#i’m doing a mixture of both art and writing for this challenge! i explain more on the notes of the fic itself

[nemmet]

bttf bingo christmas card prompt 2: party 🎈

almost forgot to post it!! here is a fic based on the next prompt, in which marty experiences the hell that is christmas parties with his classmates.

[all-things-fic]

Rekindled

A/N: Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who nominated me as November Author of the Month. I wasn’t expecting that at all and it was a lovely surprise!  Secondly, here is Rekindled. Hope you all enjoy it!

This was originally meant to be for @majorharry​‘s 20k challenge, but I failed on that front. It’s a long one so grab yourself a brew / beverage of choice and get comfy!

I’m about to disappear again as I usually do and start working on my Christmas fic, as well as those Quarantine Harry updates.

Tonight had started out like any other Saturday evening. 

You had been out with friends. Cosy little pub off a cobbled backstreet, in a secluded corner. Very British. Very cramped. All old wood and leather bound seats. The slight smell of stale beer in the air and plenty of chatter that sometimes had you shouting to ensure the friend sitting two people away from you was able to hear. 

This was a pub that you frequented for quite a while now. A pub that made it so some in your friendship group could grab a proper ale, while others opted for more of a fruity alcoholic beverage. A real all rounder. Did a nice roast on Sunday - eat in or takeout, choice was yours - for a reasonable price by London’s standards. 

The minute he had walked in, you had noticed him. You could recognise his hunched shoulders anywhere. Forever silently willing him to stand up straight and embrace the way his height made him tower over some of his friends. Rather than have him try and make himself smaller. Part of you believed it was to buy him time so he wouldn’t get noticed whenever he knew he was going to be in particular place for longer than an hour.

He had been joined by a male friend. Someone you also knew quite well. Someone who you had seen quite recently actually. An art showing over at Cob Gallery being the reason for your meeting which hadn’t happened too long ago. You remembered the invite being shoved through your letterbox, a far cry from when he used to shunt you a quick text and write your name at the bottom of the guest list using Sam’s kohl eyeliner on the evening of the event itself.

You’d taken the piss out of him that afternoon, a quick phone call telling him that he was “no longer the Tomo Campbell I know”. 

That had been two weeks ago. So, you knew it would be rude of either you, or him, to not acknowledge the other. And you knew he would be the one to cave in. 

And you were right.

Tomo’s friendly brown eyes had glanced at you one too many times, over Harry’s shoulder for him to not give you - or anyone else who may have made the meeting slightly awkward - away. 

The continuous trailing of his gaze had in fact caused Harry to chuckle awkwardly, joking at how he wouldn’t let Sam know of his wandering eye as they shared a night on the town. The joke fell short though, as did his chuckle, when at the last glance over Harry twisted his body around to see what all the fuss was about as he leaned against the bar and let his eyes fall onto yours.

You broke his gaze, reaching forward for your balloon glass full of gin and pressed your face as far into it as possible. A feeling filled you that made you hope the hot flush you felt underneath your skin hadn’t started to give away your unnecessary panic. 

See things with you and Harry hadn’t ended badly. In fact, it was more like a fizzle. A bit like the sweet that pops against your tongue. Sometimes you enjoyed it and other times it was unfulfilling, some would say annoying. The latter explained the ending.

No big fights. No fat, hot tears rolling down cheeks. No loss of voices from slanging matches and screaming until the early hours. It just... Ended. 

That fizzle was what made it amicable. You both breaking it off to go and do your own thing. Neither openly keeping up to date with the other, but still absolutely aware of what was going on. In your case that was a lot easier, in his not so much. However, Harry somehow managed to master the art of leading questions without seeming too much of a beg with mutual friends.  

As he looked on at you taking the longest sip from your drink, he had smiled awkwardly before he allowed his eyes to roam the scene of your group of friends and tried to analyse what met his gaze. A group of eight, men heavily outweighing the women with their five to your genders three. 

He would definitely class himself a liar if he was asked about where his mind had gone, and he said that it hadn’t gone to queries around relationship statuses and potential partnerships with any of the men around the table.

He eyed them, all five of them. Definitely wasn’t the guy three people away, neither was it the guy sat diagonally opposite you. They were blonde, definitely not your type. Well, blondes hadn’t been your type the last time he had been between your legs.

His eyes had been zoned in on the guy that had his back facing him, he wasn’t sitting directly opposite you. Instead he was seated in the opposite seat, but one. Better positioning for someone who wanted to obtain a cheeky glance and still be inconspicuous to the group around him.

“I’m gonna have to go and say hello,” Tomo pulled Harry out of his trance, his eyes lifting up from the beer mat that he had been tapping agitatedly against the bar top once he’d turned away from the scene. 

“‘S fine wi’me, mate,” Harry softly smiled, reaching for his drink and taking a large sip. 

“Come an’ get it over with, H.” 

Harry had quietly eyed Tomo after his open ended suggestion of joining him. His eyes slightly sceptical at the proposal but somehow his legs took over his decision making as he trudged behind his artist friend and got introduced to those faces he didn’t know and acknowledged the ones that he did.

Pulling up a pew at the table had been a lot easier for Harry than he had expected. Dragging the wooden stool to sit himself in between you and the guy to his right, who he now knew to be Conor and the person he really wanted to know the name of was Joe. Joe was a wanker- well, banker. Same difference, right? 

Conversation wasn’t always smooth sailing. The larger group helped however. Also helped him get his moments with you and you with him. Moments that neither of you had known you needed before being sat with his knee brushing yours, due to how cramped your table had suddenly become. 

And it was sweltering now. The bare knee of your ripped jeans, knocking against Harry’s bare knee from his ripped jeans as he edged himself closer to the table wanting to catch what the topic of conversation was down at the easily the “laddier” end of the table. 

Harry had fit right in. Of course his demeanour changed with certain people. Those he had already been in the presence of those years previous were immediately hit with morbid delivery and sarcastic humour, while others were met with his sometimes hard to crack shell. 

And like always as the night had gone on the crowd had tapered off. Some had decided to go onto a club, an offering your declined not wanting to spend the night with people rubbing up against you and feeling like one of the oldest people in the room.

Some of your friends had gone back to their other commitments, like Tomo who made it quite clear he didn’t want to miss his “curfew” that Sam had given him considering he was the one on swimming lesson duty in the morning. 

That ended up leaving you and Harry. Surprisingly a pairing that you hadn’t expected to happen that evening and even more surprising, one that you weren’t particularly dreading.

You knew it had something to do with the gin, and definitely had something to do with the tequila. 

Part of you was thankful for the less than responsible drinking habits you had taken that evening. It allowed you to remain calm as your ex-boyfriend sat across from you looking like time was on his side and aging was being kind to him.

It was definitely being kinder to him than it was to you, anyway. 

Bastard. 

Conversation had been a mixture of light and heavy. Harry showing you a series of different pictures he had taken on his travels as he jetset around the world with his album and his modelling contract (that he adamantly assured you wasn’t a modelling contract), and basically just his very healthy bank balance.

The heavy had been you bitching about the contract project you had been working on and asking him if he would be willing to potentially commit a serious crime with you against one of your colleagues. He’d quipped he probably wasn’t suitable but he was sure he knew a guy. 

At one point, his eyes had dropped down to your pedicured toes in your black strappy heels. When he managed to drag his eyes away for your feet,  and rested his chin on the inside heel of his palm, you knew he wanted to say something. 

“‘M pretty sure we have matching pedis,” he groused, voice so low that if you hadn’t been watching his mouth you wouldn’t have caught a word of what he had just said.

Eyes flicking up to his green gaze, you saw the light shimmering through them. Clearly he was amused by your expression of shock and potential bemusement from his statement.

“Sod off,” you chided, pushing gently at his arm. “You’re joking.”

“‘M not darl-“ he cut himself off with a clear of his throat. “‘M not, an’ if yer lucky later I might take m’socks off to prove it an’all.”

“Not sure if I like the insinuation of there being a later.” You paused for a small amount of time, before adding, “Nor the confidence in how you said it.” 

“God loves a trier and so did you, once.” 

He eyed you from the corner of his vision, mouth wrapped around the lip of his glass as he knocked back what was left of the alcoholic contents inside. 

You were sure he hadn’t meant to let that one slip but there was no way he was going to let his expression give him away and silently confirm with you that thought. 

How had the two of you picked up as if you hadn’t missed a beat? 

“You never did mind me keeping them on though, did yer?”

That was enough to break his gaze. To cause a silence you didn’t know how to fill. To suddenly make you feel incredibly parched as if you hadn’t been necking gin after gin, all evening. 

“How yer getting ‘ome?”

His question cut through it all. His voice of concern, matching his watchful gaze as he looked up at you from the empty glass he had begun twirling on the mahogany wood. 

“Was just gonna Uber it back.”

“‘M a fifteen minute walk from ‘ere, d’ya know tha’?”

“I do know that,” you acknowledged, eyes looking over at him and seeing the way his hair had begun to curl close to his temples from the way he perspired in the heat of the pub. 

“‘Course you do. Done that walk a fair few times ain’t we?”

You hummed. The feeling of your lips lifting into a soft smile at the memories of the two of you walking hand in hand through the dark London streets. Harry with his head down, trying to look inconspicuous. Also, so he could watch his feet and try his best not to trip up over them. 

The times he’d done that thing you loved. Where he would forgo holding your hand and instead walk slightly behind you with his arm wrapped around your shoulder and across the top of your chest. His lips heavy against your hair as he hid his face and chuckled breathily against the shell of your ear when he hadn’t been watching his feet and indeed, tripped. It was always inevitable. 

“So wha’s another nigh’?”

And really what was another night? Other than potentially a messy morning. 

Not before long you were wrapping the chain handle of your bag across your body and tottering out of the booth you had occupied all night. 

Silently you had battled with yourself as to whether you should use the bathroom, but didn’t think you needed it considering how you hadn’t had the rush of pressure usually felt when you were really desperate to relieve yourself.

Shame the feeling didn’t last as you felt a huge gust of cold wind, thanks to London autumn air, washing over you. 

With your arms folded around your body as you walked, you tried your best to shield yourself as the lights of passing cars hurt your tired eyes. Harry had been talking to you about all sorts of rubbish, filling in the gaps of dead air that weren’t taken up by the noise around your both.

“My shoes are going to be fucking ruined,” you grumbled, hearing the sound of muddy stones clacking and crunching underneath your heels. 

Harry chuckled at your obvious disdain, keeping himself close to you in the dimly lit area. The stride to his walk was confident, a little more power behind it than unsteady. He had consumed drinks, but not enough that he didn’t realise how close both he and you were to his home.

As you walked, your eyes surveyed the area. A group of people were getting closer, a few hoods lifted making it hard for you to figure out their make up. 

Before you could give yourself time to think, you unravelled your folded arms and reached down for Harry’s hand. 

“Think we could cross here,” you spoke, a chatter to your voice both from the cold and this unusual anxious feeling. Your eyes darted over the road, left and right before you turned as the group approached you. 

A boisterous boom of laughter left one of the groups mouth, causing you to sharply look back down the street. The grip of Harry’s hand against yours changed, his fingers taking your traditional hand hold to one of interlocking digits. 

He felt moved by the way you appeared to still hold the desire to be protective over him. 

“‘M alrigh’,” he pulled you to him, using his hand and causing you to turn your front and press into his side. “Jus’ let ‘em pass us.”

You silently nodded.

“‘S just a couple’a lads walking ‘ome after a night out,” he mumbled. “‘S all it is. You’re alright.” 

This feeling felt foreign as you felt a tightness in your chest while you stood still with him in the middle of the street. You hadn’t expected to feel any sort of hesitation but you, like everyone else, had heard about the incident which had taken place with him. Virtually on the doorstep of his own home too.

Harry offering you comfort and reassurance just as quick as you were to do so for him, had you finding a weird source of strength and confidence. He welcomed the pressing of your forehead to his cheek, knowing if he tilted his head slightly his lips could brush so tenderly against your forehead, your temple. He would most likely get a smell of your shampoo, wondering if you still used the same as before. 

The grip of his hand loosened against yours, his clammy palm, which felt soothingly warm, ran up against the long sleeve of your top. It curled around your neck, holding you securely to him, before he wrapped his arm around you.

Then he dropped his lips, them pressing to your temple and then lower to your cheekbone. He lingered, his breathing slightly quivered as the noise from the group got louder. 

You lifted your head slightly, Harry rearing up just in time to ensure you didn’t headbutt him. His chin was soft as he looked down at you; it took the edge off. His eyes were manic as they moved, there was no mistaking it but everything else about him came off so calm. 

He blew out his shaky sigh, causing you to dart your eyes over his and gently push up onto your tiptoes in your heels to softly kiss his lips. You knew he wasn’t expecting it, you didn’t even know what you were doing before you did it. Yet, you relaxed the minute he drew you even closer using the arm he had curled around your upper back to hold you close.

A wolf whistle caused you to smile against his lips, as he did the same. His gentle breathy laugh bouncing against your lips as he chanced it and pressed pecks against your lips in quick succession. 

“Evening lads,” Harry nodded his head once he came up for air, making sure he got a good look of two of them and making sure they knew that he had. They cheered in praise at the two of you and your public display, threw out a couple of slightly lewd and alcohol fused comments at the scene. One even going as far as to take the red and white striped scarf from around his neck and whip it furiously above his head. “Someone’s ‘appy. The Arsenal must’ve ‘ad a win.”

You nodded as you eyed them, completely embarrassed by the way you had misread a group of loud football fans for violent thugs. You weren’t necessarily far wrong, but still. 

Chattering teeth caused Harry to pull you close to him. “Let's get you in before you catch your death.” 

***

Shoes had been left at the door. 

The aching balls of your feet grateful for the cool wooden flooring and curling into the luxurious fabric of the rugs currently beneath them. 

You’d watched as Harry toed off his obscenely dirty Vans, and walked ahead of you towards the back of the house. The place where his envious lounge and open plan kitchen could be found.

Harry’s home had this way of being welcoming, no matter how long it had been since you had last graced its presence. You assumed he’d made it this way for a reason, especially when that reason was his way of life. Leaving for long periods of time to then return again, to pick right up where he had left off. 

And in many ways, that was how you felt about the current situation. 

Handbag now discarded at your feet, you sat with your side resting against the back of Harry’s teal velvet couch. Surrounded by expensive scatter cushion after expensive scatter cushion, a collection he had amassed during your time apart. 

He was playing the playlist. Not just any playlist, the playlist. The one he would always turn on, volume low, so it was more of a hum than anything else after you’d gotten back from a night on the tiles and fancied a night cap. 

You didn’t need to zone in on the sounds. It so happened that you had heard the playlist so many times before that you didn’t need to have it blasting through the speakers to know the track list. It was burned into your brain and would be for a very long time.

The worst thing of all was that he knew. He just knew. 

His lips had taken on this quirk. Slightly upturned more so on one side of his face than another as he stood at the kitchen island, feeling your eyes watch him as he put together his perfected cheese on toast supper.

It was an offer you couldn’t refuse. A large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon held loosely in your hand as you whispered along to the song playing in the background, mouth watering at the thought of the carby goodness Harry was preparing for you both under the grill of his oven.

The smell that filled your senses was delightful and exactly what you needed to soak up the alcohol you had previously consumed, never mind the alcohol you were about to. 

“Do you want any brown sauce on yours, or ketchup?” You heard him talk louder as the tray he’d been cooking on clattered against his oven hob. 

You stayed silent as you watched him, tea towel over his shoulder as he plated up your toast while his mouth barely sang along to the playlist. Gently lifting the bread off the grill before letting it drop quickly from his grip to the plate because of how hot it was. 

He looked up at you from under his brow, hair fallen into a middle part around his face. His eyes enjoyed the way your legs had curled up beneath you as you rested your right cheek onto your hand and fondly watched him.

You seemed relaxed to him, albeit amused. 

“Don’t even think about laughing at me when ‘m cooking for you.”

You smiled - cheese on toast was hardly cooking - pulling your glass of wine to your lips and taking a sip. “Don’t know why you don’t just get a knife and fork, you numpty.”

“Saves on the washing up doing it this way,” he winced as he dropped another slice to the second plate. 

“And makes you lose your fingerprints in the process.

Harry shook his head as he pressed his thumb to his lips and licked the sore burn, before he gently blew against it. “Never did answer my question,” he reminded, wiping his hands on the towel thrown over his shoulder.

“Ketchup’s fine. Ta.”

Watching him reach across for the bottle of Heinz, you saw him squirt the sauce onto your plate and then saw him do the same to his own. 

Seemingly happy with his work, he whipped the towel off his shoulder and to the side, before scooping up the two plates and striding over to you with ease. 

“Voila,” he spoke, offering you the answer to your predicted hangover prayers, in cheese on toast form.

Reaching forward, you gently took the plate off his hands with both of yours and let your eyes drop down to the melted goodness. Keeping your eyes down you took in the decoration that Harry had added. He’d taken to drawing a smiley face onto the top of the cheese using the ketchup.

“You’re such a silly sod sometimes,” you spoke, lifting your eyes as you watched him drop down onto the couch next to you and get himself comfortable.

Legs up on the coffee table in front of him, almost horizontal with his plate gently resting atop his rounded stomach. Head tipped back and vision lazy, his lips tilted up into a crooked smile as he looked over at you. 

“‘S it okay?���

“Looks it,” you replied, lifting up the toast and taking the biggest bite you could muster. Your nose came into contact with some sauce from your hunger-driven vigour. “Proof is in the tasting though, I s’pose,” you continued, mouth full and covered by your hand to avoid him seeing the chewed up contents. 

You hummed as you closed your eyes, enjoying the taste of the simplistic home cooked food and melted goodness. So simple in taste, but so effective. 

From where Harry lounged, he softly watched you. All relaxed, closed eyes, with a drop of tomato ketchup decorating the end of your nose. 

Before you had the chance, and he couldn’t fight himself, Harry reached up to gently swipe at the sauce and remove it from your skin.

You opened your eyes, blinking over at him as he pressed his thumb between his lips and licked away the sauce he had retrieved. His eyes were mischievous as they glanced at you before he took a bite out of his own food and savoured the taste.  

The groan that left his throat as he chewed was a sound familiar to you in other capacities, causing you to squeeze your legs together and forcefully take another bite of your own toast.

“Tell you what? If there’s one thing I do, ‘s make a bloody good cheese on toast.”

You smirked, amused by his boasting. “Nothing like a slice of conceited-ness as a platter cleanser, for afters.”

“Summat much more appealing for afters, don’t worry about tha’, darling. Got you sorted.” 

***

Bellies full and content, you slipped further down onto Harry’s couch. The two of you finding yourself closer together ask you basked in the warmth of Harry’s home.

“You weren’t lying when you said your nails matched mine,” your voice was sleepy as you spoke, right foot hitting Harry’s left slightly as you brought up your earlier conversation at the pub.

He chuckled into your hair, watching you lift your foot and gently place it atop of his. He made a space for it, moving his right leg so that there was an even bigger gap between his feet to slot yours between.  

“I think mine's a bit lighter to be honest,” you continued, eyes scrutinising his painted nails as much as they could from down the length of your body and his. 

“That’s some bullshit,” Harry groused, rubbing his feet gently against yours to warm them, his voice causing his chest to vibrate against your head as it rested there  “I even had it on m’ hands but I’ve been picking at it. Look.”

Harry obnoxiously held his hand in front of your vision, wiggling his fingers causing you to reach for his fingers and hold his hand still. Sure enough, he was true to his word, presenting you with chipped nail polish that was nothing more than the odd tiny dot against his clean nails. 

You smirked when he pushed them slightly closer to your face than intended, “Alright, think you’ve proven your point.”

Hand knocked back he brought it forward again, “‘M not so sure, try again.”

The only response you could muster up was a giggle fit for a schoolgirl, Harry’s response to pull you even closer as he softly smiled. 

A silence overtook you both, as you closed your eyes and let yourself become more intune with the music playing around you. 

Your face was pressed into the side of his neck able to inhale his worn in aftershave and the soft startings of stubble down the side of his throat. 

The silence was heavy and you knew exactly why. Listening to the base of the song across his speakers mixing with your staggered breathing and rising pulse. 

You knew you shouldn’t but you couldn’t help yourself. It wasn’t like it needed attention drawn to it. Yet, the words were tumbling off your lips regardless. 

“This song always makes me…you know.”

The words were mumbled but of course he caught them because he did know. But it was whether he wanted to go there. 

The thought of talking about sex and the sex you had together in a coherent state wasn’t ideal. He wouldn’t have anything to blame his honesty on, if he wasn’t more inebriated than he currently found himself.

“Think we need some more wine for tha’,” he mumbled, lips pressed to your forehead as you hummed in agreement and felt him begin to shift to raise himself from the couch to retrieve a bottle.

***

More wine wasn’t a good idea and you knew it. From the way your tongue was much looser and your lips a lot more numb now. 

The two of you had begun to dance on a weird ledge after he’d refilled your glass. The kind where you were openly flirting and backbiting against the other to try and see who could inflict the moment that had the two of you wincing. 

“Who caught your eye while I was out of the picture?”

“Who didn’t catch yours?”

Harry was sitting on the couch, side pressed into the back of the couch. Leaning with his elbow and allowing his face to rest  in the palm of his hand as he looked at you.

“Alright,” he stressed with a raise to his eyebrows and a quirk to his lips. 

You were a bit flustered due to the way your back bite to him revealed how you were actually caught up in his business of seeing other people when you tried to act like you didn’t care.

Clearing his throat Harry adopted a soft tone to break you out of your fluster.

“There was one girl. Took her to dinner two times.”

You held his eyes with yours, watching the way he slowly smirked, “But you already know that don’t ya?”

Before you could stop yourself, you threw the throw cushion sitting to the right of you, at him.

“Watch the wine,” he said around a laugh, as he raised his wine glass into the air and pushed the cushion to the floor before it had a chance of creating him a cleaning catastrophe in the early hours. 

“Hate you,” you mumbled, turning to your right to look at him from where you had reached forward to put your wine glass down to the table. Before you sat back you ran your index finger against the rim of your wine glass and tapped your nail gently against the base. 

“‘s tha’ why you’re sat eating cheese on toast and drinking wine on my sofa at almost 2am,” he spoke against the rim of his glass, knocking back what was remaining inside.

“I’ve been coerced to be here,” you replied, watching him reach forward, raising his eyebrows at your false suggestion. When he sat back against the couch he was biting back his smile, his eyes shining and crinkles deeply set in the corners.

“Know where the door is,” he goaded, raising his eyebrows again, arm raising to point in the direction of his hallway. He waited for your response and in that time leaned forward towards the coffee table once more, grabbing the wine bottle and topping you up before moving onto refilling his own.

Your eyes dropped down to the rich red liquid as it sloshed against the clear glass. While his words were telling you to leave, his actions were doing the complete opposite. 

Filling the silence he asked, “So, how many dinners am I competing with?”

“Three” you mumbled as you lifted your drink and took a sip for courage. 

Harry’s head titled as he surveyed you, “Bloody hell you didn’t hang around!”

“I have no more cushions left,” you spoke to his cheeky comment with a light hearted threat of throwing something at him for his brazen clap back. “Only my wine.”

He smiled at your warning to throw it all over him before he drawled, “And we wouldn’t wanna waste tha’”

You hummed in agreement, freely taking yet another sip. Finally, something you agreed on. 

Harry kept his eyes on you, waiting. The two of you almost seeing who would cave in first to try and dig for more information on the relations of the other while you were apart. What he really wanted to know was how many men he was competing against. Was it one man three times, or three separate men? 

With all the questions buzzing around his head, he knew it would be him who would give in. 

He was correct. 

“Gonna let me ‘ave a look then? Pull ‘em up on your phone. ‘S only fair. Mine was taken out of my hands.”

His ambiguous comment alluded to the paparazzi pictures of him that had been splashed all over the tabloid online outlets, as well as every other social media platform known to man. 

You didn’t hesitate, the alcohol in your bloodstream almost encouraged you as you reached for your bag at your feet and took out your phone. Said liquid confidence even helped in your handing over of the phone. “Pass codes the same,” you said, as Harry stared at you before he dropped his eyes down to the screen and tried the first code that came to his mind, your birthday.

The screen shook at him, causing a sheepish smile to pull up onto his lips as he thought about his second guess. He punched in the code of your mother’s birthday and unlocked the phone within a short five seconds.

You did notice the stall to his movements, clearly realising how part of this was wrong. It wasn’t his, or your, business to know everything in such detail.

Sensing his hesitancy also, you told him where to find a photograph if he was so desperate for a nose; on your private Instagram page. He took that as a small victory cause he knew you still had pictures of him on your profile that hadn’t been taken down.

You gave him names, knowing that it was an invasion of privacy for the men in question but equally not caring. His thumb was fast as it typed and spelt out the name into the search bar. Harry also not caring at how desperate he was to see his competition. 

“Hold this for me,” he said, passing over his wine glass so that he could cup your phone in both his hands, his undivided attention firmly on his foe. You looked on as you saw him zoom in on the picture of guy number two, who had the chance of a third date.

He was silent as he looked and swiped and read comments. He didn’t know if this was the type of man he was expecting. Had he even been expecting anyone at all?

Running his eyes over the pictures he was greeted with what he could only describe to be your average City man. All overcoats and expensive suits. 

Looks wise, he understood. Perfect five o’clock shadow. Seemed tall enough in photos. Obviously liked a gym session or two. However there was one thing about him that just looked so out of place- 

Breaking the silence, he said, “Can’t even do a tie properly can he?”

“Neither can you,” you shot back.

“Don’t have to when you have someone willing to help.” 

He looked at you from under his brow to see if you were going to correct him. When he realised you weren’t, he continued, “Never been tempted to fix his,” he asked, swiping across to look at another picture. 

“He hasn’t worn a tie on a date yet,” you responded.

Harry zoned in on the use of the word yet.

“What’s he drive?” He asked randomly, continuing the swipe through the pictures with his right thumb. 

“Range Rover Sport.”

“Probably on finance,” he spoke his comeback quickly, expressing his true feelings. It wasn’t going to be on finance but no one could blame him on wanting to throw a cheap shot in some way. “Doesn’t really seem the type to be blessed with the big dick energy. Overcompensating somehow.”

You found yourself biting down against your lips, trying to stifle a laugh. His pettiness has reared itself in less than ten minutes and you could see the way it wove through his features, with a quirk to his eyebrows and a scrunch of his nose. He was dismissive and you supposed he had every reason to be, you were after all sat on his couch. 

“Why do you really think I’m giving you another try,” you smirked, nails tapping at your glass again.

He held your gaze, “You planning on testing me out, seeing if it still works?”

“Might do,” you took another sip of your drink. “Depends if I have the energy.”

“Why do you think I gave you summat to eat?”

You breathed out a laugh as your mouth fell, right hand reaching up to slap him across the top of his arm. He seemed pleased with himself as he locked your phone and loosely held it out to you.

“‘S enough of looking at tha’,'' he hummed, licking gently at his lips. “How did you meet him?” 

Again a breathy laugh left your lips as you stared at him, incredulously. Harry’s eyes easily held yours as he waited on your answer.

“You aren’t in the least bit interested,” you licked your lips, the taste coating them slightly bitter from the lingering wine residue. “Don’t know why you’re trying to make it seem as if you are.” 

“Humour me, darling,” he mused, lips softly lifting. “Or humour him, whichever you prefer.” 

And you know you shouldn’t be doing this, laughing at the expense of someone else in such a way. You saw the larger swallow from Harry too and you knew he was feeling the same. 

However, here you were, giving eyes to a man that you didn’t think would get to see you in such a way again. 

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Cause at least one of us would make it worth your while.” 

You felt your breathing quicken as you held Harry’s eyes. He did nothing to deter you from holding his gaze. 

“You have to stop being so nice,” he added. “If he isn't doing anything for you, that’s okay.”

Reaching forward you rid your hands of your phone, letting it slide against his coffee table. “And do you not think you slightly have an unfair advantage?”

“I think,” he paused, his eyes looking at you. “I think we had something good.”

“Had being the operative word-“

“And I think we could have something good again. In fact I know we could.”

You stalled at his words. The confidence behind them. It was admirable how he was shooting his shot. Especially given you knew how inside he was most likely quaking with nerves.

“Tell him no.”

His words made you chest feel tight, his hand reaching across the distance between the two of you on the sofa. His palm facing up, you slowly lifted your hands to sit in his.

No sooner had your skin come in contact, Harry clasped his hand around yours and softly stroked his thumb to the back of it. He dipped down, lips meeting your knuckles before he tugged at you so softly you almost felt you had imagined it.

He wanted you closer, the arms length distance now too much as he started to show himself to you. His pettiness and his affection, they strangely won you over. Stoked something within you that had you edging further towards him.

Hand unlatching from yours, he lifted his left arm and wrapped it loosely around the back of your neck. With little persuasion you dropped your forehead against his jaw again. 

Harry’s swallow was audible as his fingertips softly stroked at your shoulder. His breath softly fanned against the skin of your temple, his lips turning to press the faintest kiss to your hairline.

“Tell him to piss off.”

You chuckled, breathily, head knocking itself back to look up at him. Eyes light with a sense of joyous infatuation at the moment you found yourself in.

Harry shifted, his right hand quickly discarding both your wine glasses before it placed itself against your hot cheek. The coolness of his slender fingers soothing and welcomed. 

“Tell him no,” he breathed, as his lips hovered close to yours, as he tilted your face upwards to meet his. 

With your eyes closed you felt a sense of guilt, for some unknown reason. It wasn’t like you were committed to anyone outside of the situation that you found yourself in, but you felt slightly wrong for what you were doing. Harry sensed it, able to read the downturn of your lips for what it was. He nudged his nose gently against yours, allowing his eyes to take their time in admiring your expressions and waited on the unnecessary internal conflict to ease. 

“Want me to tell him?” He asked, leaving breathy and wet kisses down your cheek, and along your jawline as you tilted your head back. “‘S not a problem.”

Your mind was swimming as you found yourself sinking back into the couch beneath you. Harry’s voice melting you as he continued talking, “Really get him to take the hint that you’re not interested.”

He kept his face buried against the underside of your chin as it pointed up at the ceiling, hands tracing down your arms and cupping at your hands to press them into his hair as he sucked at your skin.

“I know what you’re doing,” you hummed, scratching at the back of his head, enjoying the feel of his soft locks beneath your touch. 

Harry deeply groaned as you pulled at the strands, “What’s that?”

“Trying to have your way with me when I’m under the influence,” you joked, quirk to your lips. “Always was that little bit more placid that way.” 

You felt the way his lips moved from underneath your chin, finding the corner of your mouth, before he pulled up to look at you. He eyed you, all heavy lidded and messy lips. “You’re not tha’ pissed are ya?”

“No.”

“Then I’m definitely more than jus’ trying.” He reached for your face, lifting your chin and angling it how he wanted. “‘M taking, ‘m begging,” he spoke confidently, unashamed. 

His lips were dominant as they engulfed yours, a groan leaving your throat as your kiss was messy from the offset. His lips puckered and pulled, drawing you closer to him as he breathed through his nose and gave you his tongue.

Your chest was heaving as he skimmed his lips against your face, mouth finding the sensitive skin of your neck once more as you bit down on your bottom lip and tried not to laugh. 

“Charming of you to want your way with me on your couch.”

Harry chuckled against your neck, face lifting shortly to look at you. His pupils were blown out already, as his skin took on more of a rosy flush from the beginnings of his exertion. That or you’d embarrassed him.

“Sorry, I should’ve asked,” he mused. ”Where’d you want it?”

Legs curled gently around the backs of his thigh, still covered by the denim of his jeans, you pressed against them with the heel of your foot. 

“Where’d you think?”

He knew exactly where. You were a simple creature. You liked simple things. Sex was always fun to have all over the house, but depending on the level of intimacy you craved, depended on where you were willing to open your legs.

Tonight was a weird one for you to decide upon. The fumble on the couch, while it was exciting and showed you Harry’s desperation to have you once more, it would be over before you knew it. Also it would most likely leave you with a horrible crick in your neck as your keepsake. 

You didn’t want that. You wanted your keepsake to be the ache in your thighs from how he had taken you in different positions because while a bed was boring for some, it allowed you the option to roll around for as long as your bodies permitted. Bending in all different shapes and ways that sometimes neither of you would’ve been able to imagine. 

He broke you from your thoughts once more, hand gently finding your bum and tapping against it. “Up yer get,” he spoke, starting to push himself up knowing you wanted to go upstairs. 

With your legs curled around his, Harry couldn’t go too far. He chuckled with amusement as he dropped his eyes down to his legs and yours, before looking back up. He didn’t need to even ask as he looked at you, leaning forward he inhaled through his nose as he kissed sweetly at your lips and lifted you.

A smile pulled onto your face, causing difficulty to continue kissing. “Stop tha’,” he mouthed against the corner of your lips, as he hoisted your legs. “‘M trying to take charge here.”

“Why do that when you’re still so good at taking direction?” The lilt to your voice was one of glee, you had easily gotten your own way. 

Tousling your hair and flicking it away, behind your shoulders, you rolled your lips into your mouth as you felt the slight bruising from his expressions of desire. He was watching you as you looked at him, doe-eyes sparkling with intrigue and adoration. 

“Give us a kiss,” his deep voice ignited a warm fire within, as he still tried to assert himself while he walked the two of you away from his open plan lounge and closer to his kitchen.

You continued to eye him, enjoying the way he wasn’t going to back down. You just needed to stand your ground just as much. 

As your bum hit the work surface, your hands traced over Harry’s cheeks, cupping his face before moving to grip at the counter. Head tilted slightly, he looked down the bridge of his nose at you through hooded, dark eyes. 

He stepped in between your wide open legs and enjoyed the closeness that they brought when you brought them together to keep him to you. Heavy breathing filled the silent air as you both traced each other's features with touch and sight. Taste could wait, but it would get here soon enough. 

He gulped as he swallowed. 

“Please.”

At first it was gritty. His voice tight and throat dry. His lips forming the word confidently. 

Again he swallowed. “Please, gimme a kiss. You kiss me, like before.” 

The victorious hum that left his lips was one that you would let slide, as his hands ran down the length of your arms and reached up to wrap around your own. He placed them back onto his face, mouth breaking away as he left open mouthed kisses to your left palm, nose nudging at the end of your long sleeve top where he inhaled your worn away perfume. 

He could feel your pulse as he curled his fingers around your wrist. It was strong and rhythmic, inviting to his primal desire which caused him to gently nip at your flesh with his front teeth.

Turning his eyes back to yours, you silently asked him for another kiss with your soft and slow blinking gaze, knowing he wanted to get just as reacquainted as you did. 

He obliged, pressing closer to the counter and letting his lips meet yours quickly. His quick change in motion caused you to reach behind you to steady yourself, your hand coming into contact with an item you couldn’t identify until you gasped and pulled away thanks to the smashing sound. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” you whispered quickly, trying to catch your breath. Harry’s eyes turned to take a look at one of the daintier wine glasses he had pulled down from the rack earlier but chose not to use. The item now lay broken against the flooring of his kitchen. 

“Really should tidy up before we go up,” he groaned, mouth pressed into the side of your cheek as you surveyed the mess made on his coffee table over the other side of the room. He reluctantly pulled away from you, walking the short distance to the broken glass.

“Watch yourself,” you said, meaning his bare feet around the glass.

Crouching down, Harry started to collate the bigger shards of glass together, stacking them up against the tiles of his kitchen floor. As you peered down, still sitting on his kitchen island, he looked up at you.

“Couldn’t do me a favour? Go an’ grab the dustpan and brush.”

You blinked. Was he alluding that he kept everything in the same place? Given how he’d asked so vaguely, knowing you would understand. 

Softly, he smiled up at you and chuckled around his words, “Same place as last time, yes.”

Taking a while to kick into action, you slowly slid off the work surface and let your feet softly pad over to the other side of the kitchen. The third cupboard from the right, on the lower half of the kitchen was where Harry kept items that Anne had brought him. You know, the things that Mum’s knew would be important but somehow never crossed their children’s minds. Regardless of whether their children were grown adults.

Sure enough, there sat the same blue dustpan and brush. The item was as vibrant as the last time you had seen it, in similar fashion. Leaning down you grabbed at it, shutting the cupboard gently using your foot and walked back to Harry.

You handed it off and heard his whispered thanks, as you rested the side of your hip against his cupboards. 

“Don’t think I’ve had this out since the last time you so elegantly broke one of my favourite glasses.”

You knew he was messing with you but that didn’t stop the blush of embarrassment, hitting your skin, and filling you with warmth. “I’ll replace it.”

“‘M jokin’, ‘s fine. Only a bit o’ glass-“

His sentence was cut short as the two of you jumped, the sound of a phone filling Harry’s space.

“‘S not mine,” he jutted his lips out, as he pushed himself up from his crouched position and carefully walked towards the bin with his broken glass.

You turned towards the noise that was your phone and how it blared from Harry’s coffee table, where you had placed it earlier. Walking the short distance, you reached for it and was met with a familiar male name.

Biting your bottom lip, you swiped across the phone and pressed it to your ear. His soothing voice greeted you, slightly worried in tone as he breathed a sigh of relief.

Letting your feet take you to the kitchen island again, you responded telling him you were fine and how sorry you were that you hadn’t let him know you had gotten home okay.

From over the other side of the room, you watched as Harry quirked a brow at you while he picked up the empty bottle of wine and wine stained glasses from the coffee table in his lounge. 

You weren’t home. You were far from home.

“Who is it?” He mouthed as he got closer, glasses clinking as he placed them onto the work surface of the kitchen island, after discarding the bottle of wine as loudly as possible into the bin. 

You pulled the phone away from your ear showing him the name that he had earlier been typing into your Instagram search bar. Under the dim light you could see the slight squint to his eyes and the way his nostrils flared. 

He darted his eyes from the phone screen and back to yours, watching as you put the phone back to your ear. 

“Yeah I had a great night, ‘m just tired.”

Harry dropped his head, a smirk forming on his lips. You were far from tired and this was nothing more than a moodkill. With his hands pressed to the worktop, he looked up at you as you stood diagonally opposite him. 

Eyes glancing down to your left hand that was spread against the work surface, Harry reached for it. The tips of his fingers running gently between the divots of your knuckles, before his hand slipped underneath your fingers and tugged you towards him.

You slowly obliged him, as your eyes moved to his face. “Come to bed,” he mouthed, watching as your top teeth worried at your bottom lip. His right hand moved to slip around to your lower back as you arched, pulling your chest away from his trying to keep his mouth away from the phone.

“Come to bed wi’me,” his voice was a whisper now, not quite loud enough for the person on the other end of the line to hear but a next step up from how he was previously just mouthing his words to you. 

As he tried to distract you, he dipped in and out of your conversation which was the most monotonous thing he had ever found himself eavesdropping into.

With your chest open to him, he nosed his way along your skin, head nudging at your hand that held the phone. His lips pulled into a smile as you faked a yawn, clearly trying to politely give the man on the other end a hint that you were done.

Still he heard the drone of this guy, who was now even repeating things he had previously said to try and keep you on the line with him. You weren’t interested though, too preoccupied by the way that Harry was once again pressing kissing to the skin that he could get too. 

Before you knew what was happening Harry had clearly had enough. 

“We’re tired, pal. Take the hint,” he spoke into the phone that still rested against your ear, his lips finding the bottom end of the receiver. “‘S time for bed.” 

You had to pull the handset away from your ear, not wanting to hear his reaction from the sound of Harry's voice. You blindly ended the call, keeping your eyes on your ex-boyfriend, whose green-eyed monster had made itself known.

He helped guide your phone down to his marble countertop and watched as the phone was brought to life with a call. The same name appearing on your screen as he tried to call you back.

Harry didn’t take long to decline the call, quickly turning the phone to silent and placing it face up once he’d finished. Again, it lit to life, this time buzzing against his work surface rather than omitting a jarring noise into the silence the two of you shared.

“‘S a bit creepy in’t it?” 

His question lingered as his eyes moved between the phone and you, watching another call ring out. “If he rings again, ‘m gonna answer.”

As expected the phone lit up for the fourth time. However, before Harry could reach for the item you pushed it, causing it to slide against the work surface and away, just enough that it was out of his reach. 

Harry clenched his jaw, his muscle pulsing as he looked at you. “‘S he always like tha’?”

“He’s just realised the girl he was dating is in the company of some other bloke.” 

“Dating or taken on dates? There’s a difference,” he raised his eyebrows. “‘S a huge difference an’all.”

You stared at him, watching him lower his body to lean against the counter with his elbows and wipe down his face in frustration. Unwarranted at that. 

“I don’t like ‘im.”

“Of course you don’t,” you hummed. 

Sharply he turned his neck to look at you, “‘s tha’ supposed to mean?”

“That I agree.”

“No,” he frowned. “It was how you said it.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I’m not-“ he cut himself off, sigh heavy. “I’m not saying you can’t.” 

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, thinking of how to navigate his way out of this. 

“‘M saying that you don’t always have to,” he dropped his voice, slowly standing and letting his itching hands reach for you. 

With his hand resting against your ribs, you stayed still. He didn’t guide you anywhere, he waited. Waited on your next move. When he felt your stoic figure relax underneath his touch, his tight chest expanded. Maybe he could talk himself out of this one.

“When we tried this before,” he softly spoke, pulling his hand away from you to motion between you both, “We shared the load, started to become a team.”

“Yeah and look where that got us.”

He felt his lips twitch from your negative deadpan. “‘S got you back ‘ere again tonight so ‘m doing summat right.”

Shaking your head at him, he rolled his lips into his mouth trying to fight his pleased smile. He dropped his eyes to the counter below him as he mumbled his sorry. 

“If you were to ask me, I think we did alrigh’.”

“You would say that.”’

You watched as he jutted out his lips, before running his hand down his mouth and facial hair. He leaned on his palm, his eyes taking you in and wishing you would speak.

“My Mum talks about you all the fucking time,” 

“Say tha’ like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is when you’re trying to get over someone,” you glanced at him from the corner of your vision.

“Now why would you want to do that?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it,” you were scornful. He shook his head, clearly amused. 

“I’ve still got half of your belongings upstairs, if you wan’ ‘em. You have no idea.” 

You squinted your eyes at him. Trying to read him. “Appearances aren’t always what they seem. Don’t know how many more times I’ll have to tell you about papers and social media, ‘s all a load of bollocks.”

Standing once more, Harry rolled his shoulders and brushed his hair off his face. Once his hands were at the back of his head, he linked his fingers and turned to look at you. Head resting back on his hands, the two of you held each other’s eyes. Him from the corner of his vision, you dead on. No words passed between the two of you. 

“‘M going to bed,” he sighed, dropping his arms and tapping gently against the kitchen counter twice before pushing away. 

His body screamed dejected as he walked away, his shoulders sagged and head down as he walked through his home, towards the second floor and his bedroom. 

Swallowing thickly, you rolled your lips into your mouth again before you spoke his name. The way you called for him caused Harry to stop his movement, back continuing to face you as he silently waited for your next move after you voiced your plea.

You let your feet take you to him, abandoning your phone on the kitchen island and trying your hardest to ignore the white hot anxiety that overtook your being. 

Close enough to touch now, you looked on at your shaking fingers as they gently reached out for him. Your feet took you as close as they could, arm wrapping gently around his abdomen and feeling it quiver with a nervous exhale. 

Lips against the linen of his shirt collar as you pushed onto your tiptoes, hoping that the wine stain upon them wouldn’t attach itself to the cream garment. His head dropped forward, exposing the curvature of his neck to you as his hand gently slid over yours and he rested his fingers between the splayed gaps of your own. 

Gentle squeeze. Reassuring reminder. 

Take your time. 

“Come show me this stuff.”

***

There was always something exhilarating about someone leading you upstairs. The different ways in which it could play out. Playful with a swing to your hands, sensual with a gentle tug to keep your close.

The feel of Harry’s hand in yours was always wanted. Every stroke of his thumb against your knuckles or the back of your hand, a reminder of the affection you had been missing.

His eyes looking over his shoulder at you as he came to the bottom step of the second set of stairs. A silent reminder that you could back out at any time. 

The floorboards still creaked in the same place as always and part of you hated that you didn’t need him to lead you down the hallway because you knew exactly where his room was. 

However, taking yourself to bed never possessed the same majestic undertone as when someone else did.

You were now sitting with your legs tucked underneath you at the end of his bed, rummaging through the box of things that he had neatly packed together for you so they were ready for you to have back if you ever came to collect them.

Every so often you would pull something out to him, showing it and either sharing a story or laughing. As you looked up at him now, showing a tequila shot glass and shaking it suggestively at him, he looked every inch ready to sleep.

Harry was stretched out straight on his bed, his linen shirt still covering his upper body but the buttons were all undone, revealing his chest and stomach to you. Tattoos on display to your eyes that you hadn’t seen for what felt like forever.

The top button of his jeans had been undone as he got comfortable and his ankles were crossed, with his right leg over his left. His eyes were heavily lidded and blinking slower and slower each time you presented him with a new item. 

Double chin forming from the way his head was propped up, he spoke deeply in acknowledgement of the glass with the less than elegant design on the side. 

“Remember getting through a whole bottle of tequila with that,” he drawled, hands clasping on top of his stomach. “Don’t know why we didn’t just pass the bottle between the two of us.”

“That’s because someone insisted that if we were gonna do it, we had to do it proper.”

“Haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”

“That’s convenient,” you deadpanned knowing that there was probably some truth behind his words given how inebriated you had both been at the time.

Thoughts aside you continued looking into the box to see a worn slogan shirt peering up at you. Pushing aside the half empty bottle of perfume that was once your favourite, you silently admired the tee that you knew didn’t belong to you.

A soft smile pulled itself onto your lips. Sometimes nice boy Harry was unbearable. He’d taken to folding the shirt that you adored as if it were on a shelf in a posh(er) department store than usual. Think more John Lewis than Debenhams.

Slowly you pulled the item from the box and enjoyed the feel of the soft cotton against your fingers. You loved that the shirt’s collar was slightly saggy, a sign of how loved it had been.

Your voice left your throat as more of a dreamy sigh than you imagined. “I loved this shirt,” you spoke as you held it up in front of your face, eyes tracing over the blue slogan of ‘Enjoy health. Eat your honey.” and the cheeky looking bee that was drawn within the circle.

Who didn’t love an innuendo?

Without a second thought, you let the item fall into your lap, hands quickly turning to pull at your black v-neck top and reveal your matching black lace bra underneath.

Harry slapped his hand against his eyes, quickly covering them. The sound caused you to look up at him. “Don’t be so daft, Harry,” you spoke, fighting your smile by rolling your lips into your mouth as you saw him splinter his fingers and look at you through the gap he had created. 

“Could give a guy a little warning,” he groaned, continuing to peek over at you. 

Shaking your head, you enjoyed the way the cool fabric fell down the skin of your stomach as you covered yourself once more. You knew if you were to turn your head slightly and press your nose to the collar, a mixture of your perfume and his cologne would remain.

You fought the urge however, as you pulled your hair out from underneath the collar and quickly pushed your hand up the back of the shirt to undo your bra. 

It was almost second nature for you to remove your underwear to get comfy within your comfier clothes and the sagging of your bra cups away from boobs was always a delightful feeling at the end of any night. Drunk or otherwise. 

You pulled at the straps of your bra from underneath the sleeves of your shirt, before diving your hand under the hemline and dropping the item less than gracefully into the box that held your other items.

“Think you’re forgetting who that actually belongs to,” he drawled, head resting against the pillows beneath him now and watching you rummage once more.

“I think you gave up the privilege of wearing this item the minute you dropped it inside this box all neatly folded like you worked a shift at Topshop rather than Manderville’s every Saturday.”

He cackled, head tilted back as he enjoyed your self-righteous indignation and absolute pisstake. 

“All Saints was more my thing.”

“That’s because you’re fake indie.”

He was amused as he shook his head over at you with a silent smile. “And being fake indie is exactly why you decided to live on the edge of Camden and not in the thick of Camden itself.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t once tell me that you’d want to raise a family in Hampstead.”

You felt your face heat up at the way he’d completely called your bluff. “That was when I was young and naive.”

“As opposed to us now? Being old and decrepit.”

Again you were silent as you started to put the items around you back into the worn cardboard box. 

“Why’re still fuckin’ around wi’that box?” 

Your eyes snapped up at him as he kept your eyes. “The only thing you should be fuckin’ around with, is me.”

Raising your eyebrows, you said, “Now who sounds young and naive. Anyway, what happened to you just taking.”

Harry was silent as he took in your words, his body slowly rising from his lounged position and he sat up to approach you. You dropped your gaze down his chest and to his stomach, enjoying the slight rolls of his abdomen as he adopted his new seated position.

His eyes were focused as your gaze found his once more. A soft determination. This sheen to his skin in the lamp lighting of his bedroom, causing him to naturally glow. 

Once he was secure in his upright position, closer to you, Harry snatched at the box with one hand and picked it up to sit it down on the floor at his side of the bed.

He then swooped suddenly, hand scooping around your waist and drawing you to him with squealed laughter. His lips fell against your cheek as he shushed you, aiding you as you moved position to get comfortable. 

“Remember the first time I had you in this bed?” He asked, chest to chest with you. Your mouth was agape with your quickened breathing, as his lips puckered slightly at the corner of your mouth and he gently leant his nose to yours.

You both watched each other through heavy eyelids, breathing mixed in rising anticipation. A soft nudge of his nose as he asked, “Do yer?”

A nod was all you could muster. 

“Was good sex,” he husked, hoodied eyes holding yours. “Was always good sex.”

You hummed in agreement. Feeling the way your nerve endings came alight as you pushed your fingers through the hair at his temple. 

Heat flowed through your body, circling in your stomach as his words echoed. 

“Still gonna be good sex, ‘f you’ll let me. Better even.”

The faintest smile pulled at your lips, causing your eyes to glisten. 

“Eh,” he nudged. “You gonna let me, or tell me otherwise?”

“Personally, think you’re just talking a good game.”

“You know ‘m fucking not.”

Harry pulled you to him, his mouth claiming yours easily. So hungry and intense. Lips that were desperate to show you what you had been missing. Lips that were desperate to wipe away the touch of another, asking you what the fuck you were even thinking in trying it with some other bloke? 

Gone was the brushing of lips, faint and fleeting. Harry’s liquid confidence started to come into play as his lips formed into a smile when he gave you his tongue and hummed as he did. 

Harry cupped your face as he slanted his mouth over yours, soft moans leaving your throat as you kept him close. 

Lips were coaxing, as he groaned between quiet wet smacking sounds that otherwise would have had you cringing. 

Now he had you however, how could he part? Your smell was intoxicating to him, as was the touch of your fingers in his hair and nails gently scratching at his scalp. His mewls were catlike when he pressed his wet lips to your skin.

Breathing now more like a pant, it puffed against your elongated neck as he pulled away and made a beeline for your clavicle and then chest, movements slower. Chestnut hair tickled the underside of your chin and caused the faintest of smiles to ghost across your lips from the way it felt.

His nose nudged the collar of his shirt that sat against your body enticingly. The smell of your perfume everywhere to him. 

Now lower down you found his forehead was pressed to your clavicle as you felt his teeth playfully tug the cotton between them. A puff of air left your nose as you bit down onto your bottom lip to try and suppressed your giggle.

“Smells like us,” he hummed, mouth breathing hot and heavy against the shirt that sat directly above your nipples. “‘S tha’ good.”

Your only response was the tipping back of your head, fingers carding heavily through the hair at the nape of his neck. 

Had he always been this skilful? Vocal, sure. But it never quite hit you like it was doing tonight. His deep hums and moans, his hands spreading so confidently across your back to hold you to him.

And when you cradled the back of his head and pressed that was when you found yourself moaning his name deep from the back of your throat as his mouth gently sucked at your hardened nipples through his beloved shirt.

His name left your lips again, this time  in the softest gasp as a small frown hit your eyebrows and your hips started to faintly roll atop his. He moaned gratefully into your chest, his tongue wetting the fabric of his shirt so it clung to your raised nipple.

As he nosed along the cotton, he found your second nipple, his hand quick to raise to the first and squeeze at your breast that had not been forgotten. His touch wanted - you and it - to know that.

This is what you’d been missing so long. A sense of feeling you had buried somewhere else. Blocking out the way he managed to make you feel more alive than anyone else had. 

With cheeks hollowed as he suckled, you whispered, “That’s nice.”

His hum of agreement vibrated through your chest as he kept his face pressed against you. 

Everything about him became deliberate and slow, his hands now moving underneath your shirt and fingertips gently grazing at soft, warm skin prickling goosebumps in their wake.

Sliding lower his left hand palmed against the back pocket of your jeans, fingers catching against the thick and sewed seams. Hand pressed heavy to aid the soft rock to your hips, tapping lightly to the top of your bum.

“‘M gonna take these off,” he hummed, looking up at you from where his face was still pressed into your chest.

“Are you?”

It felt as if the room spun before you could even comprehend what was happening, a squealed laugh leaving your lips next as your arms tightened around Harry’s shoulders. He lightly lifted and rolled you, your back landing against his mattress gently as your laughter tapered off.

His lips were sponging kisses to your jawline and cheeks, as you felt the backs of his fingers slide gingerly against the exposed skin of your stomach. Slowly you felt the fabric pull away and fall slack against your stomach when he managed to twist the button with one hand, as your arms fell against the mattress and into the pillows that were slightly pressed higher against the headboard.

“Took you long enough,” you goaded, a smirk lacing your lips as you felt Harry pull away and watched him kneel sitting back with his feet against his bum. 

His face was a picture, clearly amused, as he swiftly pulled his own shirt away and threw it behind him. Hands slowly trailed back up to the waistband of your jeans as he lightly hovered over you.

His head found your stomach, the soft skin on show from where the tee had ridden up. Soft puckered kiss, he lifted his head and pressed his chin into your stomach. 

“Last chance,” he voiced, soft. While he wasn’t willing to forget about it all, regardless of the ache he had between his own legs, you had to be in this with him as much as he was. 

Blinking down at him, you moved your hand up to gently push through his hair and without words raised your hips off the bed enough for him to get the message.

The smile that pulled at his lips, was so triumphant you had to knock your head back to stop yourself from chastising him for being full of himself. 

Your hands however couldn’t help themselves as they joined Harry while he pulled your trousers down your legs and watched goosebumps rise upon your skin from their exposure to the cold. 

Now he was at the end of the bed, you dropped your head to the side to look at him. The way he looked as he carelessly threw your item of clothing over to the chair that sat in the corner of his room. 

His eyes slowly came back to you, as he followed his own motion and saw the faintest of smiles dance across your features. 

“What yer thinking?” 

You were thinking a lot of things. Mainly more so how mystical he looked in the soft glow of the London evening that was creeping in through the haphazard way he had drawn his curtains. Your smile only deepend at how it was more so from the street lamp lights than any full moon, but he didn’t have to know that.

Of course he would want to though, because your smile was more so on show now thanks to the thought in your mind.

Harry shook his head as he fought his own smile, dropping his face slightly to watch his hands as he fiddled with his own jeans.

“Whatever’s got you smiling, ‘s doing nothing for my ego as ‘m undressing m’self in front of yer.”

You knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself, which is why you lightly laughed. 

He spoke your name in a pretend warning.

“‘S doin’ everythin’ for you,” you spoke sultry, “Don’t even try it. Got a girl half naked and waiting for you.”

At those words he looked up at you, through his curtains of thick waves that had fallen into his line of vision. 

You breathed deeply, eyes unable to move from his captivating stare even though you knew he was practically naked from the waist down. You knew from the way his upper body moved as he pushed down his jeans; you knew from the sound of the clothes bunching around his ankles. 

Now you found yourself wondering again. Wondering if he still kept his condoms where he had done last time. Sometimes in the bedside table drawer, other times hidden in the top of his wardrobe. 

Were you going to see him twist and turn, get him showing you how white his bum cheeks were in comparison to his infuriatingly evenly tanned thighs and legs? Or was he going to hold your eyes, dip his knee into the bottom of his bed and crawl up you once more so he could grab one from the bedside table.

“Not just any girl,” he finally replied, his knee dipping into the bottom of the bed. You supposed that answered your question. 

“No?”

A small shake of his head. 

“The girl.”

Harry chuckled, giving himself away as he watched the way you relaxed deeper into the mattress as he found your legs easy to accommodate him. 

“I’ve never been the anything,” you emphasised.

With his lips against your cheek, you felt his puffed breath as he responded, “Yea, you fuckin’ have.”

You kept him to you with a hand against the back of his head, fingers woven through his hand unable to not enjoy the feel of his silky locks beneath your touch. Reacquainting yourself with everything that you thought you had lost.

His lips unlatched from yours with a soft, wet sound as your eyes rolled back into your head when he started to trail kisses down your cheek, down your neck once more.

There was no mistaking how greedy they were, his chin knocking yours and his teeth scraping against your skin as he held your jaw with a steady hand in hope of keeping you still beneath him. 

Legs moved from where they were open, softly brushing at his sides so your calves wrapped and touched the back of his thighs. The feel of his hairs against your smooth legs becoming a weirdly exhilarating reminder of your closeness once more. 

Head buried in your chest, you felt him locate the wet patch against the cotton from his previous play and quickly enclose his mouth once more. Warm hands pushed beneath your body and the mattress, sliding underneath and raising your chest further to his face. 

Your mouth fell open as you felt the pressure of his lips and tongue, enclosed around your nipple again, grow stronger. With a hand in his hair once more, you wondered if he was going to take you out of this shirt, or fuck you in it. 

As the pressure lessened, with your head pressed into the bed beneath you, you heard the rustling of his nose and face against the shirt. He rubbed his face against you, inhaling and moving his hands closer to your lower back. 

Hands in contact with your underwear, you felt him smooth over the fabric of your bum. He pulled at your thigh, before pushing at your knees with a gentle but assured touch. 

“If I remember correctly,” he started, voice muffled as his face was still pressed to your breast. “This leg needs to go here, like this. Mm?” 

Clammy hand splayed against your thigh, you felt him direct your other leg, “And this one needs to be a bit lower, otherwise you get cramp.” 

There was a pause, and you could feel the way his lips were twitching atop the cotton of the tee. Matching yours at the flippant comment that was only funny because it was true.

Humming again, he added, “Keep ‘em like this. Keep me here like this.” 

Doing what he asked, you bit back a moan when he moved to fit his palm over you through your underwear. The warmth from it radiating through you, making your throb and giving you the urge to fold your legs in on it.

Tentative strokes were what you received, at first. Up and down, coaxing you and drawing you into him. Then his fingers became more confident, certain in their touch, moving with a sense of familiarity you had been missing. 

“‘S this okay?”

His voice was soft, hard to hear over your breathing and the blood starting to rush around your ears. You found yourself nodding, however. Giving him the permission he desired, making his next movement the easiest. 

His fingers hooked, slipped underneath the thin piece of fabric and the quiet groan that left his lips only had you moving your legs that bit higher. 

“‘S it nice.”

Harry was enticing. From his oozing velvety voice to his careful, barely there touch. You were lost to him. Finding it hard to breath as your body begged for you to be actually - really - touched. 

With a heavy swallow, you felt your eyes fall shut with your slow, deep breath and let your head turn to the side, finding the edge of a propped up pillow to shield your torture expression. 

“Don’t hide from me,” his voice lazily made itself known, as he looked up from under his brow at you and caused your eyes to drop as you looked down your body. He descended lower and lower, hands pushing up at his tee against your stomach, to reveal your bare skin to him. 

Spongy kisses, encased by stubble, pressed into your skin. His fingers never once let up in their tease, touch opening you up for him. The soft twitch of your legs when his fingers landed on your clit, sliding over it. 

“Relax for me,” he hummed. “You good… s’it feel good?”

Confident nod, you swallowed again. Tongue pushing between your lips to lick away the dryness. 

“Okay wi’this?” 

Another nod.

The press of his fingers onto your clit caused you to breathe deeply. A hiss of ‘yes’ as you exhaled. 

“Tell me if it’s changed.”

And you knew what he meant. His desire to know if you still liked things the same as before important to him. 

You couldn’t help the low and long moan that left your throat. Neither could you stop the lift of your hips from the bed as you twisted your body as he stroked at your clit. 

Heavenly ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ were pulled from you. Encased by ‘yeses’ of various pitches. Harry’s nose was buried into the skin of your ribs, having managed to push the tee you still wore to underneath your boobs and in the process expose more of your skin to him.

His mouth sucked against your skin on the inside of your left boob, just at the underside, and from the groan he omitted you knew you were going to be left with an almighty love bite. 

“Oh,” you sighed, as you felt his tongue lave at the mark, again nudging upwards and taking the shirt with him. Tongue over your exposed nipple, alert from the cold and due to your aroused state. 

Your lower half was warm, fire stoked while he stroked at your clit. A sharply exhaled ‘fuck’ from you had him smiling around your nipple. The last time you had found yourself getting this wet - soaked and slick, the kind that meant your walls were smooth and would pull him right in - had been with him. 

A laugh left you from underneath your breath, one not noticed by Harry who was too lost in the feel of you beneath him. The thought of anyone being able to get you this way from an act so virginal was unknown. Of course, he was the exception. Of course. 

“Hear tha’?”

So lazy he couldn’t even ask you properly. 

“Nice an’ wet.”

The slip of his fingers moving lower had you humming delightfully, legs falling open a bit more as his fingers danced at your entrance. The contrast of the heel of his palm to your clit was welcomed, warm but dry in comparison to heavily wet fingers. 

You could feel yourself pulsing as his palm gently rubbed you again, nervous energy had you teetering. Fingers at your center. You wanted them, you wanted him in anyway he would give you himself. 

Quiet, apart from staggered breathing, he smiled to himself when he felt your walls give way to him and his two fingers with ease. Your moan was voracious, a clear need apparent as the edges of it died against your dry throat. 

He knew it was his name. He had heard it like that before. Plenty of times. Said in the same tone too. Sprinkled with incoherent desire. 

“‘S that want you wanted?” He found himself asking. “Should’a just said.”

And you would’ve if you could. But instead your head was tossed back and your toes were curling into the sheets. 

These were the moments he has missed. When he really thought about your time apart. The moments where the two of you were so lost in each other that the nonsense that slipped from each of your lips was met with no judgement but rather embraced. 

Reacquainting after time apart. Rekindling your desires and unspoken love for one another. 

Eyes on your face, he couldn’t  quite see you how he would’ve liked but he did nothing to change it. His own want went out of the window in favour of you getting and keeping yours. 

The smell of you was everywhere as he dropped his eyes and pushed his face against your boobs once more. A man quite willing to suffocate in his need to want more. 

He could feel your falling apart under his experienced touch, relentless and unfleeting now. His fingers curled and with each ‘come hither’ your breathy moans only drove him on. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he spoke through gritted teeth, the tension in his arm burning at his wrist. Mutters of desperate mantras - ‘come on, come on’ - mouthed to your skin.

And you could - like this - you could. But did you want to?

While you were feverishly hot, everywhere, for him - body unable to stop rolling with each pull of his fingers - your head knocked back and softly shook from side to side. 

“No,” you moaned lightly, “Not yet… Harry.” 

“No?”

His questioning had you dropping your eyes, head still lolled to the side with pouted expression. 

Mind still slightly hazy, you stared at him. He was still in his underwear, very obviously hard. Head nudging slightly, you breathed, “Come here.”

Empty. That’s how you felt when he slowly moved his fingers and left you clenching around nothing but the cold air of his bedroom. 

His right hand was against your skin, middle and third finger slightly hovering away as they were coated in you and he selfishly didn’t want to lose that to your flesh but rather his tongue. 

Legs welcomed him, smoothing around the backs of his thighs once before lifting and using your  feet to try to push his underwear down. 

Harry let out a noise you hadn’t heard in a while, a mix between a grunt and chuckle. The kind that created an aggravated fire within you.

“‘S not gonna work,” he mumbled, eyes closing as he felt the warmth of you against his clothes bulge. Your one thigh lifting to encourage him to roll onto his back.

And he did, taking him with you. A mess of awkward limbs tangling. With shaky knees you climbed over him, eyes down and taking in his underwear.

A pair of black briefs fit him just right, hugged him and holding his straining cock. 

Your eyes slowly rose up his body, his chest lifting and falling with heavy breathing as his chin softened while he looked down at you with his fingers just about leaving his mouth from where he’d cleaned your arousal off of them. 

You felt his eyes peering at you as you lowered down, nose first teasing against the waistband of his underwear before you found your lips pressed kisses to the tops of his thighs. Enjoying a little bit too much the feel of his leg hair against your nose and lips. 

Hand lifted, it blindly sought out the waistline of his pants and allowed fingers to slip inside to pull down the material. 

Just about past his thighs, you locked eyes with Harry. His soft blinking gaze and content smile had you grinning impishly, knowing in the faintly lit room he would most likely be able to make out the blush upon your skin. 

You’d saw but more arousingly heard his cock move as the briefs which encased it gave way and it fell back, heavy, against Harry’s lower abdomen. And that was where it lay, next to the hair in Harry’s stomach and down to his pubic region. 

Small crawl to get you better situated, you flipped some of your hair over to your opposite shoulder and felt him touch the back of your head with a barely there graze as you licked up the underside of his cock.

“Shit, darling,” he breathed, voice blissful above you but filled with a rawness only brought on by sexual vulnerability. 

Looking up his body, you could see the grin that had made its way to his lips. His teeth quick to bite it away, with little to no avail. 

You licked again, mouth moving lower to delicately suck one of his balls into your mouth. 

The groan that left him was husky, right from the back of his throat. The kind that gave you shivers from how unguarded it was. His legs widened against the bed, your eyes diverted to his thighs from his movement. How thick they looked as they flattened beneath you on his bed. 

Wrapping your hand around him, you ran your thumb over the head of his cock. Up and down. Slowly taking in every movement and what it did to him. Just like you remembered.

“‘S this right?” You asked, hand and mouth working him and his balls over. Looking up once more you watched him hum, with the smallest of nods. His lips were rolled into his mouth, dimples prominent as they dipped into his cheeks.

His nostrils flared as he breathed and his hair had started to fall across his forehead from how he’d been dipping his head back into the pillows beneath him.

“Squeeze me ‘ere,” he reminded you, voice holding a slight tremble, his hand encasing yours and encouraging a tighter hold as he leisurely dragged both his and your hand up and down his cock. “Slowly- tha’s it.”

You pulsed between your thighs as you watched him moving your hand with his, each downward pull showing his glistening head more and more. Heavy swallow, you knew he was holding back and you would be lying if you said the visual wasn’t encouraging you to take him in your mouth properly.

Almost like second nature you did exactly that. Licking at your lips as you lifted up and wrapped your lips around his exposed tip. When his hand faltered from the pleased sound you voiced now you were on him, you were able to slip from under his grip and felt him continue to wank as you suckled so teasingly. 

With each bob of your head, you felt his hand pull away more, as your mouth and jaw stretched around his hard cock. 

“Yea’,” he groused, deeply when his hand fell to give way to your mouth and move to shift your curtaining hair. Harry rolled his hips up gently, eager to get the last bit of him down your throat. Old him would’ve voiced it too, but he felt this moment didn’t call for that.

He softly fucked your face, if there were such a thing. The nudges of his cock warming through your core as the throbbing sensation that had been lingering between your legs only grew.

Harry fought against himself to make you gag, teetering on it with each raise of his hips as his glassy eyes barely focused on you. Too engrossed in the filth he wished to voice. 

“God, look at you,” he dropped his head back. Ironic really. Unable to continue looking as he said it. It was tame in comparison to how he wanted to speak.

So, he laughed. Breathy at first, before becoming a little bit louder. You lips twitching into a smile as you lifted off of him and gently tugged before letting it fall and bounce proudly erect. Kissing up his stomach and placing your knees either side of his hips. 

He had almost forgotten you weren’t completely naked until you sat on top of him covered up. Eyes too taken by your face to care, as you blinked down at him with a doe-eyed expression that made him want to lap you up in any way he could have you.

His right hand pulled you down to him, lips greedy against yours as his left hand found the top of your bum cheek, trying to blindly find his cock and guide him into you regardless of knowing it wouldn’t work.

“Like this?” He asked as his lips hovered at the corner of yours, wanting to know if you wanted it this way. “How’d you wan’ it?”

“On top.”

“Me?”

Your voices were breathy as you spoke around the faintest of kisses. Both eager to start from the feel of you both so close to each other. 

The faintest of nods was given to him and it was all it took for him to roll the both of you, further continuing to ruckle up the bedsheet beneath you.

“Do I need one?”

And you knew you should be responsible and not shake your head no at his ambiguous mention of protection. All rushed and breathy, chest heavy as he exhaled in a nervous rush, but you just wanted him. Bare and in you. 

Underwear was quickly removed before you’re resumed your position. 

He watched you softly as you shook your head no, Harry pushing the shirt up under your boobs, your arms wrapping around his neck as he continued to kiss at your jaw and cheeks. 

“Planning on staying over?” 

Feeling him shift up and jar his head back, just enough to get a good look at you, you stared at him not knowing how to respond. It was practically morning now, so hadn’t you already? 

His hands moved your legs as you thought, his one holding you where he needed you to be. 

“Don’t think ‘bout it for too long, darling,” he joked nudging his nose gently against you as he watched the way your lips went against you, smiling at his words. 

“Let me know how long we can go for,” he added, gently taking his cock that was sprung and bobbing between you into his hand. He looked down and tapped it to your wetness, sliding it down with a press of his fingers to the topside of his shiny cock to line himself up.

“Gonna let me have you all night.” 

Your breathing picked up, chest trembling slightly at how much more of a statement those words sounded than a question. An amorous glance looked back at him, slow blinking and head lolled gently to the side. 

“Eh? Sleep in the mornin’?”

A deep and shaky breath had your mouth falling, your eyes slowly shutting as you felt him push in. You were right when you thought about how easily you would take him earlier. Body crying out for a good fuck. 

“Fuck me,” he groaned deeply, head dropping forward and hair hanging down. You reached for him, wanting to see his face.

Harry obliged you, his face turning to find your wrist and pressing a chaste kiss to your skin. “Missed havin’ you like this,” he breathed. Quick bite down to his bottom lips, nostrils flared.

“‘S tight.”

He knew the remark was boyish. Unable to stop himself as he eased out and rolled his hips back into yours. Each push and pull giving you a little more of him. Deep frown etched between his eyebrows as his breath caught in his throat, mouth slightly fallen and lips starting to dry. 

“Haven’t-“ your voice croaked, head dipping into the pillow beneath you.

Haven’t slept with anyone in a while. Haven’t slept with anyone since you last slept with him. Haven’t had the desire to. 

He hummed in agreement as the two of you felt the words fall away from you both. Harry’s concentration firmly on each roll of his hips as he gave you more of him. The rhythm he set being one that you could only describe as intimate. Familiar. 

He was warm on top of you as he alternated between grinding dips of his hips, thrusts that were tantalisingly slow, making your hips roll up to meet him and causing him to smile at how you wanted it. 

He had to voice it. “You want it, don’t you?”

He only knew so easily because he did too. He had done the minute he fucked the whole thing up and let you slip away with his dwindling text messages in response and shorter phone calls every time you had a chance.

Your hand glided to the back of his head, the other down to his bum as you encouraged him to give you his entire weight. He was close but you want him closer. Close was never close enough. 

Was that enough to answer his question of wanting it, wanting him? 

Squeezing at his bum, you fought the urge you had to give him a slap, too caught up into the heavy groan that moulded into your face as he pressed his nose to your skin.

“You make me good,” he lowly gruffed against your cheek, his hand trailing down to take yours from his bum.

Fingers laced and pressed against the mattress upon which you lay, you tilted your head back and pressed it harder into the pillow beneath you. You keened and mewled beneath him, breathy noises of indecipherable words as the head of his cock bumps your spot inside. 

“You make me feel good.”

You were taken by his gasp, how desperate he sounded as he hiked your leg higher, wanting you to spread yourself open for him. His hips don’t give you much choice other than to play along as he moved with an assiduity you had never found with any other man. 

He allowed you to feel every inch of him going in, pulling out and going back in. Teasing himself and you with a slow and measured pace that had you passionately panting underneath him. 

“No one gets it like this.”

Looking at him with heavy-lidded vision, you wove your fingers through his hair and tugged. His face contorted blissfully, breath catching in his throat before it heaved out of his mouth as his chest forced him to exhale. 

You were nodding, agreeing with him. No one had you like this. Him like this. It like this. Sweltering and sticky. 

Teeth gritted, he grunted as he thrusts grew heavier now with more conviction behind their motion. 

“Deeper,” you gasped, “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

His pelvis was heavy against yours now, making it difficult for you to lift and roll your hips to meet his thrusts. And he knew you loved it like this, he still knew that. 

Legs practically pushed to your chest, held there by your own fruition as they rocked and rubbed up against his fleshy sides cradling him to you, feet bobbing in the air with toes curled.

The sensual roll he was giving you caused the grip of your fingers to go slack against his head. You could feel him smiling against your skin, as your breath hitched in your throat and your hand squeezed at his. 

“Touch my arse,” he moaned, sliding his hand out of yours and breathing in quick succession until your hand met his bum cheek once more. 

This time you didn’t falter, gently tapping and feeling the tension to his thrusts as he clenched. Quick squeeze and nails digging in creating crescent moons against his white bits. “Yeah darlin’, know I like it like tha’.” 

Head turned to the side, you messily brought your mouths together. He chuckled as you broke away, probably from the words he’d just spoken. Laughter dying down into a hum as your feet wrapped around his lower back.

His lips were dry as they met yours, too caught up in how his mouth hung open, to make them wet and inviting, as his need to breathe was evident. 

“No ones like you,” you admitted. “No one comes close.”

He revelled in the whine of your last word, how it had your back arching and allowed him to wind his hand around you to lift your bum slightly to encourage your hips to continue meeting his.

He knew you were tired, the breathy whines that were spoken up towards the ceiling were not lost on him. And he knew he had to keep going, to give it to you how you deserved. To make up for the lost time, to say sorry for ‘being a bit of a dick’. A lot of a dick. 

When you knocked your head back, your eyes were unable to concentrate and he was mesmerised by the visual of complete, unadulterated lust that was present on your features. Hair sticking to your temples from your exertion and face void of any concern. 

“Make me come,” you whispered your plea, feeling him bury his face into your neck and drop himself down flush to you. With one hand woven through the hair on the back of his head, your other stayed at him bum feeling the grind of his groin against yours as he lay on you. 

He was sensual now, if not a little tired himself, as his breathing left his mouth in hot pants against the side of your neck. You could feel yourself beginning to flush from the heaviness of his body as you both rocked from the force of his motions and the fullness of him above you.

With rustling sheets and sounds of grunts, your cooed ‘oh’ left you, as you felt the motion of Harry’s hips pickup pace. Your fingers clawed into his hair, lifting the strands and softly pulling as your body ached in the most delectable way.

Harry groaned around a smile, muffled by your skin as he could feel his stomach start to tighten; his orgasm impending. He tried to hold off as much as he could, eager to watch you come undone first in the best way he could as he was rendered speechless and breathless alongside it.

Instead you were both a mess of tangled limbs, with rocking motions so vigorous that you felt yourself moving up the bed. A symphony of noises - slapping skin, feeble grunts and creaking bed.

Harry wheezed, knowing he sounded pathetic by too caught up to care. Through hooded eyes you caught sight of his mouth falling agape before he ground his teeth together as his thrusts heavily rolled into you, nudging your entire body.

Your mouth fell as his name unashamedly fell from your lips. Demandingly, but in a juxtaposed whisper, you told him to give it to you. 

“I am,” he whispered. “Oh, I am, darling- Mmhm.“

You whimpered, feeling each breath get harder to produce as your abdomen began to tighten and your chest heave. “I’m coming,” you hastily whispered. Voice nothing more than a pant. 

Looking up at Harry, you watched his bottom lip become captive to his teeth, as his nostrils flared while he breathed. His thrusts were at their heaviest now, wetter and sloppier but getting the job done.

“Gonna- oh.”

This was the loudest you’d been in a while. Moans long and dying off into wordless bliss as your muscles tensed and your orgasm rolled through you. Leaving you as nothing more than cloudy thoughts, and a warm, floaty body.

You felt the bounce of his laugh against his skin from his breath, as he continued to move above you and moulded you into nothing but a high-pitched mess as he wouldn’t stop.

Body falling slightly slack, relaxed and pliant to the bed, you felt Harry move his face into your neck and nudge his hips once more. His ruts were less rhythmic, rough grunts and indecipherable slurring only matching his pending euphoria. 

With his final, heavily thrust, his hips slammed to a stop against yours. Your breathing stuttered as you held him to you, hands moving over his shuddering shoulders and ears listening to his muffled groans which vibrated through you.

“Yea’,” he drawled. Low from the back of his throat. “Yes.”

***

Sunday mornings were made to be slow. To bask in the stillness. To hear nothing but the blood that was rushing through your ears.

It was far too bright to be considered early morning. Not with the winter months looming. 

You stretched your limbs, listening for the crack of your back as your hands reached for the t-shirt that was still awkwardly bunched up to your armpits. 

Rolling your body slightly you reached for the hem and pulled it down, letting your head fall to the side to see an empty bed which allowed a sense of regret to creep into your morning thoughts. Blinking slowly, you almost missed the sound of the bedroom door gently bouncing against the wall.

A hushed, “bollocks” spat out for the other side of the wood causing your lips to twitch upwards in a smile. 

A pause came to Harry’s movements as he caught your eye in nothing more than a pair of fresh underwear and mismatched mugs in each hand. 

“Stayed the night,” he hummed, eyes softly shining. A soft smile pulled onto your lips as he left a cup of tea closer to your side of the bed and you watched him start to blow gently at the lip of his own mug. With his mouth about to take a sip, he asked, “Fancy staying another?” 

[blankd]

Thoughts on The Mitchells vs the Machines

I watched it a while ago and kept forgetting to post my thoughts on it, but some posts here on tumblr recently reminded me.

I disagree with the majority takeaways I see but is that not the spice of life?

As a standalone movie its inoffensive and the writing of it will likely exit my brain in a few months.  However I can appreciate that the visual style was different from the typical fare and the mixture of 2d elements for visual embellishments were mostly enjoyable and well-suited for Katie as the POV character.

It's a bit "hyper" for my liking, but that's fine, it's likely intended for an audience that's accustomed to the flood that is the current norm of the internet.  It was probably made with GIFable moments in mind and that is the most frequent content that is shared about it, so it certainly succeeded in that regard.

My more critical take is that jokes are delivered at the expense of what could be more authentic themes.  Quips are made that draw attention to character flaws or undercut questions the movie should try to answer, but inevitably they are ignored to move onto the next joke or story beat.

The rest would fall more into spoiler territory, so read more for that.

--"They Were Both In the Wrong"

I personally disagree heavily with the thrust of how "both sides" were wrong when the degrees are disproportionate.

I've seen claims that Katie was "as in the wrong" as her father, but she's incredibly patient to the man who does her material harm.

I've yet to have seen someone say specifically what Katie did *wrong* to her father that is at all on par with the *years* he at best hasn't been able to interact with her or worse, actively refused to engage with her interests.

I would generously venture that her flaw was that she was more willing to communicate her feelings to strangers, but she easily talks to her mother and brother- her brother even helps her with her movies and she happily engages him with his own interests, which pivots the point back to how her father is physically/emotionally unavailable and led to the erosion and distance between the two of them.

Due to this, MvM comes across more as Kaite having to do so much more to guide her father rather than a more mutual learning experience for the both of them.

--"Technology that [Dis]Connects"

It's probably beyond the scope and intent of the film, but I was surprised there was no examination about why technology can be more alluring than interacting with physically present people.

For better or worse, the internet can be used as a means of supplementing the validation and acceptance of family.  It can also lead to no longer connecting to people around them because of the validation high of appealing to a constantly 'awake' sea of strangers- the spotlight is warmer than the cold reality that they are not the internet image they have cultivated.

For example, the rival 'perfect' family was never revealed to be a carefully constructed highlight reel that Mrs. Mitchell envies, they really were actually that perfect- because that provides an easier punchline than an examination or acknowledgement of how the internet can create unhealthy expectations.

I also can't expect MvM to acknowledge the reality that LGBTA+ people who are rejected by their family resort to seeking a new one through the internet because it would be much harder to redeem/rehabilitate a man defined by being tethered to "old values" if he was homophobic instead of "overprotective" and apprehensive at his daughter's departure from home and her dubious art career.

But hey we got that quick line at the end that Katie likes a girl, so that's a diversity win or something.

(To be clear I'm not expecting a whole parade or even an A or B-plot dedicated to it, but I think it should be acknowledged that this kind of "surprise inclusion" is very easily erased with a change of audio and would be completely unsurprised if this were the case for countries that are homophobic.  People can be happy about it, but it is dishonest to pretend that this is a bolder statement than it is.)

In that sense, I do and don't hold MvM to taking a "safer" route about how family always has your back, but this still feels like an important omission considering the focus on technology and its dynamic with the Mitchells.

I will also say that it was also bizarre, to me at least, that the obvious route that her father sees the value of home videos didn't become an active point between him and Katie.  Or that Mr. Mitchell's carpentry never really amounts to anything despite having a sentimental wooden moose.

Lastly, I think it's an unintentional, but it's interesting that Katie going to college to pursue her passion is viewed as a Terrible Thing by her father even though if he had his way, he'd be ostensibly living in the woods away from everyone else except his wife.

This isn't a problem, people are a collection of contradictions, but It's fascinating to see what the *narrative* treats as a difficult sacrifice while simultaneously pulling at heartstrings when PAL cites how children ignore their mothers.  There's an unexamined comedy that Mr. Mitchell's losing out on his 'passion' to live in the woods away from people is treated as tragic despite the movie's insistence on staying connected with your blood family.

--"The Inconsistent Personhood of AI"

PAL is rightfully angry at being discarded for something new; it's provided as a glimpse of what Katie will do when she finds 'her people' at college.

This in of itself is a good hook, because there is no one universal answer to when a flawed relationship should be mended with compromise or if it's better off being broken for the wellbeing of the ones involved.  Family and relationships are not programming, it's a choice and a gamble for whatever it brings but is nonetheless something that must be mutually worked upon.

Initially I thought that PAL was being set up as an exaggerated parallel to Mr. Mitchell.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell did their best to provide for their family.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell are in different stages of being 'discarded' by their family.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell both retaliate at their lack of power in the scenario by using the power granted by their roles to infringe on the autonomy of others for selfish reasons.

PAL even gives a 'chance' for her plan to be halted with, I had assumed this was being set up as the thesis of the movie, about humanity and the value of family, relationships, etc. being used to help someone who is already hurting.

But despite Katie looking at the camera and explaining herself, it is never actually directly resolved or challenged because a punchline was deemed more desirable for this narrative climax.

This begs the question of why PAL bothered with the pretense that she could be reasoned with, especially since this is not some question leveled at all of humanity, just two people.

I'm curious how the writers came to the conclusion that this was the best execution of the scene or if Katie's speech was considered immune to any challenge from PAL.  Would anyone have accepted this outcome if PAL were not an AI but instead a person?

It's not necessarily bad writing they went this route, but I doubt anyone would consider this good writing either.

By the end of the movie, PAL is no longer a 'person' who was betrayed and is lashing out, she is an object to be destroyed because the movie has to wrap up.  No compassion or chances are spared to this AI that did literally everything asked of her except take being discarded quietly.

Did PAL deserve a redemption arc? For this length of movie, probably not.  But it could have concluded with a commitment to doing no further harm.  Instead it is an accidental glimpse at how easily the pretense of compassion can be quickly discarded and mostly unexamined with the right framing.

A likely unintentional example is the conditional humanity given to Eric and Deborahbot who are adopted as "family" while the rest of the robots are mowed down without another thought.  Some are even beaten and broken while begging for mercy, because again, it is a funnier punchline.

Far be it for me to advocate that the murderbots needed 'a second chance uvu' but for a movie whose conceit rests on 'sticking by family' and 'giving chances', the writers certainly made a choice in deciding which AI get honorary humanity and spared violent death- perhaps PAL had a point about humanity's callousness after all.  Bad robots are discarded, good robots get to live.

Even the CEO who realizes he enabled this mess (easily the most unrealistic part of the movie, honestly) is given another chance and he manages to take away a completely wrong lesson.

Speaking of-

--"Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Used Tech Like This"

There's a particular image/gif set posted about MvM with the CEO apologizing for the machine uprising, attributing it to unchecked technology and monopolies.  I've always seen it accompanied by people congratulating the scene as if any of this is at all relevant to the movie.

Charitably, these are people who haven't watched the movie and don't know that PAL is a phone AI single-handedly doing this, but most take the stance that this scene is proof the movie is not saying technology is bad, only corporations are.

The speech isn't technically wrong but it is so utterly divorced from what happens in the movie that it's surreal to see people congratulate it as anything but a moment of soapboxing.

None of the datagrabbing was used at all as part of the takeover.  It's all magical kid-friendly terminators with no relevance to what anyone's browsing history is.  If the company was one that produced robot assistants instead of a being a super tech monopoly, there would be no narrative difference.

The closest to a predatory tactic that is used in MvM is the offer of free wifi which is used to lure most people into their cells which they happily comply with. Curiously this... commentary of people’s mindless addiction to technology is not acknowledged by the Tumblr Court with the same intensity as the CEO’s speech.

But more constructively, I do feel it’s a missed opportunity that Katie who's supposed to be an extremely online person apparently never said any bad things about her family or made any petty vent films for PAL to weaponize.  Instead an in-media audio at one of the outskirt locations was used to accomplish its Traitor Revealed moment.

IN CONCLUSION

MvM is a movie that involves topics that ought to be touched on and explored properly in media and chickens out on all of it due to possible concerns with age-appropriate handling or because it was more committed to its comedy than whatever it has to say about family, change and how technology affects people.

It also reminded me that I hope media will finally graduate from the trope that if you spec into any ‘outdoorsy’ hobby you are incurably afraid of technology.

[thekitchenismykingdom]

Kitchen Shenanigans - Lovestruck Fanfiction

Relationship - Lucien Rivercrest/Roman Tarrenglade  Rating - G Summary - Lucien and Roman, navigating the waters of a new relationship, spend some time together in the kitchen. Unfortunately for them, they can't quite keep it professional. A/N - I was inspired to write this solely because I was flipping through a food magazine at 2am when I couldn't sleep. The chili potato tart recipe is real, and the crust is delicious.

Another lazy Sunday came to Sweet Enchantments, and the two denizens of the kitchen were spending the day inside, crafting and perfecting recipes. Lucien was busy with a fresh batch of golden éclairs, a charitable donation requested by a supportive and well-respected customer. Liora was only happy to oblige, and volunteered Lucien to prepare something for the event. Lucien couldn’t remember exactly what it was for, but he recalled the organization helped incarcerated magicians find gainful employment after serving their sentence or as a condition of early release.

Living and working at the café had expanded his thought process about magical society and how it treats people, judging them based on their background and ability. While he would have preferred spending his day off in other ways, Lucien knew this was the right thing to do. He had been given an opportunity here at the café, so why not give back and help others?

He glanced at Roman on the other side of the kitchen, who had been preparing some kind of pastry for dinner. A dozen thoughts swarmed his head all at once, but Lucien shook his head and focused on the task before him.

While he carefully filled the éclairs with a marbled lemon and raspberry cream, Roman took his chili tart crust out of the oven. The baking paper crackled as he shook it slightly, the baking weights rolling over each other.

“This smells incredible already,” Roman said with a pleased smile. Lucien paused in his work and sniffed the air.

“It’ll be even better with the filling.”

Roman turned toward Lucien after placing the partially-baked tart shell on the counter.

“Oh? Mr. Cool as a Cucumber broke his concentration for my little tart?”

Lucien smirked and picked up another éclair.

“Mere mortals of the kitchen deserve to be graced with a compliment from time to time,” Lucien replied, not taking his eyes off the dessert in hand before placing it down and picking up another.

Roman shook his head fondly, returning to his tart. He peeled the roasted tomatoes, garlic, and chili and set to work mashing them together, seasoning along the way. He poured the mashed tomato mixture into the bottom of the tart and spread it evenly before reaching for his thinly-sliced potatoes. Arranging them carefully into concentric circles, Roman reached for the pile of grated cheese to his left.

“Perfectly placed potato slices? On your food?” Lucien teased from behind Roman’s shoulder, and Roman jumped slightly.

“Lucien! I’m concentrating!”

Lucien hummed and grabbed a few strings of cheese to taste.

“Mmm. Buttery, and slightly nutty. Good melt factor.”

“It’s a type of Swiss cheese,” Roman explained, sprinkling it on top of the potatoes. “Emeril introduced it to me a while ago, and I thought I’d incorporate it into a new dish I’m crafting.”

“You’re using the first tomatoes of the season?”

Roman hummed and placed the tart into the oven, setting a timer. He stretched out and set to work cleaning his station, opting for a traditional approach as opposed to using magic. Lucien had a habit of needling him about his messy cleaning magic.

“Well, would you like to assist me in finishing the éclairs?” Lucien asked as he observed Roman clean up.

Roman paused for a moment in wiping the counter down, eventually replying, “I might sit out in the garden. Tend to some of the vegetables.”

Lucien blinked.

“Weren’t you out there just this morning?”

“Yes, but it’s a nice day and I have to wait for the tart to finish baking anyway.”

“Hm.”

Lucien slowly walked back to his station, staring at the éclairs. He picked up one of the few left and inserted the tip of the piping bag, gently squeezing until the felt the éclair expand slightly. He worked on two more before asking Roman, “Are you sure you’d rather go outside?”

This time Roman turned to him, curious.

“Did you need help with something?”

Lucien visibly swallowed, but his voice was its normal cool tone.

“I don’t really need help.”

Roman stared at Lucien as he finished filling the éclairs, placing the nearly empty piping bag to the side, squished and crinkled. He walked over and placed his chin on Lucien’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to stay so we can finish these together?”

Lucien was quiet for a moment, glancing at Roman from the corner of his eye.

”...Yes.”

Roman smiled and brushed a kiss against Lucien’s cheek.

“That’s all you had to say,” he said, taking his place beside Lucien at the workstation.

“I’m still new to this,” Lucien mumbled, letting out a huff as he turned to grab a bowl of melted dark chocolate and place it on the station.

Roman understood Lucien’s feelings well; a situation as complicated as theirs required a mutual understanding. Lucien had never acted on his feelings for another man before, and they were both involving themselves with a co-worker. Roman didn’t wan to believe that their good working relationship would be soured if their romantic entanglement ended, but it was always a possibility.

Shaking away these thoughts, Roman gave Lucien a bright smile and reassured, “We both are. We’ll navigate any challenges that present themselves, and we’ll do it together.”

Lucien returned Roman’s smile with his own, albeit, smaller one, before shifting his focus back to the filled but bare éclairs.

“I need these dipped in the chocolate, Roman,” Lucien explained. He grabbed an éclair and dipped it in the bowl, slowly pulling it out and allowing the excess chocolate to drip. He delicately twisted his wrist so the éclair faced up and showed the glossy chocolate finish to Roman.

“Think you can do that?”

Roman was tempted to take a bite right out of Lucien’s hand, but he had no desire to ruin the nice time they were having preparing the éclairs together.

“Of course! Leave it to me, O Master of Pastries.” Roman then set to work dipping the éclairs into the chocolate, flourishing his wrist just as Lucien showed him to ensure the chocolate covered the tops of the pastry evenly.

Lucien, meanwhile, whipped ice-cold cream with a balloon whisk until it stood up in a stiff peak on the whisk.

“Shall we turn it over your head to make sure it’s whipped enough?” Roman suggested, a small smile playing on his lips.

“These aren’t egg whites, Roman.”

“Oh, yes. Well, maybe you should use your big strong arms to hand-whip some egg whites next? Then we can use that bowl trick.”

“Something tells me you want to see me covered in-”

Lucien stopped himself, and Roman raised an eyebrow at him, his smile morphing into a smirk.

“Yes? Go on, Lucien. What were you saying?”

Lucien ignored him and dropped the whipped cream into a clean piping bag, twisting it closed. Quickly he piped a perfect star of whipped cream on one end of each éclair, quickly catching up to Roman.

“You’re lagging,” Lucien pointed out, and Roman sniffed at him, but hurried in his task until each éclair was dipped and covered in a thin sheen of dark chocolate. Lucien hummed his approval as he finished piping the last bit of cream on the final few éclairs.

“What’s next?” Roman asked, and Lucien gestured to a bowl that he had floated over a minute before.

“We decorate the éclairs with a few strands of these candied lemon peels,” Lucien explained, and showed Roman just how many slices to put and how he wanted them arranged. They worked together quietly after that, both men concentrating on the task at hand. Lucien looked over at Roman to evaluate his éclairs, and noticed how his long fingers carefully placed each strand of lemon peel in an artful arrangement on top of the whipped cream.

“The sugary peel is a nice pop of colour against the black and white on top of the pastry, don’t you think, Lucien?”

“I- Yes, that’s one reason I chose this garnish.”

Roman heard the slight hesitation and turned his head to look at Lucien. Lucien swallowed, acutely aware of Roman’s eyes scanning his face, deep red rippling pools that finally settled on his mouth.

“Would you mind if I stole a kiss?” Roman whispered, dessert completely forgotten.

Lucien’s professionalism and respect for the kitchen came to the forefront of his mind, but something else told him that he could make a small exception. Just this once. Roman’s sweet expression rivalled the pastry in front of them, and Lucien found in this moment, he could not resist the temptation.

“Not this time,” Lucien whispered back, leaning in and-

“How are those éclairs coming Luci- Oh!”

Lucien and Roman sprang apart as if pulled by magic, Liora’s voice ringing out in the silent kitchen.

“Ah, Liora, I wasn’t- We didn’t expect-” Roman scrambled, immediately trying to cover for his indiscretion. The surprise wearing off, Liora schooled her features into a neutral mask, the usual calm she exuded settling Roman down.

“I can’t say I’m not surprised to see you both in such a... position,” Liora began, a hand on her hip, “But I hope that the kitchen won’t be a place to tiptoe around in the future.” She gave them both firm, even looks. Lucien fidgeted for a moment, certain that Liora’s gaze lingered on him for a moment longer than it had on Roman, as if to say she was more disappointed in him for this uncharacteristic lapse in judgement.

“Absolutely not,” Lucien managed to say, standing a little straighter. “This...won’t happen again.” He looked to Roman, who nodded in agreement.

Liora gave them another once over, light eyes practically glowing with intensity, before her posture relaxed and the hand fell from her hip back to her side.

“How are the desserts coming?” she asked, taking a few steps towards the counter and observing their work.

“Nearly everything is ready. All the éclairs are filled and dipped, and only a few remaining pastries need their garnish,” Lucien explained. He picked up an éclair and placed it on a small dish before handing it to Liora for inspection. She accepted the plate and brought it closer to her face, scanning the pastry while slowly rotating the plate. With a satisfied hum, she put the plate down on the table and gave Lucien a pleased smile.

“These look delectable as always, Lucien. Great work. I appreciate you taking the time to help this initiative,” Liora said, and Lucien only nodded. Liora’s support was a welcome thing, unused to it though he was, and he sometimes felt ill equipped to respond to it.

Liora then turned to Roman, one light eyebrow delicately arched.

“I trust that the next time you assist Lucien, things will stay clean and professional?”

Roman actually blushed, cheeks as red as his hair, and Lucien had to hold back a grin. With a cough, Roman stood up straighter, some natural colour returning to his face.

“Of course, Liora. Today was... Today won’t happen again. Promise.” Roman gave her a winning smile then, and Liora nodded her approval.

Looking around the kitchen, Lucien half-expected her to comment on something else amiss, but she merely smiled and told them to keep up the good work that they do. With a graceful turn, Liora walked towards the dining area, but paused and turned to Roman.

“Whatever you have in the oven smells delicious, Roman. I’d love to try a slice at dinner if it’s not burned yet.”

Then she left the kitchen, heels clacking on the floor as she disappeared.

Lucien and Roman were both silent for a moment before Roman sprang into action with a yelp, grabbing a thick dishtowel and opening the oven door, reaching for the tart he had put in to bake earlier. He quickly but carefully set it down on the counter, scrutinizing the top of it. The cheese was well browned and bubbling, slightly crisp in some spots, and the tart crust was just shy of overcooked. Roman visibly deflated as he let out the breath he had been holding, and Lucien sidled up beside him, just barely brushing shoulders.

“It looks fine,” Lucien said, and Roman sighed again.

After a few moments, Roman leaned into Lucien slightly and asked, “Want to go out into the garden with me? I have to wait a while for this to cool, and...” He trailed off, looking thoughtful.

“I think I’ve had enough kitchen today,” he finished, and Lucien thought back to their intimate moment before Liora walked in. Shame burned under his collar, knowing he was better than that, but he realized he never answered Roman’s question and shook the thoughts away.

“I understand what you mean. I’ll garnish the last few éclairs and I’ll join you once I’ve finished.”

Roman gave him an appreciative smile, squeezing his arm and exiting the kitchen. Lucien watched him leave, smiling to himself despite the day they’d had. Everything between them felt new and just a little bit confusing, but Lucien was ready to face these challenges as long as Roman would be there with him.

Wandering back to the éclairs, Lucien picked up the plate with the lone dessert and gave it a once-over. He decided that Roman needed something sweet, so he would bring the éclair with him for Roman to try.

“Maybe if I’m lucky enough, he’ll share,” Lucien said to himself. With that, he left the kitchen to join Roman outside, two forks hanging loosely in his fingers.

[matildainmotion]

Equality and Diversity: Mothering Difference, Making Art

I have been slow to talk or write about race and diversity because of feeling vastly ill-qualified to do so. I’ve felt I should shut up, listen and let people who do not identify as white, straight and able-bodied do the talking and the writing. But recently I have come to realise that branding myself as ill-qualified feeds into the idea that ‘white’ is all-pervasive, as if white is so much the norm that it isn’t even a race, so what would I know about it? As if I am not part of the problem. I have done enough listening now to understand that structural racism is, in large part, for white people to undo. Just as patriarchy is not only for women to solve, and if you are a wheelchair user then the issue is not your lack of able-bodied legs but the lack of lifts inside the building. As the co-leader, with Lizzy Humber, of a movement called Mothers Who Make, which claims to be for ‘every kind of mother and every kind of maker,’ I think it is probably time I asked whether this is true – are we doing it for everyone, or only a privileged few?

Immediately, it’s complicated. For a start motherhood is a colossal category, so catering for ‘every kind of mother’ is a fantastic and preposterously ambitious claim. We like to try and list them: biological, adoptive, surrogate, foster, expectant, grand, great grand, single, bereaved…..is just the start of the list. Part of the reason for the movement existing at all is that motherhood itself has an ambivalent status in relationship to privilege. ‘Pregnancy and Maternity’ are ‘protected characteristics’ according to the Equality and Human Rights commission but this only covers a mother until 26 weeks after the birth. The remaining 26 plus years of raising the child do not count. I remember at one of the first Arts Council meetings I had with regards to Mothers Who Make, the ACE officer with whom I met said to me, only half-jokingly, “So are you to blame for all the funding applications I am now receiving that include childcare costs?” Whilst being a primary carer is slowly becoming recognised as an access issue, motherhood, the ACE officer explained to me kindly, is not a disability. Becoming a mother is a chosen privilege, not an inherited challenge. You were not born with it, instead, you were the one that did the birthing. This is true, and also not the whole truth. For me, it is true that being able to care for and raise two human beings feels like a huge honour. It is also true that my experiencing and naming my mothering as such is probably a result of my own white, middle class upbringing. It is a result of my having my children in my late 30s and early 40s. But even whilst owning my middle-class-ness, I object to motherhood being framed as a kind of lifestyle choice, as if children were a nice accessory, to be obtained if you wish. Motherhood is not always chosen. In teenagers and young women motherhood is often associated, not with privilege, but with deprivation. And then there is the fact that if motherhood were a lifestyle choice it would be a fairlly terrible one – hours and hours of unpaid, undervalued labour that does nothing for your cultural capital. Meanwhile, for some, missing out on motherhood can be a source of lifelong grief. Like I said, it’s complicated. And that’s just the mothering. Then there’s the making….

When I started Mothers Who Make I decided on the word ‘make’ not just because of the alliteration with the word ‘mother.’ I decided on it because I hoped it would be more welcoming to more mothers to use an everyday verb like ‘make’, rather than a fancy noun like ‘artist.’ You can make a bed as well as a book. You can make it through the day. Make a mess. Make mistakes. Make a difference. Even so mothers are still all too ready to exclude themselves: “Oh, I don’t feel I can come at the moment, I’m not really making anything,” is something I have heard time and again from potential participants and I have to work hard at convincing them that having made some soup is as valid and valued in a MWM meeting as having put a painting on the wall of Tate Modern. The verb ‘to make’ comes close on the heels of the verb ‘to be’ in defining who we are: we are human makings – creatures that create. I have always said that if you understand the need for a group called Mothers Who Make to exist then you can come – i.e if you want to be there, you are welcome. But is that enough? Is it enough to say that anyone can join in if they like? Based on our limited statistics to date, the answer is definitely no- it’s not enough. At present we are predominantly white (96%), straight (85%) and non-disabled (85%) (Stats from 124 equality and diversity monitoring forms, not from on our online community of nearer 3000). To be in a position to have heard of the group at all, to identify with it, to want to participate, to feel able to go through the door of an arts venue (in a pre-pandemic era), I fear already necessitates a certain level of privilege. So, what to do? There is an overwhelming amount to do, but as a start Lizzy and I have put out a call for feedback and am holding two meetings to focus specifically on how to begin to extend and diversify MWM’s reach (for more details see under this blog), and already I have received some incredibly useful responses. Right now, I want to draw on and explore three strands of feedback.

The first (thanks to Lucy Bell) was that MWM’s vibe – in terms of the images we put out, verbal and visual, and the culture of the group – leans towards what is often referred to as ‘attachment parenting.’ Our intention is to hold spaces that are non-judgemental and that do not condone or condemn any particular style of mothering. There is no right answer as to how to mother, how to make or how to manage the extraordinary challenge of doing both. Everyone has to do what is right for their particular circumstances, and their child/ren, and we recognise that ‘right’ even for an individual is an always changing work-in-progress. Part of the point of the network is to share and make visible to one another the enormous range of the answers that people explore and live out. However, in large part because my own solutions to the conundrums of mothering have been attachment parenting ones, I believe this has impacted the vibe of MWM and agree that, if this is not your style of parenting, it might make you steer clear. 

The second piece of feedback (thanks to Zoe Gardner), was that MWM’s spaces, in person or online, often invite ambiguity, asking people to wear double identities, and therefore to blend or blur them. It implies in its name a relationship between mothering and making, a mucky mixture of selves and practices. I think this links back to the attachment parenting point – again I recognise it in myself. It’s what I do – I breastfeed my children, whilst typing my blogs sitting on their bedroom floor. I co-sleep with them and with my notebooks. I have carried the children in slings into rehearsal rooms and meetings. Both my mothering and making styles have been thoroughly messy, emergent and have involved much merging of spaces, tasks, beds, books and more. I strongly suspect that this tendency in me, which has in turn, to date, influenced the messaging of MWM, is connected to my relative privilege: if the gates are open to you, then you can afford to experiment with taking the walls down, rearranging the boundary lines; if the gates are closed to you, then messing with the walls isn’t necessarily an option, and might well be off-putting.

There is a further twist in this however- whilst many of these practices now seem white and middle class, their recent origins are most definitely non-western. A key text, written in 1975, which fuelled the whole attachment parenting movement, was The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. Liedloff was inspired by her time spent living with the indigenous Yequana people in Venezuela. The Yequana carried their babies in slings, co-slept with them, breastfed on demand. MWM’s principle of holding spaces that are ‘adult-centred but child-friendly’ is directly linked to one of Liedloff’s key observations of how the Yequana raised their children in the midst of adult activity, as opposed to segregating them off into child-centred environments. I was born when the Continuum Concept first came out, when carrying your baby on your back would have been identified, by most in the UK, as something a woman from Africa might do, not a practice done by a white woman in Oxfordshire (my mother). Jump on forty years and, if you google images of ‘baby on back,’ the first one that comes up is of a white man with an Ergo-baby sling, a white baby inside it, standing smiling in his garden. This feels like dangerous and difficult territory. This shift could be framed as western culture growing more diverse, or as an act of appropriation, or both. Whichever it is, it adds to the complexity of the picture, which brings me to the third piece of feedback.

           It came as a question on Facebook (thanks to Wendy Thomson) “Are we in white knight/ saviour behaviour mode?”- are non-white mothers, for example, doing just fine, thank you very much, with their own groups and support networks? And then there was also a response (thanks to Kit Whitfield Thomas) “I don’t think it is white knight mode, just manners. What is the alternative? – not trying to include us and assuming we should just sort it all out ourselves?” And along with this Kit made a request not to assume anything, a request, as a mother of a SEN child, for an acknowledgement that “no experience of motherhood is universal”. I think these are all vital questions and requests. We must keep inviting but be alert to our manners – the manner and the mode of the invitation, to keep making and holding space for, not the universe, but the countless, complex, diverse versions of experiences within it.

           These three pieces of feedback have helped me to begin to think more deeply about diversity and equality, inclusion and exclusion in relation to MWM and beyond. Mothers Who Make already excludes – it is explicitly not for everyone – the clue is in the name. I have been challenged on this point repeatedly, most often with the question: “What about fathers?”. My response stems from a belief in specificity and difference. Equal does not mean ‘the same as.’ It may mean having the same pay, the same rights, the same access to opportunities, but it does not mean having the same experiences or identity. For now there needs to be a movement called ‘Black Lives Matter’ not ‘All Lives Matter,’ which doesn’t mean white lives don’t matter; and there needs to be a group called ‘Mothers Who Make’ not ‘Parents who Make,’ even though there are many creative fathers who also need support. Some lives that have not been deemed to matter, need to be visibly valued right now. Some experiences that have been marginalised need a special, protected space. Even in a utopian future, I am not sure the aim should be a world where we no longer need these groups and movements that hold space for specific differences, such as the black, the trans, the queer, the disabled, the maternal– and of course within each of these categories are a thousand further differences. My utopian vision would not be of a colour-blind world, in which no one notices race anymore, but rather one involving ever sharper vision. One in which people would see everything, every colour, pattern, nuance, every difference in ever greater detail.

           For the second time this year I find myself reaching for my copy of the parenting classic, ‘Siblings without Rivalry’ by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. One of its chapters is headed “Equal is less:”

“To be loved equally….is somehow to be loved less. To be loved uniquely—for one’s own special self—is to be loved as much as we need to be loved.”

Back in February I quoted this same line within a blog about rivalry. I wrote,

“Yes, this makes sense. Equal is still in the paradigm of quantity. Equal implies that you could have more than me, even if we have the same. It explains my children bickering over identical chocolate bars – they both have exactly the same, and that, in the end, is not enough, not what they want. They want their differences, not their same-ness…as long as we remain in the world of quantities, of equal signs, then there is always an implied risk that one of them could lose - minus, subtraction, less, loss.”

Often ‘equal’ connotes a measure-able amount which results, I believe, in this fear of scarcity. The phrase ‘equal access,’ seems more useful. It is not the gold, but the access to the gold, that needs to be shared. This may seem like a crazy distinction, but I think it is important – it makes equality a dynamic process not an amount, the swaying of the scales, not the stuff weighed out in them. My children are not equal, they are not static, not quantifiable. As a mother, my job is not to treat them the same, but rather to recognise and celebrate their evolving, see-sawing differences. In a way their differences are the gold, and it is plentiful. Diversity involves a generous kind of maths – multiplication – always more. Equality and Diversity monitoring forms, however, involve more difficult calculations- our differences are boxed,tracked and stacked into statistics in pursuit of everyone having equal access. It is hard to keep the sense of equality as a dynamic process when faced with those forms. So, whilst they are a critical tool on a vital quest, I think we also need to keep doing the other sum- the one so long that it never reaches the equals sign but we know the answer to it is infinity – a glorious inventory of our never-ending differences.

As is recognised in the work of Abraham Maslow, in Marshal Rosenburg’s Non-Violent Communication, and in many spiritual traditions, if you go far enough with detailing the differences, patterns begin to emerge – we start to connect up, to equal one another at the deepest level of our needs. “Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a green field,” writes Rumi, the 12th C Sufi poet, and once we meet there, there is another inventory to be found, a list of the fundamentals to which we all require and deserve access: food, shelter, rest, warmth, autonomy, play, love……the complete sum of our same-ness.

           For the last month my daughter has wanted the same bedtime book. Unprompted she has had her four-year-old finger on the pulse of the world’s process, for she has asked me again and again for ‘Mix,’ by Arree Chung. It is a beautiful, witty picture book, that I would recommend to anyone wanting to talk about difference and race with their children. It opens:

“In the beginning there were three colours: Reds, Yellows and Blues. Reds were the loudest, Yellows were the brightest and Blues were the coolest. Everyone lived in colour harmony, until one day when a red said, ‘Reds are the best!’….”

The colours decide to divide – to live in separate parts of the city. But then a Blue and a Yellow fall in love, and, contentiously, the first interracial marriage takes place. A mixed-race child is born - they call her Green. Slowly the other colours are inspired- more and more mixing follows, until at last they give up on segregation. The final line is my favourite one in the book: “The new city was full of colour. It wasn’t perfect, but it was home.” I love that the happy ending is imperfect – it makes equality dynamic again, not a final prize possession but an unfolding multi-coloured process.

Meanwhile, Mothers who Make will continue to hand out equality and diversity monitoring forms. But alongside these, we will also start to interrogate and diversify the kinds of images and words we use, the places we advertise ourselves, the venues with which we work, the range of events we hold, in an effort to make ourselves more genuinely accessible to mothers and makers of every kind. Right now, I have, not so much a question of the month, as a request to put to you: I want to know about how you are different. I want to know about what you need. I want to know how to access you and how you might best access me, us, MWM. This is a fourfold invitation: you can write to me with your feedback via email - matilda@motherswhomake.org . You can come to one of the diversity meetings happening this month (details below). And you can fill in our equality and diversity form so we can gain a more accurate picture of our network: https://forms.gle/wgDm335c1zQbaKer7  

Lastly, you can do this: go beyond the boxes- go as deep as you can into your difference. Whether it is your ethnic identity, your neurodiversity, your sexuality, your gender, your disability, your child’s disability, your mental health challenges. Articulate it however you wish. Maybe it will be a list, an inventory. Maybe a letter. A photo. A drawing. A song. Be as specific as you can. Name all your identities, all your differences. This is a creative injunction - I believe it may in fact be where making begins - tracking your difference, your way of accessing the world, as the origin of art.  

Our diversity-focussed meetings, via Zoom, open to all, are on: Thursday 9th July 1-2.30pm BST and Tuesday 28th July 10-11.30am BST. Children are welcome too. Email matilda@motherswhomake.org if you wish to attend.

[patchworkofstars]

Salted Caramel

Chapter 7: The Writer’s Lament

AO3  Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5  Chapter 6

Relationship: Romantic Royality

Chapter Synopsis: Two guys sitting in a bedroom, one foot apart and they’re both gay.

Word Count: 5,300

Warnings: Crying, mention of bullying, mention of parental disapproval of sexuality (not rejection, just not acceptance either)

Notes: I was planning to split this chapter in two since it's so long, but there wasn't anywhere suitable to do that. So instead it's just one reeeally long chapter, for which I apologise ^-^” Hopefully it’s worth it though! ^-^

Roman crossed the threshold a step behind Patton, taking the opportunity to twist his head and quickly wipe away his tears on the shoulders of his shirt. Then his eyes scanned the room around him, and he found them pricking with tears once more as he took in the bright, comfortable, reassuringly wholesome atmosphere.

The walls were painted the same sky blue as Patton’s favourite shirt, and either he or Virgil had taken it further by adding white cumulus clouds and a yellow sun. And, whether deliberately following the theme or by happy serendipity, one wall was dominated by a large rainbow flag.

It was all so comforting, so utterly, perfectly Patton-like, that it felt almost like being embraced by the man himself. Roman closed his eyes, steadying his breathing as he tried to stop the emotions threatening to take hold. Much as his heart ached for its feelings to be returned, who knew if there was any hope left there? Patton had a crush on Remy or some stranger, and Roman was the one left wanting someone he might never have.

Shut the feelings out, shut them down, put on the mask and put on a show. Patton must never know how you’re feeling.

He composed himself as best he could and opened his eyes… only to find the other man watching him with such a wistful, almost longing expression that he almost reeled from the emotional impact it had.

He swallowed, suddenly acutely self-conscious, and felt his face burn. Roman had never claimed to be particularly bright - his intelligence was the sort that understood sentence structure and dialogue flow rather than how to solve equations - but now the pieces of a jigsaw slotted together in his mind to produce a picture he hadn’t realised he’d been missing.

“You’re my hero!”

“Is this the guy you were telling me you have a crush on?”

“He’s not my boyfriend and never will be.”

“Virgil housemate just had his heart broken by someone he harbours romantic feelings for.”

Patton had feelings for him, and he’d broken his heart. And now that Roman knew, what was he going to do about it?

His limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated, and he tried not to stumble as he moved to the centre of the room and looked around. Above the desk there was a large pin board covered with photographs, and he scanned them absently as he tried to get his emotions back under control. Some of the pictures were of flowers and cute animals, others of people most of whom Roman didn't recognise. Patton was in only three: one with Virgil outside the art museum, one with Remy, and one with two people who looked like his parents and three teenagers Roman supposed were younger siblings.

In each one Patton was smiling brightly, exuding joy and affection for those he was with, and Roman suddenly wanted nothing more than to be in one of those photos, smiling by Patton’s side. He shook his head, forcing the feeling away, and turned his gaze elsewhere.

The remainder of the room was cluttered with a mixture of scrapbooks, knick-knacks, stuffed toys, and DVDs. The bookshelves were stuffed with a jumble of fiction and cookbooks, the only history books visible being those required for the course.

Roman tried to act nonchalant, but wherever he tried to focus his eyes, they kept drifting of their own accord back to Patton. Not for the first time, he cursed his overdeveloped romantic streak. Of all the people to develop an attraction to… It could be worse, a treacherous thought reminded him. At least this one’s single, and not straight.

Patton sat down on the dove-grey bed cover and patted the spot beside him. Roman smiled awkwardly as he followed, carefully keeping his knees pointed towards the centre of the room rather than at his companion.

What on earth should I say? “I like you, you like me, let’s snuggle”?

Don’t you dare, brain, I’m watching you. Come on, I need a light, casual conversation starter.

“I never expected you and Virgil to be housemates”, he began at last. “How did you meet? You seem so...different.”

Patton grinned. “We are, but we get along great! We got talking in the first year when I saw him at the museum and went up and complimented his hoodie."

Roman tried to imagine how that conversation would have gone, but couldn’t. Either it was beyond his creative block, or it was just too bizarre.

“How about you and Logan?” asked Patton, tilting his head to one side. “You’re pretty different yourselves. I’d never have guessed you were friends.”

Roman shrugged. “We met at fencing club in our first year”, he explained. “Logan joined because it’s a structured, mentally-challenging sport with minimal physical contact. I joined because I wanted a chance to fight with swords.”

Patton nodded in understanding. “You wanted to be a knight, right?”

“Well, yes...” Roman confessed, with an embarrassed smile.

Patton beamed, his face lighting up in a way that made Roman’s head spin. “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “After all, you were my knight in shining armour outside the club.”

Oh, calm down, Roman! He could feel the warmth of another blush spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. Say something! Anything! Change the topic before he notices how red you are!

“You’re the real ‘Knight’” he found himself saying. “Do you have any idea how envious I’ve always been of your surname?”

What the hell, brain?!

Patton bit his lip and ducked his head, but he couldn’t hide his grin or the red flush spreading across his face. Roman took a deep breath, trying to think past the butterflies and find a safer topic of conversation.

“I, uh, don’t have the time for fencing anymore, sadly”, he said with forced lightness. “Or the energy, to be honest. I’ve been far too stressed with everything else I’ve got going on.”

“Hmm~ Is that what Virgil was supposed to help you with?”

“Well that was part of it”, Roman admitted. “He was trying to help me learn to relax. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with writer’s block, and I hoped that would cure it.”

“Oh yes! Your writing!” Patton’s eyes widened. “You never told me! What kind of things do you write?”

Wrong topic! Abort! Roman’s stomach clenched and he shifted awkwardly in his seat, unconsciously moving his knees to point even further away from Patton. “Well, I write a lot of poetry”, he said, his eyes on the wall, “And also...fanfiction.”

He took a deep breath and turned his head to see the response. To his surprise, Patton was almost glowing with excitement.

“That’s so cool!” he breathed. “Which series do you write about?”

Roman swallowed, a half-proud, half-embarrassed smile tugging at his lips. “I’ve written a few alternate universe pieces with Disney characters”, he said, “But I currently write mainly Dragon Witch Chronicles fics.

Patton squealed – he actually squealed – and leaned forward with his eyes shining. “What name do you write under?" he asked eagerly.

Roman flushed. “I can’t tell you that. You’ll look up my work, and that would just be embarrassing!”

“Aww...” Patton’s face fell, but then he shrugged. “Oh well, if you write Dragon Witch Chronicles fics, I’ve probably read them already anyway.”

“You won’t tell anyone will you?” Roman implored him desperately. “Please don’t mention it to anyone, it’s a secret!”

Patton frowned. “Don’t your friends know about it?”

“No way!” Roman almost shrieked. “I can’t tell them! If they knew, they’d be sure to-” He broke off and shuddered. “In any case, they must never find out. I have to hide it from everyone even remotely linked to our course.”

Patton tilted his head slightly to one side, his soft brown eyes full of sadness and concern. “That sounds exhausting”, he remarked.

The words hit Roman like a heavy jousting lance. The truth of them, the external acknowledgement he hadn’t known he so desperately needed, went through him like a shockwave, and a sob wrenched itself from his chest past his lips before he could even think of trying to stop it.

Patton reached out a hand, but as before he hesitated and then pulled back. “Maybe that’s why you’re finding writing so hard?” he suggested gently. “Virgil always says he can’t create if he’s not honest. His art is an expression of himself, so if he hid who he truly is, he wouldn’t be able to make anything good.”

Roman swallowed, taking some deep breaths before he risked speaking. “M-maybe...” he admitted. “I used to love writing, but now it’s always a struggle. The thought of even trying makes me nauseous.” He shook his head sadly. “Can I even call myself a writer, if I never seem to write anymore?”

Patton chewed his lip for a moment, looking down at the bed cover and stroking his fingers gently back and forth over it. “You know, I don’t think it’s only writing that makes you a writer”, he said at last. “I may not write myself, but the way I see it, you’re a writer because writing means so much to you, and because you feel so lost when you can’t do it. I think writing’s a part of who you are, even when you don’t write.”

“But I’ve barely written for months, Patton!” Roman wailed. “The only things I’ve managed to write were a poem after I walked you home that time, and then a short story about-”

He broke off abruptly. He was not going to tell Patton what that fic had involved. No way. If the subject matter weren’t embarrassing enough, there was always the risk he might recognise it.

“Hmm~ Well, do you know what’s stopping you?” the man asked, ignoring the sudden stop. “Why does the thought of writing make you feel so bad?”

Roman shook his head and sighed. “There’s so much pressure, so much competition. I feel I’m devoting all I have to it, and yet no matter what I do, I can’t keep pace with all the faster, better, more talented writers out there.” He turned away and put his head in his hands, his shoulders hunched with the effort of suppressing the tears that threatened to overwhelm him.

When he managed to speak again, it was in tight, broken tones. “I need to do it, but… But I can’t… I can’t risk failure…”

There was silence for a minute, and despite his fears, Roman's curiosity pushed him to risk looking at Patton. The other man was chewing his lower lip again, his head tilted characteristically to one side.

“Do you think, maybe, you struggle because you’re trying so hard to compete?” he suggested, a touch cautiously. “I mean, you said you started writing because you enjoyed it, but you don’t seem like you’re enjoying it now. So why keep trying to force yourself?”

Roman swallowed. “Because I… I need the praise”, he said, his voice soft and cracked. “I need the acknowledgement, the proof that I’ve done something worthwhile.”

“Is that the only reason you write?” Patton asked softly, a hint of something like disappointment in his eyes.

Roman shook his head firmly. “No, but still, I can’t help but worry. What if nobody likes what I write? What if, after weeks of pouring my time and effort into a story, no one cares? With every creation I show to the world, I put my heart on the line. I risk apathy, rejection, and downright hate.”

“I’m sure no one will hate it”, Patton gently assured him, “Not if it’s something you’ve put your heart into creating.”

Roman gave a short, bitter laugh. “Don't be so sure. And besides, apathy is almost as bad, and I've experienced that many times. Hate may cut, but apathy bruises."

Patton blinked back the tears trying to well in his eyes. “I know it hurts, but… If other people don't enjoy your creations, that's their loss, not yours. What matters most is that you like what you’ve made.”

Roman sighed, his voice coloured with exhausted helplessness. “You must understand, nothing stings like rejection. Nothing tears my soul and strips away my confidence more than pouring my heart and soul into creating something and then releasing it into the world only for the world to disregard it. And I need people to tell me my writing is good, that it means something to them, that I’m contributing something to the world to justify my existence!”

Patton leaned back away from him, eyes widening in alarm, and Roman grimaced as he was hit by a sudden wave of self-disgust. Just when he’d realised he liked Patton, he had to go and scare him off. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The adrenaline seemed to drain out of him, and he slumped, eyes downcast. But when he cautiously raised them again he saw none of the expected revulsion on Patton's face.

Patton was leaning forward, head tilted to one side and forehead creased in concern.

“That’s not...” he began, quietly, hesitantly. “You don’t...” He broke off again and bit his lip, frowning as he tried to find the right words to say.

Roman waited, a tiny flicker of hope reigniting somewhere inside him. Maybe, just maybe, all hope wasn’t lost after all.

Patton took a deep breath and blinked rapidly - Were there tears in his eyes, too? Then at last he spoke.

“You don’t need to justify living, Roman. And if you have a purpose… Have you ever thought maybe it might be just to enjoy life? To make the world a little bit better in whatever way you can, even if it’s just by sharing your smile?”

“But writing is what I do!” Roman wailed. “I’m not like you, I’m no good at being kind, or making people happy! Without writing, I’m nothing but selfish, stubborn, insecure… - Feel free to stop me at any time! - I’m arrogant, egotistical...”

Patton smiled and shook his head. “You’re creative, caring, brave…” he looked down shyly, turning pink, “...Not to mention very handsome.”

Roman smiled wryly, trying to ignore the heat flooding his face. “Writing is what I do”, he repeated quietly. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s the one chance I have to make something of myself and make my family proud of me.”

Patton frowned, picking awkwardly at the bedspread. “Have you spoken to your family about how you feel?” he asked.

Roman shuddered involuntarily. “I’ve already disappointed my parents by being gay, I can’t fail at this too.”

“They don’t accept the fact you’re gay?” Patton asked gently, leaning forward in sympathy.

“They wouldn’t kick me out or anything”, Roman quickly assured him. “They just… try to ignore it. They don’t say anything, but I know from their silence they don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry”, Patton said sadly. “That’s horrible.”

Roman shrugged and looked away. “Ever since I came out, they’ve tried to pretend it never happened. I’m an only child, and they were…very unhappy that I was dramatically reducing their chance of biological grandchildren.

“Do you want children?” There was a slight shift in the air, and Patton seemed to be holding his breath as he waited for a response.

Roman hesitated. “I’m not sure”, he replied uncertainly. It was always my parents’ priority, not mine, but… I suppose I would like to be a father someday. Assuming I can ever get a well-enough paid job to support a child.” He sighed. “Not that there’s much hope of that if I fail my degree.”

Patton shuffled a little closer, his soft eyes fixed on Roman. “What would you choose for your future, if you didn’t have to worry about qualifications or what your parents might think?”

Roman swallowed, feeling his face heat up further but unable to take his eyes from Patton’s as he asked himself what he really wanted. Right now, the only answer his brain was giving him was Patton.

“I’d lo- I’d like to write”, he said at last. “To be a- a writer, a proper author, you know? A professional, making a living writing stories. That’s been my greatest dream for years.”

Patton’s whole face seemed to shine, the brightness of his smile bringing a deeper blush to Roman’s cheeks. “That sounds wonderful, he breathed. “What kind of stories would you write? Fantasy? Ooh, or maybe historical fiction? Is that why you’re studying history?”

Really, it was uncanny how easily this man seemed to read Roman like he himself was a book, with the secrets of his heart written out for those caramel eyes alone. He took a deep breath, forcing his eyes away to watch the wall.

“I’ve always loved historical fiction. Tales of knights and princes, heroism, chivalry, romance… I dreamed of studying those times and turning what I learned into stories of my own. And the stories were even more appealing when they had a generous sprinkling of fantasy. Dragons to fight or to tame, sorcerers good or evil weaving fabulous spells… I saw it all so clearly in my mind, and it wasn’t long before I began re-enacting my favourite tales and then creating my own – escaping my mundane everyday life into the role of hero in a dozen different fantasy lands.”

Patton leaned forward, his eyes wide as he drank in everything Roman said.

Roman smiled wistfully. “When I grew old enough that wearing a prince costume and wielding a plastic sword became frowned upon, I stopped acting my stories out and instead settled for writing the scenes from my mind onto paper.”

He turned to see Patton's reaction and found him gazing with rapt attention. "What do you think?” he asked nervously.

“I bet you’d look amazing in a prince costume”, Patton replied with feeling.

Roman cleared his throat, his blush deepening. “Yes, well, in any case, I decided that studying history would help with my writing, even though the reality turned out to be depressingly short of happy endings. I endured the school history lessons convinced that if I could just get through this module, this year, this particular bit of tedium and misery I’d eventually be able to study the things I really wanted to. But now that I’m here, I’ve realised I still don’t enjoy it and I never will.” He shook his head and sighed, his shoulders slumping as he looked again at the wall.

Patton shook his head. “You didn’t realise the past was never like it is in those stories?” he asked.

Roman turned back to face him, his eyes dull and rimmed with shadows. “I wanted so much for it to be real that I managed to convince myself”, he confessed. “And when the illusion finally crumbled, it was too late to turn back.”

“It’s never too late”, Patton said firmly. “Never.”

“I’ve wasted years, Patton. Years spent chasing an impossible dream. I know now that what I truly want is to spend the rest of my life writing stories. Every spare moment I have, free from the tedium of my course, I devote to dreaming up new fantasies to escape into.”

He sighed wearily. “In all honesty, it’s losing myself in those stories that's kept me going this far. And now..." He swallowed as a lump rose to restrict his throat and tears once more flooded his eyes. “...And now I can’t even seem to do that.”

There was silence for several minutes, as Roman leaned back against the wall and Patton chewed his lip, staring down at his own knees. As Roman replayed the conversation in his mind, an awareness gradually stole over him and he sat back up with a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sorry”, he said, with an apologetic smile, “I shouldn’t have been so negative about studying history. You probably love it.”

“Mm...” Patton bit his lip, and Roman was suddenly acutely aware he’d never even considered how he might feel about their course.

For a long moment the man was silent, then, “I find the past...comforting”, he said at last. “I can cope with even the most horrifying bits because they’re over, they’re gone.  The present is too raw. You hide from it in fantasy worlds, I hide from it in the past.”

The sadness in his eyes caused flames of anger to flare suddenly in Roman’s chest. “Is this because of… You know, how the class treat you?” he asked, his voice edged with fury.

Patton hesitated and then nodded, his eyes still averted. “That’s part of it”, he mumbled, “It was worse at school, but back then I could go home to my family at the end of each day, and they'd make it all better. I miss them all so much.“

His eyes filled with tears, and Roman internally panicked. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry! How do I stop him crying?!

Patton sniffed, removing his glasses for a moment to dry his eyes. "Lessons here aren't so bad", he assured Roman, "As long as I find a seat early and keep my head down. And I know I can always talk to Virgil, I just don’t like to bother him when I know he has troubles of his own.” He sighed. “I just wish I knew what people think I’m doing so wrong.”

Suggestions flitted through Roman’s mind, a mix of his own observations and comments he’d heard from others. He could give Patton a list of reasons why people thought he was childish and weird, but…

“If they don’t appreciate you, that’s their loss”, he said firmly. “I don’t want you to think you have to change for them. You’re warm, and kind, and fun to be with, and… I like you. I really do.”

Patton turned to look at him, his eyes wide. “Do you really mean it?” he asked softly. He reached out a hand once more, this time resting it lightly, tentatively on Roman’s arm. Roman felt his heart rate accelerate, and then, as so often, he moved without thinking. His hand was on Patton’s before he knew it, and the pink blush that lit up behind that dusting of freckles made him feel giddy.

“I, um...” he began, and then swallowed. At least one of them should probably have moved their hand by now, but neither had. Instead, he found himself caught up once more in those caramel eyes, so much lighter than his own, and he couldn’t help the affectionate smile that formed on his face.

“I like you a lot, Patton”, he confessed. “So I’d be happy for you to sit beside me in lectures. And to eat lunch together, if you want to.

“What if your other friends don’t want to include me?” Patton asked cautiously. “I wouldn’t want you to risk your friendships just for my sake.”

“Screw them”, Roman said passionately, “I want you.”

As Patton’s eyes widened and his face flared scarlet, Roman’s brain once more caught up with his mouth and he felt his own face blaze.

“I mean as a friend!” The words were ejected from his mouth in a rush, but as he turned away he couldn’t help adding softly, “...Or maybe more, if you’d agree to it.”

There was a long pause where they both looked everywhere except at each other. Then Patton finally murmured, “I’d like that.”

His voice was soft and husky, like the whisper of a breeze in the desert. Thirsty, Roman’s brain helpfully supplied, and he gave it a swift mental kick.

Patton turned his hand and curled the fingers to lightly brush Roman’s. “You’re sure you don’t hate me?” he asked, shyly.

He tailed off as Roman reached forward and placed a finger to his lips.

“Patton, I could never hate you, not now I’ve got to know you better”, he said, softly but with conviction. “You are an absolute angel, and I hope to spend a great deal more time with you from now on.”

He removed his finger and then watched in confusion as his the man’s eyes filled once more with tears. “I- I’m sorry”, he stammered, “I didn’t mean to upset you… I shouldn’t have touched you without asking. Please don’t cry...”

Patton shook his head and sniffed as he tried to blink away his tears. Taking off his glasses again, he placed them carefully to one side so that he could wipe his eyes. It took a few moments before he could speak, and in that time he reached forward to touch Roman’s sleeve once more. He stroked his fingers back and forth over the fabric a few times, then stopped and curled his fingers to gently clutch it.

“I’m not an angel”, he mumbled, his voice still choked with tears. “I’m over-sensitive and disorganised. I make silly jokes and pretend to be happy, even though I know nobody likes me.”

“I like you”, Roman told him fiercely. “And besides, I don’t see angels as perfect. I see them as those people who care about others and always do their best to put them first. Those who strive every day to make the world better in any way they can. And by that definition, you are unequivocally an angel.”

He shifted closer and put an arm around Patton, loosely at first, then tightening reassuringly as the man settled into his embrace.

He gazed down, taking in the view from up close of Patton’s soft waves of lavender hair and the galaxy of freckles covering his face. The tear tracks were still damp beneath his closed eyes, but there was a peacefulness there now, a contentment that warmed Roman’s heart. Never before had he felt so utterly entranced by someone, or so deeply protective of them. As he revelled in the sight and in his newly-realised adoration, words began to form in his mind, and he gathered them up, shaping them into lines that flowed straight from his heart.

“If ever tears are in your eyes

Like salt in caramel

And sadness wraps you in its curse

I’ll fight to break that spell.

I have no castle or acclaim

No fortune to convince

But I will want for nothing if

You’ll let me be your prince.”

Patton lifted his head and gaped at him. “Did you write that?” he breathed, “You’re amazing!”

“You inspire me”, Roman told him. “The only times I’ve written lately have been after spending time with you. You were absolutely right: I can be myself with you, and that sets my creative spirit free. Patton, my dearest, you’re my Erato, my Calliope!”

“I’m your what now?”

“My muse. I feel I could write anything with you by my side!”

The rose-pink flush spread from Patton’s cheeks to his ears and down his neck. “Oh! Well, I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can!”

“Simply spending time with you is enough”, Roman assured him. “I can already feel the creativity welling up in my veins! Oh, I could kiss you!”

At the sudden wideness of Patton's eyes and his bright red face, Roman replayed his own words in his mind. Then he felt his own cheeks grow hot at the realisation of what he’d just said. One day, perhaps, he would learn to think before he spoke, but this was clearly not that day.

There followed several seconds of excruciating silence as Roman’s eyes roamed every bit of the room that didn’t contain Patton. When at last he risked a glance at the other man, he found him looking back with a shy smile – a smile Roman’s own lips couldn’t help but mirror.

“Did you mean that?” Patton asked, scarcely above a whisper.

Roman felt a surge of courage. “Every word”, he replied fervently.

Patton’s smile widened. “I think I might like that”, he said, tears welling in his eyes once more.

Before Roman knew what he was doing, he had swept the other man into a hug. He could feel his own eyes stinging, but this time he made no effort to stop himself from crying. Burying his face in the collar of Patton’s shirt, he breathed in the glorious scent as he felt warm arms slip around him in turn.

And suddenly, for the first time in too many years, he felt safe, secure, and cared for.

He tightened his hold, drinking in comfort, as a warm tide of protectiveness spread through him. Their classmates could say what they wanted, could stare, and whisper, and jeer. He would never, ever let Patton feel lonely again.

Then, gradually, the memory of his words filtered through the companionable silence and Roman felt a warmth of a different kind ignite in his chest.

He moved back, pushing Patton gently away from him, then lifted a hand to ever so lightly cup the man’s cheek. To his delight, Patton leaned into the touch, and Roman could see his breath quicken and a new spark appear in his eyes.

They moved together, leaning in slowly but surely to close the space between, until their lips met with a light brush that grew in intensity and all Roman could think was soft, and warm, and home.

*****

“Pat?” Virgil’s voice called through the door several minutes later. “Is Roman in there? He stormed out of my room a while ago, and Logan and I haven’t seen him since.”

Patton pulled back and looked at Roman, who gave him a half smile and a nod. “He’s with me”, he called back. “We were, uh… We were talking about why we chose to study history.”

Roman slammed a hand across his mouth to suppress a chuckle.

“Wait, you were?” asked Virgil. “Actually, forget that, Logan wants to know if Roman wants a lift home. He can stay the night in your room if you prefer, though.”

For a second the two froze, staring wide-eyed at each other. Then Patton squeaked “I-don’t-think-that’s-a-good-idea!”, the words tumbling out of him in a shrill rush.

“Well, figure it out quickly, ‘cause Logan’s leaving soon”, Virgil warned.

Roman smiled wryly. Yeah, it was probably best not to spend the night together – even literally sleeping – before they’d even been on a first date. Speaking of which…

“I shall have to leave for now”, he said, “But perhaps we could meet again tomorrow? For a real date, this time.”

Patton looked ready to explode from sheer joy. “Yes!” he squealed. “That sounds great! Where do you want to meet?”

Roman hesitated. While his romantic instincts were screaming at him that Patton deserved a grand gesture, like being whisked off to Disneyland Paris for the weekend, his parents would hardly consider that a defensible use of his student loan. He had better keep things realistic, at least for the first date.

“It’s late”, he said, “And I’m sure we’ll both be tired tomorrow. How about we just go for a walk together by the river, and then get some drinks at Costa. I promise I’ll plan something more exciting for the second date.”

“Second...date...” Patton breathed, his eyes wide as he processed the words. “That sounds wonderful! And Costa will be great, you know I like going there.”

Roman smiled. “Good, because I believe I owe your barista friend an apology. And you as well.” He lifted Patton’s hand and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “I apologise from the bottom of my heart for what I said before. I would be honoured to be your boyfriend, if you’ll have me.”

Patton’s enthusiastic response was cut short by a sharp rap on the door and Logan’s harsh tones. “Roman Zito, you have precisely three minutes to exit this room and get into my car. When that time is up, I will drive home whether you are with me or not.”

@metaphoricalpluto2 @theunoriginaldaisy @logan-smarter-than-you-sanders @fiive-second-cookies @sevencrashing @quietwords-loudthoughts @sher-soc-the-famder @what-a-catch-joe @intothevoidsunknown @karmels-stuff @smokeyrutilequartz @katesattic @the-office-cat @starryfirefliesbloggo @angst-patton @definitely-a-plant @unknownsandersfan @blinksinbewilderment @romansleftshoulderpad @creativity-killed-thekitten @chemically-imbalanced-romance @marvelfangeek09 @a-black-pegasus @softestlittlepuffball @wisepuma23 @hissesssss @musikasworld @the-prince-and-the-emo @xxladystarlightxx @pearls-of-patton @evilmuffin @suyun-doo @patton-in-name @shesavampirequeen @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2

[missroserose]

Snowflake challenge 2019, Day 5

Woo, am I behind!  Well, let’s play some catch-up.

Day 5:  promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.  Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Hmmmm.  This one’s a little tough for me; in the immortal words of Eleanor Shellstrop, “I’m not really a joiner.”  It’s possibly one of the great ironies in my life that the thing that motivates me most artistically is a sense of community—see how active I’ve been in the Harringrove space recently—and yet, socially, I’m much more comfortable one-on-one. 

Still, there are definitely some individual blogs I quite enjoy:

osprey_archer on Dreamwidth.  Jin writes intelligent and interesting posts about a number of subjects; her latest project has been watching and reacting to movies by female directors, which has been both fascinating and educational.  I’ve learned a surprising amount about Hollywood history (and, sadly, the incredibly sexist side of it) and discovered some very interesting films.  She also writes fanfiction (mostly MCU) and original fiction; I’m proud to say I helped beta her m/m WWII Beauty and the Beast retelling, Briarley, though even without the personal stake it would be one of my favorite stories.

featherycats on Pillowfort.  I enjoy Feathery’s art, the posts they reblog, and their unique and thoughtful perspective on many issues, including how complicated gender identity can be.  A rare older person who actively participates in fandom, their posts are full of nuance and compassion, which too often seem to be the first casualties of any Internet-based interaction.

marsza on tumblr.  I followed @marsza shortly after I really started using Tumblr, largely because I had enjoyed her Harringrove story The Last Ditch Efforts of Wayward Boys.  Her posts and reblogs are diverse, but often share an enigmatic sensuality that I adore, whether they’re quotes or pictures or gifs; her ask posts, too, exhibit that unusual-for-the-internet mixture of intelligence and empathy that I treasure.

[casualarsonist]

Horizon: Zero Dawn review

Here’s a weird little idiosyncrasy-slash-crippling weakness of mine - I find it nearly impossible to write about things I really enjoy. Perhaps it’s because I hate gushing, but I can’t really overstate just how fucking annoying it is that I can only provide opinions on art that is either some version of ‘okay’, or ludicrously shit. For example, I’ve previously mentioned that there are only three or four pieces of art that I’ve witnessed in the world that I would nominate as a 10 out of 10, and try as I might I simply can’t seem to find the words to adequately express my feelings about them. I think the issue here is that I feel like my commentary on an amazing piece of art needs to meet some invisible standard of quality wherein it gives an excellent description of the piece’s virtues without resorting to effusive emotional over-statement, and anyone who knows me knows that effusive emotional over-statement is my jam.

So I suppose this is one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to talk about Horizon: Zero Dawn. 

Well, that, and the fact that it’s not quite as black and white as ‘it’s an excellent open-world action-RPG’. I mean, it IS an excellent open-world action-RPG, but this fact is only part of the appeal, and even though I might think it is the bee’s knees, I have to counterbalance this with the fact that there is a lot about Horizon: Zero Dawn that isn’t particularly original, especially in today’s over-saturated open-world action-RPG market. If Horizon was one of only a few games in its genre it could quite possibly be one of the best games ever made, but I have trouble giving it that label precisely because of the glut of other releases from which it borrows its features from - if you’ve played any of the Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted games then you’ll be well-acquainted with the stalky-stabby-hidey-ridey-hack-and-slashy-climby-climby gameplay on show here.  

But don’t let my shilly-shallying about the mechanics of the game distract from the fact that I think it’s a landmark release; it holds a place rather similar to The Witcher 3 in my mind, in that it takes a decade of iteration and expansion in its genre and makes a masterpiece out of that, and again, much like The Witcher 3, this almost entirely comes down to the quality of the writing and performances, as complimented by fantastic mechanics and gorgeous visuals. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn is the story of Aloy (not ‘alloy’) - an outcast from birth from the Nora tribe, a band of primitive and superstitious humans who, since having their lands raided and their peoples kidnapped by the blood-thirsty former king of the neighbouring Carja tribe, have become deeply xenophobic and isolated in their mountain-hemmed valley. Aloy is raised by Rost, a seasoned hunter and rigidly principled man determined to uphold his exile for reasons he refuses to explain. As Aloy approaches her 18th birthday she opts to take part in The Proving - a test of her physical and mental skills that offers her the chance to fully rejoin the tribe. But when the competitors in The Proving are attacked by a band of raiders who seem intent on killing Aloy in particular, she is nominated as a Seeker by the Nora elders, and is free to travel into the larger world with the mission of discovering both her origins, and the cause of the new scourge upon her community. 

And this patchy and kind-of-inaccurate synopsis is really as much as I can say without moving into spoiler territory, which is a damn shame, because Horizon has one of the best stories of any game I’ve played in a long, long time. This is not just down to the quality of the story itself, but also to the quality of the storytelling. Horizon takes everything I raved about in my post about Black Isle’s use of exploration and the design of the game world as a storytelling medium, and applies it to great effect. As such, we, the players, are placed in the same role as the protagonist - beginning in a child-like stage, we are vulnerable, and introduced to the dangers and wonders of the world bit by bit, and as we explore further into the unknown, the environment around us grows and grows and grows, becoming ever-more awe-inspiring as we progress. It really is a near-perfect mixture of open-world gameplay and curated exploration, and there is rarely a point in which you feel like you shouldn’t be moving too far ahead because you’re going to bypass something interesting. As in New Vegas, the use of wide valleys as a way to both make the player feel like they’re free to roam whilst also meting out the features of the game is flawlessly executed, and results in an open-world game that is also, somehow, impeccably paced. 

This only really falters in two places - firstly, when the largest section of the game is opened up and one is overwhelmed by the amount of opportunity suddenly available, and secondly, in the fact that the story missions don’t exactly lead you delicately through the map. One of the earliest missions after you leave the opening territory sends you to the farthest corner of the game world, and the fact that I would have to pass so much content in order to get there triggered my FOMO and led me to leave the story until the very, very, final end of the game once I’d completed everything else there was to do. This was a mistake, a) because the story is fantastic and you don’t lose anything by completing it earlier on, and b) because once you’ve conquered literally every other challenge the game throws at you, pursuing the story feels a little redundant. It’s also a shame that so much of the main quests take place at one specific, isolated end of the world, which is a strange miscalculation in my opinion when the developers have created such a rich, gorgeous, and varied environment for their players to explore. 

But even if I think that these things could have been improved on, they ultimately don’t do much to overshadow the achievements of the game in all of its other areas. The characters look unbelievably lifelike, and despite the occasionally stilted facial animation and some static conversation camerawork, the characters are voiced and animated extremely well. The script is intelligent and emotive, and tells an incredibly compelling story that I just want to talk about with SOMEONE (please, for the love of God, Alice, finish the fucking game!), which is especially noteworthy because Horizon goes out of its way to offer a strange and beautiful world that poses so many questions to the player, and then makes the incredible effort to answer pretty much every one of them by the time it’s over. 

I should elaborate here for those that aren’t acquainted with the game - Aloy lives in a world populated by machines. Specifically, machines that look like animals. Most are in some way aggressive, although apparently that wasn’t always the case, and the game’s death cult enemies have managed to corrupt and enslave some of them in order to use them as weapons. These animals range from flying bird-like creatures to giant bulls to fire-and-ice-shooting crocodiles to gargantuan dinosaurs. And in the course of encountering these creatures, you’ll also encounter the diverse biomes that they exist in: cold Nordic wastelands, humid and palm-dotted Egyptian river deltas, arid North American mesas, and even the ruins of an ancient civilisation. And it would be one thing for the developers to have just imagined a fantasy universe in which all these things exist a hop, skip, and a jump from one another, and to leave it at that - Final Fantasy has been successful for three decades doing this very same thing. But it’s all explained, everything is explained, and the explanation is compelling and evocative and interesting and fun. There aren’t many stones left unturned, and yet the game never feels like it’s bogging you down in exposition or having to slow to a crawl to catch you up; I was happy to watch and listen as the mysteries were revealed, and Horizon is one of very few games with such an ambitious narrative that is actually worth the effort you take to uncover it. 

But hey, it can’t hurt that the uncovering is just so much fun, can it? Taking a leaf from CD Projekt Red’s soon-to-be award winning book ‘Open-World Game Design, And How Not To Fuck It All Up’, Horizon is filled to the brim with fun and interesting gameplay, challenging and wonder-invoking enemies, engaging characters, and many, many varied side-quests. In fact, the game is one of only a few to clearly divert from the typical ‘main quest/side quest’ delineation of most modern open-world games. Instead, Horizon operates on a number of levels; the first of which being the main missions in which you investigate Aloy’s past; the second being a number of multi-staged, large-in-scope second-tier missions in which you deal with ongoing problems in the world at large like civil wars and wide-reaching political intrigues; the third level involves the smaller, one-off side missions more typical of these games such as saving strangers from danger or helping resolve disputes; and then you have all the other additional content such as hunting and gathering quests, collectibles of various types, and various combat challenges. This variety staves off a lot of tedium that one feels in other, lesser games, and keeps you constantly surprised and engaged given that you never quite know exactly how deep the next story is going to go. Even the most basic challenges (hunt here, kill there, etc, etc) are fun because the combat and stealth gameplay is so enjoyable, and the fact that most machines can be crippled or destroyed in a number of different, spectacular, and rewarding ways only adds to the challenge and variation and excitement in taking them down. It’s something that makes the game exciting to come back to after you’ve finished it, and even though I’m still playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, I know that it’s probably going to be a one-and-done situation for me, in the same way that ALL the other Assassin’s Creed games have been. Whereas Horizon? I’m definitely going to return to it, and I’m going to approach it in a totally different way, because I can.

It’s worth a mention as well that the game doesn’t just maintain a high standard of quality and integrity in its mechanics, but also in its DLC, and it’s extremely heartening to see that the only additional content released for the the game is more akin to the expansion packs from the days of yore - a single, 15-odd-hour addition to the base game that has its own story and environment and additions to the gameplay that are both seamless and complimentary to the base, as well as being a substantial and worthwhile standalone investment. In fact, just looking it up now, ‘The Frozen Wilds’ is actually officially referred to as an ‘expansion pack’, and this gives me all kinds of warm-and-fuzzy feelings (and for some reason makes me want to go back and play the Mysteries of the Sith expansion for Dark Forces 2). 

The Frozen Wilds is apparently the first and last addition we will see for the game, which is a shame because it’s so good, but then again I’d always prefer to have a numerically smaller amount of great content than be overfed on shitty cosmetic items, crap DLC quests, and other such symptoms of the disease that is modern DLC culture. And while I can’t say with certainty that Guerilla Games won’t release anything else for the game, there’s something uniquely joyous in knowing that to buy the DLC for Horizon is to improve a complete game with some relevant extra content that expands the lore and experience, rather than feeling like you’re just stapling something functionally redundant and narratively incongruent to the body of the main game. 

With God of War’s recent release to massive acclaim, I’m becoming more and more convinced that console-exclusive games are one of the few things keeping the spirit of artistic integrity and quality in the ‘AAA’ industry alive. Were it not for games like that and like Horizon: Zero Dawn, which stand sparsely in resistance to the flood of catch-all money-machine publisher/developers that produce barely-iterative annual-release tat, we’d be drowning in a sea of games infinitely wide and an inch deep (and yes, despite my positive impressions of their newest releases, I’m still talking about companies like Ubisoft, whose games are both fun and tiresome at the same time). And so it is that Horizon: Zero Dawn is legitimately one of the best games available to play on the PS4 right now, and one of the best open-world action-RPG games ever released, and it’s a shame that rather than shining down upon us like a beacon from the heavens, its light is somewhat lost amongst the sea of other lesser, but like-minded releases. I suppose one could call this a flaw in the game’s design, but when you get down and play the thing it becomes difficult to figure out how to frame it as such when everything it does is in some way an improvement over how its been done before. It is, without any doubt in my mind, a must-play, and I really need to talk about the story with someone, so please, for the love of god Alice, finish the damn game already. 

9.5/10

(Very) Outstanding

[carpophobiakid]

Life of The Party

@alltimefanfiction contest entry, check out their page! Summary; Jack meets a girl who won’t tell him her name. Her legacy follows All Time Low throughout their career. 

Jack remembers meeting her vividly. Alex was throwing his first house party, seeing as his parents had finally gone away for the weekend. They were buzzing. 

August 28th 2008 - 7pm

Armed with bags of the cheapest lager Jack could find, he kicked open Alex’s front door with a converse clad foot. “Aleeee-“ His call was cut short by the sight of three girls dancing passionately in their underwear in front of the television. The lagers slipped from his arms and rolled across the floor at their feet. They all laughed loudly, feminine cheeks lighting up in pink blushes as Jack stared, his mouth hung open in shock. Lisa chucked both girls a blanket from the back of the sofa to cover up with and ran off upstairs, “Alex is up here!”. “Send his dumb ass down here.” Jack shouted back, his voice breaking to his utter embarrassment. Averting his eyes, he dropped to the floor to collect up the alcohol. The girl with the long dark hair and a full fringe wrapped a pink dressing gown round her waist and rushed to help him, goose pimples collecting on the bare skin of her arms as she piled the icy cans against her chest. Her carefree smile shocked him for a moment and Jack found himself looking at her for a moment too long. To this day, he is sure she was just pretending not to notice. “Stella Artois.” She smirked as she put them back in the carrier bag, “My favourite.”. Jack grinned at her, “If I’m honest, it’s just the cheapest I could find. I’m Jack, nice to meet you.”. She jumped to her feet, her brown eyes sparkling, “You can call me Stella. I’m gonna go find Lisa, see you in a bit.”. Then she was gone, pulling her blonde haired friend after her. Jack planted himself firmly on the cream carpet and sighed heavily, finding himself a little breathless. Alex came into the lounge, dressed in a loose button up shirt and tight jeans. “You alright buddy?” He muttered, reaching out his hand to help his friend to his feet. Jack ran a heavy hand through the blonde streak in his hair and nodded, “Yeah, who are Lisa’s friends?”. “Oh, just Kayleigh and her mate, I don’t know her name.”. “Right.”. Heaving, he grabbed his best friend’s hand and pulled himself up. “Stella.”.

10.45pm It was reaching eleven pm and Zack and Rian were clapping either side of Jack as he chugged yet another Stella Artois. Laughing, he crushed the empty can in his fist and threw it to his feet. “My turn!” a voice sang, causing all three boys to look round. “Christ.” Rian breathed at the sight of her, collecting himself as Jack dug him sharply in the ribs. The mystery girl was stood before them in a black slim fit dress, fishnets and velvet heels. She could have been a piece of art in any of their eyes, but especially Jack’s. (And boy, did he wanna pin her against the wall like the art she was.) “Stella!” he cheered casually, chucking her a lager. She caught it in one hand and snickered devilishly, “Ahhh, so that’s what I have you calling me, I forgot.”. Making sure all three of them were watching, she opened her lips seductively and cracked open the drink. Within a minute her dark lipstick was smudged down her chin and she was throwing the can at Jack, a triumphant look on her face as they all gawped. “Easy.”. Zack nearly fainted at the sight of her bending down in front of the lanky guitarist and picking up his crushed can. Gently, she pulled his hand towards hers and placed the trash in his hand, “Alex is a nice guy, don’t go making a mess of his house.”. “I’m over here more than I’m at my own house.” Jack hissed, a smile on his face, “Now, don’t go throwing up that alcohol on my best friend’s carpet Sweetheart.”. Rian and Zack chuckled. “I could outdrink you any day you skinny fuck!” Stella gasped, pushing his shoulder jokingly. Jack lit up in amusement, “Oh, you’re on.”. 2am “See, I want to move out of the city so I can see the stars properly.” Stella, as Jack had decided he would probably have to call her till at least the next morning, explained with a drunken slur, “Light pollution ruins the view.”. They were laid out on the damp grass while the wild party continued indoors, staring up at the sky. To his absolute horror, Jack had lost the drinking contest and they had come outdoors so he wouldn’t puke on any of Alex’s parent’s stuff. After he’d thrown up into the bin twice, she’d pulled him down onto the ground and tried her best to point out the constellations among the cloudy night sky. It was not their lucky night. “I’m a writer.” She murmured, “Because I could never be an astrologer. You’d get bored if you looked at the stars every day, and I don’t want them to stop being beautiful, yanno?”. Jack nodded, “Definitely. But, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of playing music.”. He turned to look at her and suddenly she was kissing him. With the stars as their only witnesses, they kissed. His apprehension fell away and he wrapped an arm lazily around her neck, pulling them closer to each other. She tasted like Stella Artois. 11am Jack woke up in the bath tub with a loud groan. His t-shirt was missing and he was sticky with alcohol and god knows what else. He stood up very slowly, his head pounding and vision blurring as he realised his whereabouts. As he got to his feet, a scrap of paper fell into the bath tub. With a groan, he read it to himself through squinting eyes. Jack, You’d get bored if you looked at the stars every day. Perhaps you’d get bored of me too. Become the star you’re dreaming of being, I’ll be watching out for you. Sorry, I had to leave. Stella xxx

 Alex leaned round the door, looking worse for wear in his torn dress shirt and boxer shorts. “She left this morning.” He spoke knowingly, “Lisa said she didn’t want you to know her name. Weird shit, huh?”. Jack forced a smile, his heart aching, “Yeah, weird shit.”. July 7th 2009 – All Time Low released ‘Nothing Personal’. The song Stella was a hit. Alex told everyone it was written about partying. Jack loved playing that song live. Zack and Rian don’t know why to this day.

Feels like I'm falling in love When I'm falling to the bathroom floor I remember how you tasted I've had you so many times, let’s face it, Feels like I'm falling in love alone Stella, would you take me home?

 Summer 2014 – There was a girl who looked like her in fishnets and velvet heels at a club. Of course, she wasn’t nearly as pretty and couldn’t drink nearly as much. Jack slept with her and left early the next morning, leaving a handwritten note on the bedside table as an apology. In a few months’ time, Don’t You Go was added to the Future Hearts track list. Jack hated playing that song live. Zack and Rian don’t know why to this day.

20th March 2015 – One Night in London with All Time Low. SSE Wembley Arena. 11.45pm The boys rocked the show, of course. Alex and Rian invited a load of people to the afterparty, including a few stragglers who stayed behind after the show. Alex was pretty sure he recognised one of the girls. She stuttered and blurted that she was a writer and he might have read one of her books. Alex, considering himself a writer of sorts, be it song writing, invited her along with excitement. She was beaming. 12.30am Jack bought fishbowl cocktails, lining them up down the kitchen of the tour bus and challenging people to a drinking contest. Wiping his hair from his face, Alex stepped up alongside Zack. A daring voice spoke up from among a small group of people at the back of the bus, “I’ll do it.”. A girl walked confidently down the length of the bus and leaned against the counter next to Lisa. Jack turned to look at her and his face fell in shock. Her once dark hair was bright pink and pulled up in a messy bun and she was dressed in comfy mom jeans and a printed tee-shirt, but he’d recognise those bright eyes anywhere. Jack grinned. “What should I call you this time, Stella?” He asked as he pointed her over to a fishbowl of colourful cocktail. She shrugged nonchalantly, “The Life of the Party.”. Rian counted down from three and they started drinking. Within minutes, Alex had slipped and poured the entirety of the bowl’s content down his front, disqualifying him immediately. Bursting into laughter at Alex’s futile attempt, Jack choked and sprayed cocktail all over Zack and soon they turned to just chucking it over each other instead of finishing. Zack was about to tip the rest of his bowl over Jack’s head when she called out “Finished!”. All three boys glared enviously at her empty bowl as Rian announced ‘Life of the Party’ as the winner. She lived up to her nicknames, every time. Jack’s heart swelled as she smiled over at him.

2am “What are you doing in London of all places?” he asked, “Light pollution must be terrible.”. “I’m a writer Jack.” She whispered dreamily, “I’m here for inspiration only. And anyway, I told you I’d watch out for you didn’t I?”. She stood up from the ground in front of the tour bus and pointed at the sky, “Look, tonight’s our lucky night. There’s Ursa Major.”. “Beautiful.” He murmured, standing next to her and staring at the group of bright stars. “Boring.” She corrected him, “Just same old Ursa Major.”. He shook his head at her and leaned down. With the constellations looking down on them, he kissed her goodbye. “I’ll see you again.” He promised, “Stella, my life of the party.”. She tasted like a mixture of alcohol, it made him feel alive. February 13th 2016 – Jack dyed his hair red. “Blonde was getting boring” he said, “Same old Jack.”. That night Alex and Jack stayed up all night writing a song. Alex knew they’d finally got it right when Jack cried singing it.  

2nd June 2017 – Last Young Renegade was released by All Time Low. Life of the Party was a hit. Alex told everyone it was written about partying. Jack loves playing that song live. Zack and Rian are pretty damn sure they know why.

[topicprinter]

About leaving the corporate life to do my own thingThis post was initially published on Medium. You can read it here with the original formatting and pictures.Time for a changeI’ve been writing code professionally for over 20 years and now I’m ready to do something drastically different – I’m ready to do my own thing. Leaving the security of a monthly paycheck is a daunting thought, so I want to clear my head a bit and explain why I believe this is the right thing to do.For those of you who are on the fence about starting something new, I hope this post will serve you well.Finding joyI’m never more happy than when I’m writing code. It’s my creative outlet. I may not be able to draw a picture or write a song but I can use my creative skills to solve difficult problems with elegant code. Programming is my form of art, my way of creating things that didn’t exist before. Coding is my job and my hobby; there’s no greater gift in life than to wake up in the morning and being truly happy to go to work, doing what you love. I felt that joy for over 20 years.Unfortunately – or perhaps quite fortunately – my current job stopped providing that wonderful feeling. Without it, work became a dreadful experience. Without that joy, I no longer felt able to express my creativity like I did before. I wanted that feeling back.I had two choices: either find another job or try starting my own project. I had to ask myself which one would bring the most joy back into my daily professional life.Deciding to go my own routeI spent a few weeks reflecting on my career as a software developer. I wanted to explore the moments that brought me not only the most joy but also a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of doing the right thing. Almost all of those moments had the same thing in common: they were times where I taught other people the beauty of programming, many of whom work a developers today. I’ve also coached junior developers in several of my previous jobs, which I always enjoyed doing. Recently I even wrote a book about the basics of programming titled Foundational Programming, which has been selling well and getting positive reviews.Basically, my passion is not only in building software but also in teaching others how to do it. This is something I was able to do in previous jobs, but to a limited extent. If I want to get the most joy out of my work, it needs to combine those two passions into a single project. That’s not something I can expect if I were to look for another day job.I had to choose between a steady paycheck and an uncertain yet personally fulfilling goal. Despite my fears and reservations – or perhaps to thwart them – I decided to try building my own thing, something that would make me happy, help others, and hopefully pay well enough to keep the lights on.My plan is to build a video-based learning course teaching full-stack web development, from the bare basics of HTML and CSS to advanced Python, Django, JavaScript and even skills for finding a job and being successful in a new career as a junior developer. My goal is to help people become employable web developers, even if they have absolutely no programming knowledge or experience.See a picture of the learning path I'm proposing to followThe challenges aheadI know there are a lot of challenges that I need to consider and overcome to make this work. Aside from leaving my job, I also just had my third baby. I’ve got enough savings to pay the bills while I build and launch the initial lessons for the course. Still, I’ll need the course to be profitable early to ensure that I can continue developing both the platform and the lessons themselves. I’ll write a follow-up post to go over some ideas for my business model. For now, I’ll say that I absolutely hate ads – a rant, perhaps, for another day! – so I’m leaning toward a subscription model.Another hurdle I’ll have to jump is the marketing; how do I let people know the course exists? This is something I have less experience with, so I’ve been doing a lot of research and careful studying. I already have a few neat ideas for promoting the course without breaking the bank, so I’ll make sure to write a follow-up on this topic too, once I’m in the position to report on what worked and what didn't.Quality is, of course, a major consideration for any project, and this is where I feel most confident. I’ve got plenty of professional experience in web development as a self-taught developer, so I know which skills are important to learn and how to teach them to a large audience. I’ve also got experience in hiring developers, so I know what job skills employers and recruiters look for when scheduling and conducting interviews, which I plan to teach as well.Documenting the journeyI’m filled with an exciting mixture of anticipation and apprehension. I have a lot of cool ideas on how to build something that combines my two biggest passions into one (hopefully profitable) endeavor. Being my own boss is both an empowering and frightening concept. I’ve placed a lot of responsibility on myself to succeed or fail, with no one to blame but myself for either one. Yet the fear of failure doesn’t outweigh the thrill of starting my own project.I’ll be using this blog to document each stage of building my course, which I’ve named Snakecasts (because Python, you see). Not only will this keep me accountable by sharing my progress, I also hope that it will serve as either an educational or inspirational tool for other budding entrepreneurs.I’d love to write more but I’ve got work to do; it’s time to turn on the mic and record a few lessons!So if you are interested in learning full-stack web development, from beginner to employable, take a look at snakecasts.com to be notified when the course is released.I'm happy to answer any question you may have and look forward to reading your feedback!