#it’s oh we get each other bc we approach this thing in a similar way

[trying-to-get-somewhere-real]

really feel like fandom needs to get more comfortable with ambiguous dynamics, and how that ambiguity can be a feature not a bug! i notice this everywhere in fandom now, but this post is about sydcarmy the bear cause that is my current hyperfixation lol. sitting with ambiguity is the lifeblood of so many (all?) queer ships (also, importantly, my real-life queer experience) but i think it’s often relevant for straight ships too. no one is making sydcarmy antis ship them but to say ABSOLUTELY NOT because the nature of their relationship at this very moment is not easily defined is missing so much that is rich and interesting and sexy about figuring out what the dynamic is. *especially* for fan content (which is what a lot of us are here for actually!) using fic and meta to explore what certain words, body language, editing choices, music choices, etc mean is what makes our brains light up! (mine at least)

tension between two characters is the sexiest thing and ambiguity heightens that tension imo! whatever happens or does not happen with them in the future, at this very moment in time the undefinable quality of their relationship creates the space for shipping. this used to be a rather basic concept in fandom that seems to have gotten lost in the past however many years. i guess the primary anti response to this would be that the dynamic is *not* ambiguous—it is platonic—but like, i am with @eatandsleepwell who just included the following in this excellent post today:

and the thing about syd and carm being friends is that. they’re not. or at least not yet. or at least they need more to be friends. friends know your mom is dead, they know what your relationship with your parents is like. friends can easily hang out with each other after work. friends can be apart without the sense that the separation is akin to devastation. 

i don’t really think they’re friends! they are a weird third thing that is so delicious to me, and every single day right now very brilliant people are writing hundreds of words on this website attempting to interpret what that thing is or could be. this is the lifeblood of fandom! and the demand or expectation that ships have neon signs above them that say ROMANTIC to be valid romantic ships is just very odd to me. syd and carmy are weird and intense about each other in a way that is not easy to parse but once you decide to try and parse it, it’s such a satisfying experience as a fan. they had some major blow ups in s1, and in s2 managed to largely avoid them with the asl sorry but clearly were in unspokenish conflict much of the time (that they managed to diffuse just barely; mostly by syd walking away!) besties is not the word i would use to describe them at all. besties do not struggle this much to communicate. there are so many wonderful complicated bonkers things going on there and the purpose of this post isn’t to get into them but just to point out that they’re there.

anyone who thinks it’s easy to reduce them to any one given thing right now isn’t paying enough attention. and not being able to categorize them easily isn’t a bad thing for me. it’s the constant thrum of what is this? what is this? what is this??? that makes fandom great and i wish that didn’t feel like a hot take right now.

[theeoriginals]

Ok so how about a cat and mouse!reader x elijah follow up where she’s back in town and they haven’t seen each other since their last meeting, and she’s caught by him taking something but he’s just happy to see her again so he lets her get away with it bc she’s charming and he loves the chase and banter and flirting 😩

hard to forget | elijah mikaelson

author's note; someone else asked for part 2 to cat and mouse, so here is a small little thing for them :)

warnings; witch!female!reader, elijah is astronomically down bad, fluff, mention of stealing but it's fine, reader is flirty and confident. no use of y/n!

"We've got to stop meeting like this."

"I quite like seeing you like this," She turns with a smile, wicked and sharp, but a genuine happiness shines in her eyes, especially when she sees the smile Elijah fights off at the sight of her. "You're so sexy when you're being all righteous."

Elijah huffs, ignoring the fact that she can make him feel like a blushing boy again. "You're insatiable. And you told me you were going to leave this here when I caught you trying to take it the first time I brought you here."

She purses her lips in a pout when he plucks the figurine of the black cat from her hands, setting it back on the shelf it'd been collecting dust on in the touristy museum tucked into an old building in the Quarter.

"Can a girl not have a hobby anymore?" She nearly whines the words as he approaches her, lifting her hands to drag her nails along his waist, catching on the fabric of his buttoned shirt. "I got bored, baby,"

He hums, looking at her with some twisted mix of reprimand and amusement. "Most people read a book when they get bored. Or go on a walk."

"Both of those sound absolutely mind-numbing."

He huffs out a laugh, unable stop it even though he knows it will just enable her further.

Her answering grin proves that point immediately.

"I do it for us, Elijah,"

"Oh, really? And how, exactly, does this benefit us?"

She straightens her shoulders, meeting his gaze unwaveringly confident. "I get bored and I go looking for things to entertain me, and you ultimately find out and follow me, and then we get to play our fun little game that I know you love. One way or another, it ends up with us in a similar position to this and we're both happy."

Elijah's smile grows more fond as she goes on, and he shakes his head with poorly feigned exasperation. "Darling–"

"I know, I know," She groans, rolling her eyes. "Let's just go. I'll have to find something else to entertain me, I suppose. Maybe I'll ask Klaus if he needs something done,"

"I almost hate that option more. You've only just returned from his last errand, I'd at least like to share a meal with you before you're running off again."

She throws him a wink as she turns him around, pushing him towards the door.

"Don't worry, I won't let him send me far so soon again," She reassures him, fingers skating along the shelf as she follows him out the door back outside into the throngs of people. "I've missed you, you know. I don't like running off to every corner of the country."

Elijah spares her a glance, trying and failing to not look pleased with her words. "You do like it," He corrects her softly.

"Alright, I do," She concedes easily, earning a light chuckle from him. "But I don't like being away from you."

"Does your flattery ever end?"

"You wanna find out, beautiful?" She raises her brows pointedly, earning a ragged noise from him that's choked off as he adjusts his tie, and the flustered action sends her off into a laughing fit that echoes over the noise of the Quarter and has him smiling in spite of himself.

He follows after her swift pace like a loyal dog, hands tucked in his pockets as they slowly weed out from the crowds and make their way towards the compound that's much less populated these days.

As they reach the courtyard, Elijah reaches for her elbow, tugging her back towards him, earning a slightly surprised noise from her as she catches herself with her palms flat on his chest. "How much joy does it bring you to render a thousand year old vampire speechless?"

"I don't think I could accurately describe it, even if I spent the next hundred years trying,"

He shakes his head and finally, finally, leans his head down to press his lips to hers and she hums into the kiss, satisfied with the outcome of all of her teasing.

She was right, after all. They always end up here.

Elijah pulls away after a moment, resenting the need for air in favor of tasting the sweet warmth of her skin again. He's silent for a moment, head tilting just enough to be noticeable, and then he lets out a long sigh. "Niklaus would like to speak to you,"

"I know, I'm ignoring him."

Elijah relishes in his brother's faint, outraged noise, but knows that he won't come disturb them just yet. "Don't let him send you off just yet. I would like to see you again tonight, at least."

"I won't, I promise. We'll have dinner, and a drink or two. I'd also love to end the night in your room, if that's alright with you,"

Heat floods his cheeks and he briefly looks away from her, just to shake himself of her flirtations. "Whatever you want, darling."

She smiles like he's just given her the keys to the city.

Hours later, after their dinner, after their drinks, after they end the night and start the next day with whatever she wanted, Elijah wakes long after she's left on another of Klaus's errands, keeping to her promise of not going far.

When he turns over, his eyes catch on the small, black cat figurine sitting on the table beside his bed. Elijah falls back onto the bed, laughing to himself. Utterly, absolutely besotted with the woman.

[sonkitty]

The Food Curse

Here is my currently forming head canon based on little clues from the Good Omens story of seasons 1 and 2.

Crowley either does not eat food at all or Crowley is never allowed to be seen eating on camera.

There's more to it than that because he can eat indirectly, but that's the core thing I'm going to ramble on about in this post. It's going to sound like one of my theories, but that's force of habit from how I come up with questions and check my own theories.

I'll acknowledge that I've seen more than one Good Omens fan post about food being equal to sex in Good Omens and say that you're not going to find that kind of discussion here. It's my head canon, and I prefer my incoming approach to it.

I don't talk about my religious background much because it's personal, so you'll have to make do with me saying I have learned the following from reading Good Omens posts and not being well-versed in biblical references already. I don't remember if any sources I read this information from expressed a similar theory or head canon though you would think that's where I got the idea.

I'm under the impression the GO universe favors the New King James Version of the Bible, and according to a quick Google search, that one says of God addressing the serpent who tempted Eve:

Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.

...

An interpretation of this curse is that it means the Serpent of Eden cannot eat food, or, if he does, it will turn to dust.

Let's examine the clues provided by the story, for fun and/or curiosity.

In season 2, episode 1, during Before the Beginning, we see Crowley's wings are graying, indicating to us that his Fall was a process. It was not an instant thing. It started with this questioning and frustration at learning the fate of the universe ending in a mere 6,000 years.

In season 1, episode 5, Crowley is found getting drunk and talking about his Fall. One of his remarks is, "Oh, hey, the food hadn't been that good lately."

These described events would be from before the temptation that caused this curse, but I noticed them all the same because I'm looking for such things.

We catch glimpses of other supernatural beings describing events before the Fall, but I don't think any of them ever mention food for that time period.

From the scenes we have of Eden in the first two seasons, the story skips over God saying such a curse exists to the serpent. We see Crawley slithering on his belly and then able to rise, transforming into a man-shaped demon with black-feathered wings. He's not eating dust.

Well, even though we never see God curse the Serpent of Eden, the story leaves clues that something resembling this curse is active with Crowley. You know, in case you want to form a head canon about it.

In 2500 BC, Crowley successfully tempts Aziraphale into eating food, and he looks very pleased with himself at his success.

My head canon at this point goes that Crowley himself is feeding off the success of his temptation. Crowley feeds off Aziraphale when Aziraphale eats. This feeding does not last for only this one session. It can and does happen from that point onward. Crowley feeds off Aziraphale this way at least when the two are near each other by some unknown distance.

In Rome, 8 years after 33 AD, Crowley says he's never eaten an oyster. Aziraphale quickly goes into saying something about letting him tempt Crowley into...oh wait, that's Crowley's job. Crowley was successful at this job with Eve and later Aziraphale, for getting each of them to eat something while he himself did not visibly eat anything.

In 1601, Crowley shows up while Aziraphale is ordering food at the Globe Theater. The two have a conversation, and Crowley, as usual, expresses no interest in eating the food himself. He can still be feeding off Aziraphale eating.

On and on it goes. In season 1, episode 1, Crowley and Aziraphale reference Paris, 1793. Aziraphale says, "We had crepes." Well, if Aziraphale ate the crepes, and Crowley fed off Aziraphale eating the crepes, that's a way they had crepes. Aziraphale doesn't feel the need to rephrase it in that way. It's a thing they did together nonetheless.

Crowley plans a heist in 1967 at the Dirty Donkey. No one is having food at that meeting. The other three with him are all humans.

When Crowley meets up with Hastur and Ligur at the graveyard for the "11 years ago" of season 1, episode 1, Crowley departs, saying, "Ciao." Ligur asks what that means, and Hastur answers, "food." No one ate food of course, but since we're looking at Crowley with a possible food curse, it's a curious thing to be there, just like him mentioning "food" when drunkenly talking about his Fall.

When Crowley convinces Aziraphale to go with him to the Ritz for the "11 years ago" time period, Crowley does not have a plate of food. He has a cup with a spoon a saucer, presumably for a drink. He strokes his chin to show him enjoying himself, feeding off Aziraphale eating.

In season 1, episode 2, Crowley and Aziraphale go to a cafe. Crowley is not shown to be enjoying himself feeding off Aziraphale eating, but Crowley's side of the table definitely lacks a plate while having a cup. That indicates he's fine with drinking something, not bothering with eating something, just like when they went to the Ritz 11 years ago.

In season 1, episode 3, Crowley meets up with Shadwell at a diner. Crowley has no drink and no food while they meet. Neither does Shadwell.

In season 1, episode 4, Crowley is found mostly alone in a theater with a container of popcorn. We never see him eat the popcorn, but we at least know he was holding it, and Aziraphale is not around. That could be for show since he considers it part of the human experience being in a theater. I could just be wrong, it's just a head canon after all. He may have done it anyway and just eaten the dust that formed once it went into his mouth. Or, maybe he can eat, but the silly rules of the Good Omens story are that he's never allowed to be seen eating on camera due to his food curse.

In season 1, episode 6, Aziraphale, while pretending to be Crowley, orders them some ice cream and passes one to Crowley, while Crowley is pretending to be Aziraphale. We don't see what became of Crowley's ice cream, but it disappears from the framing very quickly once the camera moves away from him, then back to him. During the actual kidnapping, his mouth is even taped shut. Much like the popcorn in the theater, the ice cream could have been for show. He may have endured eating the dust. He may have devoured it very quickly when the camera wasn't looking.

Later in the same episode, at the Ritz, the table has plenty of food though actually both Crowley's and Aziraphale's main plates where you would expect food to be are empty.

Whatever happened to that plate of Eccles cakes in season 2, episode 1? I don't know. We may never know, but this head canon offers something.

Aziraphale is implied to have ordered those Eccles cakes for Crowley in the hope that they will calm Crowley down with the news about Gabriel being in the bookshop. We know that those Eccles cakes are shown untouched and uneaten before Crowley stormed out.

Crowley is shown to angrily walk away in the street after shooting out lightning that traps Maggie and Nina in the coffee shop. Then a scene in Heaven happens. By the time we get back to Earth, Crowley has calmed down. He's still upset, he's tired, but he's calmed down. So, maybe, very very big maybe, Aziraphale ate those Eccles cakes, Crowley fed off it or felt it, and calmed down. Even if that's true, that suggests some allowable distance with thresholds between them for this magic to work.

Obviously, things happen to get Crowley worked up again with being summoned to Hell, but he had calmed down. When Crowley returns to the bookshop, the plate of Eccles cakes is no longer there.

Over the course of season 2, we don't see Aziraphale eating as much as what we saw in season 1. To my recollection, he only visibly eats one time during the present day storyline, and it's a travel sweet while driving Crowley's car. We learn that Crowley can feel his car despite the distance between them. He can feel quite specifically that Aziraphale eats during that drive and even what Aziraphale is eating. My head canon figures that's part of Crowley's demonic power able to feed off Aziraphale when Aziraphale eats.

In season 2, episode 5, Aziraphale passes a platter to Crowley saying, "Have a vol-au-vent." Crowley is left speechless and eventually drops the platter in annoyance, never shown to have eaten any of the food on it.

Aziraphale sometimes seems aware of this curse and sometimes doesn't. That would be part of the curse's own magic. The more caught up Aziraphale is in what he is wanting or doing, the less aware he is of the curse itself being there.

Another thing about this curse is that if Crowley touches food or the container holding the food, it's usually a bad omen for him. When he has the popcorn in hand, Hastur shows up on the screen to threaten him. When he's holding the ice cream, he is kidnapped. With the plate of Eccles cakes, he is confronted with Gabriel being n the bookshop. For the vol-au-vent platter, that one's a little different since a threat is already known with him on alert, and it takes a longer amount of time for something as dramatic as the brick through the window.

So, with all these little clues that Crowley can feed off Aziraphale eating food, the next question for a silly fangirl like myself is, "What does that mean for all of humanity?"

Crowley tempted Eve into eating the apple. Did he feed off that? Does he feed off humans whenever they eat anything or just apples or just giving into temptation?

Well, the story doesn't say so much as it leaves room for something to be imagined. If Crowley is on screen, humans might be seen drinking and they might have food near them, but I am yet to find any scene of them putting actual food into their mouths to confirm that they can and will clearly eat when the camera is watching as Crowley is on screen with them.

So, what do I imagine?

Well, my instinct is that Crowley himself would flicker in visibility if the camera were watching since we're not allowed to ever see it.

That's just my instinct.

From there, I just go with what I like of fantasizing him as a powerful demon. He feels it. It affects him. And yes, he feeds off it. We're not allowed to see it happen, but he does. He is a very well fed demon.

...

Oh, and another little oddity with this idea is that during the big food fight for Warlock's birthday, party, the food definitely does not land on Crowley, even if it gets on the kids, on Aziraphale, and some of the other wait staff. That could be Crowley's own magic in guarding himself, just not wanting to get messy, as some other explanation, if I wanted to venture that way with this head canon. I'll stick to it being part of this food curse since it's part of the broader group of little clues.

...

I have a generally good memory of events in the show by now, but things still slip between trying to remember it all. So, if I remember something worth adding or noting or correcting, I will do whatever seems best for those options.

Edit: I now have a Food Curse Part 2.

[mrsnancywheeler]

the lakes (5) // finnick odair x f. reader

summary: it's supposed to be over, you and Finnick are supposed to spend the rest of your lives helping each other heal. living as peacefully as possible, but the the third quarter quell throws a wrench in your domestic bliss.

previous chapter / next chapter

midnight rain

2.3k words

warnings: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcoholism bc haymitch is there, brief drinking, allusions to death and violence, rebellion planning, allusions of trafficking/sexual trauma, wanting children, mentions of birth control and class divide, terms of endearment, mental illness, manipulation of someone's feelings, self-hatred, mentions of nausea and allusions to puking, reader being utterly enamored by Finnick, unedited, no use of Y/N

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Harsh wind made your body shake and Finnick immediately wrapped his arms around you. How he always felt like a furnace was something you'd accepted you'd never have the answer to and you gratefully relaxed into him.

“Oh look, I just happened to run into you two on the roof, a happy couple just relaxing while they still can." Haymitch's voice pierced the air billowing around you.

“What a coincidence.” Finnick took a step closer to where Haymitch was approaching.

"Gives us a perfect chance to talk about allies though.” Your voice was loud enough that if anyone was listening they would be sure to hear your completely pure intentions with a mentor right before everyone's voices conveniently took the octave and pitch down.

“After this there's not opting out, so I need to know that you're 100% on board. You could be killed if this gets found out." Haymitch fiddled with his flask.

“We're already going to be killed, at least this way there's a chance we can stay together and end all of this." He stood close enough now that your soft voice could only be heard within the earshot. Finnick squeezed your hand softly.

Haymitch nodded, “Beetee is in on it too, so is Wiress, but who knows how much of a help she'll be. Plutarch can give us insight into small things before the Games start, but the main point will be finding away for enough chaos to happen that we can get Katniss out of there.”

“So our job is to get her to trust us, protect her and Peeta so she sticks to the plan that will get her out." Subconsciously Finnick began tapping his fingers on your waist and you rubbed your thumb in circles across his hand to try and soothe whatever it was his mind was running on about.

“Yes and we might need to find a way to force that because you weren't doing a great job on that, darling. I can't blame you though, she can be quite difficult.” Haymitch took a swig from the flask, you could only imagine how burning cold the metal must have been. Then he was pointing at you, "The princess here might actually have more luck since in an ever so contradictory way she's less gaudy.” Finnick scoffed. "She'll just have to get over preconceived notions first which isn't usually easy. Going over tributes though the problem would be you as a package deal, so we might have to find a way to force her to ally with everyone anyways.”

Slowly, Finnick nodded, “We should tell Johanna, she'll definitely be determined even if she doesn't get Katniss’ trust right away."

Haymitch laughed slightly, “Oh I think she's already left quite the impression." You could only imagine what Johanna had done and you smiled, her blunt attitude had immediately drawn you to her and it helped that her strategy was slightly similar to yours as far as the tears went.

“You go, it'll look like you're trying to figure out alliances and not be as suspicious, if they are watching." You kissed Finnick's cheek and reluctantly pushed away from his comforting arms.

"Okay, I'll be back soon. Don't miss me too bad.” He began stepping away so slowly as if he wanted to stay too, which you couldn't imagine why you had to have made his internal heater freeze with every touch.

“Oh I already do." He smirked and you walked over the cement bench, patting on it as Haymitch sat down by you. He held his arm out, offering the flask he was holding. You thought about it for a second, but accepted the offer. Earlier assumptions were correct, the metal was so cold it burned the lips right before the alcohol did. “What is that?" You scrunched your nose, handing it back to him.

Haymitch chuckled, shaking his head. “One of their wild, Capitol creations." He shrugged slightly, the idea of carrying a drink around that you couldn't even name just to numb the pain made your head ache for the victor. “So you tied the knot away from all the pomp and pageantry?"

"They can't have all of me.” Even if they have most of me, went unsaid into the crisp night air. Your body, your tears, what you could give, the raw, violent parts of you forever memorialized for eternity. Now parts of the private ceremony would be exploited, but the moment could never, only the parts you chose to reveal. It was yours.

“Good for you." He took another drink. “They can only take so much from us, they have to know this was bound to happen." You hummed a yes and reached your hand out which he filled with the cold flask, you took another drink that stung your throat before returning it.

“I don't know how people can have kids when the world is like this." You muttered, looking out at the city below. So badly you wanted a family, Finnick would be a great father, but it seemed impossible to fathom when at any second, for years on end they could be ripped away to be publicly executed for entertainment. If they even managed to survive, horrors lay beyond that, you would never wish for your children to live in a world where they went through what you did.

He shook his head, “Desperation, extra hands, not everyone has fancy Capitol provided ways to prevent pregnancy, Princess."

"Yeah.” You were all too familiar with that. Rich men rarely wanted the possibility of a kid running around with a second-class being even if she was a victor and you took every precaution possible as the fear ate you up inside. They could steal away your body, your intimacy, how you felt with yourself, but if you did escape all of this the only kids you would be having would be yours and Finnick. You wouldn't let them own you in that aspect too. “She's lucky she and Peeta came off as such a strong case of star crossed lovers, it's saved her in and out of the arena. Saved both of them.” Blankly staring at the stars, too beautiful to shine on such a cruel world.

“That she is. My so-called defiance lost me everything, everyone and she managed to be so popular that they couldn't do that. It's why we stand a chance, princess.”

You stood up, "I'd wish you a goodnight, but that rarely happens.” You smiled, sadness tainting your eyes.

Haymitch shook the flask, "If it works right, I won't remember a thing.” He said it so sardonically it weighed down your very being. This is what the Capitol did to its child winners, fractured them into being blackout drunk to dodge the nights full of horror.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

You sat on the hallway floor, it's carpet itching your skin as you sat there, head on Conway’s shoulder.

“The outfits were so ridiculous, dressing us like prize pigs." He seethed, “Not you I mean though, you didn't look like a pig, the blue looked nice on you-" Conway started rambling to make up for his initial words and you pressed a finger to his soft lips.

"I know what you mean.” You smiled, so softly it looked enamored with his stumbling. It was cute, but not like your Finnick's sureness in all he said. No, not your Finnick, not anymore he was just Finnick, the mentor, the guy from the past. Oh, how you craved his touch, the smell of his salty skin, the sound of his honey like voice. You scolded yourself, now wasn't the time, it couldn't be. You couldn't risk Conway being able to tell if you were thinking about the other man, as if he could somehow read your mind, nevertheless it was too risky.

“Thank you for always understanding me, you've always been so sweet since we were children, it's what made me want to be your friend in the first place and then-" He paused, then your lover is what he was holding back. You knew this, his sister had told you once back when you were with Finnick, how jealousy was eating Conway’s sweet soul alive. “Then made my family love you too."

It was like an arrow in your heart, you weren't sweet, it was more harrowing that he thought so. Your brain encouraged you to persist even though the echoes muttered back how much you should loathe yourself. “No, you're the sweet one. Always covering for me." You shook your head, keeping the smile glued on your face. His hand was suddenly on your chin, trying to guide you in. His fingers were slightly calloused but there were no sparks, like when Finnick even brushed his atoms into the same vicinity as yours. You leaned in slightly, eyes searching him as if you wanted to know if he really wanted this, of course you knew the answer though. His lips pressed themselves to yours, he tasted just as he sounded, like strawberries and you did like strawberries of course, but not as much as a raw honeycomb.

Just as quickly he pulled away, “I'm sorry." Conway’s voice spilled out, “I don't know what I was thinking, I know you still have him and all, I just I don't know." He shook his head, rubbing his face with his hands, combing them through his hair anxiously.

“He's a jerk." He was, but in the best and worst way. “I don't know what I saw in him." You shook your head, sadly staring at the carpet. Urging the tears to present themselves to help cover your lies because you knew exactly what you still saw in him, his humor, his protection, the warmth, and the absolute love and care he exuded with each look, each graze of his fingertips. “Especially when-" You acted like you were getting choked up on your confession, you disgusted yourself.

Conway’s fingertips were tilting your head back up to him once again, “Really?" His eyes were eager, so innocent. You had to stop your resilience from breaking, from halting the whole operation. “Do you really mean that because I have for so long and please be honest?"

You were nauseous. Trying not to start gagging on nothing as you nodded. "Of course I do, I just didn't see what's been right in front of me.” He kissed you again and it was overwhelming your senses. Not in the way Finnick did which made you buzz, in a way that made you want to run. When he finally pulled away you forced yourself to let out a sly smile as you began standing. "I'll see you in the morning, we should sleep before all the training tomorrow, making impressions with the other tributes.”

His smile was shy and his eyes were basically begging you to stay with him another night, to hold you. It would certainly help your plan, but you couldn't. It was already too much and you needed senses knocked back into you before you broke. "Goodnight, sleep well." Conway whispered, slowly letting his fingers part from yours as he turned down the hallway. You'd been just outside of your room so you walked to it and opened it right before closing it to make it sound like you'd gone in before making a beeline in the opposite direction for Finnick's. Vainly trying to hold back the dry heaving.

Ever so softly your fists knocked on the door and almost instantly it was open, like he was waiting, like he knew you would be coming. Before another second could pass you'd thrown yourself into the protection of his arms and were weeping.

“I'm a terrible person." You choked out as he carefully shut the door with his foot, wrapping his arms around you even tighter like a blanket.

“No you're not an angel, it's survival of the fittest." He kissed the top of your forehead burying himself in it.

"Oh God, I'm gonna be sick.” He instantly led you to the bathroom where you were in fact. He didn't leave you though, he pulled out some medicine to soothe your stomach and head. Handing you a glass of water as he soothingly had his hand on the top of your head, stroking your hair. Once you've finished he was brushing your teeth for you.

It should be pathetic to have someone doing that for you, but not when it was him just trying to keep you secure. “Gotta open wider, angel." He was diligent and precise before helping pull you up from the edge of the tub to the sink. “Okay now spit. Let's get you into bed, sweet girl."

“Thank you, I'm sorry." You muttered out, voice raspy.

“Don't ever be." His warm hands tilted your chin up in a way that melted you into his touch like sugar in tea. “Look at me. You're doing what it takes to survive, which you deserve to do, I'm just doing what you deserve." Your Finnick could make you fall into tears every time, healing the patches of the broken heart you had from the way you were using Conway. “Let's get you to bed." He began to walk out of the bathroom and you softly put your hand on the one trailing away.

"Finnick.” Your voice was tender but the air was so stagnant it felt booming to your ears. He turned to look at you, worry evident. "Can I stay? Please?” Finnick smiled so sympathetically it made your head feel better, like it would float away instead.

"Of course, my love, you can always stay with me, I'll always stay with you.” As you crawled into the sheets that he'd of course emanated his soothing heat onto you knew it was true. Just as you knew you'd always stay with him.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

thank you so much for reading! literally y'all's comments make my heart so happy and my passion for continuing to write this skyrockets, you are all so incredibly kind and supportive 💕 as always if you enjoyed feedback, likes, reblogs, comments are all so appreciated and my asks are open bc I think about this series all the time. I love you guys and thank you again sm 💋

taglist: @imaegonstargaryenswife0 @avoxrising @artsyaquarium @jennaaaaaaaaaaaa @secretsicanthideanymore @darlingsoulbeautfulthoughts @thatonegayloser616 @kybermp3 @meri-soni-meri-tamanna @ravensinthedaylight @innercreationflower @uhnanix @aesthetic0cherryblossom @yourdailymemedelivery

[bluepluto03]

Branch Sacrifices himself for Floyd AU

Summary: in which Branch sees Floyd getting the life sucked out of him and gets freaked enough to make a really bad decision

———————————————————————

“I have a proposition for you. A trade.”

“Branch no!” Floyd yells

“Trade for what?”

“For me. You free Floyd, and you can use me instead.”

“Branch, leave, please.” Floyd begs.

Branch ignores him resolutely

Velvet seems to be considering. “Why should I trade?”

“Um… I won't die as fast?” Branch offers, caught off guard. He didn’t expect he’d need to convince her to kidnap him.

(Full mini/bullet fic under the cut)

———————————————————————

Note: this is a cross between a actual fic and a bullet fic bc I have Other Projects I’m supposed to be working on and I’m trying to limit myself from going all out on trolls, but if people like this maybe I’ll try to clean it up some more and put it on ao3

Branch gets the bait letter sometime before the wedding. He panics badly, barely stops to leave a note for Poppy before running off to mt rageous.

JD has already spoken with Floyd and left to collect everyone

At first their Reunion is pretty similar to cannon with a bit more confusion and worry

Branch starts trying to get the cover off the vents so he can take Floyd with him- he doesn’t want to leave him there. But It’s a huge metal grate over a vent and he’s one tiny troll there’s only so much he can do

Floyd hears Velvet and Veneer approaching and tells Branch to run. Branch argues against him, keeps trying to open the stupid grate, ignoring Floyd’s pleas for him to run

In the hallway the voices of Velvet and Veneer go quiet but the trolls are too frantic to notice

Floyd points out Branch can’t help him if they’re both caught, and Branch reluctantly agrees to hide

Velvet, who’s been listening at the door, bursts in. She lunges at Branch but he escapes into the vents where she can’t reach him

Vaneer whines they’ll never be able to find him now

Velvet is like hmm… picks up Floyd’s crystal, Floyd seems scared, looking back up at her

“Such a shame. Im not sure this one will last until the next one shows up.” She says loudly

Her voice rattles around the vents and shakes the ground Branch is trying to stand on and he he grits his teeth against it

“Oh im sure another one will show up soon enough, but we have half a dozen shows in the next few days. This one’s getting pretty weak.” she shakes Floyd. “With two, well theres one for each of us! Right veneer?”

“R-right?”

“Im sure two would be able to make it much longer…”

Branch knows what she’s doing. He knows she’s just trying to bait him out. The stupidest thing in the world he could do would be to go down there right now.

But all he can see is how pale floyd is getting, and the terrifying translucence of the tips of his fingers, and-

And. if he goes down there he’ll be useless to save floyd.

He’ll have to just figure out some other way to get floyd out

“We’ll have to keep him with us now, i guess, since theres some little critters running around. We don’t want them bothering our little guest”

Anxiety starts to choke Branch and he tries to push it down. Okay, that complicates things, but it’s fine. It’ll be fine. He’ll still manage to save Floyd. Before it’s too late

He can’t pull himself away from the edge of the vent. He realizes he’s been edging closer and closer on his stomach, out of the shadows, desperate just to see Floyd for a moment longer

Velvet looks around. She sees a shadow in the vent and grins to herself

“Well we’ve gotta get going to our next show. Time for a quick spritz”

She sprays herself

Floyd lifts up from the force of it, eyes rolling back in pain. His body shudders once with the wave, then goes boneless as he drops to the bottom of the bottle

“NO-“ the scream rips through Branch’s throat before he can catch it. Velvet looks at the vent with a predatory look in her eye. Floyd looks dazed and terrified on Branch’s behalf

Velvet takes one predatory step forward and instinctively Branch yells “DON’T MOVE”

Velvet stops, seemingly more out of surprise than anything else. She laghs. “Why should i troll? What’re you gonna do? Sing at me?”

“I’ll disappear into the vents” Branch says with much more confidence than he feels. “By the time you get to me, i can be deep enough that you won’t be able to grab me.”

Velvet frowns, eyes scanning the distance between them, but she dosn’t move forward

“Why not just run off then?” Veneer asks, though it sounds more genuinely confused, lacking his sister’s mocking undertone

Floyd is looking at him with a furrowed brow, confusion evident on his face as he struggles to figure out what branch is doing, even as he leans limply against the side of the bottle

“I have a proposition for you. A trade.”

“Branch, no!” Floyd yells as he figures it out

“Trade for what?”

“For me. You free Floyd, and you can use me instead.”

“Branch, leave, please.” Floyd begs.

Branch ignores him, resolutely pushing down the fear in his chest

Velvet seems to be considering. “Why should I trade?”

“Um… I won't die as fast?” Branch offers, caught off guard. He didn’t expect he’d need to convince her to kidnap him.

“Maybe, but pinkie here is pretty powerful. How do I know you’ll be anywhere near as strong?”

Branch hesitates then forces himself move forward “I’m stronger.”

“No he’s not! He’s terrible!” Floyd insists

“Excuse me?” Branch shoots back, indigent and caught off guard

But Floyd’s not looking at him hes talking to velvet. “He’s awful. If you use him you’ll sound like-” he grasps for how to convince them ”like a broken chalkboard, or nails in a clock, or- or a crying bird!”

“You’re mixing metaphors, babe” Veneer tells him

“Or something! It’ll be bad, okay??” floyd insists desperately

branch feels irrationally a bit hurt because he knows floyd is only saying that to protect him. He takes a deep breath, pushing down all the fear and hurt

“No it won’t. I have the voice of an angel.

Velvet raises an eyebrow. “Prove it.”

He sings a few bars

“Deal.” Velvet agrees to the trade

Now there’s the problem of actually doing the trade

They tell him to come down, he says no you’ll take us both, gimme floyd and then ill come down, they accuse him of the same thing, they agree on branch standing on the edge of the vent and them putting floyd next to him as they pick him up

They do it and branch tries not to shake in fear

They let Branch help Floyd into the vent because he’s so weak, but both Velvet and Veneer are hovering so close and they’ve figured out how to shut some of the vents so even if he wanted to leave he couldn’t

As floyd is placed down he beggs branch “branch please don’t do this, please.”

Branch can’t look at him. He wishes he had something, anything to say

Floyd’s hair wraps around his wrist weakly, it’s all Floyd can manage. Branch just gently takes it off and keeps going

As he steps into velvets hand he tries his best for a comforting smile. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

This time, when one of them walks away, they both know he’s lying

Note: that’s what I have so far! Cue very sick Floyd watching his brother suffer and desperately trying to save him while so weak.

Maybe I’ll continue if ppl like this maybe I’ll finish editing this into something a bit cleaner but we’ll see! Honestly depends if people are interested bc I have other stuff I really should be working on but the trolls hyperfixation hit me with a frying pan and dragged me into the fandom in a burlap sack.

[smallnico]

I gotta know because I'm having a blast with her in my party: would Minthara and Esper get along well or would they hate each other?

🥺💕

asking me about esper.. on a random weekday..... oh i am so blessed thank u so much

to answer your question though!! it's complicated. i've played 2 full games as esper, one before you could save minthara without killing the tieflings and one after, because i wanted to find out the answer to this very question (among other things).

the short answer is that they hate each other, lol. but there's nuance to that, so! under the cut bc it's long!

from a character perspective, the most in-character thing for esper to do is kill her -- they're half-drow, so the first thing she said to them was a comment about their impure blood, which they did NOT care for, and then she immediately started talking about slaughtering those druids and putting those tieflings that our new allies wyll and karlach care about in harm's way. she gave them basically nothing but green lights that it was okay to kill her, and generally speaking, esper doesn't need much of an excuse (they struggled with recruiting karlach for a bit and they were disappointed they didn't get to kill kagha, for instance), so not only were they forced to kill her, they were pretty excited to kill her.

(sidenote: part of that excitement is a pavlovian response from their childhood. one thing their matron did to help esper channel their urges while she was training them to be an assassin was fully endorse them practicing their skills on anyone they caught questioning their half-human parentage or gender, so long as they could do it well enough to get away with it. this means they react to people being racist toward them with excitement, because it means This Is An Acceptable Murder And I Am Going To Do It Fuck Yes. they racked up a pretty extensive kill count after they got to baldur's gate for this reason, too.)

all this to say, the first time around i didn't get to know minthara and her dynamic with esper much. the second time around, she was a bit glitchy, since the ability to save her had only just been implemented -- a lot of her banter with other party members wouldn't trigger, she was completely naked for the entire span of time between meeting ketheric and rescuing her from the prison, and i think i only got to ask her like 2 questions to get to know her? -- so that didn't help much, but from what i did learn about her dynamic with esper was that oh my god they both hate each other so fucking much. they just cannot stand each other. they have so much in common but the things that are different are enormous dealbreakers for both of them and it's almost hilarious. esper couldn't get through one in character conversation with minthara without her disapproving of Something they said. she wants so badly to enable the behaviours they're actively working to stop cycling through. the funniest fucking glitch i got with her was after we saved her from orin, the narrator demanded on her behalf that i literally pay her so she wouldn't walk away, that was how bad their relationship was. i'm Sure that was a glitch but it was wild.

zooming out from the game though, i mean it when i say esper and minthara have a lot in common (even if esper doesn't quite remember a lot of it). they both grew up in menzoberranzan, both of their earliest childhood memories are of surviving murder attempts, they both trained in combat academies (minth in tier breche, probably melee-magthere, and esper in the hidden academy at house auvy'rae), they were both forced to abandon lolth and the underdark by the dead three, they were both mutilated by orin, they were both forced to live for a period committing atrocities on behalf of a quasi-deity who sapped them both of their will to resist. esper and minthara have similar approaches to violence -- seeing it as necessary and enjoyable, but something to be used sparingly to best effect -- though they disagree on when it should be used. they even have similar senses of humour -- minthara likes a bit of cruel irony, and we all know the line about the man who married a drider, while esper is deadpan with a secret love for stupid jokes and mischief.

where they differ the most is on the matter of power. minthara, as we all know, is a properly power-hungry person who takes great joy in accruing and showing off power. she's completely on board with using the tadpoles, she wants her allies to have the most power they could have, whatever the fallout is for them personally (thinking specifically about astarion's ascension, which she's totally on board with, and dj shadowheart, where she says something to the effect of "shadowheart absolutely shouldn't go through with this ritual, shar is a poisonous influence, but it would be better for Us if she did"). she encourages esper to take over the cult of the absolute -- something i know for a fact astarion does too, but for some reason that line never triggered for either esper game -- and she wants them to take back the cult of bhaal, too. all that runs pretty completely contrary to the way that esper wants to live. esper rejects the tadpoles outright because they find the idea of injecting another squirming alien consciousness into their brain (when they already have the urges and the voice of bhaal and the incomprehensible flashes of emotions and memories from a past they can't remember), especially one that lets other people poke around in their thoughts, completely revolting and terrifying. the power is Not worth it to them, they just want to be left alone for once in their life. they didn't even want to run the cult of bhaal when they actually were in charge of it -- they liked the menial aspects of it, things like bookkeeping and arranging rituals and planning murders and getting their hands dirty, but they hated being the center of attention. weird for a bard, but they were trained to work unseen and listen and manipulate subtly more than anything, so they're extremely out of their comfort zone when a lot of emphasis is put on them. as far as they're concerned, visible and showy power makes a person helpless and a target (one of the other reasons i decided to play again was because i accidentally let gale ascend in the first run, and esper also hated that and thought he was an idiot. and tara got mad at me and that made me sad. sorry tara i'll do anything for you).

minthara seeks power and esper rejects power. she respects shows of power, and they only show off their actual power to people who are about to die, so they can keep the element of surprise wherever possible. so many of their core conflicts would occur because she thinks they're weak-willed and they think she's foolish, and because she thinks they're weak, she tries to control them, which makes esper start snarling and biting, and the game didn't really let me resolve that. it only gets worse when you start getting into things like drow race and gender politics -- bhaal created esper to have as bad of a time as possible in menzoberranzan as both a half-human and a redundant male child that killed their mother in childbirth -- and especially class politics -- since minthara is a baenre, she is (or was) a member of menzo's top house, and esper is an auvy'rae, a member (born into, disowned, and adopted back into) of a house known for purposefully cultivating an uncompetitive and nonthreatening public reputation (so they can focus on hidden intrigue, information brokering, and pulling the strings away from public scrutiny). minthara may not be aligned with lolth anymore, but 300 years of drow politics is hard as fuck to unlearn, and every time she addresses esper like they're a surfacer (which she does, because in-game that's how half-drow are classified -- surfacer by underdark races, underdark by surfacer races) they feel the urge to kill her again, even though they don't have their Concrete memories to contradict her.

then of course there's the fact that they're trying so hard to resist the urge to do violence. esper has no problem with normal violence, but they try to manage their internal drive toward Cruelty by focusing those impulses on people who really deserve it. bhaal's influence makes them feel a deep and disorienting loss of control during moments of violence and cruelty, so they go from "yes violence good let's do violence" at the beginning of the game to "i'm really good at killing and it feels so fucking good to do but i can't, i don't want to be ruled by the drive to do harm just because i can justify my focus on it because i'm good at it, i want to learn how to be something else, something that hasn't been tainted by my terrible past. so i'll try very hard to kill only when it's appropriate and i'll try to rely on my friends to tell me when that is". smash cut to minthara telling them to cut off a child's hand for pickpocketing lmao,

so, yeah. i love minthara, but esper really doesn't lol. i think she just provokes the Old Esper to come out of them way too often for their comfort -- they want their memories back, but they'd like to be in control of the process. i've tried to write party banter between esper and minthara and it always comes out extremely hostile and unpleasant. unfortunately, the most in-character thing for esper to do is kill her and really enjoy doing it. if they had the ability to understand each other's core approaches to power and violence, though, i think they could be pretty good friends, especially seeing as astarion has a lot of the same issues as minthara does vis a vis power and violence in contrast to esper, and esper is closer to astarion than anyone else in the party.

i have another durge run going where i'm going to try and be evil to get to know a different side of minthara, though! i might change the answer depending on what i can learn there.

[cloverwood]

Hi!! I’m a Therian who is questioning fairykin. Do you have any signs I may be one? I feel really connected to them and nature. (I always just assumed it was bc of my theriantropy). I’m apart of the so called “fairy-tok” and the more I’ve gotten into it the more really felt connected to fairies. Walking on my toes to feel as if I’m frying, having dreams where I can fly, feeling right when I’m wearing wings, pretending to do magic as it feels like I should be able to. It all feels right but I’m not sure? What things would you recommend me to look for to know I’m a fairy kin?

hi hi friend! this...ended up longer than expected apologies in advance (^_^")

well for starters, anyone who knows me or who has been in my discord will know that I am very against "deciding" someone else's kintype for them or the idea that you have to have exact specific experiences to identify as anything. So the only person who can find this out for you is yourself BUT! I will share some thoughts that could help you and others with similar feelings.

For starters, what experiences would equate one person to be a kin of something could be entirely opposite to another's experiences of the exact same kintype. even more so with fairies with how broad of a concept we are. The 'little humanoid figure with wings' concept of a fairy for example (of which i am one also) is very unique to folkore of only the last couple hundred years or so and modern media (tho i believe modern media counts as just modern folklore. pixie hollow fairies are as valid as the sidhe.) But it means one persons "fairy wings and flying" fairy would be another's "troll tail and three fingers on each hand" fairy. Just something to keep in mind in regards to "signs" and why its very much up to your own personal interpretations and feelings.

However that isnt to say that comparing experiences can't be useful and it can certainly be joyous. I've def had some people open up to the idea of possibly being fairykin without ever them considering it before bc they described some experience i was like 'oh thats similar to how i feel as a fairy' and they go 'REALLY!?' bc many folks just don't know that much abt fairies or some other reason. But again its more about finding connection less than finding 'signs'.

Secondly it never hurts to just dive into some research. Learn about all the different kinds of fair folk throughout history and cultures. Different fairy media as well if you're more modern inclined (Brian Froud is a big influence on me). Fairies are very very broad and it may help to try find different ideas and concepts you're drawn to and help you specify ur feelings, tho def not necessary.

And thirdly, my advice to anyone questioning a kin (even tho i need to start taking this advice myself XD). Just try it! Just call yourself that even if you arent 100% sure yet, plop the label on urself for a while and if it it sticks? great! if it doesnt? oh well! now you know! It's really the easiest approach. Because theres literally no harm in being wrong here. it can feel a bit embarrassing or weird after but its hurts noone, truly.

hope this ramble made any sense at all lol. again i have strong feelings about trying to confirm kins using other people or looking for specific "signs" because theres really no sign other than "i feel this". At the most it gets tricky when knowing you feel a way towards a 'type but not the exact relationship (ie where i am with homo-cladotherian rn, not sure if its kin or hearted or a more complex relationship) and that one is a pickle but again just rly smth only u can figure out with lots of time and introspection. It's not a race.

I can't remember who said this, but I once heard "Your kintype is an identity, not a diagnosis." and it very strongly aligns with how i feel about approaching this kinda thing.

[inchidentally]

https://x.com/landosparadise/status/1747644657398419506?s=20

I'm starting to believe in the power of your essays because in a strange way they reflect reality :)

landosparadise twitter

oh babe listen, the fact that I cannot contain myself is not that I'm trying to infect others I promise <3 what anyone can take from quotes like these is that it isn't wrong to take all of the concrete things we've seen and read about Lando and Oscar's partnership and decide that a whole lot of mutual respect and even fondness is clearly there. and that they communicate pretty damn well and that's helped not a little by being basically the same age and sharing a lot of similarities as people. and by not leaping to the whole bromance thing and having to maintain that image, and neither of them being typical "alpha" types, there's a solid hope for their partnership not turning sour. those are very sweet conclusions that can be drawn without me writing any kind of parasocial essays! that's the best part for me, that I can have my fun and everything but truly at it's core there's a reason why the Lando and Oscar partnership is so exciting to every kind of McLaren fan.

.

.

BUT SINCE YOU SEEMED TO BE EVEN REMOTELY ASKING… (comedic trombone sound)

this part especially drives me insane.

when asked whether he was able to learn anything from his rookie teammate. "Keeping calm and being yourself, it's good to be reminded of that."

bc Lando loves and respects specific things about all of his F1 buddies. and it was a no-brainer that he learned a lot from his older, more established teammates (esp Carlos who basically found Lando in a basket outside his driver's room door). but all of those guys have either been his friends for years or he's known of them/interacted with them for years. but then Oscar arrives as this unknown and he's so mature for his age and doesn't seem easily fazed. and not only does he not demand that Lando help him out he also doesn't try to ingratiate himself with Lando to help out his own image (and remember, Oscar was enemy number one with McLaren, Alpine and Daniel Ricciardo fans - and still is for some of them). didn't try to launch a bromance the way most of these partnerships do (with varying success).

he did the most jarring, unlikely thing ever: he stepped back, fully embraced his role as the number 2 driver, accepted whoever Lando decided to be, and let Lando determine the relationship. he showed up and celebrated every high Lando had without fail. Lando was handed unconditional respect and he got it from a teammate who himself has refused to pander or be insincere. Oscar risks looking boring or withdrawn rather than dance. and he's shown nothing but respect - and fondness! - for the kaleidoscope of personality that Lando is.

because!

Oscar was a Lando fanboy for 8 years! Oscar knew Lando before meeting Lando in a way no one else in racing has! Oscar is not Just a Guy he watches, he listens, he cares! Oscar doesn't seem to have a lick of toxic masculinity about him and all of the F1 elders who know him say what an old soul he is and how mature he is!

and we know already that Lando felt he learned things from Oscar in a racing sense. so for Lando to go so far as to say that his rookie teammate helped remind him how to stay true to himself is just !! especially considering that their personalities have equally been a source of being misunderstood in ways that are often extremely infuriating.

also, Oscar complements so much about Lando in terms of how they approach their careers and media duties and racing and I think in a lot of ways Lando doesn't fully know how to feel about that? bc Lando's someone who can blur the lines between a person being helpful to him and someone he needs in his life. each year we get that adorable dinner photo of all the people who've supported Lando's career for the past 10 years. so to find himself pinging back and forth so well with Oscar's approach to all those things, there's got to be a concern of "am I going to start needing this guy in my life too?" it's way too early for that to be a major concern of course but I feel like it could be there.

"better than I feel like I remember I was when I started" "I think that is something that I've gotten a lot better with over the years - I know how to deal with all of these things much better myself now. I have a lot of respect for Oscar in how he was able to stay so calm in a new environment, in Formula 1, on the big stage."

okay this part !! bc I remember the anon I got who meticulously pointed out how Lando has been doing for Oscar what he remembers wishing he'd had for himself when he started out in F1. and that as Alex Albon said it's not really the natural M.O. of a more experienced driver to mentor a competitor or a teammate. it's not team sports - each driver is there to beat everyone else, esp their teammate as they're essentially driving the same car. but Lando's soft heart !! Lando's not like everyone else!

and that's the thing I always make sure to state is that while Carlos and Daniel were both definitely overwhelmed at times over how much Lando needs to have that tender connection with the men in his life - and have it above all else - they weren't doing him wrong at all by placing their own performance in F1 above him. they're what honestly every other guy in F1 is. and Alex is honestly probably one of the most empathetic, soft-hearted guys on the current grid so for him to say it's not in his responsibilities to nurture another driver is pretty definitive as a rule - especially bc he ended up doing that to some degree with Logan (the 'seeing myself in him' explains that a lot). but yeah, Lando's warm soft heart overruling his racing driver head is extremely unusual in F1. like basically unheard of.

and while it's so much healthier that Carlos and Daniel became the good friends that they did and specifically NOT Lando's teammates, I wrote this whole thing about how Lando went into the partnership with Oscar unusually guarded. not only was he clearly unsure about the idea of being the older and experienced teammate, he definitely wasn't interested in leaping into another bromance only to discover that the other guy has the exact same bromance with about five other dudes in his life.

Lando doesn't at all seem do that - at least from a fandom distance, he seems to form unique friendships with each person in his life. he may be a will-o-wisp person and be difficult to pin down and get hold of sometimes, but the people he decides to form a relationship with are locked into that for good (from what we can tell). he'll do the bromance bit with Carlos and Daniel that they want but he also demanded that he have some specific definition among all their other friends.

Lando is a ✧Me✧ and if you don't want to respect that then you don't get to have his time. I think it's even why he has a joking "rivalry" with some of his friends' girlfriends. bc - and I emphasize this is all humorous and not serious - there's a little bit of a rivalry for attention there! Lando seem to kinda end up making men in love with him in some way (paternal, brotherly, friendship, confused and horny, etc). he meets them and they're kinda fucked up about him forever in some way. dudes especially tend to clump their friends by category and hang out in groups apart from maybe one super close best friend. but it seems like Lando can't be lumped in with anybody else. he's almost like the unattainable hot girl who's a model and also independently wealthy and also a gamer and also F1 superstar that guys just desperately want to orbit as closely as they're allowed. if she says 'wanna hang out' they'd leave their grandma's funeral and rush over.

so like, all of Lando's complexities and the uniqueness of his career and his weird and usually frenetic personal journey considered - I'm just slightly insane over the fact that he said Oscar helped him remember to just be himself and to try to find calm out in the circus. what a wonderful thing to say about someone you've only known for a year and who hasn't in any way pushed for a relationship beyond what you want from them.

[gayleviticus]

something i often think abt re intra-religious dialogue (and also inter-religious, as well as applicable to other issues of diversity of thought, belief, opinion etc, but I'm mainly thinking abt intra-Christian discourse where power dynamics arent as dicey) is that people are really really bad at

a) disagreeing

b) over things they think are super important

c) while still choosing to be in unity and harmony with one another.

90% of the time people have to knock one of these off. get rid of A and we're no longer disagreeing, oh good. get rid of B and it's OK we're disagreeing because none of this really matters in the end and it's all a bit silly. get rid of C and we can start burning each other at the stake for heresy.

and i get why this is the case, bc it's kind of self-perpetuating. people can't find ways to disagree over important things peacefully and so it sometimes becomes a matter of personal safety or social harmony to downplay disagreements.

for instance, i often find myself defending the idea that Abrahamics all worship the same God against evangelical Christians who argue the opposite as a way of denigrating and stereotyping Islam, and i do think we have commonalities that we should celebrate. but at the same time, this also smooths over the very real differences between us that complicate the question significantly beyond polemic. Do Jews and Muslims feel comfortable with 'same God' language when Christians worship a crucified human being as part of that God?

you get similar talking points within religions too; theologically liberal Christians who reject supernaturalism often say stuff like 'no problem with believing in Jesus' resurrection, but it shouldn't be the core of faith, it should be following Jesus'. you note the similar kind of trend - difference is acceptable and celebrated, but it needs to be downplayed. we need to minimise differences in the name of inclusion.

and i think that at its core, this approach to religious dialogue is unsatisfying and kind of just kicks the can down the road, because it doesn't address the fundamental issue of 'can we live in peace and harmony despite deeply significant differences of belief?', and instead it becomes 'we can live in peace if we're willing to downplay what we believe as not that important.'

i feel like it just gives credence to the idea that we aren't allowed to seriously disagree. like, it almost betrays this sense that we need to do everything in our power not to have serious disagreements, bc then we would have to be enemies. but i just dont think that's the case!

we need to accept our differences of belief are significant and have implications that matter for our lives - but also that it shouldn't necessarily be a barrier to friendship and dialogue or even unity. we need to actually agree to disagree, and in fact even hold our disagreement over fundamentals as a valuable thing in itself. we kind of paradoxically have to accept we dont agree on certain fundamentals so that we appreciate all the more those on which we do.

[i-mybrunettelady]

question that came up bc of the fic talk: where do your other char's perceptions of nyra differ drastically / what biases and preconceptions affect their view of her and her actions? what do you always keep in mind when writing her from a different pov, so that despite their different opinions, her 'nyra-ness' still shines through easily?

(i know this is a lot for all of your ocs so feel free to cherry pick, i just love the way you make different narrations work and unique character voices are one of your big strengths in writing imo <3 and nyra's just such an interesting character for different view points bc she has such a big commanding divisive personality!)

(also bonus: same questions for cass if you want?)

BRO THIS MADE ME SMILE SO FUCKING WIDE THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU LIKE SEROTONIN GO BRRRR

Like you made my evening ;;;;;

But to actually answer the question! As is to be expected, not everyone likes her. I take extra care to not go 'oh charismatic lady whomst is universally adored' because I find that approach to be limiting in a lot of ways. I like to read/write character driven stories, so it's actually good if not everyone likes each other. Please don't all like each other.

So here's a little choice that I will exclude Siona, Ren, Sanne and Liv from - Siona because she genuinely doesn't have a concrete opinion of Nyra beyond the fact she's a good commander and ally to the sylvari as Trahearne's girlfriend, Ren because we see it in fic and because she rejects preconceived notions as much as she can, Sanne and Liv because I need to refine those (aka write more about her from their pov.)

El - He obviously dislikes her. They're the two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways, they're too similar to get along, and they're equals in a lot of regards as well. But things really went to shit when she killed Trahearne, which he can't forgive her for, and he faulted her for his grief for a long, long time (he did try to kill her in Maguuma. He would've tried to kill her if she came to see him when he was trying to resurrect him.) And in true El fashion, if he hates you, nothing you do can ever really be good - or if you do one (1) thing right, he won't ever tell you. They're on marginally better terms now, not really at each other's throats, but not really friends either. They can work together at least and there's a lot of spark that can easily turn into a housefire between them still but they're getting better at it.

Mirka - She met Nyra back when she was an adventurer and the two had a brief fwb situation. She saw the instinct to chase her legend, to put it in norn terms, in Nyra from the get-go and envied her for it; it was what Mirka herself forced herself to like because all norn do it, until she had Kov and settled in her homestead. I really think she was kinda jealous of Nyra for that, but she didn't have it in her to actually dislike her for it. No, she fell for the charisma, but wasn't as easily swayed because she too is a strong presence, only less explosive and more stable. It was this understanding that makes her have a hella lot of respect for Nyra; she's successful at something Mirka herself tried to do and failed and she doesn't have an ego to be butthurt over it. She's gotta respect that.

But what I always keep in mind when writing about her from another beeb's pov - Nyra will always, always take center stage. You can't miss her; she will try, by virtue of being herself, to dominate the scene. Some kids match/fight her on it - Ceasefire comes to mind for it, as we're talking Nyra and El there; some go take it in stride - this Mirka and Nyra fic comes to mind (which is funny bc this is not a fic centered on her, she just opened her mouth and took up the first portion of the thing.) That's her ego working, for better or for worse.

And she absolutely is a divisive figure. She's the type of person you are most likely to have strong opinions on. Ruby and I recently theorised she has Leo somewhere in her chart.

But also. Nyra, Cass and El make up my 'big personality' triumvirate so here is....

Cassposting on main

I'll be more vague here than I was with Nyra as my extended verse is still a WIP. But I have written a few fics where he is perceived. Firstly, my joke that he's every rare gene in one man absolutely stays. He's someone you can't really miss in a crowd. But what surprised me was how a lot of the time, he doesn't strike you visually first; he's loud, and you first hear him then you see him, if that makes sense?

He spent a lot of his childhood and teen years hiding so now he takes up space, a lot of it, even if his self-esteem doesn't let him see it for what it is a lot of the time. There's a certain discord between how he perceives himself and how he's seen by other people. He has deep insecurities, sure, but I wouldn't say he's faking confidence to cover them up either? His cover is sarcasm, refusing to take things seriously and verbal aggression/conflict, not confidence, which is genuine.

(You could say he's his mother's son there in a way as well.)

As to preconceptions, it's a bit of a complicated issue given the reputation Wayfarers have, and he's a proud Wayfarer. He's also generally a bastard, so that gives people an idea of him that negates his gentler, kinder side. Because he is capable of great kindness and loves deeply, he loves taking care of people, he's very protective over them, very affectionate and considerate, and a lot of people don't get to see this bc he has a hard time trusting people and because he behaves like an absolute asshole 80% of the time.

I have spoken a bit about the Red Wayfarer persona before, but this is exactly what this is. A persona, part of him but not the entirety of him, something he constructed to as a defense mechanism, even if it can be harmful to himself.

He's genuinely funny and entertaining, though, so that one stays.

As to what I keep in mind when writing him from others' pov, one thing I always keep in mind is that 1) he will talk, and 2) that he will say random shit. I mean talk a lot. He likes the sound of his voice too much. And the randomness of what he says is just you not expecting him to say it in this particular moment.

It's things like this:

“Turns out he also hates Wayfarers on principle so he got cursed water from a Wayfarer’s gods-damned hair fall down from the sky right on his small fucking head. Woooosh. He’s angry about it, of course, but he can choke on a crab for all I care. I’m having fun.”

I swear that line took me out when I was writing it. Writing him is a lot of fun actually. He also tends to speak in hyperbole a lot, so that's part of the fun.

[kakashihasibs]

Out of curiosity, why do you feel like you’re aromantic? I only ask because I’ve been very seriously thinking that I’m aro, but I keep second guessing myself. I think it would help to hear why another person is aro, but I just don’t encounter a lot of people or bloggers who talk about it.

Feel free to ignore if you want, people irl and on this site are still really weird about aros, so I totally understand not wanting to get into it

Ooougha okay so i have thoughts™ and you are about to get them all good luck lol i get to how i feel in terms of being aro towards the end. I promise this is all building up to that even tho it'snot gonna seem like it at 1st x_x.

(tl;dr: it took me 5 years to feel like i loved my husband and I'm not even sure the love i feel is romantic or not bc it feels the same as how i feel for my friends but overall I'm not even sure what benefit there is for me, personally, to ID as aro bc what's even the purpose of labeling our sexualities, political or personal? (it's a mix of both)

There's, from what I've seen, really two purposes to labeling one's sexuality.

1) political coalition building. -> Hi i am a Gay man and you are a Lesbian we are not The Same but we have political interests that are The Same and we are more powerful and safer together let's have each other's backs. And when there's an issue that affects only you I'll still show up for you and when it's an issue that affects only me you'll still show up for me.

And

2) community and communication. -> hi i am a gay man and you are a man also interested in men (gay/bi) lets be in a community and/or relationship

(Please dont come at me these are both huge over simplifications! I'm build up my thought process to a more complex idea!)

Neither of these things are mutually exclusive, of course, and these are only sorta loose ideas I've seen some people express here and there.

I only note them bc people who focus on number 1, political coalition building, are more often (not always!) a little more down on "micro labels," whether they are exclusionist or not, bc it, they argue, in some way muddies the waters in terms of coalition building. If there's so many niche labels now and we're creating more and more niche labels then we're creating more and more divides and not focusing on keeping each other safe under the same umbrella.

I've also seen the argument that making more and more niche micro labels is related to individualism and commoditization under capitalism. Like "look you too can have ur own special flag and identity! Now buy all this merch to show it off! Give us money!!!"

Which, for both of these concerns, i am sympathetic to to an extent. (Except out right exclusionists, fuck them.)

People who focus more on number 2, community and communication, are generally, in my experience, much more in favor of micro labels. Say ur like me, I'm asexual but I'm also gay but maybe aromantic, but then where does the gay fit in? Oh geez idk. But wait! There's a sexuality that breaks being gay while also aroace down! I have a word(s) for myself! Which inarguably feels good. It makes me feel understood and normal. And now i can find other people who experience sexuality just like me. I can find a small community to feel at home in. Right?

---

i have laid out these two general ideas. The possible purposes i might have for naming/labeling/understand my sexuality.

I approach my sexuality from a political standpoint AND from a personal standpoint which I think most people do bc again they're are not mutually exclusive.

I am in some way not straight (and not cis but not talking about that right now). I have faced violence and discrimination for my sexuality. I want to name my sexuality in order to identify myself with a political movement. I name my sexuality so when I take political actions or make political demands, it is understood by others that i am doing so in solidarity with other people who have face similar oppression. I want to name my sexuality so i can better articulate the problems I face. So other can go to bat for me (and I will go to bat for them even if the issue isnt mine!)

For example, back in the day when ace ~discourse~ was much much worse, I was threatened with corrective rape (irl for the record) but instead of anyone standing in any sort of solidarity with me, i was told i was misappropriating corrective rape. (Which still just fucking blows my mind but besides the point.) This is why exclusionist can fuck off btw. Instead of anything productive they just were yaknow evil. Ugh anyway

I also faced discrimination at the doctors when asked my sexuality. I was honest and said asexual which lead down a whole rabbit hole of bullshit. The coalition building purpose would look like, "i have faced discrimination at the doctors for my sexuality and so have you so lets team up and support a bill that protects patient autonomy and rights"

And on the personal side i can talk to other asexuals who have faced the exact same problems i have. I can find empathy and understand in a way i might not from an allo cis gay guy (that's not dunking on any allo cis gay guy! For the record. We just have different experiences and very similar ones too!).

So you can see the benefit of either approach right? Maybe i just wanna call myself just queer or just gay or just ace and be done with. I have my coalition and maybe my community it still very broad but it is there.

Or maybe i wanna figure out why it took 5 years to feel like i loved my husband. Or why maybe my love for my husband doesn't really feel any different than my love for friends? Should the love i feel for my husband even BE different from the love i feel for my friends? Am i actually even feeling love? We've been together for 12 years what different does it make now anyway?

I feel like I'm probably aro but i also feel like I'm not and I'm "only" asexual.

Things that affect aros affect nearly all of us. We're all impacted by amatonormativity. We all struggle with getting next of kin rights with our chosen family, just to name a couple things. Discussing and supporting aromantism will benefit us all.

But what about discussing someone who is ace aro and gay? Maybe? Idk? Does being aroacegay bring anything new to the table? Or is it just another flag to profit off of for some fucking corporation? I dont know!

For me, is there even any separation between being ace and aro and gay or is it just the same part of me being looked at through too many lenses?

And all of this is what i think and feel when i think or feel like I'm aro x_x which is to say bud i have no fucking clue lol.

All i really know is i will fight for anyone under the queer/lgbtq+ umbrella regardless if it impacts me and i hope and pray that when people like me need the same kind of support everyone else will also fight for us too.

I think I'm done now. Sorry u got this whole ass mess lol. x_x if you have any questions comments or concerns you can DM or anon me any of them :3 I'll happily address them

[agent-troi]

i have soooo many thoughts and idk if i'll be able to eloquently form all of them but first i wanna talk about codependency bc that's one of the first things the book talks about (it's called attached by amir levine and rachel heller btw) and since everyone is always talking about how codependent mulder and scully are i think that's super important:

they go on to talk about how we're actually biologically inclined to depend on one another and it's actually normal and a good thing, and also about the "dependency paradox" wherein the more dependent two people become on one another the more secure they feel and the more courage they actually have to go out into the world independently and try new things and stuff (aka the "secure base", which has been observed in experiments with mothers and their babies, and it's theorized that adults approach their relationships with one another in a similar way as parents/children)

anyway i guess my point with this was we tease msr about being codependent and some people talk about it like it's a bad thing but it's literally not, we've seen countless times over the course of the show how they lean on each other and draw strength from each other and their codependency is actually an asset (which scully seems to realize at the end of how the ghosts stole christmas- "maybe i really did want to be out there with you")

so where was i? oh right, attachment styles. so there are four:

i would probably put scully in the secure corner, but closer to the high end of the avoidance scale. she grew up with a mostly secure base with parents who loved her albeit a father who could be emotionally distant at times (a product of his generation not bc he didn't have any love or approval to give) so when she approaches relationships as an adult she's been conditioned to expect her love to be returned, and when a relationship turns out to not be good for her she is able to leave it (jack willis, daniel waterston) but we've also seen that she has a tendency to avoid or run away when things get hard (in never again she can't or won't express her needs to mulder directly, in fight the future she considers leaving bc she thinks she can't be what mulder needs and if things can't be the way they used to be between them she might as well cut ties and move on, and we don't have as much information about the pre-revival breakup but i think we can safely assume that scully would only have left mulder if she believed staying would have made him worse, and so she concluded the only way he could get better was if she wasn't holding him back) so overall i'd say she's mostly secure but her life experiences have led her to acquire a certain degree of avoidance.

now mulder is obviously somewhat more fucked up, he did have a relatively normal childhood prior to samantha's abduction (except for the shadow of the syndicate hovering over them, which mulder couldn't have been consciously aware of but i do think he had a vague inkling that things weren't as perfect as they appeared, if his admittedly unreliable recollections in demons are any indication) but after samantha is taken his parents become increasingly distant, he blames himself and they do nothing to alleviate that and sometimes even encourage it. in the two canon relationships that we know of, we know he was manipulated emotionally (phoebe was more overt about it vs the more nefarious subtlety of diana).

i would need to do a lot more thinking to figure out phoebe's and diana's attachment styles (given that we really don't know all that much about either of them it might be difficult lol) but i think it's safe to say that mulder is some combination of anxious and avoidant; he simultaneously craves intimacy while pushing it away (calling scully repeatedly during chinga, running away from her overtures in detour, begging her to stay with him but later insisting she should leave in fight the future, and his attitude in never again can pretty much be summed up as "you want to leave? well you should leave. please don't leave me. i don't know what i'd do without you. you'd be better off without me.")

i haven't gotten to the chapter about anxious-avoidant people yet and i'm sure i'll have more thoughts then, but mulder's seemingly contradictory behavior seems to me like that's the style that would describe him best.

edit: i think phoebe and diana are both avoidant, considering they way they drop mulder and move on with ease only to come back when they need something from him

have you ever made a meta post about mulder’s and scully’s attachment styles? my mom got me a book for my birthday about the different attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, and anxious-avoidant) and how to recognize them in yourself and others, and i keep going back and forth on what scully and mulder would be. i think scully’s mostly secure but with a bit of avoidance, and mulder is probably anxious-avoidant (idk i haven’t gotten to that chapter of the book yet and also one’s attachment style can apparently change over time and revival mulder is definitely a lot more secure) anyway i’ve started rambling lol but have you ever written or thought about that

I haven't-- BUUUUUUT I did think about that just the other day! Is it a sign? o.0

Your assessment sounds accurate though now I'm curious what the technical dividing line between all of them are, what their expressions are, and why they aren't. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

If you have more thoughts, share share share because my brain is super duper curious now. XDD

[paperbooart]

i LOVED hearing your thoughts about togiri!! i love all the thought you put into thinking about how they would interact after the 5th trial bc, while it makes sense for the pov to be from makoto's, its a shame we missed out on byakuya and kyokos potential interactions. if i may add i think a nice detail would be for kyoko to take off her glove and extend a hand to byakuya, silently asking for his trust while exposing herself. byakuya obviously recognizes this as big feat and is the main reason why he comes around to her. i also think it would be cool if they had a more explcit rivalry/competitiveness with each other. theyre so similar to a point where they even have the same flaws, and i can imagine it would be pretty annoying to see how ugly your flaws really are when you see them on someone else. sorry if this was a lot but i just love what you wrote ! :3

oh my god imagine if we actually got a temporary pov switch to kyoko like the temporary nagito pov in dr2 PLEASE that’d be so cool 

you understand… you understand. i flip my shit for kyoko taking off her gloves at significant moments (the one moment in dr3 that immediately made me glad i watched it)

HAVE TO READMORE AGAIN BECAUSE I'M INSANE

i was also thinking it’d be funny if the way kyoko approaches byakuya post-trial is she just busts into his room using the master key because i don’t remember if he ever learned that her having that key was the lie makoto ignored, but that would be a funny way for him to find out, like HOW did you get in here ma’am 

YES I WANT SO MUCH MORE OF THEM AS RIVALS getting in each others way because they think of things at the same time, when they’re talking to makoto he’s like ‘haha byakuya said exactly the same thing’ and kyoko’s like what the hell. get him out of my brain. and vice versa like remember when byakuya was like ‘a dead body is just an object’ and kyoko’s like ‘he’s out of line but he’s right’ i bet she’s just like a little grossed out that she doesn’t feel much different than him. he’s just louder about it. 

i feel like all we really got of them as ‘rivals’ was byakuya making weird demands and kyoko very mysteriously accepting them. like him taking her key. from a personal pride standpoint that is a wild thing to agree to. or in chapter 4 when he straight up was like ‘youre annoying. you guard the body.’ LIKE GIRL WHY ARE YOU NOT THROWING HANDS. i bet even byakuya is unsettled by her total non-reaction to everything he says to her. 

nabbing this tag from my post because it is relevant thank you clown-chaoticz

like byakuya wants them to be cool rivals so bad but kyoko is far too calm and collected and he is an angry little man. any time he thinks he’s won an interaction with her, like when he calls her out in front of everyone and demands she explain herself or hand over her room key, she pulls some weird shit and is not even the slightest bit ruffled. 

i’m so glad you enjoyed what i wrote btw yall are enabling my madness AHDJGH i literally have a word doc i add to almost daily, of just scattered thoughts about danganronpa, so any opportunity i get to spill them (if it’s a topic i have already thought about, like anything to do with naegirigami for example) i’m like OH BOY 

[romulussy]

Do you have any theories on the dynamics of Logan & Gerri's relationship? And how much of it do you think plays into her relationship with Roman?

ahhhh logan and gerri, my elusive little avocation. i wish i had more to give you but the truth is that their dynamic is like a chipped tooth to me. i can't help but poke at it and yet poking at it never gets me anywhere good. i can't get a definitive read.

i do kind of think the ambiguity is the point. i mean, there's clearly history there, and history, on this show, as we know, is all made up. but the bits they include just.... it paints a very paradoxical picture, and it's funny, because it goes both ways. like, gerri’s “loyal”, she "loves" logan, but she's willing to fuck him over if she thinks it's a definite win. logan "needs" gerri, but he loses all respect for her once he gives her (what he considers) real power. she's expendable but also, is she? really? he says he doesn’t want her hanging around like frozen piss and yet he's screaming for her the next day. it’s all very contradictory. 

i think the reason it's so hard to get a clear read of their dynamic is because there's a lot of question marks around gerri in general, even at just, like. a base level. i mean, you have to wonder how she made it to the c-suite at waystar "no women above the fourth floor" royco, because i don't imagine it was easy. and it's not like logan's misogyny would've been better in the 80s, so how the hell did she gets his respect? his trust? i remember when i first watched 2x8 and connor suggested gerri was once "the new thing" my immediate reaction was like oh, ew, yuck. i know that made roman's tummy hurt bc it made mine do a little flip. but now it kind of haunts me. like the more i think about it, the more im like, well, maybe….. 

i just think there are multiple plausible realities. like, did she ignore his interest and turn him down? did she play the flirtation game to climb the ladder but ultimately decline to fuck him? did she fuck her way to the top? i know the last one seems a bit :/ but there's the laurie thing, so i feel like you can't really rule it out as ooc. in my heart of hearts, though, i lean toward somewhere between scenarios one and two. i'm of the opinion that while gerri is a freak, she's also a fairly repressed and reserved. i don't see her behaviour with roman as common, it's more impulsive to me; like the kind of thing you get swept up in & then by the time you realise it maybe wasn't a good idea, well. you're in deep now. so i don't actually imagine gerri thinking sleeping with logan is a smart business move, and i don't see her falling for any kind of romance line, either, especially not considering he would've been married to caroline when gerri was "new". and then there's the fact that i just don't think logan would've kept her around if that had been the case.

ultimately i think their relationship is built on foundations of familiarity and longevity. like to me, gerri is more constant than she is loyal, but i think logan views it as the same thing, or at least finds it equally reassuring. there’s a level of trust, i think, that comes with knowing each other so long, and it means they’re fairly comfortable with each other, at least up to an extent. i mean:

i think they're kind of similar, too, at least in their business approach. like imo there’s a shared no nonsense, business is business mindset that makes them compatible work partners. one gerri parallel i love to think about is the vote of no confidence in s1 and the ‘how does it serve my interests?’ in s3. like, she sides with kendall in 1x6 bc she “works for waystar, not logan roy”, and it’s the same reason she turns roman down in all the bells say. if the sibs could prove the value of their plan i think she would’ve sided with them, though maybe not with logan in the room, but now im just getting off topic. what i mean is like, where roman takes the ‘betrayal’ to heart, i think if gerri hadn’t backtracked in 1x6 logan would’ve treated her the same way he did frank, which is just fuck off until i need you again. it’s not necessarily personal. 

i think they’re similarly self-serving which contributes to that contradictory nature of their dynamic. i do think logan is a bit blind to it in gerri, but as far as she’s concerned, i think there’s an understanding that logan won’t hesitate to throw her overboard if it suits his interests, which is why i think there’s always a certain degree of separation with her. but i think there’s definitely a level of respect or trust or, at the very least, understanding that’s born from that similarity.

if we’re talking outside of waystar, then do i think their relationship is pretty hollow. like the amiability is definitely relative to their business relationship. 

imo a key difference between them is that logan’s NRPI mentality for people outside of his family/immediate circle means that he really just doesn’t care about the harm his company’s done, whereas i think gerri compartmentalises to save her conscience (i talked about that more here). i feel like if gerri really let herself think about it, she’d find parts of herself that are repulsed by logan, but at the same time, there’d be parts that probably genuinely like him, even parts that admire him. but also, despite all that, i don’t think she’d care if he dropped dead. see what i mean by paradoxical? and in a sense it’s the same for logan: he values her so long as she acts in a way he likes. if she’s not under his thumb or if she’s got a bit of real power, then the respect gets thrown out the window. that’s just business, right?

as for how any of this fits into her relationship with roman…. i don’t know. i think roman’s relationship with logan was a contributing factor to romangerri (see this post) but i don’t know if i’d say the logangerri relationship plays into it much, at least not in a way that’s entirely unique. i mean, on roman’s part it definitely amplifies the ~wrongness of it all, which is a bonus for him, but i think for gerri the only significance it has is that it kind of proves roman’s assessment right. she’s clever and competent and people are happy to have her around, but she’s not valued, not really. i mean:

i think logan’s treatment of her is a contributing factor to that kind of itchy desire she has to be seen, which is what i think really draws her to roman. aside from that, i think the l/g dynamic is a deterrent more than anything else. i think she would’ve been worried about being found out, and like. who can fault her for that? we all watched 3x8. 

on that note, though, i do think the l/g dynamic factors into logan’s disgust at roman’s attraction to gerri. like it’s not just that she’s “a million years old”, i think it’s also that there’s history there, possible past attraction, even. like i guess you could say it adds to the wrongness the same way it does for roman, except this time no one is horny (lmao.) also i need to say that i think it’d be both hilarious and a fatal blow to his ego if gerri “the new thing” kellman turned him down years ago but is (in his head anyway) willing to fuck roman. like. good god. dead on the spot.

anyway. i’m cutting this off now because i’ve already gone on long enough but i hope this is in the realm of what you were hoping for <3

[watchmegetobsessed]

Hey Angel - Harry Styles

a/n: since i had so much time on my hand at work lately (not anymore unfortunately) i used it wisely and cooked up this PA themed fic bc i absolutely love this trope. it’s lengthy and kinda emotional? kinda, lol. hope you’ll like it and as always, feedback is much appreciated!!

warning: sexual content

word count: 11.5k

masterlist

Harry likes to pretend he is tall enough to comfortably rest his chin on the top of your head when he stands behind you, but that’s not true. He has to push himself a little to his tippy toes and push you down at the same time to fit his chin above you, his arms weighing down on your shoulders. You stopped arguing him that you need to push your hips forward when he does this so you don’t carry his whole weight.

“Tha’s rude, you do not have to do tha’!” he defended himself every time you brought up, so you just stopped.

Now as you watch the game of air hockey unfold in front of you, a half empty pint in your hand, you don’t even budge when you feel a chiseled chin resting on the top of your head, you push your hips forward without a second thought to shorten your height. You catch a glimpse of a tattooed forearm on your shoulder, Harry’s chest presses against your back gently.

He doesn’t stay in this position too long, it’s making it hard to drink so soon enough, he wraps his left arm around your shoulders, coming to stand next to you, sipping on his tequila on the rocks.

“Hey you,” you smile at him as he gives you a side look, a boyish smirk tugging on his pink lips. “Everything alright?”

“Everything is fine.”

“You need something? How much have you had to drink?” you ask furrowing your eyebrows, looking down at his glass that was certainly full when you last saw him about ten minutes ago.

“Shush, stop pretending like you’re working,” he waves at your face, his words melting together, definitely thanks to the alcohol he has consumed tonight.

“I know I’m not working, I’m just tryna’ be your friend and look out for you.” Bringing your own drink up to your lips, you give him a look, but he just smirks at you playfully.

“Uh-huh, whatever. Don’t worry about me.”

“I always worry about you, H,” you sigh dramatically and it makes him laugh with his head falling back.

“Is this the part where you tell me I’m some spoiled brat celebrity you ‘ave to babysit for your living? And that I always do ridiculous shit so you ‘ave to keep an eye on me at all times?”

You can’t push your smile down at how far this statement is from reality. You just like to tease him about being a typical, asshole rockstar when he is literally your favorite person in the world without a doubt.

“Oh Angel, you can’t fool me,” he cackles, squeezing you to his side before taking another sip from his drink.

“Wouldn’t even try to,” you mumble with an amused smile. “Havin’ fun, birthday boy?” you ask, leaning into his side. You would never admit, but you love how touchy Harry can get sometimes, not really caring about physical boundaries, especially when he drinks. The hugs, the squeezes, the touches, they always make your heart flutter even after knowing him for years.

“I’m havin’ a blast. What about you?”

“What about me? It’s not my birthday,” you chuckle shortly.

“So what? I can’t make sure you’re enjoying your night?” he frowns at you dramatically that just makes you laugh.

“I’m having a great night. It’s just that my boss keeps coming after me even though I’m supposed to be off the clock.”

You peek up at him to see the grin on his face at your teasing. The dynamic between the two of you has been like this since day one. The constant bickering and teasing is what really brought the two of you close, you are so similar, it’s like you can see a male version of yourself when you look at him.

“Tell the dude to fuck off,” he mumbles into his drink and you bump your hip against him, but he just holds you tight to his side as an answer.

Soon enough, Harry joins the game and you watch him play from the side, obviously cheering on his opponent to annoy him, earning some pretty dirty looks from him whenever they score against him and you let out a “woho!” in victory.

“Y’know, it’s not too nice to cheer against the birthday boy, is it?” he calls you out when the table is taken by someone else and he joins you at the side again.

“Am I not allowed to choose who I want to cheer to?” you ask with a faked puzzled look and he presses his lips into a thin line, glaring down at you intently.

“Don’t test me, Angel,” he grumbles into your ear before walking off to join his friends who came out to celebrate with him today.

It’s a pretty lowkey celebration, since he is still in the middle of filming Don’t Worry Darling, so he couldn’t really travel far from the set, but some of his dearest friends were able to come here and celebrate with him and his cast members.

You stand at the bar and your eyes find him every time you scan the place, not able to keep your gaze away from him for too long, he just demands the attention. Or at least yours.

You’ve never met anyone like him. When you got the chance to be his personal assistant four years ago at the very beginning of his solo career, you never thought how he’ll move right into your heart and never leave it. Whether you look at him as your boss or your friend, you can’t deny that he changed your life and you’ve learned so much from him, you can only hope he thinks of you somewhat the same. However you always tell yourself: what could you possibly give for The Harry Styles? He has everything in the whole wide world.

Harry catches you staring and he arches a brow at you, abandoning the conversation he has been in for the past minutes, mouthing you “what’s up, Angel”, his accent thick even without hearing his voice.

He’s been calling you Angel for longer than you can remember. When you asked him why the nickname, he said it’s because One Direction’s song Hey Angel was written about you. It was a fat lie, you haven’t met him when the song was written, but his words still tightened your chest, playing with the thought of Harry writing a song about you.

As cheesy and cliché as it is, you fell for him faster than you’d like to admit. You tried to fight it for a while, convince yourself it’s just a silly crush, but you soon had to realize you outgrew that after the first few weeks working with him. How could you not fall for him? He is everything any woman could wish for and he has you wrapped around his fingers, just like he has half the female population, probably.

You shake your head in his way, not sure how to tell him you just got lost in your thoughts about him. In fact, he occupies your mind pretty much all the time, but he doesn’t have to know about that.

He excuses himself from the table and walks up to you, a slow breath leaving your nose as you watch him approach you.

“Tired?” he asks, stopping in front of you, placing his empty glass to the counter.

“Kinda,” you nod.

“Want to head home soon?”

“Don’t worry about me. I can just call a taxi and go home, you don’t have to come.”

“Don’t be silly, we go to the same place, obviously we’re gonna go home together.”

Since filming has started, Harry and you’ve been sharing a nice apartment near the set. It was his idea to rent a place for the two of you, rather than to stay at a hotel. At first you didn’t think it would be a good idea, but of course, he convinced you to live with him for the months while the movie is being filmed. So now you basically live with Harry, share pretty much all your living space with him, except your bedroom.

“But it’s your birthday, stay as long as you want,” you tell him, not wanting to snatch him away from his friends on his big day.

“We’re filming in the afternoon tomorrow, can’t drag the night too long either way,” he shrugs, trying to make you believe it’s really nothing.

No matter how badly you try to convince him to stay, he doesn’t bulge and starts saying goodbye within an hour, calling the two of you a car to take you home. He is clearly tipsy, but not drunk. Once you’re in the car, Harry’s hand finds yours and he pulls you closer in the backseat until your thighs are pressed together. He curls an arm around your shoulders, holding you tight to his side, sinking down in the seat. You let your head rest on his shoulder, enjoying the closeness of his body, pressing down any worrying thought that usually makes its way to your mind every time Harry gets a little cozier than the usual.

The rational side of your brain knows you should be keeping some distance from him for the sake of your own sanity and emotional health, but you just can’t. Denying these little moments from yourself would be like pure torture and your heart can’t take that for sure.

“What are you thinkin’ about?” he murmurs, his nose nuzzling into your hair and you just shrug your shoulders.

“Nothing,” you mumble your lie.

“Liar, I can hear the gears turning in that pretty head of yours,” he grins down at you as your eyes lock for a moment. Thank God for the darkness in the car, because you can feel your cheeks heating up. The last thing you need is for Harry to see how nervous he can make you feel with just a simple compliment.

“Stop being nosy, you don’t have to know everything all the time.” You poke his side with your elbow, it makes him jump a little before he snuggles back to your side.

“That’s not true, you know I’m entitled to hold every knowledge in the world.” He tries to hide his smirk, but he fails miserably and you just laugh at him with your head falling back to his shoulder.

“Harry Styles, you are something else,” you sigh shaking your head at him.

Arriving home Harry keeps an arm around you as you walk up to the front door, fishing your keys out of your bag since you’d bet Harry didn’t bring his. There’s a chance he hasn’t even used his copy since you’ve been here, he knows you always have yours and you haven’t really left without each other so far, always staying around the other.

“Want to shower first?” he hums, walking inside, his arm leaving your shoulders and though you feel lighter without the extra weight, you wish it was still there.

“Go for it, I’m gonna clean up the mess I made when I got ready earlier,” you tell him, heading into your bedroom where the floor is littered with half your wardrobe from earlier, when you were trying to figure out what to wear for the little outing.

Harry disappears in the shared bathroom and a moment later you hear the water running. You go around your room, picking up the dresses you voted against, placing them back into the wardrobe and then you put away your makeup you left on your bed in your hurry.

“Bathroom is yours!” Harry calls out just when you finish, you hear his bedroom door open and close so you grab a clean oversized t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts before occupying the bathroom.

The warm shower feels nice, it’s been a long day since you started on set, Harry had a few scenes to film before you could leave in the afternoon. You wash away the day, scrub your makeup off and then take off the rest with your wipes once you’re out. You brush your hair and use some lotion for your dry skin before getting dressed and leaving the steamy bathroom.

Padding down the short hallway you hear nothing coming from Harry’s bedroom and you wonder if he’s already asleep, but once you step inside your room you see that he is cozied up on your bed, your covers pulled up to his naked chest, a pillow tucked under his head as he scrolls through his phone so shamelessly, as if it was his own room.

“Did you take the wrong turn in the hallway?” you ask with an arched eyebrow as you throw your dirty clothes to your temporary hamper, which is basically your emptied out suitcase.

“Nope,” he grins smugly, you have to roll your eyes at him. He locks his phone, dropping it to the side table, watching you move around, getting ready for bed and his eyes on your figure feel like they’re burning down on your skin.

“You know, it’s rude to stare,” you comment not even looking at him, but you just know he is still staring at you. Grabbing a hairtie from the little dresses in the corner of your room you reach back to loosely braid your hair, but his voice stops you.

“Wait,” he pleads and you furrow your eyebrows at him. “Can I do it?”

You give him a confused look as he pushes himself up into a sitting position, his green eyes are glimmering from the tiredness and the alcohol he has consumed tonight.

“You want to braid my hair?”

“Yeah,” he nods. You hesitate for a moment but join him on the bed at last, turning your back against him, giving him full control over your hair.

A shiver runs down your spine when you feel his fingers raking through your strands. He is so gentle and careful as you feel him section your hair off to three parts.

“Didn’t know you can braid,” you tell him, eyes fixated on the sheets in front of you.

“Gemma taught me, but I’m not the best at it.”

“So I’ll look atrocious?” you tease him smiling to yourself. He pokes the back of your neck with his fingers before continuing his work.

“You could never look atrocious, even if you tried.”

“And you are such a flirt,” you sigh. Over the years you’ve gotten used to his flirty act, it’s just who he is and though in the beginning your breath always got caught in your throat when he said something cheesy, now you just brush it off, only thinking about his words when you are alone in the night, struggling to fall asleep because you’re once again, thinking about him.

“M’telling the truth. Have I told you how beautiful you looked tonight?”

“Mmm,” you hum. He has told you that you looked pretty when the two of you left and he saw you walk out of your room in your black skinny jeans and flowy sheer top on, your hair loosely curled, but you didn’t really know what to say, so you just smiled at him and it’s the same now. You’re not the best at taking compliments.

“You really did. You always are.”

“And once again, you are such a flirt.”

“Complimenting a pretty woman is being a flirt?” he asks pretending to be offended as he carefully works on your hair and you wish you could see his focused face as he is trying to keep track of the sections between his fingers. At a lack of a witty comeback, you just shrug your shoulders, fumbling with your fingers on your lap.

You both fall silent as he concentrates on your hair and you manage to stop thinking, just focus on how his fingers keep brushing against your back every time he crosses two sections over each other.

“Hairtie, please,” he asks, his hand appearing next to you with his palm upwards. You place it in his hand and he finishes up his masterpiece. “There, it didn’t turn out as bad as I thought,” he comments once he is done. Reaching back you run your fingers over the braid and it feels good, he did a great job.

“Thanks,” you smile at him shyly, turning around. He leans back, making himself comfortable once again and you arch an eyebrow at him. “Need me to walk you back to your room, sir?”

“No, I’m perfectly fine here,” he grins smugly, tugging his arm behind his head as he takes up the right side of the bed.

“You’re planning to sleep here?”

“Please, don’t make me sleep alone on my birthday!” he pouts, giving you those damned puppy eyes. How could you ever say no to him?

“You better not push me off the bed in your sleep,” you mumble before getting under the covers.

You turn off the bedside lamp and the two of you start moving around, finding a comfortable pose to sleep in and you end up facing each other on your sides, Harry’s face squished into the pillow as his eyes are roaming over the hand you have laid between your faces.

His fingers start to inch towards yours until he hooks his pinky with yours, the touch sending a warm feeling down your spine.

“I hate sleeping alone,” he mumbles into the semi-darkness.

“Why?”

“Don’t you like it when there’s someone next to you? When you wake up and you’re not alone?”

“I like it, but I don’t hate sleeping alone either,” you tell him as your eyes fall to your linked pinky fingers. “Why do you hate it? You have the bed all to yourself, and there’s no chance of waking up to someone snoring or talking in their sleep.”

He huffs out a laugh as he buries his head deeper into the pillow.

“It makes me feel lonely. Which is ridiculous, because I’m never alone.”

“But lonely and alone are not the same, so it’s not ridiculous. You can feel lonely when you’re not alone.”

“I know,” he nods, his eyes watching your linked fingers intently, before he moves his hand so it’s now covering yours, his warm palm wrapping around your much smaller hand. “I’m never lonely with you, though.”

“So… you are only lonely when you’re sleeping or in the bathroom, because we basically spend every moment of the day together.” You smirk at him and see his dimple form in his cheek as he smiles at you nodding.

“That’s right. We are like glued together.”

“How aren’t we sick of each other already?”

“That’s never gonna happen.”

“You sure about that?” You raise your eyebrows at him with an amused smile, he is too sure about that answer.

“One hundred percent. You’re my favorite person.”

“Is that what you tell everyone?”

He gives you a look, but you just chuckle, sinking further into your pillow. His fingers start playing with your hand as he draws a deep breath.

“I only tell this to m’ mum and Gemma. No one else.”

Your heart starts racing at the thought of him seeing you on the same level as his closest family. You know how much his mum and sister mean to him, but you never thought you are anywhere near them in his eyes.

“You’re my favorite person too,” you whisper as your eyes meet over your joined hands. He smiles at you warmly, his floppy curls falling into his forehead and you want to run your fingers through them, feel how soft they are under your touch. Harry scoots closer, your faces only a few inches away from each other as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

For a moment you just watch him, thinking how good it feels to have him in your bed. How amazing it is to end the day with him so close to you. You wish all days would end like this, you wouldn’t have another bad day with him next to you.

Lying there and watching him slowly fall asleep, his hand still on yours, the bitter thought eats itself into your mind that he is only here because he feels lonely and wanted to be close to someone, not you particularly. And though you’re glad it’s you he ended up next to, you try not to get too accustomed to the feeling, because you’re just a temporary fix to his loneliness.

The door to Harry’s trailer opens and he walks in wearing his blue dress pants and crispy white dress shirt, fumbling with the top buttons to undo them. You glance up at him from your laptop where you’ve been working on his schedule for the upcoming weeks while he was filming.

“Hey, how did it go?” you ask as he places his water bottle to the vanity and then sits in the chair he spends his mornings in while his hair is being styled and tattoos are covered.

“Good. Messed up only a few times. Whacha’ working on?”

“Just your schedule, I’ll email it to you when I’m done, though you never check it.”

“Hey, I do check it! I like your color coding. I just suck at using it and you’re always here to remind me of the important stuff.”

You roll your eyes, continuing to type away on your keyboard as he moves around, having a snack and texting back people.

“Florence is coming over for a little after we’re done. We can order something,” he speaks up grabbing your attention again.

“Cool,” you nod with a small smile. “Is she staying the night?”

“No, we just thought it would be nice to hang out a little without dressed like this,” he chuckles looking down at himself.

“What’s wrong with Jack’s clothes? You look neat.”

“Do I?” he cocks an eyebrow cheekily, placing his hands to his hips as he looks down at you.

“Yeah. It’s a nice change after all the grandpa clothes,” you tease him and he gasps pretending to be offended at your words, though you both know you have nothing against his style. In fact, you love how he just wears whatever he wants, not caring what others would think.

“Watch your mouth or you can’t wear my bode jacket again,” he warns you holding up his pointing finger, shaking it at you, but you just chuckle at him, finishing up what you’ve been working on before shutting the laptop down.

“How long until you’re done?”

“Just a few more scenes. I think we can leave in about two hours.”

“Alright.”

“You done working?”

“Mhm, for now.”

“Come and watch the filming. You’re always so hidden in here.”

“Because I always have work to do,” you point out, putting the laptop to the side from your lap.

“Yeah, but you’re done now, so come out and watch me be the next Leonardo DiCaprio,” he smugly tells you, and it makes you roll your eyes at him.

“You’re so humble, H. Is something that comes with the age?” you tease him standing up from the small sofa, grabbing your phone from the table.

“You’ll find out in a year,” he smirks back as you follow him out of the trailer, back to the set.

Later that day you, Florence and Harry are chilling back at your apartment, munching on the pizza you ordered, watching some documentary on Netflix, just enjoying a lazy evening. You’ve become quite close with Florence, her personality is a lot like yours so you got along well from the beginning, the three of you often do things together outside of set.

You and Harry are sharing the couch while Florence is curled up on the loveseat. The temperature at the apartment is always nice, but you often catch yourself feeling a little cold in the evening, but it has more to do with the tiredness rather than with the heating of the place. When you pull your legs underneath you to warm your feet, Harry notices the action and knows right away that you’re starting to feel cold as always. Reaching down he grabs a blanket from the basket next to the couch and he wraps an arm around you, pulling you closer to him.

“Come ‘ere,” he mumbles, draping the blanket over the two of you. You shuffle closer to him, making yourself comfortable at his side as he makes sure you’re fully tugged in. Then he leaves an arm around you, his fingers gently grazing your shoulder as he turns his attention back at the movie.

Glancing over at Florence you see the puzzled look on her, but you ignore it biting into your bottom lip, turning back to watch the movie though you’re having a hard time focusing. All you can think about is Harry’s touch on you.

It’s almost midnight when Florence calls herself a taxi. Harry picks up the glasses you used and volunteers to wash them, leaving you and Florence alone in the living room.

“So, what’s up with you and Harry?” she questions right away without beating around the bush.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you two has always been close, but now… it seems all too… couple-like.” She narrows her eyes at you, hands on her hips, looking like a mother questioning her daughter.

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not,” she scoffs. Then you pretend to be busy with folding the blanket, but you can feel her intent stare on you before she speaks up again. “You like him, don’t you?”

“What?” you huff with a not too Oscar-worthy expression on your face that was supposed to hide the panic in you. “Well of course I like him, he is my friend and boss.”

“But not just like that. You like like him.”

“Florence,” you sigh, just when Harry walks out of the kitchen, oblivious to the conversation that he just interrupted.

“You sure you don’t want to spend the night?” he politely asks her, but she just shakes her head.

“I’m not really up for spending the night on the couch.”

“You wouldn’t have to, you can sleep in my bed,” he simply offers and something is telling you he shouldn’t open his mouth again.

“You’re not taking the couch because of me.”

“I wouldn’t, I usually sleep at Y/N’s,” he states as if it was nothing, but you instantly freeze.

Yes, ever since his birthday he has spent way more nights in your bed than in his own, always raving to you how well he can sleep when you’re next to him and you couldn’t bear the thought of him feeling lonely, so you’ve been letting him occupy half of your bed through the nights. He usually holds your hand falling asleep and then you wake up tangled together, sometimes he is cuddling you from behind, other times you’re the one curled up to his side. He treats it so casually, like it really is nothing, he just always goes on his day when you wake up so you decided to not make it into a big deal either.

Florence gives you a wide eyed look that you try hard to ignore, while Harry is so oblivious to what he just caused with his statement.

“I uhh—thanks but I’m fine going home. Besides, I think my car is already here. See you guys on set tomorrow. Y/N?” she calls out walking towards the front door.

“Hm?”

“We’ll talk later,” she tells you and it’s a strong message that she won’t just leave it at that.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” you nod awkwardly, waving her goodbye.

You and Harry clean up together and as always, he is the first one to use the bathroom and by the time you’re done, he is in your bed, waiting for you to join him. You don’t comment on his presence anymore, part of you afraid he would stop spending the night in your bed and you definitely don’t want that. Not much is left from filming, meaning that soon you are forced to go home where you and Harry do not live at the same place so you’re gonna have to sleep alone, like you did before. Only now you are way too hooked on the feeling of having him in your bed, even if it’s not in the way you truly want, it’s better than nothing.

The moment you get under the sheets, Harry reaches out and pulls you to his side. He hasn’t done this often when you went to sleep, only sneaking some small touches, but you don’t mind him being a little extra clingy.

“Filming is almost over,” you mumble into his chest, your hand lazily resting where his ribcage ends in his chest.

“Mhm.” There’s a short silence before he speaks up again. “What about it, Angel?”

“It’s just that it’s going to be weird going home. I got used to living here.” It’s your way saying that you’re gonna miss having him around all the time, but you’re not sure if he understands the hint. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

“You like cramped together with me?” he chuckles lowly.

“Was kinda nice,” you smile.

“Remember how you threatened me to throw my shit out if I leave my dirty clothes on the floor?”

“I do,” you smirk, thinking back to the conversation where you agreed to live with him while he is filming. “Didn’t find any clothes on the floor, so you get an A for that.”

“Wow, was this… a compliment?”

“Shut up, I always compliment you!” you laugh smacking his chest gently.

“Oh, no. You don’t compliment, you just tell me when I managed not to fuck something up,” he corrects you and your cheeks are heating up about how well he knows you.

“Those are compliments in my book, don’t be greedy.”

“M’not. I love how grounded you keep me with treating me like this.”

“Like what?” you ask furrowing your eyebrows.

“Like a normal person. With you, I don’t have to be afraid that I earn something because of who I am. You give no shit about my name, you always keep me in check and I appreciate that.”

“Can’t let you have a too big of a head,” you smirk, closing your eyes. He laughs with you, squeezing you a little before you both fall into silence, drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms.

You’ve managed to avoid Florence in the past few days. Her burning look has been making you way too nervous, you know she wants to know more about what’s going on between you and Harry, but truth to be told, you have no idea what to tell her.

Yeah, I’m definitely in love with him and we’ve been sharing a bed for a few weeks because he feels lonely alone at night, so he uses me to ease the feeling while I just let him because as I said, I’m in love with the man.

No, you can’t tell her that.

Now there’s only two days left from filming, meaning that only two more nights to spend with Harry and it’s making you a nervous wreck to think about sleeping alone in your bedroom.

You round the corner in the maze of the trailers after a phone call you had with Jeff when you run out of luck and bump right into Florence.

“I’ve been looking for you, Y/N. Come have lunch with me in my trailer,” she smiles sweetly, grabbing you by your hand so you can’t escape her this time.

“Oh I wanted to call—“

“Do it later,” she simply cuts you off.

Soon, you find yourself in her trailer as she eats her burger while she eyes you with suspicion.

“So, you and Harry sleep together?”

“Well, not like that. We really just sleep in the same bed.”

“Oh, makes perfect sense, sleeping in the same bed as your boss. Very casual.”

“Don’t make it sound so weird,” you frown at her words. You definitely don’t see Harry as your boss. You do work for him, but it never felt like he stands anywhere above you, the two of you have always been equal even before you became close friends.

“You gotta admit it’s pretty unusual,” she points out and you just look away from her. “So let’s talk about how you’re in love with him.”

“What? I never said that!” you protest, but she just gives you a look that says ‘cut the crap, girl’ and you know there’s no use to try to trick her, she sees right through you. “Don’t fucking look at me like that, I have enough shit on my plate without your judgment.”

“Oh, I’m not judging you. I’m just wondering why you two are not together already.”

You practically snort at her statement, finding it quite absurd and ridiculous.

“What? You two are perfect for each other and I’m pretty sure Harry loves you too.”

“Yeah, as a friend.”

“That’s not how friends act, Y/N. He wouldn’t beg himself into your bed every night if he was just your friend.”

“He is just lonely. He doesn’t need me, just someone to be with him.”

“That’s bullshit,” she scoffs. “You two are just being idiots.” Just as you are about to answer, your phone starts ringing. Harry’s smiley face appears on the screen, making you extremely nervous because of the conversation you are having with Florence.

“Hey,” you breathe out answering the call.

“Hey, where are you?”

“Just, talking with Florence. What’s up?”

“I got an email from Jeff and I have some questions.”

“I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Thank you Angel,” he hums before ending the call.

“I gotta go. Please don’t… bring any of this up for Harry,” you ask Florence, heading to the exit.

“You’ve gotta sort your shit out. This is not ideal, Y/N.”

“I know it,” you growl under your breath, leaving the trailer. You chew on your bottom lip nervously as you march back to Harry’s trailer. You feel so confused and anxious about this whole situation and the worst thing is that you have no idea what to do about it. Telling him how you feel seems like a stupid idea, but mostly because you’re terrified of rejection. What if it all meant nothing to him? If you were right and he is just lonely and uses you to help himself, it has nothing to do with you. You wouldn’t survive the heartbreak it would give you if he told you he doesn’t see you more than just a friend.

As you walk into his trailer he is sitting on the sofa with his phone in his hands. He glances up at you, a warm smile tugging on his lips as you take a deep breath, feeling very much out of place suddenly. Unfortunately, he immediately senses your discomfort.

“Everything alright, Angel?”

Angel. This nickname could make your knees go weak in a heartbeat and you hate how much effect it has on you. Especially in this state of mind you’re currently in.

“I just…” You shake your head shutting your eyes. “Why do you keep calling me that?” you ask, sounding way more desperate than you intended to. Harry puts his phone aside, looking a little puzzled at your sudden weird act, but he seems more worried for you.

“I, uhh—“

“And don’t tell me it’s because Hey Angel is about me. We didn’t know each other back then.”

You have no idea where this is coming from or why you even questioned him about it all of a sudden, but Florence just totally threw you off with what she just said. Harry stares back at you, probably vigorously looking for the reason why you are acting up now, but luckily, he doesn’t try to turn it into a joke as always.

“I call you Angel, because you remind me of the song. It wasn’t written about you, but the lyrics match up with… you.”

“What?” you ask in confusion.

“I wish I could be more like you, do you wish you could be more like me?” he quotes the song, not singing the words, simply just talking them as he stares back at you. “I see you at the bar, at the edge of my bed, backseat of my car, in the back of my head,” he continues and you feel your throat doing dry just from the way he softly speaks, standing only a few feet away from you. “I come alive when I hear your voice, it’s a beautiful sound, it’s a beautiful noise.”

You never really gave it another thought, but now that he has told you this, it hit you hard in the chest. You weren’t expecting, especially because those lines are rather meaningful, to you at least.

“I thought of it once not long after we first met and thought calling you Angel would suit you. Do you mind it? I can just… stop calling you that if you don’t like it.”

You shake your head. You never want him to stop calling you that even if it’s not that meaningful for him. If it’s just some game. It’s great to know that something reminded him of you.

“No, it’s… it’s alright.” Your voice is small, barely more than just a whisper. It’s a little too much at once. Florence’s words are still stuck in your head, and what he just said has felt like he just gripped your heart even if he doesn’t know.

You take a shaky breath, forcing yourself to come back from this hazy state of mind.

“So, what about that email?”

“You alright?” Reaching forward he takes your hand and you try not to flinch at his touch, just smile at him nodding.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He squeezes your hand before dropping it and he luckily doesn’t ask any more questions.

 You stay oddly quiet for the rest of the day and Harry surely knows something is wrong, but he respects you enough not to bug you about it any longer. He just stays close to you as much as he can, trying his best to take your mind off of whatever keeps you occupied.

On the way home you and Harry drop by a supermarket, buy some quick dinner, not wanting to stack the fridge when you’re leaving so soon. Then you sit in the living room, eating and watching some random movie that’s on TV. You snuggle to his side on the couch naturally, he doesn’t even have to pull you close this time. The thought of having left only one more night in the apartment makes you want to sue every little moment you have left in this bubble.

Harry makes you have a shower first tonight and when you come out from the bathroom, your bed is already nicely made, inviting you warmly. He is quick to finish with his shower and joins you in bed barely five minutes later. You move towards each other instantly, his arms curling around your form soothingly as you make yourself comfortable, melted into his embrace. You feel his lips pressing against your forehead and you almost start crying at the small action.

“Angel, I don’t know what has upset you, but I’m here for you, alright? You’re not alone,” he murmurs softly.

“I know,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I would do anything for you, just like you do so much for me. You’ve got me.”

I wish, you think to yourself. You have him, but not the way you’ve been desiring. His hand moves to cup your face as he lifts your head so you are looking into his eyes in the darkened room, but there’s enough light coming through the window that you see his features. He runs his thumb across your cheek, gently caressing your skin and everywhere he touches you, it feels like your body is in flames. This something has been building up inside you and now you’re not sure how long you’ll be able to control yourself. And just as you think about how you really should put some distance between the two of you so you won’t regret it later, the unexpected happens.

Harry pulls you up just enough so when he moves his head he is able to place his lips on yours, kissing you out of the blue. His lips feel so soft, so fitting on your mouth, you let out a whimper when he goes further than just a gentle kiss, taking your bottom lip between his properly. It’s an out of world experience, you’ve imagined it so many times, but you never thought it would actually happen and now that it is very much happening, your whole mind goes blank and for a split second… everything feels right. You kiss him back with fever and with each passing moment the kiss grows more passionate and way hungrier than how it started. Harry’s arm tightens around you, almost pulling you on top of him and you can’t make yourself stop, not that you want to.

With a little force, Harry pushes the two of you around so now you’re lying on the mattress and he holds himself up above you, his lips never disconnecting from yours. He licks into your mouth, pulling and tugging on your lips, making your whole body go weak just for him.

But then, as if reality hit you in the head, you realize what’s happening.

“Harry,” you gasp pulling back, gasping for air. “This—We…”

“Angel, let me take care of you. Please,” he begs out of breath.

“What…”

“I want to make you feel good. I want to take care of you, please let me.” He sounds so desperate, like he would do anything for this and you are not strong enough to deny it from him.

It’s just his pity. He’s been using you for his needs, now he wants to give some back, it’s nothing more, you think to yourself. It can’t be more.

You lack the willpower to make a rational decision, so as you stare up into his eyes that appear so dark due to the lack of proper lighting, you just nod before he leans down and kisses you again.

He holds himself up on one arm while his free hand wanders down your body, touching you at places you have never felt him before. He palms your left breast, squeezing it gently and it makes you moan into his mouth before his hand moves down the curve of your waist until it reaches your sleeping shorts. Your body is burning for him and you can’t stop it from reacting to everything he does. You buckle your hips up when you feel his fingers gently graze along your pubic bone, even though you’re still fully clothed.

“What do you want me to do, Angel? I’ll do anything you want me to,” he pants between kisses as his hand moves to cup your heated core, making you moan again from the sensation of his touch there.

“I need you,” is all you manage to get out.

“I’m right here. You got me. What do you want me to do? Please, tell me, Angel,” he whines, forehead pressed against yours and his hips fall, pressing against your thigh, making you realize how excited he has gotten. His erection is hard under the fabric of his boxers, almost aching to be freed. There’s no way you can take any teasing or a long foreplay. You need him inside you now before you burst.

“Harry, I need you inside me. Please,” you whimper, almost cry, before he kisses you again, hard and demanding as he simply pushes your shorts down, revealing your naked sex since you don’t wear any underwear to bed. You grab the waistband of his boxers too and push it down until he can wiggle his legs out of them, leaving him completely naked in your bed while you still have a top covering your upper body, however he is quick to change that. He grabs the hem and starts pulling it off, your hands helping him so a few moments later you’re completely naked underneath him.

“Fuck, Angel,” he breathes out, his perfect, pink lips attacking the side of your throat, kissing and nibbling on the skin, going down to your breasts, giving the same amount of attention to both while you turn into jelly under his touch. lacing your fingers through his hair you cry out his name as you can feel him leaving a mark on your left breast, his tongue swirling against the spot he just completely destroyed before he brings himself back up so he can kiss you again and again with so much hunger, it’s hard to tell where you end and where he starts. Everything melts together and you’re such a mess in every possible way.

His hand gently reaches down between your legs and parts your shaking thighs before he cups you drenched pussy, his middle finger sliding between your folds, a shameless moan slipping from your mouth, right into his as your lips are still attached.

“So wet, I can’t wait to make you feel good, baby. Let me make you feel good.”

“Harry, just… please,” you pant, surely feeling yourself lose the last bits of your nerves.

“D’you have a condom?” he asks, head lifting up a bit so he can look into your eyes.

“I-In my, um, the makeup bag,” you try to explain gesturing towards your dresser where your makeup bag sits on top, two condoms somewhere inside it. Harry pecks your lips before pulling away from you, the lack of his weight on top of you making you shiver.

He digs into the bag until he finds what he’s been looking for, tearing the packaging open with his teeth and he rolls it on while he walks back, not wasting another moment. You cling onto him like a koala bear once he is back in bed, his massive body covering you again.

“Just tell me how you like it, I’ll do anything,” he mumbles against your shivering lips as he pushes the head in first, stopping for a second before the rest of his cock buries inside you, completely taking your breath away. He is bigger than anyone you’ve ever been with, filling up every inch of you, your walls stretching around him as he stills once he is all the way inside you.

This is it. This is the moment you’ve imagined oh so many times, feeling him the closest possible, his cock buried inside you, his cheek pressed against yours as he holds himself up on top of you. Years of yearning and endless nights when you imagined your hand was his… and now it’s your reality. And though you know it’s gonna change everything, you can’t tell yourself to stop.

Harry lifts his head, pecking your lips gently, calling you Angel over and over again as he starts moving, the friction between your legs growing with each thrust. He fits inside you so well, you won’t be able to enjoy sex with anyone else now that you’ve experienced it with Harry. All of a sudden, he has become the epitome of your whole life.

“Tell me what you want, Angel. Do you want me to go slow or fast? Tell me how to make you feel good.” His lips brush against yours with each word while you’re just trying to catch your breath, fingers digging into his back, the euphoria building up inside you gradually.

“A little faster,” you breathe out, speaking feels like a hard task at the moment. Harry picks his pace up, finding just the right rhythm that makes you wrap your legs around his waist so he can go even deeper with each thrust he makes.

“Look at me, Angel. Let me see your eyes,” he begs, his hand cupping your cheek. He runs his thumb along the line of your lower lip before he takes it between his lips, tugging on it gently, kissing you like you’re his last breath on Earth. He is devouring you, body melts together with yours, all your senses are strictly focused on him. He is all you see, hear, feel and taste.

Your gaze meets his and the way he looks at you, like you’re his whole entire world, it makes your eyes tear up. You want it to be true, you want it to be reality, you want it to be more than just about needs and satisfaction, but it’s not and your consciousness is not letting you believe otherwise.

“Oh Angel,” he softly hums, wiping away a tear that escaped the corner of your eye and ran down the side of your face. Keeping up his rhythm he kisses along your jawline, your cheek, your lips, the side of your face, the bridge of your nose, everywhere he can before returning to your lips with a hungry, passion filled kiss.

“Harry…” you whimper, holding your thighs tighter around his waist as you feel yourself nearing the edge.

“Let it go for me, Angel. I wanna see you feel good, cum for me,” he tells you, eyes never leaving yours as you are ready to burst underneath him.

“Harry, I-I need you!” The words fall from your lips as a desperate beg, arms wrapping around his torso tight, as if he could disappear from your embrace any moment.

“I’m right here, Angel. Right here,” he soothes you, kissing your lips sweetly as proof that he is not just a trick your mind is playing on you. “Are you close, baby? Are you gonna cum for me?”

“Yes! Yes!” you pant, losing control over your body and all your senses. It’s gonna be intense, you can tell and it hasn’t even started yet, you just know it’ll shake you to the core.

“Good girl. Let me make you feel good.” “So good,” you breathe out before Harry occupies your lips with his once again.

It doesn’t take long. He keeps thrusting in the perfect angle and it throws you right over the edge. Harry demands you look him in the eyes when your orgasm wash you over and the intensity of it all almost makes you cry again. You burst, lose yourself under him, screaming his name as if you were praying to all higher forces. In a way, you are, because for a moment you really think you completely vanish from this world.

Harry follows you just a few more thrusts later, falling out of his rhythm as he grunts and moans your name, face buried into the crook of your neck while you tug on his hair, the feeling of his soft locks between your fingers is like pure heaven.

He stills, but stays inside you as he looks up, his eyes filled with satisfaction and contentment as he cups your face again, kissing you long, taking his time with you.

As you come off your high and the clouds of euphoria clears off, reality sets in more painfully than ever. Your limbs are paralyzed and you feel like you are outside your own body, just watching everything happen as if you were a third person in the room. Harry rolls to the side, chest heaving wildly as he is trying to regulate himself. Once he is able to breathe without panting, he pecks your shoulder gently and makes a quick round to the bathroom. You hear water running and then his feet padding on the floor, but you can’t bring yourself to move, you just lie there, completely drained out. It doesn’t change even when Harry gently cleans you off with a damp washing cloth, throwing it to the side to take care of it in the morning. He pulls the covers over the two of you and scoops you into his arms. You manage to bring your arm up to his chest as your head rests on his shoulder. His fingers are dancing up and down your arm, his steady breathing keeping your overcrowded head grounded. And then… he starts singing so softly, it’s almost just a whisper.

“Hey Angel, oh, I wish I could be more like you. Do you wish you could be more like me?”

Your eyes shut close, the damn tears flooding again, but you keep your sobs drowned in your throat. Instead you force yourself to sleep and hope you live to see the morning, because you feel like your heart is about to give up on you.

 When you wake up, you genuinely feel like you’ve drunk through last night and now have the worst hangover. It’s like you’ve been hit on the head with a chair. You slowly come to your senses and realize that you’re completely naked in bed and there’s a body curled to your side, equally naked.

The shock sets in first because you realize, once again, that what happened last night wasn’t just a fever dream, it actually happened. And then you basically jump out of bed when you look at the small digital clock on the bedside and see that the two of you have ten minutes to leave if you don’t want to be late to the last day of filming.

“Harry! Harry get up!” you smack him, kicking the covers off and grabbing your top and shorts from the floor, quickly putting them on. The man in talk growls, just rolling to his back without even opening his eyes. “Harry damn it! We have ten minutes or you’ll be late!” you snap at him and it somewhat wakes him up. With furrowed eyebrows at puckered lips, he lifts his head up and looks around.

Those lips were kissing you last night.

“What?” he mumbles in confusion.

“We overslept, get up. We have… eight minutes left.”

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, finally getting out of bed, reaching for his boxers.

It’s a shitshow as the two of you try to get ready on time and though you are running just a few minutes late, the driver of the taxi manages to speed down the streets fast enough that you arrive to set just in time.

During the whole ride, you feel Harry’s burning eyes on you, but thank God, you get a call from Jeffrey the moment you get into the car and it lasts the whole ride so you don’t have to talk with him about what happened last night.

“Y/N,” he tries when you’re still on the phone and he is already done with hair and makeup, heading to set to start filming.

“What?” you mouth at him.

“Can we talk later?”

“I’m busy. Go, I’m sure they are waiting for you,” you whisper to him and he looks so disappointed, but he nods and walks away. Your heart breaks as you lower the phone. You have been out of the call for some time, just didn’t want to talk to him.

Quite frankly, you’re not ready to talk to him about what happened last night. You don’t want to hear him say that he was just trying to help you out last night, that it wasn’t anything serious, just some messing around. It was just two people trying not to feel lonely.

Walking back into his trailer you can feel your chest tightening, a sharp pain shooting right into your heart the more you think about him. It was a mistake, you shouldn’t have done it because you are the one with the feelings and now you are the one struggling with the consequences of your little get together.

The more you think about it, the worse it gets and you feel like you’re about to suffocate. You need to get out of here, there’s no way you can face him now.

It all happens so fast. Before you can even second guess your decision, you’re on your way back to the apartment to pack all your stuff and get on the first flight back home. You need to put distance between you and him, spending one more night in the same apartment would make you go nuts. So while Harry is filming, completely oblivious to what you’re doing, you pack up your room as fast as possible and head to the airport to hop on the plane that leaves at four pm.

With a racing heart you check all your baggage in and make it through security when Harry first calls you. At first, you want to ignore it, but then you find yourself swiping your thumb across the screen.

“Hey,” you shortly greet him.

“Hey, where are you? Have been looking for you everywhere.” “I um… I’m at the airport,” you answer and the silence on the other end is deafening for a moment.

“You are at the what?” he then snaps.

“I had a, um, kind of emergency, so I’m heading back home now. Sorry, I would have called you, but didn’t know when you’d be off set.”

“You fucking packed and left already? You’re really at the airport?” He is fuming, Raging. You can tell he is pacing in the trailer, vigorously running his fingers through his hair, ruining it without a care. You almost feel guilty, but then again, you just know facing him now would break you. You’ll get back to him when you’ve pulled your shit together.

“I am, calm down, alright? Not a big deal.” “You just left on our last day here without a fucking word! And when am I seeing you again?”

“I, uhh—I need to be home for a while, but you’ll be fine. I’ll stay in touch with you in email and text.”

“Fucking text? Email?” he is barking now. Good thing you are not there because it would be a disaster. “Y/N, you can’t be serious. We-we were supposed to talk. You can’t just fucking disappear like this.”

“We’ll talk, alright?”

“When?”

“Later,” you simply tell him at a loss for a better answer. Hopefully, never, you think to yourself, but don’t say it out loud.

“Okay, you’re not doing this. Don’t you dare get on a plane, I’m going to the airport right now. You’re not leaving.”

“Well, I am and you’re not coming here,” you clap back, but you can already hear him moving around, probably gathering his stuff so he can leave right away.

“Swear to God if you get on that plane, I’m—“ He cuts himself off, no idea what to really say and you just sigh, closing your eyes. People rush by you and as you glance at the big screen you see that your plane is boarding.

“Harry, just… it’ll be better like this, alright? You’ll be fine, I’ll see you… when I see you. Have fun on your last day on set.”

You end the call before he could get another word out and put it on airplane mode right away as you grab your backpack and head to your gate.

Using your time on the plane wisely, you put together a very detailed schedule for Harry so he knows everything about his next few weeks and you can minimize your contact with him. You even set up a bunch of reminders in his calendar so he won’t miss his appointments.

When you set feet on the ground again, you expect the distance between you and Harry to feel comforting and freeing, but it’s the opposite. An ache in your chest is getting heavier as you get yourself a taxi and head home, feeling more alone than ever in your life.

Your home doesn’t feel like a home. Not without that one person who could make any place your home, but you can’t see him right now, not until you learn how to exist around him without the urge to faint.

Going to bed alone is pure torture. Every moment you are waiting to hear Harry shuffling around in the apartment, you miss his little snorts when he is watching the TV, his singing coming from the shower, but most importantly, you miss having him so close to you in bed. Now that you’re lying on your own, your bed feels so cold, it brings you tears as reality sets in. You miss him. You miss him more than anything and you can’t imagine a time when it won’t hurt anymore.

The crying pushes you into a shallow slumber sometime in the middle of the night, however, you’re rudely shaken back to consciousness when you hear someone banging on your door like crazy, pushing the doorbell constantly.

“Jesus fuck,” you mumble with a grimace, pulling a hoodie on as you make your way to the door hazily, probably still half asleep because you open the door without checking who it is through the peephole and you end up staring up at none other than Harry. “What the—What are you doing here?” you breathe out, panic sets in fast and your hands start shaking at the sight of him.

Harry steps inside without invitation and closes the door behind him, a stern expression on his handsome face.

“Y/N, what the fuck were you thinking when you left like that?”

“I-I told you, it was an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency? Because I called your mom and sisters, they all said nothing happened in the family, so what could possibly happen that needed you here immediately?”

“I don’t have to explain shit to you.” Shaking your head you try to step back to put some distance between the two of you, but he doesn’t let you, taking a step forward at the same time.

“Well I think we have a lot to talk about after last night, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want to talk,” you shake your head biting into your bottom lip. This wasn’t supposed to happen, why couldn’t he just stay where he was? “How did you even get here so fast?”

“Left as soon as we wrapped.”

“Where are all your stuff?”

“Left everything there, I’ll just go back and pack it up, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that for a girl who genuinely hates any form of working out, you ran pretty fast from you today.”

Any other day you would have laughed at his comparison, but not today. You just stand there, chewing on the inside of your cheeks as you try to figure out what to do or say. You were not ready to face him so soon.

“What do you want me to say?” you ask desperately, throwing your hands into the air.

“Tell me what it meant for you,” he calmly answers and you want to shake him. How is he so peaceful?

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m not doing this to myself, okay? I need time, Harry.”

“For what?”

“So I can get myself over this, alright? I need time, I—fuck this,” you growl, feeling the tears flooding your eyes again. Damn it!

“Why the fuck do you want to get yourself over it?”

“Because it obviously didn’t mean the same thing to me as it meant to you!” you snap at him and he raises his eyebrows at you in a way that tells you “you’re stupid”.

“What do you think it meant to me?”

“Probably nothing,” you scoff rolling your eyes, but the anger that bursts from him quickly washes your attitude away.

“Fucking nothing? You think I would get on a fucking plane first thing after filming for ten hours straight just to come after you? You think I spent all my nights with you these past weeks because you mean nothing to me? You know, for a smart girl, you can be pretty dumb sometimes.”

You blink at him in utter confusion, his words knocked you off your feet. He exhales sharply, long fingers running through his messy curls as he tries his best to calm himself down. When he is finally breathing somewhat normally his wildly vibrant green eyes meet your widened stare.

“Y/N, I thought we were on the same page. What did you think it was all about?” he softly asks, seeing how shook you still are.

“I, uhh—I thought this was all just some kind of distraction. You said you were feeling lonely, I thought you were just… kind of using me. And then last night was you returning the favor.”

“Hell no,” he breathes out shaking his head as he steps closer and this time you don’t back away from him. You let his hands run down your arms until they find your hands. “I thought this was clear, but I’m gonna say it then. I’m in love with you, Y/N, have been for a long time, I was just being a pussy and didn’t know how you’d take it. But then, when you didn’t kick me out of your bed the first night we slept together, it got me hoping and it was all heading just the right direction. Then last night happened and I was so damn sure this would be our turning point but then…” He breathes out shakily again, as if the thought still upsets him. “When I called you and you said you were at the airport… I love you, Angel, but I was ready to murder you.”

You let out a faint chuckle, feeling the tears bubbling in your eyes.

“Why did you run away instead of talking to me? Did you not trust me?” he asks softly, a hand coming up to cup your jaw gently.

“I didn’t trust myself,” you admit weakly.

“Oh Angel…” Leaning down he kisses your forehead tenderly, his lips feel like soft feathers against your hot skin. “Do you need me to tell you again how in love I am with you or are you gonna believe me? You’re not planning to run away again, are you?” he teases you making you chuckle as you shake your head.

“I’m not gonna run away, but I would love to hear you say you love me again.”

“I love you. I love you so fucking much, Angel, don’t you ever think otherwise for a moment, okay?”

You nod, lips curling into your mouth as your teary eyes meet his green orbs.

“I love you too, Harry.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that,” he chuckles breathing out in relief and it makes you smile. “I would never just use you. Love you way too much for that, Angel. You are everything to me.”

“Wish I knew that earlier,” you mumble with a bitter chuckle. It would have saved you a lot of tears.

“I will never stop saying it to you.” His forehead rests against yours, noses touching as his arms curl around your frame, pulling you close to him until you’re pressed up against his hard chest. “Just out of curiosity, what were you thinking when I told you, you reminded me of Hey Angel? Because I think it pretty much gave me away, but apparently, I was wrong,” he chuckles lowly, pulling back a little so he can look you in the eyes.

“I honestly have no idea,” you admit with an awkward chuckle. “I just had a conversation with Florence before that where she called me out about my feelings for you and I was still kind of in shock. Probably took it as just your usual flirty behavior.”

“I’ll admit I do flirt some, but haven’t you realized it’s different with you?”

“I guess not.” “Angel, you are… something else,” he chuckles in disbelief before leaning down he finally presses his lips against yours. You giggle into his lips, arms wrapping around his neck as he lifts you up from the ground, twirling you around, a squeal slipping from your mouth.

“So, now you have to go back to pack your stuff?” you question, still wrapped into his arms completely and you don’t want to exist any other way. This is where you belong.

“Yeah. Had to chase down this Angel who thought she could run away from me.”

“So how are you planning to get to New York by four tomorrow when you’re still here and have to go back to pack? Have you checked the schedule I sent you? You’re not gonna make it.” You cock your head to the side with an arched brow.

“Did you just go back to full assistant mode right after we confessed our love for each other?”

“Someone has to be responsible and we both know it’s always me.”

“I’ll just hire someone to do it for me, I’ll leave to New York from here. Happy?” he grins at you as you nod.

“Very. Because this means you can stay the night here.”

“Seeing the fact that I literally have nowhere else to go, because even my house keys are in the suitcase I left back… I very much need to stay here for the night,” he points out.

“Good. Come on, my bed felt empty without you,” you giggle, pulling him towards your bedroom and he follows you eagerly.

“I can definitely help that.”

 Thank you for reading! Please like/reblog if you enjoyed!

[skrunksthatwunk]

prev your tags are mighty and true also YEAH i love team urameshi i love them also the thought that yusuke is to kuwa as toguro is to genkai (as well as itsuki is to sensui what kuwa is to yusuke) IS SO FUKING. GRRRGRRGAGOUH the way they couldve been tragic lovers separated by their differences and one's inability to face their fears OR codependent to the point of enabling the darkest and unhealthiest parts of them in this entropic sorta way is just. GUH. HOUGHGHNGH!!!!! also yeah when i rewatched a lotta the yusuke leaving stuff i was like man he really DOES feel like he's breaking up with the both of them. and their different reactions are so interesting to me like keiko being like :/ i don't think my new bf would like it if we got married and stuff and yusuke's yk ily :) and her yeah me too :/ bc she's trying not to get her hopes up bc yusuke really does let her down a lot and she has every reason to not believe his promises when he's made them a million times before and broken them almost every time. vs kuwabara losing his absolute goose off his gourd desperate and yusuke not chewing him out for it at all but explaining his reasons and insisting he's going and when kuwa starts lashing out at the others pulling him aside and promising he'll be back. there's a lotta overlap with his treatment of keiko and kuwa here but kuwa's reaction is so different to keiko's and the way yusuke acted when kuwa was trying to say what he means to him just.. gaougugohhohghh basically

AND YEAH the kuwa can speak violence but it's yusuke and hiei's native language is literally shit i've been saying for years omg we are big brained. yusuke and hiei were both born outcasts assumed to be dangerous, corruptive, impure, etc, and they both leaned into it to some extent, for their physical and emotional survival. i imagine kuwabara grew up with similar prejudices, but he took a different approach in rising above them via honor code stuff. he looked to how a man should be (often taking influence from pop culture, it seems) and tried to be that to prove them wrong, to be good in spite of what others said, rather than being bad to spite them (hiei + yusuke). and sorry to kurama for leaving him out but we dunno enough about his upbringing sorry man <3 anyway yeah it's such a key point of communication for yusuke and hiei and while it also is for kuwa it's not like,, NEARLY as hard for kuwa to talk about his feelings. anyway they make me insasne. that point about hiei and yusuke bringing out the worst and best in each other AGAIN ginormous brain moment but like the way yusuke talks to hiei when they have the post-sniper fight encounter and yusuke's like ouhhh you're a softyyy like. i think yusuke is almost the gentlest with hiei in some ways. when he asks him in this kinda tentative quiet way if he'll help after coming all this way (so he KNOWS hiei cares and hiei can't deny it) it's like he's trying to teach him some of that language of. not hitting each other. it doesn't go great but it doesn't go horribly either. (maybe it doesn't go great bc he brings up kuwabara, and hiei's like >:/ oh right ugh this is such a kuwabara thing to do being all. open about feelings and shit. gross. and it reminds him of vulnerability being a bad idea and he's like nope shutting that down now moment's over. but yusuke makes it easier to forget that.) ugh the yusuke hiei dynamic makes me absolutely stupid and contrasting it with the kuwa yusuke dynamic is just. scrumptious. bc they really are the shoulder human shoulder demon to him a lotta the time. anyway YEAH but also at the same time hiei and yusuke fall into the pessimistic let's watch the world burn shit a lot easier together than with any of the others because they share a bitterness and a hurt and a mistrust that the other two don't. kurama's too practical and schemey to be a pessimist (too focused on how to make good outcomes happen to worry about how unlikely they are, which is the only way to survive for that long) and kuwabara's so focused on narrative/the ways things "should" be/unable to let himself think of bad outcomes because it'd crush him bc he's sensitive yk to be a pessimist. b'yeah

also yeah i WISH yusuke and genkai were a little sweeter than they were in canon but i also think that distance is like. captivating in its painfulness, much like a lotta the show's relationships. just tender enough to drive you nuts but not quite enough to satisfy anything. it leaves you hungry and aching like the characters themselves who are all starved for affection and GOD DAMN. ANYWAY

this could be kuwameshi if you guys would like. take my hand and trust me