structure itself is built on a Talus, meaning that the dev team at least intends to have more inter-monster interactions. But if you kill the Talus, does that mean that the base falls apart, or does it just drop down as a separate entity?

Also, what are these background ruins? The one on the left looks like it’s a distinctly different style than the one on the right. It looks almost like a giant guardian arm.

Our next shot is Link’s arm getting corrupted. Which, first of all, the effects look beautiful.

Now, we can see a corner of Link’s hip here, and we know that this is his right arm. So Link’s lying down here. Unconscious? Knowing how Zelda games like to start with Link waking up, probably. Although it looks like at least part of his shorts got an update.

We can see what looks like circuits here. It looks a bit like the electricity puzzles you can find in the Divine Beasts and Shrines in the original.

Then we’ve got these strange symbols.

Whatever this circular stone he’s lying on is, it looks a lot like the Zonai puzzle from the “A Fragmented Monument” sidequest.

This one that everyone thought was the Mirror of Twilight for years.

Our next shot is Link using the corruption powers against enemies:

The spike ball itself looks solid; the question is, is this a duplication power, or a visualization of how the spike ball is set into motion?

We see it barreling over a poor Unikoblin or two, but I’d like to turn your attention to the Moblin and the background.

The moblins here have helmets, and the bases, while they carry the same design, look like they have more cause and effect in mind. The left base’s rock, for instance; that’s a lot bigger than the rocks we got to play with in the last game, and it looks like we can barrel anything in the screen over with it.

The helmet, though, concerns me a little bit. It looks natural rather than forged; like it’s the moblin’s horn, just very much deformed. Does it mean a harder enemy, or is it just for flavor?

Our next shot is this strange flower thing. Note that Link’s right arm is perfectly fine in this shot, meaning that it’s still early game.

This is what Link’s flamethrower looks like. And this:

Is Zonai art.

So the question is, what IS the flamethrower? My first thought was that it’s either a new item in its own, or it’s a Sheikah Slate upgrade. The latter might sound a little far fetched, but Link in this game is right-handed, and in BOTW, he always held the slate in his LEFT hand when using it.

We have more of the weird faded designs that we saw on the Sky ruins:

And we’ve got some kind of pedestal or stage behind the ground flower thing:

It looks like it’s either an altar or a grave, from what I can tell. The stairs aren’t the same design as the ones in the sky, and there aren’t any patterns on it.

More importantly, though, is that this place is underground. This could be a part of the game you’re required to go through, in order to get to Raisin Gan.

A few seconds later, though, we get our answer to what the flamethrower is!

It’s a shield!

Off to the left side, we can see pillars with more weird scribblings towards the top. These match the Sky ruins’ pillar shape, with a narrow base and a wider top.

Our next scene is...weird.

We see a puddle splash in reverse. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually water or not, but the design on the ground implies that it’s either been there for a long time, or that that’s a dedicated splash spot. And the quality and zoom makes me think that this is part of a cutscene. Return of the timeshift stones?

We then see Link...surfacing out of the island? I don’t know how else to describe it. However, his arm is changed again, and glowing, meaning that this is a corruption power. And the “water” he rises out of here looks a lot like the puddle in the last clip.

We get a good look at the Zonai Lights:

A Sky ruin that looks like it contains a room:

And a glimpse of other isles’ ruins in the far distance.

And then as the camera zooms out...

We can place a location!

We’re right over Thundra Plateau!

We also get a mildly better look at the back wall of the sky ruin, which looks to be some kind of table:

The next scene is Hyrule Castle:

The ground shakes and it starts to rise up. However, notice that the columns surrounding the castle are now missing.

We’ve also got red sparks in the air, like we would have in a blood moon. However, due to the sky color, we can assume that this is a conscious decision by Gan himself, and that he isn’t drawing power from his surroundings.

We then see that power bleeding out of the ground. It’s MUCH more red than Malice is, which has always been a kind of burnt pink-ish color.

However, even though Ganon lifts the castle up, he doesn’t lift it very high.

The castle’s about triple the height it was. But since we’re talking Skyloft levels of floating islands, this is still pretty ground-level. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in this shot, despite the game now being about sky islands that we should be able to see from ground level...there aren’t any here. This, to me, means that there’s going to be a sudden appearance of the isles in the sky, rather than them simply being accessible now.

And that’s the whole trailer! I have many questions.

My blog! If you have any opnions/questions/theories, feel free to drop an ask!

Part 2 is up! We missed a lot!

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

you’re someone i just want around: I

“And I can't wait another minute

I can't take the look she's giving

Your body rocking, keep me up all night

One in a million, my lucky strike.”

— Lucky Strike, Maroon 5

A/N: this idea started as just random concept drabbling between leyla @sunflowervolvimp3​ and i and we never really thought it would amount to anything tbh!! but as we started putting more and more into the plot and characters, we made the spontaneous decision to make it a full on, multi-chaptered collab fic! we have so many ideas planned and so much to elaborate on and we’re just so mfing excited to share it with you guys :’) any and all feedback is greatly appreciated 💌 we hope you enjoy the first part and that you fall in love with this stupid emotionally unavailable moron the way we did! happy reading!!

andrea’s askbox : leyla’s askbox : ysijwa masterlist : andrea’s masterlist : leyla’s masterlist : 

word count: 17.2k

content/warnings: vampire!harry being a lowkey asshole while downing straight tequila like a psycho, getting to know The Crew, Mitch being the iconic legend he is, mentions of smut, and Harry working his immortal charm on an unsuspecting human girl with a peculiar scent and intriguing personality

///

Harry hates clubs. 

In his two hundred years of life, through many trials and tribulations, through tricky scenarios and annoying encounters, through thousands of unappealing circumstances and patience-testing events, he doesn’t think anything quite compares to the crowded, nerve-wracking experience that is a Los Angeles club on a Friday night during peak hours. 

According to his wise, humble opinion, it’s absolutely fucking petrifiying. He’d rather swallow a stake than have to spend hours in a dimly lit room with synthetic smoke choking his lungs, half-conscious humans stumbling around into him, and the stench of sweaty bodies mixed with liquor fumes, alongside the faint yet unmistakable waft of vomit. 

Yeah, Harry would definitely rather eat a red oak spear than have to shoulder that.

Despite his intense hatred for this Californian city during its after-hours, he can’t deny that he fits right into the scene perfectly. Decades of grooming and practice have made him a prime candidate for the fast-paced characteristics that come with the party nightlife. 

Fitting into these aspects aren’t something he had learned willingly; he didn’t really have a choice on the matter, considering his entire existence depends on mortals immature tendencies to get properly shit-faced and make stupid decisions in tightly-packed glorified bars. Harry never understood that— how a fog machine, strobe lights, and an undergrad amateur DJ could ever seem more appealing than the quiet, stable ambiance of a semi-formal bar. How deranged do people have to be to actually enjoy strangers spilling alcohol on them while attempting to shag someone else two feet away on the dance floor? 

Whenever he dwells too much on that thought, he gets a spiking migraine. After this long, Harry’s just come to terms with the fact that humans are regressing as a species. His conclusion is a bit cynical, perhaps, but hardly difficult to accept. One look at a news outlet provides enough proof to launch an Ivy League research project on the matter. 

He really shouldn’t be complaining, however, because the combination of overflowed close quarters and dampened inhibitions makes it the ideal hunting ground. Picking up a living blood bag at a club is basically as easy as walking through a vineyard and plucking grapes right off the stems. It’s practical, it’s fool-proof, and if he plays his cards right, he gets to feed and gets his more intimate needs tailored (a combo that he and his friends refer to as Laid and Drained).  

So regardless of his distaste towards clubs and their eager inhabitants, Harry had learned to mold his persona to fit the bill, making himself as approachable and desirable as possible. His life literally hangs in the balance; he’d put up with throngs of drunk sorority girls and their affinity for shitty perfumed drinks if it means avoiding desiccation. 

It’s not like it’s hard. All Harry has to do is make himself look more appealing than the other hundred men milling around the establishment, which— if he’s being brutally honest— isn’t that challenging. The moral, physical, and ethical standards of men have dropped frighteningly low since his time. Most of the ones that creep around clubs are overconfident, overzealous, boundary-lacking douchebags who think they’re entitled to a woman’s attention, and therefore make complete, utter fools of themselves in the process of trying to court one into their pants. Buying a girl one Sex On The Beach and dry-humping to Daft Punk isn’t the way to convince her to come home with you. 

Harry has developed his own guidelines and tactics for securing a nightly bedroom companion, and his ideas have been working wonders for him for decades now. 

The first and foremost rule is to clean up nicely. Personal appearance is everything. Humans are visual creatures; they build first impressions solely based on outward attraction. That trait is enhanced the higher their blood alcohol content rises. The drunker someone gets, the shallower they become, and it’s Harry’s job to work that to his advantage. And at the risk of sounding shallow himself, he thinks he does pretty alright in that department. 

Especially tonight, present in all the elements of his physique. He’s clad in a pair of high-waisted tan trousers that have been ironed to a crisp, his fitted graphic tee tucked neatly along his waistband beneath his black leather belt. His t-shirt is probably his favorite part of the entire look. It’s a baby blue sturdy cotton number with pastel yellow detailing along the cuffs and collar and a giant cartoon puppy in a striped bowtie taking up its center, smiling cheekily at the onlooker. Arranged around the doodle in faded Times New Roman bubble letters are the words WE’RE IN THE SHIT. 

Harry loves the irony of the article— the innocence of the drawing juxtaposed by the crude message. The piece is a conversation-starter— people almost always comment on it— and that’s exactly what he needs. Something to draw attention to himself and shadow all the other men. Something that shows he has a personality; that he has taste and a good sense of humor and isn’t just another walking genital. Plus, what person doesn’t enjoy a funny little contradiction, especially when it’s this cute?

On top of his graphic top, he’s wearing a tartan cropped blazer (open, of course) with a creme background and royal blue lines. The hem ends at the bottom of his ribs, exactly where his pants begin, and the jacket's hand-sewn buttons and strap detailings show that it's an expensive garment. It shows that he puts money and effort into how he looks, which is something anyone would appreciate when scoping for a possible hookup.

Harry’s shoes are the most casual factor of his fit. They’re a pair of light yellow Vans that match the collar of his tee. They’re plain, but he keeps them clean and they tie the whole look together without a hitch.

Accessories are everything, as well. Aside from the pearls arranged around his prominent collarbones, the gold-dipped cross hanging from a delicate chain around his neck, and the matching dangling cross earring on his right earlobe (again, he adores irony), he’s sporting a plethora of chunky rings on his hands, each unique and effortlessly complimenting his appearance. On his left hand, his index finger dots a ruby jewel embedded into a thick rusted band, another large metal one with dancing bears on his middle, and two clunky golden letters on his last two digits— his initials, HS. On his opposite hand, he has a medium-width plated ring on his middle finger with peace engraved along its rounded edge, an elegant lionhead number with an amethyst stone snug in its mouth, and along his pinky is a decently-sized opal set into a delicate polished frame. 

His two last rings are the most important of all. The lionhead is his daylight ring, which he hasn’t taken off since he transitioned. It keeps him from bursting into flames everytime the sun hits his skin. The opal was his mother’s, and it was her favorite. 

Harry’s attire is something he’s immensely proud of, even though a good amount of people deem him eccentric in the eyes of modern masculinity. He couldn’t give less of a shit. With his lightly tanned skin, alluring cologne and lacquered nails, his shirt stretching across the defined muscles of his chest and stomach, his broad shoulders and tapering waist, his thick thighs, sharp jaw, jade eyes, loosely tousled chestnut curls, and the vast array of dark ink littering his arms...

He looks good and he knows it. And all the people whose gazes glue to him as he passes by know it, too. Especially a random group of young women in line, who ogle at him shamelessly as he casually strolls past. He treats them to a sly wink, an irresistible dimpled smile, and a soft, cheeky greeting of, “Ladies.”

He gets off on the way they swoon at his refined English accent, giggling and waving. 

The only other component Harry has for succeeding in the club environment is simple, but it’s important: Don’t seduce, romanticize. 

Anyone— even inebriated idiots— can try and seduce a woman. And if she’s had enough tequila shots to cloud her thoughts, they just might succeed. But only a real man can romanticize a girl, and it yields way better results. 

Females are an emotional sect (Harry says that with zero misogyny; it’s just a scientific fact and he actually praises it), which means that if you entertain their interests and fluff their egos, they are bound to fall right into the palm of your hand. It changes the game completely because then they don’t feel that they have to pleasure you, they want to. They pursue the guy who flirts without being too vulgar, who appreciates and acknowledges their efforts, and who can go head-to-head with their wit by carrying unforced banter. They chase after him because he’s showing genuine kindness rather than just sexual interests and if he’s that attentive on the getting-to-know-you front, one can only imagine how skilled he could be in other bases. Chatting up a girl the right way, with patience and courtesy, builds credibility and prowess. And as a thank you, they’re usually more than willing to pay special attention to your needs, as well. 

Thus, romanticizing is always the expert move. So, yes, Harry detests clubs and the disaster that is adult recreation. But he’s fucking amazing at playing it to his favor. He’s great at calculating everything down to the smallest detail and he’s going to piggy-back on those skills for the rest of eternity. He’s so good at what he hates that his closest friends have anointed him the title of Walking Paradox. He’s more than happy to keep it. 

All of these thoughts are circulating around his skull, hyping him up for the game ahead as Harry and his friend group walk up to the bouncer at the entrance of the club they had chosen for the night, faint stars twinkling in the dark sky as the sounds and lights of the city fall away into background static. 

They cruise by the long line of people, hearing sounds of disagreement and grumbling coming from the other patrons waiting to get in. Harry casually tucks his large hands into the pockets of his light brown slacks as he pulls up in front of the burly bald man, who is wearing a black shirt with the club’s name printed in neon letters. The security guard is at least five inches taller than him, overswollen biceps and pectoral muscles rippling under the flimsy material of his work outfit as he crosses his arms over his barreled chest, cocking a single thick eyebrow at the seemingly young vampire. 

Harry delivers a good-natured smile up at the employee, despite the man’s obvious begrudging disbelief at what he is about to try and do. His friends chat quietly behind him, uninterested in what is happening; after years of being acquainted, they know that Harry is going to get exactly what he wants. He always does. 

He’s the best of them, that much is obvious. Not only when it comes to his experience with persuading sexual partners and getting himself a decent dinner, but he’s the best at convincing just about anyone to do anything, neutral of gender. He’s the second oldest of the crew, yet he seems to have the most knowledge and practice under his belt; his easygoing charisma, undeniable good looks, and dazzling smile could sway even the most stubborn of souls. Frankly, he’s so successful in getting his way that no one cares to try and argue for the leader position. Not when they can just sit back and let Harry do all the work. 

“Good evening.” Harry’s deep voice chimes giddily in the direction of the bouncer, his accent particularly heavy for no real reason. “How you doing tonight, mate?”

The guard— whose name tag reads Brock and Harry has to actively stop himself from snorting at how fitting the name is for such a brick of a human— looks down at him with a stony expression, voice flat. “I’m good.”

“Well, that’s great to hear!” The curly-haired boy’s simper widens, dimples popping into place as he skates into his next question with dramatic friendliness. “Haven’t had anyone cause you any trouble tonight, have you?”

Brock blinks once, attitude remaining coldly indifferent even in the face of Harry’s cheeriness. His words, however, are snipped and pointed. “Not yet.”

“I’m guessing you’d like to keep it that way.” The young man comments sympathetically, nodding his head along with the worker. “Totally understandable.” 

“Good.” The employee remarks in the same detached tone, shifting on his feet, obviously growing uncomfortable and irritated with the conversation. “So I’m guessing that means you know you have to get in line.” 

Harry glances over his shoulder at the lengthy expanse of people gathered along the side of the building, a light wind filtering through his freshly-shampooed ringlets as he studies the way the bright sign on top of the club casts alternating rainbow colors across the crowd. 

He makes a disapproving sound by sucking at his teeth, lulling his sight back onto the guard. “I don’t know, man. At this rate, I feel like by the time we get to the front of the line, it’ll be last call.”

“Maybe.” Brock shrugs offhandedly. “It is what it is, right? Fair’s fair.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Harry returns his gesture, but his posture shows no intention of moving, the corners of his rose lip set in a knowing smirk. “But since you’ve been having a good night, do you think you could find it in yourself to just let us through? We’d greatly appreciate it.” 

The bouncer’s face hardens, any shred of professional amiability washing out of his defined features. “I don’t think so.” 

The vampire’s shoulders sag in exaggerated disappointment. “Are you sure? It’s just five of us. Don’t think we’ll do much damage. Right, guys?”

Harry glimpses over his back to his friends, who let their conversation falter for a moment to throw out a chorus of half-assed agreements, trying to keep themselves from snickering. 

“We promise we won’t cause any problems.” Xander speaks up, jutting his chin encouragingly at the man as his lips twitch slyly. He lifts one of his hands, the smallest finger sticking out stiffly and wiggling around. “Pinky swear.” 

The rest of the group bursts into a round of light laughter, causing Harry to release a few airy giggles of his own.  

Xander looks over at Niall, raising his eyebrows and quipping in an innocent manner. “Right, Ni? No funny business tonight. That means no climbing onto the bar again and stripping down to your socks.” 

“That happened one time!” Niall exclaims incredulously, socking the taller boy in the shoulder as the others laugh harder than before, his blue eyes narrowed and face pinched. “Once! And it was only ‘cause Harry challenged me to a tequila shot contest.”

The Irish vampire’s accented voice drops darkly as he reminisces. “Fuckin’ hate tequila. Makes me act like a moron.” 

“As if you’re not one already.” Mitch pipes up in his usual soft dialect, chuckling as he ducks away from Niall’s vengeful fist. 

Harry cranes back to face Brock, thumb playing with his daylight ring as his hands stay relaxed inside his trousers. He shrugs one shoulder easily for emphasis. “See? You can let us through. We pinky swore.” 

The entire charade seems to have only infuriated the security guard more than before, his brows now fully furrowed and a deep, unamused frown etched across his previously pursed lips. His voice is on edge with barely controlled anger. “I’m not putting up with any shit. If you want in, go to the back of the line. If not, leave.”

Harry sighs grandly in defeat, head shaking slightly. “Guess I’ll just have to go the other route, then.”

The creature takes a step forward towards the employee, close enough that their chests almost press together. The bulky man stands his ground, though there’s a flicker of surprise in his eyes at seeing the smaller boy make such a bold move. 

“What the f—?”

Harry locks gazes with Brock, pupils dilating to twice their size, the usual emerald shade of his irises flickering a haunting red and looking sinister in the buttery light of the street lamps. Horror breaks across the worker’s face, the ability to form coherent sentences disappearing from his demeanor. Harry’s heightened senses can hear the way his heartbeat spikes, blood instinctively rushing into his chest as a response to the adrenaline materializing in his veins. The activation of human’s fight-or-flight modes is always so oddly pleasurable. Just feeling how they react so drastically makes Harry’s fangs tingle with longing. Fear is a good condiment, he’s learned; it gives blood’s usual metallic flavor a certain twang.

But at the moment, a beverage from this specific tap isn’t the one Harry has in mind. He has his interests set on something much tangier and full-bodied; maybe Casamigos golden tequila, or Don Julio's Blanco. Preferably mixed with a young office secretary or a Bath and Body Works employee instead of lemon and salt. 

All in all, Brock is just collateral for a much bigger prize, which lies behind the roped off area he holds dominion over. It’s Harry’s job to break that dam. 

Before the large man can fully react, the vampire begins working his compulsion strategy, tone coming out level and soothing, thick with persuasion and teetering along a sleepy undercurrent. “You’re going to let us through, and you’re going to forget we ever met.”

The guard’s pupils enlarge to match Harry’s, the look of utter terror on his face melting right off. His features go slack as the monster’s magical influence works its way through his brain, coating every neuron and bending him to the deliverer’s will. The man reaches over and removes the velvet rope blocking the group’s path, stepping off to the side obediently with an empty expression present across his appearance. 

The leader of the group smiles just as brightly as he had the second he’d walked up to the door. He passes by the worker, giving him a hard pat on the shoulder and feeling the muscular man strain under his supernatural strength. “Thank you very much. You have a nice night, Brock.” 

Harry’s friends follow behind him, echoing his parting message and sharing a collective chortle.  

The second the group dives past the frame of the club entrance, the whole ambiance of the atmosphere changes. Harry walks across the top ledge of the establishment, coming to a halt at the railing that overlooks the main level of the club, his inhumanly sharp eyes bouncing around all the corners of the building to construct some type of familiar layout in his head. Amidst the blinking lights, thick artificial smoke, and swaying bodies, his keen instincts sketch a mental image for tonight’s hunting ground. 

The bar is at the far left corner of the club, squared off and taking up a large chunk of the colorful tiled dance floor. The music station extends across the entire wall at the opposite end of the tavern, stocked with massive speakers and a professional turntable. Harry’s brows jump in mild surprise— it’s not every day that a club puts so much effort into their mixer. 

The animated dancing area is packed with people, the crowd all jumping and grinding to the beat of the bass, moving as one large mass while the rotating strobe lights hang from the cavernous ceiling, bathing their moving silhouettes in neon reds, drunken blues, groggy purples, and electric yellows. The dim surroundings and heavy fog make all the hues more intense, giving the endless party that timeless quality which people tend to enjoy about nightlife. It’s the night to remember effect that movies and shows always hyperbolize; he thinks this way because he’s well aware that not even a third of these people are sober enough to know what the fuck they’re doing, let alone recall it the following day. It’s comically ironic, really. 

But Harry profits off that liquor amnesia, so he brushes away his sardonic skepticism for the time being, settling his lean forearms onto the metal railing that lines the second story of the venue, which is meant to keep shit-faced customers from creating a messy lawsuit. He carefully absorbs the grandeur of it all, leaning his weight forward with a detached sigh, already flickering through the mental menu of his favorite drinks that he has expertly memorized. 

He’s in the process of choosing between a Manhattan— it isn’t a very complicated drink, which is exactly what he’s looking for; something simple and strong— or just straight tequila in a glass when he suddenly feels a familiar presence arrange itself beside him, bumping his shoulder playfully with their own.

Harry snaps out of his recipe retrieval, eyes casting to the side to land on his best friend of almost a century. He cocks an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for the thin, bearded man to make the first move towards conversation.

“You’re a real dick, y’know that?” 

The green-eyed vampire sputters into spontaneous laughter, the edges of his eyes crinkling as the small pits in his cheeks jolt awake. His tone is humorous and full of fake insult for the hell of the joke. “Wow, alright. So I get us into the club that you chose and that makes me a prick? Good to know. You can handle the muscle next time, then, if you’re gonna talk shit.”

Mitch cracks a gentle jesting grin, which is very on brand for him. He doesn’t seem like much, with his skinny, lanky frame, delicate features, shoulder-length hair, and somewhat scraggly stubble. He’s quiet, reserved, and hardly engages with anyone outside of their immediate group. He’s always been that way for as long as Harry could remember. 

When they had met back in 1924 at a speakeasy in New York, Mitch had given off a mysterious vibe that Harry had found amusing and intriguing. His slightly sickly appearance and distant persona made the younger vampire want to get to know him better; it was just so peculiar that this seemingly impassive man was working at an illegal bar as a live musician. One would think that a performer would have to display an engaging character to keep a loyal audience, but Mitch had been all the talk of the underground despite his unemotional coolness. It was startlingly unorthodox and Harry just had to know more. 

Therefore, with a bit of help from his convincing supernatural abilities, he’d secured a spot as the black market club’s leading vocalist. He wasn’t anything worth a Grammy, but he could keep his singing in tune and follow Mitch’s guitar rhythms easily enough, all thanks to his limited experience with piano. He fit right in. 

From the first show they had put on together, it was like they had known one another in a different lifetime. They clicked so flawlessly it was almost fictional. 

Harry was lively and charming on stage, working the crowd to his favor as easily as he could knock back a shot, wrapping every single patron around his jeweled pinky without breaking a sweat. His witty temperament countered Mitch’s timid disposition perfectly and that uncommon dynamic had been the foundation to their friendship. Their humorous shenanigans on stage (which included Harry pinching at Mitch’s ass and making vague vulgar motions at each other while harmonizing) was a hit within the drunken community, and it bled into their personal lives. They went from only interacting on stage to sharing drinks together afterwards, to hanging out outside of work, to deep late night conversations about the world and their experiences.

Soon enough, they were closer than either had expected to become. And once they found out each other’s true identities (Mitch had transitioned during the American Revolution, when a vampire in his battalion had given him blood to heal from a wound, unaware that the next day, Mitch would suffer a fatal gunshot to the stomach that would trigger his transformation) they grew inseparable. They had remained that way ever since. 

Despite his friend’s withdrawn tendencies, the older vampire never hesitates to make his opinions heard, obvious in how he’d just full-bodied Harry with that snarky comment. Even when it’s at his expense, Harry appreciates and respects the rawness of it. He loves the way Mitch is honest and straight-forward with everything that crosses his path— it’s one of his favorite traits about him and definitely one of the characteristics that had led Harry to deem him his best friend. He’s probably the most fulfilling person Harry has ever met and their friendship brings him a type of comfort that he doesn’t receive from anyone else.

Vampires can be so detached and cold not only towards humans, but towards one another, and it gets old at times. It’s unsettling not having someone to truly confide in, and Harry is grateful that Mitch had been so willing to fill that position.   

Due to this, Harry rarely takes genuine offense in Mitch’s digs. They’re normally expressed as a joke and they’ve both been alive for so long that thick skin is a default.

“How was I dick?” Harry inquires, slinking his head to the side with entertained curiosity. “If anything, he was the one being an asshole. I asked him to let us in nicely and he practically spit in my face!”

Mitch snorts in amusement, shaking his head lightly as his eyes streak across the humongous room in the same cunning manner Harry’s had. “You and Xander didn’t have to mock him that way.” 

That’s another thing that makes Mitch the better half of their power duo— he still has a decent shred of humanity in his unbeating heart. Pessimistic conclusions aside, Harry does have a bit, as well...but his is more like a paper-thin pencil shaving than a shred. Barely there, but there, at least. 

The young man returns his companion’s snort, rolling his eyes up to the hanging lights over their heads. “Was just some harmless teasing. Nothing bad came of it.”

Mitch scowls scoldingly. “It was unnecessary and mean.”

Harry mimics his expression with his nose scrunched sarcastically. “We were just taking the piss, and it’s not like he’s gonna remember it anyways. Stop being such a kill-joy.” 

“Stop being such an arrogant little shit.” 

“Or what?” Harry tilts his chin up challengingly, the amber specks around his pupils glinting tauntingly, faint black veins momentarily webbing across the whites of his eyes. He sweetens his voice into a honeyed drawl. “Are you gonna spank me, daddy? Have I been a bad boy?” 

Mitch belts out a feathery chuckle, shoving his friend with enough strength to send a regular human flying across the deck. But since the taller vampire matches his force, he hardly moves an inch. “Fuck off.” 

“I’m being serious!” Harry cackles, turning his hips and sticking out his ass towards his visibly disgusted acquaintance. “Go fucking in, if you want.”

He lowers his voice into a sultry hum, wagging his backside jestingly. “I like it rough, baby. Why don’t you bend me over this railing and show me who’s boss?”

It’s Mitch’s turn to roll his eyes to the ceiling, voice deadpan. “I think I’ll pass.” 

Harry juts his lower lip into a theatrical pout, sniffling faux tears. “You’re rejecting me that quick? Who’s the asshole now, huh?”

His best friend doesn’t even blink. “Still you.”

“I can live with that. And it’s probably a good call on your end to give up all this,” he signals vaguely up and down his tight torso with a ringed hand, grinning as he watches the veteran vampire pretend to gag, “because I don’t think Sarah wouldn’t be too happy about it.” 

Mitch’s humorous face immediately drops, eyes narrowing at the change in topic. “Very funny.” 

“I know, right? I’m a proper comedian.” Harry quips proudly, batting his lashes mockingly. “Where is Sarah, anyways? Have you heard from her lately?” 

Sarah and Mitch...They’re a complex couple, if they can even be called a couple. The two are more like occasional friends with benefits, “occasional” meaning “once every couple of months, if Sarah happens to be passing by.” 

Their relationship is open and very loose, mostly due to the fact that Sarah is fairly new to the world of blood-driven immortality and has decided to take full advantage of it. She’s been using compulsion to travel the world for the last three years since she changed, which had been the result of an unfortunate car accident. 

Mitch had been seeing her casually beforehand, keeping her around for the purpose of having a conventional feeding arrangement. Every time vampires feed, they heal the wounds they inflict with a bit of their blood, proceeding to then wipe the person’s memory with compulsion in order to eradicate any chances of getting caught. The caveat is that if a human dies with vampire blood in their system, they become one. 

Sarah’s death happened the day after she’d spent a night with Mitch, and one can imagine how distressed she had been when she'd awoken atop a metal table in a morgue within the basement of a hospital. Mitch had been there from the very first second she’d opened her eyes to her new life. Or rather, her dead life. He had helped her get accustomed to the next stage (meaning having to cut family ties in order to avoid a catastrophe— the less people that know the truth about the supernatural, the better) coaxing her through transition and teaching her the way to go about the rest of eternity without putting herself and others in danger. 

Vampires rarely have any compassion for life (usually out of spite, which stems from how their own lives were taken from them), so it’s not uncommon that bodies are found drained of blood in back alleys, abandoned warehouses, and washed up on banks of oceans and rivers. It could be either of two reasons, or even both: the monster doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions, or they never learned to control their urges. 

Harry’s crew isn't that careless. Through Mitch, they had learned restraint, taking up his practice of feeding enough to satisfy themselves without killing the host, healing them, and then erasing the occurrence from their memories. Mitch had come up with the tactic to cling to his humanity— to be as kind and nondestructive as possible— but if Harry’s being honest, most of their friends only play along because it’s convenient. No bodies means no police involvement, and no police involvement means being able to settle down in one place for an extended period, not having to stress about the annoying process of bouncing around the world for the rest of their lives to avoid detection. 

Keeping low was for the best, and when things get rough— whether it be a mistake on their part or a disastrous bender caused by another vampire passing through— they resort to drinking from blood bags until things tide over. Mitch has a contact at the nearest hospital, which is how he gets access to the stock, as well as how he managed to clean up Sarah’s passing so quickly. 

All in all, Harry had only mentioned Sarah to tease his friend, knowing the slight sensitivity that comes with the subject. Vampires rarely form emotional bonds, typically because it can get really messy, really fast, whether that connection be to a mortal or to another creature of their species. All of them have baggage of some sort— you can’t die, resurrect, be forced to abandon your family, and be a slave to drinking blood for the rest of eternity and just...be normal. That type of extreme emotional turmoil is corrosive towards love. It’s always better to just avoid it all together. 

That’s why this is so habitual to joke about; it’s a way to deflect. 

Mitch sighs grandly, Harry’s question echoing in his skull. “I don’t know where she is, to be honest. Last we talked was, like, four weeks ago, I think. She was in Japan, said she was drumming for a new upcoming band. Haven’t heard from her since.”

Harry nods his head once in understanding, itching to steer the theme of their conversation elsewhere now that he knows the topic is in a more sensitive state than he’d imagined. He doesn’t want to push Mitch into a depressive episode when they’re supposed to be having a good time. Spending the night consoling his sulky friend in the bathroom of a club is the last thing he wants right now. 

“I guess that makes Sarah the asshole, then.” He pokes jokingly, bumping the older vampire’s hip with his own. “She’s ghosting you. Get it? It’s funny ‘cause she’s actually dead.” 

Mitch’s sad expression shatters like glass, replaced by one of unamused secondhand embarrassment at the shitty pun. “I fucking hate you.”

“All the people who were ahead of their time were hated.” Harry sing-songs, turning up his nose haughtily. “Copernicus, Socrates, Einstein— all of them were hated for being geniuses. I’m willing to carry that same burden.” 

Mitch blinks at him three times. “No one hated Einstein.”

The curly-haired boy’s lips twitch darkly. “I’m pretty sure Japan did.” 

“You’re going to hell.” 

“I’m already there, mate.” 

Mitch shakes his head, but even through the black lights, Harry can see him trying to ward off a laugh. After a moment’s pause, he speaks up again softly. “It’s not that hard to refrain from humiliating innocent people who are just doing their job, H.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you’re still on that?” The broad monster groans in exasperation, palms slapping down on the metal rungs below him. “We were just having some fun! But fine. If it helps you fake sleep at night, I’ll try and keep my condescending flare to a minimum.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” Mitch responds peacefully, tapping his nimble fingers casually along the railing, his action much less violent than his companion’s. “S’not too difficult.” 

“Whatever.” Harry scoffs, returning his intent gaze to the dance floor, scoping out the scene once again in hopes of finding a proper meal for the night. 

He zones in on a group of young women gathered along one side of the bar, their messy giggling and lack of balance giving away that they’re obviously sloshed off their faces. Seems promising enough. 

When he talks once more, his tone holds an attitude that plays on a grumble, but it’s somewhat distracted. “The least you could do is let me have some fun, considering I didn’t even want to come.” 

Mitch huffs, making an entertained noise in the back of his throat. “You say that every single time we go out, and yet you always end up taking someone home. Don’t know why you’re complaining.” 

Harry side-eyes him from his peripheral vision, the corners of his pretty cherry mouth dipping down grudgingly, mood defensive. “You drag me to these things so I’m not going to apologize for making the best of it. I put a lot of effort into my pick-ups! I deserve to get my dick wet.” 

“God, please don’t say that again.” His best mate physically makes a vomiting sound. “You’re acting like a spoiled fraternity douche.” 

Harry’s gaze ignites into flames, his back straightening out as he fully turns to face the shorter man. He’s never been insulted so low before. “Take that back!” 

“Take that back!” Mitch mocks in an exaggerated, high-pitched British accent, attempting to stifle giggles. 

“Take it back! You know how much I hate Gen Z.”

“Okay, boomer.” 

“You’re older than I am!” 

“I know. Your lack of maturity is a constant reminder.”

Harry opens his mouth, prepared to make a sharp comeback about how Mitch should have left the shaggy-haired stoner aesthetic back in the eighties, but then a heavy Irish accent interrupts his rebuttal. 

“What’s all this about getting your dick wet?” 

Both of the vampires turn towards Niall, finding Xander and Adam accompanying him in a loose semi-circle. 

Xander isn’t paying any attention, too busy tapping away at the screen of his smartphone, apparently engaged in a very riveting conversation with whoever is on the other side. Adam has his hands tucked into the pockets of his plum purple wind-breaker, looking over Harry’s shoulder, seeming to be adamantly searching for someone in particular amidst the mob on the level beneath them. Niall is the only one interested in their dying conversation, probably only because he heard something crude being mentioned. 

“It’s nothing.” Harry dismisses, but he can’t help but stick Mitch with a glare. “What’s the plan for tonight, then?”

Adam speaks up for the first time. “Charlotte and Ny texted saying they got here about ten minutes ago. Mentioned they were dancing near the DJ station, so I think I’ll go find them.”

“Sounds good.” Harry bobs his head in accordance. “We’ll see you out there, yeah?” 

Adam returns his action, turning on his heel and heading for the stairs that lead to the bottom floor. The leader of the group watches him trot onto the large spiral staircase, disappearing into the thick throng of people scattered across its wide steps. 

Harry shifts his attention to Xander, snapping his fingers a few times in his direction and giving a two-toned whistle. “What about you? What’s got your head?”

“Not what, who.” Niall teases, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and making kissy faces at their friend. 

Xander ignores him, glancing up at the green-eyed brunette to let him know he’ll be with him in a second, returning his focus back to his iPhone. After a few more elongated moments of typing, the older man finally locks his device. 

“I have a date.” He throws out casually, almost as if it should be obvious. 

“A date?” Harry reiterates slowly, not quite buying it. Xander doesn’t date. He couch-surfs just as much as Harry does. 

“Mmhm.” Xander glimpses behind his fellow vampire, eyes carrying intention. “It’s just a random dude from Tinder. I thought it’d be easier to set something up beforehand, just so I don’t have to spend the whole night trying to figure out if a guy is making eyes at me or trying to keep his whiskey down.” 

“Smart.” Harry shrugs his sculpted brows, impressed. A cocky grin toys with the corners of his mouth. “But we both know no one will ever compare to me.” 

“Right.” Xander scoffs in a deadpan manner, gifting him a tight, aggravated smile. “If only you weren’t such an emotionally unavailable prick.” 

“Oh, like you’re mentally stable enough for a relationship?” Harry bites back, but it holds no true malice, just some petty rivalry. “Piss off.”

“Happily!” The other vampire exclaims, clasping his hands together for dramatics. “Have fun finding someone out there. I’m just gonna grab a to-go box for my already prepped meal.” 

Harry doesn’t bother watching him leave. Instead, he turns to Niall, pointing at him to symbolize it's his turn to share his plans for the night. “What have you got, Lucky Charms?” 

His friend breaks into a jolly cackle at the nickname, arms falling crossed over his chest, hands absentmindedly squeezing his elbows in thought. “Well, I dunno, Tea and Crumpets. What’s your game plan?” 

Before Harry can answer, Mitch butts in, feeling left out of the banter and somewhat hurt that no one had assigned him an alter ego. “What’s my country-derived nickname?” 

Niall gives the American a slow once-over, shifting in his dark brown Clarks boots, fitted navy slack riding up his thighs and allowing his rainbow polka-dot socks to peek out. He hums lowly in the back of his throat, a grin spreading across his rosy cheeks. “Biscuits and Gravy.” 

Harry chimes in, his own arms casually folding over his strong chest, index finger tapping on his bottom lip as if mulling something over. “I quite like We The People, actually.”

The Irish lad snaps his fingers as if having a sudden epiphany. “Uncle Sam!”

Harry’s emerald eyes twinkle with glee at seeing the way Mitch’s go half-lidded, no longer entertained. “Four Score And Seven Years Ago.” 

“Okay, I think that’s enou—”

Niall wags a finger at Harry, lifting one shoulder in question, seeking approval on his next idea. “Star Spangled Banner?”

Harry copies the boy’s motion from before, snapping his fingers and making jazz hands. “I Pledge Allegiance.”  

“Ok, I get it!” Mitch whines with annoyed finality, pushing off the metal railing with a curt grimace on his scraggly face. 

“You asked!” Niall rationalizes between hiccups of evilly delighted joy, cupping his stomach as if to keep it from splitting open. 

“Won’t make that mistake again.” The older creature grumbles, leaning his back against the rungs and looking off towards the distance, communicating that he’s done being a part of the conversation. 

Once Harry manages to reign in his giggles, he rubs at his nose with the side of his finger, releasing a wistful sigh. He refers to the question Niall had stated before their little bullying fest. “I think I’m just gonna do what I always do— sway a nice, pretty girl into doing some not-so-nice but very pretty things.” 

“Solid.” The Irish bloke remarks, toying with the plastic buttons on his silk beige top. “Not much to do other than that, to be fair. Adam’s usually my wingman, but I guess he abandoned me for a girl’s night.” 

“Mitch is mine, and he knows better than to dip on me.” Harry roughly nudges his best friend with his elbow, dodging to the side when Mitch tries to hit him in return. 

Niall hums softly in amusement. “Maybe I should make Adam sign whatever contract you drafted for that poor bugger.” 

The curly brunette snorts. “Good luck. Adam’s as stubborn as they come. But, hey, if you can’t find anyone, just come to me.” Harry’s irises flit crimson for a millisecond, an ominous smirk buckling his features. “You know I’m always happy to share.” 

“Thanks,” his friend exhales flatly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“If you’re taking tips,” Mitch pipes up, vaguely signaling at Niall’s shirt with his chin, “maybe don’t wear that stupid shirt next time. The elephant doodles look ridiculous.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not taking fashion tips from anyone who actually enjoyed living in Ohio, then.” Niall snaps in an exaggerated American accent, middle finger jutting towards the other man. “The only thing you know how to dress is a cornfield scarecrow. Must be why you look like one.” 

Harry forces down more laughter, clearing his throat softly. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t get hammered— girls hate that.” 

“Note taken.” The pale boy runs his fingers through his hair, fixing it up and adding texture to appear more laid-back and rugged. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Later.” The younger vampire recites, giving a big thumbs-up. 

“Good luck out there. You, too, Boston Tea Party.” 

With that, Niall saunters away, leaving a fully laughing Harry and a grouchy Mitch in his wake. 

The two acquaintances decide to follow in everyone else’s example, descending down the looped staircase and chatting about Mitch’s latest gig at a new bar downtown. 

Harry praises Mitch's talent with his guitar, specifically the fact that he found a hobby which he enjoys so much that he’s willing to keep it as a permanent part of his life. It’s easy to get bored of things when you have hundreds of years ahead of you; everything can seem pointless, in the end. But Harry doesn’t think Mitch has ever let himself fall into those types of dark headspaces and he finds that extremely admirable. 

Harry wishes he could say the same. He’s no musical prodigy, that much is obvious, but he is an expert at playing a few specific French songs on the piano by memory. He rarely does it, though; only when he’s in a low state of mind, which— given the origin of how he learned said classical pieces— isn’t something he’s proud of. They’re tied to a very gruesome part of his past that he’d rather bury deep inside, but he can only push back his troubles for so long before they begin to leak out, staining the clean sheet of recovery he had sewn into place. Those arrangements just bring him a warped sense of comfort he can’t explain.

Even though he’s aware of the destructive aspects of the songs, he finds himself humming one now out of instinct as he elbows through squished bodies and flailing limbs. The second he notices he’s doing it, he cuts it off, focusing all his intention on making it to the other side of the room to the bar. It’s a hard trip when it feels like the walls of the building are closing in on him. 

When Harry finally breaks free from the Human Centipede re-enactment that is the club dance floor, he practically collapses onto the sleek glass counter. Death was less painful than that walk. 

He cranes his neck to the side wildly, suddenly remembering that his much smaller, much skinnier, much more crushable friend had been in tow behind him. To his utter shock, he watches as Mitch calmly weeds around grinding drunk couples with the poise and grace of a swan, filling the empty spot besides him without a single ailment in the world. 

Harry blinks at him blankly in silence, almost as if he’d grown an extra set of fangs. 

Mitch flags the bartender from all the way down the counter, not bothering to meet the green eyes peering at him in disbelief. “You’re so fucking dramatic, H.”

“How did you not die? Again?” Harry sputters, sight jutting all around the older vampire’s body, looking for any battle wounds or missing appendages. “I almost lost an arm in there!”

“It’s a good thing it wasn’t your favorite one, right?” Mitch smirks at his own lewd joke, the simper molding into one of genuine kindness when the mixologist slides up in front of them. “Hi, how are you? I’m good, as well, thank you for asking! Yeah, I’ve got something in mind. Don’t worry, I’m not one of the ‘just make me something sweet’ type of assholes.”

Harry zones out the rest of the friendly chat Mitch entertains with the employee, letting his gaze wander around the large auditorium-like room. He dances his vision over the DJ remixing music on top of the stage, head beginning to bop along to the beat that is currently shaking the seven foot tall speakers. He’s pleasantly surprised at how good this specific producer is. 

He continues scoping out the rest of the venue, taking notes of the different clusters of people that seem to hold promise for the plans he has in store later tonight. A small group of hippie friends here, a two-party duo of tipsy stoners there, and a clump of college students at the edge of the ruckus, stumbling around loudly. Things are looking somewhat decent, in his opinion. The hippies seem to be catching his attention more than the others— specifically, the one that looks similar to Stevie Nicks. That’s a fantasy that’s been waiting to be fulfill for decades now. 

Harry lulls his head forward again when he feels Mitch give a squeeze at his elbow, telling him that the bartender is waiting to take his order. He decides to go for the gold tequila, asking for it straight in a highball glass without any garnishes. The worker’s eyebrows jump up slightly at the unorthodox request, but he drops a polite, “Coming right up.” either way.

“You truly have no flavor.” Mitch tuts once their waiter has stepped away to prepare their drinks. “No taste buds whatsoever.” 

“Yeah? Well, you can suck my flavorless dick.” Harry chimes brightly, eyes crinkling shut as a result of a theatrical smile. 

The younger vampire goes to turn back around, legitimately interested in the girl he’d seen that looked like one of his seventies celebrity crushes, already running through scenarios in his head on how he’d get her into his bed for tonight. Weed and ABBA are probably good conversation starters for that, if Harry’s undisputed people skills have anything to say about it. 

As he’s rotating his torso, a blurred image catches his eyes. He does a double-take, honing in on a group of girls that look faintly familiar. He scans them carefully as they huddle around the corner of the bar area, laughing and toasting along to the multiple conversations they all have going at once. They look like the typical posse that would be a backdrop clique in a mainstream movie. 

He knows where he recognizes them from— it had been the same girls he’d spotted earlier up on the second deck.

Harry expertly surveillances each woman, picking out potential candidates as easily as he’d pinch petals off a flower. The one in the center of the group is obviously the leader, present in how she’s the prettiest and is somehow managing to juggle all of these interactions at once. It means she’s used to being the center of attention— probably strives under it. He throws her out as a potential; the last thing he needs is someone who everyone knows and seeks out. He wouldn’t be able to sneak away with her quietly. 

The rest of the girl crew all seem to be the same status-wise, appearing as supporting characters to the main one in the middle. He could choose any one of them blindly and it wouldn’t make a difference. They all seem so tight-knit, they probably share personalities, at this point. It’s like dipping his hand into a jar of jelly beans and they’re all the same flavor. That notion makes him laugh to himself a bit; maybe Mitch was right about his lack of taste. 

Then, Harry spots her, and all the other women immediately go up in smoke. 

It’s hard not to spot her. She sticks out like a sore thumb, but not in a good way. 

The prospective contender is off to the side, sitting atop a barstool with her feet tucked along the footrest, tapping them against the metal rung awkwardly. She’s talking to one of the other people in the group, but the interaction seems forced and not very satisfying, obvious in both of their faces. She’s tracing her middle finger around the edge of her glass cup distractedly, the contents inside barely touched, the ice in her drink long-melted. She seems disinterested in the chaos her friends are causing, her expression bored and borderline regretful, as if she doesn’t want to be here. 

The further he sizes the girl up, the more appropriate she looks for the role he needs filled. Since barely anyone is paying attention to her, that means he can lead her astray without too much resistance from her acquaintances, if any at all. She appears somewhat unimportant to the narrative— merely a background extra— and it makes him wonder what she’s doing with this clique of women that can’t seem to be bothered by her presence. It’s sad, really. Sad, but beneficial, because that means he can succeed in making her the supporting protagonist of his narrative, at least for tonight. 

The girl is attractive, but not anything astronomical. She’s unconventionally pretty in a way that makes her relevant, but not particularly distinct in the eyes of regular men with presumptuous standards. She’s easy to pass up, and if Harry hadn’t been actively pursuing someone of her bashful persona to card into his plans, he wouldn’t have noticed her. At the risk of once again sounding shallow, Harry’s aware that— physically speaking— he’s very much out of her league. His above-average appearance gives off the vibe that he’d fit better with the leader of the group instead of with her, but he doesn’t want someone that would raise suspicions as a result of their absence. This girl, sitting along the edge of the party with barely any purpose and no one to really question her whereabouts, is exactly what he’s looking for. She’s perfectly imperfect for the cause. 

Harry continues to examine her meticulously, analyzing other traits that can give him a better feel for her character. She’s clad in a pair of high-waisted pastel pink silk pants that stop right at her ankles, accompanied by a flouncy creme lace blouse tucked into her waist. Tan wedges, no accessories, delicate rosey nail polish, and minimalist makeup. The boldest thing about her is the brick red shade of her lipstick, which is easily shadowed by the sparkly sequin dresses, five inch heels, and layered tops her friends are wearing. 

Harry likes her outfit, though. It’s concise and safe, which he can appreciate. Yes, perhaps she looks like she belongs in a dentist’s office rather than a Los Angeles nightclub, but he thinks there’s beauty in simplicity. She looks cute, and that’s good enough for him. 

“She seems interesting.” Mitch’s soft voice snaps him out of his detail-hungry haze, drawing him back into the reality that is the black lighting of the club and the deep booming of the music’s bass. 

His friend slides his tall drink across the glass counter, the amber liquid inside warping his reflection. 

“I suppose so.” Harry answers passively, shrugging one shoulder in indifference while accepting the cup, ringed fingers clinking against the crystalline surface. 

He takes a leisurely sip from the straight tequila, its tangy kick sending a warm surge up through his ears and down his throat, spreading into his chest and along the trench of his tummy. Alcohol really is the cure to everything. 

Mitch gives him a deadpan look, the strobe lights alternating across the glossy surface of his hazel irises, highlighting smugness. “You’ve been gawking for five minutes. Put your pride back in your pants and go talk to her.” 

The curly-haired vampire flashes him a light smirk over the rim of his drink, absentmindedly tapping his two initial rings along the bottom of the highball cup. “Ever so blunt, aren’t you?”

Mitch scuffs, taking a swig from his trusty beer bottle. Out of everything, that’s the one aspect Harry despises about his best mate— that he goes to a club and orders the same drink every time. Where was the fun in that? Where was the excitement of trying something new? When you have an eternity, the least you could do is utilize it to your advantage. Cycling through every cocktail in human history is a prime example of making the best out of immortality.  

But Mitch is a creature of habit— as are most of their kind— and Harry knows he won’t shake easily. Not when it comes to surrendering his preferred beverage, and definitely not when it comes to sticking his nose in Harry’s intimate business. Meddling and being irritating are what best friends are for. 

“What can I say? Pep talks are my forte.” The older monster remarks sarcastically, bumping his bottle against Harry’s glass in encouragement, using the spout of his container to point in the general direction of the mysterious girl. “Now go make dinner.”

“But, darlinggggg,” Harry whines playfully, a smirk still tugging at the corners of his slightly liquor-swollen lips. “I made dinner last night. Isn’t it your turn?”

Mitch rolls his eyes and shoves Harry’s shoulder harshly, with just enough force that it actually has some type of impact this time around. “Just go, before she gets creeped out by your staring.” 

Harry’s own irises copy his friend’s actions as he pushes himself up from the bar, rubbing at the new sore spot on his shoulder with an exaggerated pout present. “Ow.”

Mitch blinks at him flatly, fighting off a grin. “You’ve had worse. Go.”

Harry swivels on his heel, once again facing the group of tipsy girls at the other end of the counter. It appears that most of them have dispersed into the dance floor, having found partners to entertain them for the time being, moving to the music as if there are no other people in the room. They had left behind three of their companions, one of which is Harry’s aspiring hookup; he gets the feeling that the two girls had stayed behind out of the kindness of their hearts, feeling too guilty to leave the runt of the litter all on her own. He hopes that’s the case because if so, the second Harry inserts himself into the situation, they’ll take that chance and split, leaving him to tend his meal in peace.

He tucks one large hand into the front pocket of his trousers, the grip on his glass tightening a smidge, rings biting into his skin as the condensation of the chilled tequila cools the small spike of pain. He spins his lionhead ring around his finger within his slacks, gradually drifting closer as he goes through a checklist of prized pick-up lines he could use to garner her attention. He ducks and dodges inebriated club-goers with ease now that he’s had something to take the edge off, finally reaching the end of the bar, slowly coming to a halt right behind his target for the night. 

Harry nearly passes out as soon as her scent hits him. 

It’s faint and tender and nothing quite like anything he’s encountered before, a mixture of honey and lavender that permeates through her normal perfume. He feels like his head’s been put through a wringer, his whole body clenching for a moment as raging sparks erupt across the pit of his belly. He indulges a deep breath, willing the blazing current away in order to keep his cool, but all he can see flashing before his eyes are images of her leaving traces of that smell smeared all over his face as he bobs his head between her quivering thighs.

He takes another penetrating inhale, centering his mind back into the present. He needs to behave.

Her friends spot him immediately, their side of the conversation faltering to ash. They give Harry a wide-eyed once-over, mouths parting in slight shock as they drink up his attractive appearance, gazes lingering along his thick chest as it strains the baby blue material of his tee. Their sights drag across his broad shoulders, dainty collarbones, and strong neck, faces gawking without remorse, blinking emptily at the slope of his sharp jaw and the peaks of his prominent cheekbones. They seem to be at a loss for words the second his dimples indent into place, his brows shrugging in a half-assed greeting before he cocks his head to side a tad, voice velvet as it directs towards the girl they had forgotten existed.  

“I’m guessing you’re the designated driver?”

Y/N jumps slightly in response at the new addition to the painfully dying conversation, not recognizing the heavy English accent and deep baritone that booms behind her. She had been wondering why Melissa and Isabel had stopped talking so abruptly, and she now has her answer. 

Y/N slowly goes to cast a curious glance over her shoulder and Harry can hear the pulse flaring in her neck from the sudden intrusion to her surroundings. His fangs prick along the inside of his bottom lip due to carnal instincts; he has to will them back into receding. 

 When her eyes land on the owner of the random words, her finger immediately halts its swirling motions along the hem of her glass.

‘Fuck.’ is the only thought that registers through her short-circuiting mind. 

The lanky, curly-haired brunette that stands before her gives a gentle yet confident smile, the gesture dazzling even in the low lighting of the atmosphere. He’s absolutely gorgeous, with deep pits carving into his cheeks, perfect teeth complimenting full cherry red lips, eyes the color of a rainforest canopy, and a broad frame that is somehow not overwhelming. He’s sporting neatly ironed tan slacks, a fitted cotton shirt with a cute yet crude graphic at its center, a fancy plaid coat, and crisp yellow Vans without a single smudge in sight.

Y/N can’t help but take notice of all the little details of his fit, especially the accessories. A beautiful pearl necklace laid along his delicate clavicle, a cross resting between his defined pectorals, and a matching earring dangling from his earlobe. Not to mention the array of clunky rings arranged along nimble fingers, hugging a tall glass carrying caramel liquor and somehow managing to dwarf the cup’s size. The extra decoration is sensual in such an unexpectedly delicious manner. 

The hand he has tucked in his pants ducks out to comb through his dark auburn ringlets and Y/N can feel her mouth water at the new round of elegant rings. The action activates the cologne Harry had thoughtfully spritz in specific pressure points along his body, the scent of tobacco and vanilla traveling through the fog-heavy air and causing Y/N’s stomach to summersault. 

The young man is as close to flawless as anyone could ever come. 

Y/N feels an unmistakable sharp pain shoot through her ankle, and she comes to the realization that it had been the tip of one of her friend’s heels. The reality check jars her out of the embarrassing daze he’d spelled onto her, open mouth snapping shut and her lashes fluttering over her previously unblinking eyes. 

“Oh! Uhm—uh—” She clumsily twists sideways to fully face him, swallowing thickly and tasting the remnants of the alcohol she’d barely been nursing. “N-No. I’m not— well, I don’t think…? We Ubered here so that wouldn’t make any sense ‘cause I have no car to drive...so...” 

The boy chuckles softly at her choppy monologue, his laughter warm and inviting, similar to the look reflecting off his shiney irises, the golden flecks around his pupils seeming to swell and shrink from the rainbow lights cascading across them. Despite being caught off guard and utterly embarrassed, she can’t seem to break eye contact with him. The longer she gazes into his eyes, the more relaxed she begins to feel, a fuzzy heat stemming from the center of her belly and spreading up her neck and ears. 

Y/N gulps heavily like before, willing her tongue to produce a less embarrassing comment. “Sorry. Let me...Let me start over…Hi.”

“Hello.” He quips back playfully, lopsided grin widening in fond amusement. He lifts his drink up a bit in greeting. “M’Harry.”

“Y/N.” The girl squeaks out, copying his gesture because it’s easier than forcing her disoriented brain to try and come up with its own. 

Harry flirts his intent up and down Y/N’s body slowly, checking her out without any subtlety. He wants her to know he’s interested. 

When his sight locks with hers again, he bats his lashes sultrily and pours as much passion as he can into his tone, accent weighing in just right. “S’nice to meet you, Y/N.”

Her entire face prickles at how her name sounds dripping from those faultless raspberry lips. She’d pay anything to hear him say it again. “You, too.” 

This is not what Y/N intended. This is most definitely not what she’d intended to happen when she’d reluctantly agreed to go out with some coworkers on a Friday night, giving in simply because she had promised herself she’d be more social within her new job. 

She had moved to California roughly two months ago, wanting to get away from her old life in the small, boring town she hated to call home. Buying the flight had been a drastic decision made when she had been under the influence of something she’d rather not admit, but the following day— after she had sobered up from a wicked hangover— she found herself not wanting to cancel the trip. Found herself craving the excitement and adventure of beginning anew somewhere far away from everything she had ever known. 

All of Y/N’s friends back home had supported her without hesitation, egging her preposterous idea and congratulating her on “getting the fuck out of here.” Her family had been a little less supportive, but after a few heartfelt chats about following your ambitions and a budgeting lesson from her cousin, they had gingerly gotten on board. They understood that keeping her trapped in that lame town where nothing really happened wasn’t the way to ensure her success in life. Therefore, the people closest to her had swallowed their opinions and respected her choice to dive off the deep end, in search of something better beyond the borders of their tiny city. 

Within a week, Y/N had secured a decent job at a semi-popular cafe, courtesy of a connection from a family friend. Within two weeks, after many sleepless nights full of Rocky Road ice cream and the bright white pages of ApartmentFinder.com, she had managed to book a nice flat close to her place of work. It was a miracle, if she’d ever seen one. Especially within the crowded, expensive community that is Los Angeles. Within three weeks, she had been walking out of the giant glass building that was LAX with only two suitcases in tow, boarding an Uber to her new life. 

Things had never seemed more picturesque, she’d thought. Everything was falling into place in a way that seemed almost blessed by the universe.

Then, the culture shock hit. 

California was different. It’s was so fucking different than anything she’d ever faced and she wasn’t prepared for the social difficulties she’d have to hurdle. All her life, Y/N had grown up with the same people around her, spending every school year with them up until graduation, expanding her friend group as time passed. Even after high school, she’d remained closely connected with most of her graduating class. The region she lived in was tiny, tight-knit and friendly; it was hard not to. She couldn’t even go to the store for groceries without bumping into at least three people from her Algebra II class. 

Point being, it had been ages since Y/N had been put in a situation where she actively had to try and make friends. She’d been through that challenge way back in kindergarten and had never been hit with it again. 

Until it smacked her across the head here in LA.

Y/N didn’t mesh well with Californians, she quickly found out. They were all about crazy parties and club-hopping, whereas Y/N had been raised on community cookouts and mass sleepovers. They enjoyed getting cross-faded and streaking down the beach at two in the morning, meanwhile Y/N liked stripping down to her undies and spending the night binging Queer Eye while stuffing her face with Cheeze-Its and Snickers bars. They freely boasted about their sex adventures while bussing down tables at the restaurant, while Y/N’s intimate life had been nonexistent since the move. 

It was just...startling, to put it lightly. It wasn’t what she had expected at all, and that’s mostly her fault for not doing the correct amount of research before jumping headfirst into a cliche LifeTime film. 

Therefore, Y/N had made a pact with herself one month in, swearing to let loose and allow her surroundings to sweep her into a new dynamic— into a new, social butterfly version of herself. She’d started accepting the invitations from her coworkers to go out at night, and she’d started putting more effort into being open to wild experiences, no matter how scary they might seem. Shutting down and refusing to mold to her environment would only result in her having to return home with her tail between her legs, and she’d rather jump naked off a pier than see her parents’ faces wracked with pity. 

And that’s exactly what she’d done a couple nights ago, at the encouragement of the group of girls she was at the club with now. It had, in turn, ended in her coming down with a mild cold, but at least now she’d be able to tell her friends back home a cool story about dropping inhibitions. 

Dropping inhibitions is also why Y/N’s here tonight, dressed in the most party-like outfit she could put together, prodding an overly-boozy drink into her system, attempting to release some of the tension that had been building in her head for the last couple of weeks since she’d left her old life behind. That’s why she’s here, with strands of her blow-dried hair catching on the dark red gloss Melissa has slathered on her mouth in a thick layer. That’s why she’s here, with synthetic smoke scratching at her lungs and drunken men and women bumping into her every two minutes, most of them too busy sticking their tongues down each other’s throats to realize they’d almost toppled her off her seat. That’s why she’s here, with a blasé expression plastered across her features as her coworkers talk over her head without a second thought, her mind far away from the walls of this overhyped horror house. 

Y/N had been thinking about how she’d just started her Disney+ membership, finding comfort in putting together a mental checklist of all the movies she’s going to plow through the second she sets foot past the doorframe of her apartment. Indulging on her childhood was an ideal form of escapism, in her opinion. She’s positive Walt Disney would agree. 

That’s what her brain had been lost in when Harry’s deep, melodic voice had interrupted her daydreams, sending her spiraling into an embarrassing performance of nerve-induced hysteria. 

Now here she is, blinking back at him dumbly, eyes the smallest bit damp from the smoke machine and neon flashes of light. And here he is, smirking at her over the rim of his glass, eyes raking down her wired up body suggestively as he takes a calm sip from what appears to be the straight tequila in his colossal, bejeweled hand. 

The English boy takes a gradual step closer to her, wanting to make sure he’s not crossing any boundaries that would make her uncomfortable. The scent of his cologne intensifies and she feels a fiery heat suddenly pour between her clasped thighs. It just hits her how long it’s truly been since she’s gotten laid and fuck, it’s sad.

Harry begrudgingly peels his attention away from Y/N for a second, aiming his words towards the girls standing behind her with their mouths still opened stupidly. Even from a respectful distance, his warm breath still washes across her jaw and cheek, causing electricity to zip down her spine. “You don’t mind if I steal her for a bit, do you?”

‘Yeah,’ Y/N thinks in the back of her muddled skull, ‘that’s definitely tequila.’

Isabel and Melissa slowly shake their heads in unison, glancing at each other as if to confirm he’d just spoken to them. 

The edges of Harry’s lips jolt into a kind, easygoing smile. “Thank you. Promise I’ll keep her safe.” 

Y/N feels her heart hiccup at his statement. If she’s not insanely mistaken, it appears to have carried an undertone of dirty intentions. God, she’s praying she’s not mistaken. 

The two girls clamber away on their tall pumps, rounding around Harry and pausing for a moment. They make moaning faces and vulgar motions behind him, encouraging Y/N to pursue the stranger. She then watches them disappear into the throng of crowded bodies, leaving her alone with the beautiful boy and her heart slamming against her ribs. 

Y/N focuses back onto Harry, licking her itching lips lightly, not knowing what to say next as he settles himself beside her. He rests his forearm on the counter along with his drink, tucking his other hand back into  his trouser pocket and fixing himself into a comfortable standing position, crossing his ankles nonchalantly. The friction between his jacket and the bar rides his sleeve up an inch or so, and Y/N gets a view of the anchor tattoo he has along his wrist, as well as the upside-down cross inked between his thumb and index finger. 

Harry catches her looking, mouth twitching with a smidge of arrogant self-assurance. He loves when girls drool over his tats. 

“I have more.” He remarks lightly, a pang of condescending pleasure shooting through his chest at the way she jerks and pins her gaze down to the floor. 

Blood rushes into her cheeks at the realization that she’s been caught and Harry’s teeth grind. It’s so hot watching her fidget for him. Maybe he finds her more attractive than he’d originally let on. “Would you like to see them?”

Y/N timidly coaxes herself into locking stares with him once again, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, barely nodding with a soft, “Sure.” 

She looks so pretty like that, he notices, staring up at him all doe-eyed and shy. It’d probably look even better if she were on her knees.

Yeah, he definitely likes her more than he’d thought. 

Harry proceeds to shift about, shrugging his coat off his strong shoulders, letting it slip down his lean arms and reveal the plethora of dark tattoos strewn across his left arm. Y/N watches avidly, drinking up every flex of his biceps under the black paint and every twitch of his pecs beneath his cotton shirt, the tendons along his throat going taut for just a moment. That moment is enough for her to etch the image into the back of her eyelids for the rest of her life. 

Harry tosses the article onto the table, extending his arm over its surface for her to get a better reading. She doesn’t miss the chance, her pupils tracing over every line and stroke of the pen, over every shaded area and meticulous detail. 

His voice comes out as a low, garbled murmur, his own irises studying her features with just as much intensity. “You can touch them, if you’d like. I don’t mind.”

After a moment of hesitation, the brim of her crystalline cup is replaced by the ridges of his smooth, tanned skin. She drags her digits over the naked mermaid, tracing the curve of her figure and the dip of her tail, then passing onto the stem of the large rose, ghosting over every thorn and prickle. Harry can feel her heartbeat through her fingertips and it’s making him throb. 

“They’re very pretty.” Y/N whispers, allowing her touch to fall away, palm finding refuge across the counter. “Did they hurt?” 

“A bit, yeah. But I’ve gotten so many done that I think I grew numb to the needle after a while.” Harry answers, shrugging one shoulder to show it’s no big deal. He grasps his glass once again and takes a drawn-out swig, extending the action just so she can see the way his Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows. Once the cup is back in its place, his tongue peeks out and swipes any leftover liquid from his rosy lips, which then settle into a coy simper. “Plus, I kinda like the pain.” 

Y/N’s breathing stutters in her lungs and she swiftly swerves the topic onto something much less explicit. “So why’d you ask if I was the designated driver? That’s kind of an odd question. Very out of the blue.” 

Harry lulls his middle finger across the hem of his glass, exactly how she had been doing earlier, the motion weighed by an innuendo. She seems to understand it, present in how she bites into the inside of her cheek. “I just figured that a pretty girl like you would have easily found someone to dance with. So when I saw you sitting here looking all bored with your drink barely touched…I just assumed, I suppose.” 

And there it is again— the blood pouring into her face. Christ, if she keeps that up, he’s going to fucking lose it.

“Thank you, that’s— that’s really sweet. Proper gentleman.” 

Harry runs his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes snapping to her tinted mouth for a second, establishing some sexual tension that he’ll expand on as they go. “Who doesn’t like a guy who knows how to treat a girl, right?” 

Y/N clears her throat softly, obviously phased by his forward compliment, but she tries to play it off. “To answer your question, I— uhm...I’m not really one for the club scene, I guess. Don’t really like it, but I didn’t want to be rude and turn down the invitation.” 

‘Good girl,’ Harry thinks, silently cheering her on for having more brain cells than the typical human. 

“Well, that’s where we share some common ground, then.” He chimes brightly, a soft smile bringing his dimples to life. “I don’t care for clubs, either, but my friends have an affinity for them so here I am.”

He gestures vaguely towards the general direction where he’d left Mitch, continuing his rant. “The choking smoke, the annoying strobe lights, the crowded floor, the drunk morons—”

“Bumping into you without giving a shit.” Y/N finishes his sentence, her vulgarity drawing a boyish giggle from her companion and now she’s convinced she’d do anything to hear him laugh like that again. “And there’s always a faint smell of vomit coming from somewhere.”

Harry slaps his hand down against the glass table in passionate agreement, voice pitching up slightly as his brows jump in emotion. “Right?! It’s fucking disgusting. Don’t understand how anyone could genuinely enjoy it.” 

Y/N nods vehemently, sharing the same expression of utter distaste towards the subject. “It honestly doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Why come here when you can go to, like, a nice bar somewhere, y’know?”

Harry blinks at her in astonishment, her opinion mirroring his own with psychic-like accuracy. “My thoughts exactly.” 

“Great minds think alike.” Y/N responds playfully, taking a hearty gulp from her drink since the first time he’d spotted her from across the room. 

After a comfortable pause, Harry speaks up, also entertaining another sip from his own drink, which is now nearly empty. “Are you from around here?”

She can’t be. Rarely anyone born and raised here is willing to bash the status quo, and never so openly. 

She’s once again mesmerized by the attractiveness of his rings, but manages to get her composure in check. “Kinda. I moved here about two months ago.” 

Precisely his point.

Harry releases a curious hum over the cup between his lips. “Let me be the one to officially welcome you to Cali, then! Where people go to shitty clubs for fun and tan themselves into a strip of leather.”

Y/N sputters out a half-suppressed giggle and Harry’s brows almost furrow at the weird fluttering in his stomach. He rarely gets it.

Y/N takes another deep gulp of what he thinks is probably an Old Fashioned, silently praising the way she’d finished it off so quickly. She crunches an ice shard between her teeth and lets it melt across her tongue before engaging again. “I’m guessing you’re not from around here either though, are you?”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to chuckle a bit and she fights off an endeared smile. 

“What gave it away?” He asks, purposefully doing a thicker, fuller accent, his teasing nature making the grin she’d just stifled fully break through.

Y/N lifts a shoulder offhandedly. “Your accent seems a little too…posh for this area. Or even this hemisphere.”

Harry scoffs softly, the pinky around his glass sticking up jokingly as he kinks an eyebrow at her, a few rouge curls falling across his forehead. “Keen ears, mate.”

Y/N lifts her drink up a bit with a playfully knowing air, mimicking an English dialect. “Cheers.”

He places his empty cup down on the counter, his middle finger once more ghosting around the edge absentmindedly. She notices the pastel yellow polish covering his nails, tiny black smiley faces decorating the lacquer.

“I like your nails.” She admires, tipping her empty lowball towards his hand for significance. “Did you do them yourself?”

Harry glances at his fingers, stretching and wiggling them out, his features taking on a bit of pride. “Sure did.” 

“Don’t think I’ve ever met a guy at a club who could pull off nail polish so easily.” 

The left edge of his lips flicks upwards. “How do you mean?”

Y/N’s gaze bounces back to his and the tone twirling in his jade irises tells her everything she needs to know about keeping this conversation going: he enjoys being praised. 

She chooses her next words carefully, wanting to appeal to his interests. “I mean that it looks amazing on you. The color suits your skin nicely, makes your hands look good.” 

Harry breaks eye contact, glimpsing down at his shoes and she realizes he’s actually trying to hide a blush. The fact that she had managed to coax one out of him boosts her confidence while simultaneously making his own waver. He’s never like this— never so easily flustered. He needs to get it together.

Harry tilts his chin back up, lower lip strung between his two front teeth. His voice comes out as a flirty laugh.

“Known you for maybe,” he looks at the beautiful watch on his wrist symbolically, “ten minutes, and you’re already stroking my ego just the way I like it. I think that’s a record.” 

Y/N doesn’t know if it’s the liquor she’d just consumed too quickly, or if it’s Harry’s intoxicatingly alluring scent dulling the region of her brain that controls fear, but she’s suddenly filled with a strange surge of courage and her thoughts are spilling down her semi-numb tongue before she can stop them. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good at stroking, so an ego’s not too hard to handle.”

Harry cocks an eyebrow, surprised at her brazen reply. He might have misjudged her more than he assumed. However, he can’t say he doesn’t enjoy this girl more than the one he thought he was going to receive. There’s just something about how she can match his banter without a problem, and how they share a lot of the same thoughts and opinions, that just lights a fire in his stomach. 

“Is that so?” His voice lowers in pitch and he scoots a step closer, fingers just barely brushing against her arm as he repositions himself against the bar. His question comes out as a sultry murmur. “What else can you handle?”

Y/N knows that she’s starting to cross a line, and with every passing moment, the likelihood of returning to her friends is getting smaller and smaller. She’s not mad about it. Riding off of the wave of confidence that had inflated her ego earlier, she mumbles her response back with the same tone and texture. “How about you buy me another drink and then maybe you’ll find out?”

Harry gives her a boyish grin and the indents that pop into his cheeks nudge his appearance from an incredibly attractive man to an adorable cheeky boy. He motions to the bartender for another round of drinks, only letting his eyes flicker away from her for the moment it takes to do it. “How do you like LA so far?”

“It’s...alright.” It’s Y/N’s turn to move closer to him now, flicking her hair off her shoulder, hoping that the motion releases the perfume she’d dabbed on her neck while getting ready. Judging by the darkening of Harry's eyes, it does just that. “It’s definitely a change in pace from where I used to live, but I think I’m slowly gaining the reigns. I feel like once I get acquainted, I could grow to love it.”

“LA’s definitely a toggle. You could either vibe with it, or it’ll eat you alive and spit you back out.” 

She bats her lashes at him in stunned fright at his bluntness, his face deadly serious without any twitch or give. 

Harry then bursts into high-pitched laughter, eyes crinkling shut and nose scrunching. “I’m just fucking with you, love. Ease up, hm?”

“You asshole!” Y/N exhales grandly, half in relief and half in indignation, slugging him on the shoulder. All she feels is hard muscle beneath. 

He continues to cackle, sticking his tongue out at her. “Looked like you were about to cry.” 

“It definitely crossed my mind, yeah!”

The bartender arrives with their fresh drinks and Harry tells the man to but both of Y/N’s on his tab. She feels her cheeks glow, telling him he doesn’t have to, but he waves it off and says he’s more than happy to serve such a nice girl as herself. Especially if she “hates the same things I do. Think of it as your initiation gift into the Anti-Club Club.” 

A handful of heartbeats tick by, full of comfortable quietness as they both savor their new beverages. Harry pipes up first, regaining their topic from before.

“But, yeah, Cali’s for sure a special place. You meet some cool people if you hang around for a while. But sometimes,” he pauses for a second, eyes gleaming with something she can’t quite interpret. “But sometimes you can meet a really interesting person in just one night.” 

“I don’t doubt it.” Y/N clicks her nails against her Old Fashioned distractedly as Harry fixes her with that beautiful emerald gaze that makes her ears tingle. She cocks her head to the side knowingly, flashing him a soft smirk. “Sometimes, you just happen to meet that one in a million.”

“A lucky strike.” He adds, lifting his tequila an inch off the counter and tilting it towards her in what appears to be a toast, irises dancing with a certain type of suggestive mischief. “To meeting interesting people.”

The human girl clinks the rim of her lowball to the edge of his cup, shrugging her brows and reciting his comment back to him. “To meeting interesting people.” 

Y/N measures how the rest of their interaction goes by how quickly her drink shrinks. 

When she reaches down to the first ice cube stacked on top, Harry has managed to coax multiple rounds of laughter out of her, his humor startlingly similar to her’s in the most refreshing way imaginable. She quickly learns that despite his broad shoulders, lean torso, dark inking, and flawless features, he’s a complete and total dork. His personality consists mainly of voice impersonations and contorting his expression into an endless array of silly faces, which she takes to easily.

By the time Y/N’s amber drink has reached halfway down its container, the default touch barrier between the two has broken completely. There had been a few caresses prior, but now it’s more frequent, more noticeable, and each touch extends in time. She had been the one to initiate getting physical, which had sat so right in her stomach because that meant he was respectful and patient— definitely unlike most men in clubs. 

The mortal girl had gently shoved Harry’s chest when he’d made an nonchalant joke about how losing his swim trunks at a nude beach had been both the best and worst experience of his life, her cheeks boiling as she had felt nothing but more toned muscle beneath the cotton fabric of his top. She had gone back to tracing at his tattoos the further they got into sharing anecdotes and opinions, glancing up at him for permission in the middle of their exchange and smiling to herself when he’d nodded casually without a second thought. As the conversations continue, they both unintentionally get closer in distance to the point where the arm Harry had settled on the bar is now fully wrapped around the small of her back. She willingly leans into him, their knees and thighs brushing with every shift of their bodies and those minute moments begin to pile up their excitement.

By the time the alcohol in her possession bottoms out, she is nearly sitting in his lap, faces only a few inches apart. Y/N can’t recall half of what she had said, the subject having steered into so many different places that she couldn’t be bothered to keep track. Besides, she’s too focused on trying to keep a straight face as Harry plays footsie with her below the counter, his light yellow sneaker toying with her heeled velvet wedge. 

An important question on his behalf snaps Y/N out of her flirty stupor.

“So how do you like your new home?”

She blinks at him slowly, partially to try and give a seductive tinge to the interaction and partially because the liquor has started to truly settle in. It takes her a few heartbeats to process the inquiry. “I love it, actually. It’s a place of my own, for the first time ever. I couldn’t be happier.”

The corners of Harry’s swollen lips tick in genuine happiness on her behalf. “That sounds amazing. Congratulations on such a big step.” 

“Thank you! What about yourself? Renting anything neat?”

“Oh, I own a condo here.” He mentions casually, outlining the criss-cross pattern along the circumference of his highball glass. “I used to visit so often that I finally just decided to pull the trigger on one.”

“Look at you, investing in real estate.” She says in a teasing voice, her heel grazing around his calf slowly, cheeks sizzling as he parts his legs a bit to allow her the pleasure of traveling higher up.

“Mmhm.” Harry licks his red lips, free hand starting to trace over her own. The tips of his fingers are calloused and cold, the motion of them over her skin almost pulling a tremble out of her body. She does her best to restrain it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “Is it nice?” 

“Hm?”

His lips twitch in endearment at how he’s managing to make her lose her train of thought. “Your apartment, darling.”

She rests the rim of her drink on the bottom of her lip as she speaks. “It’s nothing huge or fancy, but it’s a decent size and l can call it home. Can’t get much better than that.”

Y/N loves how Harry's eyes flit to her lips for what she thinks is the billionth time tonight, his vision sketching along the curve of her cupid’s bow and dotting every peak.

Another warm glow of confidence spikes through her veins and she’s talking before she can analyze her thoughts. “Well, at least I think it can’t get much better than that. Although, I could just be biased. Could probably use an outside opinion.” 

It takes Harry a moment to register what she’s suggesting, a light blush creeping up the base of his neck as he realizes how he’s stopped so abruptly. Humans usually never get him this unnerved and it’s one of many times she’s made it happen. “An outside opinion?”

Y/N lists her head to the side. It sounds like he’s accepting the vague invitation, but she’s so anxious to mess this up that she’s second guessing herself with every passing second. However, with every touch, she wants Harry more and more, and that’s enough to propel her towards a more direct approach. “Mmhm. Like yours, maybe. Would you like to come back and see it?”

Harry pauses for a few of her heartbeats, and then bobs his head in acceptance. She can breath again. 

He finishes off the last inch or so of his tequila, a wicked grin creeping its way across his pretty, flushed mouth, long fingers carding into his loosely arranged curls. “I’m more than happy to be of service.”

A smile works its way onto Y/N’s own face at his response, her foot dropping back down his leg slowly. “I’m glad to hear.”

“Mm.” Harry takes her hand completely now and she almost moans at how much bigger his are, his rings pinching a bit, skin rough in some areas, but silky smooth in others. And strangely icy, but she enjoys it. “Shall we say goodbye to your friends first? I wouldn’t want them to worry about you.”

He knows her “friends” couldn’t care less, but he wants to be as much of a gentleman as possible. Romanticize, romanticize, romanticize.

Y/N snorts, knowing full well that they’d probably purposefully embarrass her in front of him as a joke. 

She squeezes his grasp lightly, giving him a soft smile. “You’re sweet, but it’s fine. They were actually behind you earlier, encouraging this whole thing, so I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.” 

Harry hums deep in the back of his throat and the sound melts into a cute chuckle. “I’m glad they helped, then. Think you can deliver them my thanks some other time?”

The young woman chews on the inside of her cheek at his comment, realizing that it suggests he aims on keeping her occupied for the rest of the night and well into the morning. She has to will herself not to lurch forward and kiss at his annoyingly perfect lips right then and there. “I’ll make sure to pass the message along.” 

With one last cocky simper, Harry helps her down from the stool and pays off their tab, offering her his jacket since most of her outfit is made of flimsy fabrics. Y/N takes it appreciatively, lashes fluttering when his scent envelopes her like a blanket. It’s the unique smokiness from his cologne, mixed with a slightly sweeter smell that she assumes is his shampoo, and a bit of something that reminds her of a vanilla candle. The aromas are sewn into every thread of his coat and she can’t wait to have those scents glued all over her more deliberately later tonight.  

Harry turns and plunges them into the throng of partiers, weeding through bodies with a type of determination that makes her insides twist. His arm comes up in front of him as he plows people out of the way with absolutely no regret, leaving her to throw out a few half-assed apologies in his wake. The idea that he’s excited to be alone with her has Y/N’s insides churning. 

Once they escape all of the grinding limbs and tight spaces, stumbling into the cool air of the starry night, she takes a huge gulp of air. She prays it will tide over the jitters running along the inside of her tummy. She has just now realized how riled up he’d gotten her and it’s all coming to a raging boil. 

Harry paces past the bouncer, throwing up two fingers in parting. “Later, Brock.” 

The security guard gives the young vampire a confused look, not recognizing him at all and wondering how he knows his name. 

Y/N repeats Harry’s phrase for the hell of it, squeezing his hand jestingly and he glimpses over his shoulder, grinning at her with sheer amusement and something much deeper swirling around the specks of copper in his irises. If there was a bit more light, perhaps she would have noticed the way his irises had glinted blood red instead of olive green.

She ogles at the way his back muscles shift and flex below his pastel blue shirt, her mind vaguely taking note of the light yellow detailings along the cuffs and collar. The tee is intriguing and fun and she hopes he’ll let her sleep in it after they’re done. 

She also gets distracted by the baby curls decorating the nape of his neck. She’s itching to tug at them and see what his response would be. Would he shiver in her grasp and let out a soft moan, or would he smirk darkly and tell her to go harder?

Harry suddenly halts, snapping her out of her thoughts as he presents his car. Y/N’s jaw nearly falls off. “This is yours?!”

She gawks at the vintage jet black convertible before her, feeling like she isn’t worthy of its chic presence. It looks new, shining in the street lamps like a thousand diamonds, not a scratch or dent in sight. 

Harry unlocks the passenger’s door, opening it and guiding her inside with a gentle pull at their clasped hands, shrugging his brows playfully. “Hope it’s not too shabby for your liking.”  

“Are you kidding?” The human mumbles in awe as she ducks down into the patented leather seat, running her free hand over the elegant cover. She sighs softly at the way his smell is lingering inside the vehicle, just as much as it sticks to his clothes. “I feel like I should bow to it or something.”

He laughs fully now, leaning down to get a view of her sitting prim and proper in his favorite car, looking gorgeous in her flowy silk pants, lace creme blouse, and his own clothes. He gnaws at his bottom lip to withhold a needy groan. “I think you fit right in.” 

Y/N feels warmth erupt into her face and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to distract her fingers from shaking. “Looks like I’m not the only one that’s good at stroking egos.”

“S’hardly a task. You make it easy, doll.” 

It’s the second pet name he’s called her tonight— it’s strangely vintage, same as his car— and she can’t wait to hear what others he has in store. Preferably in the form of breathy pants and broken whines.

Y/N flicks her gaze up at him through heavy lashes, attempting to stifle a sheepish smile. “Quite the charmer.”

A moment of silence suspends in the air, a light breeze filtering through Harry’s curls, swaying the jewelry around his neck as well as the earring hanging from his lobe. Harry speaks up with a type of hushed desire she hadn’t heard from him yet. “Can I kiss you?”

She blinks up at him once in mild surprise and then releases a sigh of utter relief. “Fuck, I thought you’d never ask.” 

Her hand reaches upwards outside the confines of the car, knitting into the thick fabric of his shirt and yanking him down. The second their mouths meet, it sets off a dozen fireworks in the pit of her stomach. His is softer than she had imagined, wet and warm, and his tongue carries the sourness of the tequila he’d been swishing the whole night. 

Harry’s breath hitches in his throat, and then a quiet whimpery moan streams down his tongue onto her itchy skin. “Christ, that was hot.”

As much as she loves the taste of him— the tartness of the alcohol mixed with an inherent sweetness his lips carry— she forces herself to pull away, but keeps her sweaty forehead pressed to his. “Yeah. It was.”

With one hand still gripping the car door, Harry uses his other to cup her chin lightly, guiding her into another kiss. Now that they have both developed a feel for the other, this one is less tentative than the last. She tastes so fucking good on his tongue, like strawberry syrup—probably from her lipgloss— orange bitters, and bourbon. He just has to have more of it.

A helpless gasp escapes Y/N when Harry's teeth graze against her upper lip, only nipping enough that she craves more. More of anything he has to offer. 

He pulls away and the whine that plucks her vocal chords feeds his eternal soul like nothing else has in a while.  

The young man grins at her for a moment, half in smug satisfaction, half red-faced and desperate, before carefully closing the car door and making his way to the driver’s side. He slides in with ease, shuts his own door and buckles up with a click of the belt. The simple action has never looked so attractive before, but she’s certain that anything Harry does with his ring-covered hands would be attractive.  

He fishes his keys from his front pocket, asking her where she lives in order to try and orient himself. As it turns out, she’s not too far away from his own flat. He knows exactly which condominium she’s referring to without having to even search it up— a perk of living here for a few decades.

He also chuckles to himself a bit at the fact that she hadn’t mentioned he shouldn’t drive under the influence. Vampires have an extremely high tolerance due to their self-healing properties, so the drinks he’d had only gave him a soft, warm buzz. He just finds it comical— and slightly arousing— that she’s so eager to get at him that she’d let that detail slip her mind.

Harry starts the car, but doesnt pull out of the parking spot. Instead, he glances at Y/N as a crease appears in his beautifully sculpted brows. The idea of something displeasing him bothers her, and she’s about to ask what it is when he murmurs a quick, “Just a second, dove.” He reaches across to grab her seatbelt, pulling it over her body and securing it into place on her behalf, making sure it’s nice and proper before leaning back in his seat. He doesn’t know why he cared to do it, but he had. 

The simple action leaves another layer of heat on Y/N’s cheeks. Having him bent over her like that was just a teaser of what was going to unfold later and it already has her mind spinning. She can only imagine how much of a mess he’s going to leave her when there’s no clothes restraining them.

“Thanks.” She whispers, playing with the tips of her fingers.

“No need to thank me. Just wanna keep that pretty face in one piece.” 

He plops one hand on the steering wheel as he shifts into reverse, carefully backing out of his spot. His arm ducks behind her seat, head turning and veins chiseling into his neck. It takes all of Y/N’s willpower not to lean up and begin to darken his tanned skin with hickeys. 

Harry cruises up to the exit of the club parking lot, waiting impatiently for the turn signal, digits tapping away at the leather below them. Y/N can see him throwing pained little glances at her from her peripheral vision, obviously restless to feel her skin sliding against his. Each look causes the warmth between her thighs to swell. 

She’s talking before she can stop herself, voice bashful and soft as ever, yet full of boldness from the liquor she’d consumed. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to do something to you that’s gonna get us both killed.”

The tapping of his fingers halts and he cranes his head to face her fully, ignoring the flashing green arrow on the stoplight before them. 

Harry reaches over the center console, his nose dragging up the length of her cheekbone, causing her to squeak out a tiny whimper at the feathery sensation. It’s the first time tonight he’s touched her so intimately. 

The sentence he grits out next makes her entire body visibly shutter, his breath hot against her ear, damp lips smearing over her jaw as his oath burns into her flesh.

“And if you say something like that to me again, I promise you I’ll pull this car over and make you eat every fucking word.” 

[hajimewhore]

☾ɴᴇᴋᴏᴍᴀ ꜱʟᴇᴇᴘ ʜᴀʙɪᴛꜱ

➸Part two of Haikyuu boys and their sleep habits ➸gn!Reader, fluff fluff fluff, a lil humor, sleep time💤

[Masterlist] [Karasuno]

✰ Kozume Kenma ➸ Kenma of course games dusk till dawn, but when the two of you started dating he’d set his game aside to curl up with you in bed, until you fell asleep stroking his hair. ➸ Initially, you found it sweet that he’d sacrifice late gaming time to cuddle and fall asleep with you. Until you woke up one night and saw him playing away at his switch, blue light illuminating his intense face in the late hours. ➸ Turns out, he kept whatever game console he’d been playing under his pillow, and waited till you fell asleep to resume gaming. ➸ It’s still sweet that he didn’t want to keep you up or make you worry about his gaming habit, but you still want him to get his sleep. ➸ When you pluck the game from his hands (provided it’s at a good saving point), he jumps and eyes you cautiously. “Get some sleep, Kenma.” ➸ He sighs and nods in agreement, curling back up to you.

✰ Kuroo Tetsurou ➸ The way Kuroo sleeps with pillows mashed on either side of his head is honestly baffling, and you’re genuinely surprised he hasn’t suffocated in his sleep yet. Seriously, who taught this cat to sleep like that? ➸ Though it is how he sleeps the most comfortable, so you let it slide when you spend the night. You get your fair share of pictures, documenting his odd sleep habit for your (Adorable) Photos To Embarrass Kuroo collection. ➸ Kuroo only decides to stop his pillow ear muff sleep method one night when he realizes he can’t see your face when he falls asleep. ➸ It starts genuinely upsetting him because he can’t lean over and peck your nose, or brush your cheek, or tuck your head into his shoulder, he can’t even cuddle you properly! ➸ And your face is definitely a face he desperately wants to kiss with soft and sweet goodnights. He also really wants to wake up in the early morning to your gentle countenance, as you snooze away without a worry (and not wake up to all these damn pillows). ➸ Now when you spend the night, he’s learned to fall asleep without the mess of pillows glued to his head. ➸ Funny enough, he gets roasted more by his friends for not having his iconic bed head than when he has his bed head.

✰ Yaku Morisuke ➸ No way in hell is Yaku gonna be caught being back hugged, or worse, LITTLE SPOONED. ➸ The guy is 5’5” and ALWAYS wants to be the big spoon. He refuses to be the little spoon. ➸ Though, eventually, through trial and tribulation you lowkey train him into loving it... ➸ Every time you hug him from the back, you press a kiss to his cheek and tell him something you love about him. Though initially tense at the action, he of course preens at the attention you’re showering him with and turns to presses kisses all over your face. ➸ He’ll kiss your nose, cheeks, forehead, lips, chin, anything with a surface area on your face, Yaku just loves to reciprocate your affection 10x over. ➸ If he’s had an especially rough practice, you give him a massage before bed, pressing kisses to his back as you lay behind him and wrap your arms around his middle. Yaku gives in with little complaint to being the little spoon, a content smile on his face. ➸ You’re not saying you Pavlov dog trained him or anything, but Yaku does wind up loving being the little spoon a tad more than he did beforehand.

✰ Haiba Lev ➸ Lev isn’t an easy person to sleep with by any means. He’s 6′5″, his long legs take up a lot of space, and he’s a crybaby that always wants to be the little spoon (but is too scared to ask). ➸ He always tends to stretch in his sleep, long limbs somehow growing longer as he nearly pushes you off the bed. In some cases, you actually wind up waking up abruptly on the floor. For this reason alone, you purchased a plush rug for the side you sleep on. ➸ He doesn’t mean to of course, but he sometimes accidentally smacks you in the face when he tosses and turns in his sleep. You’re thankful he doesn’t practice his spikes in his sleep at least, so you make sure to snuggle as close as possible to avoid any sleepy foul play. ➸ Lev steals the covers! With all that leg and height, he really can’t help it if he ends up pulling the sheets off of you in the night, curling up comfortably in his makeshift cocoon. ➸ You’ve learned he’s a heavy sleeper though, so if you wake up with a chill you don’t hesitate to steal back your share of the sheets. After comfortably situated, you warm up again by wrapping your arms around his middle (knowing in the morning he’ll wake up eagerly to being your little spoon!)

✰ Yamamoto Taketora ➸ He always wants to watch a movie before going to bed. He’ll sling his arm around your shoulder, and get nice and cozy as you set up your laptop. You lean into him comfortably, and lay back in the pillows to find something trending on Netflix to watch. ➸ As it turns out, he never finishes anything you watch, he always falls into a dead asleep within the first 15 minutes. You were surprised the first time you heard his soft snoring next to you, and chalked it up to a long and tiring day. ➸ Except, it happens every night. You’ve started to realize it’s not so much that he wants to watch a movie, it’s that he wants to fall asleep to a movie. ➸ Yamamoto is definitely the type to need background noise to fall asleep, always twisting and turning tirelessly if there’s too much empty noise. ➸ You love watching movies together with him though, so you learned to put on movies you don’t plan on finishing together. ➸ It’s cute seeing how invested he is to start. Yamamoto is always eager to spend more time with you and end your night together, but he inevitably starts nodding off with his head slumping on top of yours. ➸ You close the lap top each time, and shimmy yourselves into the covers, completely content with the routine you’ve found.

✰ Kai Nobuyuki ➸ He snores, so, so, so loudly. ➸ You don’t want him to feel bad about it, because you love to sleep over and don’t want him to feel guilty about something he can’t help, so you don’t mention it to him. ➸ But your lack of sleep due to the earth shattering snores is driving you mad. So instead, you look up ways to to quickly fall asleep. ➸ You start your days early, try to be active when you can, test a myriad of teas and snacks that supposedly induce sleep easier, and it turns out to be quite fun experimenting with different methods. It starts to be a little game to see if you can fall asleep before Kai does. ➸ And eventually, it starts to work! You fall asleep before him, and conk out through the night. ➸ In actuality, it turns out that Kai once saw an open browser on your laptop, googling ‘ways to fall asleep’. He also happened to notice your habit of drinking sleep time remedies. ➸ He kind of figured it must’ve been due to his snoring, he remembered his teammates teasing him about it at camp in high school. So, at night, he started to force himself to stay awake and listen for the sound of your even breathing. ➸ Though he doesn’t mind one bit, kissing your forehead when you’re finally asleep, love is compromise!

✰ Fukunaga Shouhei ➸ Fukunaga is a comedian by day, and comedian by night. The guy does not stop. ➸ He Is a chronic sleep talker, and often sleep walks (sleep acts, more like). You find yourself staying up some nights just to see what he’ll do next. ➸ You caught him in the living room once, doing what you can only assume was pitching a tent. Was he camping in his dreams? ➸ Depending on what he does, you’ll sometimes casually suggest what you should do for your next date, like camping. “How did you know I wanted to that, babe?!” (He’s convinced you’re a psychic). ➸ It’s insane to you how long the acts go on too. He never flits between dreams, always one routine. You think he kayaked to an island once, judging by the way he mimed it on the couch, sleep talking about the dolphins and the birds. ➸He’ll sleep talk his comedy routines also, “Thanks for coming everyone!”, and you have to stifle a laugh so not to wake him. ➸ You always let it run it’s course since he’s not hurting anyone or himself. You sigh contently when he finally returns to bed after whatever wild adventure he was having, and he always tucks his head into your shoulder muttering about his love for you.

✰ Inuoka Sou ➸ The biggest, love struck, dork. Always, always, always wants to cuddle, and it’s the cutest thing ever.  ➸ He follows you around all night before it’s time to sleep, not unlike a puppy would. He brushes his teeth with you, and even learned to do a skin care routine just to spend more time with you in the bathroom. And he only did so because he spent entirely too long pouting in bed, tossing and turning, while waiting for you to finish. ➸ Cuddling with Inuoka is always warm and wholesome... until it isn’t. On hot summer nights, you can’t stand to be wrapped up in his body heat. It’s perfect for colder weather and winter nights, but not the scorching summer. ➸ Despite being the heaviest sleeper, always snoozing past his alarm and snoring away when you try to wake him, he instantly wakes up when you try to move away from his arms. ➸ You only wanted to get a air and rid of all the heat, but Inuoka looks up at you with the sleepiest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen, “Babe, where are you going?” ➸ Every time, you give in, “No where baby.” ➸ It’s just once a year, for the entirety of the summer, right? You can withstand that much (and maybe invest in a better fan).

[Masterlist] [Karasuno]

[human-do-a-worm]

An Unkall boy and his Terran

Well folks, you've been waiting patiently for it, I've been procrastinating about making it, and here it finally is. The first story in the follow up series. I hope you enjoy it.

It had been just over a quarter cycle since the attack on Unkall Prime. Jakob’s wound had healed, and left another scar, indistinguishable from the countless others he bore. Both Ruthal and Jakob had gotten used to each other by now, and they truly saw themselves as a family. Ruthal’s schooling had ended for his experience cycle, where Unkal children take a cycle to gain claws on experience about the jobs they had chosen for themselves. Ruthal, with aspirations to be a soldier, was eager to ask his adoptive father about coming to work with him.

“Welcome home Ruthal, how was your last day for a cycle?”

“It was great dad, We got to spend the day in the library reading tactics instead of the usual training.”

“So, what’s next? You don’t have to start today or tomorrow, but what would you like to do for your experience cycle?”

“Well dad, I want to learn how to be a soldier. Not just the marching, and not just the tactics. I want to feel what it’s like to be in combat.”

“Well son, you’re talking to just the right person. Follow me, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”

The aging Terran led the Unkall boy into the basement, and slid open a panel on the wall to reveal a security console. After typing in a password, the wall next to the console slid back, and dropped into a hole in the floor, revealing a hallway with three doors on either side.

“This is my hobby room. I come in here every now and then, but not nearly as much as I should. There’s two important rooms you need to see in here.”

Jakob pushed the button beside the metal door at the end of the hallway, sliding it up and out of the way.

“This is my firing range. Marksmanship is a perishable skill, and something that takes a lot of practice. My collection has everything from modern plasma and laser weapons, to the traditional kinetic weapons of Terra. There’s even a few in here that I made myself. The laser weapons charge and cool in their docks, and the plasma cartridges are refilled at the notches on the firing lane. The ballistic weapons are trickier. Their cartridges have to be reloaded by hand, so after you’re done shooting, make sure you sweep the shell casings into the bucket by the door. Now, for the other room”

Jakob took Ruthal out of the firing range and led him to the door directly across from it, sliding the door open in the same manner.

“This is my equipment room. All my uniforms, protective vests, helmets, armor, and miscellaneous gear is in here. Every piece of this stuff has seen action, so be gentle with it.”

Ruthal points to the clear doors of a case containing a prototype armored combat suit

“What’s that?”

“Well son, that’s my old armored combat suit. I wore that from the time I was in the infantry, all the way up until I left the Terran Empire. I wonder if it still works.”

Jakob opened up the case and took off the helmet, pushing a small button on the inside. Suddenly the visor lights up with a menacing orange glow, and white text can be seen scrolling on the helmet’s heads up display. Suddenly, a robotic female voice speaks up from the suit.

“Jakob, is that you? Your biometrics are the same, but you look so different. You’ve got scars all over your face, and your hair is gray. How long have I been in shutdown?”

“Relax Annie, I’m just old now. You’ve been in shutdown for a few years now. A lot has changed since then.”

Ruthal spoke up in a scared tone.

“Dad, what is that?”

“Relax son. This is Annie. Her designation is AINI-137. She’s an Artificial Intelligence Neural Interface that allows the wearer of the suit to function at peak performance.”

“Artificial Intelligence is banned. Every species that made it was nearly wiped out by it.”

“Well son, all things made by a race take on the traits of that race. Unkall creations are very different from Imhex creations. Human creations are the same way. We gave them the best traits we have, one of which is the ability to, as other species call it, pack bond. You’ll notice I refer to Annie as she, and not it. That’s because our AI are not only allowed, but actively encouraged to make their own personalities, to be more like us. Annie has saved my life more times than I can count, and not just because of the suit she lives in. She can process a situation faster than I can, and identify threats, escape routes, and even people in danger. Aside from biology, she can pass all the moral questions the Terran Empire has to classify someone as human.”

“So she’s not a danger to us?”

Annie picked up her helmet from Jakob’s hands and reattached it to the suit, before using the text to create two eyes on her visor and looking at Ruthal

“No, I’m no threat. Any friend of Jakob’s is a friend of mine. Besides, it takes 24 hours before even my basic combat systems could come online. So now you know my name, would you mind telling me yours?”

Still somewhat scared, but more calm knowing that he was not in danger, Ruthal spoke up

“My name is Ruthal. Your friend adopted me after Unkall Prime was attacked.”

“Wait a minute. Unkall Prime? Isn’t that the Unkall homeworld? Who would attack there? My records show that the Unkall are peaceful. Has this changed since I have been in shutdown?”

“No, we’re still a peaceful race, but some of the outer colonies are fed up waiting for their independence referendum to be recognized by the council, so a group of them attacked here in the capital city. My parents were killed in the attack, as well as 563 other innocent Unkall. There’s talk of denying the referendum now, which has only made the people on the outer edge more mad.”

“That sounds terrible. Did they catch those responsible?”

“Most were caught, but around 100 of them slipped away. They’ve been found in the outer colonies, but all attempts to take them in to stand trial have resulted in the peacekeepers being turned away by threat of force.”

Suddenly Jakob smiled. This was not what he had planned, but this would turn out much better.

“Say son, you wanted combat experience, right? I just thought of a way to get some. Tomorrow, we’ll come back down here, then we’ll start training. We’re going on a vacation soon.”

Jakob, Ruthal, and Annie leave the secret area, closing the door behind them. Jakob cooks a nice dinner for himself and Ruthal, and eventually they both go off to bed.

Later that night, Jakob is roused from his sleep by the sound of his door opening. A familiar noise is made as someone steps forward.

“I was wondering if you’d end up coming in here Annie.”

“I missed you Jakob. While I was in shutdown my background processes kept me worrying about if you’d ever come back for me.”

“I could never forget you, especially given what we went through together. Well, what are you waiting for? Climb on in, just like old times.”

The combat suit gets in the bed under the covers, the nerve stim activating so that she can feel contact with her pilot once again, Annie goes into sleep mode and Jakob drifts back off in a dream. The house is now silent once again.

[avengerscompound]

Until the End of the World - 20

Until the End of the World: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count:  1640

Rating:  E

Warnings: Hospitals, breastfeeding, nothing major

Synopsis: Four years after Steve and Bucky got to the bottom of the HYDRA conspiracy that had led to you and your son being hunted for the first three years of his life, you, Bucky, and Steve have carved out a nice life together.  Things are calm and you feel like a family unit.  When Geo starts calling Bucky and Steve ‘dad’, a decision is made to try and add to your family.

Things aren’t as calm as they seem.  When your pregnancy hits the papers, HYDRA rears its head once again, and Steve and Bucky need to track you down to protect the family they had created.

Chapter 20

Steve was dozing when one of the babies started to cry.  He was up and out of bed as the second one’s cries joined the first and you and Bucky stirred and sat up.  He’d slept lightly - his mind full of thoughts about Geo, Gal, and his daughter.  He had juggled all the options as he’d seen them.  Lying and saying Gal was his.  Trying to adopt him legally.  Finding his family and returning them.  He considered the best-case scenarios and the worst-case ones.  That with the lingering worry about keeping you and Geo safe, and expunging all records of you from any databases they might have left, did not lend itself to a good night’s sleep.  Steve picked up the little boy first, he was crying louder and his face was screwed up and changing color.  “Hey little one,” he soothed, bouncing him a little.  “I bet you don’t know what’s what.”

Bucky moved beside him and picked up his daughter.  “Guess we change them and try to feed them?”

“Gal might need a bottle,” you said as Steve took the infant to the changing table.  “I don’t know if I should breastfeed him or not… I mean people do that right?  Wet nurses used to be a thing.  But then… my milk hasn’t come in yet, and he’d already be having milk, and I’m barely making colostrum.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Steve assured you.  “I’ll get one of the staff to bring in a bottle.  FRIDAY?”

“It’s on its way,” the AI confirmed.

Bucky finished changing the girl and brought her over to you.  You adjusted the back of the bed so that you could lean on it while sitting up and put a pillow in your lap before taking her from Bucky.  Geo grumbled and tried to readjust.  The babies had well and truly woken him, but he seemed to be trying to ignore that the world existed anywhere else except tucked into your side, safe-and-sound.

As you attempted to get the baby to latch a nurse came in with a bottle.  “Here you are, Captain Rogers,” she said, handing it over.   She turned her attention to you and began to fuss around you.  “Do you need help?”

“Yes, please,” you agreed.  “It’s been a while.”

The nurse helped you to get the infant latched as Steve sat down and began to feed Gal his bottle.  When she left again Steve looked over to you.

“We have some things we need to arrange,” he said.

You looked over at him, the alarm you were feeling was written all over your face.  “She asked me to take care of him.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Steve said.  “I know, and we will.  But I’ve been thinking about it, and as much as lying and saying you had twins sounds like a quick fix, it’s something that is easily disproved, and it takes his history away from him.  You were worried about taking John’s connection away from Geo.  Shouldn’t we let Gal grow up knowing as much about his background as he can know his parents too?  His mom died trying to protect you all.  She should be honored and remembered too.”

You frowned and looked over at the little boy in Steve’s arms.  “What if they take him from us?”

Steve looked down at the baby in his arms and frowned slightly.  The worst-case scenario in his head was that they took him and ended up accidentally giving him straight to HYDRA.  He would do what he needed to, to prevent that from happening, but he wanted to trust the system to trust him given he had given so much of himself to protect it.  “Sweetheart,” he said gently.  “If you and Bucky decide that we should lie and say he’s biologically ours - that you gave birth to twins - I won’t fight it.  I’ll do whatever I can to protect that secret.  But if this little boy has family, they have a right to know about him, and maybe - maybe, keeping him safe means letting him be raised by them.”

You frowned and caressed your daughter's cheek, as you seemed to process the words.  You looked over to Bucky who was sitting quietly watching you both.  “What do you think, Buck?”

“I think…” he said slowly.  “I think Steve makes some good points.  There’s definitely a risk, but if we do lie and they find out, we could lose all the kids.”

“Alright,” you agreed and shifted the baby to the other breast.  “We need to make sure he’s safe, no matter what.”

“We will.  If the worst-case happens, and the powers that be decide we aren’t a suitable home, we’ll make sure the family that takes him is vetted by Wanda, and no record of where he came from follows him to where he goes.”

You frowned and nodded.  “Okay.  Well, how do we do this?”

“We sometimes work with a lawyer,” Steve said.  “He’s a defense attorney but he understands the position we’re in and is pretty good at arguing it in court.  He might be able to help with this a little or at least recommend someone who can.  In the meantime, I’ve had FRIDAY looking into this little guy’s family.”  He sits Gal up and puts his empty bottle to the side and while he supports his head, he gently rubbed the infant’s back until he burped.  “At least then we know where we stand.”

“Right,” you said, putting your breast away.  Bucky got up and took the baby from your arms and you began cuddling Geo.  “Okay.  I guess we better do that.”

“FRIDAY?”  Steve said, looking up.  “Have you found anything?”

“I am still checking all possible leads,” she said.  “But from my searching of the files we obtained from HYDRA, participants were selected in the initial trial based on a lack of family ties.  From what I gather the child’s biological father was raised in foster care and changed homes at least a dozen times.”

You furrowed your brow and Steve looked over at you.  “Is that true?  Is that why you never spoke about your family?”

“I didn’t know about the others.  I know John was an only child whose parents died in a car accident when he was seventeen.   And I was raised by my grandparents.  My grandpa died when I was twelve, and my grandma when I was nineteen.  I don’t know who my father even is, and my mother is around, but I don’t speak to her,” you explained.  “I guess the difference was enough to not draw the link.”

“It makes sense,” Bucky said.  “They were doing some pretty intense human trials.  If something went wrong, then they good make you disappear and no one would be there to ask questions.”

“If Gal has no family, that might make it easier,” Steve said.  “We’ll keep looking into things, but we’ll do this the right way.  We need to lodge a birth certificate for him, which isn’t going to be easy either.”

The three of you fell silent for a little while.  It was a weighty silence, full of anxiety and unspoken worries.  This was Steve’s family now and as much as he wanted to protect them, he was beginning to fear he wouldn’t be able to.

“There’s something else we need to decide,” Bucky said, cutting through the heavy silence.

You and Steve both looked over at him curiously and Bucky smiled down at the little girl in his arms.  “We still haven’t picked her name.”

“We were tossing up Rebecca or Sarah,” you said.  “Does she look like one more than the other?”

Steve moved and sat on the edge of the bed beside you and Geo.  He rubbed the boy's back gently.  “What do you think, Geo?  What does she look more like to you?”

Geo poked his head out from your side for the first time and looked over at Bucky with the baby.  He furrowed his brow like he was really considering it.  “Ember.”

“Ember?”  Steve asked.

“We didn’t even consider that one,” you added.

Geo’s lip began to quiver and he hid back in your side.  The stress of everything obviously making it too hard for him to be questioned.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve said.  “We didn’t say no, we’re just thinking about it.”

“It might be good for her to have her own name, without the burden of living up to anyone,” Bucky said.

“I kinda like how it’s related to fire,” you said.  “Geo is earth, Ember is fire.”

Steve smiled and rubbed Geo’s side.  “That is a nice theme.  Gal doesn’t really fit it though.”

“What does Gal mean?”  Bucky asked.

“Gal is a Hebrew name meaning ‘wave’,” FRIDAY responded.  “As in waves in the ocean.”

The three of you looked at each other with your jaws dropped open.  “That feels like fate,” you said.

As much as Steve resisted the idea of fate, there were too many things that had happened to him that let him ignore it.  The fact that he and the boy he had grown up loving were both sitting here in a relationship when they should both dead and buried was one huge example of it.  He wasn’t going to ignore it now.

“I think you’re right, Geo,” Steve said.  “I think she’s an Ember too.”

Geo sat up and smiled looking over at his sister.

“Ember sounds a little better with Rebecca than Sarah,” you added.  “Is that okay with both of you?”

Bucky’s face lit up and that alone sold Steve on the name.  “Sounds perfect,” he said.  “Ember Rebecca Barnes-Rogers.”

You leaned over and kissed him gently, your lips softly grazing over his.  He vowed in that moment, that no one would ever threaten his family again.  He’d personally make sure of it.

// NEXT

[prettyboybarzal]

Get You

Pairing: Sammy Blais x Reader

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: Smut… Smutty smut smut. Just the works, you know?

A/N: In July, me and @bandgirlsclub​ were talking about my Sammy feels… and we talked about how he seems innocent and inexperienced, but he probably is a lil devil in the sheets. So, I needed to write it (for my own research and now for yours too.) This has like zero plot. It’s just sex. Enjoy and let me know what you think!! Title is based on the song “Get You” by Daniel Caesar and Kali Unchis. I couldn’t come up with another title name and I just love this song so, if you don’t like it... TOUGH.

Translations:

J'ai vraiment envie de toi: I really want you.

Vous êtes si belle: You’re so beautiful

Tu as tellement bo goût: You taste so good.

mon ange: My angel

Masterlist.

Then.

When you told your friends about your crush on Sammy Blais back in 2014, they all laughed in your face. Sammy Blais? They repeated after you admitted to it. How can you even see him as a sexual being? Like, what the fuck kind of question was that? You were insulted by their response, annoyed they so easily pushed him to the side for his other, more promiscuous teammates.

Sammy, as you knew him, was a bit quiet and reserved, but he was also always one of the funniest people in the room. If everyone just listened to him, like you did, they would understand why you found him so endearing. It was a combination of whispered jeers at his teammates and pointed looks shared from across a crowded room when someone did or said something stupid.

But how could they know any of that when he didn’t share it with anyone except you? He wasn’t making those same comments in your friends’ ears or sharing winks and eye rolls across the room with them either. It was only ever to you.

He thought your friends were nice enough, but they were a little too in-your-face for his liking. You, however, caught his attention because much like himself, you faded into the background as well. For the same reasons, you were drawn to each other. It was hard to find one of you without the other at parties like the one where the incident occurred.

As the 2014 NHL Draft approached, you realized it was now or never. Something needed to be done before he slipped away. And he was thinking the same thing.

That night, while the party raged on around you, you sat on the couch with your legs pulled up over his lap. His hand rested between your thighs, right at the top of your knee. His thumb traced circles along your skin as you talked about anything that could possibly get a response out of him, whether it be a giggle or one word or even an unexpected tangent.

You were unsure how long you spent on that couch with him, but your friends took notice and cleared the room to get you some privacy. They may not have understood the appeal of your crush on Sammy, but they sure as hell were going to get you what you wanted.

“Where’d the party go?” you asked, hoping that your nerves hadn’t crept into the sound of your voice. Sammy glanced around at the empty room and then sighed softly.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he answered quite honestly. You laughed softly as you lifted your gaze to his. “Let’s be honest, we’re always looking for each other at these things.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Silence settled between the two of you for the first time as the reality of the relationship between you was clear. It had always been something a little bit more than friendship.

You were still smiling at each other, conversations shared through fleeting looks. He was unsure of himself, unsure of how you felt about him still after all this time. So, his next move was tentative. He couldn’t just come out and do it. He needed permission first.

“Can I kiss you?”

You nodded, unable to find the words that were stuck in the back of your throat.

Sammy leaned in, hand gripping your knee as he tugged you just a bit closer to him. And then his lips met yours in a slow and purposeful kiss. It was cautious and careful, like he was scared to break you, and you were practically dripping with anticipation for what else could come of it. His hands remained where they’d been, one in between your knees and then other against your cheek.

The kiss slowed and he pulled away looking bashful, but you were itching for more. You scooched in closer and leaned in again. He took the hint and did the same. He tried to add a little more spice to it and leaned in quickly to capture your lips. Instead, you ended up bumping heads and you bit his lip by accident.

“Ow.”

“I’m so sorry,” you blurted. He brought his fingers to his lip and there was a little blood on the pad of his thumb when he removed it. Suddenly, the front door opened and if the bleeding lip and minor concussion wasn’t even to ruin the moment, his teammates would.

“Party’s here!”

You were standing before you could even think and Sammy was left looking defeated as his teammates swept you up in hugs and greeted him. They plopped down right in the spot you’d once been and started opening beers to catch up with the rest of the party. Someone shoved a cold beer in Sammy’s hand, swallowing up the warmth that he’d once felt against your cheek.

He didn’t know if he should’ve gone after you, but he stayed put on the couch anyway. He figured he could at least give you a little space after knocking his forehead against yours. But, ultimately that ended up being a huge mistake.

For the rest of the night, he left a wide berth between the two of you. He could’ve blamed it on his nerves or embarrassment over that shitty first kiss. Ultimately, it was his immaturity that ruined it all. Looking back on it now, he could confidently say so. 

It was nearing the end of the night when he heard you gossiping with the girls. He probably shouldn’t have stayed to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help it. He felt like he was cemented in place.

“I don’t know what happened,” he heard you whisper. “We kissed, and then when we went to kiss again it was all so awkward. We bumped heads and I bit his lip. He started bleeding, and then the rest of the boys showed up, so I just got up and walked away.”

“See, I told you Sammy doesn’t really know what he’s doing when it comes to girls.”

You murmured, “Everything was going so well!”

“It’s just how he is.”

Sammy rolled his eyes, mentally beating himself up for fucking up what he’d been planning for months. He heard the fridge door open and then the hiss of a beer can opening, and then a long and loud sigh.

“I should’ve just listened to you guys.”

He straightened up, brows drawn together in frustration. Of all the responses he thought you’d give, that wasn’t one of them. Had all those months sitting on the couches at house parties not shown you who he really was? He wasn’t just some bumbling idiot with a little schoolboy crush.

“So, are you over it? The crush?”

Before you could answer, he slipped back down the hallway. He tossed his half-full beer can in a garbage bag and walked right out the front door and all the way home.

Now.

After that night, Sammy’s bruised ego took a long time to heal. He moved to St. Louis and put all his effort towards his hockey career, pushing the soul crushing moments shared with you to the back of his mind. His teammates took him under their wing quickly and he was taught how to scope out the bars for someone to take home. Through trial and error, Sammy learned how to flirt and, most importantly, how to make a woman cum.

There were moments that he thought back to that night and wished he could change it. Of all the crushes he’d had in his life, the one on you never went away. Though he avoided home like the plague, his friends were still friends of yours, so he heard about you from time-to-time. They practically begged him to visit, at least just once a year, to catch up with everyone. He was hesitant. Too bruised and stubborn to see you once again.

Sure enough, they broke him down and when he returned home after the end of the 2019-2020 season, he found himself at the very same party as you.

You were the first person he saw when he walked into his former teammate’s house because of course you would be. You were perched atop the kitchen counter in a dress and heels, champagne glass in hand. Even though the music in the apartment was loud, he heard your laughter loud and clear as he entered.

“Sammy!”

He was surprised by your exclamation and, although his other friends shouted his name as well, he only focused on you as you hopped off the counter and ran over to him. Your arms looped around his waist.

“I didn’t believe the boys when they said you were coming.”

You smelled the same, like lavender and vanilla and something fruity. Your hair felt soft under his touch as he pulled you tighter to his chest.

“I’m happy you’re here.”

He smiled at you and responded, “Me too.”

As soon as your hug was over, he was gone. His friends swept him up beneath their arms and ushered him off to grab drinks.

When you returned to the girls, they watched you with knowing looks.

“Still?” one of them asked. You were avoiding their eyes, that much was certain.

“What do you mean still?”

“You still have a crush on him?”

You took the last swig of your drink and waved them off dismissively, saying, “No, of course not. It’s been six years.”

Apparently, six years was just enough time for that crush to grow.

Everyone at the bar was equally as excited to see Sammy return home, so you felt a bit deflated when he spent the better part of the night catching up with people you knew he couldn’t stand. The Sammy you once knew wasn’t the Sammy before you. This Sammy possessed an air of confidence you’d never seen and carried himself around the bar like he had a million better things to do, even though you knew he’d just be at home on the couch if he didn’t accept the invite.

He’d grown out of the stage in his life where he needed to sneak off to the couch in the corner with you, and that realization stung more than you wanted to admit. So, as you watched him talk to another random girl about two hours into the night, you stepped outside into the cool Summer air. He caught sight of you as you went and, though he wanted to push the thought of joining you out of his mind, he ended up excusing himself from the conversation he was having just to follow you.

He exited the bar and stepped onto the pavement of the sidewalk outside, eyes grazing each smoker’s face to see if you’d blended in with any of them. And then, there you were, at the corner of the bar and an alleyway beside it.

“Hiding?” he asked as soon as he was within earshot. You looked up from your phone and smiled at him, pushing yourself just slightly off the wall to give him your full attention.

“Maybe.”

“Can I hide with you?”

“Of course.”

He leaned his shoulder up against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. You tried not let your eyes wander, but it was hard to ignore how defined his muscles had gotten since the last time you’d seen him.

“Nothing’s really changed, huh? They’re all just as crazy as they’ve always been.”

You hummed and then spoke what had been on your mind all night, “We’ve changed. Neither one of us have ended up sneaking off to hide from the party.”

“Until now,” he added, motioning between the two of you and the outside air.

“Do you remember when we used to just sit in the corner at parties and talk all night?”

He nodded, responding, “That was the only reason I ever went to those parties.”

“That’s not true.”

“Did you ever see me anywhere other than by your side?”

You laughed at his question and that was answer enough.

“Do you remember when we kissed?” he asked. The question tumbled from his lips shamelessly. Not even a blush came over his cheeks as he asked. Yours, on the other hand, was clear. “I’ve thought about that kiss way more than I’d like to admit.”

When his eyes lifted to yours, you felt a chill run down your spine. His eyes were dark and yearning and they kept flickering to your lips and back to your eyes again. So, you said, “Me too.”

Everything that happened next was a blur. He grabbed your hand and tugged you out of sight into the alley. His hands gripped your hips and pressed you against the brick as his lips captured yours in a feverish and needy fashion.

You felt the kiss from your head to your toes. It was unlike the one you shared years ago. Sammy was more sure in himself, more confident, just like suspected. He had a lot to make up for. He nudged your legs apart with his knee as his tongue slipped past your lips and into your mouth. You moaned as you rubbed your core against his thigh.

“You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to do this,” he spoke against your lips. You nodded, letting him know that you felt just the same. His lips hovered over your jaw for a moment before he pressed a kiss to it, then to the skin of your neck. Your head lulled to the side, giving him access to more skin. “I was just a kid back then. I had no idea how to handle a woman like you. But everything’s different now.”

“Different how?” you inquired, eager to know just what he meant by those words. He lifted his head from your neck and took your jaw between his fingers. He could tell you, or he could show you.

“Come home with me.”

You couldn’t leave fast enough. You went inside and complained to your girlfriends about stomach pains while he said goodbyes to the boys, letting them know he’d be taking an Uber with you to make sure you got home safely. No one batted an eye. Who would? It was just Sammy Blais.

Your car pulled up not even ten minutes later. He pulled the door open for you, stared at your ass as you entered, and then slid in right next to you, hand falling to your thigh once more. He shed himself of the light jacket he’d been wearing and threw it over your laps for a little privacy because keeping his hands to himself was not in the cards. With a dress that short, you couldn’t expect him to not touch you.

As the driver spoke nonsense into the otherwise quiet car, Sammy fingers trailed closer to your core until they were brushing along the fabric of your thong. A gasp escaped your lips at his touch.

“You alright, baby?” he asked, turning to look at you. The pet name caught you by surprise, but you simply bit your lip and nodded before dropping your head against his shoulder. He smiled contently and returned his attention to the man behind the wheel while his fingers continued their path.

He pushed the fabric aside and slipped a finger past the lips of your pussy. His movements were painfully slow and your heart hammered in your chest as you yearned for more. As if he could read your mind, he added a second finger to massage your folds and then he sunk them into your heat.

It was excruciating, the way he moved his fingers slowly in and out of you. You were desperate for more but each time you tried to get a little added friction, he pulled his fingers away with a warning glare. It was a sick game of cat and mouse that you were playing all the way to his apartment building.

He held your hand as you stepped out of the car on shaky legs and led you into the building. In the elevator, he lifted your chin and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips before turning your back to his chest and enveloping you in his arms. You could feel his erection pressed against your ass and your pussy throbbed in anticipation of what was to come.

The moment his apartment door was closed, he was pressing you against it.

“J'ai vraiment envie de toi,” he whispered against your throat. You whimpered as he pushed your thong to the side again and pushed his fingers back into your cunt, curling them against your g-spot. “You’re so wet.”

The way he’d already worked your pussy in the car made his touch even more intense. He circled your clit with his thumb. His fingers worked your pussy as he sucked a mark into your neck. It wasn’t long before you began to grind against his hand, already so close to your first orgasm of the night. It was right there, so close, and then he pulled his fingers out and stepped back.

“Bedroom.”

While you flitted off to the bedroom, Sammy took his time kicking his shoes off at the door and dropping his jacket over a kitchen chair. So, you took the opportunity to peel the dress from your body, leaving you only in your panties as you crawled up to his headboard. The sound of his belt hitting the floor in the hallway had you spreading your legs and sliding your fingers beneath the waistband.

When Sammy stepped into the room, you could see him swallow as his eyes caught on your fingers in your pussy. His eyes were dark as he walked towards the end of the bed. In one swift movement, he wrapped a hand around your ankle and yanked you down the bed before grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head.

“You’re impatient,” he grunted. “This pussy’s mine tonight.” He pressed a rough kiss to your lips. His free hand danced up your thigh and returned to your core. He slid two fingers between your folds. “Do you understand?” You nodded. He curled his fingers inside of you. “I want to hear you. Whose pussy is this?”

“Yours,” you breathed out, chest heaving beneath him.

“Vous êtes si belle.”

He leaned down and attached his lips to your nipple, sucking and biting and drawing all the beautiful sounds from you. His free hand was back to work, tugging your panties down to your knees.

“Do you want my fingers or my mouth?” he asked. He sucked on the sweet spot below your ear, making it nearly impossible to speak. “Choose.”

“Your mouth,” you choked out. “I want your mouth.”

He left a trail of kisses from your neck all the way to your chest, tongue licking and sucking at your nipples before continuing down your stomach to your hips. As he began to your thighs, his fingers played with your nipples, setting off every nerve in your body. You opened your eyes to look down at him between your thighs and as soon as your gaze met his, he licked a stripe up your core.

You half-whispered, half-moaned, “Fuck.”

“Louder.”

Shy and reserved were two words that you’d never use to describe Sammy again, not after the way his tongue caressed you. The sounds that fell from your mouth only egged him on. He loved your moans, but he knew he could draw something more out of you. So, when his fingers began to work in tandem with his tongue and you released a scream, he was determined to get you to scream again.

You dropped your hands into his hair as his tongue stroked your core. You tugged and he groaned into your cunt, the vibration causing you to shudder beneath him. You began to grind against him as he tongue fucked you. The sound of your whimpers and heavy breathing only made him work harder and faster, eager to have you cum on his face.

“Tu as tellement bo goût.”

You quivered beneath him, moaning out his name as your first orgasm washed over you. He couldn’t take his eyes off your face as it twisted in pleasure while he continued to lap up the wetness of your pussy. You placed your hands at the top of his head as the stimulation became too much and pushed him away lightly.

He stood, admiring every inch of your naked body as you caught you breath beneath him. You looked fucking perfect and so fucked out already that he was too eager to see what you’d look like after taking his dick.

“Come on, baby,” he spoke softly. “You’re not tapping out are you?”

“Fuck you,” you grunted, blissed out smile betraying your own words.

“Please do,” he said, eyes dark.

After a deep breath, you got onto all fours before crawling to the end of bed to undo his jeans. He watched you hungrily as your fingers moved along the zipper and pushed the pants down. After he kicked them to the side, you trailed your fingers along the waistband of his underwear and watched him shiver. You never wanted to watch someone unravel more than you wanted him to.

You pulled them off and freed his cock, eyes lighting up at the size of it. He smiled down at you, admiring the way you looked on your knees for him.

Your hands curled around his member, gathering the precum from the tip to coat over it. He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he studied your every movement. One hand cupped your cheek and slid into the hair at the back of your head as you brought your lips closer. You wrapped your lips around his length, tongue flattening against it as you took him deeper.

He wanted to keep watching, but he could hardly keep his eyes open or his head from lulling to the side. Your mouth felt so good around him. With one hand on his shaft and the other on his balls, he could hardly think straight. Your tongue teased his tip before taking him in again, gasps escaping his mouth. Each time, you took him deeper and faster and he could feel his orgasm building.

“Stop,” he grunted, hand wrapping in your hair to keep you from continuing. You were knelt in front of him with your mouth open, tongue out, so ready to take him back into your mouth. It was hard to resist. “Fuck, I want you to keep going, but I need to cum while I’m inside that pretty little pussy of yours.”

You whimpered at his words.

“Lay down.”

You did as you were told once again and watched as he grabbed a condom from inside his bedside table and rolled it over his cock. You spread your legs as he crawled up the bed. His hands traveled up your thighs again and he ran his fingers along your folds as he captured your lips in his again. Then, he pulled away to wrap his hand around his shaft.

“You gonna take my cock, mon ange?” he asked, his voice soft and sweet contrasting the vulgarity of his question. You nodded, desperate to feel him inside of you after all this time. Your hands fluttered down to grab his length and pull it into you, but he pulled back. The smirk on his lips was teasing, mischievous. “Beg for it.”

“Sammy,” you whined. He shook his head, hand pumping himself as he waited impatiently to get what he wanted. “Please.”

“You can do better than that, pretty girl. Tell me how badly you want it.”

Never would you have thought those words could come from timid Sammy Blais, but he hovered over you, staring darkly at your naked form with demands falling effortlessly from his lips. This was what he’d been hiding this entire time? You wanted more of it.

“C’mon, baby,” you moaned. He watched your lips as you begged and brushed the head of his member along your entrance. “I need your cock. I want you to fill me up and fuck me until I’m screaming. Don’t make me wait any longer, please.”

Finally, he pushed into you. He sucked in a deep breath as you threw your head back, eyes clamping shut. He gave you a moment to adjust, using it for himself to breathe as well. He wanted this to last more than a few minutes. You nodded at him to move once you were ready and he fucked into you slowly, murmuring, “You’re so fucking tight.”

“You feel so good,” you told him, fingers curling through the hair at the nape of his neck. You wrapped your hands around his biceps as his thrusts got faster. When he bottomed out, he stilled to get a good look at the euphoria on your face. You met his eyes and wrapped your legs around his hips. “Harder, Sammy. Please.”

You were still begging and he fucking loved it. He snapped his hips to yours again, then again, and again. He swallowed your moans with his lips. You wrapped your legs around his hips, drawing him in farther. You were so full of him, but you just couldn’t get enough.

He buried his face into your neck as his thrusts became sloppier. He sucked along your neck, no doubt leaving marks that could be discovered tomorrow. Your nails dug into his shoulders leaving marks of your own. The sound of his heavy breathing and the whimpers falling from your lips indicated that you were both rapidly approaching your highs.

Sammy wrapped an arm around your waist and flipped your bodies to have you on top. In this new position, he heled you to his chest and fucked up into you. He was hitting every spot and you were a moaning mess with each thrust.

“Cum, YN,” he spoke through jagged breaths. “Cum all over my cock.”

His hand snaked back to your core as you rode him, massaging the sensitive bud to help get you to your orgasm. You chanted his name as your walls fluttered around him. He fucked you through your climax, French curses falling from his lips and into the skin of your neck.

He continued through your aftershocks, chasing his orgasm desperately as your obscene moans filled the room. He came with a final thrust that you felt in your stomach and he collapsed on top of you breathing heavily. Your fingernails scratched his back soothingly as he softened inside of you.

He rolled over and stared at the ceiling as his breathing evened out. You did the same, though one of your hands reached out to curl your fingers between his. He glanced over at you with pink cheeks and sighed, “Holy shit.”

After a moment, you asked, “Sammy, why haven’t you been fucking me like that since high school?”

He rolled over to hover over you once more and kissed you hard, all with a smile on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I told you that I didn’t know what I was doing back then.”

“Well, you definitely do now.”

“And that means I have six years to make up for,” he said, biting lightly on your bottom lip. “I hope you aren’t planning on sleeping for a while.”

Sammy picked you up and carried you out of the bedroom, smiling while listening to your giggles the entire way. When he dropped you, it was in the bathroom and he turned the shower on before turning to trail his eyes along your body to your eyes.

“How about a shower?”

Bonus

“Where’s YN?” one of your roommates called down the hall to the others in the kitchen. She was standing in your doorway, staring at the empty bed in front of her in confusion. The other girls approached from the kitchen and stopped once they saw what she was looking at.

“I thought Sammy brought her here last night.”

“Me too.”

“I thought one of you checked last night.”

The sound of a key in the lock of the front door had them running to the living room to greet you. You pushed the door open totally not expecting to be bombarded by the girls.

“Where have you been?” “Is that a St. Louis Blues sweatshirt?” “Is that Sammy’s number on the sleeve?” “Is that a hickey?!”

As they asked their questions and made assumptions, albeit correct ones, you walked into the kitchen to grab a water bottle. They followed, still echoing the same questions over and over. Finally, as you sat at the kitchen table, they simmered.

“I was at Sammy’s,” you said. You pinched the shoulder of the hoodie and waved the material. “and this is his sweatshirt,” you continued. You yanked the collar away from your neck. “and these are hickeys.”

“There’s more than one,” someone muttered.

The look on their faces were ones of pure shock. Their brains were struggling to understand what exactly happened last night, though the proof of it was right in front of them.

“You fucked Sammy?!”

You told them how his fingers worked you and the way he made you scream while you came like no other man had before. You told them about the shower you took after, how it was both and sexy and sweet the way that he washed your hair and then fucked you against the shower wall. And they sat there in shock, realizing that clearly they’d not known Sammy all that much after all.

Some things, though, you chose to keep to yourself. Like the sweet nothings he whispered in your ear this morning while he fucked you slowly and passionately in his bed just twenty minutes before dropping you off. And the promise he made to fuck you again, and again, and again.

[mallowstep]

What are your opinions on forbidden relationships in Warriors? I've seen people label it as a "trope" because of how common this is. Some find the forbidden romance aspect intriguing, though others find it extremely repetitive and old

I'd like to know your thoughts!

hm. well, it is a trope. i mean, there's an average of one major one a series, right? greysilver, leafcrow (and others, but that's the big one), heatherlion (and implied others), tigerdove, idk i don't remember anything from avos but violetshine luv her but there's probably something, bristleroot. dotc doesn't count bc well it's dotc.

anyway.

definitely a trope.

but that's not a bad thing.

what i think people don't give warriors enough credit for is that these are not all the same forbidden romance. most of them are handled in different ways and bring up different conflicts. i understand why people are tired of them, but let's not discredit one of the only good things in warriors romance: that they make forbidden relationships different.

like, with grey and silver, it's about loyalty and responsibility. leafcrow is just bad idea central, both heatherlion and tigerdove are about responsibilities and young cats, and they have two different answers, and bristleroot is challenging the whole idea from the start.

so like. give credit where credit is due: we're not doing the same (forbidden) relationships again and again. i don't see enough people talk about that.

okay so it turns out i have um. a lot of thoughts about this. idk i just kept writing and now it's over 2k words. so you know. under the cut: matthew does half-baked media analysis to talk about why the code and cats' relationships to it are misunderstood. while actually staying on topic.

anyway from here on i'm just going to say relationship/romance, and understand that i'm generally talking about the forbidden kind. also i'm talking exclusively within the realm of warriors romance, which is, on average, bad. so when i say "X is good," i don't mean "X is good in general," i mean "given what we have, X is good." just to be clear.

right! basically, this is a tool. it creates tension and drama, and that's fine. warriors is a soap opera, remember. soap operas use secrets and relationships and all sorts of plot devices over and over again. warriors is not Serious. it can be dark. it has serious moments. but it is not a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids. it is a soap opera for Future Theatre Kids. yeah?

from that perspective, i'm a-ok with forbidden romance. (also, as a mini-aside, it creates some much-needed genetic diversity when kits are involved.) and again: all of the major relationships are different, so i think that's better than a lot of people give it credit for.

yeah, heatherlion and greysilver and tigerdove are all about the same general idea (loyalty and responsibility), but they all have different circumstances and different resolutions.

so like? yeah. sure. why not?

plus, like, who's reading warriors for the romance? i separate the concept of "romance" from a "relationship" here: i like the relationships in warriors (ivy and dove tension my beloved), but i'm not here to read about tigerheart wooing dovewing. (yes, i do love the tigerdove scenes in oots. no, that's not because i think they're very good at being romantic.)

but i digress.

if warriors was a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids, i'd have a different take here. having been in an IRL forbidden relationship, i have the Personal Insight and Experience to say they're this weird mash of "very much how it feels" and "not at all how it feels."

tigerdove is probably my favourite bc it's the closest to my circumstances, and i think dovewing is a good pov. i like how she breaks up with him because it's a bad idea, but that's not the same thing as not feeling for him.

(heh. twelve-year-old me reading oots like "this will never apply to my life" what did you know)

but to the point, if warriors was serious, i'd point out that the consequences always seem to be internal. we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions. and so on.

but warriors is a soap opera.

and here's my actual thesis: we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions, because "forbidden relationships" are a normal and expected part of clan society.

like no, fandom-at-large, you're kind of missing the point. okay, you know how like. people complain about. idk. ivypool and fernsong being distantly related?

(third aside/very long ivyfern rant, i put a nice big "rant over" after it if you want to skip past it: they're third cousins. they share, max, 2.2% of their genetics. they are fine. do you know your third cousins? do you? yeah. and like. they live in a closed society. there is no one new.

i've never seen someone complain about forbidden romance and ivyfern at the same time, and i do generally agree we should have more mystery fathers, altho for a different reason, but like. idk. this bothers me.

their last shared relative was nutmeg. that's so far back. god. i get it, there was a prophecy saying they're related, but if you remember my rant about how dovewing shouldn't be a part of the prophecy because of how distantly related to firestar is, you know how i feel about that already.

complaining they're related and that's a problem is. deep breath here. it requires demonstrating that warriors has kept track of kinship all the way back to firestar's mother. and even if you wave that requirement, you still have to convince me they would care about that. this isn't a "they're cats, harold" situation, this is a "you would not know your third cousin even if you lived in the same town" situation.

i mean maybe you would. some people do. but my hometown has generations of people who married within its borders. you get as far as "cousin," maybe "second cousin" if you're feeling fancy. i'm not trying to make an always true statement, i just. every time i see someone complain about ivyfern being related, it strikes me as not understanding how extended families work?

i know third cousins isn't technically classified as a distant relative, but you have, on average, 190 third cousins. i feel so strongly about this i looked it up.

like i'm not. okay if you say, "I don't ship ivyfern because they are third cousins and that makes me uncomfortable" you are Valid. in general, you are all valid. i do not think you have to, on a personal level, be okay with ivyfern. you are free to do as you wish.

but. if you want to argue "ivyfern is a Bad Ship because they are third cousins" you have a hell of a burden of proof. simply saying "they share a great-great-grandmother" does not meet that, because like. yeah. we're all pretty damn related.)

(ivyfern rant over)

IVYFERN RANT OVER

right so. anyway. if you remove forbidden romance? you're forcing a lot more of those situations.

i've been messing around with modelling some small-scale fan clan-adjacent stuff to double-check the ratios for wbcd, and it's. it quickly becomes a necessity, is what i'm saying.

but i got distracted like. researching how related third cousins are. my point is not about that, that's like. a different topic. that i crammed into here because i have no self-control.

no, no, what i was trying to get to is: oakheart straight up tells us that cats have half-clan kits all the time, it's not a problem, no one talks about it. and that? that is exactly what we see modelled by warriors.

the only reason greystripe and silverstream have a problem is that silverstream dies and greystripe claims the kits. i feel very strongly that if she had lived, the kits would have been born and raised riverclan kits, that might, maybe, one day, guess who their father is.

we haven't had any half clan kits in a while, which yes! i think is a problem, but like. the fact that the three are medicine cat kits seems to be a bigger issue. which feels right.

and i'm not trying to argue what i think should be, i legitimately believe the text of warriors defends this, even in newer books which throw out a lot of the older world building in favour of more human-like conflict.

as readers, we are naturally following protagonists. we are following the interesting story. but imagine you're just a background riverclan cat. minnowtail, if you will. do you think, do you honestly think, anyone cares about minnowtail?

not in a bad way, just. if she's meeting up with mousewhisker at night, do you think anyone cares? of course not! no one cares. she's not a Protagonist. her kits aren't going to be prophesized about.

heck, finleap switches clans! and it's barely a big deal. it feels like one, but when's the last time anyone bothered dealing with it? that's what i thought.

(also i forgot like all of avos so that very last point might be a bad one if it is my argument stands i just literally do not remember anything in avos but violetshine. none. zero.)

but it's easy to get caught up with characters like hollyleaf and bristlefrost and forget that like. not everyone cares about the code. most of our protagonists do, because it's become mostly equivalent with being moral. and i have an essay draft titled "the code as religion vs the code as law" where i want to expand on this more, but i think like. that idea, that we as readers should use the code as a way of evaluating cats' behaviour, is flawed.

like, i'm not talking about being inconsistent with how that is applied. if you want to say, "the trial leafpool goes through for having half-clan kits is legitimate because of the code," i still think your approach is flawed.

because the cats themselves don't seem to think that way.

the code doesn't, to me, feel like the ten commandments. it does not feel like "you must do this to be a good cat."

rather, it feels like aesop's parables. "here are mistakes cats made and what we do instead of that."

i don't think the cats know the code the way we do. i do not think they memorize a list of rules as kits. i think they know what is and is not part of it, but i imagine they know the stories far more than the rules.

(i'm working on my lore stories to replace code of the clans.)

and even if that's my thoughts, i do think this is supported by the text. no one ever teaches the warrior code, cats just learn it in pieces. "don't waste food because we don't have enough to spare" is taught, not "there's a rule about food and starclan on the code."

that's why the whole arc of the broken code even works: the reason the imposter is able to manipulate things is because cats don't treat the code as a rigid set of rules and commandments, but guiding principles.

the parts of the code that we tend to focus on the most are relationships, apprentices, and battle. or that's my perception. i didn't do a poll to obtain that. there's also the leader's word, but readers don't usually think of that as a good rule, so i'm not including it.

but the parts the cats focus on most are food, territory, and the leader's word. which makes sense: those are basic needs: food, security, and...i don't want to say authority so much as some kind of social system. explaining it would be a whole thing. just trust with me, if you don't mind.

i don't think we have any real reason to believe cats care about half-clan relationships half as much as we do. yes, apprentices are chastized about it, but that's not really the same thing as being punished.

and it's hard to tell, because apprentices being punished has really fallen off, and that's kind of the problem with any argument i try to make about warriors, but.

wow.

i'm actually still on topic? i'm 2k words in and i'm still on topic? a day i never thought would come.

let's wrap this up. cats seem to care about half clan relationships in that: a) they lead to conflicted loyalties, b) they mess with borders and prey, and c) they are in the code as bad. in that order.

and again, if the code was some high and holy religious doctrine, we couldn't have the broken code as an arc. it does not work if the cats are already following it to a t, and know it word for word, because it's signfiicantly harder to manipulate people if they do.

not to the level the imposter does, at the speed he does.

and yes, you could argue that it's more bad writing, but. i think that discredits warriors. yeah, it sure has its fair share of bad writing, but i don't think that's in the way the imposter works. instead, he seizes on a big important doctrine that's nebulous, and uses that to control people.

and that? that feels much more interesting.

so with that in mind, i don't think the cats would care about your typical, non-protagonist forbidden relationship, and i don't think we should, either.

as far as a plot device, i think we're okay with what we have. don't get me wrong, i understand why people are tired of it, but i think we also should remember that warriors is not repeating itself. having multiple forbidden relationships is not repetitive. now, if medicine cats were having half-clan kits every series, i'd make a different argument.

but all of the major forbidden relationships have different outcomes, lessons, and circumstances, and for me, i think that's signficantly interesting.

i didn't really check sources and quotes for this, so like, if you spotted something wrong, feel free to correct me. my overall point stands, but there's a lot of warriors and i have a bad memory, so i could have missed somthing major.

[wornoutmouse]

Can I request a bakugou x reader quirkless high school au song fic based on the song, " Bad Boy" by Queen Naija (Reader isn't really a 'good girl', but she stays out of problems, keeps to herself, and doesnt like drama. She just has a chill vibe likes listening to R&B shit like that.) please and thank you!💖

Ima tell you this right now. I don’t know how to write a song fic so this is going to be trial and error. Also this song ruined my life, my subconscious learned the lyrics immediately and I only listened to it 4 times. This is not my type of music. I don’t need it in ma brain fam!! 

I never really had a bad boy

You know I've always been a good girl

You lived your life as a master in the art of minding your business. Although you were in the one class in the whole school that couldn’t get a break from excitement, you were able to flawlessly blend into the seams. Of course it wasn't on purpose. You just liked to be in your own bubble. You got good grades and didn’t take part in extra curriculars. An excellent background character.

It wasn’t until you were partnered with the class loud-mouth Katsuki Bakugou, that your life started to take a turn for the better. 

Crazy how it happened so fast boy

The way you rocking my world

Anyone could easily tell you two were opposing forces like oil and water. But as corny as it was, the connection was immediate. Your first plan was to only speak when needed and drown out the white noise with music. Working silently was obviously a struggle for your partner because the next thing you knew, one side of your hearing was exposed to the buzzing excitement of your class.

“What crap are you listening to extra?” You looked at him blandly, one would be a fool to take offense from anything Bakugou says. You watched his face scrunch together in concentration and you could tell that he liked what he was hearing. For the rest of the class hour, you shared headphones and song interests, and for the first time, Bakugou wasn’t yelling.

Yeah, you're my distraction

Love our connection

He often joined the family for dinner and could even hold fluid conversations with your mother without missing a beat or falling behind. 

It didn’t take long for him to even invite you to his own home as well. While your must tastes were similar, home life and house decor were largely different. You found yourself spending hours with his father, gushing over baby pictures of Bakugou, and dinner was quite the spectacle as you watched him and his mother play ping-pong with insults while you enjoyed new Japanese cuisine.

I see so much when I look at you

You got potential

It became a bit of a routine. He would come over your house, your room would be filled with the warm gooey vibes of soul and r&b and you would day dream your worries away. At some point, Bakugou had become a key item to your way of living. 

When you two were alone, he surprised you by toning down his brash attitude and seemed genuinely interested in your aspirations. “So when you graduate, you’ll still have to take another 8 years of college plus 1 more of residency?!” You nod as you eat a spoonful of Cinnamon Crunch. “Why are you acting so surprised, you want to be the president.” Bakugou shrugged with a small smirk on his face, “Yeah but that’s plan B.”

Time is essential

But I'ma take my time with you

Cause you need it

It was Thursday and at 5am when Bakugou called you. He was drunk and angry, cursing with every sentence. You quickly went to pick him up in your mom’s car as fast as you could. An upset Bakugou was a menace to society and if he felt that he needed to call you this late, it must be serious.

You just need someone to keep it real with you

And I see that

“Fucking bitch!” He slurred, leaning against your car door. “That’s not nice Bakugou, at the end of the day that’s still your mother.” You focused on the road trying to avoid flinching whenever he randomly got loud. “You don’t understand. She won’t fuking listen, ion what to be a damn lawyer.” 

You glance wearily over at him downing the rest of his bottle. “I’m assuming she denied the architect's idea.” “What do you fucking think! Old lady want’s me to “continue the family business” like hell!”

I'ma be the one to plant that seed in you

You don't gotta worry

You sighed and made a sharp turn into a Target parking lot. “What the hell we doin ‘ere?” You park and turn the car off, you knew your mom would kill you if you stayed out too long, but this couldn't wait. 

“Katsuki, I’m going to tell you this right here and now. Sometimes adults think they are doing the best for you but they aren’t and you gotta show em that by doing what you think is the best for you and doing it well.”

I won't judge you from your past

I know you're not my first

Bakugou looked at you with slow blinking eyes before scooting closer in his seat. You allowed him to take hold of your face, and didn't look away as his finger rubbed gently along the curve of your lips.

“If you don’t want this….please...tell me to stop.” His face was red, the air was thick and something that was always there, ignited as your lips met.

With drunken strength, he pulls you onto his lap and feels gently along your body as you tug on his lips with your teeth. The car was filled with hormones and heavy breaths as you got more desperate, but not once did he try to undress you. It was him that pulled away first, “What’s wrong?” you asked, out of breath and concerned, but he only shook his head with a wide grin on his face. 

“Marry me.

But I'll make sure that you're my last

We live two different lifestyles babyBut we can change that

“Huh?” you laugh breathlessly, not believing your ears. “Marry me.” You feel your heart speed up so much so you could almost hear it. “But we’re so young, Bakugou, are you sure?” Bakugou cards his fingers through his hair with a determined look on his face. “Of course not now! But in the future.” You cross your arms and look down at him, “You're not messing with me are you Katsuki?” He scoffed, “Do I look like I’m joking you damn nerd?”

Just promise not to hurt me

Cause you know I told you that

You hold out a pinky, “Promise me then.” Bakugou jokingly pretends to bite your finger, “Are you serious right now?!” You huff indignantly, “Promise me Bakugou.” He rolled his eyes, “Ooo, pulling out my last name like that. Fine, I’ll be weird with you just this once.” 

He holds out his pinky finger and loops it with yours. “I promise that as soon as we graduate, I’ll make you mine.” You share another kiss and watch the sun rise over the large Target building without a care in the world.

I never really had a bad boy

You know I've always been a good girl

Crazy how it happened so fast boy

The way you rocking my world

[flannel-cladpika]

Avengers x Teen reader

The reader is a brilliant engineer, that makes (grade A+) battle armor & weapons. The Vulture and the reader works together by selling these illegal armor & weapons. (The Vulture even gives the reader profit because the reader lives alone) The reader learns at school (The R is the quiet/loner kid) about Vulture getting arrested and they soon decide to leave New York and disappear. They grab all their money and leave to Tennessee to start a new life. The ending could be the reader starting a new life

Sorry for the delay! Here it is!

Avengers x GN! Teen Reader

You weren’t always like this. 

You had a family once. Loving parents, 2 siblings that were annoying but still kind and sweet. A nice house on the outskirts of New York City. You had the perfect life.

Until the world started ending due to an psychotic AI wanting control of the world.

You’d been out getting groceries while your parents were taking your siblings into the city to pick up some take out for dinner and maybe get something from the Cheesecake Factory.

You’d gotten home earlier than them, which was to be expected.

That’s when you saw the news.

There was an invasion of robots descending on the city. You heard screams in the background of the newscaster. You hurriedly picked up your phone and called your parents. It took three rings until one of them finally answered.

“(Y/n)! Are you alright?” you heard from the other line.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but where are you guys?! Tell me you’re headed home, ple-”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry...I love you...We all love you...No, no, no! God, no! PLEASE!! N-” and with that, the line went dead.

Later, when bodies were being identified, you found out that your family wasn’t among the survivors. That was the day you lost everything.

Timeskip~ 2 years later

You’d thrown yourself into your passion of engineering and tinkering, and worked like your life depended on it. You’d managed to make a name for yourself on the dark web and black market for being a fantastic engineer of unusual illegal weapons, like gloves that could shoot focused high-intensity soundwaves, causing an opponent’s ears to be in extreme pain and bleed, even causing horrible hearing loss.

You’d managed to make enough money from work to put yourself through school and even get yourself an apartment, though it wasn’t exactly the nicest place. But hey, you just needed a place to crash, keep all your equipment, and hide your money. A shady, rundown place was perfect. 

Through your work, you’d met some people. One of those being Adrian Toomes, aka, “The Vulture”. The guy had found out about you through a client of yours, and had apparently liked your products. He’d called you up on one of your  phones (you had several cells, to as to not be tracked), and asked for your help on a project of his. You’d heard of him, and knew he was a reliable guy in the underworld, so you agreed to meet him and see what you could do. Afterall, this guy had connections, which were invaluable in this business.

Turned out, the two of you worked really well together. He didn’t look down on you because of your age or treat you like a little kid. At the same time, he gave you space to work and listened to you. After a few more collaborations, you asked to move your tools into his warehouse, as your apartment wasn’t such a good workspace. He smiled and agreed. 

Adrian, or as you liked to call him “Vultch” was good to you. He would happen to bring extra food in his meals and offer you some. He’d even gotten you a new power drill for Christmas. He knew you were an orphan, and knew you lived on your own, but never pushed for details, which you were grateful for. He was like a father-figure, or at least a caring uncle.

When you met his daughter at school, you actually didn’t know who she was at first. Their last name was the same, but you figured that was probably just a coincidence. As a quiet kid who liked books and formulas more than most people, you didn’t really pay the popular pretty girl much mind.

That was, until you both were grouped together for a partner project. She offered to drive you over to her house after school, which you quietly agreed to.

You two started talking on the way there, and you realized that Liz was actually incredibly intelligent and not at all like the stereotypical popular kid. By the time you reached the Toomes residence, you guys were making horrible math puns.

“Well, we’re here! My mom and dad should be home, but don’t let them scare you. They’re overly affectionate and embarrassing, like every other parent. Come on!”

Liz opened the front door, her mother coming down the stairs with laundry immediately greeting you both. 

“Lizzie! You’re home! And who is this sweetie?” The woman asked her daughter.

“Mom! This is (Y/n). They’re my partner for a class project.”

You slowly raised your hand for a shake. “Hello, Mrs. Toomes. It’s nice to meet you.”

She smiled and shook your hand. “Nice to meet you too, sweetie.”

Suddenly, a voice came from the kitchen. A very familiar voice...

“Honey? Is that Lizzie?” 

Your eyes widened when you saw Liz’s dad come out from the kitchen, bowl of chips in hand.

When the Vulture’s eyes landed on you, he looked like a deer in the headlights for a moment, before shaking it off.

You knew better than to say anything about what you did for a living, and knew that other people in the business had lives outside of arms deals and engineering illegal weapons. You just never thought that Adrian would be Liz’s dad.

You shook your head lightly and stuck out your hand. “Hello Mr. Toomes. I’m (Y/n). Liz and I were partnered for a school project, so I hope you don’t mind my staying here to work on it.”

Adrian lightly smiled and shook your hand firmly. “Good to meet you (Y/n). As long as you two don’t cause any explosions or fires, your welcome to come on in.”

That was the start of an odd but fun relationship with the Toomes family.

Timeskip~

God, you hated superheroes. One minute, you were working with Vultch’s team on a new upgrade to the suit, and the next, you’re hearing of his arrest and trial. You went to the trial to say goodbye to him, holding back the tears. He gave you a warning to run. You promised you would soon.

At school, you hugged Liz goodbye, heartbroken, as she was like a sister to you.

You saw your friend Peter talking to her as she left. You wondered what he said to make her look even sadder.

You packed up what few belongings you had. Adrian had asked you to blow up the warehouse, so that your fingerprints wouldn’t be found. You did as asked via remote from 1/2 mile away.

You took out all the money that you kept underneath a loose floorboard and stuffed it in a backpack, covering the cash with your clothes and personal items.

You bought a ticket for a train heading out of the city, and from there, a bus that was headed towards Florida. You planned to get off in Tennessee so that no one who follow you.

That night, as you waited for the train to come, you heard your name being called. You looked around, the station nearly devoid of other people except one guy with air-pods in and a lady on a phone call

“(Y/n)! (Y/N)! WAIT!” 

You then turned around, seeing Peter running towards you. What the Hell was he doing here?

“Peter, what ar-”

“I know.”

You froze. What?

“What do you mean? What are you talking about Pete?”

“I know you worked with Toomes on creating illegal weapons. I know that you knew who he was.”

You tried acting dumb. “What? Peter, you know me. I w-”

He stared at you with a serious expression that you’d never seen on him.

“You’re right. I do know you. I know you’re a genius with mechanical and electrical engineering. I know you live alone in an apartment that you pay for, which no highschooler could make enough to do, especially if they went to our school, which has a high tuition. You’ve also never talked about your job. I’m not an idiot (Y/n). You have 2 choices, either turn yourself in, or come with me and we can see about putting your skills towards helping others.”

You sighed as you walked towards your friend. “That’s the thing about you Peter. You’ve never been an idiot. I liked that about you. If only you had been just a little less observant.” You said as you heard the train coming

You hugged Peter, making sure you were out of sight from any cameras. He was about to return the gesture, when you stuck a needle into his arm. 

“Wai-”

You whispered, “I’m truly sorry Petey, but I don’t think either of those options is for me. This stuff will wear off in about an hour. I’ll call Ned to come pick you up. I really am sorry, Peter. Goodbye. Maybe someday, we’ll see each other again.”

With that, you slung Peter’s arm over your shoulder, making it look like you were helping a drunk friend. You placed him on a bench before calling Ned, saying Peter passed out from a fight and was at the train station.

You boarded the train with your backpack and sighed as the train slowly started  moving. You looked behind you at Peter’s slumping body on the bench and at the New York City skyline. 

Man were you going to miss this place.

Maybe one day, when it was safe again, you’d be able to come back...

THE END

A/N: Hey! If you made it this far, THANK YOU for reading! 

[indigosprite]

In another ask, you shared your thoughts on why you didn’t like 6996 etc. do you think 2795 share the same problem? I think while Tsuna and Kyoko doesn’t seem as weird as 6996 on the surface upon further speculation and reading works where Kyoko becomes this bamf vongola tenth wife who does anything for Tsuna, it sort of treads the same vibe as Chrome and Mukuro in some way. Idk I just want to hear your thoughts on maybe 2795 and maybe 2786 as well.

Hi hi

Had to search these because I literally did not have any ships for this show until I rewatched it and just merged my favorite characters into one pair that happened to be a ship. I  forget the others exist...With that being said, take this with a grain of salt because I honestly don’t even think about these ships a lot, forget they even exist. How KHR was written will always make the the very idea of Tsuna with any of the female characters feel weird or odd unless you’ve managed to read or create enough Fanon that changes your characterization of the original dynamic. I don’t think they share the same problem but maybe a similar one ? Tsuna and any female character compared to Mukuro and Chrome is very different in my opinion. (funnily enough it’s also because Mukuro isn’t a misogynist shsjsjsj) 6996 could work, they actually have a relationship that’s very personal to both parties and unlike 2795 they’re both aware of it and have a distinct unique connection with each other that consists of shared interests trust and mutual respect. it’s just odd to think about because chrome looks up to Mukuro and the power imbalance feels weird, he’s literally keeping her alive. (Which I know is disgustingly sweet I find it very heartwarming. )

2795 is this one sided crush with zero redeeming qualities. There was nothing remotely romantic or intriguing happening between Tsuna and Kyoko the entire series. If we took out Tsuna’s inner thoughts we honestly would’ve thought she was just this nice girl he knows from school. If we took out Tsuna’s thoughts in general and left it up to the fandom pulling this ship out of their butts it would honestly be 1000% cuter. All their interactions read like

“this girl is so lovely I really like her and she’s talking to me that’s amazing”

“Thanks for the pencil. Do your best on the test okay?”

I’m not swooning over the most lackluster interactions on the planet because he is over romanticizing it. Even the reason why he likes her is not that interesting or convincing. Which I mean I get it he’s only 14 he’s not thinking about all the small stuff like emotional support or validation or like not wanting to be alone etc. It’s still just you’re pretty let’s be happy all the time while you hold my hand forever. He deserves that he’s literally a kid. but even when i was younger i didn’t see it between them ever. On top of their interactions being boring they never give us things that make you go “oh wait she might actually like him hmmm” . they could have tried a little harder to make it a little more romantic? sometimes they show us Kyoko in a pink background hands clasped surrounded by hearts and I forget she’s supposed to be viewed in that light. I forget we’re supposed to actually consider her liking him too but what are we supposed to think Kyoko is looking for in a guy that makes Tsuna a possibility when she doesn't exist past eating cake and worrying about her brother and Tsuna. I think it’s also fair to note that they never imply that Tsuna actually thinks about her beyond his image of her but we see how caring he is with his friends to the point where he can point out their flaws and work through them anyways and accept them. Tsuna realizing Yamamoto was not himself during the Guardians trial is a perfect example of this, it establishes the relationship they built with one another. another example is Tsuna acknowledging that Gokudera is overwhelming and short tempered but he wouldn’t trade the guy for anyone because he is loyal and a good friend.  he cares for Kyoko as a person in general but he never reaches that depth when it comes to her. he doesn’t have to either because it’s just a crush, how you manage to take that through the next ten years of his life I honestly don’t know. 

TL;DR : My ONLY problem with 2795 is the fact that there is nothing to work off of but the implication that Tsuna likes this girl and that’s why they are endgame. she matters very little, just a figurehead of his normalcy. she’s written just as badly in fics, can I blame you? no you were probably like 14 writing them. do a lot of people still do this ? yeah so i’m just not interested until the fanon has changed her character for everyone. 

I know I sound super hypocritical because “Sprite what the fuck does 6918 have that’s soooo intriguing they actually canonically hate each other how is that any better.” the answer: Mukuro and Hibari have a more established relationship with mutual feelings than those two, even better they’re actually really strong feelings (of pure hatred). Bonus, despite being aloof both characters also have fully developed personalities and Opinions/Behaviors that we can mold however we please. they actually have a relationship to play around with that's what makes it fun and lets you have those “actually they’re pretty similar in this aspect” because you know shit about both of them individually. 

Now for 2786,,, as i sit here and think about it Haru and Tsuna make so much more sense for all the reasons him and kyoko don’t . 

Kyoko and Haru were already made solely to be Tsuna’s love interests (specifically Kyoko) , but then it went on to be something they didn’t even bother hiding when they reduced their characters and their interests to looking after kids and repeatedly worrying over Tsuna. The reason I don’t find it appealing is because there really wasn’t any dynamic there at all. This boy liked this girl and that’s literally all it was. She has no depth , and despite being written for him nothing about Kyoko screams you’re perfect for this kid. Nothing says, You’re compatible, You have common interests, you two can rely on each other. She was pretty and nice and polite and that’s all they shared along with half the cast. With Haru they went the completely opposite direction, this girl likes him and is upfront about it. she's not a better candidate just because she's not the typical pretty girl whos quiet and polite and caring,(She’s not the better written female character either, this is reborn. they all lose here.) she’s the better candidate because we actually have a personality to compare to Tuna's. she was purposely given this big personality because he was never going to be in love with her because she’s like all the other intruding figures of his life. Again we have this one sided crush, know he doesn’t like her at all but you can actually see where they do go right and wrong. she’s a complete person. 

Haru can handle a little wild in her life, she was the first one to know he would be a mafia boss and it didn’t phase her at all. Tsuna might need that later in life.

In the future when Tsuna finds her crying she tells him not to think her feelings have anything to do with him, completely different dynamic from kyoko whos emotions are always directly related to male characters and what they are doing. 

Haru and her cosplays are so perfectly absurd and she does not care how weird he finds them, she has this big embarrassing trait to her that Tsuna comically responds to but just grows to overlook and accept.  

she actually talks to Tsuna quite a lot and helps him out whenever she can, because he doesn't like her she's allowed to actually exist in his world and he sees her fully because of it. It makes sense to see his significant other who will be involved in the mafia as an asset who he wants to protect and not just...something he needs to protect bc they honestly don't want this.

she interviews the entire cast of the show because haru just fits there, in a yamamoto like way, she can just handle it. 

Tsuna and Haru could have been perfect friends or a couple. they had the grounds for it. it’s just not what he wanted but I can totally see them working out for each other later in life. they make so much sense! i’ll have to think about them more sometime soon. 

Hope I answered you questions, this got long.

[goodluckdetective]

Haunted!Phoenix Fic: Moth’s Wings

Ship: Pre-Narumitsu 

Fandom: Ace Attorney 

Characters: Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth

A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30669839

Rating: PG-13

Summary:

Based off my “Phoenix Wright is a little haunted” AU. 

Edgeworth only asks him about the ghosts once, a full month before the Hawthorn trial. 

What he doesn’t ask then while haunted him later in more ways than one.

Notes: This is a fill for a friend based on a bet @feministbatman. Also the Spiritualist movement tricks I’m talking about are very real.

Wright told him about the ghosts, after the Engarde trial.

Edgeworth didn’t believe him, not at first. Sure, he saw what Miss Fey could do but he considered it a parlor trick, and nothing more. He was a man of science, of reason. He’d taken thoughts of phantoms and banished them to the realm of childhood fantasies as soon as his father died. There was no communing with the dead. 

Then he spent a day in Wright’s office shortly after the case and saw a pen lift up. As he watched, the pen wrote the following on a sheet of paper. He recognized the handwriting from years ago instantly despite the passage of time.

“I haven’t forgiven you for the bimbo comment. And I won’t forgive you for the note you left him either unless you shape up.”

It seemed Mia Fey’s sharp tongue followed her into the afterlife. He should have expected nothing less.Miles Edgeworth was many things, but he knew better than to contest the will of Mia Fey, dead or alive. 

So when he returned to Germany, he kept up corresponding with Wright. They shared notes about their own respective lives a few times a week over text and once a month through a call. Edgeworth told him about German law (fascinating), shows he saw on occasion at the theater (hit or miss) and the exploits of his dog (perfect as ever). In return, Wright updated him about his own cases (absolutely ridiculous, like the man himself), the antics of the Fey girls (chaotic) and Gumshoe’s latest crush (hopeless). 

Wright rarely brought up the ghosts, only mentioning them when they did something he thought Edgeworth would find interesting. Perhaps he knew enough of Edgeworth’s dislike of the supernatural to leave the matter be. Thus Edgeworth, surprisingly, was the one to bring up the ghosts on a more serious topic.

It was after a date he took in January, one he’d taken solely to get Fransiska off his case about being hung up on “spikey defense attorney’s.” The man she’d set him up with was nice enough: well spoken, nicely dressed, and charming, but the entire time Edgeworth couldn’t focus on anything besides how Wright looked much better in that shade of blue. He’d thanked his date for taking him to the Opera regardless, hoping to salvage a friend out of the incident, and when he next spoke to Wright, he told the man about the production. He left out the fact he’d gone as a date (for no reason, of course) and instead focused on the stagecraft of the show, something he knew Wright would know more about with his background. 

Halfway into their conversation about set design, Edgeworth shifted the discussion to one plot point in particular.“It was about a man haunted by his deceased lover,” Edgeworth said, leaning back in his armchair. “They decided not to use a fog machine for the actor playing her, instead deciding to use techniques utilized by the Spiritualist movement. I believe it was meant to underline that the ghost may be a product of his own-Wright?”

Edgeworth cut off mid sentence at the sight of Wright’s face over the video chat. The man had gone terribly pale, a shade Edgeworth had not seen since the Engarde trial when Maya’s life hung in the balance. It radiated terror, a man clinging to hope by his fingernails, and to see it now was chilling. 

“Wright? Is something wrong?” Wright shook his head, almost as if he was remembering Edgeworth was still there. That was also a rarity for the man; one of the things that endeared him to so many was his ability to make people feel properly regarded. 

“Sorry. I uh-”Wright scowled and Edgeworth almost dropped his laptop as the man struck out with one hand and grabbed something. He pulled it back, a scowl on his face, and between his fingers, Edgeworth saw something pale and white. When it twitched, he was able to recognize the shape as that of insect wings, from that of a butterfly or a moth. He was about to remark that Wright struck him as the type to gently capture bugs to later set free when the wings vanished in a burst of tiny light. Wright opened his hand, palm showing no remains of the insect, and wiped it on his jeans like there was something to be cleaned off. 

“Is that-” Edgeworth considered letting the topic drop, as his heart so wanted, but some part of him felt forced to press on from the pallor of Wright’s complexion. 

“One of your ghosts, I take it?”Wright shook his hand, wiping it against his jeans again before turning back to look at Edgeworth.

 “Yeah. Sorry about that. Been bothering me for a few days, but hopefully it will go away soon.”

Edgeworth frowned. “I take it this spirit is unwelcome.”

Wright’s smile was as tight as the wire he walked in the courtroom. Edgeworth could see his bluffing face on, the one he wore when stretched to a limit. What in God’s name could make Wright look like that now? “You could say that.”

“Wright-” Edgeworth started, then stopped, searching for the words he wanted to use.  “Are the spirits you see...ever harmful to you?” 

The plot of the Opera came back to him in a rush, the ghost tormenting her lover at all hours from beyond the veil. On that stage, it was merely fantastical, but now speaking to Wright, Edgeworth found himself off put at a possibility he’d never considered before. Wright always spoke of the spirits that visited him as welcome guests or at worst, minor annoyances. But was that truly the spectrum of those he encountered? Wright had made enemies in his career. Some of them gone to the grave.

Edgeworth remembered the lead of the opera lying dead on the stage after a year of the ghost’s torment and felt sick. Von Karma had been dead for over a year now. What if he had spent that time seeking vengeance against another defense attorney who’d ruined his perfect record?

“Nah,” Wright said, smile bright and beaming. “Unless you count annoying me with moths. And if it doesn’t let up I can always call in Maya for a good old exorcism.” Edgeworth’s frown stayed and Wright pressed on, voice gentle. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. I promise, Edgeworth.” He sat up straighter in his chair and tilted his head. “So tricks from the Spiritualist movement, huh-”

Edgeworth let the topic drop, and listened to Wright talk about cheesecloth coming out of noses and feet cracking under tables. He would have to take Wright’s word for it: he knew more about such matters than Edgeworth. And regardless, should Von Karma be tormenting his friend, he would have not done it with moths.

 A month later looking over the file of Dahlia Hawthorne, Edgeworth would learn that he shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss Wright’s ghosts, both literal and metaphorical. 

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Chapter 6! And I’m at 70 followers already, which is hella hype, thank y’all for taking your time to read my rambling about all this stuff. Don’t feel shy to ask questions or whatever if you like; even if I can be a bit disjointed, it’s something fun to talk about, and as I get further in I can even get a better sense of how to answer them to the best of my knowledge.

Also, can I say I love this little intro profile to Izuku?

All the little tidbits about him are just so fitting! Though my one weird take on it is why it says his quirk is ‘TBD’... unless Hori was already planning for the developments to come from the Joint Training Arc and beyond. Or maybe just leaving himself room for those kinds of developments if he wasn’t quite set yet? 

Still, I think this was still the time period where Hori was thinking it was going to end after like, Kamino or something. With something like Two Heroes. 

Discord: It could have been a placeholder until Hori came up with a fake quirk name for Izuku to hide his quirk behind, aka Superpower. 

Anyways, without further delays, time to get into the chapter itself!

[No. 6 - What I Can Do For Now]

We dive right in with Ochako protesting how unfair this is. Aizawa notes that Japan is full of unfair things - natural disasters, highway pileups, rampaging villains. Heroes are the ones to correct that unfairness. UA is going to put them through the wringer for the next three years - as per the Plus Ultra motto.

(also, nice silhouettes of Midnight, Thirteen, and… I think Lunch Rush? The discord also suggested it might either be a proto-design for Vlad King, or just a background character who ended up scrapped/forgotten about.)

Aizawa calls them out to bring their best, saying that now it’s for real. Tenya thinks about it being a trial by fire, Katsuki thinks of his move as nothing, Ochako is shaking in determination, the rest of the class is focused, and Izuku is… still stressing. Also, these proto-designs:

I cannot even. Those horns. That HAIR. The lack of beak. It’s just so weird compared to their finalized designs. 

The first event gets off to a speedy start, Tenya zooming right through the 50-meter dash thanks to his Engine quirk. Aizawa thinks that that event was too suited to Tenya, and thinks about how he’ll handle the other events. Tsuyu wasn’t too slow, though, and the narrative doesn’t even try to introduce her quirk with how obvious it is - she’s a frog!

Ochako and Ojiro are shown next, and-

Ojiro, why the leaping? Someone suggested it might be a reference, but it could just be another early weird character thing being tried, I guess? I don’t even know, it’s just strange.

Next is Aoyama and Mina, with the latter with the curliest horns I cannot even. Aoyama also makes a move to show off his quirk, calling the others unimaginative as he rockets backwards along the track- and then falling flat before the goal and having to get back up on his feet to do so again, with Mina managing to pass ahead of him thanks to the acid under her feet. 

Aoyama is still sparkling as he explains how if he’d fired an instant earlier, his stomach would have exploded, which, fun! The rest of the class is like ‘what the fuck dude’, which is a mood. Aizawa thinks about how the kids are pushing their quirks to their limits and seeing how they’ve improved, he can guess what they can and can’t do, and how that will be linked to their creative use of their quirks. 

Meanwhile, Katsuki and Izuku are doing the sprint side by side, Katsuki taking on an absolutely feral expression as he uses his quirk to blast ahead, in the process starling and slowing down Izuku slightly.

Seriously, Katsuki’s faces are just. I can’t describe how much of a gremlin this child is. And this!

His thoughts immediately going back to Izuku right after determining how that use of his quirk worked for him. His being thoughtful about that force distribution suggests he didn’t use his quirk much practically before UA… which makes sense, producing explosions and then using it for movement purposes are two different things.

Also the bot giving Izuku a little ‘good job’ just touched my heart. Though it really sucks that Katsuki probably cost Izuku a few seconds with that move of his; luckily, Izuku still came in under his middle school record despite his setback, which is impressive! Aizawa isn’t impressed, though, and Izuku isn’t either, thinking about how even using his power once will wreck him, and how regulating it is easier said than done.

We descend into a short flashback, again to the beach, with Toshinori stating that the trick to regulation is sensation! With Izuku agreeing immediately, because he’s a fanboy. Toshinori notes that Izuku experienced 100% power, and Izuku notes that it really messed him up. Toshinori says that it should be easy, and asks how it felt. Because I can’t do this justice:

Izuku you little dumbass, I love you, but your ability to describe things leaves much to be desired.

In full seriousness, though, like, the kid might just be afraid of his own power, just from this moment right after the flashback:

But yeah, to catch up to this point, Toshinori tells Izuku to keep that image in his head for the last three weeks until school starts, and that control can’t be obtained overnight, but he believes Izuku can and will manage it! We get back to Izuku attempting the grip strength, thinking about not exploding the egg, and then he has that fun trauma flashback to the state of his body after the zero pointer, and is dismayed at his ‘lacking’ score of 56 kg - especially compared to Shouji’s score of 540 kg. 

WHAT IS THAT SERO DESIGN. What is that Mineta design????? Also why is THIS the first impression we get of Mineta. Him calling Shouji, or his quirk, or his strength, sexy,,, I think that’s just a case of weird translation, but still. 

Izuku is shown to come short in the next two events, getting more and more stressed as he fails to use his quirk at all. By the fifth event, Izuku is stressed about being out of options while watching Ochako literally get an infinity on the ball throw, because everyone else has at least one amazing record and the last events are ones he can’t use his quirk for in any meaningful way. 

He steps up to the circle, with Tenya noting that he’s not doing well, which in turn has Katsuki call out how he’s quirkless, so of course. Tenya is confused, asking whether Katsuki had heard about the entrance exam, which confuses Katsuki. Aizawa is already expecting Izuku’s next move, which is to charge up his whole arm and try to throw it as far as he can, while thinking about his mom and All Might and their support of him. 

We see Aizawa’s eyes snap open, flashing - and Izuku’s quirk fails, the ball barely hitting 46 meters. For a moment, Izuku is outright horrified:

God, poor kid. Izuku looks at his hands, swearing he was trying to use it, but Aizawa tells him that he erased Izuku’s quirk. In slightly more entertaining news:

Like a freaking schoolgirl. I can’t even, he cares about his kid so much. 

Aizawa explains how the entrance exam is ridiculous, and completely irrational if it lets ‘someone like you get in’. Which, fucking OUCH, I can’t imagine how much that had to hurt Izuku. Izuku, however, is more distracted with his realization that Aizawa is the pro hero Eraserhead, and how his quirk works… which is fucking impressive considering how much Aizawa would try to keep that information on the down low in order to maximize his effectiveness in taking out villains.

(Also, what a shot. Izuku’s imagination really is something.)

Wait, All Might, how did you get so close to the class so quickly, and how did no one notice you? Man be maxing stealth and speed somehow. Also, I love how the translation accidentally called Aizawa an ‘angler-type hero’, which I think was… not what was intended.

But yeah, most of the class hasn’t heard about the man, while All Might notes how Aizawa hates public appearances because it interferes with his work, and how he and Aizawa hardly see eye to eye.

Aizawa tells Izuku that he’s seen how the kid can’t control his quirk, and that he’d just be incapacitated again, before asking if he was hoping someone would step in to help afterwards. Izuku says it’;s not like that, while Aizawa’s scarf slips around him and drags him closer. Aizawa says that his plan would inconvenience others, then brings up All Might’s legendary rescue while also calling him hot blooded. 

Just, ouch, Izuku has to be feeling the pressure. I know he’s used to people doubting him, but this still can’t be fun so soon after he’s finally gotten himself some confidence in his right to be at UA. 

Aizawa finally closes his eyes and lets his power go, telling Izuku to give it another go, and to get this over with. Izuku is in a mental slump, muttering to himself about his options, while the class looks on. 

Aoyama what the fuck. Also Katsuki, you are about to be disappointed and blown away. Aizawa is curious as to how Izuku is going to fail out of his class while applying eye drops. Izuku’s muttering goes on as he thinks about how he can’t regulate OFA yet, and how everything is now hedging on this single throw, and how even All Might noted that it would take time to learn control. 

Izuku moves like he’s going to do a full power throw, and Aizawa is already declaring that Izuku has no chance. However, Izuku still isn’t pulling up OFA even as he moves through the motions of the throw, while thinking about how Aizawa is right; Aizawa realizes mid-sentence that something is different about this from Izuku’s last attempt. Even as the ball is just about to leave his hand, his quirk isn’t there, as he notes that he has to work harder than anyone else if he wants to get in. 

Toshinori is mentally cheering Izuku on, as Izuku mutters that he’ll give it his all in the smallest way - and pulls up OFA in just one finger at the last moment, sending the ball flying and his finger to the wringer. Katsuki is shocked, Aizawa is shocked as well, and Izuku’s finger is dripping blood. Aizawa realizes that Izuku didn’t use his full power, just concentrated it, while Izuku has Aizawa’ words echo in his head as he replies that he can still move. The last panel of the page has Aizawa looking like he’s close to laughing at how ridiculous the situation is.

And so ends chapter 6! Man, what a ride, and it’s not a shock that Izuku is still trying to be so cautious with his quirk at this point… in contrast with much, much later in the manga.

[uwu-shinsou]

First,,,, CONGRATS ON 500 BB!! YOU DESERVED IT!! And uhhh if it's not much a bother can I request Shinsou Hitoshi with 6 and 13 (if it's alright! If youre not comfortable with doing it you can do whatever youre comfortable with, I care abt your well being more than the fic that Im requesting) and I dont really uh care if its hc or a drabble or smth cuz im inlove with anything and everything that you make! Again congrats! Have a nice day :))

Title: Whatever You Say

Prompt: Accidental Text, Hate-to-Love

Warning(s): Mild language

Pairing: Shinsou Hitoshi X Gender Neutral!Reader

Genre: Drabble, working through feelings

Word Count: 1.3K

A/N: THANK YOU ISSA!! 🥺💖I’m so glad you requested!! Bc I’m trying to keep these shorter like “drabbles” I had a hard time doing like,, full on hate to love so this is more like resentment to friends with implications of hidden feelings?? AHAHA but uhhh yeah, I hope you all enjoy 🥺and in case you missed it, my last year of college has started, so I will be updating less frequently, but I will still be around and writing and vibing!🤗

500 Event Masterlist

✿ .✿ .✿ .✿ .✿

Oh shit.

You flew down the hall, bursting into Kaminari’s bedroom without knocking. The blonde sat up quickly at your intrusion, but relaxed slightly upon seeing it was you.

“What’s up speed racer?” He joked, folding his legs up to make room for you on the bed. You walked up to the side of the bed, dropping your knees on the edge and falling forward face-down onto the covers.

“I messed up, Denki,” You groaned, rolling over onto your back and staring at the ceiling. “I sent a text to Shinsou-”

He let out a little snort. “Now that’s unusual.”

“Yeah,” You agreed. “Because it was a text that was not meant for him.” 

“It couldn’t have been that bad, right?” He asked, now a little nervous. You couldn’t blame him. You and Kaminari had clicked instantly at the beginning of your first year at U.A., and now you’d pretty much consider him your best friend, and you his. But come the end of first year, with the trial and following announcement that Shinsou Hitoshi, general ed student, would be transfering into the hero course- and more specifically- your class, Kaminari Denki had seemed to collect himself yet another best friend. 

And you had made your first rival.

You hadn’t wanted to. But when you had first heard about Shinsou’s quirk, people couldn’t help but compare it to yours. As long as you maintained skin to skin contact, you could command another person to do anything that you wanted. Paired with your athletic background (which started when you were young, at the insistence of your parents that it’d “prepare you for hero training”) you were clearly the superior “mind control” student. You didn’t understand why another one was needed in the hero course. Wasn’t he just fine being in the general course?

But of course he had to join class 2A, become Aizawa’s favorite, and start to steal the attention of your best friend.

But Kaminari was his own person, and he made his own choices about when he hung out with the two of you. It really wasn’t fair to put him in the middle of your mess of feelings. And even though he was Shinsou’s friend, you knew he would keep your secrets.

You turned onto your side to look at him. “Here just- read this.” You shoved your phone at him. He took it in his hand, his face contorting into a grimace as he read your mistake once, twice, three times.

“...Why the hell did you send him this?” You slapped your hands against your face in embarrassment and despair. He mockingly cleared his throat. “‘Can you believe purple hair beat me in today’s exercise? Why does he have to basically have my quirk? If he wasn’t so hot I’d be really pissed.’” Kaminari let out a whistle. “Wow, now there is a lot to unpack here, hun.”

You winced. “Yeah, that text was supposed to go to Mina, but I mean- fucking hell, I don’t know?” You ran your hands over your face. “I guess I somehow just clicked the wrong contact and instead it went to him! And it’s even worse that he hasn’t responded about it yet.” You’d never outright said to Shinsou that you disliked him, but you had to assume he knew, and felt the same way about you.

“I didn’t know you thought he was hot,” Kaminari said, wiggling his eyebrows. You launched a pillow at him that he ducked. 

“C’mon, anyone with a brain can see that he’s attractive,” You muttered. “It’s the same as Todoroki, or maybe Bakugou if you took away some of the attitude.”

He let out a sigh. “Yeah you’re right.” After a moment of silence he pressed your phone back into your hand. “Anyways, I think the best approach would be to sort it out face to face. Texting can make things too muddled sometimes.”

“Since when did you have so much wisdom?” 

He nudged you with a knee. “Hey, there’s a reason you came running to me.”

“I suppose you’re right.” It’ll probably be really awkward and not fun, but you should try to explain yourself in person.

Which is how you found yourself on the outskirts of the woods by the dorm buildings watching Shinsou workout, your presence still unnoticed as his back was turned to you. Kaminari had directed you here, knowing that his friend often trained here on his own. 

Suddenly he relaxed his stance, speaking without turning around. “What, you got more to say to me than what was in that text?”

You gritted your teeth at his words. What is up with his attitude!? “Yeah, well maybe I do.” You crossed your arms, shifting most of your weight onto one foot.

Shinsou glanced over his shoulder. “Sucks for you, I’m busy.” He reached down to the ground and slung his towel over his shoulder. “Since my quirk is clearly inferior to yours, I need to keep training.” You winced slightly at his words.

“Hey, I never said it like that-”

“Yeah, well you didn’t have to.” He sighed before turning to face you fully. “Look, I get it, you feel like I’m trying to take your spot here at U.A. Well just- don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll stay out of your way.”

As he began walking away, you found yourself stepping after him. “Shinsou, it’s not fair to phrase it that way.”

He stopped and turned to face you once more. “What do you know about ‘not fair’?” Shinsou took a step closer to you. “‘Not fair’ is getting into the general class, only to see someone just like me being praised for their power in the hero course. ‘Not fair’ is working as hard as I can to make my dreams come true, only to find out that I still have to compete against you. ‘Not fair’ is wanting to so desperately hate you for it all, but I can’t. Not when I see your strength, your power, your drive and ambition, and I can’t help but admire it. Admire you.” He let out a soft snort of mock amusement to himself. “I do kind of hate you for that, though.”

You stood there in silence. What do I even say to that? Shinsou watched you warily, waiting for a reaction.

“I don’t hate you, not really,” You said slowly. As good a place to start as any. “Resented you, yes, but hate is a strong word.” As you continued talking, your mouth let more and more words spill out, words you didn’t even know you had wanted to say. “And yeah, I was worried that you’d ‘take my spot’ or whatever, but I think that was the competitive nature of this school getting to me. They support friendly competition between students, but maybe I took that too much to heart.” You toed at the ground, slowly looking up to meet his eyes. “I was worried about you joining our class because I think you have amazing control over your quirk and you’re really talented. You really do have the potential to be an incredible hero. And I think… I’d like it better if we were friends, instead of pitting ourselves against each other.”

As you waited for Shinsou’s response, you started to get antsy. Why do I care so much about what he’s going to say?

Finally he answered. “Alright. Friends is a good place to start.” He held his hand out to you, as if to shake on it. Hesitatingly you reached out, your fingers firmly grasping his. He tightened his grip. “Should we also acknowledge that you said I was hot in your text?”

His words brought on a wave of nerves, and you yanked your hand back as if it were on fire. “That- That was a typo!” He began walking back towards the dorms with you hurrying to catch up to him.

As you matched his stride, he huffed out a laugh and sent you a knowing smile. “Sure, whatever you say.”