#it was an awful time and harry looked miserable doing it

[mastermindmiko]

The Ear that wasn't

pairing: George Weasley + reader

word count: 1,312

warning: injuries, death and it's a bit angst

Summary: After the battle of the seven (eight) Potters, George becomes distant, and you decide to find out why

masterlist

After moving to the Burrow, things have changed. Everyone’s more sombre, and the world seems a little darker. The impending doom of Voldemort’s terror a bit more real. Madeye died and Hedwig as well when we were attacked while moving from Privet Drive to here. It was fun pretending to be Harry for a bit, the polyjuice potion wreaked and tasted awful, but looking like someone else was amusing, that was before death eaters started throwing spells left and right at least. 

The most noticeable change in my life was the distance that George has been placing between us for a month since we came here. The first two days I stayed by his side while he was recovering from becoming ‘holey’. We couldn’t bring any medics to the Burrow, so we all had to make due with our collective medical knowledge; finding spells to ease the pain, recalling how to put on a proper bandaid, and how to stop the blood from gushing. 

Fred and I were riding together, and went to the Burrow via another route along with the others in order to confuse the death eaters as to who was Harry while George was getting hit with a sectumsempra. We arrived at the Burrow and there seeing Hermione’s sad expression looking at me and Fred made my heart lurch to my throat. I couldn’t recall a time I’d run faster inside to find George lying on the sofa. 

I spent the first few days tending to him, and spending as much time near him as possible, mostly due to the nature of our relationship and also to take care of him. We’d only gotten news about his ear when we finally reached madame pomfrey (a trustworthy person) who told us that George wouldn’t be able to get his ear back. I’d expected it, but George seemed heartbroken. 

I stayed behind after dinner, tidying up the table at a slower pace than usual, watching as George cleared the cups too. His movement is precise but never without a little whimsy. The bandage is still wrapped around his head, and he starts shoving cups between the crook of his elbow to hold more in one go. I clear my throat, “How do you feel?” 

“Well.” 

I sigh, knowing how curt all his replies have been. He heads into the kitchen and I continue to stack the rest of the plates before waving my wand, sending them into the kitchen. I walk behind them and point my wand into the sink, allowing them to gracefully pile up inside. The magical tools get to work and start rinsing. 

I look into the living room first looking for George, and I see him sitting on the couch twirling around his wand, and staring off deep in thought. Madame Pomfrey had informed us that his (additional) lack of focus could occur due to the concussion and spell, as well as some loss of balance. I gulped, “Do you need anything?” 

“No.” He grumbles, and leans back sinking into the sofa. I walk closer to him and take a seat beside him. He doesn’t bother to spare me a glance. I bit my lip and hesitantly said, “We can go take a nap for a bit in the room if you’d like?” 

“I don’t need you fussing over me.” George snaps, and I purse my lips, used to this attitude from him over the past month. I shuffled closer to him, and confessed, “I’m not fussing over you, I just want to spend time with you.” 

He sets his wand aside and sighs. He puts his head in his hands, hunching over his thighs. The fire crackles and fills up the silence between us. I place a comforting hand on his back, stroking his skin, feeling the soft material of his shirt and his vertebrae. He sighs once more, and deep in thought he whispers, “Why?” 

“Because you’re my boyfriend.” I chuckle at the absurd question, even when he wasn’t I loved spending time with him. He looks at me, palm holding his cheek, and my amusement dies down from seeing his miserable eyes, and wrinkled eyebrows. My hand lifts from his back and moves to his hand. I ask, “What’s going on, George?” 

“I-” he stutters, and looks away. I squeeze his hand supportively, and he closes his eyes. I let all the thoughts that have been jumping around in my head stay for a second of all the things he could say, the most prominent being: I don’t love you anymore. He sucks in a breath and turns back to lock into my eyes. He mused, “I’m not good-looking anymore, and I don’t want you to not want me.” 

I blink, and process. George, the ever confident, forever handsome, cocky and funny George Weasley doesn’t think he’s good-looking anymore. What would even make him think- oh…the accident. I say, “Is this about your ear?” 

He looks away once more and I know that it’s the truth. I start rubbing comforting shapes over the back of his hand, and I reach over to grab his other hand. I protested, “I don’t think you’ll ever stop being good-looking, not to me.” 

He scoffs, not believing my words. I could see his eyes begin to have a slight shine to them. I pout at his expression, and I drop his hand to reach over and cup his cheek. I turn his head towards me, and brush my thumb over his cheekbones. He let out a bitter chuckle before he smiled, sputtering, “I’m practically deformed.” 

I smile at him, and give him a look. I lean into him, smelling his familiar scent that I haven’t been able to smell in a while. The wood and biscuits engulf my senses. I kiss his lips, and his eyes flutter momentarily to a close. I let my lips linger near his before pulling away and watching his closed eyes as he sighs before looking back at me. I whisper, pulling his face to mine, “Even if you were a troll, I’d still love you George.” 

He gulps and checks my eyes for any glimmer of a lie. He leans into my hand, and pouts. He relaxes looking at my face before slowly turning his head to press a kiss to my inner palm. His lips linger and he cups my hand with both of his. He kisses it again before adding, “I don’t want you to not be attracted to me.” 

“You’re plenty attractive George with or without two ears.” I commented. He squeezes my hand, the warmth of his fingers spreading to mine, providing a comforting head during the dead of winter. I convince, “And I believe that there’s more to our relationship than just your looks, George. There’s your wit, and your kindness, and your humour- and I could go on for so long, so you’ll have to stop me, and your smile and laugh, your courage-” 

“I get it, I get it.” George chuckles, and pulls our intertwined hands back up to his lips to press a kiss on each of my knuckles, feeling his warm breath on my hand and the softness of his lips on each of my knuckles. He gazes at me sincerely and says, “Thank you.” 

“It’s only the truth.” I state, and he pulls me into a long and deep hug, resting his head into the crook of my shoulder, giving me kisses whenever he sees fit. My arms still reach after him when he pulls away to say, “I’d also still love you even if you were a troll.” 

“Thank you, that’s good to know.” I laugh, and I finally see that wonderful humorous grin of his. He stands up and encases my hand to pull me up beside him. He presses his lips to mine then suggests, “How about that nap?” 

a/n: I really wanted the gif to be the scene when Harry and Ginny are kissing and he goes "Good morningg", but alas I couldn't find one, so this will have to make do. Hope you liked this one.

[ellecdc]

Come Back, Be Here (part 4)

p1 // p2 // p3 // p4 // p5 // p6 // p7 // p8

Sirius Black x fem!reader - First Wizarding War Order of the Phoenix - 6.2k words

CW: mentions of past abuse/torture, amnesia, hurt/comfort, fluff, banter, Walburga Black, use of Y/N

Synopsis: After sacrificing yourself to save your friend and Order partner James months before, you're found on the brink of death. Now, you're moving in to 12 Grimmauld Place.

The group watched as the row of townhomes groaned and stretched to expose 12 Grimmauld place in all her glory. Sirius was certain he could hear his mother and father rolling in their graves to know that he – their disinherited blood-traitor son – was the last Black and official heir once again to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. He grimaced at the title. 

“Two disgraced Black’s returning to the scene of the crime.” Ted Tonks joked, both Sirius and Andromeda gave him a look. 

“Feels like the beginning of a bad, racist joke.” James mused.

Sirius groaned in response. “What happens when three blood-traitors, three muggle-borns and one half-blood half-breed walk into a bar?” 

“Get drunk, I hope.” Lily muttered miserably. 

“Well, Sirius, welcome home.” Andromeda announced as she made her way up the stairs to the front door. Sirius pushed the door open and stepped inside a house he hadn’t stepped foot into since he was sixteen years old. He had been so sure at that time that he’d never return; he wished he had been right. 

The house was just as dark and gloomy as it had been when he left it, but it was now also covered in a thick layer of dust.

“Okay, please, for the love of all that is holy: Lily, Y/N, Remus, Ted: you are to touch nothing until Andromeda, James or I have checked it first.” Sirius said before pausing, “Scratch that. Touch nothing until Andromeda or I have checked it – okay?”

This earned him an indignant ‘hey!’ from James and a quick agreement from everyone else. 

“YOU DISGRACEFUL, WRETCHED BOY!” Sirius’s face drained of all colour at the all-too-familiar sound of his mother’s screeching.

“That old hag is supposed to be dead!” He shouted as he and Andromeda ran up the stairs following the sound of his foul-mouthed mother.

“HOW DARE YOU STEP FOOT INTO THIS MOST NOBLE AND ANCIENT HOUSE, YOU FLITHY BLOOD TRAITOR!” the screeching continued.

The source of the chaos came from none other than an awful magical portrait of the very late Walburga Black, Sirius’ mother and Andromeda’s aunt.

“Oh, thank Godric, she is dead.” Sirius sighed in relief, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the very unwelcome company haunting this house.

“Maybe we can remove it?” Andromeda mused as she tried to pull the portrait from the wall. 

“GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF ME; SULLYING YOURSELF WITH THE LIKES OF MUDBLOODS YOU TRAITOROUS WHORE.”

“Charming as always, Aunt Walburga.” She muttered when her pulling was for naught. 

Sirius attempted a silencio which seemed to work for at least a little as Walburga’s face contorted with rage and she continued spewing what Sirius could only assume was foul hatred for all things not Voldemort related. 

“Okay so that will last like, not long enough at all. Merlin, I wish we could just burn this place down with her in it.” He muttered as they made their way back downstairs. Ted and James were cooing over a crying Harry who must have been upset at the screeching of the house’s previous occupant, while Remus and Lily muttered quietly to each other. You leaned against the wall with your arms crossed, appearing bored for all intents and purposes, but Sirius could tell you were straining your neck to peer into the rooms you could see from your post. 

“Okay, semi-false alarm. Walburga is indeed still dead.” Sirius stated which was met with a cheer from James causing Harry to clap in comradery.  

“However, she has cursed us with a magical portrait of herself stuck on the wall with a permanent sticking charm.” He finished, causing James to groan and Harry to start crying again. 

“Okay, so, ignoring the unpleasant company for now, where do we start?” Lily interrupted. 

“First of all, Red, as I said you will not be starting anywhere.” Sirius rallied. 

“Sirius, this place is huge, and we need to clear a space for six of us to sleep tonight.” She countered, but the argument was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. 

Everyone exchanged nervous glances. “Literally, no one should know we’re here.” James muttered. 

“It could be Moody?” Remus offered nervously. 

“Should Kreacher answer the door, Master.” A crotchety old voice sneered from behind him, causing Sirius to yelp and jump what felt like a foot in the air. 

“Merlin’s tits.” James muttered as Harry started shrieking again. 

“Godric, I’ve never seen you not hanging off my mother’s bosom; I sort of hoped you had died with her.” He muttered, rubbing his chest trying to convince his heart to return to a normal pace.

“Sirius.” You scolded from your place against the wall. 

“Kreacher lives to serve the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, even if it’s occupants are filthy blood-traitors and their mud-bloods.” The ancient house-elf muttered. 

“New management, new rule Kreacher, no more mud-blood talk.” Sirius barked.

“Yes, Master.” The elf sneered before heading toward the door. Sirius quickly pulled you and Lily, who was now holding a sniffling Harry, behind him much to the chagrin of the two women. 

“Master, the wizard tells Kreacher that he’s a curse breaker sent by a Moody.” The elf mumbles over his shoulder. 

Sirius relinquished his hold on the two witches and allowed the man entry. 

Sirius reiterated to the curse breaker that Lily, Remus, you, and Ted were not to touch anything in any room until the curse breaker, Sirius or Andromeda cleared it first. The curse breaker showed James, Andromeda, and Sirius a few detection spells and a few simple reversal charms before they set off to different levels of the house; Sirius and Andromeda decided to focus on the bedrooms and bathrooms whilst the curse break started in the shared living spaces on the first floor, and James went to the kitchen with Kreacher. 

Sirius felt like he was making decent progress. He and Andromeda had cleared out three bedrooms and two bathrooms between the second and third floors, and he had worked up a decent sweat. He had two boxes of dark artifacts to be either destroyed, uncursed or donated. The screeching had started back up in earnest again when the silencio wore off an hour after casting. 

“You miserable hag.” Sirius muttered as he marched over to his mother’s portrait to recast the spell. Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he heard another shriek and a bang.

“Y/N!” Lily could be heard shouting, and Sirius bolted down the stairs. He arrived in the parlour at the same time as Remus and James. 

“What happened?” Remus demanded. 

“She touched a book!” Lily tattled. 

“I’m fine.” You muttered as you sat up and cradled your right wrist. 

Sirius sighed, fear melting into frustration which quickly melted into fondness. “You sneaky little witch.” He muttered as he moved to crouch beside you. “Let me see.”

“No.” You pouted. 

“Y/N.” 

“No. I’m fine.” 

“Let me see your hand.”

“Bugger off.” 

“You minx.” 

Sirius sat there biting his cheek trying to suppress a grin at the sight of you sitting petulantly feeling embarrassed being caught having done something naughty. 

“What did I say?” Sirius scolded.

You muttered something under your breath.

“What was that?” He smirked, leaning his ear closer to you for dramatic effect. 

“Not to touch anything.”

“Uh huh. And what did you do?” 

“I touched something.” 

Sirius was full on beaming at you now. 

“Thought so, let me see.” 

You let out an indignant huff and held your wrist out to Sirius, who despite his crassness, took it so unbelievably gently in his own hands. It appeared that you had touched something that was cursed with a knock-back jinx, which twisted your wrist violently on impact. It could have been worse, small mercies. 

“Dollface, I could have gotten you a book if you were bored.” Sirius commented as he reduced the swelling with a quick flick of his wand and placed a glacius charm to help with any more inflammation. 

“Don’t tease me.” You whispered miserably, and Sirius looked up to see that your eyes were glassy. 

“Are the tears because you’re hurt, because you’re scared, or because you’re embarrassed?” Sirius whispered back. Your eyes met his and a single tear fell. He lifted his hand which was met with a mild flinch before he gently wiped it away with his thumb. 

“I’m not teasing, love. And you don’t have to be embarrassed; if it hadn’t been you, it would have been Moony.” Which was met with an indignant ‘Oi!’ from the werewolf who had moved down the hall in an attempt to give them privacy. “You also don’t have to be scared. Alright?”

You held his gaze before nodding with a sniff. He massaged your wrist and hand gently, recasting a glacius over the injury. 

“Did I teach you this?” You asked quietly, causing Sirius’ head to shoot up from its lowered position.

“Do you remember?” He asked unbelievingly. 

You moved your head back-and-forth as if to say so-so. “I remember...uhm-”

He waited with bated breath watching your face as you organized your thoughts.

“Bludgers. The smell of cigarettes and broom wax. And a broken wrist.” 

Sirius was sure he heard angels singing. Her first memory is resurfacing. And it’s when I broke my wrist playing quidditch at Potter manor.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Who broke their wrist?” You clarified. 

Sirius nodded dumbly. “Yes.” He croaked. 

“I think you got hurt often.”

Sirius chuckled, “Yes, I certainly did.” 

“That must have been exciting.” You mused. 

“I’m sure I was exhausting.” He countered as he continued massaging your arm. He could probably stop now, but he really didn’t want to. 

“Please; you got hurt because you were playing quidditch, I got hurt because I touched a book after I was specifically told not to touch anything.” 

Sirius barked a laugh. “Oh, come now. It’s my fault really; I should have known better than to try to tell you what to do.” 

You both sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments; Sirius continuing to work out tension in your arm. 

“Which book was it?” He asked you finally. He seemed to catch you off guard, as you looked at him inquisitively. “Which book were you trying to read?”

You blushed but stood up and pointed to the offending book. Secrets of the Darkest Art. 

“All this fuss over a book, babe?” he smirked at you as your blush intensified. He cast a quick counter curse over it like the curse breaker taught him and handed you the book. 

“Now please, for the love of Merlin, don’t touch anything else?” He asked with a smile which was met with a shy smile of your own.

“Thanks, Siri.” You mumbled. His heart soared at your use of his old nickname, and before he even realized what he was doing, he bent down and placed a kiss on your forehead. 

“Read up, my little swot. I think I heard Kreacher muttering about making dinner. Hopefully it’s not poisoned.” He said as he exited the room. 

Turns out, dinner was not poisoned, and it was actually quite good. They all thanked Kreacher even though the elf acted as if the simple act of feeding them would be the thing to damn him straight to hell. The Tonks’ were quite eager to leave after the fourth rousing of Walburga and left before the dinner was served. Andromeda and Sirius had managed to de-dark-art-ify all the bedrooms on the second and third floor plus the bathrooms. They opted to leave his parents room, and his and Regulus’ rooms untouched. As much as they teased poor James, he accomplished quite a lot in the kitchen and main living room, while the curse breaker focused on the hallways and various parlour rooms on the main floor. Lily mentioned that she wouldn’t mind brightening the place up if Sirius was open to some redecorating – to which he responded with a quick “If it were up to me, Red, this place would be in flames by now”, so she advised she’d make some plans tomorrow. You and Remus fussed over Harry to save Kreacher from anymore toddler ear yanks, but if the house-elf was grateful for the interference, he didn’t show it. A message arrived stating that the cottage in Godric’s Hollow appeared to be secure; Lily looked like she wanted to cry at the prospect of being reunited with her things. 

Remus said goodbye to everyone after dinner, stating he couldn’t leave the flat unattended since Sirius appears to be willing to neglect it for the next foreseeable future, which was met with a two-finger salute from Sirius and boos from James which were then chorused by Harry. 

“It’s meant to be a slumber party, Moony. Just like the old days.” James whined, which sucked the air out of the room; it suddenly became very obvious to Sirius, James, Lily, and Remus that they had been betrayed by their closest friend, who was possibly responsible for the death of some of their other friends. 

“Pads, we can’t keep paying for a flat that no one is using.” Remus argued.

“Uhm, I can, and I will, thank you very much. What’s the point of inheriting all of my family’s dirty money if I can’t waste it on whatever I want?” 

Remus sighed, “Fine. I’m going home tonight, though. I can’t leave the cat and the plants.”

“You’re such a good daddy.” Lily smirked from the end of the table. 

“Shush, you.” Remus said as he ruffled her hair before smoothing it out and kissing the top of her head. He moved to Harry and placed a kiss there too, before James stuck his head up as if he, too, was waiting for a kiss. Remus rolled his eyes before pecking both James and Sirius on the head and pausing at you. 

“What? No kiss for me, Moony?” You smirked and teasingly batted your eyelashes at him. Remus laughed and placed a kiss on your head before waving and promising everyone he’d be back tomorrow, cat and plants in tow. 

Much to Kreacher’s chagrin, Sirius and James insisted on cleaning up the kitchen themselves which got a “filthy blood-traitor’s” being cursed at them. He then announced he’d be going to the house in Godric’s Hollow to retrieve their belongings – surprising James and Sirius into silence. 

Lily and James took the farthest room on the second floor, it was the largest which left plenty of room for a crib for Harry, and it had their own washroom. Sirius held the bags containing your things and watched as you inspected the other rooms, allowing you to choose next.

“Which room do you suppose Remus would like?” You asked him.

“Vix, it doesn’t matter. You choose.”

“If he has plants, maybe this room? It would get nice light in the evenings; I don’t think he’d appreciate the morning light.” You mused as if he hadn’t said anything at all. 

Sirius couldn’t even celebrate the fact that you seemed to correctly remember something about Remus before he nagged you. “Y/N, for the love of Merlin, pick a room.” 

“Well, which room are you taking?”

Sirius paused. “What?”

“Which room will you take?” 

Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. “I have my old room upstairs. I was just going to stay there.” 

You paused. “You aren’t going to stay down here? With us?” The ‘with me?’ was unspoken but Sirius heard it anyway. 

“Oh, right. No, of course. Erm.” He looked at the three rooms. It appeared you had already decided the middle room was Remus’ – what with the sunlight for the cat or the plants or the sleeping or what-not. There were two other rooms kiddie-corner to each other. The one at the end of the hall was the largest of the two, and had windows on two walls, versus just the one wall containing windows in the other room. 

“I think I’ll take this one.” He said, motioning to the smaller room. It was directly across the hall from the washroom, which was beside the last room – your room – which meant he would be close by. 

“Okay.” You nodded, looking into the room you essentially forced Sirius into picking for you. “I’ll take this one then.” You smiled at him as if you chose it for yourself.

“Good choice, gorgeous.” He said as he placed your bags on the four-poster bed in the middle of the room. “Can’t wait to see what Lil’s comes up with for this place – all the Slytherin green needs to go.” 

You hummed and looked around the dark room. “I don’t know, the snakes and skulls are really warm and inviting, Sirius. Don’t fix what ain’t broken.” You finished the sentence in a poorly done southern American accent.

The two of you quipped back and forth about the décor in various accents as you unpacked your bags. Sirius found the scene to unbelievably domestic and lovely, basking in the effervescent glow that was your company until you both retired for bed.

Sirius pushed the door open as quietly as he could and stole a glance at you; your breathing was even as you slept curled up in the fetal position on the bed where he’d left you several hours ago. 

With a sigh, Sirius made his way down the stairs to the large parlour room – not coincidentally the one he knew had his late father’s liquor stored in an antique bar cart. He knew he shouldn’t – James and Lily fussed over him for months after you went missing, watching him spiral into himself as he tried to drink away his issues. He had to work hard not to end up completely dependent on alcohol – and it still wasn’t enough for him to stay in his supervisor’s good graces. 

“You’re a good Auror, Sirius, and a mighty strong wizard – but this is getting out of control, and I cannot allow you to continue putting the rest of my staff at risk.” Moody had told him, and he was placed on a medical leave until James could confirm to Moody that he had gone a full four weeks without a drink. 

Sirius sat with a crystal glass of fire whiskey and cast a quick incendio to light the fireplace. I feel like the ghost of my father he thought darkly. The Black’s were all basically carbon copies of each other – the only difference between the two Black sons and Walburga was that they had their father’s silver eyes. If Kreacher walked in now, he’d probably think he was looking at a down-and-out younger Orion Black, if Orion Black ever wore checkered pyjama pants and a band tee. 

The fire whiskey was leaving a comfortable warmth in his stomach and esophagus as he leaned his head back against the chair. He felt so incredibly guilty. 

Guilty for trusting Peter. Guilty for ever thinking the spy could be anyone but him. Guilty for believing you to be dead all of this time – when he could have been looking for you, should have been looking for you. Guilty to shouting your business in front of your friends. Guilty for ever introducing Peter to you. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

His musings were interrupted by a gentle knock on the parlour room doorframe. His eyes shot open, and he pointed his wand toward the disturbance, only to find the silhouette of you donned in pyjama shorts and a pullover jumper. He sighed in relief and unceremoniously tossed his wand back onto the side table. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” You offered quietly. 

“No worries, love. I think everyone’s a touch jumpy these days.” He muttered, taking another sip from his glass. 

You surveyed him from the door for a few moments before moving to sit in the matching wingback chair beside him, separated by only a small table. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” You asked.

Sirius hummed, “Not well. Not for the last five months. Maybe longer.”

You nodded in agreement as you watched the flames dance in the fireplace. You hadn’t seen Sirius like this – not since you’ve been back, at least – but something about this mood of his felt familiar to you.

“Are you alright?” 

Sirius laughed humourlessly. “The captive of an evil terrorist organization is asking me if I am okay because I happened to have my feelings hurt?” 

He looked over at you, expecting to find signs of frustration or annoyance at his flippancy and obvious deflection. But - like he should have expected - all he saw was patience and understanding, and it broke him. 

He hiccupped loudly and put his elbows on his knees, holding his face in his hands. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered miserably. 

“What is it you’re apologizing for?” You asked quietly. 

“For losing you. For allowing it to happen. For introducing you to Pete. For trusting him with any of you. For believing you were dead. For feeling at all sorry for myself because I simply missed you whilst you were out there fighting for your fucking life. For telling you any of this.” He moaned.

You chuckled softly. “You do realize you’re apologizing on behalf of a lot of other people right now, right?” 

Sirius raised his head to look at you.

“Don’t let them off the hook that easily.” You added seriously.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re apologizing for the way Peter treated me as if it was your fault – by doing so, you’re relieving him of an awful lot of responsibility.” You stated simply. Sirius watched the flames dance in your eyes as you watched the fire. 

“You believed me to be dead, and you mourned me – that’s not a punishable offence, Sirius. In fact, I think I’d likely be miffed if you hadn’t seemed affected at all.”

Sirius smirked at that.

“And finally, you don’t need to apologize for telling me things when I was the one who asked you to.” 

Sirius shook his head. “I’m supposed to be the one taking care of you.” He muttered. 

“You can do that tomorrow.” You stated plainly with a shrug. 

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” 

You sat in companionable silence as you both watched the fire. It wasn’t often Sirius found himself to be comfortable with silence and empty moments. Silence growing up always meant room for scrutiny – or it was due to his parents ignoring him to teach him a lesson. But it had always been so, incredibly refreshing with you. He always felt safe with you when neither of you felt the need to say anything at all, and just exist together in silence. 

“At the meeting, you asked me if we were just friends before.” Sirius asked quietly. He continued when you hummed in acknowledgement. “Is that because you remembered?”

You considered his question for a moment. “Perhaps a bit. I don’t necessarily remember the moments or conversations, but I think a part of me remembers the feelings.” 

Sirius hummed. “And the other bit?” He prodded as he turned to look at you. You smirked in response.

“Well, you’re not exactly subtle, love.” You winked at him. 

Sirius barked a laugh. “No, I don’t think subtlety is a trait I possess.” He agreed. 

“Lucky me.” 

He stared at you for a long while.

“I don’t know how good at it I was.” He admitted. 

“At what?”

“At loving you.”

You both let that hang in the air as you held each other’s gaze. 

“But it was the best thing about me – getting to love you; being loved by you.” He added. 

“That’s what woke me up.” 

Sirius furrowed his brows. “Hm?” 

You turned your gaze back to the fire. 

“In my dream – or I suppose it was a memory. You and I were fighting; I accused you of only loving yourself. You laughed before you said ‘Actually, Princess, I hate myself. The only person worth love here is you.’”. 

Sirius remembered that fight. It was after you had finally started talking to him again after the Worst Day of His Life™. You both decided to hash out exactly what happened that night with the stupid eyelash batting Hufflepuff that ended with you sleeping in Lily and Remus’ embrace after they had to clean up his mess. 

(The boys dormitory, Hogwarts)

“It doesn’t matter, Sirius. What happened, happened, and it’s in the past.”

“It does matter though, because it hurt you.”

You rolled your eyes. “No, it doesn’t matter; I’m over it and it clearly meant nothing to you.” 

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Decide what means something to me.” 

“I didn’t, Sirius. You did. That night – you decided what I meant to you, which apparently wasn't much. It’s fine, you’re allowed to sleep with whoever you want. The relationship clearly meant more to me than it did to you – that was my mistake.” 

“You weren’t mistaken!” 

“Then why wasn’t it me!?” You finally shouted at him, tears begging to fall from your lower lash line. 

Sirius didn’t have an answer for that. You scoffed at his lack of response and wiped angrily at your face. 

“I don’t know why we’re even doing this.” 

“Because it’s important.”

“It’s not important. It’s history. I’m over it.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say you’re over it.” The ‘over me’ in Sirius’ plea was left unsaid.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you, Sirius.”

“I just want things to go back to the way they were before. What can I do to fix this?” 

“There’s nothing to fix, Sirius.”

“Bullshit.” 

You stayed quiet.

“So, what? Am I not worth it then? Am I not worth fighting for?” He accused. Your eyes narrowed at him.

“Sirius, that’s not fair.”

“You’re not giving me anything else to go off here!” 

“What about me!?” You shouted. “I need to look after myself for a change, Sirius. Because what all of this has taught me is that the only person you’re truly able to love is yourself.”

Sirius couldn’t help himself. He began to laugh; a real, loud belly laugh that began to hurt his sides. 

“What the fuck is so funny?” 

“You’re so far from the mark you can’t even see it anymore.” He laughed as he collected himself. “You couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, Princess, I hate myself. The only person worth love here is you.”

(present)

Sirius sighed. “Why couldn’t your first memory of me be me doing something awesome; like the time I caught you when you fell off your broom or something.” 

You laughed. “I had bruises from your death grip after that fall for weeks. And you were so annoying – you would hardly let me walk down the hallway without your constant supervision.” 

You both seemed startled at your recounting the memory, but neither commented on it.

“Well excuse me, love. What makes you think I should trust you on the moving staircases with your nose shoved into a book if you couldn’t even handle a simple flight session on a school broom a mere twenty feet off the ground, 

“Oh please, I didn’t have my nose shoved into a book.”

“You did too.” 

“And I was definitely at least fifty feet off the ground – probably more.”

“Nope, wrong again.”

“Stop gaslighting me.”

“Must be exhausting being wrong all the time.” 

“You son of a bitch.” 

The two of you laughed; the familiarity of the banter and joking felt like a warm hug for you both. You fell into a companionable silence until the crackling of the fire was interrupted by a yawn you tried unsuccessfully to suppress. 

“Come on, love. Let’s get you back to bed.” Sirius said as he stood, standing in front of you and offering you his hand. 

You jokingly whined but allowed yourself to be pulled up by the black-haired man. 

“You look like a hockey player” You blurted as you walked hand-in-hand up the stairs. 

“Pardon me?” Sirius asked incredulously. 

You ran your fingers through his hair, and he relished in the feeling. “The hair cut – it’s like a hockey player’s; they call it a ‘flow’.” 

“A flow?” He smirked. 

“Mhm.” 

“Do you like it?” He asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Love it.” You offered immediately as if it was the most obvious answer. 

You paused at your respective bedroom doors, neither seemingly wanting to part ways. Well, Sirius knew he didn’t, and he assumed the tightening of your hold on his hand meant that you felt the same. 

He wanted to hold you. He wanted to wrap you up in bed and stay there with you until the world ended. He wanted your hands to be fused together so that he’d never have to be without you by his side ever again. But he also didn’t want to push you; this was your call – he would let you choose; always. 

“I don’t want to be alone.” You admitted quietly, almost as if you were embarrassed by the admission. 

Sirius gave your hand three quick squeezes – a code the two of you had made when you realized that Sirius sometimes struggled to express his feelings verbally. 

“Three taps or squeezes means ‘I love you.’” You had said to him simply.

“Babe, every breath I take means ‘I love you.’” He countered before placing a searing kiss to your lips. 

“Funny, that. Neither do I.” He replied.

“Stay with me?” You asked him, eyes shyly meeting his.

“I’d love nothing more.” He said, as he placed a soft kiss on your forehead. “Come on, love. Let’s try to get some sleep.” 

James had tossed and turned all night, waking up in cold sweats. He had been eager each time to change Harry’s diaper or do a feeding, bouncing him a little longer than strictly necessary just to avoid having to be alone with his own thoughts again. But by the third time he woke Lily up in a panic, she’d kicked him out of the room.

“Potter, I love you, but if you don’t fuck off right now, I’m going to live the rest of my life as a widow.” And with that, he was banished from their bedroom. 

He padded his way down the hallway, poking his head into the other doors. The room in the middle of the hallways was vacant; probably Moony’s he mused. The next room was also empty, but the sheets were disturbed as if someone had been sleeping in here, but also couldn’t sleep. 

He poked his head into the last room and spotted two figures curled up in the bed, holding onto each other as if one of them could float away at any moment. 

There was a voice in James’ head that told him he should leave them; they were likely having just as hard a time sleeping as he was. Also, it’d be weird to join them. However, there was a louder voice in James’ head that was screaming to climb into bed with them; so that’s the one he listened to. James had never been very good with boundaries. 

He crawled onto the other side of Sirius and slid under the covers. 

“Are you serious right now?” He heard his mate mutter groggily. 

James smirked as he curled up behind him. “No, you’re Sirius.” 

Sirius groaned. “Five points from Gryffindor for the terrible joke that only I’m allowed to make, and another five points for touching me with your cold ass feet.” But he didn’t tell James to leave, so he took that as a win.

“How’s she?” He asked quietly. 

“So good, considering.” Sirius answered.

“I can’t believe him...” James started quietly, but he needn’t finish; they both knew who he was talking about.

Sirius took a deep breath. “I feel, guilty. Bad. Y/N says I shouldn’t.”

“Of course she would, she’s perfect.” James offered easily. 

Sirius smiled into the top of your sleeping head. “She is.” He agreed.

“I can’t believe she survived, all that time.”

The two men sat, marvelling at your perseverance. “I’m dying to know who her allies were.”

Sirius hummed. “Me too. I don’t know how to feel about them yet.”

James nodded. “That’s okay, I don’t much know how to feel about a lot of things.”

Sirius snorted and then tensed, worried about waking you, but your breath remained even. 

“Do you blame me?”

Sirius eyes flew open at that.

“Pardon?”

James sighed before repeating himself. “Do you blame me, for Pete?”

“What about him.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering, would you and Remus ever had made friends with him had I not dragged him along with us?”

Sirius laughed. “Okay, if it were left up to Remus, no one would have ever talked to him ever and he would’ve made exactly zero friends, so I don’t think you’re asking the right questions.”

“Pads...”

“No. Of course not.” Sirius stated. James remained quiet and tense behind him. 

“I think Peter made a choice. He made a lot of choices, but he made a choice.” He said as he thought of your earlier words. Don’t let him off the hook that easily. “He has a lot to atone for.”

He could feel James nod and they sat in silence for some time, watching the lights move from the street below them.

Sirius was pretty well asleep when James spoke up again. 

“So, are you guys like, back together?”

Sirius scrunched his face. “What in the hells are you talking about?”

“You and Vix? Does this mean mom and dad are back together again?” 

“James, she doesn’t remember me.”

“Well that just can’t be true.” James argued.

“Why’s that?”

“No one who doesn’t know you would let you sleep in their bed, Pads. You look like a bad idea.”

Sirius groaned. “She remembers some things.”

“Nice! Anything about me?” James asked excitedly. 

“Yes.” You muttered sleepily. “I remember that you’re unbearably annoying.” 

Sirius beamed and pressed a kiss to your hair. 

Lily began to redecorate, though she muttered unhappily the entire time about not being able to run to the shops. Every wall was painted white, causing each space to look far brighter and bigger than it had before. James took down every framed piece of art and gave it to Harry and Sirius to paint over – what were once paintings full of dark objects and pureblood legacy were now Gryffindor logos, the Hogwarts castle, a golden snitch, owls, self-portraits, or, in Harry’s case, a big truck. (If you close your eyes, you can absolutely see it). 

Sirius insisted the house was still chock full of “bad vibes”, but everyone else already felt less suppressed. 

Your memories were slowly returning to you, and much to everyone’s chagrin and to his absolute delight, Remus seemed to be the first of your friends you completely unravelled. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” James cried.

“I’ve never been so offended in my life.” Sirius muttered.

Lily refused to speak on the matter...but she also (playfully) refused to speak a word to you at all.

“I mean, really, what’s Moons got that I don’t?” Sirius whined as he watched the golden coloured orb on your scan get accessed by the travelling lights without incident. 

“Class, obviously.” Remus claimed haughtily.

“Oh, I’ll show you class.” Sirius barked before launching himself at Remus who was sitting in an armchair with a book in his hand. 

The two boys men struggled with each other, Remus never leaving the armchair nor dropping his book, before Sirius began whining.

“Say it.” Remus said with a smirk.

“Moony!”

“Say it.”

“Uncle! Uncle!” Sirius cried and Remus released his hold on his arm. 

“Real classy boys.” Lily said with a roll of her eyes. 

It had been about a week since Vix had been home and it was about a week until the next full, so Remus could not figure out why he felt so itchy. 

“Maybe you’ve got fleas.” James offered as he shoved roast potatoes in his mouth.

“I don’t have fleas, you sod.” Remus muttered.

“No, that’s usually a Padfoot problem.” Lily chortled

Sirius elicited a dramatic gasp and held his hand to his chest.

“I have never once in my life had flea’s you hag.”

“Don’t call my wife a hag!”

“Then tell her not to act like one!”

“Can we not do this at the dinner table?” You moaned with a roll of your eyes. Both men stopped the antics and looked down at their plates, shame faced. 

“Sorry mum.” They chorused. 

You smirked and looked over to Remus, who still looked unsettled. “It’s not usual for you to get like this, this far from the moon.” You commented.

“No.” Remus muttered miserably. “I don’t know, something just feels off.” 

“Our world has been flipped upside down multiple times this week. I think it will take some time for us to get our bearings again.” Lily admitted.

The adults nodded in agreement; Harry shook his head violently. 

“No? You don’t think so Haz?” James asked his son.

“No!” Harry squealed happily, lifting a handful of crushed roast potatoes in his hand.

“Don’t mind him. That’s his favourite word right now.” Lily explained. 

“Is miss finished?” Kreacher’s voice appeared beside you, causing you to jump in your seat.

“Oh!” You breathed, holding a hand to your chest. “Uhm, yes. Kreacher, thank you.”

The house-elf grunted and took your plate to the sink, before returning and pulling your chair out for you. James and Sirius shared a look at the odd behaviour.

“What are you doing, Kreacher?” Sirius asked.

You looked just as confused as Kreacher helped you stand.

“Kreacher has been asked to retrieve the mudblood.” He said plainly, and with a snap of his fingers, the two of you were gone. 

Continue to part five here.

[hockeynoses]

and call me in the morning (Ste/ddie snz fic)

Summary: A college AU where Steve is sick and in order to get excused from class, he has to get a doctor's note from the university clinic. Eddie is a med student who works at the clinic.

Rating: PG-13? Nothing much going on here other than admiring each other's looks. No character has the kink. 3.7k words.

Warnings: Mess. Coughing. Mention of contagion, but none actually happens.

Notes: Inspired by gemsden's post. I've always had a bit of a medical kink just lurking under the surface and, well, this happened. I'm happy it pulled me out of my writer's block! The title is from Coconut by Harry Nilsson.

.

After the nurse weighs him, shows him to the private room, takes his blood pressure, and leaves, Steve has nothing more to do than stare at the bland, cream-colored walls and try not to fall asleep on the exam table. He fights the urge to lay down on the crinkly, uncomfortable paper, praying that this won’t take long, and he can be back home in bed as soon as possible.

The stuffiness in his nose that has been bothering him for days once again reaches capacity, and he feels a tell-tale tickle which gives him just enough warning to fumble a tissue out of the small pack he has shoved in his pocket. “kknnnxXGT!” The fountain of snot that pours out is miraculously all contained in the one feeble tissue. He groans and a couple coughs escape him. This cold, or whatever the hell it is, is just starting to settle into his chest.

The trash can on the other side of the room is too far away for his aching body, so he sets the used tissue to the side of him on the exam table. The waxy cover always reminds him of the kind of paper used for takeout orders. He feels enough like a vegetable right now that someone could just wrap him up like a sandwich and put him out of his misery.

Fiddling with the packet of tissues, he sees he only has two left. There’s a full box sitting on the counter across the room, but he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by hoarding the entire box like some kind of snot monster. He should be able to control his nose for the next ten minutes or so.

After a few more minutes of waiting, there’s a knock on the door. It swings open to reveal a guy about his age, with long curly hair pulled back into a bun, and the biggest brown eyes Steve has ever seen. The dark ink on his forearms swirls all the way up his biceps until it disappears under his scrubs. Steve instantly feels his face warm, and he’s about ten times more embarrassed to be here. He thought he was going to be examined by some sweet middle-aged lady, not this bad-boy doctor that sends heat crawling up his neck.

---

Eddie enters the exam room and commends himself on his professional conduct when the first thing he notices is how awful the guy on the table looks, rather than how gorgeous he is. The third thought that runs through his head is how familiar he looks. This has to be the guy that stops by the coffee shop where Eddie studies.

He’s shaken from his thoughts when the guy curls forward with a powerful sneeze that rips through him, thankfully caught in a waiting tissue.

“Whoa,” Eddie says, stepping over to the counter and immediately donning a surgical mask. The guy looks truly miserable and Eddie’s not trying to fuck around with this.

“Hey,” the guy says weakly into his bundle of drenched tissues.

“Hi,” Eddie says, “It’s, uh…” He looks at the chart in his hands. “Steve, right?”

“Yeah.” Steve follows his resigned answer with a clearing blow that rips through the otherwise quiet room.

“So, you’re not feeling too hot, Steve?” Eddie pulls the swivel stool to the center of the room and takes a seat.

“Not really, bman.” Steve pulls the tissue from his face, gives a hearty but futile sniff, and sets the dirty thing on the table next to him. “I just dneed a doctor’s dnote for class. The professor is such a hardass.”

“Yeah, I totally get it,” Eddie says as he pointedly places the trash can next to Steve, who sheepishly tosses the soiled kleenex. “It still looks like you’ve caught a hell of a bug, though, so I gotta do the required examination.”

Steve smothers several wracking coughs into his elbow. When he emerges, he looks even more wiped out. “That’s fine.” It comes out as Thad’s find, and Eddie shouldn’t be charmed by how the congestion mangles his words, but he is. He gets the feeling that he’ll find anything this guy does to be charming.

“Alright, let me get your temperature first.” He grabs the infrared thermometer from the counter, then, noting the nearly empty packet of Kleenex Steve has on him, also grabs the box of tissues, and places it next to Steve on the exam table. “You look like you might need these.”

“Thaggs,” Steve manages, and now Eddie is close enough to see the flush that blooms high on his cheeks, under a constellation of beauty marks. Is he covered in them all over?  Eddie mentally chides himself for the thought, forcing himself to focus. He stands over Steve, aiming the temperature gun at his forehead.

“W-wait- I - iihh!” Steve’s eye flutter and he leans back as far as he can, twisting to the side. “hih-HIH’RUUSSHHH’IUE!” The sneeze is heaved into his cupped hands, no doubt contaminating them with contagious spray. “Ow.” His poor throat must be scraped raw. Eddie pulls two tissues from the box and hands them over. Steve takes them gratefully, burying his face into the soft, white folds and releasing a sickly, gurgling blow.

“Ogkay,” Steve says as he straightens up, his throat still thick with mucus. Eddie winces in sympathy, taking his temperature while Steve still has the clump of tissues pressed under his chapped nose.

“101. You definitely have a fever.” Eddie makes a note on his chart. “How long have you felt feverish?”

Steve swipes his nose clean, throws the Kleenex into the trash, and answers, “About a day or two…”

“Have you been drinking fluids?”

“Trying to.” Steve covers a wet little cough with his fist. “Bmostly Gatorade… or if my roobmate bmakes bme tea.”

I bet he’s a jock, Eddie thinks at the mention of Gatorade, and tries to ignore the mental image of a healthy Steve running around in short shorts.

“That’s good. How about your appetite?”

“Umb… m-mostly – heh-” he frantically pulls a tissue from the box as Eddie steps further back, eyebrows raised. “heh-KIISSHH’AH! Ugh. ‘Scuse bme. SNF. Bmostly soup.”

“That’ll work. It’s important to stay hydrated and keep up with your meals.” Eddie tries to focus on his damn job and not how adorable Steve looks with his red nose and his sleepy eyes. He wants to take him home and tuck him into bed.

“And the congestion? The sneezing? How long has that been bothering you?”

The mere mention of it has Steve’s nose staging a rebellion. The unrelenting itch causes his breath to start hitching as the tingling spreads. His lungs fill with a stuttered gasp before he’s rocked by a sneeze that sends him lurching forward into his soggy tissue. “Huh-AEXXTSHHH’uu!” Jesus, that sounded like half of it came from his chest. It takes him a moment to come back to himself. He pauses, clearing the mucus from his throat.

“Yikes… That sounded like it hurt. You good?” Eddie’s forehead creases with concern.

“Mmhmm,” Steve answers, although he doubts he’s very convincing, seeing as his response was more of a pathetic pained sound than actual words. He forges on anyway.

“Idt started about a day and a half ago a-and iihh – hih – it won’t – sto- hah – HA’ESSSHHH’uh! SNF. Ugh, God, idt won’t stob.” He grabs another kleenex to clean himself up. “I feel like saying I’b stuffed ubp is an understatemend.” He snuffles up the liquid threatening to spill out his nostrils, the sound of it somehow both syrupy and jam-packed at the same time.

“What about headaches? Body aches?”

“Y-yeah – I – h-hang ond - hah-K’GGSSHHoo! Heh-D’TSHH! Oh bmy god.” The poor, crumpled tissue that’s now completely sodden is thrown away, immediately replaced by a fresh one, brought up to halt the flow of snot that threatens to run onto his cupid’s bow. “Sorry for beigg disgusting. This cold is killing bme.”

“You’re fine,” Eddie says with a smile that’s mostly hidden by the mask. “It comes with the territory.”

Steve gives a weak smile and nods. Eddie’s candor helps open the floodgates and he continues, “Umb. So yeah, bmy head’s beedn hurting for a couple days. And bmy body hurts, but that’s probably the fever. It’s just –” He smothers a crackling cough into his wad of tissues. “It’s jusdt beedn shitty all around.”

“Sorry, man. I feel for you.” Eddie meets his eyes before scribbling some notes down on his chart. “Hopefully we can suggest something for that cough at least, and have you feeling better soon. Some Tylenol would help with that fever, too.”

“Thaggs.” Steve’s eyes track Eddie’s nimble hands as he writes. The fever must be loosening his tongue because he asks, “Hey, you look kind of fabmiliar. Do…do you - hih’AEESSH’iue! Do you go to the coffee shobp around the cordner?”

Eddie’s heart stumbles over itself and he looks up to meet Steve’s glassy eyes.

“I do! I thought I’d seen you before. I study there a lot because it’s so close, and I concentrate better with a little bit of chaos, you know?”

“For sure. I stob there before bmy night class sobetimes. They have really good lattes.”

“And those croissants, oh my god. Sometimes I think they’re the only thing getting me through med school.”

Steve laughs at that, which of course turns into a hoarse cough that he has to race to cover with his elbow. Eddie looks at him with undisguised concern; can feel himself falling fast. He’s going to need to call on every bit of professionalism he possesses to act normal when he has to get up close and personal with this guy.

---

“They let students work in the university clinic?” Steve asks. The fever is making his head swim, but he’s got to learn more about this guy. If he says anything stupid, he can blame it on the fact that he’s sick as a dog. When he would sneak glances at this guy – he reads his nametag – Eddie Munson – in the café, he’d practically salivate over his tatted forearms peeking out from his rolled-up sleeves. He usually had his hair back in a messy bun if he was studying – wild strands escaping here and there, chewing on the end of his pen, his foot jittering with barely-restrained energy.

“They sure do,” Eddie answers, snapping Steve out of his reverie. “Third- and fourth-year med students do clinical rotations as part of the MD program.” He pulls a tongue depressor from a glass jar on the nearby counter. “Doctor Byers should be in to check my work when we’re done. She’s chill though.” He walks back over to stand in front of Steve. “Now comes the fun part,” he says, wiggling the tongue depressor in his fingers.

“Do we have to?” Steve scrubs a finger under his raw nose.

“Doctor’s orders, I’m afraid,” Eddie says with a smile that crinkles his eyes.

“F-finde… Let bme j-just – heh - hih…ha'iggSHH’IUE!”

“Get all those sneezes out?”

“Y-yeah – hih - gshHT’Chuh! kx’GSSHT’iiew!”

“You ready?” Eddie asks when Steve stills, blinking above the barricade of tissues pressed desperately to his face.

“Uh huh.” Steve fights against the perpetual tingle in his sinuses by snorting as much of the mess back as he can.

“Just try not to sneeze on me,” Eddie jokes.

Steve flushes, mortified that that’s even a possibility. He’s been eyeing this guy for weeks - why couldn’t they have met under normal circumstances that weren’t designed specifically to humiliate him?

“I’ll try.” Steve tries to sound reassuring, but who’s he kidding – judging by the past couple days, the likelihood of him controlling his nose is slim to none.

“Okay, open your mouth.”

Steve does, relieved that he can blame his warm cheeks on the fever. Eddie is right in his face, and Steve doesn’t know where to look. Half his concentration is spent on not staring at his chocolate brown eyes, and the other half is trying to not cough all over him. He should’ve brought some fucking water with him, or stopped at the café for some hot tea.

All the thoughts fly from his head when Eddie crooks a couple fingers under his chin to tilt his head up for a better view. A sharp curl of desire sizzles at the base of his spine, his insides turning gooey at being handled in such a way, with such intense scrutiny – like he’s a particularly interesting bug under a microscope.

Eddie tsks. “Your throat’s pretty red, and a bit swollen. No surprise there.” He pulls back and tosses the tongue depressor. “How long has it been sore for?”

“A couple –” He’s cut off by a chesty, rattling cough muffled into his cupped hands. “Sorry,” he rasps. “A couple days ago. Idt was the first symptom I had, other than - Kngxxt’shoo! – other than beigg tired.” While he grabs a handful of tissues to clean himself up, Eddie pulls the stethoscope free from where it rests over his shoulders. Steve groans inwardly. He hates this part. It’s always so awkward having someone listen to every sound you make – inside and out – in a silent room. He gives a viscous blow into the Kleenex, hoping to clear out as much sludge as possible. How disgusting must Eddie think he is right now? Or is this truly just another day at the office for him?

“Ready?” Eddie gestures with the stethoscope. Steve takes off his jacket and fights a shiver. “I’m going to listen to your lungs for a second. Just breathe deep for me, okay?”

“Ogkay.” Steve gives one last small cough into his fist before taking a deep breath. His nose is so stuffed that he’s forced to breathe through his mouth. It’s silent in the room as Eddie shifts the disk on his back from his left lung to his right, his other hand a warm, steadying presence on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve continues to breathe in and out, but as Eddie is about to switch to his front, his breath catches and a deep, wet cough is forced from him. He twists away again, and Eddie gives him space. The cough sets off the irritation in his nose, and he’s helpless against the harsh, scraping sneeze – “hah’ITXXXCH’ah!” – that bursts into the waiting crook of his elbow, the mess of it leaving the fabric damp.

“Christ, I’b so sorry.” He catches his breath and cleans himself up. His voice is starting to go hoarse. “I really don’dt wanna get you sigk.”

“No worries, I think you have whatever has been going around for a while. I’m sure I’ve already been exposed.” He leans into Steve’s space again and sets the cool disk on Steve’s chest. “We definitely don’t want you going to class and spreading this around, though. We’ll get you that doctor’s note, no problem.”

“That’s a relief. Thaggs.”

“Happy to help. Another deep breath for me?”

Steve does as he’s asked, focusing on the feel of Eddie’s hands on him as a sense of calm sinks into his bones, the tension inside him unspooling. The room is quiet enough for him to hear Eddie’s breath echoing his own. If he wasn’t so goddamn stuffed up, he’s sure he’d be able to smell the salt of his skin. As much as Steve hates being poked and prodded when he’s sick, it turns out it’s not that bad when Eddie’s the one doing it.

“Sounds like it’s moving into your lungs,” Eddie says, and Steve only nods dazedly, surrendering to the exhaustion and the feeling of his mind floating somewhere above him. “Some over the counter cough medicine would help with that.”

“I can ask Robin to pick me up sombe,” Steve says, thinking out loud. Then he clarifies, “Robin’s my roobmate.”

“Well, that would be nice of her.” Eddie loops the stethoscope back around his neck and moves to stand in front of Steve. “I’m going to check if your lymph nodes are swollen.”

Steve sits up straight and tilts his head up. The cool touch of Eddie’s hands against the fever-hot skin of his neck is enough to make him shiver again. He’s going to melt into puddy if he’s not careful. His eyes threaten to flutter shut as Eddie gently prods at him, and Steve must really be out of it now, because he’s letting his eyes roam greedily all over the other man – his broad shoulders, dark eyelashes and lightly freckled skin. There are a couple loose curls that Steve wants to brush off his forehead, and his thumb itches to press into the little furrow of his brow that forms as Eddie concentrates fully on Steve. On getting Steve better.

The words spill out of him without his consent – “Robin is jusdt a roobmate.”

“Oh?” Eddie’s hands still, but he doesn’t remove them from the underside of Steve’s jaw. Steve blinks – realizes what he just said.

“I bmean – yeah. She’s – I was just clarifying. Only roobmates.”

Eddie pauses, his eyes searching for something in Steve’s gaze. “Good to know.” His tone is genuine and deliberately light.

Eddie continues his exam, gentle fingers exploring along Steve’s skin. Steve swallows against the dryness in his throat, sniffing in an attempt to keep his nose from running. Another desperate, ominous sniffle has his damn nose prickling again. Steve reacts in a flash – pressing his hand into Eddie’s solid chest to push him out of the way before inhaling sharply and curling into himself as a sneeze tears out of him and sprays over his lap. “Hiih-ZZSSHHESSH! G-god, sorr-eee – heh - huh’GGSSHH’IEW!” His hands are loosely steepled in front of his face, not enough to completely contain the spray, but enough to hopefully give him some semblance of privacy so Eddie doesn’t have to watch such a disgusting display of illness. Not like he hasn’t had a front-row seat this whole time. “Fugk.” He reaches for the tissues as gracefully as he can. “Sorry, this is disgusdtigg.”

“It’s okay, Steve. It’s not your fault - you’ve got one hell of a cold.”

“Still,” Steve insists, then marvels at the fact that against all odds, Eddie looks charmed.

“Alright tough guy, I think it’s safe to say we can write you that doctor’s note now.” Eddie winks. Steve doesn’t know whether to blush, grumble at him, or thank him profusely. He somehow finds a middle ground.

“Thagg you.” The words are a self-deprecating groan into his now ever-present fistful of tissues.

“We’ll email you a copy, but they can print it for you when you check out, if that helps.” Eddie smiles under his mask, and Steve wishes he could see it. There’s a knock at the door, and Eddie tells whoever it is to come in. It’s Dr. Byers. Joyce, Steve gleans from her nametag when she gets closer.

“Hey guys. How is everything going in here?” She steps into the room and Eddie hands her the chart.

“Good. It looks like he’s got that nasty cold that’s been going around. I told him we could get him an attendance note for class, and recommend some over-the-counter cold meds. And lots of fluids and rest, of course.” He sends a look Steve’s way, who returns it with a nod, their eyes catching and holding. Joyce studies the chart a moment longer.

“Everything looks good. Do you have any questions, Steve? Anything else that you have concerns about?”

“No, I don’t - hah-iiGhhShoo! ‘Scuse mbe. I don’t thigg so.”

“Alright, if there’s nothing else, I believe you’re free to go,” she says with a sweet smile. Steve is hit with an odd flash of happiness that Eddie has such a nice mentor to work with.

“If anything gets worse, come back and see us, for sure.” Eddie hastily adds, his hands clicking his pen with excess energy.

“I will. Thaggs again,” he says for good measure. As he stands up to leave, Eddie’s voice rings bright in the dull room.

“And hey – next time you see me at the café, stop and say hi, yeah?”

Steve’s heart gives a silly little lurch, warmth spreading through him. “Yeah, of course. I’ll – iihh - hih’KISSHH’uu! SNF. I’ll see you there.”

A fond laugh rumbles from Eddie’s chest. “Preferably when you’re feeling better. You’re like a walking biohazard right now.”

Steve groans and rolls his eyes. “Ugh, you don’dt have to rebind bme.”

“I know, I’m just giving you a hard time.” When Eddie turns back to Joyce, she’s looking between them with a question in her eyes. He huffs an awkward laugh and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, take care Steve. I’ll see you around!” He hesitates a moment longer before giving them both a little wave and heading out the door to his next patient.

Joyce shares a look of friendly exasperation with Steve. “He’s quite the character, but he’s going to make a great doctor someday.”

“Seembs like it.” Steve looks to the door Eddie has already disappeared from. He’s a romantic at heart in spite of himself, and he already knows he’ll be imagining how Eddie is spending the rest of his day while he’s laid up in bed fighting this thing. He wants to believe that Eddie will be daydreaming of him too.

“Come on, I’ll show you where to check out.” Joyce leads the way out of the room.

Steve follows, already doing the mental math to figure out the timing of when he’ll be feeling better and when Eddie will be studying at the café. What should he wear? Which outfit would Eddie like best? Maybe he can try to find him on social media. After all, he’s going to have plenty of time to lay around with nothing else to do.

He has no idea what the fuck he’s going to do yet, but the thought of seeing Eddie again pleases him more than he knows what to do with. Once he finishes checking out and heads out the doors, he lets himself imagine the smile he’ll get from Eddie in a few days. Warm and easy, with just enough of an edge to send Steve’s pulse racing.

[1d1195]

Protection III

Hi hi, here’s part 3. I am focusing deeply on the word ‘protection’ today. You can read the rest here: Protection

I am going to spoil the plot a bit by way of warning, but I want to be super up front about it. ***A horrible guy is going slip something in her drink about a third of the way through. Nothing awful is going to happen to her—she doesn’t even leave the bar with him (not with Harry around) but I want to make sure everyone is aware before you read. Please only read if you feel safe to do so.*** Men are the worst. Except Harry. Obvi. Otherwise this is going to be a little angsty and a little fluffy/comforting? That's the best way I can describe it.

My aim in these beginning parts is to really establish their little relationship they have going. A lot of that entails what she needs protection from--which happens to mainly be stupid men. I'm really aiming to contrast how lovely Harry is by comparison.

~6.1k words

Harry looked briefly at his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t miss the way she flinched as he touched her. Then flicked his gaze back up at him. “Take your hand off her yourself, or I will take it off for you.”

On this particular Friday, Harry was a mere three seats from her. Still at the end of the bar. Normally, she was at a table or dancing with her friends, so Harry was far out of view and earshot. He paid no attention to her or the many guys that were fighting for her affection. He thought it was funny to see the action up close. There was a secret message hidden in her eyes that one of her girlfriends seemed to know implicitly and she would come to her rescue, getting rid of the men surrounding her.

Harry scrolled through his phone, nursing his glass of soda water pretending it was gin and tonic with a lime. All the while, straining to listen to the dull roar of the crowd to hear the names of the people that dropped into her lap so he could run them through a background check.

She had to give credit where credit was due. Harry never looked miserable when he was out and about with her. He never told her no either—at least regarding where they could go. There was never a moment of the place was too sketchy. He let her figure that out, which in a weird way was comforting. If it was sketchy, with a previous agent, she was pretty sure she would stand her ground and stay there. Even if she felt weird. Now, she would simply look at Harry and he would hold the door open for her as they left.

“Hey,” this guy had pristinely coiffed hair. Like it was sprayed into place. She noted that his green pants had little blue whales embroidered on them—the same blue that matched his polo. It was like he just set foot off a yacht.

She had met his type several times over the years. He was definitely not the guy she wanted to be around. She missed his name as she thought about the last time she was forced to be with her dad on a boat. It was some networking thing—back when he was a senator, looking for support and aiming for a higher position. The escapade entailed him rubbing shoulders with his fellow governmental famous friends while she was stuck with their sons and daughters.

She hated their elitist conversations about how much money they had and why the wait at restaurants was getting out of hand when no one wanted to work—when she was certain the lot of them had never set foot outside of Mommy and Daddy’s bank to make their own money.

Fortunately, the guy in the weird pants put his hand on her arm, causing her to tune back in. She hoped she didn’t look ridiculous zoning out. Obviously, she hadn’t, if he continued talking to her. Her friend didn’t come over to interject either so maybe he was fine. She smiled politely at him, focusing on the one-sided conversation he seemed to be having. Maybe that was why he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t paying attention. He was merely listening to his own voice.

She thought about her flashcards sitting on her coffee table at home. That was better than listening to this guy. She pictured the words, the definitions, the pictures she had painstakingly drawn on each one over the last couple weeks. She had her third exam of one of her major classes in two weeks. She wasn’t struggling—especially if you looked at her grades, but it was because of the effort she put into her work to make sure it was top notch.

Where was her friend to get this guy away from her?

Oh well, at least she could imagine the different ring-structures while she zoned out.

Why did she even bother coming out tonight? She and Harry were in the middle of their latest rom-com when her friend invited her out. After the whole concert fiasco, while she was staying in for a week to ease Harry’s worries (and because he got yelled at—despite the fact everyone told him she would leave) she studied a lot. Meanwhile, Harry had created a list of every stupid rom-com movie he could find on Netflix and during her study breaks, they were slowly working their way through it. Being the scientist she was, she created a spreadsheet to rate each movie and list any additional comments. There were subcategories for their rating system, predictability, likability, casting, soundtrack, trashiness, etc.

“What are we going to do with this information?” Harry asked, looking at her laptop with her as she screen-shared it to her TV post-viewing Your Place or Mine.

“Ashton Kutcher gets a 10/10—"she muttered.

“You always give him a 10/10,” Harry reminded her.

“—and I don’t know. Nothing. It’s fun!”

It was the simplest fun she’d had in years.

Where was her friend?

She took a long chug of her drink, finishing it off and shaking the glass at the bartender while she mouthed “thank you.” She continued listening to the mind-numbing conversation this man was having with himself. It shocked Harry she could be so grumpy toward DSS but someone that was clearly boring the lights out of her was not subject to the lovely attitude he had been so lucky to see so many times over the last two and a half months.

Harry received an email alert that the check was completed. She may have missed his name, but Harry didn’t. He glanced through the details, finding public indecency from getting too drunk and showing off in public in front of a group of people he shouldn’t have. What should have been a short stint in jail, there was instead a fine was paid by someone with the same last name as him and no more record of the event. That was enough for Harry to get her out of there but theoretically if it was swept under the rug, then it wasn’t all that bad...marginally. So, he could leave him be. For now.

He also attended one of the private universities in the city. A red flag on her end for sure, but she had to have known that; he had been talking to her for over fifteen minutes and he seemed like the type to brag about where he went to school. So why was she listening to him? Harry swore if he had to listen to him fail to give her an orgasm tonight while he stood outside her apartment, he was going to lose his mind.

She sipped her new drink. Her fourth or fifth. Harry felt a little nervous given she hadn’t had any water and it had been hours since she had eaten. He wasn’t worried about her getting intoxicated—Harry remembered drinking significantly in college, but he didn’t want her to have a hangover or feel sick. He hated that and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Well, except maybe this guy. He had to remember to ask what she was thinking about while he spoke because there was no way she was paying this close attention to the nonsense spewing out of him about NFTs and Cryptocurrency.

He leaned toward her ear and whispered something. It made her cheeks turn red. But when she smirked it didn’t reach her eyes. Of course, this idiot didn’t notice. But Harry certainly did. She shook her head at whatever it was. But he didn’t accept that. He leaned closer toward her. Sliding in between her seat and the occupied one behind her. He draped his arm awkwardly around her and Harry couldn’t take it.

Her friend must have left or simply wasn’t paying attention.

Harry tapped her shoulder. “Love,” he said gently as she turned to him. “Let’s go please,” his voice was even, pleasant. He wasn’t trying to make a scene. But she was on drink number five at this point. Alcohol tended to make her a bit feisty—or feistier as Harry would say. She narrowed her eyes at him with a smirk.

“No, thank you,” she said just as politely and turned her attention back to the guy beside her. Even though she didn’t want to. It was so stubborn of her. Stupid of her. In hindsight, if she just listened to Harry, she probably would have had a much more pleasant weekend.

Harry grabbed the barstool she was sitting on and spun her back toward him. His thigh touched her knee. He gripped the back of her seat, closing her off from the guy she was speaking to. He leaned closer to her she could smell his minty breath. “Now,” his voice was low. But she could practically feel the vibration run through her like a current. Harry was intimidating (and without a doubt hot, it was impossible not to notice, especially when he was so close, smelled so good, and she had a lot of alcohol swimming through her bloodstream). It felt like maybe this was a terrible idea having someone close in age after all. Someone that, in theory, she could date if he were anyone else. If he weren’t someone charged with protecting her well-being every moment of the day.

“You always want to ruin my fun,” she grumbled sipping her drink.

He shook his head. “I don’t, love. I really don’t. But I want y’safe. Let’s go.”

“Look buddy,” the moron said to Harry. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re having a grand time right now. She doesn’t need your help.”

Harry looked briefly at his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t miss the way she flinched as he touched her. Then flicked his gaze back up at him. “Take your hand off her yourself, or I will take it off for you.”

“Harry,” she hissed. Her eyes looked a bit glassy, and Harry thought she was probably feeling all four drinks she had tasted spin through her mind. The bar was hot, and confrontation was never off the table with her and probably fought well with the liquid running through her.

“Love,” Harry repeated.

“Don’t call her that,��� the guy snorted. “It’s pretty pathetic you’re pining after her. There’s plenty of girls here that you could talk to. Why do you even want her?”

Harry looked at her directly in the eye, even though hers were struggling to see straight, her head bobbing ever so slightly. “I asked nicely, first. Please try t’remember that in the morning,” he told her evenly. In one movement, he grabbed the guy’s wrist off her shoulder so quickly and twisted it behind his back. Before there was any time to react from any party, Harry shoved him into the bar leaned close to the guy’s ear who let out the least manly squeal Harry had ever heard. “Public indecency charge and daddy covering up the charge doesn’t bode well for your limp dick, buddy,” he snarled in his ear.

“Harry!” She shouted angrily. Harry shoved him into the bar once more, causing him to grunt. In the next moment he grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door. She pulled against him shouting and smacking his arm, but he didn’t release her. He was only mildly irritated by her weak punches. She was pissed he was strong. It wasn’t fair. The bouncers at the door were privy to the situation. They understood all too well who she was and who Harry was. They avoided eye contact with the girl vibrating with anger.

Harry lost his grip on her for all of two seconds. He caught her around the waist before she could even run three little steps. Without much effort, he swept her wiggling form into his arms. Tossing her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing but a small bag of potatoes. Then he simply turned to walk the few blocks back to his SUV.

She did not like it. “PUT. ME. DOWN.”

“Y’know, I did m'training with another political family. They had a young daughter. After a long day, I had t’do the very same thing t’her. If you’re going t’act like a child. I’ll treat you like one. M’doing this for your safety.”

“You’re EMBARRASSING me!” She shrieked.

“Then jus’ listen next time. M’not waiting around for some financial know-it-all t’indecently expose himself around you or worse. I’m done with your reign of paperwork terror. Not for a bratty girl that jus’ wants attention,” it was a low blow. He knew it as he said it. Especially after her last threat when he called her a brat.

She hit him hard against his back. Clawed at his shirt. It was no use because his muscles were dense and had no give for her weak punches. She wondered if he could even feel them. “I am not a brat!” she hissed at him.

“You couldn’t fool me.”

She gave him a few more lackluster punches. Yelled so many swears she would embarrass a sailor. But after two blocks, her yells turned into grumbles. She muttered a few more choice words with Harry’s name attached as he carried her further down the sidewalk.

After a full three minutes of silence, she sighed. The rush of blood to her head was definitely calming her quicker than if she were upright. She felt woozy between being upside down for so long and the flush of alcohol in her bloodstream. “I won’t run,” she mumbled after a moment. “Please put me down, Harry,” she said politely. “I promise.”

Given that any time she uttered the word or swore to keep a promise, she did (with the exception of losing her phone), he almost immediately righted her. He held her steady by the hip for a moment until the blood went back to where it belonged in her body.

They walked in more silence, another block. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

"S’okay. It was rude of me. I didn't like what I saw on the background. Nor what he had t’say,” he shrugged. He was grateful she didn’t take off again. Harry didn’t want to fight with her.

She smirked. Her eyes fluttered a moment too long. If Harry hadn't been practically studying her every movement over the last few months he might not have noticed the extra twitch in her eye as she did. He looked at her curiously, only one extra second longer, before he decided to shrug it off as the alcohol. “Least I waited t’carry you till we were outside, yeah?” He asked. Harry was nothing but partial to constructive feedback at least. Especially in a moment like this. When it was quiet, just the pair of them. Like their coffee runs or while they were watching movies. When she wasn’t on display in front of her friends, and she wasn’t thinking about Harry like he was her enemy.

She nodded. Her head felt really heavy, suddenly. The last drink must have caught up to her more than all the others. Which sucked mainly because it didn't even taste good. It was like the bartender added extra salt to it or something.

“Yeah,” she mumbled and stumbled a bit. She managed to press her hand against the building they were walking nearby as she stopped to try and catch her breath. Her brain felt so fuzzy. She tried to shake her head of the fogginess, but it only made her dizzier. Harry grabbed her other arm and held her upright only briefly before she nearly collapsed.

“Whoa, love?” Harry asked quickly wrapping an arm around her waist to stabilize her.

"Something’s wrong...my drink was salty," she mumbled almost intelligibly.

Her brain automatically put it together, but her tongue felt too swollen in her mouth to explain it to Harry. She pictured drawing it. Benzene rings. 1-methyl, 7-nitro. She could have drawn them herself if she wasn’t so tired. They nearly danced in her vision, as if they were appearing out of thin air as they attached to the cells in her bloodstream.

Harry swore under his breath as the realization hit him shortly after her. He swept her back into his arms, this time cradling her against his chest. His heart raced with anger and worry. “Love? Y'with me?" He asked uselessly. She nodded anyway and gave a small sound that he imagined was supposed to be a word but didn't make it all the way through her lips. "Fucking hell," he hissed and hurried the final block to his SUV.

Harry drove as fast as he possibly could while keeping an eye on her slumping figure in his passenger seat. He barely had the car in shifted in park (in a no parking zone at that) when he rushed to her side. “Gonna get y’some help, love. M’so sorry,” he mumbled to her. Harry felt terrible. Horrible. He should have been faster at getting her out of there. He should have...

Well, he didn’t really have time for should haves right now.

He cradled her once more. While his heart was fraught with worry his brain was trying to sort through everything that went wrong so, very quickly...he couldn’t stop the thought of how natural it felt to hold her like this. He wished with everything in him, it was for something else. Maybe she simply drank too much. Or she fell asleep on the floor amidst her study session. Anything. Anything but this.

Harry sprinted into the emergency room shouting orders explaining who he was holding in his arms. As soon as they realized the gravity of the situation, he explained who he was as he laid her on a gurney. Now that she was going to get treatment and out of his arms, the worry in his heart escalated. So much so it must have been plain on his face. The nurses were putting IVs in her, a doctor flashed a light in her eyes and all the while she limply laid there. Like she was merely asleep on her couch in her flowery apartment.

“Did he—?”

Harry felt his stomach knot at the half-question. His heart filled with venom. He couldn’t hear the words. He didn’t want anyone to hear it. He couldn’t fathom someone—no, something awful and terrible hurting her like that. “No,” he snapped. He was mad that he didn’t see the drink. It had to be when she was yelling at him. and her fitful, spiteful drink of the same glass when he stopped paying attention to her for half a second. He must have thought she would have shaken Harry off. Leave her alone with the likes of him.

Harry thought it would have been a hell of a lot worse if she hadn’t sat at the bar this evening. Or if he didn’t hear his name when he introduced himself. If he didn’t get the background check back as quickly as he did and knew that an indecent exposure was enough to make Harry weary.

Harry was pacing the hall outside the room where she was being tested. He was thinking of ways to murder him in the time it would take for her to be ready tomorrow morning. Or arrested. He could call a tip to his friend at the local police station. He called the bartender to let him know. To keep an eye on anyone else at that bar and to get that horrible monster out.

Oh, he was so fucking mad. “Goddammit!” He shouted knocking over an IV stand with nothing on it. Some of the staff stared at him momentarily and the clatter he created. Harry ignored their stairs, running his hands through his hair and pressing his forehead to the wall as he knotted his fingers behind his head. The onlookers continued about their business.

The paperwork was going to be brutal. He was certain he would be fired. Worse, he felt he deserved it. It was the least that should happen to him because he basically broke the one rule he was expected to follow: he let something happen to her. Something that he should have seen and prevented before it hurt her.

There was a gentle tap on his arm. He turned his head from the wall. “You can see her now,” the nurse said softly.

Harry wasn’t stupid. He knew only family or emergency contacts were allowed to see her, neither of which he was. He probably should call her father. How was he supposed to have that conversation? Regardless, he knew she wouldn’t want to see him. Not after that. No matter how forgiving she seemed once he let her walk on her own.

“M’sure I’m the last person she wants t’see,” he admitted. “And m’not family.”

The nurse shrugged and looked at the tablet in her hand again and then looked back up at him. “Harry, right? It says you’re her emergency contact.” She held out the tablet to show him that it was Harry’s name and number under the emergency contact information bubbles. The word ‘friend’ was written as the descriptor for relationship.

He sighed, feeling a larger obligation to her. Although he wasn’t sure it was right for him, after she got hurt on his watch. “Is she alright?” He asked rubbing the back of his head.

“Yes, thanks to you. You saved her. These kinds of things don’t usually have such a bright ending,” she nodded with a smile. She reminded him of a mum. Her kind, gentle encouraging words. She opened the door to the room and gestured for him to enter.

Harry slipped quietly in the door. She looked as if she was sleeping, like when she fell asleep on her couch in the middle of one of their movies without Harry noticing and he had to pretend he hadn’t already seen half the movie without her. There was a tube of oxygen flowing into her nose, her head was slumped to the side. An IV still in her arm. God, Harry hated it; hated that this happened to her and he couldn't stop it in time.

“We’re going to keep her overnight just to make sure it all clears her system. But she’ll be fine. And it’s really a much better scenario than what typically happens.”

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. Rubbing his hand over his face he nodded. “Thank you.”

“Can I get you a drink?” She asked.

“Please. Thank you, ma’am,” he said politely. She hurried to do that and then left them alone.

Harry once more watched her sleepy figure. He was so used to this, as he had told Niall. Most of his job was watching her sleep. The number of times he stood vigilant while she slept amidst her textbooks and a coffee cup nearly spilling out of her hand. She looked so peaceful. When she wasn’t arguing or yelling at him. But right now was different, and he hated watching her sleep. He wanted her to be awake, yelling at him or furiously telling him that Rachael Leigh Cook and Natalie Portman were not the same people.

She’s safe, she’s okay, and she’ll be alright. He repeated it to himself like a mantra as he watched her dream-struck face. He hoped she was having a good dream. Hoped that the night wasn’t on her mind and that she felt safe again.

He scooted himself forward in the chair so that he was closer to the bed. He didn’t like the angle her head was tilted. Carefully, he pressed his hand to the side of her neck and gently moved her, so she was more evenly centered against the pillow. On top of everything else, he didn’t want her to strain her neck.  She sighed softly; almost as if she melted into his touch. Harry felt the first bout of relief since they left the bar. He breathed out his own sigh. He propped his head in his other hand, gazing at her, his elbow resting on the edge of her bed.

He held her head up in that position the whole night.

*

She was quiet and groggy as he drove her back home the following morning. Wrapped his arm around her waist carefully and supported her weak frame up the steps to her apartment building. He didn’t let go of her in the elevator or when they were inside her apartment and moreover, she didn't protest. The rage Harry felt was as fierce as it was the night before. The only solace he had was knowing that poor excuse for a man was brought into custody.

Harry was dreading the paperwork he’d have to fill out for this one, but not even because he was annoyed with her. No, not annoyed; instead, he focused all his frustration and worry about caring for her.

She was silent, resting on the couch, her eyes still fluttering as if she needed to sleep more. Harry wouldn't blame her if she fell asleep again. It wasn’t her fault for the fatigue and exhaustion that wracked her body. Harry kind of hoped she would continue to rest for the afternoon. “Was supposed to study,” she mumbled.

“Sorry love; don’t think s’happening this weekend,” he remarked bringing her water and some toast for her stomach. Peanut butter slathered in one thin layer on the slice of bread, just as he had seen her do so many mornings before she headed to class. He sat beside her, holding the plate while she nibbled on her snack and was once more pleased that she didn't protest.

She was too tired to complain or argue or really do anything to torture Harry. Not that she looked for ways to torture him.

But specifically, it was never her intention to get hurt like this, of course. “I'm really sorry, Harry,” she mumbled. “Do you have to do the paperwork for it?” She asked. “I won’t tell anyone,” she promised.

Harry felt a twinge in his chest at her kindness that she was willing to lie on his behalf. That she was apologizing. He smiled sadly, and nodded. “I do, love. But s’okay. And...S’not your fault.”

“I should have listened to you,” she muttered looking down at her toast dejectedly. She messed up so bad. It wasn't supposed to happen like that.

“Love,” he said seriously. “I’ll blame y’till the end of time for you escaping or running away...this though? This is not y’fault,” he promised shaking his head. She frowned and didn’t speak. Her other security members would have blamed her. Because yes, he shouldn’t have spiked her drink. But if she were a pleasant person to watch, obeyed the rules like a lovely little pet, then she wouldn’t have had a sip of her drink to spite Harry and she would have left peacefully. And safely

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Can’t imagine what would happen if...” she trailed off thinking about if she managed to stay. She swallowed thickly, suddenly very frustrated and upset over her own stupidity for letting something like this happen. Letting someone take advantage of her. She should have been more aware. She shouldn’t have let her annoyance cloud her judgment.

“Love, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he promised. “M’sorry this did. Feel like I let y’down.”

She swallowed a piece of her toast realizing that Harry knew to put peanut butter on it, and she felt a bit overcome with emotion. It was sweet that he knew her. Her other agents would never do this for her. They’d make sure she was okay and stay far away from her. “I understand if you want to be reassigned,” she whispered.

He frowned, suddenly taken aback. He put the plate of toast on the coffee table. He rubbed his palms along his thighs. “Y’don’t want me t’be here?” He asked.

She shook her head. “No, I do...” she sighed. “But...this is bad, even I know that,” she admitted. “M’sorry. Really truly sorry I didn't listen. I know...I know how seriously you take your job and it wasn't fair to you to have to suffer through that either.”

“S’jus’ paperwork,” he shrugged. She looked up at his face, his green eyes were soft. There was no other way to describe it. He watched her eat and rest. Of course, she knew how much Harry hated paperwork. He moaned and groaned about it from her dining table almost weekly. She wasn’t part of the meetings, but she knew that he would get yelled at for this one. Even if it wasn’t his fault. But...he wanted to stay anyway. "The important thing is you're safe, love."

“You want to stay?” She asked in surprise.

He shrugged then nodded again. “S’long as you want me here.”

She thought Harry was a glutton for punishment, but she liked how nice he was to her. Maybe she would take it easy for a little bit. This really was a lot more than he probably anticipated.

“So...m’your emergency contact?” He asked with a smug little smirk. It made her rethink her kindness only briefly due to the way he looked so pleased with the notion.

For years it had been her father. She had been waiting for someone to come along and take his spot. She could have lied. Said it was always her main agent. It would have been easy to lie but part of her thought Harry would see right through her. “Who am I supposed to put?” She grumbled. “My dad? Fat chance of that.”

He smirked. “Glad I was there,” he nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“I think I would have...gone a bit mad if I didn’t...get t’see you,” he explained.

Her lips turned up in a tired smile. Poor thing still weak and groggy. “Sorry you had to carry me, I know I’m not light.”

“S’not even on the top hundred things I was worried ‘bout, love. Y’shouldn’t worry ‘bout that either.”

She felt her face warm a bit and she nodded. “Do...you have to start the paperwork right away? Or can we finish our movie?”

He glanced at his watch and nodded. “I can spare the time t'finish the movie.”

*

Harry got the reaming of a lifetime. She wasn’t privy to it, nor heard any detail of it. But she could tell from the way Harry hardly spoke to her. He even tried really hard not to yell at her while she did stupid things like leave a candle burning while she napped. Or reached into the sink to get the spoon that fell in the garbage disposal. Or when she didn’t look at the active ingredients of her cleaning supplies while washing her shower down and got lightheaded.

He didn’t seem all that fazed though, and it kinda ruined her typical annoying fun with him even if she was taking it easier on him. Still, she wasn’t so heartless to recognize this was a job for Harry. She recognized how bad it was that something like this happened. Especially for Harry. But even so, because it was the first time that she ever found herself without control over herself. Her life was literally in Harry’s hands, and even if she didn’t know until after, she trusted that she would be okay anyway simply because Harry was there. Even if he was part of her detested security detail.

She was standing in the middle of her sitting room with the book from her shelf. She placed her mug of tea on the coffee table and pretended to read the back of her book with feigned interest. Glancing at Harry, staring at his computer, she wondered what was said or what he was told he had to do. He wasn’t even typing or moving the mouse, so she knew he was simply ignoring her. They hadn’t watched a movie in a week. “How much paperwork do you have to do if I die or something?”

His gaze flicked to her and then turned back to his screen--still no typing. “S’not funny, love,” he rolled his eyes. She liked the eye roll. That was the most interaction she had with him in a week. The most reaction she got out of him in a week.

“I’m genuinely asking.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “A lot, probably.”

She nodded. “Why?”

“You’re not supposed to die. Not while m’here. If you die, then I didn’t do m’job t’protect you. S’protocol.”

God, she hated that word. “That’s hardly fair.” She frowned. Harry noted her distaste seemed serious. “You have a mom and a sister who would be devastated if something happened to you—especially on behalf of me.”

He blinked at her curiously. He hadn’t ever mentioned his family around her. He was surprised she even knew he had a sister. She rolled her eyes at him as he tried to flesh through all their conversations to see when he slipped up. “You’re not the only one that can do a background check. You should really put a middle name on your social media instead of your last name. Makes it a little harder to find you. Don’t know very many Harry Styles around these parts.”

He smirked. She was pretty cute when she was a know-it-all.

“Finally. I thought my material was worsening,” she flung herself back on the couch. “I don’t know what they said to you, but can you just come over here so we can watch a movie? I feel like they forgot you were the one that got me out of that mess. I don’t think it’s fair they yelled at you because I was being a brat. Suddenly now they think I would listen? That’s on them more than anything,” she said assuredly.

Harry seemed to be having some kind of internal battle over by his computer. She began reading the first couple pages of her book while Harry tried to work through whatever it was that was bothering him before his resolve seemed to crumble, and he took his place on the other sofa. She closed her book.

“What are they like?”

“Who?” He asked. He bounced his knee with what appeared to be a bout of nervous energy. She wished she could reach out and still it. She didn’t want him to be nervous. Despite everything and all the reasons she didn’t like DSS, she really liked Harry. He shoved his hands into his front pockets.

“Anne and Gemma,” she smiled impishly. Harry chuckled because it was funny, she really did do her own little background check. He would have to view his social media profiles from his work laptop and see what he could find out about himself. See what she saw.

“They’re lovely women,” he said with a shrug. “My best friends, probably. Not much t’say.”

“Of course, they’re lovely,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re lovely. But what do they do? What are they like?”

“I’m lovely?” His knee stopped shaking. His eyes were so very green as he looked at her awaiting her response.

She glanced at him nervously--not because she was nervous around him...but because he was Harry. If Harry ever left she would have to have a serious chat with whoever decided the person in charge of her protection should be close in age to her. It was not good for her psyche. Or if he was going to be close in age, he couldn't be as hot as Harry. It was very unfair. “Well. Yeah. Not…many people put up with a spoiled brat like me. Even when they’re forced to.”

“Spoiled is not how I would describe you,” he shook his head. She didn’t respond and continued staring at him so she wouldn’t turn into mush at the barely there compliment he gave her. “Gemma is very sweet and funny. Intelligent. You would probably be best friends with her. If it wasn’t for escaping—Gemma is a good-two-shoes. She’s a writer—really into mental health. Mum would like all the flowers y’have. She works for a non-profit for domestic violence. She would probably want t��braid y’hair the way she braids Gemma’s. Gemma can’t cook—or she shouldn’t. Mum let me do most of the cooking. They crochet together a lot now these days. Every Wednesday night they get together t’have tea on the porch and crochet. They’re always sending new designs in our group chat.”

Her heart felt so warm as she listened to the adoration falling from Harry’s lips for the women in his life. She wished she had a sibling.

Or a mom.

...Or a Harry.

That sounded adorable.

--

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[oh-my-bindery]

I clearly had a little late night rant to myself so I decided to share it…

Drarry and how I see them and why they are SO IMPORTANT to me

Draco

Draco is sheltered, an only child, he is spoiled, he has been fed blood purist nonsense all his life by his family and those around him. Which is so relatable to me as I am an ex-catholic who not only had extremely clouded beliefs about race, but also sexuality and religion. I said awful things to people, I was being fed that by teachers, parents, newspapers, Catholic Church, school classmates and teachers. Everything around me was that way. I was a very closeted trans gay man who eventually lost it and wanted to burn all those beliefs down once I figured out what I his deep down about myself and became more aware of people, suffering and prejudice.

I used to use my words to protect myself and even being nasty to people, wanting to hurt them so they couldn’t hurt me. I was a very closeted gay and transgender person. I really relate to Draco.

Draco’s humanity/ vulnerability

The turning moment for me seeing Draco differently (or having a chance of change) as it was for Harry in the books, was seeing the humanity to Draco.

We never truly see Dracos humanity or how he is on his day to day basis (we do get some scenes that shape him as a person and present wider outlook on his character) as the book is written from Harry’s perspective and JKR really hates Draco.

Which is awful, she never gave him a true redemption despite hinting at it, building it up over the 6th, 7th book. Draco stops eating in his 6th year (it’s not directly stated but it is said that he looks “sick” which could be taken is such which addition to not sleeping and overwhelming stress and pressure clearly visible on him), he is forced to become a Death Eater and given the mark as a punishment to his father, he becomes panicked and miserable and acting out of paranoia and not doing a great job. He cries so much so, he becomes friends with Moaning Myrtle and even she says how sad and depressed he is, how lonely he is. Which leads me to conclude that either a) he distanced himself from his friends b) his friends are not his real friends but only friends with him bc of his high up status as a Malfoy or they have been family friends for years due to their parents being friends. c) both. At first maybe Draco felt like he could restore the good family name to his family. He was proud. But then he realized what all of it meant it meant that he would have to kill and he is truly not capable of it.

Draco’s wand working for Harry very well/ being a light side wand

Let’s take a look at what Harry Potter Wiki says about it first.

“Draco Malfoy's wand was 10" long, made of hawthorn wood, and had a unicorn hair core. “

“Hawthorn wands are said to be "most at home" with a wizard passing through a period of turmoil. During the last couple of years of owning this wand, Draco Malfoy was under enormous pressure to murder Albus Dumbledore, and immediately afterwards suffered through Voldemort occupying his family's home. Harry Potter claimed mastery of this wand at a time of great turmoil as well, undergoing a robbery of Gringotts Bank and the Battle of Hogwarts within a short time of gaining this wand.”

What can be told about Draco from it is that he not only was going through some turmoil when he was chosen by his wand at 11 but also continued to do so in Dracos darkest time in 6th year.

What we can gather from this regarding Drarry is that they are both going through the worst. They would understand each other.

Then we move on to:

“Wands with unicorn hair as its core are the hardest to turn to Dark Arts. Although this would seem ironic at first, as Draco's inclination to Dark Arts during his early to middle years (and his success at casting the very dark Imperius Curse) his last years at school led to a change of his lifestyle that made him realise he had gone further than he expected, and henceforth turn away from the Dark Arts.”

Draco was opposed to Dark Arts from a young age even though his father was most certainly very into them. Which is extremely interesting. What was Draco like before he came to Howarts? I can only assume his mum was a good and living influence on his life (she’s definitely flawed and believing in blood purity, but she will give up her own life and happiness if it means Draco is alive and happy).

And yeah Draco was always a terrible Death Eater because his heart was not truly in it. He wanted to save his family and himself from dying.

Draco’s wand in Harry’s hand (GET YOUR MIND OUT IF THE GUTTER)

“Harry looked down at the hawthorn wand that had once belonged to Draco Malfoy. He had been surprised, but pleased, to discover that it worked for him at least as well as Hermione's had done.” - Deathly Hallows

IM SORRY BUT DRACOS WAND CHANGING ALLIANCE TO HARRY IS THE GAYEST THING EVER.

Wands to tend to have difficult time switching masters. Yet Dracos wand doesn’t. It works great for Harry despite Garry not winning it fairly.

Draco’s wand is one that is the least likely to turn into dark arts. The wand chooses the wizard. On the topic of wands Dracos wand felt the most friendly to Harry and he defeated Voldemort with it. Dracos wand also is said to have a very hard time to switch owners/ sides yet there was no problem of it when Harry took it from Draco. Draco didn’t even fight back enough for it. Almost as if he wanted Harry to have it. Which would make sense that the wand worked so well for Harry as Draco wanted it to work for Harry. It only makes sense that way. It may have not been intended by JkR to write that but it’s what she wrote.

Not Identifying Harry in the Malfoy Manor

Draco lies to his family risking his own and his family’s lives to give Harry time to escape the Manor. He knows Harry is Harry but instead says he “can’t be sure” which is the only response he could go for in order for Harry and his friends not to be killed. If Draco said that Harry was not Harry, him, Hermione and Ron would have been killed because they are useless to the Death Eaters and Snatchers.

Draco is top student in some of his classes from what we know. He is smart, he must have known how to deal with this situation. He also was terrified when he saw Harry as Harry noticed.

“… Draco… approached.

“Well, Draco?” said Lucius Malfoy... “Is it? Is it Harry Potter?”

“I can’t—I can’t be sure,” said Draco….

“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!… …Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?”

“…Draco’s expression was full of reluctance, even fear.

“I don’t know,” he said, and he walked away…”

-Deathly Hallows

Harry noticed so many of Dracos emotions, more than anyone, they both read each other so well. Know each other by their breath, by their slight movement (main piece of proof is the emotive HBP). They know what the other is going to say or is thinking. Harry knew Draco was terrified and didn’t want to torture Rowle as his punishment. He could see it on Dracos face in his visions after the Manor escape. So far so Harry felt bad for Draco, it hurt him to look at it and he had to cut off that connection it hurt him so much.

“

“More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini? Lord Voldemort is not sure that he will forgive this time. . . . You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again? Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure. . . . Do it, or feel my wrath yourself!”

A log fell in the fire: Flames reared, their light darting across a terrified, pointed white face — with a sense of emerging from deep water, Harry drew heaving breaths and opened his eyes.

He was spread-eagled on the cold black marble floor, his nose inches from one of the silver serpent tails that supported the large bathtub. He sat up. Malfoy’s gaunt, petrified face seemed branded on the inside of his eyes. Harry felt sickened by what he had seen, by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort.” - Deathly Hallows

Also going back to Draco, he had to live with Voldemort since his fifth year. Terrified, watching people die in his house, terrified that his parents or himself will be tortured or killed. And let’s not lie he probably was tortured himself by letting Harry get away. Draco is a skilled at occlumency so he could probably hide his feelings towards Harry from Voldemort or his father.

Harry saves Draco from the Room of Requirements and then again even tho Draco is talking to a Death Eather saying he is on their side. Harry cares about Draco not dying. He risks his own and his friends lives to save Draco. I’m pretty sure Harry would not to that to other people he hates and he didn’t- not Crabbe or Goyle. All he cared about was Draco. This boy is not just a noble Gryffinor and his Harry-self who is adamant about saving lives. He cares about Draco more than he does for other people that are not his friends or family.

I can definitely continue but if people want to add to it, please feel free as I WOULD LIVE IT!

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Meghan Markle is a Bully and the Proof is in the Office by u/sdowney64

Meghan Markle is a Bully and the Proof is in the Office This started as a comment on another Reddit post about Meghan Markle’s charity “work” in Canada as she popped in on yet another women’s charity that was a clapback to the Royals and specifically works to combat woman harmed by “colonialism.” 🙄 The post discussed how those organizations ruin themselves by aligning with a bully. I made a long comment but several people noted I should make it a separate post, so I am doing that here. Unfortunately I can’t link to the original subreddit post. I've said this before but I really think it needs to be said again. I am a retired auditor. I worked for an Inspector General & before that a DoD contract auditor for a total of 14 years. One thing I learned working both those jobs is when you have significant staff losses in short amounts of time, you have a toxic bully boss at the helm, 100% of the time. I also learned it in my own office, and it's why I left DoD and took a lateral transfer to the IG at a different agency. Let me repeat that: 100% of the time.In all my years of auditing, when there was a significant staff loss of 10 or more staff in less than two years, there was never, ever, ever any other reason except a horrible toxic bully boss running the show. And when an organization ignores that bully boss and doesn't remove them, they will continue to get wave after wave of staff loss. Resignations & impulsive firings, but mainly resignations.And here is the other thing I learned, which makes that statistic so glaring. Employees will rarely leave a job they're happy with, even if someone offers them more money, better benefits, better commute, or even better quality of work/life balance. It's true. The majority of employees, if they are happy in their job, will pass up better options in a new job. But when an employee is miserable and being tortured in their job, they will leave that job for less pay, worse benefits, longer commute, and things that you would think they would never give up stable employment for.Because the bottom line is, the boss makes or breaks the environment. And that is why anyone who thinks there is any other reason that Meghan & Harry can't keep staff, they are absolutely lying to themselves. I've seen it too many times to count. And it stood the test -literal testing, evidence-based testing, interviewing employees who are living through it, interviewing people who left and were MORE THAN HAPPY to say in their exit interview WHY they were leaving and where they were going and how they'd accepted less just to get the hell out of there. That is the type of boss Meghan Markle is.And while I fault Harry for a lot of things these days, he was not the OG Bully. Before Meghan, he made coffee for his staff. She put a stop to that immediately. So he was happy to co-bully, but without Meghan, there would have been no bullying and no systemic toxicity. Harry is emotional and could be petulant and rash, but overall was decent and acceptable to work for and with. Once Meghan shows up, the whole dynamic changed. Anyone who pretends otherwise and thinks she's a role model and a good person is lying to themselves.The proof of who Meghan Markle is and how awful she is as a person is sitting front and center for all the world to see in her rapid and overwhelming staff losses. It was happening at the palace, and then the proof is at Archewell, that pattern continued! Same EXACT pattern. Talking to you, Tyler Perry, and every liberal organization I would have supported until you refused to look at facts and aligned with the monster that is Meghan Markle. post link: https://ift.tt/Ov6YbJn author: sdowney64 submitted: November 22, 2023 at 02:09PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[garagepaperback]

push & pull

2.

On a miserably early morning in May, after a home-bound reunion on one of June’s debutant days, in hours so sideways they didn’t seem to include an anchor point in time’s forward march at all - they pulled each other often in the bathroom. A single stall in a space cramped even before it was occupied by their shoulders, the pushing and stuttered hips and hands - shoving, taking, having.

The bent toes of Draco’s loafers squeaked on the miserable tile. A color close to toothpaste, as bland in memory as it was when Harry stared down at it and Draco relaxed his throat and barely made any noise at all, kneeling between Harry’s legs and taking in the entire length of him. Focused, eyes fluttering closed, breathing steadily through his nose. Harry tried to do the same but the wet choking, knotted noises echoed in the too-tight space, in his too-tight skull. He blinked away tears and thought it wouldn't happen again, or that he was dangerously likely to jerk awake suddenly, opening his eyes to an awful crick in his neck, the blurry dream of whatever this was already slipping back into some damp recess of his mind.

It did happen again and Draco remained stern about the talking. He didn't get any nicer.

Worse, it worked. The less Draco paid him any real attention, the more Harry's insides went simmering and worryingly pliable, the more he had to dole out careful allotments of air into his lungs whenever the stupid Port assignment arrived on his desk. 

They didn’t even see each other every time, there wasn’t a plan. And when it did happen, when Draco was there, crooked eyebrow in the nulled waiting room, he ran a smoothing palm down his front and wiped the whole fifteen minutes off his chest after, exiting the stall like he’d only just been in there to check for a stain on his lapel. Like he’d been entirely alone, like there was no Harry at all.

It worked so well Harry began to worry he was forgetting what counted for normalcy. During a date with a nice bloke named Josiah, or some other name that seemed like it was made to be said while handing over a steaming mug of tea in drowsy morning light (not like Malfoy, a sound that was born with bite marks, or Draco, the vowels of which sank down the throat smug and languid and silky) Harry found himself half-hard in the bathroom because they had the same hand dryer. He thought wildly about asking if - but no. It would have been crude and insane to say it, over a sensible portion of wine and a beef ribeye he couldn’t have given less of a shit about. And more so, it wouldn’t have been Draco.

Harry didn’t ask and didn’t see him again.

-

One morning, Harry brought him a bagel, from an actually good bakery, poppyseed, and Draco threw it in the bin without looking at it for more than three seconds. Rolled his eyes.

Annoyed about it even after, Harry went to smear his used up hand on Draco’s fine-fabric lap and Draco grabbed his wrist just as tight as he had the very first time, pulled him close and pinned him against the flimsy stall wall and jerked him off like that, brow furrowed and furious, Harry’s fly barely undone. 

“Don’t you dare,” Draco said, but his voice was rubbed raw and wanting all over, it sounded the same way it did when Harry used his spit-slicked fingers or tongue and Draco breathed, “Potter,” that splintered warning way furled right into his ear. It meant, “Yes.” 

His eyes were so bright they looked melted, the reduction of some coarse ore and he stared wild and steady and close.

-

So, Harry went after it.

He was good at this actually; he had an explicit talent when it came to glimpsing the shyest glint of far-off light and barreling towards it. And he’d seen it, that time and before, the incandescence of something huge folded into a tiny, hard to find promise. Draco had always played dirty, a little viscous, but he hadn't beaten him at fourteen and he certainly wouldn't win this time. 

Harry had caught it before and he would close his fist around it, again. Victors and spoils and all that.

for day 20 of @microficmay

[greenerteacups]

I power read Lionheart months ago and it's been living in my brain ever since. In random moments, I see/think about your characters in the world around me. Like: a couple in the park holding hands? I start musing on your Draco's PDA thoughts. I remember the handholding moment as the Third Task started. I see a threadbare book in the thrift store? I wonder how fired up Hermione would be if someone asked her if wizards had an obligation to fix Muggle goods. If Reparo can fix a roof (and costs a witch nothing), should impoverished Muggles have to fight with their insurance company after a storm? On and on. I love it.

Thanks for opening up your asks for questions! Seriously, that's a badass move. There have been a few stressful moments in my life where--bing!--I check Tumblr and read one of your answers and I'm immersed in your HP world again, carefree and curious. <3

I have about a billion things I could ask/am curious about, but I'll restrain myself to two. This time. ;-)

Draco's mentioned once or twice that Harry & Ron don't understand him and Hermione. I was interested in that moment right before Draco follows Hermione to the Owlery. Harry stopped Ron from saying anything, and Draco recognizes that he's probably just as ignorant about Harry and Ron's friendship. So: 1) Is it too spoilery to ask what Harry (dear, sweet boy that he is) has noticed about Hermione & Draco? Does he think of them as one nerdbrain, or is he like Draco? Hermione? Weren't they married like, ages ago? I'm so fascinated by what others see when they look at Draco and Hermione because good GOD, what a power couple. And 2) Could you speak to Harry and Ron's relationship? Is Harry like, "Ron, you've gotta kill that Hermione pipedream," or is that topic irrelevant in the face of Quidditch gossip and less relationship-driven moments? Their (Harry and Ron) connection just seems so...necessary. It's beautiful.

I hope you're doing well! Thanks again for sharing such an immersive, gripping story with us.

Aw, this is so touching, thank you! I'll try to answer your questions as best I can without spoilers or breaching any rules on author-answer-ethics. Standard disclaimers: anything not in the text doesn't count, if I want you to believe something I have to give you a reason to believe it in the body of the fiction itself, and you're free to disagree with anything I say here. For the purposes of these types of questions, I'm basically just a fan who knows what the author had for breakfast this morning.

Harry knows that Hermione and Draco are... something. I think this comes through most in the arc of Book 4 where Ron separates from the group, and it becomes a tricycle of Draco, Hermione, and Harry. Harry is miserable, and it's not just because Ron leaves (although that's a large part of it); he's now in the position that Hermione occupies for most of the original series, where he understands very clearly that his other two friends, while both loving him very much, are First in each other's minds. He has a number of remarks that start to show his irritation with this, though he tries his best to be understanding — it is a similar dynamic to him and Ron, after all. (Fun story: I didn't realize until late in my drafting how much Hermione and Draco's dynamic echoes Harry and Ron in canon, from meeting on the train, the paying-for-candy moment, the Sorting, the class partnership, etc.)

All this to say that Harry looks at Hermione and Draco and sees a wall, in the same way that Draco looks at Harry and Ron and sees a wall. He doesn't understand it, but he knows that's deep water, and he knows he's usually better off not touching it. (Some of this comes through in Ron's conversation with Draco by the pumpkin patch; there's a blink-and-you-miss-it reference to "whatever the hell you and Hermione have got going on," along with a quick gloss on their weird pseudo-spiritual mind-meld connection, which was meant to give a glimpse into how the rest of Gryffindor sees them: eerily well-suited people with separately terrifying abilities who, when together, sail merrily off into their own universe of intelligence/plots-and-schemery and become a black hole of You Don't Want To Fucking Know. I sometimes amuse myself by thinking of Dean and Seamus giving the first years PSAs on Do Not Approach the Wild Swots In Action.) And he, like most of Gryffindor Tower, would have to be blind not to see how much they favor each other. They're always together. There's really nothing that they can do to hide it.

Which is probably why he pulls Ron back in the Owlery moment. He understands that what Hermione is dealing with is something that Draco, perhaps only Draco, can fix. She needs to hear a very specific kind of reassurance, and she needs to hear it from him. In the same way, when Hermione tried to calm Harry down before the plan to rescue Sirius in the third book, she failed miserably; they love each other intensely (they're siblings! the muggle-born twins!) but they're extremely different, and of all the Quartet dynamics, they're the ones who seem most at peace with that. Harry and Hermione's friendship works because they get what the other needs and they get that sometimes it's not them. (Harry more than Hermione, because she's still working on the concept of "sometimes people do not want my help" in general, but still.) There's a reason basically no one ever speculates about them being involved outside of a joke, because no one who knows them would think they could work romantically. They love each other, but they weird each other out, and they're content with that.

In contrast, Ron and Harry's friendship is more of the soul-bonded, life-partners, "he is more myself than I am" kind of friendship. Catherine and Heathcliff dig-up-the-corpse-to-lie-down-with-it type of shit. When Ron gets a death scare in the finale of Book 3, Harry goes fucking ballistic. Likewise with Harry's portkey fakeout in the end of Book 4 — Ron loses his shit. They are deeply, irrevocably attached to each other in an almost codependent way, which is the product of Harry's "first friend ever, like literally fucking ever, not nobody else, not one" situation meeting Ron's "first person who ever loved me as Ron and not so-and-so's brother" situation. So just as you put it, really: necessary and beautiful (and messy).

[basiatlu]

What r your thoughts on a Ron and Draco friendship? I feel like when Harry and Hermione are both at work and one of them starts to feel lonely/bored that either Ron or Draco will show up at the other persons front door and pretend they are only there because they “promised Harry/Hermione I would check in on you” or some other lie. They would definitely argue the entire time and at first every single time they hang out both Harry and Hermione think “oh my god they hate each other and do nothing but fight we have to stop letting them cross paths before someone crosses a line” only to slowly realize that Ron and Draco are actually having the time of their lives together because they LOVE debating anything and everything. They love it. This is crack to them. Arguing is their weird love language with one another and the more tense and passionate the argument is then the more fun they are having, even when it looks like they’re both furious at one another.

They just get into full screaming arguments across Mollys kitchen table but the entire time they are sharing a tin of biscuits and taking turns making tea all without pausing their debate. They maintain that they hate each other if anyone asks, but you know that Draco is pacing the flat any time they have the other couple over, pretending to complain about “if she brings the Weasel you’d better tell him he’s not allowed on the furniture” all the whole bouncing excitedly on his toes and queueing up topics for debate in his mind.

On the other side you have Ron following Hermione around the house and griping “He’s not seriously bringing the ferret with him, is he? He’s such a posh twat, Hermione, it’s going to be miserable!” Meanwhile he’s just stocked up on his and Draco’s favorite sweets specifically for such an occasion.

Just—I can imagine the both of them being so steadfast in the idea of “no, I hate him, he’s awful” while completely unaware that actually they are pretty much best friends and love each others company lol. They’d bitch and complain and slander one another all day long but you just know if anyone did anything to the other they would be grabbing their wand and rushing to the defense. What do you think a friendship between them would look like?

Honestly? I feel similar on a lot of this!

In some iterations of Draco I can see him and Ron at first being really defensive and prodding like two cats forced to cohabitate the same room. There will be a lot of hissing and spitting and raised haunches but one day

Malfoy will say something dry and self-deprecating, and Ron will laugh before he realizes what's happened. And I think Harry being a butt of their jokes (in good taste) will bring them together. And when Draco gets enough tact to speak with Hermione in a respectful way, Ron will see he's actually got a good head on his shoulders.

It's when he comes for Christmas dinner at the Burrow for the 1st time, immediately starts asking George and Arthur about their respective hobbies and careers with earnest interest, goes to set the dining table in a display of elaborate housekeeping charms without being asked ("Because none of you ungrateful pests have done it already! Must she still wipe your chins for you too?"), compliments Molly by asking for second helpings of her cooking, and then when gifted a knitted scarf (a precursor, a warmup before the real Weasley sweater initiation to follow next year) Draco laughs in triumph and wears it immediately. Strikes a pose in front of Harry.

"Never got one of these, ey Potter? I'm special!"

And Ron has to admit that he's alright.

[louisisalarrie]

I agree with your take on that bbg anon. It seems genuine, the little asides that L gives about F to fans, etc. but when you think about it, it really is an awfully easy thing to do compared to what he might have to- like being seen with the kid often in situations where lots of people would see their interactions, out in the wild, as it were. Now those would be far more difficult to make look authentic and natural. Louis strikes me as a kind, caring and empathetic soul, so it’s easy for him to care, and to look like he cares. I mean just look at how he talks about all of us… so, this rambled a bit, I’m sorry. But I think that the fact that he can talk about lots of things inc F in a caring way isn’t really proof that he has an actual real life deep relationship with him. You know?

I think, much like Eleanor, the majority of louis’ stunts have been very long term, so you kinda have to like… make somewhat of a connection with that person to not feel as absolutely miserable as possible. I think E did actually become quite supportive of Louis and Harry throughout her time (balcony vids, for example), and her and louis became comfortable with each other.

I’m not saying that louis and her are besties and like the stunting didn’t matter because they got to hang out and they were just happy going through the motions, far from it. But I think that forced proximity vibe kinda made them have to be friends somewhat, and I think when she came back in the picture a few years ago, he probably chose her over stunting with others because if he had to choose, he’d rather it be someone he knows better who knows him and was watching his journey from the sidelines. She’s reliable, and he’s able to put up with her. Oh, and it fits his songs about long term relationships lol.

He can’t put up with B, we’ve seen that pretty adamantly, and he’s never tried really to play happy little family with her. But F… a kid, involved in this weird shit show of a family who pawned him for cash and a bit of fame (didn’t work out lol), for louis’ sexuality to be covered up… like can you imagine how much he must feel like it’s his fault? Like it’s obviously not, but the battle of “I’m this way, and that’s why you’re involved in this, you’re just a kid, this shouldn’t have happened to you, your family is awful to have put you into this position too” would be such a headfuck. So he does what he can - create a comforting relationship, be a good guy to him, buy him nice things, keep him as safe as he can, and try to not make this shitty situation any worse.

[alarrytale]

I know you’re not going to agree with me on this but I’ve been here since 2013 and I can easily say I’ve never seen this much invasive type behavior from Larries before. Not on tumblr but definitely on other social media platforms. It’s overwhelming and exhausting even as a fellow Larry. Plus then they tag him in the most bizarre connections, making his achievements all about Harry and even using Louis’ trauma with losing his family members to how Harry must’ve felt more than Louis. So unfortunately, he’s been brought into this quite a bit by fans. Before we did have that wall between fandoms and him but when people started tagging him more and more, that wall disappeared. I know you don’t want to hear criticism of other Larries because you’ve made that clear previously but unfortunately some did contribute to the change in the fandom also and it’s pushing some Larries away. More Larries have changed to a neutral stance to move away from that type of behavior. It’s no longer harmless clowning in many cases. I miss the old days where Larries were fun and more about being supportive than proving they’re right about 2 artists’ sexuality. I also remember artists are still people and as a closeted person I feel for them. It’s difficult and I can’t even imagine being forced into closeting like they are. Wanting to show who you are but also knowing you can’t. And then having those feelings as someone who is examined under a microscope daily by millions of people seems awful. Am i sticking up for his denials? No of course not. He could’ve handled things differently obviously. But I think his “so be it” response this last time was just him sort of giving up, so it’s hard to even call that a denial. I don’t think he’ll talk about it anymore after that type of a response but that’s just my opinion. As a side note I’ve seen more posts talking about an increase of men in the crowds for his shows lately from people who have attended shows. I also saw someone bring up the Vintage Fans group before. Great group! And they continue to grow in size. I think things can be deceiving with his crowds at shows. Many of the people in the pit are young and queue to get a good spot because hell when I was young, I used to do the same. But in my early 40s you wouldn’t catch me doing something like that lol. When you look in the seated areas, the ages of fans vary greatly. I’ve been to a few shows for this tour and I was always in very good company.

Hi, anon!

You don’t have to agree with me! I feel like i say this all the time, but it's important that we acknowledge the right to have differing opinions and beliefs. We are all different people with different fandom experiences.

I think you need to remember a couple of things. Who's the one with the power, H and L's role in this as instigators and role models, that social media are fandom spaces where the artist promotes their stuff and do fan service by interacting with fans, and that gaslighting and lying makes people desperate to prove that what they're seeing isn't imagination, it's real. You also need to consider that there are always a handful of people in every fandom who goes overboard, doesn’t know boundaries and who acts on impulse. Those people aren't representative for the fandom at large. They might be vocal, have loads of followers and engagement on their posts, but they don't represent the fandom and majority opinion and views.

I don't know what you mean by invasive behaviour and i don't know the context of why and when it happened if you don’t give me examples. The reason why people have such a need to prove that they're queer is because of extreme gaslighting over several years paired with larry signalling. For the fandom environment and to lessen tensions it would have been better if they didn’t signal at all. But then larries would have left, and H and L would be miserable if they weren't allowed to show who they are. Fandom usually takes their cues from H and L. The more H and L lies and try to hide stuff, the more the fandom will dig to find the truth.

H and L are both celebrities and with that comes scrutiny, an interest in their private lives and being role models. It's in the job description. If they can't handle that they need to find another job. They're 30+ year old, white male multimillionaires. You don’t have to pity them.

If you think that the fandom is the reason for the denials, let me tell you it isn't. It's homophobic labels and Louis and Harry's own pushing of boundaries, refusing to stunt that's making Louis do larry denials. It's got nothing to do with fandom. Believe me, Louis is not done talking about larry or larries lol. It's the only thing getting him in the papers these days.

It's good to hear that the crowds are still diverse! I think you're right in that the younger ones are probably in the pit and at barricade.

[childotkw]

If it isn't a problem, could we have a snippet for ILYWT AU? I think that's my favorite AU of yours, even though I love all of them🥰

You're sweet 😘

--- -- --- -- ---

Barty would gladly get on his knees for you, Harry.

The words haunted him. All day they slipped to the forefront of his mind, welling up between the cracks of his thoughts until he had to stop and swallow and breathe.

It was driving him to distraction, and the worst part of all was that it was noticeable.

Harry could feel Voldemort's amusement on the edges of his own confusion and frustration like an ever present itch he couldn't scratch - but that was easy enough to push aside.

No, it was Barty's attention that was impossible to ignore.

And considering those damning thoughts were about the man, Harry found himself trapped in an awful cycle.

He wished Voldemort had never said anything to him.

Harry groaned, closing the book he had been left to study and tossing it onto the desk with a heavy thump. He dropped his head into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He took a deep breath and released it in an explosive sigh.

"Ooh, heavy thoughts?"

Harry jolted upright, banging his elbows against the lip of the table. He hissed a curse, hunching slightly as he waited for the sting to dull. With a grimace, he looked over to the door to see the one he'd been hoping to avoid leaning through the opening - one hand latched onto the jamb the only thing keeping him from toppling completely.

"What do you want?" Harry grumbled, looking away miserably. He could already feel the hot flutters starting in his stomach.

Barty sauntered into the library. He was dressed in what Harry had come to call his raiding gear - though the jacket he favoured was missing. It, unfortunately, left the corded muscles of his forearms on display, and Harry's gaze betrayed him briefly as he greedily scanned the exposed flesh.

Brutally, Harry pinched himself, using the small burst of pain to clear his mind and turn back to the table.

"Heard there was a cute, brooding boy in the library. Came running, obviously," Barty remarked, stopping beside Harry and leaning his hip against the table. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at him with a raised eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Harry dismissed, biting his lip.

Barty hummed, then reached out to tap his finger under Harry's chin, coaxing him to look up. His touch lingered for a moment, the rough pads of his fingers dragging against Harry's skin as he dropped his hand.

"Now, love," he said with a soft tease, "you know you can't lie to a master liar. Tell me what's bothering you."

I want to know if you'd kneel for me, Harry almost blurted out, only just choking the words back in time.

[harryfeatgaga]

thinking about dating harry for a while and you're so madly in love with each other but then things get really hard, with him on tour and you staying behind for school it's just awful and all the stuff you see in the media daily is just too much so you tell him you need a break. and you're both devastated and crying through the whole conversation but it's just truly too much for you and ofc he respects your wishes and he'll do anything for you even if it's the exact opposite of what he wants 😔 then a few months later he's home and you haven't spoken at all, knowing it would just be too painful since you still love him so much but you're not sure if he feels the same 😔 then your girlfriends make you go out with them to try and cheer you up and you all get veeeery drunk, and after someone puts you in a cab and you get home you're calling harry without a second thought 😔 you're literally sitting on the floor in your kitchen, your makeup a mess and your hair falling out of the fancy updo but none of that seems to matter because you just miss his voice 😔

when he gets the call he's very surprised, he hasnt heard from you since you broke things off and he's been trying so hard not to look at your socials (even though he has checked a few times, even though you never seem to post any more) but it's been miserable for him too, so for a second he considers not answering because he can't go through getting his heart broken again 😔then he starts to sorry that maybe something is wrong, it is almost 2 am afterall, so he picks up 😔 he hears you you take a little breath and you say "hello?" and his heart drops when he realizes how much he's missed you 😔 he says "hi-" and he has to bite his tongue to keep from calling you love or any other pet name, and finally he just settles on your name. you sigh and tip your head back on the cabinet and say "I've missed your voice" and he's already feeling choked up when he says "me too" 😔 it's quiet for a minute before you say "I ended my chemistry class with an A" and he's not sure where that came from but he's starting to get the hint that maybe you're not quite sober so he just decides to go with it, you can hear the smile in his voice when he says "that's great, I'm so proud of you" and you can't help but smile, you say "thanks... you just put a lot of hours into helping me study so i figured you deserve to know" and his chin is literally wobbling he's so close to tears 😔

he tries so hard to keep his voice steady when he says "I appreciate that" and you hum softly, then you're both quiet again before he says "where are you? are you alright?" and you let out a big sigh before you say "I'm sitting on my kitchen floor eating grapes" and he can't help but snort out a laugh, he glances over at his alarm clock and says "at 2 in the morning?" and you shrug even though he can't see you, you say "girls need snacks" and he laughs for real at that 😔 but you know what he was really asking so you say "to answer your other question no I'm actually not alright" and a tear slips down Harry's cheek, he brushes it away quickly before he says "no?" and you say "no... i miss you, harry, I miss you so much it makes my chest hurt, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach and it keeps me up at night and I'm miserable all the time because I miss you so much and it's my own fault I don't have you anymore" and his eyes are wide, his heart rate is going up with each word you say and he sits up in bed, hugging his pillow to his chest he says "you do?" and he sounds almost in disbelief, you say "of course I do... you're all i think about, all the time, and it's ruining my life because I can't have you" and he takes a shaky breath before he says "why can't you have me?" and your voice is smaller than he's ever heard before when you say "because you don't love me anymore?" and he literally has to hold back a sob 😔

he says "I do, I love you so much... you're all i think about too, all the time, and all I want is- is you, and I know that's not fair, I know it's really shitty timing, and I know it was hell for you when we were together and I know i'm selfish for wanting you but I can't help it because i just do, I want you so bad it makes my chest hurt" and your brain is just trying to process everything he just said, everything feels very tense and you're a bit stressed so you say "you stole my line... that chest hurting thing, I said that first" and he can't help but laugh again, he says "well it was a very poetic line, i apologize" and then you're both quiet for a moment, then you say "harry?" and right away he goes "hm?" and you pause for a second before you say "will you come over?" and he's already getting out of bed 😌

you're saying "i know it's late and if you're in bed you don't have to i just- I miss you, and I want to see you so bad but if it's too much-" but he clicks his tongue and says "I'm already heading out the door, I'll be there in 10" and you haven't felt happier since before you broke up 😌 you say "will you stay on the phone with me?" and he scoffs "of course I will, I'm not leaving my girl again" and you're quiet for a second before you say softly "I'm still your girl?" and he absolutely melts, he pauses with one hand on his car door and he says "of course you are, you've always been my girl and you always will be"😔 on his short drive to your place neither of you speak much, you can hear the radio playing quietly through the phone but that's about it. when he pulls up to your apartment he lets you know and you say "I'm in number-" and he says "I know which apartment you are love, how come you think I forgot all about you while I was gone?" and you say "I don't... I'm just worried that maybe you did" and he sighs softly before he says "I could never forget anything about you pretty girl" and before you can even respond there's a knock at your door 🥹 you're clumsily jumping up from your spot on the floor and running to open it, and as soon as you see him you drop your phone and launch yourself into his arms 😔 he walks you inside and shuts the door behind you and you're crying already, you manage to say against his chest "I missed you so much, please never leave me again i just want to stay with you okay?" and he's nodding, he has his face in your hair just inhaling your scent that he's missed so much and he says "i promise, I'm gonna stay with you forever and ever" 😔 after a good long hug when you both feel so much better he pulls away to look at you, you're saying "no no don't look at me I look horrible right now" and he just smiles softly, he says "you don't, you could never look horrible" and he leads you to the bathroom to help take your makeup off 😔

he lifts you to sit on the counter and gets the wipes out, holding your chin between his fingers to tilt your head so he doesn't miss any 😔 you reach up to hold his face in your hands because you've missed that so much, and now that you're so close you can tell that his eyes look a little red and puffy 😔you say "were you crying? are you okay?" and he gives you a little smile, he tosses the used wipe and says "i am more than okay now that I'm with you again" and he lifts you up again, you wrap your legs around his waist so he can bring you to bed 😔 he kisses all over your face while he walks and nearly runs into a few walls but he manages 😔 he drops you on the bed and then says "what pajamas tonight?" and you don't say anything but he sees you eyeing the hoodie he's wearing 😌 he rolls his eyes playfully and says "I'm back here one day and you're already robbing me blind" but he's taking it off as he speaks 😌 he hands it over to you and reaches to help unzip your dress and pull it off, then you slip the hoodie on and you're all good 😌 he climbs in next to you and you get settled against him, his arms tuck around you and you both relax right away, and it's like no time was lost at all because you were just made for each other 😔

HOLY SHIT.............OH MY GOD THIS IS LIKE A WHOLE ASS FIC RIGHT HERE WHAT THE FUCK!?!??!?!!? IM OBSESSED AND IM SO SAD THIS WA SSO CUTE IM GOING TO SOBBBBJNBFHUJNHB OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[ihearthes]

Author: @ihearthes

Pairing: Harry x Reader Insert (2nd person)

Rating: Smut

Word Count: 3100

Originally written 2017 (revised 2023)

Saturday Night Live

When your best friend (and SNL hair stylist) Samantha called, she was frantic. “You’ve got to come do makeup this week! Trinity’s sick. We need your skills.” 

Anxious for the paycheck and hopeful for a regular spot on the team, you readily agreed. But after standing so closely to Harry throughout the show as you applied and reapplied his makeup for Saturday Night Live, you’re sweating at the end of the night. It’s warm backstage, but the heat you feel has nothing to do with the air conditioning and everything to do with the smoldering gaze of one Harry Styles. 

It is all business, right? 

So why do you have butterflies in the pit of your stomach every time he looks at you? You pretend to ignore how stunning and green his eyes are as you blend the foundation. And why is your mouth dry every time he invites you to stand in the vee created by his spread legs while you work on his eyebrows? 

Harry, arrogantly, is paying zero attention to you, talking to Samantha as she styles his hair. And when he places his hands on your hips, it’s only to steady you. All night, he’s barely said two words to you outside of a nod of recognition. 

He doesn’t treat anyone else with such disdain. Casting your mind backwards a couple of years, you attempt to dredge up a memory of what might have pissed him off to such an extent. With everyone else, he’s bubbly, friendly, funny, and droll. With you, he’s practically taciturn. 

So when the night is over after a smashing success with only a few flubbed lines, it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge. Politely declining the after party invite Samantha throws your way, you make an excuse. 

“I’ve got to take my makeup case home. Plus I’m all sweaty. By the time I get to my apartment and showered, it will be too late.”

Samantha snorts, “First of all, it will never be too late, honey. The SNL after party goes all night long. And secondly,” she laughs, “the party is at Rue 57.” She raises her eyebrow.

This news causes you to sag against your wheeled makeup case. Rue 57 is the French restaurant at the base of your apartment building. Dammit.

“Chop chop!” Sam prods you out of the stage door, steering past the fans lined up for cast autographs. 

It takes about ten minutes to walk to your apartment building, and the hair stylist is in a chatty mood. 

“Harry was so fun! I love it when he hosts. So easy to work with, and he doesn’t really care how awful his hair looks for the sketches or what wigs I put on him. Don’t you agree that he’s simply the most amiable host ever?” Your quick nod is meant to convey agreement, and it’s sufficient as Sam carries on her monologue as though she were the host. Your bestie waits downstairs as you take your case up in the elevator, wishing there was a way to beg off. On the flip side, this is the first SNL after party to which you’ve been invited despite filling in last minute several times over the past few years. You tell yourself that you may not even see Harry there. He’ll probably be chatting up the interns, cast members, and staff rather than bothering with the makeup artist he ignored all night. Plus, if it’s really miserable, you only have to take the elevator back upstairs to your cozy apartment. 

Stealing a few extra minutes, you refresh the makeup sweated off from your proximity to Harry and change your shirt to one that doesn’t have pit stains. 

Entering the Salon at Rue 57, you feel left out as Harry waves Sam to his side immediately, leaving you bereft and sad. Taking a glass of champagne from the server carrying a tray full of them, you stand and watch the man who had been ignoring you all night. He’s laughing with two of the crew members -- his face filled with joy, his mouth open, exposing his tongue and his chewing gum -- and you want to laugh too because the sound and sight are infectious. When he listens, he does so intently, leaning forward, asking questions. You desperately want that intensity turned in your direction. Quickly, you down the champagne, grabbing a second glass as a new server appears.

Turning away from where Harry is holding court, you engage in conversation with former cast member Leslie Jones and one of the cameramen. Grabbing some sushi from a passing tray, you are so engrossed in the conversation that you nearly forget about Harry until suddenly his deep, sexy voice whispers in your ear. 

“Too much mercury isn’t good for you,” his husky voice intones, and you freeze with the current piece of spicy tuna roll halfway to your mouth. You recognize his voice, but you cannot fathom why he is talking to you. 

“Harry!” Leslie cries out, reaching to hug him. He leans in to her, wrapping both of his arms around her waist, pulling her in more closely for the tightest hug you’ve ever witnessed. The jealousy that swells in the pit of your stomach has you turning away quickly, wistfully gazing in the direction of the exit. 

Casually taking a step backwards out of the circle with Leslie, Harry, and the cameraman, you unceremoniously bump into Lorne Michaels who is standing behind you. Horrified, you apologize profusely, which Mr. Michaels brushes off, asking if you enjoyed working the show tonight. And suddenly you’re trapped in a one on one dialogue with the producer of SNL with no means of escape. He’s asking you questions and telling you stories, and you try not to be too obvious about catching Sam’s attention so she can rescue you. 

But it’s Harry who liberates you, in the most unlikely of ways -- by spilling his red wine down the collar of your shirt from behind. Jumping away from him, you turn angrily, “What the hell?” Seeing it’s him, your anger leaves you as quickly as it had come, and you turn back to Mr. Michaels (“Call me Lorne, my girl.”), making your apologies in a calm voice. 

“I’m going to have to go change, Lorne. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this historic night.” You politely incline your head towards him as you pat yourself with napkins. Avoiding eye contact with Harry, you exit the restaurant quickly, relieved that you’ve had a reason to escape. 

It isn’t until you’re at your building’s secure door that you realize that Harry has followed you.

“Where are you off to, love?” he inquires, as you open the door without waiting for the doorman. 

Throwing your hands in the air, you stalk into the building, aware that he’s two steps behind you, unsure as to why he would accompany you other than to ask for forgiveness. 

“Just going to change my clothes.” You reply as pleasantly as you can, knowing that you’re planning to exchange the wine-stained shirt for a pair of pajamas. “And you’re forgiven, so no apology is needed.” 

When he steps onto the elevator behind you, you breathlessly turn to face him.

“Uh…..why are you following me? I already accepted your non-apology.” Pushing the button for your floor, you cross your arms defensively. Why is he there? Why isn’t he at the party? 

“Who says I’m following you?”

“Escorting me then,” you murmur, “I know how to change my clothes all by myself. Been doing it for a couple of decades.” Your flippant side appears rather suddenly, probably as a result of anxiety. 

“Ah! There she is!” Harry crows, practically whooping.

Curiously, you gaze at him, “Who?”

“The cheeky girl I met the last time I needed makeup in New York.” Harry drawls.

As you stare at him with your mouth agape, the elevator stops. He nods towards the open doors. “Must be your floor.” 

But you don’t move from the doorway, holding the doors open so that the elevator doesn’t leave. “Mhm. Thanks for ushering me to my floor, Harry. See you later.” 

In one swift move, you step back just as the doors start closing, and you think he’s been trapped having to ride the lift back downstairs. But he’s agile, inserting his foot just as the door is nearly closed, and the electronic eye catches, opening it again, exposing you. 

In the hallway now, he’s crowding you, and you don’t know what to do about it. Ignore him? Kiss him? With few good choices, you stalk towards your door, facing Harry once you have the door open. “I’ll just be a minute,” you prompt, hoping he will leave from here.

Instead, he leans in, his arm reaching over yours to hold the door open. His eyes flicker to your lips, and your breath catches. Darting his gaze back to your eyes, he silently asks for permission to do what you’ve imagined over and over throughout the night.

With only a small nod of acquiescence, he captures your lips in a sweet, hot kiss that leaves you desperate for air. His lips are soft and velvety, and he tastes of peppermint. You lean into the kiss, desperate for this connection with him, wrapping your hand in the tangle of curls at his neck as you urge him to move closer. 

When he pulls away with a smirk, you glare at him, “What was that for? You’ve been ignoring me since the moment Sam reintroduced us.”

He waggles his eyebrows, “Because as soon as I saw you again, I knew I’d not be able to concentrate on my job tonight. And damn! You made it really challenging pushing your boobs in my face every time I needed a touch up. Been rock hard most of the night.”

At those words, he steps into you so that you can feel how the truth of his words. A moan escapes your lips as you feel his length. This is all news to you, as you’ve spent the entire show thinking he wanted nothing to do with you. 

“Not my fault, Harry. We could have taken care of this earlier if you’d only said something.” You retort arrogantly. 

He’s got this look on his face that reminds you of an eager puppy dog. “Really? You would have been on board earlier?”

When you nod with a naughty look on your face, Harry taunts, “Hmm...Suppose we get you out of that shirt?”

Agreeing fervently, you step into your tiny one bedroom apartment with its postage stamp sized kitchen and bedroom that barely fits your queen-sized bed. As soon as the door is closed, Harry clicks all three locks, including the security latch. You’re immediately nervous, clasping your hands behind your back and rocking back and forth. 

“So, uh…” you start, “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” he stalks towards you, “I was just thinking we should start with that shirt. I’m sure you’ll need my help with those buttons since they’re probably wet.”

You nod and Harry reaches out with both hands, grabbing the fabric around the buttons. In one move, he rips open the shirt and buttons fly everywhere. 

“Oops,” he says with mock innocence, “Looks like I’m not very good at wet buttons either.” Peels the shirt off of your arms, he drops it on the floor near the abandoned buttons. You didn’t really like that shirt anyway, and the wine probably stained it beyond the point of repair, although right now you really don’t give a damn about the shirt.

Giggling, you draw in a breath when his large hands cover your breasts, still trapped in your bra. Harry moves his hands deftly behind your back, unhooking the offensive device with a smooth practiced flick of his fingers. 

Pulling the scrap of material away, Harry’s eyes glaze over as he views your mounds of flesh, pert, with nipples beaded and ready for his tongue. As he plays with your breasts, you tentatively reach out to touch his length through his trousers. Hissing in a breath, he pauses. 

“Yeah,” he sighs regretfully, “not going to be able to do this slowly.” He shifts backwards out of your reach so you are forced to remove your hand from the shape of his cock. 

Standing in your living room, shirtless, wearing only a skirt, stockings, and comfy work shoes, you shiver in anticipation. Without warning, Harry spins you around so that you are facing the window. You put your hands out to maintain your balance, landing with one hand on the glass pane while the other grips the windowsill. Harry’s hands reach around to your front, manipulating your nipples again as he whispers in your ear, tickling the skin there with his breath, “Are you wet for me, babe?’

To be quite honest, if you hadn’t previously been wet for him, you certainly are now with that sexy voice in your ear. And to be even more honest, even if only with yourself, you had been wet for him from the second Sam had revealed that it was his makeup you’d be applying. One hand on your left nipple, Harry slides his right hand under your skirt, stepping back completely, looking at you with what you can only assume is shock. 

“Holy fuck. Stockings, love?” His voice cracks on the word “stockings”, and you smile broadly, still pressed against the glass. No way in hell had you anticipated this moment; the fact that you’d chosen stockings tonight of all nights was indeed serendipitous. 

Approaching you again, he nudges your ankles apart with his foot, flipping your skirt over your backside and exposing your panties, snapping the garters holding up those stockings. Returning his left hand to your boob, Harry’s right hand traces your cleft from behind, sending you squirming and bent over more than previously. Focused on his left hand, you are more aroused when you spy the tattooed cross as he kneads your breast. 

Sliding one finger under the edge of your panties, Harry eases the cloth out of your slit, replacing the material with his thumb. “Oh, god. You’re so wet. Is that all for me?”

“Mhm,” you murmur, sliding your pussy up and down on his thumb until he removes it. 

“Want something a little bigger than my thumb?” With a jaunty lick followed by his teeth lightly scraping the bare skin of your shoulder, Harry manages to increase your desire for him.

At the sound of a zipper being lowered, you start to turn around, but Harry quickly puts his hand in the center of your back to hold you in position. “Oh, don’t move, love. I’m enjoying this view.”

Biting your lower lip, you swivel your hips. “This view, Harry?” you ask playfully. 

Harry groans, “That’s a pretty nice view.”

You hear a package being ripped open, and you know that he’s providing protection for you both. Disappointment rolls through you. Choosing to share that information with him may be a mistake, though, because when you purr, “Dammit. I wanted a taste,” Harry curses loudly. 

“Don’t say things like that,” he chides, “I’m so close to exploding already.”

“As long as you explode in me, Harry. Doesn’t matter if it’s in my mouth or my pussy.” Your voice sounds like honey oozing. 

“Fuck me,” Harry breathes out, ripping your panties in one quick move.

“Harry!” you whine, “Those were my favorite pair!”

“I’ll buy you a thousand new pairs,” he gasps, positioning himself behind you. 

When he starts to slide in, you cannot believe his size. With one hand, he guides himself into you while the other rests on your waist. Every time he feels like too much, you grip the hand on your waist and he pauses until the pressure eases, allowing him to glide further inside you. Before long, he’s fully seated. 

“You feel so good filling me up,” you sigh, “Now stay still.”

Harry’s voice is confused. “Stay still? This is typically when I move.” 

But when you slide yourself along his length, then push backwards to impale yourself again, he groans, and you know that he’s grasped the reason for the directive. He places both hands on your hips, probably to steady himself. You quicken the pace as you glide back and forth. 

The fast pace doesn’t quite hit the spot, so you attempt a slower pace, pulling yourself nearly fully off him before sinking backwards in one swift move. 

“My turn, babe,” he growls, pumping in and out of you as quickly as he can. Suddenly, he shifts positions, pulling your hair so that your back is arched, and holy shit! You can feel him hitting your g-spot as you start to tip over the edge, your walls convulsing. Reaching down, you massage your clit. 

Behind you, Harry is groaning too. “Fuck! Fuuuuuucccckkkkkkk!” as he speeds up, wrapping your hair more tightly in his fist as he pumps so quickly your brain can't comprehend, but your body knows what to do. Looking out the window, your left hand pressed to the glass, you see the tiny objects below, walking around, unaware that just two dozen floors above them a makeup artist is being fucked to an amazing orgasm following a month-long drought. 

When the stars shatter, you scream out his name multiple times until his pace becomes more frantic and less measured. When he tips into the abyss, his body collapses on your back, his weight resting on you while he’s still deeply embedded. 

As he withdraws and disposes of the condom, you flip your skirt back over your backside. Feeling exposed, you grab a cardigan from the back of the sofa, slipping it on, drawing the sides closed. After everything, you feel more naked now than while he was buried inside you. Harry is back in moments, his pants in place, his belt unbuckled. Yanking you to him with one hand around your waist, he kisses you, his tongue seeking entrance as you relax into him. 

“Next time, I need to stay in New York longer,” Harry teases, releasing you as he buttons his trousers and fastens his belt, “Now you need to find a new shirt so we can get back to the party. Skip the panties, though. I want to spend the rest of the party knowing that you’re wearing those stockings and nothing else.”

[rockingrobin69]

Mrs. Miffy’s Home Dining Experience: Eating made simple!

The flyer was an eye-watering orange. Sort of reminded him of Wheezes, if Fred and George were also psychotic murderers on the side.  

Ordering is simpler than ever. Speak the word menu and it shall appear, aglow in the space before you. Magic will direct you precisely to the dish you are currently craving. No more going, ugh, what’ll we have for dinner tonight?

Harry’s crockery was all still packed in who-knows what box. His new fridge was empty. All the places he tried ringing gave up on trying to locate his address. Wards, Hermione had said, at some point in her life, probably.

After you placed your order by yelling the selected number, your food will arrive near-instantaneously with one of our lively staff members. Don’t forget: it’s hot! (or cold!)

His head was pounding. They say that moving house is one of life’s greatest traumas. Which, of course, made him laugh like someone had punched him in the gut, with fucking tears in his eyes, but hey, this wasn’t incredibly easy, either.

Now there’s nothing more to worry about: bon-appetite, and we’d love to see you again at Mrs. Miffy’s Home Dining Experience!

He was tired. He was hungry. Everything seemed thirty times heavier than normal, and his therapist Evil Jean said that this feeling has a name, and he should try to find it. To banish it? To… do something about it. Harry was a terrible client and an awful lazy man and all right, all right, enough with this now. Half out of spite, Harry said, “Menu.”

Jumped three feet backwards when the whole room tilted sideways, and started shrieking—no, it was the images that suddenly popped, violently into existence. Who the hell thought this was a good… swallowed, swallowed, closed his eyes, tapped his chest till his heart climbed back down. Fucking fuck. Deep breath. Okay.

His new flat was half the size of Grimmauld and currently packed with boxes. Gin said that moving isn’t that big of a deal if you know the right spells, but Harry didn’t know anything, and definitely not the right spells. In the eerie light of the dozens of images hovering, it looked sad.

Still there was something in his gut pulling—the magic, right, he’d nearly forgot. Saying the word Menu must have activated it as well, and now Harry found himself pointing at an image which showed… a bowl of fried rice with tofu.

You know what, fuck it. Fuck it, why not. He was sort of hoping for something a little, erm, not that, but fried rice was good and tasty and he was so tired and it might just be the perfect thing. Harry cleared his throat. “Seventy-six!”

Your order has been placed, said a low baritone that nearly made him pee his pants. It came out of the fucking fridge? Probably not on purpose. Then, in an entirely different voice, chipper and high-pitched, sit tight and we’ll be right there to serve you!

Harry paced and paced and paced. Not much room for it, with the boxes, and the chest of drawers he didn’t know where to put, and the stack of letters he tucked in his pocket for fear of losing and then promptly placed on every clear surface as it bothered him constantly bumping into stuff. Moving was… fine, it wasn’t the problem. Harry only wished Ron and Nev and Luna could have stayed. He wished, selfishly, that his friends were as miserable and social life-less as he was, only for tonight. He wished…

The doorbell went off, a jarring sound. Harry jumped (and told himself to quit it), breathed, breathed. Fingers sweaty on the handle, get yourself together, this will be nothing.

“Good evening my name is Draco and I’d be happy to serve you exactly the way you’d like please choose level of interaction from one to three.”

Harry was openly staring. His belly, weirdly, filled with ice. In front of him was—“What?”

“Good evening my name is Draco and I’d be happy to serve you exactly the way you’d like please choose level of interaction from one to three.”

He was taller than Harry remembered. Broad shoulders, narrow waist. Hair falling past his ears, still as blond as ever under the truly-horrendous cap that said Mrs. Miffy’s! in balloon letters. He stood so impossibly still that Harry suspected he must be under a spell or something.

“Malfoy?” he tried in this choked voice.

“Good evening my name is Draco and I’d be—”

“Yes, yes,” Harry stopped him with a hand out, “you said. You… work for… Mrs. Miffy’s?”

A fragment of a question hiding at least five hundred others: you work, and also you’re here, and also you still exist? Because Harry had completely-completely forgotten about him. This tall, slightly shocking apparition of a boy from his youth grown into… this.

Malfoy blinked metre-long eyelashes. “Please choose,” he said in a perfectly bland voice. “Between one and three.”

Stabbing a guess: “Three?”

He nodded and made to step forward, only Harry was still frozen, and still blocking the door. “Pardon me,” Malfoy said.

“No,” stupidly. “I mean—sure. Come in, I mean. I mean—”

Malfoy didn’t wait to unravel the rant. Instead he snuck through the space Harry had made, and stopped in the middle of the would-be living room. Turning around a full 360, blinking and blinking. “You,” he said, “you don’t have a table.”

“Not yet.”

“Right,” eyebrows hiking on his face. “Right, it’s—I can transfigure one of the boxes temporarily.”

Harry shrugged. Getting past the whole shock of Malfoy in his flat, in legitimately the worst ensemble he’d ever worn and still so destructively handsome, pointing at a box labelled STUFF and turning it into a belly-heavy sort-of-table. He even conjured a tablecloth. He even conjured a vase with flowers.

“Would you like anything to drink, Sir?”

Harry was losing it. This was the only explanation. He hit his head on the moving van and is lying on the pavement, unconscious. Malfoy was still in Azkaban and certainly not here.

“Erm, do you—do you have Irn Bru? Only the muggle shops down here don’t usually sell it.”

Malfoy produced a cool box he most certainly didn’t have before and took an orange can out. “Do you need cutlery,” he said more than asked.

“Yeah. Erm, yeah.”

Another nod, and now from a pocket that was far too small and too tight, a complete set with three forks (including the little one for the, fish or, whatever). Malfoy then proceeded to pull out a napkin, and fold it into something that quite resembled a swan.

“When you’re finished with your meal please shout Porter! And I will collect the dishes. Your box—table—your—it should go back to its original form in about an hour.”

Harry said, “Okay.”

“Anything else you might require?”

Blinking and blinking. Harry was losing his mind. “You know who I am, yeah? Is there a… spell maybe that stops you from seeing me, or?”

“You’re Harry Potter,” Malfoy said in the same blank, somewhat-pleasant tone. “We went to school together.”

“We went to—yeah, I mean, sure. You… remember? School?”

“Do I remember school?” Malfoy tipped his head sideways. He was so impossibly handsome that Harry didn’t manage a full breath. “That’s an odd question.”

“Well you’re being odd! Why are you so—like that when you normally are…”

Malfoy sighed, a deep, pained thing, like Harry was the one being ridiculous. “Is there anything else you require, Sir. For your meal. For which you paid.”

“I… want you to fucking answer the question?”

His hair shimmered as he shook his head. “Yes, I remember school. Our headmaster was Albus Dumbledore. Care of Magical Creatures. He Who—the battle—I remember.”

“And…” why, why, why was he pushing, why did it even matter, “you remember me?”

“Harry Potter,” Malfoy said again. Entirely expressionless.

“Yeah. Yes. I, but do you remember our… we weren’t exactly friends. Do you remember—”

“I remember. Is there anything else you require for your meal?”

He felt like pulling his own hair out. “Why are you being like this! What are you doing here! I thought you were sentenced for ten years, what, what, what!”

Malfoy remained impassibly stoic. “I was sentenced for ten years. The parole board decided to release me early for what they dubbed ‘good behaviour’. I promise you I wasn’t good, would never dream to presume. Is that enough?”

“When did—”

“Potter,” Malfoy said, still in the same tone but with tired eyes, “is there anything else you require. For your meal.”

It felt all the kinds of wrong Harry knew. “No, I—I don’t need anything else.” The bland sort of misery behind Malfoy’s face didn’t crumple, didn’t move an inch. He nodded, turned to leave. “Wait—”

Harry didn’t mean to stop him, but Malfoy did stop, back turned and breathing very slowly, very deeply. “Yes?”

“What’s three?”

He did turn now. “I beg your pardon?”

“You said I can choose between one and three, but you never explained… the… interaction level. What does it mean, what’s three?”

“The highest level,” said Malfoy.

“Oh. Yeah. That… makes sense.”

“Thank you for your business,” with a motion so tiny it couldn’t be considered a bow, “we hope you have a wonderful dining experience and would love to hear your thoughts. See you next time!” and he left. Harry stood in front of the once-box-now-table, a plate filled with colourful rice steaming on a conjured placemat (Harry certainly never owned something this nice), a glass of Irn Bru already poured and the fucking, napkin-made swan. Nothing about it made the slightest bit of sense. None of it, at all, made sense, at all. No sense.

Tearing through the crammed kitchen, flinging boxes here and there, looking for… oh, he’d already placed it in what he decided would be the take-out menu drawer. The bright-orange flyer had a whole bit in the back that he forgot he once read.

Mrs. Miffy is a muggle-born witch who always loved cooking and, most importantly, eating. She remembers getting take out with her family with great fondness: “When I was young it felt like the most wonderful thing. A vacation in our own home. [I] felt like we were exploring the world, from the convenience of our own living room!” when she encountered the problem of locating magical houses while trying to order a curry, she knew she had to find a solution. The business came a few years later, with the assistance of Ministry funds to help make Mrs. Miffy’s dream come true. Eating, made simple.

Harry’s head was spinning. He made himself go back to the table (to the, box, that made an actually-not-too-shabby a table), realised he didn’t have a seat. Took the plate in both hands and sank to the carpet, overwhelmed and annoyingly supporting a semi.

Malfoy was working for a muggle-born witch. Malfoy was delivering food. Malfoy was released from Azkaban after seven years instead of his original ten. Malfoy was… hot, and weird, weird, weird, just, the weirdest thing he’d ever met, and a mystery, and a project, and a—no. Right. That way lies madness, he’d already tasted it once. Twice. Malfoy wasn’t a part of his life and it shouldn’t matter, what he did or how he looked.

But the rice was delicious, and somehow exactly what he needed. Harry ate the whole thing, and drank the whole glass, and felt, well, a little less ridiculous, for once. Maybe there was something there after all. Maybe there was something.

He put the flyer back in the drawer carefully. Standing in front of the table: “Porter?”

Half-expecting Malfoy to come back, he wasn’t really disappointed when the plate just Banished out of existence. Wasn’t because he was already thinking, what will I get next?

[rahleeyah]

I think my main problem with the TL final is that I actually liked and enjoyed it and, with the exception of Ted, Rebecca, and Beard, I was happy with where it left everyone. So it's been hard for me to properly reconcile these positive emotions with how sad and annoyed I am at the way Ted's and Rebecca's and Beard's stories ended. It feels like they got 'paper endings' - endings that they should have had, that made sense for them to have; endings that looked good on paper but that somehow failed to transition properly to the screen. Like Beard choosing his new life and girlfriend in Richmond over his old life in Kansas makes perfect sense. He doesn't appear to have anyone or anything waiting for him back in Kansas so of course he decides to stay. Except the show has spent three seasons showing both Jane and their relationship to be toxic (at best) and outright abusive (at worst) and I'm sad that (dream or not) married to Jane with a baby on the way was deemed the best ending for him.

After her relationship with Rupert Rebecca deserved to have a happy ending surrounded by her friends and with someone who loves her. And she gets that! And the chance to be a mother! And yet her ending feels so unsatisfactory because they put their female lead with a man with no name who was introduced halfway through the final season with only 20 minutes of screen time. But the thing that I'm really annoyed about is that I would have been fine with her ending up with him if they had put the effort into building their relationship. Amsterdam showed that there was something between them and they could have easily used that as a jumping off point to build something more solid between them that would make their ending satisfying. Instead, they chose to have Rebecca decide not to know his name; they chose for her to decide not to keep in contact with him; they drew a line under Amsterdam as soon as the episode had finished and now I can't be happy that a character I love is in a relationship that (appears to) make her happy because I have absolutely no emotional investment in it whatsoever. She got the ending I wanted for her and I cannot enjoy it and I am heartbroken by that. (1/2)

Hi ok I know it's been a minute but let's get into it:

(this is a lot I'm gonna try to do this in order)

I did like parts of it, sort of, and I agree with you on the 'paper endings' thing - it looks good on paper but it doesn't resonate, emotionally.

I hated what they did with Roy/Keeley/Jamie but that's a separate post.

Yes the Beard thing works on paper - he stays with his new love - but not in practice bc she's awful, and everything Brendan has said about it has raised huge red flags to me; it's not abuse why? Bc she's a woman and it's cute/endearing when women are abusive??

Rebecca finding a supportive man, and family, is great, except you're right - who is this guy? Why do we care? It was so on the nose, also; I was looking for "Rebecca is already a mother to the team, to the fans, and that is a valid way of nurturing and loving people" but instead we got "the traditional heterosexual family structure is the only valid family structure."

Ted doesn't really grow; he's right back where he started, putting aside his own needs and desires for other people, his life hopelessly entangled with the woman who left him for their couples therapist.

And Ted and Rebecca!! What was the point of the parallels with their fathers, their awful exes, the when Harry met Sally couple in the stands! What was the point of these deliberate choices that were made to draw a line between Ted and Rebecca only for the writers and cast to now mock people who thought all those choices meant something? That is a profound piece of cruelty; I've had ships that were fan creations, that weren't ever gonna be main text, and that is not what this was. This wasn't delusion; this was baked right in, and now they're shaking their heads at us?

And Ted, at the end, looks miserable.

I've been thinking lately that there feels like a lot about the ending of this show that is deeply masculine, by which I mean it is reflective of how our society says men are supposed to behave and what our society says men are supposed to believe.

Sport is one of the few places where men's emotions are encouraged. You're meant to love your team, your teammates, meant to laugh and cry and scream with them, but being on a sports team is by its very definition transient. Those relationships are so profound when you're in them, but they are meant to come to an end; the season's over, a player gets traded, you're too old to do it anymore, etc, and then the men have to go back to what society will allow them to have: family. A woman and child to love, not a found family of fellow men. The man can't aspire to stay with his team; he's only meant to be with them for a season.

And that's true of a lot of different kinds of relationships, but I just think it's very telling that we have a bunch of men running this show saying obviously the romance with Rebecca wasn't real - she's not Ted's wife, not the mother of his child, she can't take priority - saying Ted had to put Henry, had to put being a father (being a father in the strictest, most traditional way, no out of the box thinking or creative solutions here) above any other relationships he might have, bc he's not supposed to want kinship with those men, he's only supposed to want it with his family.

Idk this is something I'm still trying to articulate but it makes me very, very sad bc I think it reflects an attitude of people who think they don't deserve to stay with their friends, with their community, where they're happy, bc they have obligations that they are only permitted to fulfill in one very strict, structured, lonesome way.