#i spent like half an hour trying to get the perspective right an d this was the best attempt i had lmaOJFKSLDJ

[callmehere-iwillappear]

"Ahoy there fellas! Here's a little stress relief, also good luck! Don't worry she doesn't bite."

thank you! unfortunately they have trauma but it's the thought that counts

@tmntaucompetition

[amysubmits]

I’ve just spent about half an hour reading and re-reading your “Owning me is complicated” post. Reading this from a sub’s perspective is so helpful to a Dom. I often feel like I have to be perfect and never make a mistake with my sub. Often I feel like making a mistake would sabotage our relationship because I wouldn’t be living up to her expectations or standards. It’s heartwarming to read your thoughts about your Dom and the struggles that occur in His mind. We try to lead with confidence and assuredness and we want that to exude daily so that the sub is naturally “comfortable” in following and submitting. The truth is, we don’t ALWAYS know the answer. We don’t ALWAYS have it figured out. Trust and honor is a delicate strand that we try not to break. Her submission is the most beautiful gift she can give me but knowing she looks at me and thinks of me as her everything is even more. Never wanting to let her down is always a part of my mindset. I try to earn her submission and trust every day, not by my words but through my actions. It’s beautiful to know that there are subs that think and acknowledge the things you described in your writing. Thank you. Thank you for shining a light that says “True Doms will always have a sub’s best interest at heart.” Such a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much for this thoughtful message!

It feel like the nuance involved with D/s often gets lost on tumblr. There isn't really a good way to say in a short snippet or meme that on one hand, most subs are really drawn to confidence and confidence can feel like a key part of being a dom in some ways. And yet..doms are human and should have room to make mistakes. And while confidence can assist dominance a lot, it can also be a huge liability or threat to the D/s relationship if someone in the Dom role acts confident when they aren't informed. I guess in other words, confidence is great, but it's not realistic for doms to always be confident in everything...and arrogance is dangerous. Sometimes a dom not knowing exactly what to do and just having a nice discussion ith their sub about what they are thinking and even gaining additional insight or information from their sub to help make a decision can be a really bonding, D/s-feeling, lovely thing. And it's easy to miss that nuance if you go looking at memes or shortform content that talk about how confidence is key to being a dom or whatever. Or erotica that portrays dominance as practically being an all knowing, all confident god-like creature. Finding it hot as a fantasy I get for sure, but it's so important to differentiate between fantasy and real relationships and that difference isn't always clear on here. Similar with earning submission. I get why there is a lot of content that talks about the importance of earning trust and submission. There are so many doofuses out there who think they should just command a sub into compliance without earning submission and those are some really dangerous people. At the same time...it's easy for me to grasp why a well-meaning dom might think if they make a mistake then that means they have temporarily 'lost' submission or failed to earn it that day or something - and it's not necessarily like that. I try to always remember that my dom is human and will get it wrong sometimes. I don't expect perfection. More than anything else it's just the fact that he really wants to be cautious and take good care of me and of our relationship...that he's always looking to learn from his mistakes and to grow as a person and as my partner... that allows him to earn my submission more so than how 'right' he gets it. It's the way he is motivated to act in ways that align with his moral compass and character that really get me submissive the most. Anyway, thanks again for your message, it was really heartwarming to read!

[hxseok-honee]

atlas heart || part 25

a/n : so sorry it took so long getting this update out !! i had a disgusting amount of work to do and i really was not doing anything else for a few days -- i really hope you like it!! pls lmk what you think about things now that jimin (and we) know everything! its gonna get,,,, i wanna say messy but messys not even enough to cover how messy its gonna get

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________________________________

Jimin can’t remember the last time he’d closed his eyes for more than a few minutes. Time goes by so fast these days that he’s partially convinced he’s been falling asleep and not realizing it. The hours between class and dinner every day are spent in the library, his headphones shoved into his ears haphazardly while he tunnel visions onto what’s been in the back of his mind since the beginning of the year.

Those spare hours had turned into days and days into weeks -- weekends where he doesn’t even glance at his phone, unaware of the growing concern of his friends. It’s almost May now, the chill of early spring having melted away around him without him realizing. His schoolwork stopped being a priority ages ago, and he knows his grades are really taking the hit for it. He vaguely remembers Namjoon confronting him one night some time ago -- a week? Two weeks ago? -- but he can’t for the life of him recall the contents of that conversation. Something about hating to play the ‘prefect card’, but having no choice. He doesn’t even know if he’s still on the quidditch team. It doesn’t matter -- nothing matters when seeing everything with the perspective he’s got now.

Practically buried in scrolls and books, Jimin could care less about the time and the fact that he’s very obviously breaking curfew right now -- the library’s been empty for hours now, and the light outside the window has well past faded into pitch black darkness. He had to hide from Pince around 10pm, barely managing to catch the click of the librarian’s heels through the music blasting in his headphones to keep him concentrated -- it’s a miracle that she hadn't caught him, really. He’d never be able to focus properly back in his room, not when he’s this close to putting the pieces together.

It’s there, right there, everything scattered in his brain. He knows it’s sitting right in front of him, he can feel himself trying to hyperfocus on anything that can blatantly tell him what he needs to know. Flipping through the pages of a book with one hand and shuffling through scrolls with his other, he glances down at a scrap of paper with his own handwriting, chicken-scratch on a ripped up piece of parchment for him to refer back to every few minutes. There, in black ink, the words ‘vampire’ and ‘veela’ are written and then, later, crossed out. There’s one below it -- ‘maledictus’ -- that remains uncrossed and haunts his every thought.

For the better half of the week, he’d spent his nights scouring the bookshelves for any text he could find on blood malediction -- there isn’t much to show for his efforts. Too rare a condition to have any extensive research done, he could barely manage to put together a few measly scrolls and one book with less than a full chapter on the subject. Sighing heavily, Jimin leans back in his chair, rubbing at his temples while he reconsiders the information for what feels like the hundredth time.

It fits the fact that she has a blood condition… but it’s not right. There’s no mention of a potion or even of regularly experiencing sickness. Y/n is in the Hospital Wing like once a month. There wouldn’t be anything Pomfrey or Hoseok could do to help her if she was a maledictus…

He considers that maybe those things are part of blood malediction and that there just isn’t enough documentation for him to verify it. But there’s something nagging at him, telling him this isn’t right. He thinks back over everything he knows, trying to pull up the major details that could help him finally get some sleep. Ignoring the fact that he very well could doze off, even with his loud ass music, he lets his eyes close so he can think. It takes a few minutes, but eventually he’s sitting up in his seat, eyes wide as he recalls something said to him almost months ago, forgotten amidst everything else on his mind.

“What’s the deal with your roommate, Tae?”

“Who, Stephen?”

“No, not fuckin’ Stephen -- Jungkook!”

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know?”

“Because Stephen doesn’t look at me like I’m the bane of his existence.”

“Yeah… I don’t know what you did to make Jeon Jungkook hate you, but it must have be serious--”

“Just tell me what you know about him, Tae.”

“I mean… nothing crazy, really -- an only child, comes from old money. Probably as old as the Malfoys or the Potters. His family’s the purest of purebloods. And always Gryffindors, just like the Malfoys are always Slytherins. It’s kind of nuts, having a family history like that.”

Jimin stumbles out of his chair, already making his way down the aisles of bookshelves, almost crazed with concentration.

Purest of purebloods -- there’s not a single pureblood family that isn’t documented in a registry… registry… regis-- aha!

Turning down an aisle designated for family registries dating back centuries, he scans the shelves at a lightening speed, finally coming to a halt in front of a tome titled Gryffindor Legacies. Hauling it from the shelf, he doesn’t even bother returning to his table, taking a seat right there on the floor.

Flipping straight to the back to search for the family name, he locates it easily and heads to appropriate page. Searching the family tree down generations, it takes him several pages of flipping through Jungkook’s ancestors’ lives to finally get to his parents. They’re the most recent entry -- new editions of the book are printed with each new generation, the original, handwritten copy belonging to the respective families. It’s an inefficient system for sure, but Jimin’s not exactly complaining when he’s the one benefiting directly.

Scanning the page, from the birth of his mother -- Jeon Eunha -- to her school days, from her marriage to his father all the way to Jungkook’s birth. Jimin expects the next part to follow the same structure of his mother’s story, recounting his childhood, but it diverges from that almost immediately with some extra lines that he almost feels don’t exist in the original copy at the Jeon family residence.

Not long after the birth of their first and only child, they were met with circumstances leading to the adoption and care of another, the recently orphaned infant girl, Y/n Y/l/n. In her days at Hogwarts, young Eunha had become friends with a female Ravenclaw student, who had a noticeably sickly pallor about her at all times. She was to become her closest lifelong friend. The same night in which Y/l/n was to give birth to her first child, she and her husband met an untimely fate in the form of a violent animal attack in the backyard of their own home. The Jeon family were the first to arrive at the premises, deciding immediately to take in the infant child and raise her alongside their own son. Not much else is known about the girl, only that she and the Jeon heir were to become inseparable.

Jimin stares down at the page, unblinking. There’s a lot of information to process, but the things that stand out most to him are the fact that Y/n’s mother was also apparently afflicted with the same illness as Y/n, and --

‘Violent animal attack’? I knew the car accident thing was bullshit, but… did her mom not even die in childbirth? Why would she not tell me… there’s nothing suspicious about an animal atta--

Almost like his brain has started to short-circuit after the long nights and lack of sleep, Jimin’s thoughts are gone instantly, replaced by the mental image of a book sitting not a even a few aisles away, on a table littered with all of the information he’d ever needed in the first place. He’s completely incapable of registering anything around him as he races back to his table, his mind flipping incomprehensibly between the information in front of him and all of the pieces of his memories, details that make too much sense in this moment to match anything but this one conclusion.

Most Muggles, however, will die from the extent of their injuries… all known instances of Muggle attacks have been portrayed in the media as ‘animal attacks’ so as to preserve the secrecy of the wizarding world…

Given the extent of the available research and data, collected almost entirely from male subjects afflicted with lycanthropy, not much is known about the hereditary components related to a female werewolf. Therefore, it is unknown if a pregnant female werewolf's transformations would affect the ability to carry the pregnancy to term…

Without any humans nearby to attack, or other animals to occupy it, the werewolf will attack itself out of frustration…

“My mom died in childbirth and my dad… just a… just a freak accident you know, no one’s fault or anything…”

Because werewolves only pose a danger to humans, companionship with animals whilst transformed has been known to make the experience more bearable as the werewolf has no-one to harm and will be less willing to harm themselves…

“You want to talk about forbidden, Jeon? Let’s talk about your illegal animagus status-”

The way one must imbibe it is very unique among potions, in that a goblet full of wolfsbane potion must be taken each day for a week preceding the full moon…

“…you know how long it takes me to make a full set of vials for you. I barely have enough to make it last 3 days…”

The monthly transformation of a werewolf is extremely painful if untreated and is usually preceded and succeeded by a few days of pallor and ill health…

“He was lowkey carrying her down the stairs… she looked kinda sick actually…”

Throwing scrolls behind him without care as he searches for the one with the final detail, he pulls his phone out when he finds it -- a book listing all of the recorded moon cycles for over a century. Jamming his thumb down on the icon that’ll take him to his search engine and typing with blind panic, he finds himself yanking out his headphones by the cord with one sharp tug when the answer flashes back at it him on the screen, and he realizes that almost all of the pieces are in place.

The quidditch match against Slytherin -- it was the night before a full moon.

“No, no… no, no, no, this can’t be right. This isn’t happening, this can’t be right, she can’t be--” Jimin remembers the text he’d sent to her almost 8 hours ago, sitting unanswered, and he moves without thinking. Slamming his hands down on either side of the moon cycle record, he flips frantically to the cycle for this current month, April of 1978. What he sees there has his heart dropping out of his chest.

“Next week? It’s next week? But that means she’d have to be feeling the effects of it this wee--” He’s cut off by the feeling of his phone buzzing in his pocket, and he reaches for it almost desperately. It’s Y/n, finally responding to his concerned texts with nothing more than a single line. His blood turns to ice when he reads it.

I’m fine, just feeling under the weather.

--

When Jimin bursts through the door of Dumbledore’s office just past 3am, the headmaster’s already seated at his desk, evidently waiting for him. He’s donning a light blue robe with a matching sleeping cap perched delicately on his head, suggesting to Jimin that he’d somehow woken up knowing he was soon to greet a guest. All of the panic invading Jimin’s body is masked just slightly by guilt, only now realizing how late it is and how intrusive he must seem in this moment.

“Mister Park, you certainly are out quite a bit past curfew, no?” Jimin stands in the doorway cradling all of the scrolls and books he’d been hoarding the last few weeks -- he can’t very well have left a huge pile of evidence back in the library. It would have taken no time at all for someone to look through it and see there were connections everywhere to lycanthropy, even if he himself had been blind to it for so long.

“... Park? Mister Park?” Jimin jumps, lifting his tired eyes to meet Dumbledore’s concerned ones. The man continues once he’s got Jimin’s attention. “Surely, you must need something from me, or you wouldn’t appear so…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need to. Jimin’s aware of the state he’s in -- the dark rings under his eyes, his ruffled clothes and hair, the way he’s holding his books like he needs to protect them with his life. He looks unhinged. He feels unhinged.

Realizing he has absolutely no idea how to approach the subject of a potential werewolf at Hogwarts with the school’s very headmaster, Jimin decides to start by moving toward the chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk.

Maybe I just need to sit down and take a deep breath. That should help--

He doesn’t even make it two steps before one of the many books he’s holding crashes to the floor between them, falling open to the page he’d stuck a pencil in to save his spot. The moon cycle for April of 1978 stares back up at him, and when he flicks his gaze up to peer at Dumbledore, he sees the headmaster’s expression has hardened with caution.

“Professor--”

“Have a seat, Mister Park.” Jimin’s heart lodges in his throat at Dumbledore’s tone, never having heard such a sharp edge to the kind man’s voice. He moves to the chair, setting the obnoxious amount of research haphazardly in his lap. His eyes will only go so far as the top of Dumbledore’s desk, unable to bring himself to meet the man’s eyes.

“Sir, I… need to ask you something.” When he isn’t granted a response, he swallows hard, pushing forward. “If there were to be a student at Hogwarts with a… peculiarity of sorts… how would you go about dealing with that?”

“How would I deal with what, Mister Park?”

“That student.”

“I’m not quite sure I know what you mean.” Jimin lifts his eyes then, confused, but he’s met with a deliberately ignorant smile.

“Sir?” Dumbledore’s smile, albeit strained, only widens.

“I think you may be suffering from a lack of sleep, Mister Park. There are no students at Hogwarts with any peculiarities, as you call it.” Jimin stares suspiciously up at him, knowing Dumbledore can tell that Jimin doesn’t for a second believe that claim. Breaking eye contact, he glances down at his lap, trying to figure out how to keep this conversation going. Trying to figure out why he’s even here.

Jimin looks down at himself and the pile of incriminating evidence, cursing his idiocy when he realizes just how bad this situation must look. A student out of bed way past curfew, barging into the headmaster’s office holding weeks of research and making outrageous claims about a potentially dangerous student. And he’s a Ravenclaw no less.

Shit. He probably thought I was some nosy little fucker trying to expose her and get her expelled.

Knowing that he’s risking a lot by being straightforward, he takes a single deep breath and meets Dumbledore’s eyes, his own filled with determination.

“Sir, I know about Y/n Y/l/n, and I know you do, too. I need to know how to take care of her. I need to know how to help her. I need you to tell me what to do because, to be honest with you, I’m freaking out.” The way Dumbledore’s examining him as he speaks tells Jimin that he’s right, but more importantly, it tells Jimin that Dumbledore hadn’t been expecting him to want to help.

“That is a very serious accusation you’re making, Mister Park, especially in this political climate. Very serious.” Jimin doesn’t waver when he responds.

“I know, sir. That’s why you’re the only one I’ve made it to. Because I need your help. Because I know you can help.” Dumbledore narrows his eyes, peering at Jimin over the tops of his half-moon spectacles.

“Have you considered the fact that just you knowing this information at all has placed Miss Y/l/n in more danger than she’s already in?” As soon as the words leave Dumbledore’s mouth, Jimin’s heart is stopping in his chest. All the times that Hoseok and Jungkook had told him to mind his business come rushing back, and he feels himself becoming sick to his stomach. Of course it’s more dangerous for her now that he knows -- he’d been too selfish to even think it through, too nosy for his own good. He had done all this to try to understand her, to try to be a better friend who can help when she needs it, but it’s all bullshit. Everything he thought he had done for her sake had actually been for his. For him and his stupid curiosity.

Lifting his head as a thought comes to mind, Jimin doesn’t even think twice before speaking.

“Can you erase my memories?” The headmaster’s eyebrows fly to his hairline, his expression becoming amused as Jimin continues rambling. “Can’t you obliviate me or something? Wouldn’t that be the best way for me to help her? Wait… but do you have to erase everything I know about her -- will I still know her? Can you make sure I still know her? I really like her! I don’t like Hoseok or Jungkook very much -- they kind of scare me -- but I like her! I don’t want to forget her, but also if me knowing that she’s a werewolf is only going to cause her more trouble, then I really think you should make me forget--” Dumbledore lifts his hand calmly, effectively silencing a frantic Jimin.

“Have you always had such a one-track mind, Mister Park?” Jimin smiles weakly, offering a half-joking response.

“It’s my only redeeming Ravenclaw quality…” Dumbledore chuckles before scratching at his forehead with a heavy sigh.

“Unfortunately -- and I do truly mean that -- I cannot erase a student’s memories. So, you and I will need to continue this difficult conversation.” Jimin considers the man’s words, knowing that it really would be better for everyone if he had his mind wiped clean and hating that he’d unknowingly put Y/n even more in harm’s way. He looks up when Dumbledore sighs again.

“Mister Park, you do understand that you are strictly forbidden from informing anyone else of this situation, yes?” When Jimin nods immediately, opening his mouth to assure the man that he wouldn’t say a word, Dumbledore only shakes his head. “No, Mister Park, I’m not sure you really understand. This situation is infinitely more complicated than you could ever imagine, so it is absolutely imperative that you keep this information to yourself.” Jimin blinks, unsure what’s meant by ‘infinitely more complicated’, but he nods again.

“I’ve put her in enough danger just by being here, Sir -- I’m not breathing a word of this to anyone.” Dumbledore examines him a moment longer, essentially staring into Jimin’s soul to gauge his trustworthiness. Eventually he nods, leaning back in his chair.

“What advice would you like me to give you, Mister Park?” Jimin stays silent, thinking hard about any way that he can make Y/n’s life easier, especially after all the trouble he’s caused up to now. His mind flashes back to the conversation he’d overheard in the library. He opens his mouth slowly, choosing his words with care.

“Sir… how does a student that isn’t even taking Potions know how to brew the wolfsbane potion? Isn’t it nearly impossible?” Jimin sees Dumbledore’s eyes flicker with recognition, and the headmaster responds cautiously.

“…If that student isn’t taking any kind of Potions course at all, they’d need to already be an expert from having dedicated all their studies to the art of potionmaking. They would also need an immense amount of private mentoring, even if they are taking Potions. We do not teach the wolfsbane potion in the curriculum. As I’m sure you can imagine, it wouldn’t fare well in these times…” Jimin squints, putting the pieces together quickly in his mind.

“And where would a student like that find this kind of… private mentoring?” The headmaster hums at Jimin’s question, peering down at him with knowing eyes.

“Well, Mister Park, if you wish to receive mentoring on much… safer forms of potionmaking, I’m sure Professor Slughorn would be happy to help you. However, if you are asking me about Mister Jung Hoseok of Slytherin House, and if you are wondering just how he became capable of caring for Miss Y/l/n at the young age of 13, well… you’re looking at his mentor.”

--

When Jimin leaves Dumbledore’s office almost an hour later, he feels like his head is going to explode. The nights of sleeplessness seem to also have come rushing back to him at once, and he’s not sure if he’s going to collapse first from the exhaustion or from the weight of everything he knows now. For a moment, he considers that maybe he really should ask someone to erase his memories -- Jungkook or Hoseok, perhaps.

Yeah, I’m sure they’d absolutely love to do me that favor.

Dragging his feet as he trudges down the corridor in the direction of Ravenclaw tower, Jimin stops short at a window when movement down by the Black Lake catches his eye. Almost as if thinking about them has caused them to materialize before him, Jimin watches the silhouette of Jung Hoseok stroll casually down by the shoreline, followed not long after by Jeon Jungkook racing toward him, a body perched precariously on his back. It’s not hard to see that Y/n’s clinging weakly to him as he runs, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as he keeps his hands hooked under her knees. Jimin can see that she’s got a gown on from the Hospital Wing, and it’s obvious that Jungkook and Hoseok have snuck her out from under Madam Pomfrey’s stern supervision.

They head for the Forbidden Forest, Y/n reaching back for Hoseok when Jungkook passes him. She beckons him forward, and Jimin watches as the three of them disappear together into the trees. He sighs deeply when he can no longer see them, muttering to himself under his breath as he makes his way to his room, overcome with extreme guilt at the entire situation.

“You’ve really gone and done it now, you fucking idiot.”

[moved-to-void-kissed]

Flowers Hiding Thorns

Telanthera’s involvement in a plot to overthrow a cruel nobleman and distribute his wealth among the rest of the court is accidentally revealed to none other than the head of the nobleman’s household servants, Camellia. Luckily, the situation finds itself working out much more smoothly than either woman first expected. (1256 words)

tag list: @thatslikesometaldude | @garchompp | @beeon | @tex-treasures | @catake | @tartaglialovemail | @kalliopi-ships | @lilacslovers | @blackbirdcrime | @dragonsmooch | @vilehusband | @kissofthemoonrabbit | @childrenofmeyneth | @strawberryshipz)to be tagged in what I make, please click here!)

Made it just in time for this to be my piece for the twenty-first day of sapphic September!! This is also the first piece of content I’ve created for my selfship with Camellia, who is an OC created by @vampking! Technically, this takes place before our relationship actually starts, but.. it still counts, right

Reblogs of my work are always okay, and appreciated, but by no means required! Comments should be enabled on the document (which is how I recommend reading it) if anyone wishes to leave any comments, but a transcript is also available below the readmore.

The estate’s regal presence was clear even in the depths of night-time, as the shadows of imposing buildings loomed ominously over their painstakingly-managed grounds. Only a few lonely figures could be seen moving through the mansion, as all those who were awake would have been lowly servants restoring the halls to their peak condition for the apparent benefit of the noble’s guests. Such effort on their part was only a small piece of a grand social affair, designed solely to impress to excess - and the woman holding the wax-sealed letter was sick of it.

“You know I can’t abide by his needless extravagance,” she was muttering in a low voice to a tall man standing in the corner of the room. “All this has to end, for the benefit of all of us.”

“And it very well will, with your assistance in this affair.” replied the man, similarly quietly.  “The weightier the fool’s throne, the harder it inevitably crashes down when he sits upon it, no?”

“Yes, quite true,” the lady nodded, before stepping closer to hand over the letter she was holding. It contained a long list of the observations she had made of the estate the two were currently staying in, little insights and quirks of the buildings or the servants’ paths from her perspective. Although they were not perfect, given the lady’s position as a noblewoman, they were nevertheless more useful than anything her peers could have picked up on if asked to, since her early years were spent in a position much closer to a servant than their master, and even despite rising into the higher ranks of the social circles, she always maintained a courtesy and gratitude towards those who assisted her in some way.

“You’ve made the right choice here, Telanthera.”

This remark earned the man a glare that was only half-obscured by the low light, and the lady’s response came in a much less smirk-filled tone. “I suggest you don’t use any names here unless you want a listening ear throwing a spanner in all your well-planned works.”

“Oh, but of course, my dear. Now then, on the note of such, we’d best leave it here, don’t you think?” he asked, stepping back off of the curtain he had been leaning on with the merest sound. “It’s in all our best interests to have you here to assist.”

The man left the room with the smug confidence of one who has always known power and fortune, closing the door behind him silently. Telanthera felt she had done what she needed to, and after taking a moment to compose herself, she also opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. It was long and sprawling, still somehow retaining an air of pompous grandeur in the relative darkness, but the darkness gave it an ominous nature, as well.

As the noblewoman carefully tried to keep her movements quiet yet without provoking suspicion, her mind decided to worry about the consequences of her actions. What would she do if someone caught her out of her bedroom this late at night? One of the most low-ranking servants might be tirelessly cleaning or adjusting the curtains; she supposed she would have to try and emulate enough menace to convince them not to talk about seeing her, though she doubted whether such a tactic would work. It probably would, given that those kinds of people were thought of as expendable and nameless by the tyrant - which is what she tended to call the man whose estate she and other nobles were currently staying in, the man a small selection of those other nobles (which now, as of this night, included herself) were planning to topple and seize the numerous assets of. He was not their direct ruler, so she hesitated to think of these acts as revolution - but he definitely acted like he owned everyone and everything, and at the end of the day, seeing him crumble was all that was important.

That plan should work, she thought to herself, nervously. As long as I don’t run into someone more loyal to the tyrant, someone higher up in the hierarchy, I’ll be alright.

At that moment, the exact sort of person Telanthera hoped not to meet appeared in front of her.

The woman’s bright green eyes seemed heartless and icy in the low light, and her expression belied no hint of surprise or of being caught off-guard. Despite the late hour, her dark brown hair was still tied tightly in a long ponytail, as if she was always on-duty and ready to act. Her dark suit was impeccably neat and proper as well, matching the unmistakeable air of authority she was exuding.

“Camellia Smith, head of the household, in charge of managing household affairs and new servants.” Telanthera had written this down a short time ago in the letter of information she had just handed over, and the fact she was extremely unsure of what to do caused her to absent-mindedly state these facts aloud.

“..That’s correct. I doubt most of my liege’s guests would take the time to recall that as well as you apparently have.” replied Camellia, now also somewhat unsure of how to respond. But such feelings never lasted in someone as well-trained as she was, and she quickly regained control of the situation, standing steadfastly before the nervous noblewoman.

“Might I ask what has caused you to be awake so late at night, my lady?”

“It’s- I-” Such a loss for words was something no person of noble birth should experience, having painstakingly practiced the finer details of etiquette and proper composure from a young age. However, Telanthera was not well-accustomed to the position the Amaranth family had recently reached, and some would argue this meant she was not well-fitting for it, either.

Camellia pressed on, and in the process, confirmed Tel’s worst fear. “If I may, it would not be wise to leave the door of your room ajar with writing implements visible on the table.”

She knew about their plans! Surely someone so important within the tyrant’s servants would expose them!

“Every step should be taken to keep confidential matters and business out of the knowledge of those they do not concern. Surely you understand why this is important now?”

Again, Telanthera was lost for words, though this time because the servant had said something she was not expecting. Was this some elaborate method to try and get more information out of her?

Then something even more unexpected happened.

“I trust you can make your own way back to your room, my lady?”

“I- That is true, yes. There’s no need for you to accompany me, Miss Camellia.” Telanthera asserted, still rather nervous.

Something about this brought the tiniest hint of a smile to Camellia’s face. “Very well then. I wish you a good night’s rest, my lady.” With this said, she began to walk away, in the direction Telanthera had come from.

“A-And the same to yourself, Camellia. However, regarding what you may have seen-”

“Don’t worry.”

What?

She turned to face the lady with the confidence of any noblewoman. “You may already have noticed this, but my brother is also a servant here. Whatever loyalties you believe lie with my liege, are reserved only for him.”

And with that, she turned the corner, seeming to disappear in an instant.

Telanthera hurried back to her own room, still confused, but now wearing a smile of relief.

Perhaps her plans were not ruined at the first hurdle after all.

[staysaneathome]

This Was Not A Dare, Reigen

Jon glares at each of the— the suspects traitors in front of him, tape recorder clutched tight in one hand.

Martin, wringing his hands uselessly, eyes wide and beseeching. Tim, fists clenched hard enough for his knuckles to go white and returning his gaze with a death stare of his own. Sasha, arms folded to form a barrier between Jon and herself, expression a perfect mask of concern. Reigen, radiating disappointment in every one of his gestures and quips. Elias, eyes weary, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Some intervention this is turning out to be.

Jon wants to scream. Wants to reach out and shake someone, anyone, until they admit he’s making sense and it’s the rest of the world that’s gone mad.

Every single one of them (except Martin) could’ve killed Gertrude. He knows he has no proof that they did, but he has no proof that they didn’t either, can’t they see that? If they don’t want him to suspect them, it should be easy for them to actually give him proof of their innocence (like Martin did), instead of just repeating platitudes of “you know this isn’t acceptable adult behavior, Jon” and “you’re better than this, Jon”.

Who cares about knowing better or acceptable behavior when it’s your very life on the line? He’s half tempted to throttle the con artist, see how dignified or adult he is when he’s the one with a murderer on his tail!

…Not that Jon is a murderer. It’s just the principle of the thing, is all.

“Jon,” Elias says, tone soothing in all the ways he doesn’t want it to be. “This is absurd. This goes far beyond an unhealthy work environment. I’ll admit it’s partly my fault for letting it get this bad, I should have intervened earlier.”

Reigen cuts in with a hand gesture that is as effusive as it is dismissive. “That doesn’t make his behavior okay, Bouchard-san. It may be bad here, but Jon chose to follow me, Tim and Sasha, and yell at Martin, rather than going to the police or paying a detective, like Herlock Sholmes or something.”

Jon sputters. “Wh- It’s Sherlock Holmes, not—and he’s fictional!”

Reigen blinks sleepily, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Jon all but shouts, rapidly reconsidering his stance on braining the sardonic little git with his tape recorder. “Don’t you even—an-and you’re deflecting again! Just like with your ridiculous ‘haunted gun’ nonsense!”

“I’m not!” Reigen says, clearly deflecting. “I’ve seen this kind of thing loads of times as the number one psychic. When a weapon kills lots of people over 100 years, the bad energy gets bigger and bigger until the gun grows an evil spirit and is hungry—”

“I refuse to believe Gertrude Robinson was murdered by a sentient blunderbuss!!”

“Be that as it may,” Elias interrupts, shooting them both a stern frown. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, Jon. Given how badly it’s affected your work ethic, I will be taking direct action to ensure it does not continue.”

Jon can feel his shoulders hunch almost against his will, dread pooling in his stomach at the thought of whatever punishment is about to be unjustly inflicted on him.

Only Martin looks half as worried as he feels, glancing between him and Elias nervously. By contrast, Tim looks downright triumphant, smirk nasty and vindictive. Sasha’s somewhere between those two, not openly celebrating his soon-to-be-downfall, but not acting like she’d lift a finger on his behalf either, though he’s unsure why that feels like it should surprise him. She’s always been as neutral as Switzerland.

Reigen, oddly enough, has more in common with Martin than with Tim. He’s staring at Elias like he’s waiting for a bit of news he knows he won’t like.

Jon thinks he’d appreciate that more if he wasn’t about to be unfairly lambasted simply for trying to stop a murderer and bring justice for an old woman who probably died frightened and alone. Much like Jon probably will once he’s been hobbled by whatever Elias is about to say next.

“Such as by restricting access to the archives from members of the public who are ultimately doing you more harm than good.”

…Wait.

What?

“What?!” Tim, Martin, and Sasha echo.

Reigen glances between them all, blinking in confusion.

Jon shares the sentiment entirely. His punishment is…for someone else to be removed from the archives? Someone he doesn’t employ or even like that much, no less?

He must have misheard, surely.

Though maybe not, given how Tim looks aghast, glancing between Elias and Reigen. “Okay, no, Reigen’s clearly not the problem here—”

“I’m very sorry, Tim, but Jon has made several remarks about the disruptive nature of Mr. Arataka’s presence in the archives.” Elias sighs. “From the arguments like the one we just witnessed to the nonsensical purchases of oddities inspired by his presence, such as Duolingo subscriptions,” Meaningful glare at Jon who resists the urge to clutch his phone guiltily, “That are now billed on the Archives’ expenses, it unfortunately seems as though he is dragging down productivity for all of you as an active stressor.”

“But we’re much better equipped to take statements from people who don’t speak English because of that!” Martin protests, stepping forward. “Isn’t it an advantage to have a more, more international perspective for our work?”

“One positive in a sea of negatives does not an advantage make.” Elias says, sounding infuriatingly like he’s misquoting something. “And really Martin, how realistic is it that this would help in more than a few isolated cases? I expected better from you.”

Martin’s face crumples, and his shoulders hunch, making himself smaller.

Jon finds his own mouth opening to—what? Say something? What would he even say?

Luckily, Sasha intervenes before he can dig his own grave further. “That’s as may be, but he’s a wonder for morale. He and Jon are funny, not anything serious, and I don’t think we’d have come to you about Jon‘s behavior unless he encouraged us to—”

“Which only fits into the delusion where Jon feels an outsider is rallying his subordinates against him, which is not good for his paranoid outlook.” Elias replies calmly. “And it’s never a healthy work environment when one employee feels the others are making them the butt of a joke.”

“I’d say that’s not as bad as when the boss feels he has the right to violate everyone’s privacy whenever he wants to just ’cause he’s feeling sad!” Tim growls.

Elias begins to answer, before Reigen finally speaks up.

“Sorry,” The con artist says carefully. “But you are…«I know this one…» banning me from the Archives? Yes?”

“That is the long and short of it, yes.” Elias says, grudgingly

“Why?” Reigen challenges, eyes hard and searching. “What have I, personally, done that’s wrong here? What behavior do I need to correct?”

There’s a moment of silence. The whirring of the tape recorder sounds uncomfortably loud.

“Mr. Arataka, are you currently under the employ of the Magnus Institute?” Elias asks, brow furrowed.

“Ah, no, no, but—”

“Are you looking to become employed by the Institute at this point in time, as a prospective member of the Archival Staff?” He fires off rapidly.

“Su-Sorry, but if you could just go a little slower—”

“Then I am afraid that unless you’re looking to fill out an employment contract or a Statement form, we cannot help you, Mr. Arataka.” Elias spreads his hands wide. “We are an academic institution, a place of research and learning. The Institute cannot allow for social dalliances on company time, especially not when those visits are negatively contributing to the work environment and the wellbeing of our staff.”

Tim throws up his hands, “I-I cannot believe this!”

Reigen’s mouth works soundlessly for a moment.

“Arataka is my…what do you call it? First name?” He says, at last. “Using it in this context is…inappropriate. Please call me Reigen, if you would, Bouchard-san.”

“Of course. My mistake, Mr. Reigen.” Elias does have the decency to look somewhat abashed. “Though, regrettably, I am going to have to ask you to leave the premises within the next twenty minutes, or I will be forced to call security.”

Reigen nods, jerkily, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Jon almost wants to call out to the fraud as he turns to go, grab him by the shoulder, pick another argument, something. He knows he should be happy, be glad that this thorn in his side will finally stop bothering him, but instead he just feels—befuddled. Off-kilter.

What happened to the man who once spent three hours arguing for the “spiritual effectiveness” of entirely performative and useless rituals, saying that ensuring his clients left his office fooled and contented was better than actually uncovering genuine supernatural forces and learning all there was to know about them? Why is he going so-so easily now, when he’s made Jon fight tooth and nail in every debate he’s had with the so-called psychic?

At the door, the con man pauses.

“Bouchard-san. You said I could come back if I had a statement to give?”

Elias shifts in his seat, looking bemused. “W-well, yes. That is a service we do provide. Of course, the statement would have to be genuine, and verifiable as such before we let you back into the Archives.”

“We don’t even do that for most of the rubbish we do take,” Tim mutters under his breath, and though Jon is glad he’s not the one being shot a quelling look, he does have to agree.

The con man turns back.

He’s got that smirk on his face that immediately puts Jon’s hackles up on instinct, prepared to argue against whatever inane point he’s come up with now to defend his phony psychic title.

“Gotcha.” Reigen says, far too cheerfully. «Ja ne.»

Then he strolls out of the office, as cool as a cucumber.

Jon could even swear he hears him whistling as he makes his way down the stairs.

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

“I’d do him.” Sasha pipes up, unhelpfully.

“Sasha!” Martin hisses, scandalized. “D-don’t you have a, a—”

“Oh, I don’t have to worry about that.” She remarks, far too blasé for someone in a newly committed relationship. “Tom’s heard about him too, and he agreed he’s just our type.”

“And I’m not?” Tim jokes, but there’s a hard edge to it that Jon’s found himself increasingly familiar with in the past few weeks.

Sasha shrugs with a mischievous little smile, as if that mattered very little to her.

Elias coughs. “Right. Well. Whatever your relations to Mr. Reigen are, please try to limit them to outside the workplace in future.”

The rest of the intervention is surprisingly subdued. Elias gives Jon access to the footage from the cameras in the rest of the Institute, and Tim bodychecks him on the way out of the office, muttering about how nice it must be to never face any consequences for his actions. Sasha follows, the way she won’t meet his eyes a condemnation in its own right.

Even Martin doesn’t say anything to him, just bites his lip and hurries past back down to the Archives. It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t.

Even as he settles in to watch and rewatch the CCTV records of Gertrude’s last week alive, Jon can’t shake the ridiculous feeling of foreboding that’s dogged him since Reigen left.

Most of him wants to say it comes from the fact that despite the fact that Reigen has not appeared in any of the camera records for the Magnus Institute before he started his term as Head Archivist in 2016, isn’t banning him from the Archives just letting the con man run around London with impunity, with no way for Jon to ascertain his movements or motives? That instead of solving a problem, Elias has just given a potential murderer free reign to escape?

But a small part of Jon, one that never could deny the sensation of being watched, that is frozen in second-hand terror whenever he reads a Statement, knows, Knows that it this stems more from the idea that the fraud will actually accomplish what Elias has unwittingly challenged him to do.

The illogical but pervasive surety that he will do so.

Jon’s not sure if he’s more afraid that Reigen Arataka will vanish entirely, another unfortunate victim become an unsolved mystery.

Or that he’ll come back, and bring whatever he’s managed to unearth on his insane quest with him.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

Supposedly 

A/N: this was a request sent in that inspired me a lot for some reason and i figured i’d do it cause i haven’t done any demon!h and demon!reader in a while so i gave it a go and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out :D enjoy!

Anonymous: This may be too cutesy for them, but do demon!harry and demon!reader ever cuddle after they fuck? Or they fall asleep separately but wake up in each other’s arms and just try to play it off awkwardly 

word count: 4.5k

content: some angst but nothing major, fluff, mentions of nudity, and some cocky asshole demon!h because that’s his Brand laidese and germs!!

///

Despite the emotionless, unattached agenda demons tend to uphold, let it be known that Harry didn’t really mind what was happening at the moment. 

On the surface level, from an outside perspective, this definitely doesn’t fit the bill for what is expected from his kind. Cuddling is an action reserved usually for real couples that have a sentimental bond, which he and Y/N are very much not. He’s not even quite sure what they are, really. Their relationship— if he can even call it that— was born out of three very important, adequately limiting notions: a mutual understanding, the desire for a convenient warm body, and sheer boredom. 

Nothing more, nothing less. 

The mutual understanding was that neither of them wanted a genuine significant other, given what they are, so it was established that feelings were to be kept out of this arrangement completely. Emotions lead to complications, complications lead to a falling out, and a falling out would be inexplicably messy considering that they’ve shared the same friend group for well over a decade now and neither are willing to let a booty call mishap ruin that. Feelings stay dormant, end of discussion. 

The desire for a convenient warm body is pretty self-explanatory— Harry and Y/N had known each other for a while now so there was no annoying getting to know you phase, they both agreed that they found the other attractive, and they both live relatively close to one another so it was a pleasant set-up with minimal issues. Harry could shoot her a text at three in the morning and she’d be at his place in less than five minutes, or vice versa. There was no spending hours at a bar trying to pick someone up, no time wasted learning what the other person likes and dislikes, and certainly no fretting over birth control tactics to keep up appearances— they were both dead, which is a morbid advantage but an advantage nonetheless. It was easy access, easy fun, and easy clean-up. 

The sheer boredom aspect was just that. It had started on a drunken night out with friends, where— by a series of fortunate events— Harry and Y/N had ended up together post-bender, sitting in his car in the parking lot of a club. They had been waiting for him to sober up to drive them home and she had made a passing comment about not wanting to turn in for the night quite yet. He’d blinked at her sluggishly, absentmindedly reaching over to tuck a rouge strand of hair behind her ear because he was getting secondhand irritation from it tickling her nose. He’d spoken up, voice numb and thick from the alcohol. “What do you wanna do, then?”

Y/N had glanced over at him, eyes half-lidded as they had raked down his lean tattooed chest, his unbuttoned silk sheer shirt leaving very little to the imagination. When she’d pinned her gaze back up to his, her eyes had inked black as they’d flitted to the palm of his hand for a second, a suggestive glint washing across their reflective surface as the corner of her pretty mouth had quirked. “I have a decent idea of exactly what I wanna do.”

And now here they were, with many restless, heated nights, ruined bed frames, and rumpled sheets littering their past, as well as their immediate future. 

And here Harry was, slowly blinking awake after one of those said nights, cruel scratches itching across his back as they finish up healing, an empty content still bubbling at the pit of his stomach. 

His lashes flutter open as he inhales a large sigh, flinching at the bright sunlight filtering its way through the lightly swaying curtains. The only sound in the room is the soft thrum of the air vent at the far corner of the ceiling, alongside Y/N’s soft, rhythmic breathing. 

In his barely conscious state, Harry goes to do what he always does the morning after he’s spent a night doing Y/N’s back in: he goes to stretch. He does most of the work more times than not— courtesy of his dominant tendencies— but she always gives him a run for his soul. Anything he dishes out, she usually returns with the same amount of energy and will. Last night hadn’t been any different and the ache at the bottom of his spine and along his inner thighs proves it. 

Harry instinctively goes to lift his arms above his head, reaching for the top of the headboard to use it as support. He is stopped cold when he realizes a foreign weight is keeping one of his arms pinned to the bed. 

He knuckles at his eyes with his free hand, ridding them of the last residues of sleep, and then drags his palm up his face and through his mussed curls to comb away his disorientation. He cranes his sore neck to the side and downwards, eyebrows jolting up in surprise when he’s met with a wall of fluffy, tangled, mandarin-scented hair. 

Harry lifts his head up slightly, neck straining to see over the back of Y/N’s wild halo to make sure that the image before him isn’t some type of exhaustion-induced mirage. 

It’s odd for her to be so near him— she usually likes her space; says that being too close in proximity for too long is irritating. It’s why she usually sleeps with her back to him at the other end of the bed, and why he’s gotten accustomed to giving her the majority of the mattress space. Despite the fact that it’s his flat, she’s stubborn, hard-headed, argumentative and frankly, he’d rather just forfeit the extra leg room instead of bickering for thirty minutes just to end up losing anyways. It’s gentlemanly, in a sense. Minimal, but it’s something.

Given Y/N’s general disgust for excess contact, it’s no shock as to why Harry is utterly baffled right now. He’s about ninety-eight percent sure she’d fallen asleep all the way across the expanse of his sheets so how did they willingly end up here? How did they end up with her bare back pressed to his chest, her legs intertwined between his, and his arm wrapped almost protectively around her waist, wedged between her hips and the bed. 

Harry would never outright admit it but...he’s not necessarily mad about it. 

As he lays there for a few more seconds, absorbing the situation with an expression of pensive dismay pinching his face, he slowly comes to terms that he’s actually starting to enjoy this.

The warmth of her smooth skin gradually undoes the knot of confusion between his brows. The sensation of her back flushing against his chest as it rises and falls with her breathing erases the unease dipping the corners of his stinging mouth. The way she’s started to unconsciously rub her calves gently up and down his own makes the last traces of unsettlement melt off his face, replaced by an appearance of subtle affection, lips parting in blank wonder. 

Harry relaxes back into the plushness of the mattress, eyes remaining glued to a blissfully ignorant Y/N. His thoughts are scurrying around the inside of his skull, attempting to get accustomed with this new experience, having a difficult time arranging into place. He’s aware that he seems to be taking easily to what’s unfolding, but there’s an unsteady bubble inflating in his chest. He knows that if he lets himself dwell in this too much, it’ll end up biting him in the ass later, most likely as a wave of undealt emotions and crippling loneliness; that’s baggage he’s spent too many years compartmentalizing for it to all just come bursting out. 

All those decades of locking away his issues are in danger of resurfacing, and all for some harmless hugging? Doesn’t seem like a fair negotiation, and he knows plenty about negotiations. 

However, he can’t seem to make himself pull away. 

Especially not when Y/N suddenly shifts in her sleep, turning onto her other side so that she's now facing him, snuggling deeper into his body and tucking her head into the junction between his neck and collarbones. Her annoyingly soft, hot lips smear against his throat, settling into the dip at the center where a pulse would normally be present. The feeling of her exhales washing across his cold skin sends a wringing down his spine, a hushed “fuck…” escaping his dry mouth as the warmth behind the gesture spreads upwards, spilling redness into his cheeks and along the shells of his ears. Her hands come up as loose fists, pressing between his pectorals lightly, her own naked chest flushing against her forearms. 

Surprisingly enough, her supple chest isn’t at the forefront of his mind at this instant. Instead, he’s focused on the intimacy they’re sharing in this moment, unbeknownst to her and stressfully beknownst to him. 

Harry’s free hand acts of its own accord, coasting upwards towards her face and moving her chin over a bit until his palm can comfortably nurse her jaw. He rubs the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip slowly, every ridge and bump sending miniature shots of electricity surging through his veins, his eyes falling shut at this strange form of pleasure he hasn’t felt in ages. 

Y/N just looks so beautiful like that, in such a vulnerable state that he knows for sure no one else has ever gotten to witness— at least not in a very long time. 

No one else has gotten to see the way her lashes sit atop her cheekbones so delicately, her face soothed by sleep, not a wrinkle or grimace in sight. She looks as if she were made of porcelain, her features nothing short of perfect. No one has gotten to witness the way she mumbles a handful of incoherent, groggy words, her mind lost in a meaningless dream, or the way her nose twitches in the cutest manner as a draft from the air conditioning runs across it, causing her to sniffle. No one has seen the way she gives into his touch, her face cradling deeper into his hand, chasing the uncommon gentleness behind his demeanor and it hadn’t occurred to Harry that maybe— just maybe— she’s craving this type of innocent bliss, too, though he’s certain she would never confess to it if she were awake. 

Harry runs his hand down the slope of her bruised neck and across the curve of her shoulder, tracing the teeth marks he had left the night before. The tip of his fingers follow down the incline of her torso, wriggling around her side, his wrist resting upon the faint dip of her waist. He cups her lower back with his large hand, borrowing a moment to appreciate the way it fits flawlessly. He then leans forward some to give his reach more length, his digits carefully trailing up the middle of her spine, the action timid and tranquil. 

He looks down at her from over the tops of his colored cheeks, chewing on his bottom lip nervously as he continues to lull his fingers up and down her back. Y/N releases a shy whimper of gratitude, her whole body bathing in a light shiver. She does like it.

Harry swallows thickly, moving away a few locks of hair off her shoulder with the tip of his nose, glassy jade irises studying her facial expressions to make sure she’s still asleep. He puckers his tingling lips, pressing a bundle of chaste kisses to the fading bite marks on her staticy skin. If his heart still beat, he feels like it would be glowing right now. 

He tilts his chin up, settling it on top of her head and sighing in satisfaction as he feels her steady breathing wash across his Adam’s Apple, her flyaway hairs tickling his nostrils. 

He decides to stay like that for a while,  just basking in her company within this tender setting that he knows he probably won’t receive again anytime soon. Harry lays there, limbs woven between Y/N’s as his black-polished nails scratch gently at her back, swimming in his numb thoughts. 

After what feels like hours— but is realistically just ten minutes— he goes to gingerly shift the arm stuck beneath her body, trying to regain some circulation. Y/N stirs, resulting in him freezing in place to prevent a mishap, his mouth finding her warm forehead and placing a lingering kiss between her brows. It eases her. 

Harry waits five minutes before trying again.

He manages to escape this time around, lifting his arm above his head and twisting out the cramp in his wrist, then folding it behind his head. He allows his eyes to shut once again, intent on spending a bit longer milling in this bubble of domestic peace.

His plan is shattered to pieces by an alarmed, angry sentence. 

“What the fuck?”

His eyelids fly open, ice materializing across his entire nervous system. 

Shit.

Y/N launches upwards, sitting up rigidly with her face contorted in startled repulsion, clutching his blood red sheets to her chest as her hair stands up in tousled tuffs. “What in Lucifer’s red, barren hell are you doing?”

Harry now has two distinctive routes to pick from: confess to partaking in the unorthodox cuddling, or fake it and say he was asleep as well and that it had all been an unintentional mistake. 

It’s hardly a choice. 

He flings his arms away from the other demon’s body as if sickened, shooting up into a seated position and slouching back onto his palms, a look of agitated horror plastered across his sleepy, handsome features. “What do you mean what am I doing? What the fuck were you doing?”

Y/N blinks at him as if he’d just stabbed her between the eyes with a demon blade, irises momentarily flitting black with nerves, the area under her waterline webbing with dark veins. “What do you mean what was I doing? You were the one with your arms around me!”

Harry narrows his sight at her pointedly, thick brows furrowing with faux resentment. “You were the one with your head snuggled into my neck and your hands on my chest!”

“You were the one kissing my forehead!”

“You were the one rubbing up on my legs!”

“Because you were close to me!”

“Because you rolled over here!” 

“No I didn’t!”

“Oh, so what?” Harry snaps sarcastically, drawing forward and crossing his arms over his chest adamantly. “Did an angel sneak in and place you there? Because as I recall, you always sleep on the left side of the bed, so what were you doing on the right?”

Harry’s accurate counter renders Y/N speechless, her mouth parting quizzically as if waiting for a response to magically appear. Her eyebrows cinch down begrudgingly, the gears in her head spinning on overdrive, trying to piece together an appropriate rebuttal. Her grasp tightens on the blanket covering her bare body. “Well, I...I don’t know—I don’t think I—”

Harry cocks his head to the side expectantly, loose curls falling across his forehead as he shrugs his brows with a condescending air. He mimics her with a high-pitched voice. “Well, I— I don’t know— I—I don’t think I—I—I—”

Y/N’s face goes sour as heat floods her cheeks, fire threatening to spark across the tips of her sizzling ears. She yanks the sheets off of him, holding them with one hand as she uses the other to begin crawling across the bed towards the edge, a haphazard defense thrown over her shoulder. “Shut up! It wasn’t on purpose!”

Harry scoffs in dark amusement, not even bothering to cover himself up. He bites into his cheek to keep from exploding into a round of triumphant laughter; he can’t believe he managed to turn the tides so quickly. “Oh, so you admit it was you, then?”

Y/N dismounts the atrociously tall bed, stumbling over the long linens as she desperately searches for her clothes. “No! I’m just saying that whatever happened, it didn’t happen intentionally!” 

“Obviously.” The brunette demon snorts, shaking his head for subtle emphasis, crossing his ankles offhandedly and returning both arms to the place where one had been prior— tucked behind his head casually. “What do you think we are, mortal?” 

“Of course not.” Y/N agrees quickly— a little too quickly, which hints to Harry that she might be trying to cover something up. Perhaps she wasn’t as disgusted by this as she had led on…

He watches as his friend— he uses the term lightly— shuffles around his room, peering at the floor in an determined quest to find her jeans, underwear, and black lace blouse. Or maybe she’s just hellbent on avoiding eye contact with him. 

“Y/N…” His tone has lost its arrogantly mocking edge, softened by what she can only decode as...guilt? 

She ignores it and doesn’t answer, nearly passing out in relief when she spots her panties and bra hanging off the doorknob to his closet. She snatches them swiftly, panning her gaze around the rest of the room for her leftover clothes, spotting them in a pile sticking out from underneath the opposite corner of the bed. They’d probably gotten kicked there in the heat of the moment. 

Harry repeats himself a little louder, adding onto his comment to try and stifle some of the embarrassment radiating from her. “Y/N, you don’t have to leave. You usually stay for breakfast.” 

Y/N scoops up her outfit, settling it into the crook of her right elbow and squaring her shoulders as if ready to brace a hellhound. Their gazes lock and he feels his stomach flop when he sees the vulnerability she’s obviously trying to hide. She’s good at it, he’ll give her that, but if he stares intently enough, he can just make out the traces of conflicted longing leaking into the disinterested facade around her pupils. 

“It’s fine, Harry.” She sighs heavily, her tone drastically different from the unkempt girl that had been floundering about just seconds ago. She’s now calm, cool, collected, and scaringly so. “I have somewhere to be later. Meeting someone to close a deal.”

She shrugs one shoulder indifferently, grabbing a handful of the sheets arranged around her figure and pulling away, dropping the bedspread at his feet and leaving herself completely nude. 

And there she is, the Y/N he so well knows. The same one that uses sex appeal as a shield. 

She’s managed to spackle the cracks that had appeared in her typical barrier of heartlessness, her confidence and ease leveling off once again. She places her clothes on top of the crumpled sheets, picking out her cheeky bright red panties from the heap and working them up her tempting legs. Harry can’t help but notice the hickies covering her inner thighs, as well as the finger prints staining her hips. 

Y/N catches him ogling, smirking to herself now that she has her composure back in order. She hooks her index finger around one of the straps in her bra, lifting it up and bouncing the lace lingerie in front of him teasingly. She raises her eyebrows at her lover provokingly, a sultry air pouting her lips. “Think you can help a girl out?”

Harry licks at his slightly chapped lips thoughtfully, eyes flickering between the article hanging off her hand to the sly grin decorating the edges of her pretty mouth. When he speaks, it’s low and thicker than usual, accent heavy. “Of course, pet.”

His legs thunk emptily off the bed and onto the floor, a small grunt catching the back of his throat as he pushes himself up onto his feet. He is most definitely sore. 

His footsteps are soft against the carpeted ground, faltering as he rounds the corner of the mattress. 

Y/N eyes his every move, suckling her bottom lip at the way his muscles flex and contract under his sun-kissed skin. She doesn’t let herself wander below his waist though; she’s never one to pass up flaunting her power of will. 

Harry stops about a foot away, taking the bra from she is offering and holding it out for her to slip into. She does so at a mind-numbing pace, her toes curling as she feels his warm fingertips running the material up her arms and onto their designated spot on her shoulders. He tugs at the hooks gently, pinning them into place and tucking the tag in, exactly how he’s seen her do countless of times before. 

He then runs the palms of his hands up her arms, sighing softly at the silky sensation of her skin and giving her shoulders a dismissive squeeze. “All done.” 

Y/N turns on her heels to face him, looking up innocently through her lashes, lips quirking into an easy smile. “Thank you. Such a gentleman.” 

Her playfully seductive personality is unbearably contagious, seen in how Harry returns her action with a coy scoff and a simper of his own. “For you, always.”

“Well…” Y/N turns her lower half to the side, showing him her ass for significance, which is covered in the unmistakable print of his hand and rings. “I wouldn’t say always.” 

Harry’s pursed lips break into an even wider shit-eating grin, his cheeky laughter echoing across the walls of the apartment, his arms absentmindedly folding across his broad chest. “Yeah, well, you can’t say it’s one-sided, can you?”

He points towards his neck, stretching his chin upwards so that she gets a good view of all the fading love bites she’d left there the night before. 

Y/N’s giggles match his. “Touché.”

Harry rummages through his drawers as she finishes getting dressed, shimmying into her tight jeans and throwing her shirt on, finger-combing her hair into a decent state. He comes up with a pair of maroon briefs, slipping them on as he walks back towards her, letting the elastic band snap into place against his lower abdomen. 

The two demons with benefits stand before each other, Y/N with her braided black sandals swung over her shoulders and Harry with his hands fixed on his hips nonchalantly. 

“You really can’t stay for breakfast?” Harry inquiries one last time, lifting his eyebrows curiously. “I’m making those cinnamon bun waffles you like so much.” 

Y/N sighs grandly, clutching her chest dramatically as if it physically hurts her to decline his offer. “I’d love to, but work is work. Don’t really have a say.” 

Her friend nods in understanding, well aware of the truth behind her words. “It is what it is, then.” 

“However...” Her sudden continuation makes his head perk. She reaches up, carding her fingers into his messy curls and combing them back from his face, tucking a handful of rebellious ringlets behind his small ears and giving him one final self-assured smile. “Do y’think you could maybe save me two and I can come pick them up tonight?”

Harry cranes his head to the side, placing a slow peck to the palm of her hand and then biting into her skin jokingly, a certain lewdness painted all over the deed. “I think that can be arranged.”

“Great.” Y/N quips happily, wrapping his curls around her knuckles roughly and hauling him in for a sloppy, dirty kiss that leaves his teeth numb and his face buzzing. 

Once she breaks their mouths, lightly panting with her skin a darker shade than before, he has to blink three times in order to reign himself back in. His ability to form coherent sentences right now is about as useful as alphabet soup; he just gives her a jerky nod instead. 

Y/N wipes at his swollen lips with the pad of her thumb, giving his cheek a playful pat. “I’ll see you then, H.” 

Harry can’t tear his eyes away as she leaves, his bedroom door clicking shut behind her, the soft, distant thunk of his front door accompanying the sound a bit later. 

Fuck, that was something is the first comprehensible thought that registers in his mind. 

It was absolutely something and who knows how differently it would have gone if he had admitted giving into the weakness they had both sworn off of. 

That notion haunts him for a while— the idea that he could have driven her away for good if he had confessed that his emotions had bleed through their arrangement. Sure, it had only been this once, but Harry has a horrible gut-wrenching feeling that he’s unlocked a box deep in the back of his skull that won’t easily be chained down again. 

He thinks this over again and again as he prepares his morning meal, the looming uncertainties of it all causing him to check out of reality here and there, resulting in a few burn marks across his hands and two charred waffles in the bin. 

As Harry finally sits down to enjoy the food that had nearly not made it to his plate, he finds himself mentally running through the awkward encounter he and Y/N had faced this morning. He can’t stop himself from dwelling on the expression he had seen crack through her eyes earlier— one that showed she seemed to be feeling the same kind of emotional turmoil he was. It opens too many unanswered questions for their future and he hates himself for being so worried when nothing had truly happened. For all he knows, it could have just been a trick of the sunlight that had been streaming into the room. He’s getting himself out of sorts for nothing. 

However, as he goes in on a forkful of his cinnamon-glazed pastry, one pesky detail suddenly launches him into a coughing fit. 

It was so minuscule he had missed it the first fifty times he had run through the events, but it had decided to prick him in the brain now, the weak dam of reassurance he had built crumbling to ashes.  

After Y/N had woken up, saw what was happening, and their fight had ensued, she had made a comment about how Harry had kissed her forehead. 

On the surface, it had seemed unimportant because yes, that is exactly what he had done. The problem arose when he remembered that she had been dead asleep when he had done that. 

Supposedly.

He had gone to remove his arm from below her body, she had fussed a bit, he had pressed his lips to her forehead to ease her, and she had remained asleep for a while longer until he decided to finish removing his arm. That final motion was what had awoken her.

Supposedly. 

If she had been unconscious the whole time they were cuddling, then how did she know he’d kissed her?

[fafulous]

Take Me Home (4/5)

Andy Barber x Reader (Post!Defending Jacob)

Summary: After the unfortunate events of the trial and after, a depressed Andy Barber decides to call it quits and start a mundane life far away from Newton. He decides it is best to have a fresh start away from prying eyes and alone, but he never thought his caring neighbor (and her son) would change all of that.

Chapter Warnings: MAJOR D.J. SPOILERS (BOOK Ending), Reminiscing the Loss of a loved one.

Andy soon came to realise that walking out on you was never ever really a solution. In reality he knew with his current state, without you he was doomed.

He needed you because he has no one. He needed you because it was his chance at something new; something no one would understand.

He needs you because in between all those shenanigans in these few months, he was falling hard for you.

But he did what he had to that day because he just wanted some space. In his head it seemed to be fine, but alas it hurt like a bitch.

On the other hand, Nikolai had no idea what was going on. It only took him minutes to fall in love with his new room. The lights, the colour of the room made him so jubilant, later on only to see you a bit unhappy. You were able to deflect from your son’s questions, but how on earth were you going to tell him that Andy won’t be meeting him anymore.

It hurt. So hard. All you needed was one conversation with him to settle things away but he wanted his space and so you half heartedly respected it.

Nikolai on the other hand was hitting a real low seeing you unhappy the whole day sporting stuffy red eyes. Like any other kid, Nikolai jumped to the conclusion that their mother is crying because she got a boo-boo or lost her favourite toy.

But that little brain of his pieced it slowly once he realised Andy never visited them for any of the dinner nights.

“Mommy pwese don’t cwy” his nimble fingers wiping your fat tears rolling down your cheek.

“I know peaches. I’m trying so hard to get Andy back okay. I’m sorry for crying around you like this baby.”

“B-but Wandi pwomised he neva gonna hurt you mommi…”

“Oh Niko,” you wiped the cookie crumbs around his tiny lips, “Your little brain won’t get it. It’s okay.”

“No. Not owkay. Wandi hurt you. Wandi bad. I don’t wike Wandi cahr now.”

You couldn’t help but surpass a giggle. “Niko. Andy is never bad. Never. He is just feeling sad and lonely. We just need to tell him we have him and love him okay?”

Love? Too soon. Maybe it’s more than like but it was too late to change it for your son and for yourself. You always saw how Niko’s eyes sparkled whenever Andy was around; he was soon accepting him to be a member of the household.

“Owkay,” he dug his head to your neck, “I wike Wandi and his cahr.”

–

The following week were hard for you and him. From sharing couches to kisses, now the only thing you both shared were small talks.

Yes. Small Talk. Or texts rather.

Andy told you he finally found a therapist to speak to and slowly expressed his wish to still visit Nikolai till you both figured out what was happening between you two.

Why did this have to get so complicated?

You on the other hand replied he was free to do so because to be real, the little kid missed him too. So, the next day he asked you for permission if he could take Nikolai on a car drive.

You had no idea what would go on in his head at times. From seeing Andy’s perspective, he was denied of the choice of telling you his story. It was his fucked-up childhood, his story that he wanted to tell you. Not a pity tatter-tale gossip story that was to be heard from your characterless, ex-husband.

Andy later in the evening sent a message that he was ready, and you saw the man your heart so longed for.

His eyes were back to being sunken, those blue irises not having the guts to meet yours. His hair was ruffled like he just woke up from a nap. Looking at him made you realise how much your hands were twitching to just hug him. You were reminded of the first night you spent at his house; that blue sweater he gave you while you two made out on his couch for the first time was now worn by him.

You walked towards him as you held Nikolai’s convertible baby seat to be fixed in his car and he was kind enough to open the door for you.

Andy on the other hand knew he had to- no, wanted to strike a conversation with you; but didn’t know what to say.

Hey long time huh?

Y/N. Hey, how are you?

Hey listen…

Nope nothing came out of his mouth while you fixed the seat.

He took in your appearance too; that ray of sunshine that beamed from your smile was non-existent; replaced with a forlorn look that he hated to see on you. The past few days were definitely much harsher on you than it was for him. Andy knew he couldn’t get any more foolish. He had to get back to what you two had before.

He needed it.

“Have we gone back to square one? Because of what? My ex-husband?”

Andy came out of his tiny reverie and focussed back on you. He didn’t pay attention, but he did realise you said something bitter that meant to sting him.

“Honey listen-”

“Oh, don’t you honey me Andy. How could you? How could you be so- so-“ you tried so hard to not break into a stream of tears.

How could you be so hateful to yourself Andy? Did you not trust me?

“How could you just desert me like that? D-did you think I was going to throw away my second chance at life for something you father did? Did you want to throw away your second chance at life because of your father who has no role in our lives right now?”

He sighed dejectedly, disappointed with himself. Hearing your voice break wrecked him, “I know Y/N. I was an asshole that day, leaving you without an explanation.” He found himself taking steps towards you and cupping your cheek, tilting his forehead onto yours, “I am so sorry hon- Y/N. I am sorry.”

You bit your lip and looked up at him, his eyes still closed; now content that he and you could just touch each other after a very long time.

Any other situation, you wouldn’t let a man walkover you so easily after fucking up. But this was Andy. The man who made you believe in second chances. You gave him a first chance already, and now it was again your turn to give him one more.

“You weren’t an asshole Andy,” you held on to his hands, “Its just, I don’t know…”

“I know you know exactly what you want to say Y/N. Just say it.”

You could hear Nikolai running around his circles with his unicorn plush doll behind you, “I was angry when you left, but at the same time I tried to understand your point of view, your emotions and your feelings about this whole situation. But I think or- or I know that I didn’t deserve to be ghosted like that Andy, because I liked you for you, not what your father did, especially when we had something so good going on.”

He removed his hand from your cheeks and looked down like a disappointed child. He knew he was at fault and so he didn’t say anything; head hung in shame looking at the little, carefree boy that he loved so dearly.

“It’s only had if you want it to be,”

“What do you mean?”

You saw a glint of that eagerness that Andy always had with you before, “I told that we had something good going on? It’s only had if you want it to be…“

Andy took some time to find his words. Again. It was the second time he fucked up so bad and here you were, taking him back even after he exploded like a mine. Was this woman for real?

“Of course, I want this honey. I always want us. You’re always so good to me.”

He reached out to graze your cheeks, but he was blocked by your squealing son.

“Cahr Wandi! Can we gooo?”

You were surprised that you weren’t interrupted by your son sooner, but nevertheless your son’s new founded patience was found to be a blessing in disguise.

The cutest sight unfurled before you as Andy made grabby hands at your son, only for the latter to be scooped into Andy’s arms like a cocoon.

“Come on Y/N, join us wont you? For a drive?”

You shook your head, “I think I’ll pass.”

“Y/N. I want to really make it up to you. Like real time. Please come with us?”

“I know Andy, but who will make dinner if I come along with you boys?”

Andy slowly grinned at your implications. He never ceased to be impressed by your gracious generosity and the small acts of kindness.

“I’m not mad, not as much as I was before I promise,” you dared to but tiptoed to place a kiss on his cheek, “We can talk over dinner today.” You saw how his cheek sported a cherry red tint, slowly creeping up till his ear. A teenager in a old man’s body.

“Peaches,” you turned to your son right now jumped into Andy’s arms, nuzzling his face in that soft sweater, “Be good and behave okay peaches? Don’t trouble Wandi- I mean Andy for anything on the way okay?”

Everything drowned inside a chorus of laughter when Andy realised how you had called his name. Niko had no idea what the humour was for but joined the chorus when he found his two most favourite people in the world giggling.

Were you forgoing all that pent-up sadness that this man gave you this week? Yes. Yes you were.

And you would soon realise that it was the best decision you made.

Hours passed by and the boys came back home. Nikolai was gleefully pulling onto Andy’s beard and curiously asking him when he was going to get a ‘bweard’ like him and heard both the boys animatedly inhaling; the smell of aromatic food that stirring their tummies.

“MOMMY IS MAKING PAWSTAHH!”

Andy was so confused. You always made the best Italian food for your child.

“Let’s just say after that episode we had with Chad, I was cooking boring greens and ordering takeout for the little one and me. I lost the will to cook. Thought I’ll revive the poor kid’s taste buds.”

It was always these small gestures that pulled you towards Andy; like this one. He tugged you by your shoulders and placed a soft kiss on your forehead and then cupped your cheeks so lovingly.

“Sorry Momma bear.”

“Shhh. It’s okay grumpy cat,” you winked.

Dinner on the other hand did go relatively smooth than you expected it to. Andy explained himself, his feelings and what he felt that day when he left you and tried his level best to process your emotional state that day.

The baked pasta was licked clean by your two boys and you while Andy also spoke about his past few days with his therapist, who seemed to help him more than he possibly could ever think of. Over a glass of wine, Andy held your hand promising you that he wouldn’t do any more foolish stunts that ended up hurting all of us in the process.

But as you and Andy were doing and drying the dishes, you felt that he was holding back something.

“You’re doing that thing.”

“What thing.”

“That thing you used to do when I used to pick movies that you don’t like.”

His grin could make your whole body mushy and soft like a teenager having their first crush “So? Is that my fault honey?” he feigned hurt, glad that he could now call you back with his favourite sweet name.

“Nah,” you playfully tapped his shoulder. “You give me that look so prominently so that I understand that you want something from me, or you want me to do something for you.”

Andy looked so lost and you knew something was biting his thoughts because he enjoyed doing domestic chores with you; his favourite being you washing the dishes and him drying them out and keeping them inside the cupboards. He didn’t reply until the last wine glass was kept inside the cabinet

“It’s just-” hesitated Andy. You waited patiently for him to find his words.

“It’s about Jacob.”

“Oh.”

For a startling few seconds, you held your breath; thinking about Andy’s son was something wrecked your thoughts and heart every single time.

“My therapist says that I haven’t, you know, fully processed Jacob’s death. Like I’m holding on to something. But parents don’t, right? They can’t move on from their child’s death right? It’s practically impossible.”

You weren’t sure what to say but you nodded, gripping on to his arm and gesturing to sit with you to the couch where little Niko dozed off with two of his stuffed dolls clenched in his hand.

“But she did say one statement that made sense to me, I don’t know. It made sense about how we can’t forget our children who are no longer with us but we can learn to accept the fact that they are no longer with us.”

Oh bub, how much have you been through? “Do you agree with this Andy?” You asked him to keep yourself strong during this conversation for him, and you did.

“Of course, yeah. Maybe. But the thing is I think I haven’t accepted it honey.”

You took both of his hands and squeezed reassuringly, “I have no idea what you are going through bub but I’m glad you are talking to me about this. Take your time; its going to be hard, but I’m right here okay? Whatever you need, I’ll do within my best ability.”

He hummed, but still hesitant.

“Andy its okay, tell me. Talk to me bub.”

He squeezed your palms even more tightly, turning towards you completely. “C-can I ask you a favour? I mean you can say no, I will understand.”

I’m ready to give you all the happiness in the world to you bubba. “Anything for you Andy? Tell me now.”

He didn’t meet your gaze, but instead shifting his focus to trace your knuckles, “My therapist told me to visit Jacob’s grave whenever I was ready, to mourn him, to accept he is no longer with me and you know…talk to him I guess. To process my emotions. And um…Oh god I am a bubbling mess Y/N.”

“Hey its okay baby take your time. There is no pressure.”

“I can’t do this alone honey…I need you there with me. Can you come with me to the graveyard?”

How could you ever say no to this solemn situation?

“Of course, honey. Absolutely anything you need.”

And what seemed like after ages, Andy Barber enveloped you into his signature bear hug. Both of you left a huge sigh of breath, relief washing over that both of you were slowly getting back on track.

Until you heard a rugged whimpers from the little boy beside Andy.

You didn’t want to tell Andy about this, but Nikolai’s nightmares were back and the little boy was finding it difficult to sleep at night. The new nursery still did not work for him, so he ended up sleeping on top of your chest; your heartbeat probably soothing him to sleep.

But Andy the experienced father he was, quickly scooped him into his arms and started cradling him, rocking him side by side with his arms protecting him, humming a familiar soft tune that seemed to calm you in the process too. You saw how Niko’s head was cushioned between Andy’s pecs and muscles, slowly relaxing and nuzzling into his touch.

Niko’s scrunched up face was now back to a peaceful baby lost in slumber. 

Andy met your gaze and blinked at you with a smile and it conveyed so much than you think.

We got this baby. We all gonna get through this.

–

The decision to take Nikolai along with you and Andy was refuted by the latter saying that a young boy like him shouldn’t be visiting such desolate place.

“Children are the embodiment of new birth, new life. And graveyards, quite opposite.”

But you knew secretly he also didn’t was your son to see him in such a vulnerable position. You were grateful for the fact that the rough patch between you and Andy was solved; for the little boy saw Andy as his new father figure with Chad gone away with a new girlfriend.

Talking about Chad, he did not make efforts to meet his son; and you didn’t bother contacting him. Better off without him you wondered.

The drive to Jacob’s grave was a couple of hours away and ride in itself was a quiet one. Andy and you were informally dressed in dull colours, hearts dull too. You knew it was a big step for Andy and you were going to support him till he thinks he is over it. Car windows were rolled down, the fresh air making efforts to refresh you both.

You could also see Andy’s urge to interlink his hands with you while your drove and you did; Gripping onto his palm or occasionally rubbing his shoulders or thighs throughout the ride would help him calm down and relax his creased forehead.

When you both got down from the car it was so hard to read Andy’s thoughts. He came over to you and interlinked your palms and made way to the place where his son was buried.

Jacob’s grave was flowerless when arrived. Andy soon fixed that after leaving a wreath of Jacob’s most favourite flowers, daisies.

A graveyard, a place of death, sprouting trees filled with life here and there. The irony of life.

You didn’t know the boy but the aura of the graveyard, the impersonal feeling towards the dead even though you have no idea who they were beneath the stones made you heart sink. It then came to your senses.

The boy was just fourteen.

Both of you sat down near his grave, not caring about the grass and mud staining your clothes. He finally took away his palms from yours.

Andy spoke some kind words, rekindling memories of his son’s favourite pastime, his favourite stories and one of his embarrassing yet kind-hearted moments. He sought an apology on behalf of his mother, trying to make Jacob understand that his mother loved him so much, that it unfortunately ended tragically.

Another thought popped into your head, how couples these days separate over trivial matters, over materialistic matters, and infidelity. But Andy? He separated because his wife- No no. You didn’t want to complete that thought.

But after a while passed and you decided give Andy some needed space. He was probably going to be anxious, but it was for the best.

“Andy, you feel a bit better?” you whispered.

“You can say probably.”

Here we go. “I’m going to leave you two alone okay?”

“What? Honey. If I can’t-”

“You can Andy. He is your son, remember that. So, don’t hold back. I know you wanted me to be here with you and I did and I’m so proud of you, bubba,” you stroked his hair. “But unintentionally you may be holding back on expressing because I’m here and that’s normal.”

Why are you so good to me?

“I’m just going to be near the parking lot okay? I’m not going anywhere,” you reassured him with a peck on his cheek and made your way back.

You shed your tears while you sat inside his car, thinking about the little boy. It was difficult thinking of losing a loved one that you gave birth to. He was too young. Too fucking young.

Oh, this cruel world, how you hated it so immensely right now.

Half hour passed by and you saw Andy making his way towards the car. It was so strange to think of this, but he didn’t look red eye rimmed like you; he looked the same with much more solemnity. He didn’t cry and that slightly bothered you. Maybe you had to accept the fact that different people process emotions differently.

He got into the car and took in your red eyes. He knew you had cried. Seeing you like that made his pull your lips onto his for just a chaste kiss, the first time you two felt each other’s lips after an eon. All he breathed into your lips was that we are going to be okay and drove back home with no word exchanged. For the upcoming hours, the fresh air offered you comfort, drying out those spilt tears along with the lingering touch of his palms; interlinked like their souls.

After coming back, you took advantage of Andy’s silence and maneuvered him to your home. He seated himself on the couch pulling out his phone and wallet from his pants and placed it on the coffee table.; trying to steal a quick nap while you picked up Nikolai from your neighbour Mr. Arthur.

Andy sleeping gave you an immense sense of peace, but for the little boy in your hands; not so much.

“WANDI!!!!”

He groggily woke up thanks to Nikolai running towards him, lying on his chest like he does with you. “Hey buddy.”

“You home yaay!” Probably meant that he was excited to see the man in house like the usual dinner nights. Nikolai calling him and telling he was home pricked him and at the same time felt so right. As cliché as it sounds, he always has heard this quote where Home is never a place with four walls to cover your head; home is where the heart is.

His heart was with you and Nikolai.

After eating Andy, and you began to do your dish washing routine, this time he washing the dishes. He was slow, but that was alright, you had all the time in the world.

Niko on the other hand was singing all the rhymes he learnt from daycare in different pitches, earning a chuckle from the both of you here and there. He was also carelessly playing with Andy’s phone and wallet, both of you seeing that the little boy had dropped all the contents of the wallet on to the floor. Once they were done Andy picked up the falling things patiently without chiding the little one like any other adult would. 

He picked up his Dollar bills, receipts and then a forgotten thin strip of a photo roll.

It was him and Jacob.

The roll had four pictures of him and his son posing for the silliest pictures, the first three with their tongues sticking out in the goofiest angle possible. The last one however was so pure; Andy giving a  forehead kiss to Jacob because he was so proud of his son, remembering he had bagged the highest grade in English that term in school.

Minutes pass and he didn’t notice his waterworks brimming. A blink and they would fall down.

And they did, when he heard Nikolai nudging him by the thigh. “Why you cwyin Wandi?”

That startled you enough to stop whatever it was you were doing and went to see what was happening.

Oh bubba.

You sat near Andy, touching his thigh for comfort while your son got closer to the photo that was in Andy��s slightly quaking hands.

“Who that Wandi?”

“Th-thats my son buddy. His name was Jacob.”

“Can he play with me Wandi?”

Everything just pricked. The boy’s innocent questions and Andy’s realisation of his emotions. This was too much to bear.

“No buddy he can’t-“

A hand around his shoulder, it was you. When he looked up his eyes were blurry from the tears that were falling. He was so upset he didn’t even realise you were next to him. It was you. Only you.

It was then you realised it finally that it hit Andrew that his son was dead.

“You don’t have to answer that Andy. He’s just a kid. It’s okay.”

The little one feeling that he had said something wrong hugged his arms with his little arms. “I’m sowwy Wandi. Don’t cwy.”

“I’m not buddy, I-I’m not.” He reassured the kid, and falsely assuring himself too.

“Wandi, I’m feelin sleepy…” “Yeah, let’s get you to bed buddy,” he cooed with his quivering voice.

“Andy I’ll take him-” But he refused to and took the child. You took a few minutes to pull yourself together after witnessing Andy so vulnerable. Even in these moments, he took care of your son. When you reached the nursery, Andy was whispering a lullaby to a dozed off Niko for a good ten minutes. He even spoke to the little boy, telling him that the measly Audi car painting he did in the room was going to protect him and his nightmares; and the boy believed because Andy said so.

Few minutes later and Andy didn’t refuse to hold back.

“I held Jacob like Nikolai, put him to sleep like Nikolai. My sweet precious baby,  my innocent child Jacob. He didn’t do anything and he is away from me Y/N. Far far away-”

Andy let out a loud whimpering cry, the sound swallowed when he buried his head into your neck and your tears began streaming, him sobbing uncontrollably the next minute.

Andy and your tears began streaming; you pulled yourself together soon but Andy? He was weeping uncontrollably. You only could take him in your arms and offer him comfort. No words could heal his wounds instantly. He buried his face into your neck, his safe place, which made you remember the initial days with Andy when he lent a shoulder when you cried. Now it was your turn.

You whispered in ears how it was best not to do this near Niko and maneuvered Andy to your room. He held onto your arms as you took him to your room. You urged Andy to talk to you if the visit to the grave was still bothering him. He sought recluse in your safe place again, lying down on the bed, head tucked in your neck.

“Andy you can tell me anything. I promise it won’t affect whatever is between us.”

It was too twisted, he was distraught. He ranted about Laurie and how she unravelled into killing her own son. He slipped some details of how Laurie always kept bringing up past incidents of his son to prove that Jacob was the possible killer. He kept blaming himself that he was too weary with Laurie and that he should’ve seen her actions. Your whole body pricked; he was crying as he said all this.

You couldn’t imagine Nikolai and yourself in that situation. It brought tears to you eyes but wiped them off before he could see it. You let him talk as much as he wanted to, calming and soothing Andy in the process, running your fingers through his hair gently. You comforted him as much as you could and kept reminding yourself that this was the first time he came to his senses and realised he was crying out for his dead son; and so you were patient.

“My own wife murdered him Y/N. My Jacob. If I had been more attentive”

“Shhhhh Andy,” you cooed into his ear “Your circumstances were horrible. Don’t blame yourself bubba, none of this was your fault okay? Jacob’s death was out of your hands, it was an unfortunate accident Andy.“

Andy could stay all day in your embrace, his head on your gentle shoulders while your soft hair caresses made him doze off to sleep.

But his head felt like it was going to explode and he couldn’t let you see that.

“I’m going back home honey. I think I need to be alone tonight. I- I am not abandoning you okay, I promise, I’ll be okay tomorrow.”

“Andy are you sure? Stay with me, I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I- I think I need to be alone for sometime you know? Please don’t be upset.”

“I’m never ever upset okay? As long as you are sure bubba; whatever you think is best for you okay? This house is always open to you.”

Kisses on the cheek were exchanged before he left your home. But you stayed awake, in the hopes he’ll be back because deep down you knew, he needed you.

You would give him space, and why not?

He was your home.

–

Andy soon realised he couldn’t. Staying alone was the worst decision he made.

Yes he did get the desired space he absolutely needed for like an hour and he did try to cease his crying, but his heart, oh his heart was pounding like nobody’s business. Anxious. Alone. Not cared for.

The walls of his room closed around him, his breathing becoming rugged, the laughter of his dead son echoing in his head. But he remembered he was cared for. By you. He had only you now.

He wanted, needed your soothing embraces, your kind words, your optimism, your affection. Everything.

He just wanted you now.

He had to forget.  It was a bit past midnight, but it was you. His reliable rock; soon to become the love of his life. He had to forget what he was going though and in a moment of desperation, he texted you. His thought was confirmed, you would always be there for him.

—

Last and Final Part 5 on its way :)

[permanentcrossfics]

Better Now Than Later // h.s.

It’d hit him like a tonne of bricks, then.

This bloke shared a bed with you.

He spent night after night with you.

He got to see you naked.

Nauseated hadn’t described the feeling he’d had to swallow back, and chest pains were a step below that funny, fluttery, squeezing thing his heart was doing.

He’d kept waiting for the feeling to go away, but the more it lingered, the worse it got, until he was snappy and irritable with just about everyone. Even seeing you didn’t help, because if you weren’t with the man, you were talking about him, or texting him, or reminding Harry he was waiting for you.

What had started out as wanting to assert that he knew you best had led him to wanting to know you better — to fill the missing holes (no sexual innuendos intended) in the relationship between you — but all of a sudden you weren’t just dating the man, you were living with him. He’d put on a brave face and tried to remind — convince — himself that your happiness was what mattered, but then the engagement had happened and he’d just… snapped.

I wrote this a few years ago -- there are some signs of that left in as Easter eggs for those who have stuck around this long. Happy reading -- thanks for wanting it after all this time x

Read NOW on Patreon // Tumblr // Wattpad

Now

*

Anybody could’ve told him, and many did. 

“Is there... something going on? Between you and…?”

“What?” 

How often had he shaken his head no? 

“We’re just friends — I love her, but we’re just friends.”

Harry had been happy for you when you started dating your now fiancee. That was the right feeling to have for someone he cared about, right? It was casual, he seemed nice, and if you were happy, he was happy. At first, he was just a lad to have a laugh with, but then… something had changed. He didn’t disrespect you — never that, for which Harry remained grateful to this day — but Harry got the distinct impression that the other man thought he knew you better than Harry did. He’d tried to squash it, because personal relationships were not an arena in which his competitive nature should thrive, but he’d still coiled like a cobra ready to strike back at the insinuation that just because this bloke shared a bed with you, and spent the night, and got to see you naked that he somehow knew you better. 

It’d hit him like a tonne of bricks, then. 

This bloke shared a bed with you.

He spent night after night with you.

He got to see you naked.

Nauseated hadn’t described the feeling he’d had to swallow back, and chest pains were a step below that funny, fluttery, squeezing thing his heart was doing. 

He’d kept waiting for the feeling to go away, but the more it lingered, the worse it got, until he was snappy and irritable with just about everyone. Even seeing you didn’t help, because if you weren’t with the man, you were talking about him, or texting him, or reminding Harry he was waiting for you. 

What had started out as wanting to assert that he knew you best had led him to wanting to know you better — to fill the missing holes (no sexual innuendos intended) in the relationship between you — but all of a sudden you weren’t just dating the man, you were living with him. He’d put on a brave face and tried to remind — convince — himself that your happiness was what mattered, but then the engagement had happened and he’d just… snapped.

He couldn’t write music after that. He’d tried to write so many songs to put it into words, but the words he got out were stiff on paper and his fingers were clumsy on the strings of his guitar, and that made it worse. He felt mute though he hadn’t stopped screaming the entire time you’ve been planning your wedding, and now the day was here. 

When he’d gotten the save the date card, he’d contemplated lying through his teeth — he could send a bloody waffle iron and call it a day and know that you’d at least be fed while he pretended to be in New York, Toronto, São Paulo, Munich, Tokyo, anywhere but where you were on your wedding day. He couldn’t do it, though -- hadn’t you pestered him specifically to find out when he was free? And warned him time and again to not slot anything in because you were planning your wedding around him and this would be the date chosen? 

That was a punch to the chest if he’d ever felt one. 

Similarly, as the weeks had dragged on he’d considered faking sick, faking traffic, faking anything to get out of it, but the morning had come. Wished he may, wished he might’ve, it was there at last.  and he’d showered and combed his wet curls before drying them and spraying them with whatever Lou had forced upon him ages ago before zipping up his boots. You’d promised him he could be him — rings, necklaces, hair that’s annoying enough to require a hair tie around his wrist for when he needs it, and a shirt just shy of half its buttons being done — because you’d said you wanted to look out towards the crowd and find something familiar in the midst of all the symbolic change. 

“You can be a rockstar,” you’d told him. “Just make sure you’re a rockstar at a wedding.”

How was he ever supposed to fake anything when you wanted so badly to see him on your wedding day?

That was how he wound up sitting in the church at one end of the pew with the little sheet of paper that had your name and your soon-to-be husband’s printed on it along with those of the ring bearer, and the flower girls, and the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, and all the people that were far too many to be what you wanted. 

He flicked the edge of it repeatedly with his thumb and his mouth got tighter and tighter as he stared. You weren’t married — not yet. Harry shifted forward and twisted in his seat to look towards the back of the church, but he shook his head and turned back. 

There was a ring bearer, flower girls, bridesmaids, and groomsmen who would all be sorely disappointed if he did anything foolish. Not to mention your family, and he supposed your groom might take issue, although, frankly, he was the least of Harry’s concerns right then — he was the root of the problem, actually. 

Give it up, he chided himself. You aren’t going to do anything. What happens? She says no and you feel like a proper twat for having put her through that on her wedding day and left it on her mind from hereon out? You would do that to her? You’ve not got enough time to change her mind, and even if you did, you shouldn’t.

Harry closed his eyes, another voice springing up. What if you said yes? What if you changed your mind? What if — and he knew this is a demotion — you agreed to date him instead of marrying this tosser? 

He didn’t have any idea if he loved you — if he was in love with you — but he knew he’d like the chance to try, and if he lost out on even the possibility….

He was at the door through which people had been barging in and out of for the past hour before he could process his feet had moved. Harry hesitated, looking at the rings on his fisted fingers, before knocking fervently. He winced, his whole face pinched inwards, knowing that he had better have something damn good to say, and before he could even entertain the idea that you wouldn’t let him in, the door opened and you peeked out cautiously before relaxing.

“Oh, it’s you.”

He wanted to laugh at how flippant you sounded, but you’d already ushered him in and shut the door behind. 

Looking at you, his heart sank. Your hair and makeup were done and your dress was… it was perfect. It was exactly something you would wear, and he could only imagine how long it took you to find, because he remembered how long it took his mum to find something when she married Robin. You looked… beautiful.

“Thanks,” you said.

He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud, and he cleared his throat. You looked beautiful, and he was about to do this? You deserved better — you deserved a man who wasn’t slow on the uptake and who didn’t choke on his emotions after trying to stamp them out for the better part of… ages. Ages and ages… Christ. He’d felt this way forever and it took this wanker to put it in perspective for him. 

Hands shoved deep into the pockets of his slacks, he balled them in and out of fists. 

Don’t be a coward, Styles. You either say it now or you walk away. Don’t drag this out for her. 

“Don’t.”

It was a croak and he closed his eyes feeling like he just fired a gun in the dark. His heart pounded like he’d just run a 5k in as many minutes.

“Don’t fucking marry him,” he clarified. The room was so quiet the two of you could hear a pin drop, and when he opened his eyes, you were holding the back of the chair in front of the vanity that had all your makeup strewn over it. Your mouth was open and you blinked dazedly, eyes wide and almost frightened. 

“M’sorry.” He withdrew one of his hands from his pockets and pushed it through the tamed, wavy curls. “M’sorry, I jus’—“

A knock on the door announced the arrival of one of your bridesmaids.

“Are you ready?” she asked you before narrowing in on him. “You should get back to your seat.”

You made some sort of sound — something like a gasp, maybe, but he can’t be sure — while he nodded his head. “Right, yeah.” He didn’t meet your eyes when he closed the small distance between you, grabbing your forearm instinctively as he leaned in. “See you in there,” he said gruffly just before pressing a strong, puckered kiss to your cheek. He should’ve shaved, he realized too late, but you didn’t protest about the whiskery stubble scratching your skin before he doubled back for his seat in the pew. 

The rows were nearly full when he sat down and he picked up the sheet of paper once more and the reality of the situation sank in. 

He wanted you. He really bloody wanted you, he’d admitted as much just now, but just now was too late and there was no way back. He tried hard not to take things, and places, and people, and opportunities for granted, but he had how many times he could realize and own up to his feelings, and he’d chosen now? 

The swell of Pachelbel’s Canon in D rose from the front of the church and he lifted his suddenly heavy head to watch the first of the wedding party make their way down the aisle. Nobody came, though — no bridesmaid, no ring bearer, no flower girl, no you. The pianist, bless them, played on to fill the gaps in the titters despite the fact that it should’ve been long over, and all around him people exchanged confused glances and concerned whispers. 

You loved that man waiting for you at the altar. 

Right?

When that same bridesmaid of yours darted out and made a beeline for Harry, his heart skipped a beat.

When she leant down and whispered to come with her, it stopped entirely.

Harry glanced back towards the altar just before disappearing through the doors with her, and he had the strangest feeling of guilt when he spied your fiancee standing there looking simultaneously lost and as if he wanted to kill the rockstar who’d dared to crash his wedding. 

Children sat on the floor, detained from their ring bearing and flower throwing duties, and where there had been just you in the room before there were now three others in it with you. 

“Get out,” you told them, shrilly. “Get out.”

Harry watched you warily as you made short paces back and forth in front of him amidst your bridesmaids scurrying from the room. He’d only seen you this crazed a few times, but never once had it been directed towards him. He was just about to ask if you wanted him to leave, too, when you finally asked, “What is wrong with you?!”

It was a fair question, but any answer he had to offer would be unsatisfying. 

“M’sorry,” he mumbled, proverbial tail between his legs. “I jus’—“

“Stop apologizing,” you hissed. Harry pressed his lips together and nodded as you bent slightly, not quite doubling over. “What am I doing?” The words were moaned in pure agony and he had the urge to tell you to straighten up to help your breathing, but he had a feeling he shouldn’t speak much right then unless he’s spoken to. 

“I’m getting married,” you uttered, voice breaking. “Why would you ever…?”

“Better now than later, yeah?” he said and you shook your head.

“I’m so… so angry with you.” 

He could tell by the way your words burned that you meant it, but he couldn’t shake the nudging reminder that you’d still brought him back to you. 

“You can forget it if y’want,” he rasped despite the ache in his chest. “S’fine.” 

The ache was slightly assuaged when you shook your head again and muttered a soft, “No… no….” 

He’d only just started to process it when you twisted your engagement ring — that lump of glorified coal that’d been sitting on your hand and making him scowl in his sleep — and ordered him to, “Stay here.”

“No,” he protested. “That’s not—“

“He’ll kill you,” you said under your breath, looking at him at last. “And you’ll break your damn hand if you try to fight back.”

He wanted to quip he was a lover not a fighter, but he knew already that may not be his choice if he were out there, and he felt a jolt when you passed your hand over his ringed fingers. 

It took all of thirty minutes, if that long, but you returned to the room at last looking all the wearier for battle. He frowned immediately when he spied the makeup smudges and how the whites of your eyes were slightly bloodshot. Suspicion prickled in him and he was convinced you’d asked him to stay because he would be in danger of doing the killing. 

“Unzip me,” you requested hollowly, effectively extinguishing his fire.

It took him a moment to process it before he cleared his throat and stepped forward to oblige, grabbing your zipper and pulling it down just past the curve of your bum. You unceremoniously stripped out of it and then the frilly undergarments that hid your regular ones, allowing them to pool at your ankles. “Can you hang them?” you asked and he took on the task robotically, trying to figure out what hung and what zipped and what draped as you changed back into the jeans and t-shirt you’d arrived at the church in. 

He was just wrestling with getting the dress to stay on the padded hanger and those silk loops that refused to stay inside when you spoke up.

“I’m awful.”

Two simple, frail words, and when he looked at you, the sadness on your face knocked him backwards. You’d been so aggressive with him that he hadn’t been able to read any other emotion, but he saw the guilt that he felt since he first knocked on the door reflected in your appearance. He abandoned his task, one of those silk hanger straps hanging from the side of the dress, and for the first time since it’s all really started to happen, he touched you. 

Harry grabbed your shoulders firmly and pulled you in for a hug, and he was relieved when you wrapped your arms around him and gripped the back of his jacket for dear life. Your shoulders shook with a sharp inhale and he covered the back of your head with one of his hands to force you to nestle in close, and when you did, your whole body just… collapsed. 

“You’re not awful,” he rasped quietly. “Better now than later, innit?” he repeated his earlier logic. How much more terrible would it have been if you’d gone through with it and decided no, no, you didn’t want this after all?

Harry’s heart squeezed unpleasantly from the phantom sound of your voice saying, “I do,” carrying all the way to him in the church. However terrible this might’ve felt, it had to be better than the alternative, didn’t it?

You took a deep, shuddering breath, and he pressed a kiss to your head on instinct. Your hair felt weird — a byproduct of all the creams, or mousses, or gels, or sprays, or whatever the hell it was you’d slathered yourself up with no doubt — but the result of you burrowing deeper against his neck was nice. He swayed slightly with you, but stopped instantly when your lips passed over his neck almost shyly. 

Harry stayed very, very still when you lifted your face and leaned back. He peered at you through hooded eyes, hand still cupping the back of your head. It was like one of those stupid moments in a romance novel, but he saw your eyes drop to his mouth, and he knew that however scripted it seemed, he had to seize the moment lest he let another one go by like all the ones before. 

You both stayed very, very still when your lips first made contact. Yours, he thought, were soft and pillowy — nice and smooth, perfectly pliable. You broke away before he could deepen it, but he grabbed your chin and silently coaxed you to keep your head up despite the shy expression that should have him begging off. He pressed his forehead to yours momentarily and your sharp intake of breath — preemptive for the kiss that he’s not granting you — compelled him to duck down again. 

It was still chaste, by all standards, but it was less shocking the second time around, and neither one of you were as hesitant as the first time. Harry cupped the side of your face. This was the goal, wasn’t it? He hadn’t asked you not to marry the tosser so that he could continue to have you round for tea and send you home at half twelve in the morning or offer you up his guest bed. He hadn’t asked you to please, not do it, because he wanted to raid your fridge after a night of drinking and set bread to rise that he’d never bake because he’d be long gone by morning. 

He wanted to share a bed with you.

He wanted to spend night after night with you.

He wanted to see you naked and leave you dozing in bed while he baked that bread himself instead of having you wrestle with a hangover and a gooey mass of dough.

Harry cupped your face a little firmer, squeezing a bit, grateful you weren’t whining about his stubble and more grateful still that he’d chosen to speak now rather than later. 

*

Later

*

Calling off your wedding had been one of the most humiliating things you’d ever had to do. 

Ever.

You’d loved your fiancee — part of you probably still did and always would. You’d promised him your hand in marriage, as corny as that sounded, and you’d had every intention of following through with it. You’d had every intention of living your life with him, first in a flat, then maybe in a house, and having whatever came from that the two of you saw fit. 

But Harry had burst through that door and he’d been churning. 

You’d sensed something had been wrong for quite some time, but he wouldn’t say what it was when you tried to dig. He’d just give some excuse like, “Can’t write any damn music,” or “I’m just…” and he’d leave it at that. You’d expressed to your fiancee how worried you were about Harry, and the end result had been the most ridiculous, laughable, question of all. 

“Do you have feelings for him?” 

No. Absolutely not, you’d assured him. You loved Harry, and you were worried about him, because couldn’t everybody tell he was just plain miserable? Your fiancee had simply harrumphed at that, and you’d withered and refrained from voicing any further concern, but with every day that passed it grew exponentially worse. 

You’d had a sincere, gnawing fear that your friend — one of your very best friends — was going to skip out on your wedding. He got cagey when he talked about his plans and said there were a lot of things that might happen at the last moment that could cause him to jet off halfway around the world, and the thought of getting married without being able to look out into the rows of people to see him smirking mischievously with too many rings and too few buttons had kept you awake for more nights than you could count. 

What choice had you had but to bully him into a corner to make sure that he had to come. “You won’t have anything happening on this day,” you’d told him sternly. “You can catch a red eye that evening or take one to get in the day before, but you will be there on this day.”

He’d looked so resigned when he’d wearily nodded his head to confirm he understood the date to be saved, but you’d thought… foolishly, you’d thought it would be good for him to get out and to partake in some festivities.

Never in a million years would you have thought your friend would knock on the door in the back room of the church and ask you to please, not marry the man waiting for you at the altar.

Never in a million years would you have thought your instantaneous, knee-jerk, gut reaction would’ve been okay.

He could’ve taken your hand and pulled you out of there into his car and driven to the opposite end of the country — or maybe to the shore, because you’d heard Brighton was lovely this time of year and he had always loved the water. Or maybe he could have booked a plane and you two could have retreated to the States or some island where nobody knew who Harry Styles was, and if they did they wouldn’t care.

Your whole future had reconstructed itself before your eyes when he’d burst in. Pieces of your fiancee had been swapped out for pieces of Harry — the small flat in zone six could had been replaced with moving your furniture into Harry’s house and an unknown number of children was suddenly cemented with the number Harry had always drunkenly proclaimed as his ideal (with one ringed finger stuck high in the air as he tried to focus his point in the tequila haze).

You’d woken up that morning with another man’s plans and all of a sudden you’d started making your own with Harry and it had felt… right.

That had been its own kind of scary realization. You loved — love — Harry. He was, and is, one of your closest friends, and it was why it was so important that he be at your wedding. 

Somewhere along the line, you should’ve realized the thought of him not being at your wedding hurt more than the idea of marrying your fiancee brought you joy. 

Then he’d left. He’d just… gone when you hadn’t said a word before one of your bridesmaids interrupted. He didn’t know — he couldn’t have. He would have let you marry that man if it was what you wanted, but all you’d actually wanted was to cry out for him to come back.

He would’ve let you get married.

He would’ve given you up.

Harry had left you with your bridesmaids and while they fussed over your dress and asked where your bouquet was, your head had roared. Every instinct in you had said to get out of there with him — people in the church be damned. You didn’t know where it had come from, but at the same time you weren’t surprised, and that in and of itself had been enough to make you hyperventilate. 

“Harry,” you’d gasped, gown tight around your ribs from your quick breaths. You’d clawed at the front of it, scratching the fabric, the sound harsher than nails on a chalkboard. “Harry, I need Harry.”

Silence had fallen and you’d covered your face. “Get Harry!” 

He’d have been liable to punch or be punched if he’d been out in the church when you ended it all, and you’d needed to see him to be sure of what you were doing. There’d been not a doubt in your mind when he had walked through that door, warily sizing you up as if expecting you to take a swing, that your choice was final. 

You’d felt like a con artist when you’d stood at the front and called it off — and maybe you were — but you knew it was nothing compared to how you would have felt if you made it down that aisle, made it through I Dos, and had to look at Harry over your husband’s shoulder while you had your first dance as man and wife.

Knowing how he felt.

Knowing how you felt. 

It’d been six weeks since that day. Six weeks, nearly seven, of moving out (with Harry’s quiet help — he’d called a realtor and found a flat for you on a temporary basis), returning gifts, explaining to those who hadn’t been there that the wedding had been canceled, trying to get a refund on a honeymoon package, and tabloids — loads, and loads of tabloids that were having a feeding frenzy over the fact that Harry Styles had broken up his best friend’s wedding. There was nothing confirmed, only “a source says,” but the fish food crumbs they had hit close enough to the truth to cause a stir. 

There were good things, too, though, in what amounted to six weeks of dating and getting to know each other on these new terms. Quiet dinners, in and out, his moral support as he rubbed your calves while you were on the phone explaining to somebody that yes, yes, you really had called it off, and kisses.

Lots and lots of kisses. 

You’d taken to kissing him like a fish would take to water. Although the first few had been shy and hesitant — introductions of open mouths and open souls — you’d both grown bolder. Your favorite time so far had been when you were waiting for the takeaway to show up and he’d just… he’d gotten so impatient that he’d pushed you against the kitchen counter, pinning your hips with his, and held your cheek while he kissed his way up and down your neck with greedy pulls of your skin between his lips. 

You hadn’t wanted it to end, but the bell had interrupted, and that seemed to happen every time you two were close to taking the plunge in the deep end. It was starting to wear on you, and you were getting tired of not being able to enjoy the man you were finally allowed.

You were allowed this man — allowed to notice how his arms flexed and the way sweat clung to his neck and how his voice positively purred when he told a story. He, too, was allowed you, but  you’ve not had each other beyond heavy petting and hands that dared to creep under shirts like you might be caught by your parents at any moment. You’d be stupid if you tried to insist you hadn’t noticed him before — of course you had — but he was just Harry and you had a boyfriend and then a fiancee. He could be objectively good looking, you could find him attractive, but you couldn’t be attracted. 

Now, though, you were allowed, and it was blazing like wildfire through you.

Your inner thighs were heavy all the time, and although Harry was very good, and very patient, you thought he was feeling the strain, too. You’ve woken up from vivid dreams in which your legs had been spread and your throat cried raw, and after a hazy choice to confess the late night visions to him via text and a flurry of bold, well-written sexts, you’ve started saying his name when you cum with your fingers before turning into your pillow and screaming to bemoan the fact you wouldn’t get to see him again until your schedules allowed it. 

You were at the point where you wanted him so badly you could be sick. It wasn’t an attractive description, but it was the truth — you wanted to touch him. You craved him. You wanted to put your hands, your mouth, all over, everywhere. You wanted to feel him get hard, you wanted to see him lose his mind. You wanted to take orders and give orders and hear him shout. You wanted sweat, and breathless vigor, and shaky, sore muscles that had you a little wobbly on your legs after. You wanted it so badly that when you were finally sitting on the couch with him watching a film that you curled and squirmed, trying to shake off the hypersensitivity and the need. 

“S’the matter?” 

Harry pulled on your wrists to try to dislodge your hands from their place over your eyes, but you shook your head.

“It’s a comedy,” he said, tugging again, mistaking your distress for mourning over a tragedy that hadn’t occurred. “What’s gotten into you?”

You could smell his cologne on his skin — that warm, spicy, musky vanilla scent — and you sucked in a great, deep breath.

“Iwantyou,” you exclaimed in one go. “I want you so badly, I….” You swallowed hard, the twisting ache inside you magnified now that you’d fessed up. You wrenched yourself gently free from his grasp and sat up, preparing to bolt from the couch, but a large, firm hand on your arm pulled you back before you could straighten up completely. 

You didn’t even get to take much of a look at his face as you squeaked and teetered onto his thigh, but what you did see had heat flaring up in your belly. His eyes were burning with intensity, but you only just took note of them before he guided you into a smashing kiss. It was your most unrestrained, greedy kiss yet, and you positively melted into it. There was nobody and nothing to stop you — hands and mouths could go where they pleased, and you bucked forward over his leg, the thought alone and all its promise making you whimper.

Your moan was instantaneous. The pressure, the friction, the strength…. Both of his arms were locked around you firmly as you clamped his cheeks between your palms, but you had enough room to rock back and forth over his thigh. It was a little reminiscent of when you used to hump your pillow when you were first working out how to take out your sexual urges as an adolescent, but it was better because he was firmer and real. You ground down harder and you gasped softly in wonder, head spinning. It wasn’t right — not quite what you were after — but it was good in its own way. 

“You want me?” he asked hotly. Your abdomen fluttered and you nodded. “Been givin’ you space,” he declared. “Didn’t want to push, did I? How fucking hard has it been when you’re telling me I fuck you in your sleep?” 

A single moan punctured your ragged breaths and he pulled you closer with rough impatience as you kissed him again, pleased when he returned it with the same aggression.

No more space.

No more restraint.

His leg was nice and you were starting to feel pin pricks and tingles in your fingers and toes, but it was frustratingly inconsistent — if you shifted even a fraction of an inch, the angle was thrown off, and you had to find it again, and after the third time, he patted the outside of your thigh.

“Ge’ your trousers off,” he said against your mouth. “It’ll make it better fo’ yeh… c’mon… up….” 

There should be something… not awkward, but noticeable about taking your trousers off in front of him like this. He’d seen you in your underwear before — and you him — but the circumstances had been entirely different and without this intention. Still, though, as you unbuttoned them and slid the zipper down and he helped guide them down your thighs, the only strange or noticeable effect were the goosebumps on your skin from his warm, somewhat calloused fingers (rings absent, for once) brushing against you. 

“These too, then,” he muttered. He bit his lip only briefly when he looked up at you before giving a casual jerk of his head. “C’mon.”

You let out a keening sound when he hooks his fingers into the fabric and pulls the elastic so he can slide it over your bum and down your legs. When you chance a glance at him his eyes are dark and unblinking, locked on you, and the tip of his tongue is peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he stares before he swipes it discretely along his lower lip and leans back, patting his leg and pulling your wrist. 

You nearly toppled back onto him and he caught you, righting you so you could press yourself against him again, and on top of his denim with nothing left between you, it was much easier to control the pressure and how direct the stimulation was. 

“Ah!” you cried out in soft awe, fingers digging into his shoulder. 

“Better?” he asked thickly. All you could do was nod in return while dragging your fingertips down his shirt, pulling the collar back sightly. His necklaces were askew, chains plastered to his skin and crosses tucked under his shirt or thrown back behind his shoulder, and his throat bobbed just above the two birds by his collarbones. Transfixed, you pressed the black ink and watched the design warp before leaning down to land a kiss. His skin was hot to the touch of your lips, and Harry let out a long, husky sounding growl as you peppered several kisses there before bringing them up his neck, resuming your momentarily paused gliding. 

“Good,” he sighed as you kissed his jaw. “Want it to be good fo’ you….”

You could feel it already — either because it’d been almost two months and nothing had happened, or because he’d sent you saucily descriptive messages to aid your busy fingers, or because he was a novelty who smelled and felt so bloody good, but it was there. You whimpered helplessly before crying out when he tensed his leg.

“I’m gonna cum,” you moaned weakly -- as if he needed to be told.

“On m’leg?” he rasped. “Already? Jus’ from rubbin’ off on me?” 

You shuddered, nodding, a mewling sound echoing in your throat, and when he kissed your cheek you could feel his lips curling with pride.

“S’it feel nice?” he asked. 

“S-so….” You gulped for air and it turned into a gasp when he pulled you down harder on his leg. “Oh God, m’gonna cum!” you whispered again in disbelief, words running together. He had one hand on your back and the other on your bum, guiding you, and you had your fingers in his hair, right at the sweaty roots. Shoulders heaving, each moan was a deep, heavy wheeze -- they’d be embarrassing if you didn’t know he was getting off on them. 

“Don’t stop,” he urged in that same purr that had you wanting to crawl onto his lap in the first place. “Get m’leg wet.”

Your eyes rolled up in your head and you moaned, shuddering anew, and he bounced his leg a bit to keep you on track.

“Think you’d be getting it nice an’ wet f’I didn’t have m’jeans on, yeah?”

The image of his bare thigh shining shouldn’t be as attractive as it was, but somehow all you could do is want it — it reminded you of marking him, and you could imagine how pink his skin would be underneath it from the friction. The idea of leaving his leg sore and cumming on him made your eyes snap shut and a long, low moan of his name escaped your lips.

“Harry….” 

“There yeh go…” he muttered just under your ear, kissing your neck. “Good girl, jus’ like that. You’re gonna cum nice and hard, aren’t yeh?” He kissed you several more times while you continued, undeterred. “Gimme more than just some texts, pet,” he pled with a raspy voice. “Gimme more than… c’mere… gimme….” 

One of your arms was against his neck and the other was braced against his chest as you ground faster and faster against his thigh. He grasped your wrist and tugged with determination until he lifted your hand away and up to his mouth. You hadn’t processed it apart from the lurch in your stomach from being thrown off balance before his hot, wet mouth wrapped around your first two digits. He exhaled through his nose against your knuckles. It was brief, but he frowned in concentration, and you wondered if he knew those were the fingers you found relief with after every time he detailed exactly what he wanted to do with you, for you, to you, and when he opened his eyes after sliding them out, you were sure he did.

He released your wrist and you pushed against his chest again, curling your fingers into his shirt as you rocked faster and faster. You recognized this feeling, and you knew you were already there — you just needed… you just had to…. Mouth hanging open, your breathing stilted until it stopped completely, and your whole body went so stiff you shook and the room spun as you pulsed and contracted, squeezing his thigh between yours. 

“Fuck!” you choked. “Oh fuck…!” You whimpered weakly before going slack against him, hold weakening and head spinning. Even as you finally became aware of your breathing, the room still felt like it was tilting around you, and in the next second, it did. Harry turned you onto your back on the sofa, positioning himself between your sensitive thighs. You lifted your head to close the distance with his mouth and he lowered his body closer while supporting himself awkwardly with his forearm on the side of the couch, one of his hands just underneath your elbow. Hands wound around him and pressing into his back, you could feel his muscles moving with every slight rocking motion he made. He was smooth, and strong, and your fingertips suddenly itched with the need to pull across his bare skin. 

You tugged at his shirt, each yank bringing it higher and higher over his head — it had buttons down the front, but you couldn’t be bothered to undo them, and, after a momentary mishap when his arm got stuck, it was on the floor. His necklaces dangled, and his hair, just a few short inches from darkened eyes and pink cheeks, was wild. 

“A’right?” he asked gruffly. Your heart soared and you nodded.

“Yes,” you whispered, drawing him back in. The new kiss was tender and you stayed in the liplock for several moments, only breaking it to readjust slightly, and with each passing second he settled himself more comfortably against you. He was as warm, and heavy, and nice as you’d believed he would be, and although you were still a little exhausted and dazed, you still had that distinct ache in you — you needed more. You’d finished, but you weren’t finished, and the unmistakable hardness of his bulge was thrilling — more thrilling, even, than his hand making its way over your stomach under your shirt towards your breasts. 

Your back arched when one of his hands spread over the gentle curve of your chest, and it was then he broke the kiss enough to rasp, “D’you want to go to bed?” granting you another one when you whined from his absence. “I’ve condoms in m’room,” he said between pacifying follow-ups.  

Condoms.

You couldn’t remember the last time you used one, because you’d been very exclusive in your relationship, and your ex-fiancee had been, too. 

(It was another reminder of how perfectly fine he had been and how he hadn’t deserved it, but you were a bloody bitch who couldn’t be sorry about the fact that you’d gotten this man between your legs instead. The thought of him hurting twinged more than any other regret, and so, therefore, you couldn’t.)

“I’m on the pill,” you breathed and you spied the tip of his tongue between his lips in thought. 

“So….” Harry hesitated, frowning hard not out of displeasure, but rather like he was working through a difficult problem. “Do yeh not want…?”

“We can,” you whispered. “We can if you want… but we could also not.” You were beyond caring whether he had a rubber on or not so long as he got inside you. Your orgasm had only opened you up more — your legs were aching to be spread by his hips and you wanted so badly to feel him flush with you that you thought you could pass out. 

Harry chewed his lips so hard his cheeks dimpled, and he had that cavernous crinkle between his brows that you always wanted to kiss away, but finally he nodded. “I’m… I’ve not—“

You covered his mouth, shaking your head a bit, and he nodded his silent understanding and agreement. “S’get this off,” he muttered of your t-shirt. 

It was a little awkward — worse than his shirt — but eventually it, too, was thrown to the side, and he was free to settle between your breasts and pepper kisses to your skin. He didn’t even so much as blink in shock, and you were in awe of that — you felt like you were go back and forth between feeling floppy-limbed and spontaneously combusting when you thought about the fact that he was him, but he was cool, calm, and collected as he moved and touched with purpose.

As if kissing you so intimately was the most natural thing in the world.

As if he’d been waiting for it and you’d just needed to tell him go.

It’d been six and a half weeks of waiting, and space, and patience, and sexts, but he was done being good.

You sighed and your back arched when he closed his mouth around your nipple through your bra. Smiling breathlessly, you savored the pressure of his teeth, and when he pulled just a bit, you laughed quietly. You looked down to find him grinning, but there was something predatory about it that had your stomach twisting. 

“Are you going to take your trousers off?” you whispered.

“S’the idea.” His voice was gravelly and warm, and you could’ve shudder from the promise of intent. He lifted up slightly and you winced when you felt your hair being pulled at the roots. 

“Ouch!”

“What’d I—?”

“My hair— ow!”

“Sorry!” Harry shifted his weight to his other forearm and you rescued the strands he’d pinned and pulled before he dropped back and reached down to unfasten his trousers. “Okay… alright….”

He wriggled quickly on top of you and you felt his trousers bunching up around his thighs, so you pushed — first with your hands and then your feet once they were at his knees and too far for either of you to reach. There was a soft snap as he pulled the elastic on his pants and repeated the motion, and both of you paused for a second that lasted a lifetime when his cock fell on your abdomen with a dull, heavy smack. 

He was full and thick and his head was red and looked ready to burst. He wasn’t, technically speaking, any different than any other cock you’d ever seen in your life, but you couldn’t stop staring in awe. Your hand was on him before you could process you’d moved your arm, and you pumped your hand down his length. Lifting your gaze when you heard his sharp intake of breath, you only just caught his strained, open mouth before he snapped it shut, jaw trembling. When he focused his gaze, his eyes were dark and demanding an answer to an unvoiced question, and all you could do was nod. 

Harry lowered again and slanted his mouth over yours in a greedy kiss that threatened to steal your breath, but if you were supposed to be asking for a break, you didn’t want it. You pressed your palms flat against his back, feeling the way even the slimmest of muscles rippled as they expanded and contracted. His skin was warm and soft, and you could only imagine what it was like to have that much canvas to kiss. Before you could contemplate a scenario that would allow it, you felt his cock pressing against your entrance. A new burst of adrenaline pumped through you and you stopped breathing when he pushed forward, easily spreading you to accommodate his size. 

It wasn’t the first time you’d ever had a man bare inside you, but this was… more. So, so much more. Was it his size? The pressure and pinch was something you hadn’t felt in awhile, and it wasn’t just because you couldn’t really remember the last time you’d had sex in the middle of all the planning madness. Was it how smooth and blazingly hot he felt sliding inside without even a bit of resistance apart from an initial squeeze around him? You tensed up just a bit when you felt him withdraw just a bit before he thrust forward fully, and the sudden show of strength had you crying out against his mouth — not from pain, but from how overwhelmed you were. 

“S’wrong?” he mumbled, smoothing your hair back. “Alright?”

“I’m fine,” you panted. “I’m fine, I’m okay, I just….” Your breath hitched in your throat. “I need one second.” Steeling yourself, you threw one leg over the back of the couch to act as a brace and to make sure he didn’t fall off and take you with him, before you hitched your legs higher around his hips and squirmed until you were just slightly farther down the couch. The result was him sinking the last bit of himself inside you, and the two of you moaned simultaneously — you wordlessly and him with a tortured, “Fuck me!” 

“You’re big,” you whispered, blurry gaze locked on the ceiling, and you laughed breathlessly. Praising size made your skin crawl — it sounded so artificially pornographic — but you were shocked enough that they were the only words that sufficed. “You’re really big— oh!”

Your head tipped back in a long, keening moan when he rutted inside you, gradually easing into a rhythm, and he held one side of your face while kissing your neck. You bit your lip and clamped your eyes shut as he thrust. He moved methodically — each fuck inside of you was a slightly quicker snap than the sensation of him all but dragging back out of you before he thrust forward again. He was fucking you — however tender some of the kisses you’d shared had been, there was no denying this was a fuck first and foremost — but the tempo was such that you were acutely aware of how he felt. Every vein, every ridge, every time his angle shifted just a bit and he bumped and glided along a new spot that had your mouth open in ecstatic awe felt exponentially more — just more. 

“How’s that?” 

His voice was faint and a little hollow and when he thrust quickly, as if punctuating his question, and you were pretty sure he’d only just barely gotten a grasp on his speech. “S’that good?” he asked. “That’s it?”

The fact that he’d bothered asking you what was good, what worked, and then followed through based on your lead was toe-curling in its own way.  

“Yes…!” you moaned with a tight throat and he kissed your cheek.

“Jesus, I want yeh to cum!” he said through rattling teeth against your skin. “Wanna feel it ‘round my cock.”

You’d never felt the desire to orgasm for someone else before. They were for your enjoyment, either by yourself or with a partner who took the time to learn your body, but right then, you wanted to desperately cum for him — and again, not in that artificially pornographic way, but because you had the express feeling that it would be almost better than his own orgasm for him. 

“Ungh!” 

You cried out unintelligibly when Harry shifted so he was ever so slightly farther up your body and he could grind his pelvis against yours. It was nothing much at first, but then your nerves responded, quicker even than before, and you rolled up in time with him, a whole body shudder making you wrack underneath him. 

“There we are,” he rasped, passing a kiss across your hairline. His pendants dragged and tickled your skin, adding another heightened sensation to the moment, and you shivered again when he said, “That’s it, feel tha’.”

He wasn’t close enough, but you weren’t sure he could possibly get any more up against you or in you than he was. You whined softly, frustrated tears pricking your eyes, and he shushed you, petting your cheek before a guttural groan rumbled in his throat as you dug your fingers into the strong muscles of his back. The simple thought of scattering kisses across it invaded your mind again, and, combined with him grinding against you, your abdomen fluttered and tightened from the overwhelming desire.

The sheer idea of everything you wanted exhausted you. You wanted to touch him — to kiss him — everywhere. You were allowed to explore, and you wanted to engage both hands and mouth in your adventures across his body. You wanted to hear his moans and taste his hot skin. You wanted to know if he swore when his hip was kissed or if he thrust despite himself when you hummed around his cock. You wanted to know what he smelled like first thing in the morning, wrapped in sex and sheets and yesterday’s smoky vanilla scent.

You moaned under your breath, fingers slipping against his back a bit before you scrambled to get a better grip once more, and you took a deep breath when your abdomen fluttered and twisted again. You were starting to pulse, feeling ever so slightly tighter when you clamped down, and your breathing was getting heavier as you volleyed between drawing long breaths in and out and panting quickly. 

Don’t think about it. Just let it happen. 

Harry ground a little quicker and he spluttered between his lips, his own breathing stilted between moans that sounded like they were meant to instill resistance in him rather than from actual ecstasy. You lifted your head a bit and pressed your mouth against his shoulder with a soft moan, breathing quick and heart erratic in your chest. 

It swept over you almost out of nowhere; suddenly, you locked up around him and called out in a way that could be mistaken for agony as you dug your heel into the back of his thigh and your shaking hands pulled him closer. It was a swoop and a fall and you let out a punctured gasp, still clinging to him weakly but muscles completely void of all the tension that had wrapped you around him seconds ago. He stilled for the moment but his body hummed with energy and something unreleased, and when your head dropped back against the arm of the couch, you opened your eyes just as he resumed his thrusts.

He was beautiful. His curls stuck to his forehead and neck and when he managed to keep his eyes open, they were unfocused behind quick blinks. His skin was sweaty and flushed and his mouth kept opening and closing with moans and stifled shouts. Each thrust, he got rougher and more erratic with his rhythm — he took two strokes inside you before stopping to grit his teeth and shift above you to relieve some of the weight of his body so he wouldn’t crush you, and you could see the veins in his neck straining underneath the sheen on his skin. His next thrust was a little too hard, and you winced, shrinking back into the cushions beneath you, but then he stilled and you felt the first hot, wet gush inside of you, and your mouth dropped open as the quick spurts filled you and he made an inhuman noise deep in his throat. 

You not only saw but felt his arms shaking before he collapsed on you, and after an ouch and some breathless fumbling of limbs, half his body crammed in between yours and the couch while his one leg slung over yours in a well-intentioned attempt to keep you from getting pushed off the edge. 

Silence descended amongst your harsh, out of sync breathing, and kisses were abandoned in favor of thought. Seven weeks of foreplay via text and kisses against counters had resulted in a mad explosion. You weren’t even sure how much you’d been thinking about it. All you knew was you had to go, take, seize. A laugh bubbled up in your chest thinking of how frantic you’d been, but you pressed your lips tightly together to keep from giving him the wrong idea. 

Jammed tightly next to you, he’d grown heavy, and his breath was hot on your cheek when he mumbled, “Get up in a mo’.” You nodded, the vibrations from the words quaking through your whole body.

A moment didn’t come for a long time, though. You were alone when you woke up on his couch, thighs unpleasantly (but not unsurprisingly) sticky. Harry was gone and his trousers were, too, although his shirt was hanging from the edge of the coffee table by a corner with the end of it carelessly on the floor. You groaned under your breath before sitting up bit by bit, and you grabbed your underwear and shirt before standing and walking to the bathroom.

After wiping down with hot water (and feeling a jolt in your stomach as you relived, in vivid, condensed detail, everything that had led to this), you slipped your knickers and t-shirt on and walked quietly through the flat. Noise was coming from the kitchen — soft clanking, running water that promptly got shut off, the refrigerator opening and closing —and when you appeared in the doorway, you found him at last. 

Harry had his missing trousers on and an apron over his bare chest to protect the inked skin. He looked up before you could say anything and spared a smile before looking back to his task. A large bowl was in front of him full of sticky-looking dough, and you smirked with an automatic twitch of your lips.

“You’re not drunk,” you said, voice a little raw from sleep and earlier activities. 

He laughed softly — a deep, raspy, boyish sound — and answered, “S’not the only time I can bake, is it?”

He turned and you pushed away from your spot against the doorframe to walk closer, but you stopped when you spied several angry red lines, some of which stemmed from dark purple spots blooming on his back where your fingernails had, presumably, dug in so deeply the skin had bruised around it. You gasped, stomach swooping with the knowledge you’d done that. 

Harry turned the dough out onto a floured board, and he was starting to knead it (in not the most skillful way, you were afraid to say) when you wandered up behind him and wrapped your arms around his waist. He tensed, but you pressed the first kiss to one of those dark marks gradienting into a scratch.  

“M’busy here, aren’t I?” he asked. As indignant as the words were meant to be,  but he didn’t sound upset in the slightest.

“Shh,” you murmured. “I’m not in the way, am I?”

He chuckled and you smiled against his shoulder as he resumed kneading, and you kissed your way along his back the way you’d promised yourself you would. Some promises, you kept. 

[bubbyleh]

Do I Know You? - Chapter 8

read this chapter on ao3! check out the rest of this series on tumblr!

Chapter 8: You’ll Be Fine A little comfort

(minor warning. bubby has a flashback to the tube)

- ○ -

Now, Kleiner knows a lot about abnormal things. They are, afterall, his job. Anomalous Materials is an… interesting place to land, but it at least gives him some perspective on how weird the world can be. The far end of what’s possible.

And Bubby showing up at his door at 1 AM, with a blanket wrapped around their shoulders? It’s definitely teetering on that end.

“Bubby?” Kleiner asks. The trams stopped running about three hours ago, how did they even get here?

“Hey, I-” Bubby swallows, nervously fidgeting with the edge of the blanket. “Harold’s not home, so. Uh.”

Right, Coomer got selected to go to a conference this week. It’s gonna be a few days before he gets back, at least. And Bubby is… scared.

“Oh, well,” Kleiner glances at his TV. “I have some movies, if you want to watch something?”

Bubby’s shoulders visibly relax, and they smile. “Sure. That’s good.”

- ○ -

And so, an hour and a half later, Kleiner finds himself sitting on his couch with Bubby passed out on his shoulder, softly snoring. Their blanket is draped over them, gently rising and falling with each breath. The TV has long since been muted, but the light is still flashing across them. Everything is calm and still, except for one thing.

Kleiner is worried.

The only way Bubby could have gotten here, so late, was if he walked. Which, while not impossible, is still quite a feat to do. Especially since he was asleep not long after, it was clear that something was keeping them awake.

He lost his little sibling for years. He can only imagine the life they lived in that time.

Bubby shifts his head slightly, groaning as his eyes wrench themselves tightly shut. Kleiner frowns.

A terrible thing happened to them both. He can only try to make it better.

Almost instinctively, Kleiner reaches over and brushes his pointer finger against Bubby’s right cheek. Bubby sighs, and just like that, the nightmare is banished. They adjust their head one last time, before settling into their peaceful sleep.

Looks like his old tricks still work.

- ○ -

Bubby winces as they wake up in the morning, both from the embarrassment of having run to their brother the second they got scared at night and the fact that they slept on a shitty couch and their body hurts. Kleiner passes by as they sit up, the springs creaking under them, and offers a few friendly head pats.

“Good morning,” he grins as he sits on the other end of the couch. “You slept for a while.”

“Oh.” Bubby slumps a little. “What time is it?”

“A little past noon,” Kleiner states.

Bubby groans. “At least it’s Saturday.”

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I didn’t want to make too much noise in the kitchen, in case you needed sleep. But I have some food here if you’re interested?”

Unfortunately, Black Mesa’s singles dorms leave much to be desired when it comes to food preparation. Kleiner’s dorm has a meager stove that takes forever to heat up, but eventually they’re able to scrape together enough cooked eggs for Bubby’s breakfast and Isaac’s lunch.

It’s a nice and quiet meal. Bubby’s almost relieved not to have to shepherd Coomer out of the kitchen whenever he tries to eat the whole container of raw eggs. Almost.

Fuck, fuck! It’s alright! It isn’t even going to be that big of a deal when it’s over and done with. Harold’s going to be back by the end of the day on Monday, and Bubby’s going to be able to see and spend time with him again, and they won’t worry about him being gone anymore. Have they seriously not spent a night apart since they moved in with each other? G*d, that’s pathetic.

He can handle himself until Monday! Just gotta finish these eggs, get out of Kleiner’s hair, head back to the… empty… dorm…

Bubby’s stomach twists and turns itself into knots. Maybe he got a little too used to company. Maybe…

Maybe he just never liked being alone.

“Hey, uh.” Bubby sets their fork to the side for a second. “What are you doing today?”

Kleiner startles at the abrupt conversation, but he smiles. “Well, not much, actually. I might need to do a bit of shopping.” He pauses, glancing at Bubby. “But it can wait if you want to do something.”

“Yes!” Bubby blurts out excitedly, but they quickly regain their composure. “Uh, yeah. I would like that.”

Kleiner chuckles at him.

- ○ -

Selfish.

Needy.

Clingy.

They’re not sure where it’s all coming from. There have been afternoons where Bubby doesn’t see Harold for hours, so it probably has something to do with the overnight aspect. Sure, they’d never gotten the best sleep when they lived on their own, but it’s not like they had an issue with-

There’s pure oxygen being fed into his lungs but he feels like he’s choking there’s a dull ache that is both unnatural and familiar in their back the wires in spine keeps them suspended his limbs feel like lead and they want to sleep so bad so very bad but they just can’t drift off please let them sleep tonight please please

Yikes.

Bubby has to shake that memory from their mind.

Okay, so maybe they had problems with sleeping in the past. But that practically stopped the first time they shared a bed with Coomer.

Squished onto his twin mattress in his shitty old dorm, Bubby was awake for hours after Coomer fell asleep. He snored a bit, but honestly, Bubby didn’t mind. The novelty of having another person by their side was good.

Too good.

That’s why they were awake. They were waiting for something. The other shoe had to drop, because it just didn’t make any sense. After all these years, he was just allowed to do whatever he wanted now? No, the folks at Biological Research would break down his door and reprimand him for “fraternization”. For getting too close. For not knowing their place.

In his sleep, Coomer shifted ever so slightly. His arm, which had been laying outstretched previously, curled in, resting his hand on Bubby’s back. Holding him.

Bubby tensed, their breath hitching. And then, as though they had nothing to worry about at all, they rested their hand on Coomer’s chest, curled into his side, and closed their eyes.

They let their guard down, but they hadn’t exactly abandoned the fear that put it up in the first place.

Bubby realizes this as they pace their bedroom. They’d spent the whole day with Kleiner, even managing to rope him into staying the night on the couch. Which is a little mean to poor Isaac’s bones, considering he’s the older of the two of them.

The thing is, he’s going to start asking questions, and Bubby’s not sure how he’ll answer them.

Harold had mentioned to him one night, about a month ago, that he should tell Isaac about the experiments. The pyrotechnics, the intellect, the trials. Come clean about what happened and how it affected them.

And Bubby had responded with, “Ha! No.”

Which looped back to selfishness. It’s not that he couldn’t talk to Kleiner about it. Hell, he still had the file stashed away somewhere. The only thing he’d have to do was hand it over.

It’s that he didn’t want to.

Bubby shivered, and a glance at the thermostat told him that the heat was on. Damn these underground dorms, even the best ones ran cold.

Oh! He should grab an extra blanket for Isaac! That would be a good start to showing they could be a kind, courteous person who didn’t usually take over someone else’s entire weekend. They even pick out one of the better blankets for him, just to be nice.

Bubby takes a deep breath before pushing open the door.

He’s immediately greeted by the sight of Kleiner startling, frantically hiding something behind his back. He sits up straight.

“Bubby!” Isaac shouts. “It’s, er. Late, isn’t it? What are you doing awake?”

Bubby blinks, eyes flicking towards where Kleiner’s hands disappear behind his back.

“I was getting you another blanket.” Bubby states. “Are you… doing something?”

“No! I-” he swallows. “Are you feeling better? I know today was difficult for you.”

Bubby’s jaw tightens.

Alright.

“Actually, yeah,” Bubby admits, slowly moving to sit down next to their brother. “I’ve been thinking about things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well,” Bubby says. “I wanted to thank you. Because you put everything you had aside to help me today, and I… I needed someone to do that.”

Kleiner offers a genuine smile, patting their shoulder.

“So, thanks, Isaac.” Bubby holds his arms out, offering a hug.

And like a sucker, Isaac takes it.

For a few seconds, Bubby allows themself the joy and happiness of hugging their older brother. Then, they spot the papers he hid behind his back, and he snatches them.

“Bubby wait!” Kleiner shouts, but he’s not able to wrestle the file away before Bubby sees the title.

B-K55.

Bubby’s eyes narrow at his brother. “Where did you get that?”

“I- I found it.”

“You found it.”

Kleiner nods.

Bubby deadpans. “You found a very personal, very private document that I hid in the cupboard by jamming it behind the drawers? You accidentally came upon that?”

At the very least, Kleiner has the dignity to know when he’s caught red handed. He doesn’t respond.

“Alright.” Bubby pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

[gt-ridel]

Several hundred words of Half-Life Borrower!AU goodness

(Hi, this is Passportinspection!) Oooh goodness. I actually started writing this as an ask. I really thought what I had to say would fit into an ask. Since sending that anon about having 350 words of thoughts, I ended up getting distracted for a few hours, and then when I came back to this, I apparently had 400 more words to say. I just love rambling what-ifs about AUs. :’>

_

Hi Passportinspection!  Sorry it took so long to reply to this. I had more work than I thought yesterday. >__< I totally agree! Rambling about what-ifs is WAY more fun than actually writing a story. ;;>__> _

These are… not all A-list ideas, and I was very tempted to cut it down to the best bits, BUT I know that if someone said to me “I had 5 ideas for your au but only told you the 2 good ones” I would be extremely interested in hearing the 3 bad ones anyway, so… here it all is. This was written pretty stream-of-consciousness and then rearranged a bit to form my pinballing thoughts into something a little more linear, but, fair warning, it wasn’t edited much beyond that.

_ Ooo, I absolutely want to hear everything! All ideas, good and bad! Are you kidding? (Gets comfy) _

I keep thinking about the end of that “gordon takes borrower!barney with him through the events of HL1” scenario; Imagining gman’s speech at the end, I like the idea of him saying something like, “As for your.. /passenger/..” and both of their bloods running cold. I can’t decide if I’d rather barney actually go into stasis with gordon or not I think it could be an interesting/cute concept- the idea that gman/his employers figured barney was enough of a factor in gordon’s success that they thought it would be wise to keep them together for future “assignments.”

_ Bro I'll be honest, I hadn't gotten that far in the AU because I still haven't finished the game. My only reference for G-man is Mr. Coolatta. So I'll have to at least look the ending up on youtube before I'll be able to give my informed opinion.  But taking it as is?  That would be freaking terrifying. They've met some other scientists and security guards during their escape, but the HEV helmet was a perfect hiding place. None of them ever noticed that Gordon wasn't alone.  But somehow this reality bending creep knows, and it looks like he's not going to let Barney and Gordon just go home, which was basically what they were fighting for the whole time.  _

I’m also thinking about, like.. With Barney in Gordon’s helmet with him, Gordon must be able to feel him tense up and hear his breathing speed up whenever something particularly scary/dangerous happens, maybe even at times faintly feel the fluttering of his heart, and it strengthens his resolve to make it out of there bc it’s not just himself he’s saving. 🥺 Also Barney can provide running commentary, which perhaps soothes both of their nerves a little. Maybe he even helps with some puzzles. :> I also think it’s funny/convenient that that would work really well for an actual video game format. A friend that’s with you wherever you go that sees everything you see but can’t interact with the world but provides commentary and occasional helpful tips? That fits in nicely!

  _ Ha! Something I was thinking about was how Barney has spent his whole life living in the vents and such. He would probably be a perfect guide for Gordon. :3 As for Gordon feeling when Barney gets tense or scared and that fuling his drive to escape, that was ABSOLUTELY one of the reasons I wanted Barney in the helmet.  It would be uncomfortable, inconvenient, and down right dangerous sometimes. But you cannot deny the unique opportunities for deeper emotional exploration it would present. _

…But also, now that I think about it, maybe there are parts where the only way forward is for Barney to slip through a crack in a blockaded doorway and use a control panel that opens another door- that sort of thing. He gets to help with more than just talking sometimes! :> Oh, dang, imagine the part where gordon gets jumped and almost killed by the military. Poor Barney. D: Maybe a factor in Gordon escaping the trash compactor before it crushes him is Barney frantically trying to wake him up.

_ I was defo hyperfixating on what the whole beat down would be like from Barney's perspective a few days ago! Gordon would be at an extra disadvantage in the fight because he'd have to be careful not to accidentally bash Barney between his skull and the helmet while he's being smacked around.  Imagine Barney being tossed all over the small space, maybe ending up pinned when Gordon finally passes out. Noticing when a small stream of blood starts leaking from his friends mouth and soaking into his clothes. Gordon is completely helpless, and so is Barney as he hears the soldiers talking about what they're going to do with the body.  I just think that whole scene and the escape from the trash compactor would be so fun and exciting~ -

Also, unrelated, but I wonder how barney would wake up in city 17, if he did go into stasis with gordon. That is, since gordon is wearing a citizen outfit when he comes out of stasis, barney obviously can’t be in the helmet anymore. Maybe gman elects to move barney to a pocket somewhere instead lol. I’m imagining as soon as gordon is released from whatever effect gman had him under and he’s able to move again, he starts patting himself down looking for Barney (the same way one does when they forget which pocket their phone is in ), bc last he knew Barney was right up against his face and now he’s /not/, and that man SAID they’d be “hired” as a team so /where is he/ because Gordon needs to know he’s /okay/. As Barney is released from the same effect, he probably moves and makes himself apparent, so it’s only for like a second that Gordon is doing that.

_ Once again, I can't speak much to what would happen in a HL2 continuation of this story, but that sounds about right for an initial reaction scene.  Imagine Barney just coming out of it and being in some sort of... bag? being jostled around? He feels a giant hand pat over him from outside and he grunts in surprise. Then the hand rests against him and Barney realizes he's in a humans breast pocket, being held against someones chest as beside him a thundering heart slowly begins to calm. He figures this must be Gordon. He doesn't KNOW any other humans, and he can't imagine that man in the suit would be all that concerned about Barney's wellbeing.  _ 

Barney doesn’t know where they are/who else is out there at all ‘cause he can’t see from where he is, and Gordon can feel him shifting to lean out of the pocket and get a look, and he just puts a hand over the pocket, covering the opening in the process, and applies a gentle pressure for a couple moments, and Barney knows that means he needs to stay put because it’s not safe to come out yet. Thankfully Barney heard Gman talking to Gordon and addressing him by name, so he doesn’t have to worry about whose pocket he just woke up in. He would probably somewhat recognize Gordon’s gait/the feel of his hands at that point, too. As for how Gordon avoids boarding the train to Nova Prospekt without canon barney there to stop him, I have no idea.

  _ YEAAAH that is a good point. Barney is kind of vital for that role. Maybe we can slot a different character into his place. ^__^;; _

Oooh, going back a bit, maybe when the nihilanth is teleporting gordon around in the boss level, or from the very beginning when gordon jumps into the portal to Xen, they get teleported separately and end up in different places? (Ignoring for a moment the parts with portals in Black Mesa ^^;) That sure is an additional level of distress for the both of them during the Big Final Level(s). And then perhaps at the end, part of gman’s speech can be like, “As for your.. companion, you can rest assured he was recovered safe and sssound. After all, you two performed so well, together, it would be ideal to hire you as, a team.” Or whatever

_ Imagine Barney, stranded and alone on Xen, desperately trying to find Gordon, and having his OWN creepy G-man encounter. :U _

Our Barney AUs differ in some exciting ways and it’s fun to play in someone else’s sandbox for a while. :p I’ll probably cut my notes doc down into something readable and post it sometime in the near-ish future.. Either that or actually write the dang fic.

_ I would absolutely LOVE to hear about your AU too! So if you do either of those things, be sure to @ me!  Thank you so much for playing in this sandbox with me. I am ALWAY down to talk Borrower AU stuff. It's just so much dang fun! ^0^

[pandoraborn]

CotB deleted scene 2

Characters: c!Tommy, c!Wilbur Word count: 1755 words Content: drugging mention, death mention, abuse mention, violence, wilbur and tommy have a conversation,

-----

[setting: cabin.]

It’d been a few hours since Ranboo left for the SMP to meet with Tubbo. Tommy is anxious. He hates that he’s left alone with two unconscious men, and the silence seems to endlessly stretch out, morphing into some twisted darkness. The potions of weakness he’d used on Wilbur and Dream give no indication as to when they’ll wear off, and he’s sat twiddling his thumbs, trying to ignore the slow passage of time. It’s crawling by too slowly, and yet too quickly all the same; Ranboo’s presence right now would be most welcome. It’d at least help Tommy feel like he’s not sitting in some cold, familiar void. The potions are working enough that the men aren’t stirring, and hopefully won’t for awhile yet.

Tommy hopes they’re doing the right thing.

He can already imagine the angered reactions from Wilbur and Dream when they come to. He can already hear them yelling, and he’s shrinking back into himself, already working himself into a panic. He’s so used to people yelling at him, he’s way too used to people using him as their verbal punching bag; the imagined reactions probably wouldn’t be too far from reality.

Tommy sits by Wilbur’s bedside, leaning against it and curling his fingers into the fabric of the sheets, staring at Wilbur’s face. Even in sleep, Wilbur looks stressed. He doesn’t seem to rest anymore, what with him always thinking and moving and planning. Even now, Tommy can’t piece together the full plan, even though he’s been given enough information to know exactly what they’re doing. This entire situation is an enigma, and Tommy can’t bring himself to hate it or them as much as he knows he should.

Even though Wilbur’s lips are curled downward, his brow scrunched, and wrinkles are on display for Tommy to count, he still pities Wilbur more than himself. Sure, Tommy had been through hell, but he can’t imagine the hardships Wilbur’s been through in the past, and even recently.

It’s enough that his own anxiety fades just slightly. He can sympathize with the hell Wilbur’s been through, and the group even recently learned that Wilbur had spent years in whatever limbo he’d been stuck in. Years in that world, months in this one. It’s a hard concept for Tommy to wrap his mind around, but he can’t let it go either. It’s hard to imagine being stuck for years in a prison of death, unable to leave or rest. His own two months pale in comparison. Somehow, his concern for Wilbur always seems to outweigh everything else. Where Tommy wants to blame him for everything, he can’t, because Wilbur doesn’t deserve all the blame.

Carefully, Tommy lifts a trembling hand to brush a few curls out of Wilbur’s face. The actions seems to bring a tiny bit of relief to the man; his face relaxes. Tommy exhales softly before pulling his hand away.

“Wil?” Tommy tilts his head to the side as he whispers the name, wanting to gauge how responsive Wilbur is. When there’s nothing from Wilbur, Tommy slumps against the bed and closes his eyes, taking a moment to listen to the man breathe.

“Wil, I feel like I need someone to tell me it’s going to be okay. I’m too anxious and shit for all of this, I’m scared of getting yelled at and I’m scared of getting hurt. Part of me is even scared of you, or your anger, I don’t know anymore. I still don’t get it, man, no matter how many times all of you explain it to me.”

His hand finds Wilbur’s, and Tommy tugs it out from under the blanket. “Everything and everyone is fucked, and I’m stuck in the middle, again. I just want to find some sort of peace, man. I’m tired, and you’re one of the few people I feel like I can trust anymore.” He isn’t sure he means that, but he wants Wilbur to hear it anyway.

“I know.”

Tommy jumps at the spoken words. Eyes flying open, he stares at Wilbur, who’s staring sleepily at him. “You’re not supposed to be awake,” Tommy says flatly. He considers yanking his hand back, but decidedly leaves it there; Wilbur’s hand is warm and it feels nice.

“You think drugging me was going to work all night? Nice trick Tommy, but I’m stronger than one half-assed potion.” Wilbur scoffs as he shifts his position. He doesn’t pull his hand from Tommy’s though, rather, he gives it a squeeze. “If you’re tired, why don’t you rest? I can make room on the bed.”

“You go back to sleep,” counters Tommy. “I’m not tired.”

“Come here.” Wilbur scoots away from the edge of his cot, leaving a tiny amount of room. Tommy takes advantage of it, settling in. He relaxes when Wilbur drapes the blanket over him, as well, before wrapping his arms around Tommy to keep him in place. Amazingly,  this seems to free Tommy from any anxiety as well.

“Toms, listen. Sometimes we all do stupid shit. You do stupid shit, like this half-assed plan you and Ranboo made up.” Wilbur snorts. “It might’ve worked on Dream, but I’m not him. I’m still recovering from death, drugs don’t have the same effect on me. For example, I’m awake when I know I shouldn’t be.”

“You’re getting off track,” Tommy mutters. “I thought you were going to give me some grand speech about something, I don’t know.”

“I’m getting to that.” Wilbur pats Tommy on the cheek. “You say you trust me, but you really don’t, do you?”

“Should I?” Tommy rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “I mean that honestly. Because I feel like I shouldn’t what with you being some evil mastermind and teaming with Dream, and the dragon, and even Ranboo, and I don’t know anymore. On the other hand, you’re alive, and you haven’t...”

“I haven’t actually hurt you,” Wilbur finishes. “Am I really some evil mastermind in your head?” He sounds more amused, rather than irritated. “I think I would prefer evil scientist rather than some high end villain. I’m not serious enough for that.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely evil scientist material.” Tommy nods. “I dunno. You scare me though. When you first came back, you were terrifying.”

“I came back to life to see you covered in blood. You had bruises and cuts all over you, child. How else was I supposed to react?”

“Uh, not threaten Dream? Or at least, do it far, far away from me so I didn’t have to see you act like that?”

Wilbur presses his hand to Tommy’s face. “You are so full of shit, Child. We were trapped in a tiny hot box, with lava. Where on earth would you have gone to hide? The tiny cube of water? Friendly reminder that the water was also boiling, and had you jumped in, you would’ve ended up with burns all over you, on top of what Dream had already d-”

“Stop, stop!” Tommy shoves at Wilbur, falling off the bed in the process. “I don’t want to hear anymore! I already know, Wilbur! He hurt me again. Just like he always has!” He remains on the ground, rolling onto his stomach to hide his face. “I hated everyone for letting it happen.” It’s embarrassing to have a tantrum like this. Tommy expects Wilbur to laugh at him or mock him. There’s a silence at first, lasting a few agonizingly long seconds.

“I know. Tommy, had I been there, I would have protected you. I would have done everything in my power to prevent Dream from hurting you. Unfortunately, I was helpless.” Tommy can feel Wilbur rubbing his shoulders in an attempt to soothe him. Wilbur doesn’t sound like he’s laughing, bringing another measure of relief. Maybe Wilbur actually does care.

“Why do I not believe you were that helpless?”

“Ranboo tried to ask for my help once,” Wilbur confesses. “He found a way to communicate with me, months ago. I just told him to keep trusting Dream, because I didn’t have the power to do anything more.”

“Wait.” Tommy sits up. “You’re going to have to explain that to me. Ranboo talked to you, not Ghostbur. How?”

Wilbur nods. “It was a spell, I don’t know what kind of spell, but it worked all the same. The world is full of ancient magics, and he is enderman. Anyway, he wanted answers, he wanted me to do something. But what use is a dead man?”

“Dream isn’t trustworthy,” Tommy grumbles, grabbing at the bed. He doesn’t want to talk about magic anymore. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, but how does one stop their mouth from running? Besides, Wilbur is gifting him with new information and perspectives he hadn’t considered before, and it’s helping a lot more than he wants to admit.

“Deep down inside, he’s a slightly better person than we know,” Wilbur says gently. He helps Tommy back onto the bed, then begins playing with his hair. Tommy melts at the attention. “Better in the sense that he knows what he’s doing now. He’s an awful person where you’re concerned, though. I know you’d rather he wasn’t here, but we’re all stuck with him. If not for him, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish as much as I did, neither would Ranboo. He is helping us get somewhere.”

“Part of me wants to forgive him,” Tommy admits. “But I don’t know if that’s pressure from you two, or just me wanting to put it all behind us for the sake of this new future you all want. Maybe at the end of the day I don’t even care, I want an end too. I’m tired, and sleep doesn’t fix it.”

“I know. I have been watching you, Toms, before I was resurrected. I know what hell you’ve been through, and I wish I could’ve done something about it. I’m here now though, and I’m not letting anyone hurt you again, not even myself. You deserve better, and you deserve a break from the world at large. Just tell me when and how, and I will do everything I can to grant you that. Anything, for you.”

“Just... promise me when this is over, that we’ll still be together. Me, you, Ranboo...even Dream, I guess. As fucked up as we all are, we’re still a family.” Why is that thought in his mind? When the words are out of his mouth though, Tommy knows it’s true. He’s too attached to Wilbur and Ranboo anymore, and even Dream has a place among them, even if it’s mostly working with Wil and sticking with Ranboo. Tommy would have to admit that without someone to throw biting insults at, his life would feel a little more empty.

“Of course.” Wilbur grins. “None of us are getting left behind again. Like you said, we’re a family, and we’re going to remain as such. It’ll all be okay, I promise you. And if I break my promises, I give you permission to beat me up for it.”

“Good.” Tommy sighs quietly. “Sorry about... you know.”

“Drugging me? I’m not even mad, really. It’s the first actual rest I’ve gotten. It’ll be Dream you have to argue with, but I don’t think he’ll mind all that much either. He’s been tired lately.”

Tommy shrugs, figuring the conversation can end here. He’s feeling sleepy, and he can see the same expression on Wilbur’s face. Maybe a small nap wouldn’t hurt either of them. “I don’t say this often or at all, but.” he trails off again, biting on his tongue. He feels it, Tommy knows what he’s feeling. The surge of emotion is far too strong to ignore, it’s just something he can’t bring himself to actually say.

Wilbur seems to know what it is though. His grip around Tommy tightens, and he pulls Tommy closer.

“I know what you’re feeling, Toms. I know you’re struggling with everything, but I’m going to make it all right for you. You don’t have to trust me completely, you can trust Ranboo and Ranboo only, but I’m here now, and I’m not leaving you alone again.”

Wilbur cards his fingers through Tommy’s hair again; the teen relaxes into the man’s side, burrowing under the blankets as much as he can to get comfortable. Wilbur continues speaking. “And you don’t have to say anything more, either, Tommy. I love you too.”

[mappinglasirena]

Bothersome Beams in Sirena’s Sickbay

You know how I’ve drawn a clean layout of the Captain’s Quarters to make it reflect the room as seen on screen by e.g. erasing the false door, adding in furniture and marks for the windows, etc? I've been doing that for a bunch of other places as well (toooootally not because I’m procrastinating the two Deep Dives I should be working on....), and a few days ago I started on sickbay. And now I'm stuck.

I've been staring at this so long my brain is turning to mush, so now you all get to suffer with me!

(Fair warning: there be loads of extremely pedantic observations ahead. I hope you like staring at deck plans :D)

This is the outline of sickbay on the deck plans from the blu-ray Set Me Up featurette:

(For orientation and because it will become important later: The front of the ship is on the right-hand side, the back is on the left.)

A quick reminder of the relevant main features: the round part of sickbay has walls that slope outward towards the top, a counter running along the wall around 2/5 of the way up, and three support beams cutting through the wall and the counter.

(Note that in reality, the beams are all straight across the top; they just appear curved here due to lense distortion.)

Looking at the concentric circles in the outline above, let’s try to figure out what’s what. Easiest: the broken grey lines, i.e. the largest two circles, surely must be where the wall meets the ceiling at its widest extension. (Here marked in blue.)

Next, when we look at the transition between the rectangular alcove at the back of the room (marked “med bay” in the plan) and the round “lab area”, we see that it’s smooth and there is no step in between.

(Again: the walls are straight, not curved, it looks that way because of lense effects.)

Given that and the thickness of the line, I think it’s safe to assume this is the outline of the wall, most likely at floor level:

These, as far as I can tell, are the windows at the front of the room, next to the door.

As you can see, they extend almost to the top of the wall and stop short of the unidentified outer circle. Looking at a screenshot...

...the windows sit right above the counter, so it makes sense that the remaining lines would be the outline of said counter (here in green):

So far so good.

Here’s the rub. I was trying to figure out what the vertical lines dividing the counter next to the support beams might be, when I noticed these four bits:

Those look like the places where the support beams cut through the counter.

That makes sense, right?

As you’ve probably noticed before, these beams run throughout the entire ship. We see them everywhere on the upper and lower deck, they are clearly the skeleton that holds Sirena together. You can tell how important they are to the structural integrity because all the deck plans have these vertical, broken grey lines to indicate where the beams are located.

Now, take another look at the markings where the beam towards the back of the room cuts through the counter (I magnified the one on the bottom left):

As you can see pretty clearly, the marking in the counter doesn’t line up with the normal position of the beams, indicated by the broken grey lines. It isn’t off by much. My rough estimate so far is that the beams are about a foot wide with seven feet between them, so this is a difference of maybe 15cm (~6″, apparently). But something is clearly strange here.

You can tell there’s something different at the back of the room, because where the beams in the middle and front are marked by long rectangles, the one in the back is only a small square. It looks almost as if there was only a single column on either side. If that was the case, it would probably mean that the beam at the back of the room was a fake, not technically connected to the beams at the rest of the ship like the middle and front ones.

But does that mean it was also moved a few centimetres further to the front? This has been driving me nuts.

There are a few possible explanations for what might be happening here.

1. I am wrong about those being the markers for where the beams cut through the counter. That is entirely possible.

2. Some changes were made to the set that aren’t yet reflected in this version of the layout. As I said elsewhere, these plans aren’t quite accurate to the final set in all details (e.g. the two steps between the mess hall and sickbay aren’t marked), so it’s possible that this is some intermediate version where the counter design varies a little from its final configuration.

3. The support beams at the back of sickbay do not line up with the beams in the rest of the ship. The production designers decided that they wanted sickbay to be the exact size we see in the plans, but for some logistical or aesthetic reason, having the beams at the back of the room in the logical position (i.e. parallel to the ones on the upper deck) didn’t work, so they moved them forward a little bit.

I cannot tell you how long I spent over the weekend trying to make heads or tails of this. 

At first I thought: Well, obviously the beams must have been moved to the front. The grey line marking where they should be goes right across the front of the rectangular bit of the room. They’d block the way if they were in the “correct” place, right?

Except I realized my spatial reasoning is woefully inadequate when trying to visualize a round room with sloped walls, so I did the only reasonable thing: I taught myself how to use SketchUp (again) to make a very, very crude 3D sketch of the relevant sections of this room.

Turns out: when you put the beam exactly where it’s supposed to go, it does actually work out okay. I know it’s a little too small here compared to what it should be...

...but that’s probably more due to my estimates for the thickness of the beams and especially the height of the room being off.

I did another version where I moved the beam forward so it sits where the counter is marked on the deck plan, and the difference is pretty negligible:

It looks a little closer to what we see on screen, but again, that’s probably more a miscalculation issue than an honest-to-god result.

As a last-ditch effort I had another look through my screenshot collection. My thinking was that if the beam was moved forward slightly from where it was “supposed” to be, that would mean we’d see more of it.

(On the left, the beam lines up with the grey lines. The area where it intersects with the counter (solid red) is smaller than in the right-hand example, where the beam was moved to align with the marking in the counter.)

Likewise, the distance the beams extend under the counter would be different, if not by much.

(The beam on the right is moved slightly towards the middle of the room. You can see that it dips lower than the beam on the left, which is in the “correct” position.)

If this was the case we should be able to see it in the screenshots, right? Except...

This is the view towards the front of the room. It’s difficult to tell with the perspective, but I don’t think there is much of a difference in how far the beam towards the front of the room (far right) and the one at the back of the room (far left) extend below the counter?

Maaayyybe there’s a difference there? But then again, if you compare how far they dip below the tops of the chests of drawers, that seems pretty similar...

And this is the point where I decided this insanity had gone on long enough and I should probably stop before my brain got entirely scrambled (since, sadly, I don’t have an EMH to unscramble it for me).

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1.: Short of somebody from the production team giving confirmation either way, we won’t know what happened here. I might have misread the set plan, the plan might have changed, or the beams might have been moved. It will have to remain a mystery until we get more shots with incontrovertible evidence, or somebody takes a measuring tape to the set and reports back ;9

2.: For the purposes of drawing a layout of sickbay, I’m going to assume the beams are in the correct position, since that makes more sense in-universe. I’ll move the counter markings accordingly. If I have to make a correction to that at some point, at least I have done the legwork and can refer back to this post instead of having to explain the whole issue again.

3.: Yes, I did just spend half the weekend obsessing over 15 centimetres, to the point where I taught myself SketchUp (again) and wrote a way too long blog post (I did warn you ;9 ), only to come to the conclusion that, as we say over here: “Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht.” - I guess we’ll never know. I have absolutely no regrets!

And finally 4.: staring at images of sickbay for hours on end really makes you appreciate just how beautiful that space is. Scroll up again and have a look at the screenshots. The way the circle repeats in the lights and the table and the concentric markings on the floor. The intricate holograms projected by the ceiling lights. The plants and tools all along the counters that give the room so much texture and make it seem like a real, lived-in place. The way the crisp black and white paint on the beams and the gleaming floor contrast with the cared-for but scuffed up plating and worn-off red paint all over the rest of Sirena... I just really love this ship, okay?

Anyway. If you have any thoughts on this, or you’ve noticed something I missed, I’d love to hear about it!

I was about to say “I promise the next post will be shorter”, but who are we kidding? My brain doesn’t do brief. And what is this blog for if not extremely rambly analyses that give us all an excuse to ogle screenshots of La Sirena for a few minutes?

[friiday-thirteenth]

right right right c a m p

ok. ok so it was very long and I'm unbelievably tired but also my head says write it down so uh

day one- five hour bus ride. it was fun, bc the person I was sitting beside slept the whole time and I got to joke around with the guys, who were surprisingly chill. they only brought up p*rn once, which is like.... good for them all things considered lmao

then we had the tramp in. the campsite where we were staying at the first night was the farthest from base, and one group biked in while the other tramped.

my groups tramp took s i x h o u r s. no other groups went over five. we had to keep stopping bc a) one kid was feeling sick, b) one kid rolled her ankle and c) we weren't allowed to sprint off into the Bush and potentially die without an instructor with us.

so there were like, four of us who were constantly at the front, and they were: me, my crush, my crushes best friend, bitch-who-bullied-me.

twas interesting.

we got the campsite in the dark, after a river crossing in which my socks got soaked, as did my shoes, and the tents and food were already sorted for us so that was great. food was shit, though. mince that was half brown water and cold pasta.kept us going, though, and as became my motto throughout camp, food is food.

that night was the only time I cried. kinda sad, tbh, but it was bc on the 'girls' side (as we all know that if the boys and girls tents were together, absolutely everyone would just be going at it, of course (jfc they have a low opinion of year tens (we sorta deserve it though, stuff happened with last years year tens...))) everyone else was paired up and even the people in three person tents didnt want me in there 🥰🥰🥰🥰 really felt the love there, guys.... jokes on them I slept by myself each night and was ready within five minutes each morning. actually really glad they showed how much they didnt care abt me bc it was really nice being alone in the wilderness, and that's not sarcasm.

anyway. day two.

woke up, was ready within ten minutes bc I woke with the leaders, who wake ten minutes before we're meant to and get themselves and breakfast ready before we're up. (I'm really fast at waking up, but take ages to go to sleep. like, everyone has to stfu before my body's able to start shutting down, and as soon as there's people moving around I'm up like a shot.)

anyway. I had eaten breakfast and was washing up before anyone else came out. next kid out was my crush, and we bitched about people taking forever for a while, which was fun.

then we waited for ages for everyone else to get sorted out, blah blah blah, and we had the bike ride back. 11.5 kilometers, I think,mostly downhill for us.

it was fun! I'm not a brilliant biker, but I kept near the middle-front of the group, and i just. let go of the brakes going downhill. and these hills were bloody steep and gravelly, plus the dips and river crossings.

I didnt fall off the bike, but one kid did lmao. there was this sharp turn before a metal gate, and He saw the gate and started pulling kn the brakes, but he hit the front brakes and just. flipped. the bike crashed into me and he went to the ground.

it was funny in the afterwards, but the kid got rather grazed lmao. he's not dead though, so that's good.

we were at the campsite that was, in my opinion, the coldest that night. also I slept in a three person instead of a two person, and by myself that meant more body heat was going into the tent. brrr. but we also did the nightline activity(hold onto a rope and follow it through the dark forest while blindfolded and with a helmet on. highly recommend it. go do it with friends u trust lmao)

I was behind this slow kid and he tripped at one point so I just. went ahead of him. then I spent around half an hour walking through the dark by myself (I walked into five trees. each time I took a step back, glared at it through the blindfold fifty five seconds and then continued around it with a muttered bitch. I'm nothing if not dramatic.) before I crashed into my crush hehe. it was near the end and we just got to the end at the same time, where two others already were. it was chill, we talked for a while. bullied people who were going through it by whacking trees they were near with sticks and shaking the line as they tried to use it. (we were allowed to, dw)

the next day, we went canyoning and holy frick frack fuckedy fuck fuck, that was c o l d. freezing. I jumped into the water and nearly died (exaggerated) but my crush jumped through a fricken waterfall and couldnt feel his hands or feet for ten minutes. another kid was walking funny bc he'd waited in the water for five minutes, and this shit was cold enough that we were wearing wet suits and thermals.

once we were dry and dressed (we got to have showers. h e a v e n (I only took 10 seconds bc like, why tf would you need a longer one? people took fifteen minutes, like wtf)) we went rock climbing! which was brilliant, honestly. I liked the belaying more (I've got this thing where I prefer people trust me than me trusting them, hmmm I wonder why) but also climbed the hardest one! it was really fun, and I only fell like fourteen time at one point (lmao,the rope caught me each time but I looked like a fuvking idiot hehe)

then we slept at a campsite which had a fire kn the beach!! if was so much fun. we also did a solo, which involved us sitting in the wild for twenty minutes and reflecting upon camp. I lay on the ground and stared at the moon. it was lovely and peaceful, until two kids started talking.

side note, guys voices are lovely and deep and rumbly and very nice (in general) but girls are generally higher pitched and ugh, it can be v e r y bloody annoying when ur trying to contemplate life.

possums visited camp that night. woke up in the middle of it to a possum crashing into the side if my tent, and I just. stopped breathing for a minute while I listened to it. a possum growling sounds terrifying. look it up!

also heard cows that night. cows are good.

day four, we abseiled. holy s h i t, it was fun. just... sitting there and watching the river and and rock and dangling in midair.... god, I loved it.

then we went to the high ropes course. this was b r i l l i a n t. we'd done low ropes st some point, but high ropes involved more belaying, which involved, and then at one point, we did a thing called the leap of faith, which was around eight meters high and you climbed to the top of this cylinder of wood before jumping for a trapeze. I knew I wouldn't get it, so I jumped on two when they counted down for me, and I missed lmao. but it was bloody brilliant.

then we had to do a whole shitton of cleanup,which they don't normally get groups to do, but we were s p e c i a l (as in our school gets to clean things we dont even use, sigh) before camping one last night. I had go share with someone, it was gell, packed up at least four tents in the morning bc I was very good at that for some reason,before we hot back to camp and went to the bus and oh, that was brilliant.

I finished my book, chatted with the guys, chatted with my crush for .5 of a second, had that thkng happen where people see you talking to a guy and are like ooOOooohhHHHHHhhh they're dAtiNG bc we're all stupid year tens and it was fucking hilarious (I've never dated anyone, so peopke bloody obsess over pairing me up with someone and I'm just like??? fuckers I'ma child how abt no (sidenote there was a couple on camp and they were cute but uh. year ten relationships dont really last, according to my year 13 camp leader (she was chill af, and basically showed me a whole new perspective on being friends with guys and so in conclusion she's bloody brilliant))) anyway they came up with a ship name for me and the guy and I nearly pissed myself laughing bc its best to laugh along with it and it was really funny tbh

anyway. we also for some reason talked abt sex and porn a lot and it was weird but also kinda chill bc most of the boys are relatively respectful of the girls,in the sense that we all make dirty jokes to each other but don't cross the line, so it was pretty funny and chill. also guys apparently never stop making dick jokes and that type of shit and it was kinda funny tbh

then we got home, grabbed our shit, and legged it away from there.

now I'm gonna rant abt my crush hehe

he was like, oh who's this? when we were walking to dinner in the dark one night (I was in front of him and his friend and he couldn't see my face) and then fucking knew who I was from the way that I walked like mate, why tf do you know how i walk and how to describe it, hmm?

I flipped him off after he said that though it was fucking funny

also!! he just. stared at my eyes and was like, are your eyes different colors? and I was like yeah. and he just nodded slowly and we maintained eye contact for a while. twas weird.

we have staring contests a lot too?? like, he'll look at me or I'll look at him and then at one point he was like, you just stare at people and then tilt ur head, dont you! and I was like wtf dude,but also I kept eye contact bc its a Thing.

also on the bus ride home he just mimicked my facial expressions and it was really bloody funny and j broke out laughed and he smiled

yeah basically I'm hopelessly crushing on him bc he's smart and sarcastic but it never gonna happen so I just wanna be friends type thing. sigh.

ANYWAY. camp was kinda great, at some points it left me feeling like I was so bloody alone and also I felt really shitty mentally but I kept going and i really enjoyed it! yeah! also i nearly cried when i said goodbye to my instructors bc they were brilliant and I'm gonna miss them so bloody much, I'm sad I'll never see them again.

yeah.

[ironstarker]

Highschool au where Popular football player tony stark has a crush on peter parker, the guy who his tutor for physics and math

Notes: Meant for this to be cute. I think it’s painful instead? I promise I didn’t mean to. I kind of want to write another 100k for this. Thank you for (unintentionally) giving me this sweet enemies to lovers prompt. I hope you enjoy it and it isn’t too far off of what you expected!

Warning(s): Bullying, Soft/Fluff, Surprise!Angst, Tony is a teenage dick (you know the boy in the class who likes you but pulls your hair?), Peter wears glasses, Perspective swap partway through

_______________________________________________________________________

“Hey, Penis! Heads up!”

Peter reacted in perfect time to receive a football square to the eye. His glasses went flying off his face. The force of the ball knocked him backwards on the bleachers, where he’d been doing his homework, sending papers flying all over. Peter groaned, looking to the football wobbling next to him. His legs were bent over the bleachers. They hadn’t quite made it over from the force of his fall.

He was reaching a hand up to his eye, half afraid he’d gone blind, when he heard thudding against the bleachers. Peter squinted with his good eye, but the sun was blocking the figure from view. “Shit. I thought that knocked you out, pipsqueak.” At first, Peter thought the hand stretching out towards him was meant to help him up. His hand left his eye and he reached out, only to be rebuffed by an elbow. “Whoa, whoa. Don’t get any wise ideas. I gotta get the ball back for the boys.” The voice was familiar to Peter, and then the face of its owner swam into view: Tony Stark. Hair matted to his forehead, sweat dripping down his brow, his jersey stained with grass and mud. Peter wanted to roll his eyes at the stubble that dotted the jock’s jaw. The other boy was so proud of it.

Tony swiped up his ball, leaving Peter to push and heave himself back into an upright position. Tony turned away from him and launched the ball back towards the field, “This one’s for you, lover!” He stuck his tongue out and pointed at one James Rhodes, number 85.

“You say that again and I’m gonna tell Coach that you were the one who swapped his mouthwash out for cologne!”

Tony stood there a moment, a roguish grin on his lips. Peter was too busy trying to collect his stray papers to notice when the other boy turned to face him. “Watch yourself, pipsqueak.” He reached out and tousled Peter’s hair, earning an annoyed grumble as Peter tried to bat his hand away.

Peter’s eye opened, and he was gentle as he pressed two fingertips to the spot where the football struck him. It was sore and was sure to leave a bruise that Aunt May would worry about later.

He didn’t take his eyes off of Tony, though. Instead, Peter watched the boy skip a few steps here and there as he made his way down to the field. The boy’s shoulder pads moved beneath his blue jersey as he jogged back to his teammates. Peter worried his bottom lip between his teeth, staring at the yellow 39 emblazoned on the back of his jersey. Peter had its counterpart, a white jersey, tucked away in his backpack.

Peter tried not to think too hard about the cruel way Tony handled the whole situation. But tears blurred his vision as he scrambled to stuff papers into his beige Jansport. They were supposed to have a tutoring session after practice. It was the only reason Peter hung around so late. Everybody knew how Peter felt about athletics: the meathead jocks ran the school, and kids like him were bullied. Kids like him got called “Penis Parker” by the likes of Clint Barton and the rest of them. The minute he’d joined the mathletes to compete on behalf of their school, the bullying had intensified. It went from name calling to kids shoving his face in a toilet bowl on the regular during his lunch hour. 

For a couple hours every day, Tony Stark was different.

He got to see the side of the jock that most didn’t. Stark was all Cheshire cat smiles with a cocky, New York accent to boot. It was irresistible to most, and Peter was embarrassed to say that included him. The boy ducked his head, shouldering his backpack so he could make his way down beneath the bleachers to find his glasses. It was his own fault for falling for the other teen. He knew what guys like Stark thought about. But Tony had said — Peter thought it childish to even remember, but the other boy had said he liked Peter. That he thought it was cute, how Peter bit down on his lip when he was watching Tony scribble his work down on his physics homework. Peter had gone beet red when the teen had tucked a curl behind his ear and smiled at him, leaning against the side of his locker at the end of the day when the halls were empty.

But that was the problem. The halls were empty, and nobody was around to see it. In those moments, Peter was certain Tony liked him. He could see it plain as day, written all over the other’s face. Times like these? Peter spared a glance towards the field. He saw Tony’s head turned towards him, that the boy was watching him. Peter looked away. 

It was hard telling that he gave a damn when he let his friends walk all over Peter the way that they did.

From across the field, Tony stared at the boy with the slumped shoulders. Even from where he was standing, he could see the way Peter was touching his eye. As soon as the football had snapped off in that direction, straight out of Clint’s hand and for the other boy’s face, Tony had felt a vein pop on his forehead. He whipped around towards the laughing jock, about to ask what the fuck he thought he was doing, when he heard a groan from the bleachers.

He rushed over there, heart pounding, taking the steps two at a time. He felt the eyes of the entire team on his back as he peered over to where Peter was sprawled on his back, his legs swung over the metal stands from where they hadn’t made the fall. Tony breathed a sigh of relief, then slapped a stupid smile on his face and said, “Shit, I thought that knocked you out, pipsqueak.”

So maybe he was a little hard on Peter. Maybe he kept it to business as he snagged the football and lobbed it back towards the field. Tony made his quips and his taunts, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. The football sailed right into Rhodes’ arms. Tony grinned, said a few parting words to Peter, touched his hair because god, he loved those curls, and then he was darting away, taking the stairs two at a time all over again. He felt eyes on him, but this time there was only a set. A set of dark brown, a pair that looked almost hazel in the right kind of light. Tony knew them well. He’d spent hours memorizing every detail of Peter’s face as the boy went through problem after problem with him. Tony didn’t need to pay attention. He didn’t struggle in math, nor did he struggle with physics. Maybe he didn’t want to apply himself, but that was a whole other story.

He’d rather apply himself to Peter Parker.

It was why, that day after he’d stuck around while Peter put his things in his locker, Tony had given him his away jersey. He’d pulled it out of his backpack, freshly laundered, and handed it to the smaller teen. The second half to a jersey was sacred to a jock, and he was pretty sure Peter’s fingers had quivered when he’d reached out to take it.

Peter had thanked him, the sweet kid that he was. The boy had gone redder than the folder tucked beneath his arm, and he was avoiding Tony’s eyes, staring instead down at the white Converse on his own feet. 

“Wear it Friday night.”

The boy’s head snapped up, his jaw going slack. “I — what?”

Tony rocked back on his heels and shrugged his shoulders. He adjusted the strap of his backpack, suddenly unable to meet Peter’s eyes this time. Instead, he stared at a faded sticker on one of the lockers across the hall. “You know. If you want, you should wear it to the game.” He snuck a look in Peter’s direction.

Peter had his eyes set on the yellow letters on the back of his jersey. Tony grimaced, fearing the worst, but then Peter flung himself into the taller teen’s arms, squeezing him in what was the tightest hug of his life. Tony wheezed out a laugh as the boy mumbled his thanks into the collar of his shirt. Tony’s arm slid around his back, where he could feel Peter’s jean jacket riding up to reveal the soft cotton of his t-shirt (a fucking Pythagorean theorem joke, the damn nerd). When Tony glanced down, he saw Peter was standing on the tips of his toes to give him the hug.

He couldn’t get it out of his head.

“ —th to Tony. Are you on this planet, idiot?” Rhodes was in his face, waving the football around. 

Tony scoffed. “Of course I am. What’s the next play?”

His best friend scoffed and shook his head, jerking his thumb in the direction of the rest of the team. They were roaming off towards the showers. Rogers was walking backwards with his hands up, almost as though he was asking what the hell was wrong with the other boy. Tony flipped him off, enjoying the satisfaction he got when Rogers rolled his eyes and turned around.

“We’re hitting the showers, dumbass. And then we’re all heading to Bucky’s for a cookout. Foster parents aren’t home. Said there’s gonna be beer. You in?”

“You know if you want beer all I have to do is wave my — ”

“If you say you’re gonna wave your dick around, I’m kicking you off the team myself. I don’t give a shit what Rogers says.”

Tony smirked, reaching out to give his friend a punch to his shoulder pads. “I was going to say my black card. But whatever floats your boat, man. I get it. No questions asked.”

Rhodes scoffed, tossing the football into Tony’s hands. “You coming?”

“In a second, I’ve got — ”

“ — A nerd to seduce? Yeah, I noticed.” Rhodes spared him a glance that told Tony his best friend knew all about his dirty little secret (Peter wasn’t, but damn it was hard with high school pecking orders). He turned on his heel and headed off the field. Tony stood there, lingering, and then he dropped the ball and headed in the opposite direction, jogging back towards the bleachers.

He ducked around behind them, heart sinking when he realized Peter wasn’t there. He was sure that he’d seen the other teen duck behind the bleachers after the football incident. Tony went to pull his phone out of his pocket, but he groaned when he realized it was tucked away in his jeans, which were in his locker. He was wearing his football gear. “Fuck,” he complained, and he spared a look at the locker room before he sprinted off for the bike racks.

Tony was sure that Peter would be there.

How many times had Tony offered to give the boy a ride? Too many. He wasn’t sure if Peter was afraid of the double entendre or what, but the other boy always refused. “My bike’s too big for your car,” Peter would say, and Tony thought that was a bullshit excuse, “and I need it in the morning to get to school.” Less bullshit, still an excuse.

When he rounded the corner, he saw Peter unchaining the lock on his bike. “Pete!” he shouted, but instead of looking at him, the kid continued fiddling with his lock. Tony jogged over to him, full of boundless energy despite the sweat he felt dripping down his spine from the team’s impromptu scrimmage. “Hey, I was looking for you — ”

“What do you want, Tony?”

Okay, that made him stop in his tracks. His cleats scuffed the pavement. Tony’s hands came up to grip the inside of the shoulder pads, tugging them a little further down, away from his neck. “I thought that we were on for tutoring this afternoon,” he said, resisting the urge to toe at the pavement. “The guys and I are heading to Bucky’s, so — ”

“Great. Sounds like tutoring’s cancelled.” Peter got to his feet, the bike lock in his hands. He snapped the lock back into place and slid his backpack around to the front of his body so he could tuck it away. The boy’s fingers froze once it was unzipped, and Tony shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“What? Did someone put a snake in your backpack?”

Instead, the boy pulled out his jersey. Tony bit his bottom lip to keep from grinning. Peter was just carrying it around with him? Yeah, maybe it was a little dangerous. If he opened it and somebody saw, there would be a lot of questions asked about it. Tony had this whole thing planned for the game, he was going to ask Peter out and —

He grunted as the fabric was pushed unceremoniously into his chest. “Hey, what’re you — I told you to wear it on Friday.”

“I’m not going to.”

There was a beat of silence, and Peter let go of the jersey. It dropped to the ground down between them, the white fabric dirtied by the pavement. Tony inhaled. “What?”

Peter raised his head, finally, and met Tony’s eyes. The taller boy was startled to see a tear streaking down Peter’s cheek. His eyes were rimmed red. The spot where he’d been struck by the football was already forming a dark bruise. Tony didn’t know where Peter’s glasses were. “I said that I’m not going to wear it.” He brought a hand up and roughly wiped at his cheek.

Tony lurched forward, grabbing Peter’s wrist as the boy made to turn away from him and climb onto his bike. “Why not?” 

“Ask your friends.”

“Come on, Peter. That’s fucking unfair and you — ”

“Unfair?” Peter yanked his hand out of Tony’s grasp, and the jock’s hand fell uselessly to his side. He stared at the other boy, bewildered. “What’s unfair is the way you treat me in front of them. Like I’m some — some secret you’re so ashamed of. What is this? A game?” Peter sniffled, his bottom lip wobbling. He whispered, “A bet?”

“What? No, of course it’s not — Jesus, Pete. It’s not like that.” Tony bent to swipe the shirt off of the ground, ignoring the dirt that smeared across the back of it. He gripped the fabric tight in his hand. 

There were so many things he wanted to tell Peter. He wanted to tell the boy that Tony had stared at the back of his head all semester last year, right before the summer. How he was the one who had written those stupid notes and stuffed them in Peter’s locker. Tony was sure the kid thought they were from MJ. What a load of crap. The confessions were there, on the tip of Tony’s tongue, but Peter shook his head.

“Find someone else to tutor you.”

Too stunned to do anything else but stand there, Tony watched Peter swing a leg over his bike. He stared after Peter as the boy pedaled away, his beige backpack swinging back and forth as he went. Tony looked down at the jersey in his hands. A flash of anger came over him and his head snapped up. He wadded the jersey into a ball and chucked it down the sidewalk.

“Fine! Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Parker!” The shouted words echoed throughout the empty parking lot. 

Peter didn’t turn around.

[bread-of-death]

Okay bitches let’s see how much I work each week

So.  let’s start with school

I have scheduled school every week day except Monday (certain teachers assign some class work on Monday) 

I have class from 7:20am to 2pm 

So I have 7:20 hours of class... I think.. I’m pretty sure I did that right

So 720 four days a week 

So that’s (I think) 29hrs and 20mins

And then on Sunday I work for ~11 hours, most of the time a little more than that, but let’s call it 11(edit:farm work, it’s physical but I end up slightly sick almost every time the next day, and it can be stressful)(also I don’t really get paid. I get a free lesson but that’s it)

Brings us up to 40 hrs 20mins

And then homework

While I am currently pretty damned far behind, I do end up with about an hour each night if I’m being nice to myself 

So 44hrs 20mins

And then another hour and a half of asynchronous classwork every Monday 

45hrs 50mins

For perspective, my mom works full time as a night shift nurse, she technically works from 7pm-7am, but goes in at about 6:20 to get information on her patients so they don’t, you know, die. So in the case of an emergency, she’s prepared. She leaves at about 8am after giving the day shift nurses their info. Full time for her is three nights a week because of the hours she works

She works just under 42 hours a week.  and gets paid

I work more than my own frickin mother and I don’t get any sort of relief or reward

Just mental breakdowns :’) 

Oh yeah I was also pretty generous with my homework times(some of that is my fault but still) and I didn’t include the 3-4hours I’m at horseback riding on sundays because it’s a hobby/break from mental work but it does still take time away from being able to do my work

Anyways I made this because I have a D+ in history and almost failed a Chem test today and I needed some sort of validation :’) 

Also I’m in no way trying to say my mom doesn’t work mega hard, I’m just saying it’s kinda fucking ridiculous to expect this kind of work from a teenager in ‘‘times like these” and still expect them to make good grades and do well with their commitments and have a stable state of mind. 

Oh yeah Saturday is my only full day off ever and I sign up for volunteer work when I can on that day, and if I don’t, it ends up being spent doing homework 

I’m just,, kinda mad my mom doesn’t understand all this but I also can’t really talk shit because I don’t want to bring this up and piss her off more

And she also thinks I super duper enjoy working on Sunday’s and I don’t want to have tang sort of conversation about my mental health with her so :|

(Edit:I think my read more broke, sorry about that, I’m using an iPad right now cuz my phone is technically taken away(re: D+ in history)

(Edit: fixed the readmore)

[greywindys]

I had a fic I was working on for 2Doc week, but it betrayed me and turned angsty when I wanted something softer. So instead, I thought I could share a fic I never published, and I believe the first fic I ever wrote (dated in Google as complete on June 17th, 2016. Holy moly!)

It fits into day 3′s prompt of firsts - the first night the spent together on good terms. The beginning of the bond, I guess. It could also be considered the first head massage (lmao), as I like to think 2D is good with his hands in various scenarios 😉. (I adapted the head massage into scenes in later fics, but this was the first time I worked with it as a concept.)

If there are any “M” or “D” I apologize! When I was starting out, I was too self-conscious to write their entire names (lmao @ me). Oh, how things have changed. Hopefully, I corrected them all, along with most of the typos...

The rating here is T. Essentially, Murdoc encounters 2D late at night when he can’t sleep, and ends up watching a movie with him. They begin to form a tentative bond, head massages are had as much needed sleep. Takes place during P1.

Also happy bday again, Murdoc 😭

For Murdoc, sleeping is a daunting game of chance. First, there are the good nights, when he drinks enough to remain in a complete stupor until daylight. Then, there are the bad nights when his body’s need for genuine slumber catches up with him. On these nights, he dreams. More often than not, they come to him in the form of nightmares ranging from painfully specific to vague and unsettling. Like a flood, all of the emotions and thoughts he had intended to leave behind in Stoke return.

Tonight is one of those nights.  

This one, in particular, is the reason he’s left the grimy safety of his Winne, head still aching. He intends to rummage through the studio mini-fridge for the half-consumed bottle of rum he started that morning. (after all, his anxiety wasn’t going to fix itself). Instead, he's thrilled to discover the fridge has been restocked, and he's about to grab an unopened bottle of rum when he's interrupted by a crash coming from the direction of the lobby.

The noise is coming towards the kitchen now in slow, shuffling steps. Murdoc presumes it could either be one of the wayward demons he summoned the other day, or it could be another one of the building's many intruders looking for a blank wall to vandalize. Nothing he wants to deal with now in his anxious state. Murdoc considers making a run for his Winnebago but decides against it. ‘You’re Murdoc Niccals” he thinks to himself, ‘Bass god and creative genius. You're not ten anymore and you don't get scared.' With that, he braces himself and he turns to face the unknown figure that was now in the doorway.

“Oh...Hi, Murdoc.”

It’s 2D.

“I've got half a mind to lob you through another car window,” he says trying to mask his surprise. “What the hell are you doing walking around with the lights off in the middle of the night?” That must have been the source of the noise. Typical. It’s as if 2D is intentionally searching for a way to get injured.

2D scratches his head. “No need to get so steamed up about it. I, uh, well, I guess I was trying to keep to the ambiance and all that. I didn’t think anyone else would be awake right now.”

“I don’t know what’s so unexpected. I get more done in a night that you would in a year,” Murdoc replies. He takes a sip of one of the bottles of rum he’s assembled on the counter. “So long as there are still songs to write, the siestas can wait.”

“Not sleeping well then?” 2D asks blithely. Murdoc can’t tell if the singer has seen right through him or failed to comprehend a word of what he just said. He finds him very unreadable at times, and in the most infuriating way.

“No. I was working. Being productive. You ought to try it once in a while,” Murdoc grumbles in response. “Anyways. What’s all this about the ‘ambiance’?” As if 2D is that deep. “And why here?”

“That new zombie movie, you know the one I was telling you about? Well, it arrived today,” 2D says with a grin. “And now I’m watching it. It’s a lot scarier when you do it the dark.”

“Well you have a TV, no, THREE TVs in your room,” Murdoc retorts, exasperated. “Just go away and watch it there.”

“Yeah, uh, l thought about that, but the special effects in this one are supposed to be wicked good and the screen in the lobby has a clearer picture than the screens in my room. I would have watched it this afternoon, but Russel said Noodle shouldn’t be watching all the blood and guts, so I waited until now. It’s better watching scary movies late at night anyway, you know?” 2D is looking at Murdoc now, a tinge of hopefulness in his voice. “A couple blokes on this forum I was reading were describing it like a Romero meets Raimi type film, really over the top.”

“Sounds like a real Oscar winner you have there,” the sarcasm in Murdoc’s voice is palpable.

“Actually, it was a straight to video release, but you should check it out,” 2D says. “I’m only about ten minutes in now...if you have...time,” he trails off awkwardly.

The band had faced many inexplicable and absurd situations, but it is 2D’s consistent attempts to be friends that confounded Murdoc the most. His first inclination to tell the singer to fuck off. Yet the thought of the solitary journey back through the car park gives him pause. He isn't sure he can handle being alone right now. He needs an immediate distraction, a mood lifter, and making fun of 2D has the potential to be a two in one solution. At the very least, it was a safer gamble than going back and running the risk of falling asleep again.

Murdoc makes 2D wait for an answer in uncomfortable silence before replying. “Fine,” he says, “This better be entertaining.”

2D brightens at his response. “Just let me grab some snacks and then we can go back.”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, and this time turn on the damn lights.”

With some newly acquired light and a bag of crackers in hand, 2D leads Murdoc to the lobby. A collection of pillows and blankets litter the floor. All the while, and to Murdoc’s annoyance, he takes the time to tell him every detail of the conception of his setup. He had been in the lobby for the past four hours watching movies. According to 2D, doing so in such an open area was much scarier than in his room or even in the building’s cinema. He was also sorry because they would have to turn the lights off again when the film starts. “Because well, you know, Muds. The ambiance.”

“Just start the bloody movie will you,” Murdoc replies from his spot on the floor. The size of Kong is intimidating at night, and it’s not helping him calm down. He hates how much his dreams still affect him. Physically, he had left all the bad energy behind ages ago, but mentally it follows him like a low-hanging mist, threatening to completely engulf him daily. He couldn't seem to make it go away, but he could control how much he thought about it. Alcohol was typically his mainstay but right now, that job belonged to an unwitting 2D. If he didn’t start the movie soon, Murdoc was going to set his entire movie collection on fire.

“It’s the little triangle that does the trick, right?” 2D asks as he studies the remote. “Never mind. I think I have it. There we go.”

The scene starts with a group of young adults in their twenties hiking through the woods as night falls. Occasionally, the camera switches angles. It shows the group from alternate perspectives such as the bushes or the tops of trees.

“The director wanted to flip the whole slow zombie portrayal on its head,” 2D explains. “There’s already been talk of fast zombies in the indie horror community, but he wants to take that one step further. In an interview, he said that not only were his zombies going to be fast, but they were also going to fly.”

“That’s stupid. And you thought this was worth the twenty or so quid you blew on it?”

“He’s ahead of his time. You’ll see. Look,” 2D says through a mouthful of crackers. He points to the current scene. One of the protagonists had wandered away from his group in search of a good place to set up camp. “See what he does with the camera there? We’re watching the main character from the perspective of a flying zombie. The director wanted to make a movie about an outbreak that emerges in the wilderness, not because of some virus. It's meant to add to the impossibility of the situation. How do we fight against something not man-made? Watching the film through the eyes of the monster emphasizes how alone and insignificant we are in the face of well, everything. Man versus nature, nature versus man.”

Murdoc grabs the bag of crackers from 2D. “Oh please. This is hardly cutting edge. We all know they’ll all be dead in the end because nature is bigger than man. Duh.” He takes a handful for himself and continues watching.

2D ignores him and continues his reflection. “It makes me wonder whether it would be better to be a zombie at the end, rather than survive. Not sure I would want the loneliness that comes with it.”

Murdoc is beginning to realize that 2D is in one of his chatty, philosophical moods. He attempts to tune out the singer’s blathering with another drink from the bottle of rum he brought with him from the kitchen. He came here to watch a ridiculous movie. Instead, he's stuck listening to banal musings about the true nature of humanity from someone with a half-functioning brain.

“Well if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse here, I’ll be sure to let them eat you first if you’re so eager. You’re already halfway there anyway, and certainly no better off than these divs on screen.”

“Thanks, Muds. If I ever get infected, I’ll make sure not to bite you...unless you want me too,” 2D replies.

This time, it’s Murdoc's turn to ignore him. “Anyways, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who’s too pathetic to fight against a zombie apocalypse deserves whatever is coming to them.” He gets a twisted sense of comfort from blaming.

“I dunno...I don’t see any shame in being afraid of a monster bigger than you. That’s what makes these movies so scary. We all have our own monsters that seem impossible to overcome,” 2D says sagely. “It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just how it is.”

Murdoc scowls. “Does watching movies at this hour always turn you into a half-braindead Socrates? Or Plato? Hippocrates? He's just naming names now. He fidgets.  

On-screen, another character screams as one of the zombies bites her arm.

“Are you alright there, Muds?” Why did 2D have to pick up on everything? “Movie too scary for ya?”

“No!” Murdoc snaps. “It’s not that… It’s just...” Neither 2D nor the rum he grabbed from the fridge earlier had done anything to dull his current bout of nerves. Instead, all the tension has been gathering at the base of his neck. The throbbing in his head from before is even worse. He groans in frustration.

“You just seem a little on edge, that’s all.”

“...It’s my head.”

“Oh, you have a headache,” 2D says, seemingly pleased that it’s an issue well within the breadth of his expertise. “Do you need any help with it? I was talking with my mum about mine just last week; she gave me something good.”  

Murdoc perks up. He could count on one hand the number of scenarios where he would place his trust in 2D. Pain medicine was one of them. A strong painkiller could change everything. “Do you happen to any of those buggers with you now?”

“Sure,” 2D says, smiling as he moves closer to where Murdoc is sitting.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m um, well for this to work I’m actually going to have to touch your head.”

Immediately, Murdoc jerks away. “You what?!”

2D shrinks back in response. “It’s just a head massage, Muds.  My mum’s worried about the number of prescriptions I have so we cut one of the stronger ones out and replaced it with this. We wanted to see if it made a difference. I’ve been going to a massage therapist for the past two weeks or so. It doesn’t quite do the trick but it works well enough, I picked up some technique myself, uh, I think.”

“You can take all that geeky zen rubbish and sod off,” Murdoc mutters.

“Okay, Muds...alright.”

They continue watching the screen as victim after victim gets infected. 2D continues to interject with overlong descriptions about symbolism, zombie lore, and film technique. Murdoc weighs his options. If he’s being honest, he’s at a point where he would accept anything that might make him feel better. But why did it have to be 2D? On the other hand, the singer wouldn’t stop talking. Considering it was just the two of them, and no one else would ever have to find out, Murdoc makes his decision. Allowing 2D to touch his head in this scenario was justified. Interrupting yet another explanation about the folly of man, he asks, “Hey uh...2D? You know that massage you were talking about? Will giving me one make you shut up for more than ten minutes?”

“Oh..uh,” 2D sounds surprised. “Yeah. Yeah, we can give it a try.” Hesitantly, he moves behind Murdoc and begins.

2D’s fingers send tiny sparks along Murdoc’s scalp as he kneads the muscles in his forehead, moving downwards along his hairline. He dwells on how amazing it feels but pushes that thought to the side with haste. He keeps his eyes locked on the screen and the excessive depictions of gore and chaos. It’s an apt representation of turmoil he is currently feeling inside. What he finds so maddening about 2D, even more than his inscrutability and empty-headedness, was his willingness to be kind to Murdoc. Murdoc had spent the past twenty or so years convincing himself that kindness was not meant to be a part of his life. There was something inherent to his existence that repelled it from him. And he had come to accept that until 2D had to come along and mess it all up. It had to be because he was just too stupid, there was no other answer. Murdoc wasn’t sure he would be able to handle any other answer.

As 2D moves his hands to the back of Murdoc’s head, he begins softly humming. He begins following along to the soundtrack of the movie but soon trails off on his own. Evidently, watching the movie without any sort of verbalization was not going to happen. However, the melody he’s come up with is wistful and soothing. Murdoc makes a mental note to ask him about it in the morning to see if it would fit with some lyrics he had drafting. Slowly, and a bit self-consciously, Murdoc feels himself begin to relax.

“How does it feel so far? Is it working?” 2D asks.

Oh, it was working. More than that, Murdoc realizes a significant amount of his tension had abated. The darkness of the lobby no longer looks so menacing, the unpleasant memories that were hovering over him seem to have floated away. He's never been able to settle himself down from a bad night without copious amounts of alcohol. It’s an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation.

“I think the movie is almost over. Didn’t quite live up to the hype but it was still pretty entertaining after all. How about you?” 2D asks, still looking for a response.

Murdoc yawns. “I’ll give this director you were so excited about some credit. He knows his way around a good death scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fake blood used that way before.”

“The fake blood actually cause a lot of controversies because some of it was real animal blood. I almost didn’t buy it myself.”

“Ah. A man after my own heart.” 2D’s hands are still kneading the back of his head when Murdoc moves to lie down on his stomach.

“Oh, are you going to sleep now?” 2D asks.

“No. Keep going.” He would have never considered it earlier in the night but, as the singer's fingers continue to run through his hair, Murdoc muses that sleep may not sound so bad after all. Even though it was just 2D, it’s comforting to have him there. 

“So I guess it’s been helping then? My mum will glad to hear,” 2D says. “But you might want to run a comb through your hair a bit more often, it’s all greasy...also a bit tangled in the back.”

“Just...shut up.”

So he does, returning to the reflective melody he had been humming just minutes ago. It’s the singer’s soft croon that sticks in Murdoc's mind as he finally drifts off completely.

-------

When his eyes open, the first thing Murdoc notices is the half-empty bottle of rum he had left by his side. The next thing he notices is that he's still in the lobby, surrounded by blankets. He must have slept there the entire night. 

“Oh, morning, Muds,” comes a familiar voice just to the right of him. “You’re awake.”

Turning quickly in the direction of the voice, Murdoc finds himself face to face with 2D. “What the hell are you still doing here?” M demands, mortified, “Why didn’t you go back to your own room?”

“Well, I was going to do that, but once you laid down, I wanted to lay down too, and you rolled over on my arm and wouldn’t budge. I tried to tell you, but all you did was try and elbow me. You missed though,” 2D mumbles. It sounds like he’s still half asleep. “Then I guess I just nodded off.”

Murdoc feels his embarrassment beginning to morph into anger but decides to ignore it. He's pretty comfortable right where he is. “You’re lucky you’re my lead singer.” 2D was also lucky that he gave good head massages. “Because otherwise, you would be on some really thin ice right now.”

“We’ll be lucky to see any ice at all this winter what with all the warm weather.”

Usually, an obtuse response from 2D would have earned him a string of insults or a swat on the head. Today was not going to be one of those days. Murdoc turns again so that he’s facing away from the singer, pulling the blanket over his head to block out the light. He was going to savor the moment a bit longer. Despite 2D being 2D, it’s rare that he’s ever felt so at peace.

“Hey, Murdoc? Wait,” 2D says, “You never gave me my arm back.”

“Too bad. I’ll check back in a couple hours,” Murdoc grins beneath the blanket. He still couldn’t pass up a chance to inconvenience the singer at every opportunity. It was too much fun.

“Don’t be such a wanker,” 2D says as he attempts to jerk his arm out from underneath the bassist. “I was nice to you!”

He was right. And he was probably nicer than he deserved, given their history. For that reason, Murdoc would roll off his arm soon enough. He still wanted to talk to him about that song he had been humming.

The singer had surprised him last night. Murdoc knew that 2D had an uncanny ability to figure out how to annoy him to maximum effect, but he never would have expected him to also know what to do to put him at ease. Underneath the covers, he ponders what exactly this realization means to him. He isn’t sure, but he knows it means something. It wasn’t going to eliminate the underlying resentment he still clung to, nor was it going to solve his infinite list of issues. But at the very least, he could rest assured knowing that he wasn’t completely alone.