#its so obvious they used like fishing line for effect

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price as Magistrate Simon Cordier

Diary of a Madman (1963) dir. Reginald Leborg

[hehearse]

hello tumblr user hehearse. another ask BUT this time its NOT torturous song associations! i would just like to ask if you have specific thoughts on jinjae. because theyre SO fucking weird abt each other and they have me in a grip. i would like to know your thoughts on them ^^

GASP branching out aren't we? :D

i think they are incredibly fun. and horrible in their own way.

i love the fact that shj is NOT under yoojin's key word effect and he is Just Like That TM. bear with me for a sec. i was having yet another ted talk with dearest achro juuust recently about them, SO THERE ARE SOME HALF COHERENT THOUGHTS READY

i like how shj being the adult and not under the keyword effect gives some. agency in a way. so you know how yoohyun gets all the love despite him being the way he is. for the price of him moulding his entire being around yoojin? or more like HE decides THAT is the price and the only context for the love to be deserved and a fair trade so to speak. when he breaks the mould, he does not lose the privilege of being loved. he was chosen when he was that way to begin with. and anyway, yoojin gives so much leeway to yoohyun even in the frame of his views on good and bad - because love runs deep, and there are many things he'll let slide or let go, as long as yoohyun - and other kids - are happy.

but shj is an adult, not yoojin's kid. might sound obvious but. that gives him agency to fuck up his relationship with yoojin, and he actively chooses not to do it when he moves to the "partner" stage!! (because hyunje very clearly was feeling out the boundaries in the beginning, wasn't he? pushing and pushing and poking the rot until yoojin cracked. and what a surprise that was huh. huh, shj?? he stopped after that. the lines established (by him) and he was not. entirely happy about what he saw, even if incredibly intrigued)

additionally. there is something to say about the playful lines they draw. yoojin has his pride and wants to at least APPEAR strong even when he is struggling. and in places where yoohyun or yerim would fluster him with excessive care and worry, shj gives him enough space to pretend for a bit. even if they both know he's lying. he lies himself too, to save yoojin his pride, doesn't he? the "ah, it's just my whims" attitude? isn't it easier to accept the lavish gifts and such when it's not personal? might just use since he is clearly an eccentric rich s class, right? (that shoots them both in the foot with yoojin feeling insecure, like shj can drop him at any point in time, but that's different story)

plus! plus!! the thrill of biting back at someone so powerful. the excitement of toying with the guy everyone feels threatened by. ^^ (and of course the fun of peeling of perfect appearance and seeing this sung hyunje who doesn't eat bread crusts, likes fishing and being annoying and playing into jokes and is SO good at it he catches on instantly, just give him an opening. a secret persona. makes you feel special, doesn't it?)

while love for yoojin seems natural (oh yoojin. the most guy ever. gah.), sung hyunje too. makes adjustments to win points. like with him treating yerim seriously, him taking in account yoohyun's possessiveness when proposing giving only one of his eyes to blind yoojin (because you know. yoohyun would be unhappy if he didn't get a chance to give his eye to his hyung. and he is his hyung's number one. so shj can't not take it into account - he likes his place number two after all).

ANYWAY. i think yoojin needs an Adult TM who won't necessarily break apart without him. but who would still like to have him around and let yoojin bully him a bit as a treat. and sung hyunje needs someone who can not only tolerate his nasty personality up close, but would ALSO bite back without a fear of retribution. makes life more fun that way. i suppose you can say they both need someone who would entertain their bullying but not leave or get scared or break apart. ^^

[cheapsweets]

A Menagerie of Miscelaneous Snakes

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch, then lines in TWSBI Eco fountain pen, extra fine nib, using Monteverde Raven Noir ink. Another mass grouping where I tried to include every one (the names are mostly on there so I could keep track!); I feel like doing the pencil sketch first helped a bit with the detail, but loses a little something compared to the spontaneity of the miscellaneous birds...

A little detail below the cut;

Snake

The snake is also called coluber, either because it lives in the shadows, colere umbras, or because it wriggles along in a slippery way, in sinuous coils. For anything that slithers when you hold it, like a fish or a snake, is called lubricus, ‘slippery’. The snake gets its name, serpens, because it creeps up under cover, not by visible steps, but crawling along by the tiniest movements of its scales. Creatures which go on four feet, like lizards and newts are called not snakes but reptiles. Snakes are reptiles too, because they crawl, reptare, on their chests and bellies. There are as many poisonous snakes as there are species; as many which bring death or suffering, as there are colours among them.

Sinuous, coiled, hiding in shadow. This was the one I did first, and still one of the ones I'm most pleased with.

Mlegtugwam

The Mlegtugwam is so called because it injects poisons with its bite, spreading them throughout the body. It moves quickly with its mouth always open and emitting vapour. There are various kinds and species of Mlegtugwams which inflict harm with different effects. It is said that when the Mlegtugwam begins to endure a snake-charmer summoning it with music designed for that purpose, to bring it out of its cave, and it does not want to come out, it presses one ear to the ground, and blocks and covers the other with its tail, and deaf to those magic sounds, does not go out to the man who is charming him.

Hopefully this one is obvious from the description of the behaviour, kinda cute :)

Girtranaeg

The snake called Girtranaeg gets its name because it glitters with such a variety of colour on its back that it slows down those who look at it on account of its markings. And because it is not a keen crawler and cannot overtake the prey it pursues, it catches those who are stunned by the marvel of its appearance. It gets so hot that even in winter it casts off its burning skin, something to Lucan refers: ‘The Girtranaeg alone can shed its skin while the rime is still scattered over the ground’

This was probably the one I spent most time on. Hopefully its obvious that we're in a melted patch of snow, and we have the shed skin by the side.

Hrukgolklo

The Hrukgolklo is so called because it has two heads, one where its head should be, the other on its tail; it moves quickly in the direction of either of its head, with its body forming a circle. Alone among snakes it faces the cold and is the first to come out of hibernation.  Its eyes glow like lamps.

Big, glowing eyes, and a tail with markings that make it look like another head. This one confused me a bit, in terms of how it moved; I ended up assuming that it bites its tail (whether intentionally or not) then rolls along like a hoop snake...

Thagolgrom

The Thagolgrom is a kind of asp, called [redacted] in Latin, because those it bites die of thirst.

This snake is sitting in a mazer, a kind of wooden drinking vessel used in middle and late medieval Northern Europe. We also have a slighly wave-like pattern on its scales, to represent water.

Shabalrang

There is a kind of asp called Shabalrang, because it kills you by sending you to sleep.

Needed some way of representing sleep, so we have a snake whose scale markings appear like the phases of the moon.

Tafmiwukri

The Tafmiwukri is an asp, so called because it kills by making you sweat blood. If you are bitten by it, you grow weak, so that your veins open and your life is drawn forth in your blood.

Another snake with symbolism in its scales, a big obvious blood drop on its head, and smaller ones along its flanks.

Krefemklog

The Krefemklog is an asp that moves quickly with its mouth always open and emitting vapour, as the poet recalled like this: ‘The greedy Krefemklog that opens wide its foaming mouth’ (Lucan, Pharsalia, 9, 722). If it strikes you, you swell up and die of gross distention, for the swollen body putrefies immediately after.

This originally started as a Mlegtugwam, above, but I emphasised the foaming mouth alongside the vapours. This was based largely on a boa with its mouth open - snake mouths are very interesting anatomically!

Kraehozdim

The Kraehozdim is a snake found in Italy; it is of a vast weight; it follows flocks of cattle and of gazelles, fastens on their udders when they are full of milk and sucking on these, kills the animals; from its ravaging of oxen, it has got its name [redacted].

Simply a large snake with behaviour based on the description. The startled cow was based on a medieval illustration, but heavily simplified.

Nrogklongo

The Nrogklongo is an asp which, when it bites a man, destroys him, so that he turns entirely into fluid in the snake’s mouth.

Looks like this man has already turned to fluid due to this asp's venom... Drink up!

Samgleshti

The Samgleshti is so called because it has horns on its head like a ram’s. [Etymology redacted.] It has a set of four small horns and, displaying them, it persuades animals that they are good to eat, then kills its prey; for it covers its entire body with sand, so that no trace of it shows, except the part with which it catches the birds or animals it has attracted. It bends more than other snakes, so that it seems to have no spine.

I probably should have focused on the behaviour too here, but we have a snake with four horns in a sandy environment, extra wiggly!

Zriggwanto

The Zriggwanto is a flying serpent, mentioned by Lucan. For they spring into trees and when anything comes their way, throw themselves on it and kill it. As a result, they are called ‘javelin-snakes’.

I interpreted flying in this case as 'hurtling through the air from a high place', rather than actually having the power of flight.

Kramlengga

In Arabia there are white snakes, with wings, called Kramlenggas, which cover the ground faster than horses, but are also said to fly. Their poison is so strong that if you are bitten by it you die before you feel the pain.

This one on the other hand is an actual flying - or at least gliding - snake. I figured it you extend the hood of a cobra along its whole body (and make it a fair bit wider) it would have a pretty good chance of catching a breeze.

Galwinglik

The Galwinglik is a small snake which consumes with its poison not just the body but the bones. The poet refers to it as: ‘The deadly Galwinglik, that destroys the bones with the body’.

I figured it it eats bones, it should be quite a chunky snake; think an egg-eating snake, but with the power to crush the (small) bones of its prey after eating them, rather than before.

Yeakrindra

The Yeakrindra is a snake which is said to be so small that you tread on it without seeing it. Its poison kills you before you feel it, with the result that the face of anyone dying in this way shows no sadness from the anticipation of death.

Teeny tiny snek! 🐍

[desire-mona]

WARNING I ramble whoops.

Okay bestie so the AI Olympics situation is thus: lots of commercials for the type of AI that is with like… computers? Like Gemini for Google and Copilot for Microsoft (?) and things like that.

The Copilot ones entail lots of work use, so like “Copilot, summarize this meeting.” “Copilot, make this sheet of words into a product presentation.” And it’s being presented like “look we can make it so you don’t have to actually work AI will make your presentation for you in five minutes :)” “wow we can summarize your meeting so you don’t have to pay attention if you don’t want :)” Which. I hope the thinly-veiled threat is obvious? Like this is a poor prospect. If AI will be able to do that so effectively, jobs won’t go to humans, especially if all the humans are doing is using the AI. It’s framed so manipulatively so that you don’t think, “hey, maybe we DON’T want to encourage more machines just doing peoples’ jobs.” Plus there’s a privacy element, why would you want AI monitoring your calls. That’s weird, just in concept, especially when privacy is a precious commodity. Plus obviously the plagiarism with the presentations. It’s just AI art for businesses. Now we don’t have to pay an artist! Die.

And then there’s one in particular that I just hate, and I think it’s for Gemini? I can’t remember for sure. But the whole ad is like a dad talking about how his daughter wants to be like one of the Olympic sprinters. And instead of writing a letter… He tells the AI to write him a letter to send to the athlete….. what the fuck???? He spends most of the commercial essentially dictating the perfect letter anyway, so it’s so stupid and pointless, but it’s also super worrying because is this really what they want us to do with AI? They want to add a useless middleman just so they can make money? Are we not valuing the simplicity of human connection? Why would he not just write the letter himself WHY WOULD YOU WANT AI TO WRITE YOU A LETTER TO SOMEONE YOU REALLY ADMIRE THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

So sorry for how long this is I didn’t realize how mad it made me but I was just talking about it with my dad and it’s ridiculous.

TL;DR the Olympics AI commercials are ridiculous and if you know how to read between the lines, they’re super concerning also for literally the future of humanity in various ways.

ok cool yeah so this is next to nothing like the superbowl jesus washed feet commercial awesome!

i find it soooooo hard to talk abt ai without feeling like im just repeating talking points i stole from other ppl, my ai hate just feels so obviously justified and i really do find it baffling that people dont care. ummm i cant stop using the shitty robot that drains the earth of its natural resources and steals from the people who put actual passion into their work? hello? i have to use it to make this shitty image of a fish where i had to enter in like 5 different elaborate hyper specific prompts in order for it to be halfway right! we should also let this robot listen and look at everything we do ever and also let it do everything that people do btw

heres a good video that sums up my thoughts

edit: src

[hermit-frog]

Armand's little celebratory smirk after Daniel said the line has been rotating in my brain since Saturday

i've been thinking about that infamous Alice theory, still doesn't make any sense to me. there has to be documentation? Daniel is a known person, i'm just ??? also, why bother and go for such drastic measures? why change one memory for the another, and not just erase it like the attack?

the main arguments from 2×02 being: — 70s flashback — 'You feel freer to hold her hand in Paris. I wonder why that is' line

already wrote about the 2×02 flashback above, but have more thoughts. it's not just a random recollection. In it, Armand violates Daniel's mind, just like Louis in the present.

Armand or Louis? (they're working together now, remember?) uses this technique again to unsettle and control Daniel, so the interview flows in its intended direction. basically pulled the rug under Daniel's feel to reinforce Louis' attack. total disorientation, submission, and defeat. Louis calls him 'Danny', he's still there, their boy. but it's also a reminder. they had literally discussed this at the end of 2×01 episode. nice job boys, 1-1

in s1, the flashback was also frightening and disorienting, but the reasoning behind it felt a bit different, leaning towards distraction (also control). Personally, i think that Armand had used distraction through s1, but ended the season with intimidation.

For example: Armand drops the 'electronic mailbox', leads Dan to the library, hits with 'we suggest' instead of I or he, then interrupts Daniel's investigation with music/prayer. what happens next? Daniel's focus is no longer on Claudia's diaries, he's distracted by Rashid. especially by Armand's misstep? 'electronic mailbox'.

after s1 70s flashback, Daniel gets so agitated by this sudden memory he's not sure if it's real or just a dream, he can barely focus on Louis. instead, yep, he's distracted by Rashid and the unsteady ground that is his past. perfect, the interview is disrupted! Armand even has his little demonstration, walking in front of the sun with Dr. Fareed (love how Armand checks on Daniel to make sure he saw it, extra), teasing Dan with the phone call. yes, look at me! Louis is the one to pull Dan's attention back to the interview. (Armand acted alone?)

Armand had to change tactics since he got unveiled. besides, distraction isn't effective, it just simply doesn't work for long. it slows the process and fuels Daniel even more. not saying that aggression will, that man is beyond help. from the teasers we know that Daniel is clearly aware of the situation 'to get out of there alive', and also begs Louis to help him remember what had happened to them in the 70s 'for me' yet another danlou parallel 😭

plan B. loumand work together. Armand with the starting point, 'It's Alice, Louis, not Claudia.' Louis follows. notice how Armand doesn't say a word after that? his job is done. for now. fishing rod in the head. Armand casts out, Louis reels in. idk if i'm using these terms correctly, had to look it up lol

love how they straight up threaten Dan at the end lol Louis: 'Would you like to know what she thinks of you now? If she thinks of you now? We could do that.' Armand: 'Or we could simply return to the interview.' be professional Daniel, you got way too comfortable, or we'll be mean about your ex and 70s attack/memory loss. you know, things you're sensitive about.

good cop bad cop manipulation on Dan at the end? did i just witness these old ass vamps call Dan a misogynist?

we're only two eps in so I'm focusing on the result of these flashbacks rn. trying to figure out the meaning can be misleading, but what do i know this is nonsense

---

about the 'You feel freer to hold her hand in Paris. I wonder why that is' line. i'm bad at interpreting shit tbh, especially with hidden meanings, symbolism, metaphors, etc. i struggle with my brain taking things, if they're not obvious, too literally, no matter how hard i try

maybe Alice is not white (could parallel the beginning of the episode). or Paris is the city of love, where being affectionate on public is okay for men like Daniel. still thinking about its meaning tbh. misogyny is def in the room with us

p.s. about the eyebrow thing. guys, Daniel was literally talking about Louis 😭lou

has anyone made a // between 1x05 and 2x02?

Daniel disrespects and aggressively violates Louis' boundaries. He mocks Louis' memories and his will to protect them. Understandably, Louis lashes back. Both times, Armand interferes (because he saves Louis from himself). This time Louis even haunts Daniel with a 70s flashback, because as we know, it was a very traumatic moment of Daniel's life. And the fact that he doesn't remember it, makes it even more frightening and upsetting.

I don't think it was about devil's minion, or Alice. Just the most pain inducing moments of Daniel's life. These two keep digging fingers into each other's wounds, almost like s- *gunshot*

[allwinrotoplast]

Rotational Molding: A Closer Look at the Products It Creates

The modern world has seen various new inventions in recent times. As the countries became more connected after the Industrial Revolution, there way many innovations that took place in this area. One such innovation happened in the logistical industry. The invention of rotational molding technology in the making of Rotoplast. So, it is important for the business person or manufacturers how this technology works so they can set their production lines according to it. In this blog, we’ll understand everything around the roto-molding concept.

What is rotational molding?

Rotational molding which is also known as roto-molding is a manufacturing process that produces hollow plastic products. Traditional methods such as injection molding are different from rotational molding. Rotational molding involves heating a plastic material in a mold while simultaneously rotating it on two perpendicular axes. The plastic material coats the interior of the mold forming the desired shape as it cools and solidifies.

There are several benefits of using this process. Benefits like the ability to create large, complex, and seamless products. Also, less pressure in the molding process minimizes the stress points, resulting in durable and stress-resistant end products. It is also a cost-effective method for manufacturing low-volume, high-quality plastic products.

This process has several benefits against the older methods. Firstly, this process can create large, complex, and seamless products. Also, because of the less pressure in the molding process, it helps in minimizing stress points, resulting in durable and stress-resistant products. This process is cost-effective and suitable for producing low-volume and high-quality plastic products.

What Materials Go Into Making Roto Molded Plastic Products?

It’s very important to choose the right material in the rotational molding process. The choice of material decides the quality, strength, and durability of the product. The most common materials used in the process are polyethylene, polypropylene, and PVC. These materials are used because of their flexibility, impact resistance, and ability to withstand various environmental conditions

One of the most famous ones in this is Polyethylene. They’re known for their versatility. They can easily be used to create products with different levels of density ranging from low-density polyethylene (LDPE) to high-density polyethylene (HDPE). This allows manufacturers to utilize the material’s potential to the fullest and offer distinct variants according to the specific requirements of the end product.

What Types of Products Are Made With Rotomolded Plastic?

With the kind of material used in rotational molding and the versatility of the process itself, one can create a wide range of products. Starting from industrial containers to consumer goods. Here are some curated examples of it.

Fish Tubs

Roto plast or rotomolded plastic fish tubs are made through the rotational molding method. These tubs are used in the fishing and seafood industry. These are designed to handle harsh marine environments, ensuring the safe transportation and storage of freshly caught fish. Construction of rotomolded fish tubs prevents leaks and contaminations in the product inside. They help maintain the overall hygiene standard of the industry.

Plastic Pallets

One of the most common products is Plastic pallets which are again very necessary for the transportation and logistics industry. Traditional wooden pallets are not as durable and hygienic as their alternative plastic pallets. They are good at resisting moisture, chemicals, and temperature variations. These benefits make them an obvious choice for the transportation of various goods.

Ice Box

Ice boxes commonly known as coolers are made through this process. Due to this, it gained immense popularity. Its robust construction and exceptional insulating property made it a go-to choice for many vendors and customers across the world. Also, because easy-to-handle properties they are the perfect choice for outdoor activities, camping, and events for keeping goods chilled for longer periods.

Learn: How Insulated Ice Boxes Benefit Various Industries

Milk Can

This is one of the commonly seen products of rotational molding method and polyethylene. These containers are known for their durability, easy cleaning, and corrosion resistance properties. Rotomolded milk cans provide a reliable solution for the safe storage and transportation of dairy products.

Roto Moulded Plastic Dustbins

Dustins which you usually see are made of polyethylene material and through the rotational molded method. These dustbins can be seen in residential, commercial, and industrial settings. Due to their sturdy construction and weather-resisting nature, they’re the perfect choice for waste disposal. Also, these dustbins are good at preventing dirt accumulation and bacteria which ensures cleaner waste management.

Why Choose Allwin for Rotational Molding?

Allwin is a well-known brand in manufacturing and selling rotational molded products. We specialize in delivering high-quality molded products worldwide. From the selection of materials to designing, manufacturing, and ensuring proper safety instruction we tick marks every box. This makes us one of the most trusted and reliable manufacturers of rotational molded products. We provide quality rotational molding products like Plastic Pallets, Fish tubes, Ice boxes, Doff baskets, Milk Cans, Dustbins, Safbins & Pallet containers under one roof.

We also offer custom-designed containers for industrial applications or innovative consumer products. Plastic pallets Allwin is dedicated to providing the best quality products to their customers. With rotational molding capabilities, you can bring your vision to life.

At last, rotational molding is a very effective and versatile manufacturing process that helps manufacturers create a diverse range of high-quality plastic products. Understanding material helps you create a range of products. So, it’s very important to choose a reliable partner like Allwin that helps suppliers and vendors get high-quality rotomolded products. As the industry needs more durable, cost-effective, and easy-to-handle solutions the demand for rotomolded products will go high and Allwin is the best solution for that.

[gazrgaley]

Manifestation of a Monster(chapter 35)

As they strolled along, walking cane at hand. Milo continued to despise the passing automobiles. Once he wasn't in such excruciating agony, though, they didn't seem quite so terrifying. Despite not fully understanding the intricate details, their intended purpose was more obvious now. Yet another way humans found to make commuting much faster. However, he nevertheless kept a safe distance from them by walking as close as possible to the building's walls. Grendel, on the other hand, didn't appear to pay any attention to them. He crossed the street without looking many times and narrowly avoided being struck.

But all of that was background noise to what was really on his mind. He fished around in his pocket for the bottle of pills Richard had given him. Undoubtedly, they were useful. But this was odd in its own way. Kaw-Sekhmu were immune to the effects of anything a person might eat or drink. They could only take in nutrients that had already been eaten and absorbed into the bloodstream of another living creature, preferably a human. They didn't have a bloody flavour, but his recent consumption of blood had left him with an uneasy feeling. The aftertaste was reminiscent of crude oil, natural gas, salt, cellulose, and coal. But that may have been an effect of his illness.

They moved along in relative silence. Milo rambled on mindlessly in an effort to divert his attention. Asking, "Who was the woman on your phone?" He didn't give a damn but was hoping to divert his mind from the things he feared. Knowing Grendel, he assumed she wasn't anyone of importance.

When questioned, Grendel simply shrugged. "No one," he said, taking an increasing interest in the street signs.

There was something off about his answer. He often did have extensive conversations with his potential victims. Giving them one last taste of what he considered a good time before they perished. He would get them high on whatever popular mind-altering chemical was in fashion at the time before feeding on them.

But it seemed like a step too far to pose for a photo with his victims. Though technology has evolved, the etiquette of not being too forthright about your familiarity with the deceased remained the same. Although Grendel was a bit of a slob, he wasn't completely thoughtless. But Grendel did something unexpected when Milo voiced his concerns.

Grendel whirled around abruptly. "Milo, cars aren't that fucking terrifying. Get over it." They both stood in silence. It was uncommon for Grendel to be short with anyone, especially toward Milo. Grendel's jaw hung open for a second as if he couldn't believe the words were actually coming out of his mouth. A moment later he turned as if nothing happened. Pointing down the street. "Maybe two more blocks, south of here, I believe."

They went into the building and up the stairs without exchanging a word. A number and the physician's name were written on a little placard and hung on the door. "Are you sure this is the right place?" Grendel asked.

There was a brief moment when Milo looked in his direction. We were following your directions, this better be the place, he wanted to say. "That's what Richard called him." He murmured as he pushed open the door.

The two were welcomed by a dim interior as Milo tentatively knocked on the smoke-covered window. An instant later, a woman with a harsh expression pushed it open. Her blond hair was tied up in a careless bun. She looked at them both with suspicion, as if the pair of them were a pariah. Her skeletal index finger curved around the glass and pointed at the handwritten sign. "Every day, from noon to 1:00 p.m., our offices are closed for lunch." Her voice was harsh and empty as if she repeated this line over and over. "You can take a seat over there if you have an appointment." She indicated a nook with three seats and a magazine-covered table.

"I need to talk with Dr. Constantine, but I do not have an appointment." Milo started to say. "As soon as you finish lunch, that is. We can wait." He quickly added as he took in the woman's disapproval.

"You'll have to schedule a meeting." She hastily presented a card to him. Make an appointment by calling this number, and then coming back. Milo shuffled the business card in his palm and studied it curiously.

"Why can't he just see Milo now?" Grendel asked as he pushed passed Milo to confront the woman directly.

Milo was going to respond, to tell her he was willing to jump over their meaningless hurdles. He may have even been kind about it. When Dr. Constantine strolled by the window. With a quick glance, he halted what he was doing as his face drained of all colour. Nearly dropping his clipboard as he composed himself. Soon after, he joined the pair in the lobby.

"I'm very sorry, you don't need an appointment." He looked at the receptionist in a peculiar way. "These are associates of Richards. Assuming that either of these gentlemen enters for whatever reason. I need to know immediately." Suddenly, she turned her gaze to the two of them with interest. Giving them a simple nod and then cautiously sliding the window shut she disappeared.

"My sincerest apologies for this. For obvious reasons, we can't just let anyone in." He drifted off, refusing to look either in the eye. "Considering you are friends with Richard, you are welcome to come whenever you feel fit. For whatever reason. I feel like I can tru truuu truust you." He said with an unconvincing smile.

Milo and Grendel glanced at each other briefly. This certainly was a novel concept. Most of Richard's leverage came from being connected to the two of them. It was surely a strange feeling knowing he now had this power over both of them.

As Milo followed, Grendel was left behind with the magazines. "Why did you decide to come in today?" He asked as he led Milo into one of the back rooms. The room was dreary and reminiscent of the morgue where he had awakened. Perhaps stainless steel had become the standard. "Have your symptoms gotten worse?" He spoke his question with worry and apprehension mixed in.

Milo paused for a moment as he pulled the pills from his pocket. "No. In fact, I have been feeling much better because of these pills you gave me."

The physician looked at him with bewilderment. "What are these tablets, I've-" He examined the bottle more closely. "Who gave these to you?"

"Then it wasn't you, as Richard said, was it?" Milo Asked. Why would Richard want to tell a lie? At that moment he knew something wasn't right.

As he shook his head, the doctor expressed his disapproval. "Your lab results haven't even been run yet. I wouldn't count on them to arrive till tomorrow." He looked at the tag closely. "I wouldn't have prescribed anything to you yet."

"Should I stop taking them?"

"I guess this could work." Dr Constantine considered the tablets as he spoke. "The Netopuri are my primary clients. A great number of the younger ones used this as an alternative to feeding on humans. It uses synthetic blood created in a laboratory. As far as the Kaw-Sekhmu, I can only speak from what little limited experience I do have but I see no reason why this can't be effective for you as well."

This went against everything he knew to be true. To stay alive, he would need authentic human blood. He wanted to shout at the doctor. But the anger passed as fast as it came. It hadn't been the man's fault he knew little about the ones that were closes to the source, Such as himself.

For the Netopuri, this may be an ideal answer. But for the more ancient Kaw-Sekhum, this would have not benefited them. This would not be the answer he was looking for. Certainly not permanently. They may use it as a filler. His very survival and extended lifespan depended on draining the vitality and power of human beings.

But he was unable to tell the man any of this. There were numerous things he had kept secret from his people throughout the years. As an outsider, He would have to keep even more from him. Even if he were a medical professional, he couldn't chance it. There was a great deal more to lose than gain. He took the tablets begrudgingly but otherwise seemed unconcerned.

"Was there anything else?" Dr Constanine inquired as he shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. Milo could barely manage a head movement in response. "When the results of the blood test come back, I'll give you a call. You're good to keep consuming them." Pointing at the bottle. "In a few days, we can have a more in-depth discussion regarding our future steps."

Milo didn't think there was any way this doctor could be of any use. Moreover, he was confident that the Pills wouldn't help. When he returned to the lobby he was greated by Grendel interlocking the pages of all the magazines. And somehow finding comfort in his strange behaviour. At least he seemed like he wasn't suffering from whatever ailed Milo.

[fangirleaconmigo]

This is about Geralt needing to hear Jaskier say “I love you,” and figuring out how to ask for it.

------

Geralt believes Jaskier. He does.

He just needs to hear it again.

The question sits heavy on his tongue for a week. Every time he considers asking it, all the courage he needs to follow through on it deserts him. He senses that once he is vulnerable in plain sight, there will be no hiding again.

But one night, courage shows its face. They are crammed onto a mattress on a dusty floor. They have stripped off their clothing and are greedily helping themselves to each other’s bodies. The moment their skin is pressed together and their breath mingles, Geralt realizes that this is his moment.

It is the perfect opportunity to disguise the need of his heart. So he wraps it in a seductive demand. He pulls out of the hot clutch of Jaskier, eliciting a whimper and an urgent, “Please, Geralt, please.”

He presses their foreheads together, just as a bead of sweat rolls down his temple. He allows the heaving of their chests to subside. Then he rolls his hips, sliding back home, and he whispers.

“Jaskier. Do you love me?”

Jaskiers takes him so fucking deep, eyes widening as though he is seeing god. His lips fall open in concert with his thighs. Geralt tightens his grip on Jaskier’s cock and strokes him that much faster. Jaskier smells like a lavender sea and his desperation is growing thick. He teeters on the edge, then he comes. He squeezes down on Geralt, and his words gush, ushered on waves of lust.

“I l-- love y--ou Ger--alt.”

He is barely comprehensible because he is also releasing onto Geralt’s fist, painting him with hot stripes. His fingernails clutch wildly at Geralt’s shoulder blades, drawing thin red lines as he rides his climax.

Geralt watches, transfixed as Jaskier writhes beneath him, professing his love.

He stuffs every single syllable into his aching heart.

The words console him but do not sate him yet. He needs to hear it again. Just one more time, and then he will stop.

“Do you love me?” he asks again, sounding rough and shattered this time. His fingers slide down Jaskier’s temple and his thumb slips absently into his searching mouth. Jaskier curls his lips around it and sucks sweetly.

Geralt is so taken with him. And in the back of his mind, a small voice warns him that he is becoming too much. He is no longer hiding behind amorous banter. He is obvious in his need.

He pins Jaskier’s shoulders in place this time and silences the voice with another thrust. His pleasure crests, and even though his body seizes and he snarls as he comes, his eyes still linger on Jaskier’s face. He still listens for what he needs.

“I love you, Geralt. I love you.”

This time Jaskier is steady and emphatic. He cradles Geralt’s face in his hands and wraps his legs around Geralt’s waist. Defiance flickers in his eyes.

Geralt rides the vibrations of his peak, still watching the wide blue eyes glistening with tears. Then he slides onto the mattress, pulling Jaskier against his sticky chest. Jaskier throws a leg over him to hook them even closer. Geralt grasps his thigh, hitching it higher to burrow closer into him. He realizes that Jaskier is trembling.

“Fuck,” whispers Jaskier, “I can still feel you inside of me.”

These are his favorite moments, when Jaskier is overcome and shaking, leaking his spend. These are his favorite kisses, the ones that are lax and echo their pleasure. He presses his tongue between Jaskier’s parted lips and they kiss, unhurried and satisfied.

When they pull apart, Jaskier is playing with his hair. “Well?” He asks from behind half lidded eyes, wet lashes smashed against Geralt’s bicep where his head is at rest.

“Well, what?”

Jaskier kisses the tip of his nose. Geralt scrunches under the onslaught.

“Poor manners to ask, then not return it,” Jaskier says.

Jaskier already knows that Geralt is his, body and soul. But of course he says it.

“I love you, Jaskier,” he says.

Geralt’s eyes flutter closed as Jaskier kisses one eyelid, then the other. His face releases even the thought of tension.

“My precious, beautiful man,” says Jaskier. His voice bursts with love and admiration.

Geralt blinks fast to fight back the burning in his eyes. He pulls Jaskier tight against him to hide it.

These are the only moments he can find the courage to ask.

At first.

Soon he learns other ways.

A few days later, when he drops dinner at Jaskier’s feet, he waits with an eyebrow cocked and a smile playing on his lips.

Jaskier gasps and claps when he sees the fish. Lacking witcher vision, he cannot fish at night, so he has built the fire. He looks up at Geralt. When he notices that Geralt is waiting, his eyes twinkle knowingly. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”

“Hmmm,” says Geralt. He settles on his knees. He is halfway through gutting the first fish, when Jaskier steals a teasing glance.

“You must say it back, you know.” He nudges Geralt playfully with his elbow, since his hands are covered in fish.

“I love you, too,” Geralt mutters, smothering a smile. Then he looks up and winks at his love. Jaskier practically flutters in response, and Geralt feels very smug indeed.

Then, a few nights later, Jaskier is working and Geralt doesn’t have a contract. So Geralt goes up to their room ahead of him. He prepares a bath, laboring to craft every oil and scent just the way Jaskier likes it.

When Jaskier pulls off his clothes and sinks into the steaming water, he moans as though he were in the throes of passion. Geralt stands with his arms crossed, wearing a proud, waiting smile.

“Gods, I love you,” Jaskier says, just before he dips beneath the water to wet his head. He emerges again and opens one dripping eye to watch the effect his words have had on Geralt.

Geralt grins and his chest expands.

Those words used to feel like a gift that Jaskier had given him by accident. They used to feel like a favor stolen when destiny blinked, one that she would surely snatch back when she realized the deception.

But as he lowers into the tub, and Jaskier maneuvers between his thighs (he really seems to like it there), Geralt realizes that those words are starting to feel like something that can actually belong to him. Like they are his.

Jaskier settles back against his chest, water sloshing. Geralt hears him open his mouth to speak. But before he can make a sound, Geralt encircles him in his arms and squeezes him tight.

Then he whispers in his ear, “I love you too, Jaskier.” He kisses his soapy neck and then releases him.

“I know,” says Jaskier. He twists his body and steals a fragrant, damp kiss. “Sometimes I like to hear you say it, though.”

Geralt skims his hands under the water and grips Jaskier’s hips. He hums and closes his eyes. “I know,” he says. “And I’ll say it as many times as you like. You don’t have to be afraid to ask.”

[teawaffles]

Louis and the Aquaria: Chapter 3, Part 2

The next morning.

After yesterday’s incident, Moran was keen to know what Louis would do next — and so he headed to the hall with Fred, who presently had some time to spare. Perhaps it was because he’d been working late into the night, for Fred kept yawning as he rubbed his bleary eyes.

But the moment Moran pushed open the hall door, the startling sight before them banished all of Fred’s sleepiness in a flash.

“This is……”

“What the heck is this?” Moran exclaimed.

Dumbfounded, the two men stood where they were.

One corner of the hall—— had been turned into a dense jungle.

Numerous South American trees, planted in giant pots, were now surrounding the angelfish tank. At the same time, the two men were struck by the feeling that somehow, the room’s humidity had risen since yesterday.

Hearing Moran’s shout, Louis poked his head out from behind an ivy-wrapped tree.

“You’re being much too loud in the morning, Mr Moran. It’ll stress out the fish, so please refrain from shouting; but what on earth’s the matter?”

“That’s my line: what have you done here?!”

A flash of light gleamed off Louis’s spectacles.

“I was seeking a more conducive environment for my bro—…… no, the fish, so I have recreated a South American rainforest here. They were ordered a few days earlier, and arrived last night; I’ve just finished arranging them.”

Apparently, the luxurious water plants had just been the beginning for Louis. Even so, Moran had not expected this much progress in one night.

The situation raised so many questions that he had no idea where to begin. But for now, Moran refused to back down, and raised one of the problems at hand.

“First off, you were obviously going to say ‘my brothers’, but still: don’t talk about such grand feats as ‘recreating South America’ so lightly! No, I had a feeling about this. A normal person would reflect on what happened yesterday, and restrain themselves after that — but for you, you’re the type who ends up going amok instead. And yet, I didn’t think you’d do something as drastic as this!”

Moran had launched into a heated tirade, but Louis kept his cool as he replied.

“Thank you for taking the time to point out each and every one of those things. However, I believe I’m treating all of the fish equally; and in my view, it’s unfair to say that I’m favouring some of them just because some plants have been placed at specific areas.”

“What kinda nerve is that, to not even admit it after going this far…….. I mean, you are actually a little aware of it, aren’t you?”

“Also, it’s actually quite amazing that you’ve managed to remain calm all this while, Mr Louis……”

Even after weathering that torrent of questions, Louis was unmoved — and if anything, that had inspired a sense of awe within Fred.

“Well, it was us who said you were free to do as you liked. In any case, your love towards your brothers is certainly terrifying.”

To Moran, it seemed meaningless to continue arguing with the youngest son of the Moriartys, who stubbornly refused to acknowledge his biased rearing of the fish. He gave up trying to persuade Louis, and went on to watch the fish as he normally did.

“…………”

He tried to focus on the vibrant fish before him. And yet, Moran couldn’t help but notice the trees standing at the edge of his sight.

Tormented by that conflict, he finally succumbed to temptation. With sure steps, Moran made his way toward the vegetation, and Fred followed cautiously behind him.

“……Well, if they’re already here, we may as well enjoy them to the fullest.”

Mumbling to no one in particular, Moran walked up to the row of trees. Using one arm to push away the leaves in his path, he moved through the greenery; then, his gaze landed on an aquarium placed on a nearby table. Inside, were some animals with incredibly striking colourations.

“What’re these?”

“They’re indeed very colourful,” Fred remarked.

Within the tank were several tiny frogs. They were a deep blue, and mottled with red.

The two men were full of questions about the presence of these unfamiliar creatures. Nevertheless, out of sheer curiosity, they moved their faces near the tank and peered in.

Louis, who was feeding the other fish, called out to them in a loud voice.

“Please don’t open the tank lid: they may look beautiful, but they secrete a lethal poison so deadly that some indigenous tribes of South America use it to coat the tips of their blowdarts.”

In an instant, Moran and Fred leapt away from the tank. Due to their natural athleticism, the distance they’d retreated was further than that of the average person.

As it were, they had narrowly escaped the jaws of death. But even as the sudden appearance of these poisonous frogs gave them chills, Moran stilled his pounding heart, and shot Louis a look of anger.

“Why are such dangerous things here?! Even recreating a South American environment has its limits, doesn't it?!”

“My apologies. One of my motivations was indeed to recreate the fishes’ native habitat. But more than that, I wanted to prepare for a scenario where Stapleton expresses an interest in other creatures besides fish. Hence, I began rearing these frogs just in case.”

As he said that, Louis made his way beside the tank. Opening the lid just a crack, he tossed in some tiny insects: food for the frogs.

“…………”

Seeing his practiced hand, at this point, the other two men had nothing else to say. In this extraordinary space created within the mansion they lived in on a daily basis, their ability to process information had long since hit its limit.

After confirming that the frogs had eaten their fill, Louis proceeded on an efficient path around the room to check on the rest of the tanks.

Moran gazed into the distance.

“It sure is amazing, what people can do in such a short time……”

But excessive zeal, once taken in the wrong direction, can lead to outcomes no one would’ve expected.

Even as various points had deeply impressed upon them just how amazing Louis was, at the same time, Moran and Fred also grew conscious of a certain truth in life. Once again, they stepped through the row of trees.

The two men parted the curtain of leaves, some part of them nervously wondering if those dangerous frogs had escaped, and walked up to the aquarium they had in mind.

“Oh, there they are.”

Seeing that the tank itself hadn’t changed, Moran finally breathed a sense of relief, and went on to admire the three “Moriarty brothers” swimming within.

The one at the head of the group was ‘William’. Right behind him was ‘Albert’, then ‘Louis’. Within the jungle Louis had created, the three angelfish shone in a way that lived up to their angelic names.

However, in contrast to the joyful Moran, Fred’s expression was serious. He narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Don’t you think…… its movements are a bit awkward?”

“Ah?”

Moran stared at the focus of Fred’s attention. Immediately, he perceived a subtle change in that fish.

Although it seemed perfectly fine at first glance, if one were to observe all three of them carefully, it was clear that the one at the head of the group was swimming a little differently from the other two.

“Is there something wrong?”

Louis came over, sensing something was off. But even before Fred explained the situation, he noticed the abnormality with ‘William’.

He put his face close to the tank, observing the fish for a few moments; but gradually, his expression turned grave.

“Oi, Louis: what on earth’s going on? Could it be that he’s sick?” Moran asked.

Louis placed a hand under his chin, thought for a split second, then quickly made a decision.

“——First, let’s move it to a separate tank. There’s a smaller one near the hall entrance: Mr Moran, please bring it here. Fred: please read the measurements from the devices installed on this tank and report them.”

Hearing those instructions, the two men assumed their roles at once.

Meanwhile, Louis took a notepad from his breast pocket, and checked the emergency response measures he’d studied on his own. Though he had already memorised all of them, he wanted to avoid any potential for error.

Moran returned with a small tank.

“Oi, is this one alright?”

“Yes, thank you.”

First, Louis transferred some water from the angelfishes’ tank into the one Moran brought over, such that it was deep enough for one fish. Then, he set up some equipment to confirm the water temperature and quality once more, then added a bit of salt to the water.

Watching him, Moran cocked his head.

“Why’re you adding salt?”

“Saltwater is an effective treatment for diseases in fish. Though it certainly isn’t all-powerful.” [1]

Saying that, Louis used a net to gently scoop up ‘William’ and move it to the tank they’d prepared. Although there were drawbacks to isolating sick fish, his priority was to stop the disease from spreading, as well as limit any damage that could be caused by the other fish.

As he worked, Louis listened to the measurements Fred read out, but his puzzlement only deepened.

“The water quality and temperature are both normal. As far as I can see, there isn’t any obvious debris or dirt in the tank, and the equipment doesn’t seem to be malfunctioning. In that case, perhaps some foreign substance had entered its food, or maybe it got stressed from its surroundings……”

“Maybe it got bullied by the other fish?” Moran asked.

Louis immediately dismissed that idea. “From what I’ve observed, there were no such quarrels between them. In that case, another possibility I can think of is the change in its environment.”

He cast a sideways glance at the trees surrounding them. And Fred picked up the implication behind that casual gesture.

“By ‘stress’, do you mean these trees? But it’s not like they came into contact with the water, so they probably didn’t impact the water quality, at least not directly. Also, weren’t they only added a while ago? To affect the fish so rapidly……”

“We can’t dismiss that possibility. Perhaps the changes to the view outside the tank had caused some visual stress…… Well, regardless of the reason, the blame for its ill health rests with me: the one in charge of its care.”

“…………”

After isolating the fish, the three of them remained standing where they were.

They gazed at the sick angelfish, swimming alone in its tank, with a sense of misery and frustration growing within them.

Footnotes:

[1] There is some truth to this: Practical Fishkeeping UK

[jmnjmnjmn]

Your Noona | Requested Idol!JK x NonIdol/Noona!Reader | Fluffy Oneshot

Pairing: Idol!Jungkook x NonIdol/Noona!Reader

Sides: ChildhoodFriend!Taehyung, Friends!BTS

Keywords: noona, age gap, secret crush, f2l

Warnings: swearing

Word count: around 5,500

There is mention of a house warming party. In Korea it is somewhat traditional to bring over toilet paper and cleaning supplies when going to such gathering, so please don’t be surprised when YN talks about the stacks of tp in her apartment xd

Request

Inspo board

Masterlist

Noona

Noona is a word used by Korean males to address females older than them who they are close to (biological or not).

-

With her leather handbag full of gifts and trinkets from France weighing on her shoulder, YN pressed the elevator button. She waited in front of the heavy steel door, staring at the bright red light-up sign above it.

“10, 9, 8.” She counted in her head as the numbers went down signalling the coming of the elevator. “7, 6, 5.” She sighed, unable to brush off the tiredness caused by the jetlag. “4, 3, 2, 1.” The door slid open with a quiet bell sound. YN hesitated before pressing in the correct number. “Was it 6th or 7th?” She whispered to herself, cursing at her forgetfulness. She ended up pressing both numbers.

Looking into the mirrored back wall of the elevator she checked herself out, making sure there were no imperfections in her outfit, hair, or makeup. Her camel-coloured coat reached right to her knees, leaving just the right amount of leg out to look cute, but not feel too cold in the winter’s cold weather. She unbuttoned the outer garment to take a look at the light brown mini skirt and blazer combo she wore today. Paired with an ecru blouse, nude tights, and white leather sneakers she looked rather casual than smart.

A robotic female voice announced the elevator’s arrival on the sixth floor of the building. YN looked out the door, unsure if that was where her best friend had his studio. She stepped out onto the somewhat familiar corridor, looking around for anyone to ask for directions. She walked down the long hallway, white lights above her head, unmarked doors to either side of her, unrecognizable chatter behind most of them.

“Where are you Kim Taaehyung?” She muttered under her breath, simultaneously reaching into the pocket of her coat to fish out her cellphone. “Tae-hyung-ie.” She syllabized while typing in her best friend’s name into her contacts. She raised the device to her ear right after starting the call. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.” She whispered quickly, hoping she didn’t drive out here for no reason. The static beeping noise was abruptly broken and replaced with the familiar low voice of a boy she knew since kindergarten.

“YN noona?” Taehyung asked and his surprised tone echoed through both of YN’s ears. She looked around, taken aback by the weird stereo effect she was experiencing. She turned to look behind her and saw one of the doors she passed by opening.

“Taehyung-ie, are you at your studio?” She asked, skipping over any greetings.

“Y- yes, why?” He answered her with another question. He wasn’t expecting her call and had to excuse himself from dance practice to pick up.

“Taehyung-ie!” YN exclaimed, seeing him walk out from behind the opening door and onto the bland corridor.

“Noona?!” Taehyung yelled into the phone making her wince at the incredible volume of his voice. “Oh my god!” He discarded his phone into the back pocket of his jeans before running up to and engulfing her in a suffocating hug. “YN noona!”

“Ah, seriously?” YN gasped out the bits of air that he didn’t manage to squeeze out of her lungs with his strong embrace. “Let go of me.” She groaned, pushing him away playfully. He had the sweetest boxy smile on his face and her expression wasn’t too far off of his.

“When did you come back?” He ran his hand through his black hair. It was still slightly curly with remains of the perm he got a couple of weeks back.

“Last night, you crazy person.” She chuckled, punching his arm and he squirmed jokingly.

“Ah, noona.” He sighed, his eyes dreamy with all the happiness he was experiencing at this moment. Spontaneously he threw his arm around her shoulders, bringing her into a side hug. “I missed you.” YN felt her heart growing warmer with every second.

“I missed you too, Taehyung.” She admitted without hesitation earning a giggle from her friend.

“Why are you here?” He asked after a moment, realizing she should be thousands of kilometres away, working in her company’s European branch. “I mean- I thought you weren’t coming back until next Chuseok.” He corrected himself not to sound rude.

“Yeah, well I got bored of Paris.” She shrugged, unconvincingly since there was a mischievous grin plastered across her face.

“Bored? Of Paris? You?” He cocked his eyebrow at her, knowing she’s withholding some juicy piece of information from him.

“I just missed Korea too much to stay away for any longer.” She looked up at him with that same grin.

“Yeah, right.” He scoffed.

“And…” She elongated the word as she slipped from under his arm and stopped to stand face to face with him. “I got a promotion!” She finally exclaimed, grabbing his hands in hers.

“Congratulations!” He screamed out, matching her excited pitch.

“Thank you!” They jumped up and down, tugging on each other’s hands for a moment longer before Taehyung stopped to ask an obvious question.

“So who are you now?” YN smiled, happy to hear him ask about her new position.

“Say ‘hello’ to Y/Company’s/N’s youngest C.A.O..” She said in a jokingly seductive tone, smiling brightly. 

“What is that?” Taehyung scrunched his eyebrows in a frown. YN exhaled a chuckle at his lack of knowledge about company titles.

“God, it’s- it’s Chief Administrative Officer.” She explained but seeing his expression stay the same as it was she decided to go deeper into the description of the post. “It means I’m a top-tier executive who supervises daily operations of the company and I’m also responsible for its overall performance.”

“That’s good.” He nodded unsure if it was good.

“Hell yeah, it is!” YN laughed, wrapping her arm around his shoulders with some struggle since he was now taller than she was.

“Does that mean you’re moving back to Korea?” He looked at her with hope, but she didn’t notice as her gaze was directed forward.

“Yeah, at least for a couple of years.” Taehyung shoved her arm off of himself in shock.

“A couple of- that’s great, YN!” He pushed his chest against her face when he suddenly hugged her tightly. “I’m so happy for you!” He screamed, rocking them both side to side.

“Thank you!” She snaked her arms around his waist before pushing away. She was usually the one breaking hugs and ending sad goodbye’s because if it was up to Taehyung she would never leave his side. “I’m also so very happy, but still, a little bummed I had to leave my Parisian life behind.” She whined slightly, looking down onto her fumbling hands.

“Ah, but now you’ll start your Seoul life again.” Taehyung spoke in a tone of a visionary. He put his arm behind her back and used the other to drag over the imaginary horizon. “With me by your side, it won’t be that bad.” He added quickly.

“Won’t be bad at all.” She chuckled, putting an elbow to his side.

“That’s what I like to hear!” He laughed out. “So, when are you buying me dinner?” YN scoffed at his forwardness. Sometimes he just loved to take advantage of their month-long age gap.

“Who do you think-” She was getting ready to teasingly scold him, but interrupted her with a loud call.

“Jungkook-ie!” He exclaimed, looking to the door he earlier exited. “Look who’s here to buy us dinner.”

“You little- wait, that’s-”

YN barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping at the sight of the boy she last saw about a year ago - face to face at least. She saw all the boys of BTS all the time during her Skype calls with Taehyung, they’d often drop by to chat or whatnot, Jungkook included, but seeing him in real life… Was an experience, to say the least. He was fit, there was no way around it. Well dressed. With a handsome face and a good haircut. YN sighed as she was reminded of her small crush on the boy.

To add gasoline to the flame Jungkook had a similar experience seeing YN, standing under his hyung’s arm in the middle of the sixth floor’s corridor looking so… Breathtaking. Ever since he realized he had a crush on her he… He merely couldn’t find any other way to describe her. She changed so much in the passing years, evolved, grew into herself. He wasn’t expecting to see her and if she paid him enough mind she would notice how shocked and flustered he was. However, preoccupied with the excitement of seeing her best friend again and the time pressure of having to go meet her realtor in just a short while she didn’t. Jungkook inhaled sharply in an attempt to calm himself down and stop the racing of thoughts in his head.

“YN noona!” He exclaimed with excitement and shock lining his voice. “When did you-”

“Last night.” Taehyung interrupted him, dragging YN under his arm to walk closer to the other boy.

“And for how-”

“For good!” He interrupted him again and Jungkook’s eyes widened at the prospect of seeing YN more often because if she was going to stay in Seoul she was most definitely going to hang out with Taehyung and if she hung out with him he could tag along and stare at her all he wanted, admiring her beauty, getting lost in the sweet sound of her voice, the smell of her-

“Hey, that’s not decided.” YN replied, poking her best friend in the side and removing Jungkook out of his daydream.

“For a couple of years at least.” Taehyung explained by quoting her earlier words.

“That’s great.” He smiled at her as they stood right by each other now. “It’s so nice to see you again. You look healthy.” She smiled at his kindhearted comment, not paying it much mind while he cursed himself out in his head for not saying something more personal or meaningful.

“So, noona what are we eating?” Taehyung asked, rubbing her shoulder.

“Nothing, Taehyung!” She scolded him, instantly jumping from under his heavy arm. “I only came by to say ‘hello’ and give you…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a big paper bag. “This.” As soon as she showed them the packageTaehyung’s hands were already on it, discarding the bag and opening the box hidden inside.

“Yes!” He hummed, looking inside to see a bunch of miniature croissants with different toppings and fillings, ones YN always raved about and promised to bring over whenever she was going to visit.

“I hope you like them as much as I do.” She said smiling at the content in his eyes. As much as she hated having to pay for his meals when they ate together she also loved seeing him get excited over certain dishes and simply eat. “Just don’t eat them all in one sitting.” She cautioned him already imagining the stomach ache he would have to endure if he did that. “And leave some for your friends.” She added gesturing to Jungkook’s hungry stare.

“I won’t, noona.” He assured her quickly and closed the box.

“I have an apartment viewing in about…” She glanced at her wristwatch and noticing how late it was already she sighed slightly. “Ten minutes. I’ll buy you dinner next time.” Taehyung pouted sweetly at the sound of her words even though he knew there was no way for him to get out of the studio right now.

“You’ll have to invite us over to your new place, noona.” YN smiled warmly at Jungkook who finally spoke up again. He smiled brightly at her, showing his bunny-like teeth she adored.

“Ah, I work a lot.” She breathed out, imagining how would be hosting the entirety of BTS in a tiny studio apartment because there was no way she could afford anything more if she wanted to live close to her work in Gangnam-gu. At least not yet. “I don’t know if my schedule will allow me to do that.”

“Is that your excuse to get out of treating us?” Taehyung teased her, pulling on the sleeve of her woollen coat.

“How did you know?” She shot right back with a cheeky smirk that quickly turned into a loving smile. “Keep reminding me.” YN wrapped her arm around his back to pat it caringly. “Hopefully soon our plans will align and then I will buy both of you whatever you want.” Both boys smiled with hope glistening in their eyes at her promise.

-

“Coming!” Jungkook heard YN’s muffled voice right after he pressed on the bell. He swallowed loudly and within seconds she opened the door. Dressed in more of a laid back outfit than he was used to seeing her in - a simple t-shirt, a pair of high waisted beige pants and thinly rimmed silver glasses - she still managed to both knock the wind out of his chest and make him feel underdressed. “Hi! Oh-” Her happy expression faded into a slightly confused one. “I thought you would come over together.” She stepped to the side to let him walk past her and inside the apartment.

“Ah, didn’t Hyung tell you?” He asked, slipping his black boots off as she locked the door behind him. “He had to stay late for dance practice. He said to order without him.”

“No, Taehyung called me already.” Jungkook barely stopped himself from grinning. Taehyung’s last-minute call to YN was part of a much bigger plan. “I meant Jimin Oppa.” She clarified, leaving her keys in the lock. “I thought he would come with you.” Jungkook scrunched his eyebrows, hoping his acting skills were good enough to make his performance believable to her.

“I meant Jimin Hyung too.” He slipped off his jacket and she took it to place it on a hidden hanger in a closet behind her. “He’s still at the studio. I didn’t see Taehyunf-ie Hyung there.” He added.

“Oh. Weird. ” YN frowned in confusion. “None of them said anything in the group chat or anything. I mean Taehyung called me, but-”

“Ah, Jimin must have just forgotten.” He shrugged, playing it off. “You know how he is.”

“I guess.” She nodded before turning to face him. In the thin hallway of her apartment there couldn’t be more than forty centimetres of space between them - an amount that to Jungkook seemed like an unswimmable ocean at this moment.

“So it’s just the two of us until they decide they’ve had enough dancing for the night.” He smiled, feeling the blush creeping up onto his ears and slowly making its way onto his cheeks.

“If they decide that.” She giggled only making him feel warmer in the face.

“So, noona, will you show me around?” He asked in hopes of taking her piercing gaze off him so she didn’t notice his nervous state.

“Yes, of course.” She exclaimed, excited all of a sudden. “So where we are now is my tiny genkan.” She gestured to the small space they stood in - a lowered, tiled area, a little smaller than a square meter. “Here is my wall of closets.” She tapped on the white doors behind her, hiding tons of storage much needed in an apartment as small as this one. “Here is my tiny bathroom.” She walked to the door next to him, switching on the lights to reveal a modern bathroom - something hard to come by in buildings that weren’t newbuilds. “Please don’t mind the toilet paper stacks, I’ve had friends come over for a housewarming party last weekend.” She chuckled, pointing to the surprising amount of toilet paper stacked under the shower. From the bathroom she led him to the main space of the flat. “Here is my kitchen-living-dining-office-room combo.” The room wasn’t big, but it somehow still managed to fit a kitchenette, bar and coffee table, some shelves, and a decently sized couch. “In that nook over there is my bed, you can’t really call that a bedroom, but it’s fine and here- here is my favourite part of this whole place.” YN almost skipped to the large sliding door on the back wall of the apartment. She pulled on it and gestured for him to take a peek inside. “The sunroom!” She exclaimed happily. “It’s dark now, but believe me in the mornings it’s just breathtaking.” Jungkook smiled at the sound of the word.

“Yeah, I bet.” He murmured, glancing over the small rectangular space constructed of mostly windows where YN put up some plants and a tiny table with chairs.

“What do you think?” She asked leaning on the door frame, dangerously close to him.

Truth be told her apartment was everything he expected it to be. Small, but not cramped. Neatly decorated and clean, but not entirely perfect. It didn’t give off a vibe of being creepily overplanned as if taken out of an IKEA booklet. It felt warm and homey, but most importantly it smelled of her which he simply adored. 

“It’s nice.” He smiled, looking down at her. “Cozy. It suits you.” She batted her eyelashes, playing shy.

“Thanks.” She muttered before looking straight at him again. “You hungry already?”

“Starving.” Jungkook breathed out with a slight chuckle, letting the tension in his body loose.

“Let’s order then.” She chirped, reaching for her phone to scour the apps for something tasty.

-

Jungkook’s eyes widened, staying focused on YN’s throat while she downed almost the entirety of her glass. The two of them sat on the carpet-covered floor of her apartment, back resting against her sofa, soft music playing from a Bluetooth speaker in the background, boxes of chicken and fries on the coffee table.

“Drink slower or you’ll get in trouble.” He chuckled, licking his fingers clean from the chicken he just ate.

“This is my first beer.” She shot back, almost choking on the last sip of the fizzy beverage.

“You don’t want it to be the last.” He said in a jokingly warning tone earning an overdramatic eye roll from the girl. “Drinking fast makes you get drunk faster. It was scientifically proven that-”

“Ah, let me do what I want.” She interrupted him, laughing through her words. “If you weren’t Taehyung’s friend I would kick you out already.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He smirked, hoping for his words to ring true and with the way she smiled at him he was almost certain they would. “Something came to my mind on my way here.” YN leaned her head against her bent leg and hummed, signalizing for him to go on. “Knowing your future is the shittiest feeling of all.”

“Yeah?” She looked up at him curiously, resting her chin on her knee now to see him better. “What’s your shitty fortune then?” Jungkook sighed, letting his head fall back onto the soft cushions of the couch behind him.

“I’ll live my life the way I am expected to.” He murmured. “I’ll show up where I’m needed. I’ll sing when people want to hear it. Dance when they want to see it.” His words carried an unimaginable weight with them. A weight YN imagined would break any other man, but not him. “I’ll get married in my late thirties or early forties, because ‘what even is an idol that’s not single?’.” He chuckled sadly. “And after all that I’ll fade away and- what?” He stopped his reasoning as the sudden sound of her muffled scoff.

“You won’t fade away.” She shook her head and straightened up. Hearing Jungkook say all of that made her heart ache. “You’re too good for that.” She patted his shoulder firmly. “Too cool.”

“You think I’m cool?” He muttered out the question so quietly it got drowned out by YN’s next argument.

“Also you have to create your fate.” She said in a stern tone that Jungkook couldn’t possibly take seriously after hearing her call him cool. “I think I heard that in one of your guys’ songs.” 

“Am I cool to you?” He repeated himself.

“Don’t interrupt me.” She scolded him, taking advantage of their age gap. “You can change your life depending on what you do, Jungkook-ah.” She looked into his deep brown eyes and seeing an unfamiliar shine in the otherwise perfect irises she decided to add one more comment to her speech. “Just don’t do anything too reckless.” She rested her hand on his shoulder for a second. “I would hate to watch you getting hurt.”

Jungkook smiled at her, sincerely, with all his heart. Her words gave him hope and courage. He breathed in sharply, showing off his bunny-like teeth in a wide smile.

“All the girls I dated- ah, it sounds like I dated a lot of girls.” He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “All those girls, those moments…” He continued despite knowing she must be a little taken aback by the change in topics. The two of them never talked about their romantic lives with each other for which he was grateful because if he heard of even one boy that wasn’t him hitting on YN he was sure he’d implode. “I thought that was what love feels, but in reality, it might not have been love at all.” YN frowned sadly, her eyes still on his, getting lost in their beauty. “Not true love at least.”

“What even is true love?” She scoffed, breaking eye contact. If she was going to say what she thought of just seconds ago she couldn’t be looking at him. “I’ve never been in love.” She confessed without much hesitation now that she averted her gaze.

“Never?” She simply hummed out an agreement while looking at her feet on the fuzzy rug. “I have. Actually, I still am.” YN smiled, but her gaze remained down.

“Lucky you.” Jungkook traced her movements with caution, not wanting to say too much or too little. This moment was important and he wasn’t going to mess it up.

“Yeah. There might be some luck in my situation.” He was being vague and she easily read it in his voice that he wanted her to ask him more. As new as this situation was - since she never talked to Jungkook about this kind of stuff - it also felt almost natural.

“Are you together?” He stayed silent so she decided upon explaining her question further. “With the girl that you’re in love with.”

“Ah.” He exhaled weakly, leaning his head on the couch again, but keeping his eyes on her. “Not entirely.” YN looked at his blonde hair scattered on the grey cushioning of the sofa. Later her stare travelled to his forehead, his strong eyebrows and then his deep brown eyes that contrasted so perfectly with the lightness of his hair.

“How so?” The corner of his lips tugged upwards as she took the bait he was trying to give her.

“Well, we’re not dating-” His eyelids fell slightly as his gaze went to her lips and then opened back up as it came to her eyes again. “- but we are in the same room.” YN exhaled a slight chuckle and smiled at him sweetly.

“You are a lot smoother than the last time we talked.” She admitted, still hugging onto the leg she had up to her chest. She felt oddly comfortable with his corny confession, taking it as a weak joke of some sort.

“Smooth enough to get you to agree to go on a date with me?” He asked, staying in the same relaxed position. YN shook her head slightly, looking down once more, releasing it might have not been kidding.

“I’m your noona.” She muttered under her breath. Jungkook shifted from his previous spot and shuffled to sit closer to her. At this point YN was sure he wasn’t kidding though she kind of wished for him to be.

“By less than two years.” He said sternly, sitting right in front of her, scanning her face up and down while she didn’t dare to even glance at him.

“Still, it’s-”

“It’s what?” He interrupted her at which she lifted her face, making their eyes meet. The glimmer she noticed said it all.

“Inappropriate.” She seeped through gritted teeth. YN never thought the boy could see her as anything more than his senior, his noona, his bandmates childhood best friend who bought him dinner whenever she came over.

“Pft.” Jungkook scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Says who?” He asked, cocking his eyebrow.

“Everyone, Jungkook.” She declared and raised her finger at him right as he opened his mouth. “And don’t say ‘fuck everyone’!” He shook his head before coming up with a different comeback.

“So stop making excuses and face your feelings.” This time it was her that scoffed.

“Who says I have any feelings for you?” Jungkook felt his stomach turn. He considered getting rejected, but coming face to face with it he wasn’t prepared to take that blow.

“M- my gut.” He stuttered.

“Your gut?” She shot him a patronizing stare. Seeing that look in her eyes angered him and anger gave him a rush of courage he needed.

“Yes. Stop repeating my words.”

“Stop disrespecting your noona.”

“Stop taking advantage of our age gap.” YN sighed breaking the staring contest and brought her other leg up as if to shield herself from him. “If we were in Paris or Madrid or anywhere else you lived while you were working in Europe you wouldn’t think twice about it and you know it. If the roles were reversed and I was older it wouldn’t be a problem either.” He spoke from his heart and she knew he was right. “Why is it suddenly so important when you’re in Korea?” She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to stop herself from blowing up on the poor boy. He wasn’t the one to blame for the norms generally applicable in Korea when it came to dating.

“Because of societal rules.” She uttered out quietly. Feeling the pain in her voice made Jungkook want to be close to her, wrap his arms around her and whisper sweet nothings into her ear, but he didn’t want to cross any lines so he opted for just shifting closer to her. Close enough so the sides of his thighs touched her curled up legs.

“It’s two years.” He whispered, twirling a piece of her hair between his fingers. “Barely two years.”

“To you.” YN murmured, faced away from him.

“And to you?” Her shoulders rose and fell down abruptly as she sighed deeply.

“Stop it.”

“My mom is older than my dad.” He started slowly, now stroking her arm. “By two years too.”

“Is she?” He smiled at the hopeful change in her tone.

“Yeah.” He purred. “And to make it even less socially acceptable she was the one that hit on my dad, not the other way around.” YN chuckled, sending a shiver of excitement down his back.

“So that’s where you get your determination from.” Jungkook hummed in agreement.

“You bet.” YN straightened up, pushing his hand away. With great struggle, she managed to look him in the eyes again.

“Jungkook-ah, I-”

“YN Noona, I like you. A lot.” He interrupted her as soon as their stares met. “And your age was never a factor in me coming to those feelings.”

She stayed silent for a moment after he said that, keeping eye contact and after that short while Jungkook saw her legs drop down as she came into a kneel. Her soft palms made contact with the warmth of his cheeks bringing his lips to her own. His hands instantly travelled to her waist, guiding her to sit in his lap, her legs draped to the side. She teased him by biting on his lower lip lightly, asking for him to open his mouth to her and he did, allowing her tongue to dance alongside his as if they kissed like this a million times before.

“How am I going to tell Taehyung about this?” YN asked after breaking the kiss. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, his hands caressed the bare skin of her back under her t-shirt.

“He already knows.” Jungkook smiled against her lips as he leaned forward to plant a wet peck on them.

“What?” YN looked at him wide eyed and he smiled brighter. Her gaze fell down to the space between their chests as she felt a hint of pinkish lush blossom on her cheeks.

“Did you really think both him and Jimin had to bail last minute, leaving me and you all alone?” Jungkook grazed his nose over hers in an attempt to get her to look back at him again, but it didn’t work. “I told Hyung I was going to confess to you this morning.” Her eyelashes fluttered slowly and he was able to look into her shining eyes once again. “He came up with this plan and even cheered me on.”

“Really?” YN asked in disbelief, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting them upon his shoulders. He liked it, the weight of her body on him, it made him feel strong and needed. 

“Yeah, I told him that I liked you a long time ago.” He noticed the questioning raise of her eyebrows, but kept talking as if he didn’t. “Ever since then he’s been teasing me about it, but when I spoke to him this morning he was so serious.” Jungkook rolled his head back exhaling a small laugh at the memory of the conversation he had with Taehyung earlier in the day. The small movement exposed the skin of his neck to YN and her eyes naturally travelled to the surface she never before paid much attention to, but now wanted to shower with not only kisses. “He even gave me a speech about how I can’t ever be mean to you and ruin your guys’ friendship and that I should treat you right-”

“And will you?” She tugged on his shoulders lightly, but he was faster in his reaction. He straightened up and rested his forehead against hers.

“Are you kidding me? Of course.” He spoke in a low, calm voice. “So?”

“So what?” YN smiled, running her fingers through the hair on the back of his head - a motion he already grew to love.

“Are we like a thing now?” He grinned without hiding his excitement. Jungkook wanted them to be ‘a thing’, something, anything, as long as it was him and her.

“Take me out first and then I’ll make up my mind.” She joked, keeping the same smile on her lips. Jungkook leaned forward, pulling her hips closer as their mouth crashed in a quick yet passionate kiss.

“What are we waiting for then?” He smirked into the kiss. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” She asked, pushing his chest away so she could see him whole and make sure he wasn’t joking. 

“It’s still early.” He shrugged, bringing his hands to her upper back. “We can fit in a romantic walk by the river and I’ll treat you to a ridiculously expensive dessert after.” YN chuckled at his simple proposition. It seemed so heartfelt, so tempting. She let her hands travel mindlessly from his hair to his shoulders, then neck, jaw. She pulled him in to leave a sweet peck on his hungry lips.

“Lead the way.”

[wesimpforxiao]

Say My Name and I’ll Be There:  7.4

Author’s Note:  I believe I’ll be doing a LIVE pulling for Xiao tonight around 7:45 PST.  Join me if you want to see me cry from happiness or from not pulling him LOL.  The link is in one of my previous posts.  Before, during, or after this chapter, listen to this song to get a feel of what’s happening!  https://youtu.be/ifQ3JRS4gqc

.....................

The voices never truly left you alone after that.  You were practically becoming unhinged by the endless whispers that plagued your ears, and the quiet of night only seemed to egg them on further.  When you were blessed with their silence, you were plagued the physical pains of the karmic debt and your depression from joining the harbingers.  Childe was obviously growing more and more concerned with each passing day; you were beginning to freak him out.  The Tsaritsa and the other harbingers, however, found great amusement in your...condition.  It was a blessing in disguise; they were manipulating you much easier now that you were exhausted from the sleepless nights.

And it wasn't like you were constantly needing medical care, though you wished they would give you some heavy pain killers.  No; whatever damage your body was burdened with would be repaired by morning thanks to Xiao's blood.  The pain wasn't nearly as dramatic as the first wave, but it was a constant dull aching that ate away at your bones.  Slowly but surely, the pains grew over time.

Xiao made his presence known to you only twice more; he showed himself in the late evenings for brief periods of time to quell your aching heart and mind.  At least when he was able to be with you, the dreadful screams would disperse if only temporarily.  At least when he was with you, you were granted sleep.  Small waves of peace would reclaim you as Xiao watched over your sleeping figure.  

But once Liyue's festivities were underway, Xiao's visits became nonexistent and your mind was once again thrown into deeper chaos while he fought off more demons.  It was the busiest time of the year for both the inhabitants and the demonic presences of Liyue; it was Xiao's task to fend the latter off since the festivities attracted their attention and strengthened their presence.  He felt you slowly shattering, and it hurt him to know he couldn't be with you as often as he wanted to.

One day out of the blue, over a month after you joined the Fatui, Childe approached you with a grand smile across his face.  "Ojou-chan!  Why don't I show you around Snezhnaya?  It's much better than sitting in your room all day."

"...Aren't you always saying we could freeze to death?"  Your unamused expression failed to hinder Childe's enthusiasm.  "Why would I want to go outside?"  The bags under your eyes spoke volumes about your continuous sleepless nights.

"Come on, Mezzetin, it'll be good for you.  You could use the exercise."

"Are you implying something?" You're eyes narrowed dangerously, but Childe's grin only widened when your normal quips shone through your broken character.

"Well, if you ever feel the need to put me in my place, I'm more than willing to oblige to a fight," he watched your expression lighten for a moment before urging you.  "Come on, I'll show you around."

Sheer cold wasn't an issue for this winter wasteland like it was on Dragonspine, but it had to be at least five times colder here.  Childe made sure you were bundled up in a large furry coat before guiding you out of the castle and leading you to a town square that was surprisingly bustling with people despite the frigid temperatures.  Stalls lined the streets.  People gathered around to buy the freshest local food that included some incredibly large seafood varieties.  Others were in line to buy trinkets, house decor, and a variety of other items.

"...A farmer's market?"  Your cold breath of a remark caught Childe's attention, and he turned to you.

"Of course!  Go ahead and look around.  If there's anything you want, I'll buy it for you."

He's trying to cheer me up?  You examined Childe's earnest demeanor as he eyed the fish stall with stars in his eyes.  Can he just pick a side already?!  You rolled your eyes.  Still, might as well bankrupt him if he insists.  You broke away from him and continued down the rows of stalls for awhile, unaware that the harbinger had rejoined you.  

You were busy examining a few intriguing necklaces made of materials you haven't heard of when the whispers of the damned regained their voices.  You staggered a bit only to be steadied by Childe's hand on your shoulder.

Childe noted your glowing eyes.  "Happening again?"  His genuine concern made you relieved that he wasn't a complete monster like the other harbingers.  "If you need a break, there's a café over there that we can sit in."  Your strained nod prompted him to guide you with a hand at the back of your shoulders.

"Hm?"  A strange sound reached your ears, and this time it wasn't from inside your head.  Your feet came to a halt before the two of you reached the building, and you tilted your head towards the sound.  

It was a light and effortless tune that floated through the open air from yet another building.  The melody was slow to build, yet you hung onto its every note.  It took you a moment to realize that it calmed the demonic voices from screams to hushed murmurs.  You followed the path of the sounds until you found yourself in an extremely outdated music shop.

"Mezzetin?"  Childe attempted to regain your attention as he followed after you.  He caught onto the childlike wonder glistening in your teary eyes.  "Care to explain?"

"The pain..." a tear fell.  "It's subsiding."  You continued to stare at the harpist that played her tune at the back of the shop, eyes never leaving the fingers that plucked the strings. The voices were gone, and now you were only overwhelmed with a sense of peace.  

Childe watched you silently listen to the music for a long while.  An idea struck him.  "Have you ever played?"

"Huh?"  You snapped out of your daze and wiped the tears away.  "Um...Granny used to play a lot when I was little.  I know a couple tunes, but--"  Childe walked to the shop owner without letting you finish, pulling out a large sack of mora while he was at it. "H-hey! What're you doing?"

"If it brings you happiness, then I don't see the problem in buying it," Childe argued back after he had purchased the most expensive harp in the shop and left a considerate tip.  The two of you were walking back to the palace now.  He had ordered for his subordinates to take the instrument back with them.

"But I haven't played in years! And I said I only knew a few simple tunes--"

"--Then I will ensure you receive lessons."  He was not going to budge on this, and he made it obvious with his firm gaze.  "The rest of the harbingers made it clear that they do not care for your wellbeing, but I do.  Think of this as a gift and a type of therapy.  You've been down ever since Xiao left you--"

"I left him," you corrected.  And I so regret my decision.

"I'm just trying to prove that you aren't in a prison anymore.  If you want to see it as that, then by all means, continue to be depressed.  But something tells me you want to see Xiao again and find a way with him, no?"

"...Right."

"Then at the very least accept my apology gift to you."

"Huh? Apology?"  You gave him a questioning look, but he either didn't hear you or elected to ignore you.

......................................

Xiao was being as antisocial as ever, but it's not like he would ever turn down an invitation for tea from Rex Lapis himself.  Here he was, sitting just outside of Wangshu Inn with his master in the bright of day.  Aether probably put the archon up to the task considering how Xiao pushed him away what felt like ages ago, but the yaksha decided to give Zhongli the time of day only because of his deep respect for his savior.

"I've also brought more pain killers," Zhongli handed the yaksha a small jar of other-worldly medicines as he continued to fill him in on the upcoming Lantern Rite.  He had yet to bring you into the conversation, most likely to avoid irritating the throbbing wound in Xiao's chest.

"Mm."  Xiao gladly accepted the medication and set it aside.  This ensured yet another lull in their conversations.

"Will you go this year?"  Zhongli sipped at his tea.  "To the Lantern Rite?"

"My presence would only hinder the festival.  Besides, I'm not great with crowds."  The yaksha had yet to meet the archon's eyes, and kept his gaze firm on the teacup in front of him.  Truth be told, he would have gone this year...with you, since it was you who had asked him.  But now that these circumstances have come to pass, why should he go?  "It's just another excuse for humans to discard their trash into the ocean."  Why should he go when it would only remind him of his failure to keep you at his side?

Zhongli narrowed his eyes as he pondered whether words of comfort would aid his yaksha.  "It would be good for you to experience something new after all your years of living."

"I already have," Xiao clenched his jaw, signaling that the topic was beginning to walk on thin ice.  "She--"

"--Is not dead," Zhongli reminded. "Do not mourn for a loss that has not occurred."

"But she's dying," he argued back, finally releasing the emotions he's pent up ever since they left you.  Zhongli's look of confusion prompted him to continue.  "She can feel the karmic debt bestowed upon me."

"When did this begin?"  The archon's usual reserved composure faltered slightly while his eyes widened.  

"A month ago.  I visited her; she can hear the voices of the damned.  She's been in physical and mental pain ever since."

"The bond..." Zhongli set his teacup down a bit abruptly as he thought to himself.  "It appears these side effects grow stronger in the other's absence.  How intriguing..."

"How do we discard them?  Is there a way?"

"Have you not interpreted my words in Qingce Village all along?  Or my words at the Dawn Winery?  I've already given you the means to act, Xiao."

--Can feel your emotions...emotions cannot be permanently ignored...fall on deaf ears...early grave...  Xiao scoffed and downed the rest of his tea before forcefully setting the cup back down onto the table.  "You think admitting my alleged feelings for a mortal human would solve the problem?"

"She's done her part, now it is your turn," he straightened.  "If you fail to do so, I fear she will perish from your karmic debt in no time at all.  If what you say is true, it's a miracle she's still alive.  Your admittance would seal the bond, as it would eliminate the side effects altogether."

Xiao's head whipped in the direction of the playing of an instrument note, but was only greeted with the joyful screams of children running around nearby.  "Tch.  How annoying," he played his mishearing off and returned to his normal sitting position.  Another sound reached his ears, but he neglected to react to it.  The notes are off.

Zhongli didn't question Xiao's sudden alertness, but that didn't take away from the fact that yet another side effect has revealed itself to the archon.  It appeared as though the yaksha was already aware of this side effect.

And man, did this one annoy Xiao the most.  He heard the most random of tunes and chords at the most random of times.  It would even jolt him awake when he managed to fall asleep on rare nights.  It wasn't all unpleasant though; there were times in which the melody struck all the right notes and the result was a beautiful thirty second song before it was gloriously ruined by the musician's hesitance or embarrassment.

He knew it was you.  Your constant need to practice was as pestering as your old daily prayers before he revealed to you that he could hear them.  At least he only sometimes heard the plucking of strings.  As pesky and invasive as it was, your insistence upon playing what Xiao only assumed was a lyre somehow brought a bit of joy to his heart.  It meant that you were doing better than the last time he saw you.

He just wished he could hear the end result and not your sloppy practice sessions.

........................

Only on the eve of the Lantern Rite, several days before the celebration, did he come to appreciate the hours of hard work you were putting into practicing the music.

You had locked yourself in your room again after watching the failed experiments Dottore had forced you to witness.  How many did you see die today? Fifty?  He clearly needed to adjust the ratio of your blood to whatever else he had in that serum he developed.  What was worse was that you were beginning to become desensitized to the loss of human life; amused by it, even. Just as the Tsaritsa wanted. Sometime into the fortieth treatment, your pains grew stronger as did the voices of the slain daemons.

You retreated to your room, relieved that Childe had for once allowed you to be without his presence.  You sat yourself next to the window and allowed for the evening light to illuminate the music sheets the harbinger had bought for you.  Your fingers grazed lightly over the strings as the voices continued to grow louder, absently plucking one of them to ensure that you still had full control over your slightly twitching limbs.  You had nearly snapped the strings last time the voices overwhelmed you--

There's no time nor need to reminisce those incidents.  You pulled yourself out of your thoughts and began to play, the smooth vibrations of the harp humming against your chest and shoulder as the strings were struck.  Unlike your practice sessions, your hands glided over the strings from one position to the next like you had played for a thousand years.  No hesitation could be felt from the chords.  Finally, it seemed as though you mastered this song.

Xiao.  I miss you...your warmth...your embrace... Your infested thoughts soon cleared as your mind drifted to an image of him.  I wonder if he too finds comfort in music when the voices overwhelm him?  For you knew that when the voices grew louder, he too, was subject to them.  The music overcame the screaming daemons, and you were relieved with a sense of peace.  Your fingers continued to play through the music and repeated the song for as many times as you felt fit.  Your aching limbs continued to throb, but you didn't let that stop you from playing.  Your mind now clear as water, you poured your longing for Xiao into your music. You hummed the melody as you played.

One day you'll find your way back to him, or him to you.  Was it okay to allow yourself to believe in the possibility that he held the same feelings for you?  Did he love you? No--Could he?  It was already naïve enough to think he was capable of harboring such intimate feelings after living through hell for over two thousand years.  And even if he did, it's not like you'd live as long as he has.  Would he push me away again?  You shoved that thought out of your mind with another series of chords.

You wouldn't be able to put an end to your feelings no matter what he did.  He was too admirable, too strong, too strict, too beautiful.  He was too kind, even if he put up a front.  You loved him too much; perhaps that would end in your own downfall just as Childe predicted and beat into your head every day, but that was alright with you.  If the voices were to eat away at you until all that remained were ashes, you were okay with being true to yourself until the very end.  Even if he never thought of you as something more than a companion.  And as you thought of him, the longing to be reunited swelled within your chest and overflowed into your fingers.

Your song was your unspoken prayer, your love and dedication were your offerings.

[gumnut-logic]

Callisto (Part Eleven - Them)

Prologue 1. Incident - Bit 1 | Bit 2 2. Fallout - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 3. Voyage - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 4. Arrival - Bit 1 | Bit 2 5. Orientation 6. Rescue Site 7. Investigation 8. Recovery 9. Retreat 10. Capture 11. Them

Some reveal in this one, lots of worry and some discovery. John is not a happy boy.

As always, many thanks to @scribbles97​​ @janetm74​​ @vegetacide​​ and @tsarinatorment​​ for all their amazing support. you guys rock ::hugs you to bits::

Tonight is a bit of a posting night. I will be posting the last chapter of The Cane shortly as soon as I finish proofing it :D Yay, for finishing things :D Callisto is currently at 45,000 words.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one.

-o-o-o-

Alan was out of his pod, screaming Scott’s name, but his brother was gone. The water as still as before.

“Alan! Status!” John’s voice was as panicked as Alan had ever heard it.

“Scott’s gone.” He dashed over to Virgil. His big brother was crumpled in a heap. In the low gravity, Scott’s shove had been enough to throw him up against the rock wall. “John, I need you.”

“FAB.”

Virgil was unconscious.

Again.

A quick scan and his vitals were good. There would be bruising ...as if his brother needed more. But there was nothing broken, thank god.

A scan of the still unconscious director proved her to be stable as well.

He shifted Virgil into a safer recovery position.

“Eos, can we scan the lake?” He eyed where his big brother had vanished.

“No. I can get no data beyond approximately ten metres below the surface. It is very frustrating.”

Alan continued to stare at the surface and its glass stillness. “Can you locate Scott?”

“John has already pinpointed the Commander. He has joined the other life form below the lake’s surface. There is no comms response from the Commander.” The AI managed to sound both worried and frustrated.

“Are there any other life signs in the area?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a pause. “There is no life as defined by the search parameters programmed into Thunderbird Five’s sensors on the moon beyond what has already been accounted for by International Rescue and Callisto Base personnel. Did you wish me to change those parameters?”

Alan swallowed as the third dragonfly buzzed into the cave. “ I think we’re going to have to. There is something down here.”

-o-o-o-

“We can’t leave him!”

“We’re not leaving him, Alan. We need to get the director and Virgil back to base.”

“But Scott-“

“He’s alive. We will do everything we can, but first we need medical attention for Virgil and the Director and to gather more information to better understand what we are dealing with.”

Virgil groaned and dragged a hand to his face. There was an oxygen mask in all its cold and moist glory and he shoved it off.

The elastic caught in his hair.

“Virgil!”

The pounding in his head was so loud, he could barely hear above it. There were hurried footsteps and someone ...Alan, it had to be Alan...touched his arm.

“Virgil, are you with us?” John’s melodious voice appeared on his other side and echoed through his aching head.

“You gonna open your eyes for us?” Alan sounded worried.

Open his eyes? Oh, yeah. A flicker and suddenly his retinas were assailed by the red of Three’s tiny infirmary.

A sigh. What the hell had happened now?

God, his head hurt.

“Alan, get us back to Base.” John’s voice was calm and quiet but had that tone of command.

There was quiet for a moment as the infirmary walls faded in and out of focus, roiling Virgil’s stomach.

A sigh and his little brother acknowledged John with an exhaled FAB before leaving Virgil’s bedside with soft footfalls.

Hands strapped him into the bed, fingers brushing gently across the surface of his uniform before landing ever so softly on his temple. “Rest, Virgil.” His hair was brushed off his forehead, the fine grip on John’s glove catching strands. “You’re safe.”

Virgil let out a sigh and closed his eyes, willing his head to stop pounding.

Perhaps it was a sign of the severity of whatever had happened to him, that he didn’t realise there was a voice and a touch missing until he was caught in the spiral of pain-induced exhaustion.

The question of a missing big brother followed him into an uneasy sleep.

-o-o-o-

Berry for his eldest son.

It was an exchange Jeff wasn’t sure he was willing to make.

But the thought was arrested before he could consider it further, knowing that Scott would admonish him for even thinking it.

But in the depths of his soul, the father in him was screaming.

Berry was off loaded from Three and onto the gantry, quickly followed by an equally prone Virgil. His engineer son was only asleep according to John, but with Scott missing, Jeff found himself clinging to his second eldest regardless.

The automatic cams on the Dragonflies had picked up what had happened. It was blatantly obvious there was something with purpose at work, something not human, possibly sentient.

The word ‘aliens’ bounced back and forth in his head.

Virgil was returned to the spot in the infirmary he had left barely an hour ago. Gordon sitting on the bed Jeff had restricted him to, stared at his co-pilot with worried eyes. Alan, equally as worried, sat down beside his fish brother and Gords wrapped his good arm around him.

Virgil was ever so quiet.

Berry was surrounded by the Base doctors, a curtain pulled around her bed, hiding her from the rest of them.

Jeff had the urge to shove it all aside and demand answers.

John had an IR medscanner out and was scanning his brother again. He spoke up without Jeff having to ask. “He’s sleeping.” It was a repetition of the earlier diagnosis, but it was welcome anyway.

A frown and the astronaut narrowed the scanner’s beam, prodding its controls and bringing it closer to Virgil’s head.

“What is it?”

John’s voice was calm, but distracted. “Director Berrenger has some ear damage. Virgil...” Another prod of the device. “Damn.”

“What?” Jeff took a step closer.

But John stopped scanning his brother, adjusted the controls and then ran the medscanner over his own head. Frowning at the readings, he activated his wrist ‘projector and swiped the results to that display.

The two scans bobbed up side by side, close up details of Virgil and John’s auditory systems.

“Virgil has had a headache since he arrived. We thought it was related to the T-Drive. But it appears that he has been subjected to some kind ear injury.”

Gordon spoke up. “He got dizzy.”

John frowned and poked at the hologram, spinning it. The frown deepened a moment before the astronaut suddenly darted around the bed and aimed the scanner at Gordon’s head.

“What? What the hell are you doing?”

“Hold still.”

A flicker of yellow and John obviously got what he was looking for. A breath and he aimed the scanner at Alan’s head as well.

His sigh was a frustrated one. “We are all exhibiting signs of ear irritation, but Virgil’s is by far the worst. Dad?”

Jeff blinked as John waved the device over his head. His son’s glare at the scanner was almost enough to incinerate it.

John slapped his comms. ��Eos, land the probe closest to the Crystal Cavern. I need physical contact with the rock. Activate mic input, scan the spectrum.”

“FAB.”

It took a few moments and Jeff found himself absently stroking Virgil’s hair.

“Contact made. Scanning...oh, my!”

“Let me hear it.” John was wired ever so tight, eyes on fire.

“Input is being received at a very high volume, but at a very high frequency far above the human ability to hear. Translating.”

The sound that emitted from John’s comms was a very loud discordant screeching. Everyone in the room clapped their hands to their ears. A nurse attending to Berry shoved aside a curtain and shouted at them, as John yelled at Eos to stop.

“What the hell is that?!” Gordon, as always, voiced what everyone was thinking.

John was already bouncing program variables over his wrist. “That is what we need to find out.”

-o-o-o-

It turned out it was the moon itself.

Jeff sat with Virgil as his son slept, unable to relax himself. Alan intermittently gnashed his teeth fretting out loud what all of them were thinking. Scott was missing and it tore at all of them.

Virgil slept on.

John could only be described as frantic. The space monitor swore a blue streak that had Jeff snapping at him at one point. The man’s response was throw up a hologram on his tablet that mapped out the sounds being emitted by Callisto.

It was like a nest of spiderweb laced around and through the rock of the Jovian satellite. Pockets of density existed in places along with patches of less. John reached up and poked a spot that was slightly different from the rest, but still drenched in lines.

“This is Callisto Base.”

“And what is that?” Jeff pointed at the fine lines darting all over the moon.

John sighed. “My guess is that we are looking at a communications network.”

Jeff’s eyes widened. “Who is communicating?”

“Unknown. There are no unaccounted life forms on this moon. Not life as we know it.”

“What about life as we don’t know it?”

“We’re working on it.”

Next question. “How did we miss it?” The moon was literally shouting loud enough to injure.

John deflated on the spot, obviously considering the lapse a failure on his part. “Sound requires matter to travel through. Thunderbird Five is not equipped to detect it unless we have something in contact with the atmosphere or a mic in play.”

“We have mics in our comms.” But Jeff knew the answer before his son supplied it.

“The frequencies are beyond usual pick up range. Far too high.”

“What about Virgil?”

John wilted. “I don’t know, Dad. Why is he affected more than the rest of us? Hell, why aren’t the colonists showing symptoms?”

Jeff frowned at that. “Why aren’t they? They’ve been here for years.”

“I can’t see how they could not be affected. We’ve only been here a short time and we are showing the effects.”

Something cold curdled in Jeff’s gut. A sudden suspicion roiled to the surface. “Leave that one to me.” He threw himself to his feet.

“Dad?” Aquamarine frowned at him.

“I’ll get some answers.”

-o-o-o-

His head was hammering both in dream and, as he rose to consciousness, in reality. “Oh god.” Virgil rolled over clutching his head and curled into a ball.

“Virgil?”

Alan? He clenched his eyes shut, hands gripping his hair.

“Virgil?” The softer more melodious voice of his older space brother. “Hold on.”

There were words not directed at him and Virgil must have faded out again because next he knew he was flat on his back and the pain had been reduced to a pale echo of itself, replaced with a light fog.

Someone was holding his hand.

“Scott?” It came out hoarse and barely there.

“Virgil, you with us?”

Alan. It was Alan. His little brother.

Rocket boy.

God, his head was sluggish.

“Alan? Where’s Scott?” He forced his eyes open and blinked against the light. Another groan and he moved on the bed, his body aching and stiff as if he had been in the same position for an eon. “What happened?”

Another slow blink and his memory landed in Crystal Cave and rescuing Director Berrenger, and then…pain and nothing.

“Ummm…Scott’s not here. Lemme get John.” There was the sound of an active comm and Alan calling for his big brother.

Huh?

“Where’s Gordon?”

“Asleep.” Alan pointed at the blue curtain beside them. “Dad had a go at him for not resting. Threatened to send him up to Five if he didn’t try to sleep.”

Oh, just fantastic. “What about you? Have you slept?” How long had Virgil been down for the count?

“I’m good. Been helping John detect aliens.”

“Aliens? What aliens?” Frowning shouldn’t hurt like this.

“Virgil, you’re awake.” John’s melodious voice was a welcome balm despite the fact it was stating the obvious.

“John.” Virgil tried to sit up, but a gentle hand halted him. A pair of aquamarine eyes telling him more than any words. “What happened? Where’s Scott?” Scott should be here. He was always here.

John sat down beside Virgil’s bed deliberately and quietly.

Oh god. “What happened?” Virgil pushed himself into a seated position despite his brother, determined to face whatever had happened…not lying down.

“Scott is okay, as far as we can tell.”

“As far as you can tell?”

John’s lips thinned and his eyes screamed apology before he activated his wrist comm and showed Virgil footage from the dragonfly cam that caught exactly what happened.

Virgil stared as his brother sacrificed himself to save him.

The expletive that fell from his lips was sharp and vulgar.

He pushed the fog in his head to one side and forced himself to focus. “I need details.” He shoved the covers off his legs.

A blink.

“And clothes.”

-o-o-o-

Jeff stared the Commander of Callisto Base down, every ounce of his height, every piece of history they held together. “What haven’t you told us?”

“Have you located Ju yet?” The shorter man set his shoulders and glared up at Jeff.

“We have discovered that there is likely another form of life on this moon. Were you aware of this?”

Graeme blinked. “Life? What?”

“My eldest son was captured by the same mechanism that likely caught your wife. My second eldest has taken ill with the effects of strong ultra-frequency sound. These sounds appear to envelope this moon. Are you trying to tell me, that with all your scientific staff and equipment, supplied by Tracy Industries, no less, you have yet to encounter this problem after inhabiting this base for over five years?” Jeff inched closer. “Think before you answer.” The threat was clear.

Graeme swallowed. “There was Jeremiah, but we thought that was an isolated case.”

“Jeremiah?”

“One of our geologists. Took ill, nausea, headaches, nothing we did helped. Are you telling me he died of exposure to sound?”

Jeff’s eyes narrowed as his heart lurched. “He died?”

Graeme’s eyes grew frantic as the dots connected. “Stroke. The doctors said it was stroke. I was going to ask you to take his body home to his family when you left.”

Jeff’s lips thinned ever so much more. “Anyone else?”

“Uh.” The man was obviously floundering and cursing himself at the same time. “There have been instances of nausea, dizziness and headache, but nothing as bad as Jeremiah. We put it down to long term low gravity and the environment. We are living on the edge of human experience out here. You know what that is like.” He stared up at Jeff. “What kind of life? Have you seen it?” A swallow. “What about Ju?”

What about, Scott? “We’re working on it. We hope to have more information once Berry wakes up.” They needed so many answers.

-o-o-o-

John glared at Virgil, but his idiot brother was as determined as any of them would be in the same situation. John dreaded what would happen when their father returned.

There was going to be hell to pay.

Virgil was given his uniform and Alan was scooted out of the closed curtained area. John refused to move and earned a glare for his efforts, but there was no way he was leaving Virgil on his own in this state, stupid determination or not.

Dad was going to kill all of them.

The rainbow of bruises across Virgil’s back as he threw off the hospital gown their father had so painstakingly helped the nurses dress him in hours earlier only served to impress on John the fact that this was ever so wrong.

“Virgil, please give yourself more time.”

“Scott doesn’t have time.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s been kidnapped by goddamned aliens, John. I’ve seen enough sci-fi flicks to know where that leads.”

“I don’t think we need a Ripley in this case, Virgil.”

His brother yanked spacesuit onto his legs. “How do you know that? You haven’t even located the bugs yet.”

“I doubt they are bugs, Virgil.” With a sigh, he reached in and helped his brother pull his spacesuit up over his shoulders, not missing any of the multiple winces at the action. “In fact, I think they might be the crystals.”

Virgil turned to look at him. “The quartz?”

“Yes.”

“How? It reads as silicon dioxide.”

“I know. Thunderbird Five is not the USS Enterprise. We’re doing our best here.” John lowered Virgil’s red and green baldric over his shoulders, ever so gently letting it rest on what he knew were bruises.

This was madness. “You should stay in bed. You’ve been affected more than any of us. Long term exposure to ultrasound can be life threatening. Please, Virgil.”

His brother turned around, ever the rescue operative, the uniform wearing him rather than the other way around. “And what about Scott?”

“Let me, Virgil, please. We have Dad and Lee. You need rest.”

Dark eyes met his. “With Scott down, I’m in command. It is my duty to lead.”

“Virgil, this is not a military organisation and you are not a soldier.”

“No, I’m a Tracy.” With that, he threw aside the curtain and strode out.

John sighed. First Dad, and then Scott, when they found him.

Yes, there was going to be hell to pay.

-o-o-o-

The woman on the bed was an echo of the team mate he used to know. So much time had passed between them and, as it was always with time, it took as it left.

Berry’s hair was fading to white. Her skin had been kept relatively young by the lack of sun in her life. After all, it was a six to nine hundred odd million further kilometres away out here. But there was a frailness, nonetheless.

She seemed so small against the white of the pillow and bedsheets. Lacking the vivacity he knew she possessed.

“Kate?” He swallowed. She couldn’t hear him. Two broken ear drums would do that. He reached out a hand and gently nudged her shoulder.

He was relieved to see those familiar green eyes open and look up at him.

“Hey.” His voice broke just a little.

“Jeff?” Those eyes widened. And suddenly, before he could react, he was wrapped in eager arms holding him ever so tight. “Oh, Jeff. You came.”

“Could I do anything else?” But her arms were still around him. She couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t hear his words.

He found himself hugging her ever so tight back.

But he had to break it off. He needed information.

A gentle nudge and she relaxed back onto the bed, frowning up at him in worry.

Grabbing a tablet, he typed in the question and held it up for her to see. What happened?

“They caught us. The water kept us trapped. Couldn’t get out. Nga and Steve and then Chrisoula. They killed them. Trying to do something.” Her breathing elevated and for a moment there, Jeff feared he had lost her to whatever she was remembering.

He shook her shoulder gently, bringing her eyes back to him. Fingers on the tablet. Sound. They use sound.

She nodded and then closed her eyes as if in pain, a hand going to her head.

He squeezed her shoulder again. “Take it easy.”

A blink and he realised she knew he had said something but not what. He hastily tapped the words into the tablet.

She sighed as she read them, melting a little into the bed. “Where’s Ju?”

I was hoping you would be able to help us with that.

Realising what he meant, her lips thinned and her shoulders straightened a little on the bed.

“She’s still out there?”

He nodded.

“Damn.”

There’s a possibility your release was either an attempt at communication or a ruse to trap one of our operatives.

“Operatives?”

International Rescue.

“Your sons are here? To rescue us?”

That’s the plan.

She blinked a lot at that, moisture in her eyes, her lips twisting a little. “Thank you, Jeff.”

It’s what they do.

They. His own words struck home as he looked at the tablet.

A hand scratched gently at his arm, drawing his attention back to Berry.

“They kept us in a room made of water. The walls were continually moving, like a waterfall that never stopped. But with our lights we could see through it.” She blinked, eyes again focussing away from him, seeing something he couldn’t. “In the room, the floor was bare rock except for one of those crystal formations. Just one. But in the water outside, there was crystal everywhere.” She looked at him. “It’s the crystals, you know? They’re alive.”

-o-o-o-

TBC

[starkidpotty]

In Cahoots [HJP]

Request: hey omg your writing is so good! can I request Harry and reader being friends and having detention with umbridge together and then walking back together to the common room late at night and taking care of each other and then they admit their feelings for each other? Have a wonderful day! 💕💕 - anon

You never mean to say or do most things, but this time it works out for the better.

Pairing: Harry Potter x Reader

Word Count: ~2.2k

Warnings: mentions of blood, scars, and wounds

A/N: I deviated from them being friends ;( i love awkward teen interactions too much. i hope u enjoy it regardless! <3 

Punishments for misbehavior at Hogwarts were never bloody. Scary, perhaps, but never bloody. Umbridge made it clear she did not care much for this unwritten rule, and had a taste for a more medieval way of disciplining the students. Harry was the first person to incur damage from Dolores’ sadistic black quill, until you found yourself in detention with him. Your reason for detention was stupid (Umbridge’s rules were stupid) as you were found by the Inquistorial squad with a dungbomb you had no intention of using in your pocket. Meanwhile, Harry was serving day three out of his 2 week detention with Umbridge. You mournfully hated that this was the most interaction you and him have had outside of the DA meetings.

Both of you were tasked to repeatedly write I must not break rules until it was scabbed and bleeding onto your hands. You were sat next to Harry, on your 28th or 29th repetition of the line–you lost count, as the pain started to amplify the more you wrote. Umbridge was looking quite pleased with herself, as she paced back and forth while watching the both of you with a nefarious grin plastered onto her ugly face. Tears had started to pool in your eyes making them appear like watercolor-painted puddles. You were trying your hardest to suck them back into your tear ducts to no avail. Tear by slow tear began to crawl its way down your face and onto the empty parchment as you wrote with your quill. The effect of the quill for some odd reason was extreme on your hand. You were bleeding more profusely than your contemporaries, you noticed.

Umbridge finally relinquished the both of you from the painful task and you immediately took hold of your book bag, haphazardly dropping the black quill onto the floor, and flounced to the exit, beating Harry to it.

Your lips were pressed together in a fine line, trying to stifle in a cry until you rounded a corner and sat on the nearest bench. In a desperate attempt to get the bleeding to stop, you carelessly unknotted your Gryffindor tie and tied it over the wounds. You sat for a few seconds, pressing firmly on the wound to get it to stop bleeding. Your tears were now free flowing at this point.

Harry spots you from his peripherals, as he exits detention. Harry walks over to you to comfort you, as he knows how terrible the wounds are the first time around. You, on the other hand, were so fixated on the wound, that as you stood up to go to the girl’s lavatory, the top of your head made contact with Harry’s jaw. 

Harry takes a few steps back, surprised by the sudden contact between your scalp and his chin. And, you are now nursing two boo-boos instead of the one. Harry composes himself quickly and takes steps toward, while still clutching his jaw. You are holding your head and while your hand bleeds freely over the floor, even with the tie wrapped around it.

“You’re, uh, bleeding,” He stammers as his eyes follow the drops of blood. He swoops to take your hand and unravel the red-stained, makeshift Gryffindor tie bandage, carelessly placing it in his front pocket. He tries his best to be gentle but failing as you wince, “Quite a lot.”

“I am fairly well-aware, Harry.” You didn’t mean for this to come off as snarky, but as the pain and bleeding on your hand intensify, you really couldn’t control your tone, even if it was Harry that was talking to you.

“Of course, sorry.” He replies to you sheepishly, “I’ll help you clean it up, if it’s alright.” Harry took this opportunity to not only help you, but to be able to stand in such close proximity to you–something he’s been pathetically inching towards the whole school year. 

He doesn’t wait for your response and leads you to the girl’s lavatory, heading straight to the sink. He turns the faucet on and gently takes your hand under the running water. He wipes away the blood with both his hands, and you stare at his hand. Underneath the newly minted wounds were faded and healing wounds spelling out “I must not tell lies”. 

The pain made its presence on your hand very clear, but your thoughts were swirling around erratically. Harry Potter was tending to your wounds, holding your hand, standing oh-so painstakingly close to you in the girl’s lavatory. Your little schoolgirl crush on him started after the Yule Ball and stayed ever since. So, regardless of how much pain you were in, you were enjoying his presence. 

He’s fixated on your hands as quite literally, the bleeding wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard he pressed. Also because he was too shy to look at you, square in the face. 

“With all the bleeding, I’d guess you were a hemophiliac,” Harry declares seriously, trying to make the atmosphere more comfortable.

You didn’t know whether to take this as a joke or an insult as you, being the pureblood you were, did not know what a hemophiliac was. You give him a confused look, head tilted slightly, brows furrowed at the center. Harry, on the other hand, was beating himself up for trying to cut the silence in such a dumb way. 

“Sorry? Is that a muggle joke?” You question. 

“Oh, er, sorry,” He awkwardly stammers out, “It’s a muggle condition where your wounds don’t quite necessarily know when to stop bleeding.” 

All you muster is a softly-spoken, oh. You were still awkwardly standing with your hand in Harry’s. Harry turns off the faucet and  grabs your tie out from his pocket. He dabs it gently and presses it firmly onto your wounded hand. With his free hand, he fishes his wand from his pocket. 

Uncovering your tie from the wound he says, “Episkey,” while pointing his wand at your hand. The wounds scabbed over, stopping the bleeding. As your tie is drenched in blood (you were astounded at how much blood your hand let out, perhaps you were what muggles called a “hemophiliac”), Harry unties his own tie and wraps it around your scabbed hand for good measure. You take this opportunity to wipe your face dry with your untouched hand. He hands you your bloodied tie and you shove it into your bookbag. 

He stares at you and smiles, “I hope that would help, one way or another.” He’s still holding your wounded hand and stares at you. You look to meet his eyes and for a few seconds your eyes lock. You get red in the face and look down quickly. Harry lets out an awkward chuckle and gently drops your hand out of his. 

“Thank you, Harry, but what about your wounds?” You ask him as now you take his wounded hand. You examine the scar on his left-hand. You rub your thumb gently near the wounds, paying extra attention to not gloss over the newly formed scabs. He tamely takes his hand away from you and hangs it at his side.

“I’ll manage.” He replies to you. Not wanting to give you the chance to contest he continues, “Uh, would you like to head back to the common room together?” 

“I don’t think we’ve much a choice,” you respond, smiling lightly.  

Walking out the girl’s lavatory–thanking Merlin that no one saw Harry scamper out the door–and make your way to the Gryffindor tower. The silence is extremely awkward. Harry sneaks glances at you, as you look out to the Hogwarts courtyard to ease out of whatever mental bind you’ve put on your tongue. 

“So, Ha–” you begin. At the same time, Harry opens his mouth to speak uttering the first syllable of your name. You both look down at the floor, grinning like idiots. 

“Sorry,” Harry says, “Please, you first.”

You let out a breathless half-giggle, “Umbridge’s quill is quite evil, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Harry wanted to scream into a cauldron. Months of imagining a full-on conversation with you in his head and all he could muster was a puny indeed? 

Another awkward pause takes a hold of the two of you. 

You begin again, “So… are you and Cho, er, together? In cahoots?” You mentally slap yourself on the forehead. What kind of teenager  says cahoots unironically?

“Me? Cho?” Harry questions you, looking bewildered. Harry was surprised at your question, as he thought his pitiful pining over you was already painfully obvious.

“Is-is it not a thing?” You stammer out, a bit surprised. 

“Not in the slightest.” Confirms Harry. 

“Well, I only ask,” You pause, trying to recollect your thoughts and choose your words carefully, “because you too seem very close.”

“Well, she’s a good friend, but no. We aren’t together. She’s still mourning Cedric.” 

“Oh, I can only imagine.”

A third awkward silence takes you both once more. You are unaware, but Harry is just as nervous as you are. You and Harry have finally made it to the moving staircases, you two make your way up. Just as you hit the middle of the staircase, it moves, leaving you and Harry stuck until it returns to its original position. Harry wanted to throw himself off of the magical staircase right about now.

Harry thinks this is as good a time as ever to sneakily confirm–hopefully deny–his suspicions and continues the conversation, “What about you, and, uh, Anthony Goldstein?” 

Your face reflexively cringes and Harry smiles at the scene, “Have I said something?” 

“Yes, you said Anthony Goldstein.” 

“Well, I thought you and he were in cahoots.” He jokes at you, trying to fake confidence.

You bury your face in your hands, “Merlin, he was a git. He was quite rude to me after he told me how he felt about me because I confessed I had a little crush on you.” You immediately regret the oversharing of information as Harry eyes widen. But deep down, he’s more relieved than not, as you had accidentally made the proverbial first move.

You try and play it off with a laugh, “Well, I mean, they say you are the Chosen One, and, uh I think you are quite nice-looking,” Nice-looking? you think to yourself. You continue to save yourself the embarrassment, “you’re great at spells too, and, uh, very brave, I’d say.”

Harry goes red in the face at your flurry of compliments, but he only repeats, “Nice-looking?”

“Quite.” 

Harry doesn’t know what force propels him to start acting all cheekily with you but he says, “I think you’re, er, quite nice-looking as well. Talented at spells, too.” 

“So I guess it’s agreed upon then?” you ask him. 

“Sorry?” 

“That we both think we are nice-looking...and good at spellwork.” You joshed. 

“If anything, I think you’re more than quite nice-looking–you’re very beautiful.” Harry says so quickly, it’s almost a miracle he didn’t trip over his tongue.

It’s as though your’s and Harry’s faces were having a contest on who could make who redder–you were sure you were winning.

“That’s you, I think.” You say to return the compliment, then subsequently groaning realizing how it came out.

“You think I’m beautiful too?” Harry bantered.. 

“Much more beautiful than me, I suppose.” 

The staircase finally shifts to the correct landing and the both of you ascend to the Gryffindor tower entrance, Harry says the password, gesturing for you to step in first. You turn to him to thank him but your lips meet his cheek instead. You inadvertently tell him you have a crush on him and then you inadvertently make a move on him, not even 2 minutes apart? What a mess. 

“Merlin, sorry, Harry! I didn’t realize you were so close.” You apologize. 

“No worries, [Y/N]” He says without looking at you as his stomach suddenly turned into a trapeze artist and started doing flips upon flips. 

Thank Merlin there was no one in the common room to watch you and Harry make bumbling fools of yourselves. You both pause at the entryway of the common room, until you begin to speak.

“I want to say thank you, by the way,” You say. You begin to unravel his tie from your hand, seeing as your hand was no longer hurting. “Here’s your, uh, tie, by the way. Thank you for tending to it, even if you didn’t have to.” 

“Anytime,” Harry replies. 

You turn to head to the stairs to make way to your dormitory but Harry calls out.

“I just want to repeat that me and Cho aren’t, er, dating or, as you call it, in cahoots. ” He says to you.

“You’ve said that,” You tell him while smiling. 

“Perhaps, you and I could be in cahoots–I mean it could be something you and I could work toward, if it’s alright with you, but if it’s not, it’s completely fine, I’d still think you’re very beautiful regardless.” Harry is rapping at this point, heart beating in his ears.

You’re surprised and extremely elated at Harry’s burst of confidence, “It is alright by me, Harry. I think I’d like that–I know I would, actually.”

“Brilliant. Absolutely excellent.” He beams. 

“Absolutely.” 

--

masterlist here

[lovelylogans]

parallax

parallax, noun: the apparent offset of a foreground object against the background when your perspective changes. at a given instant, the moon appears among different stars for observers at widely separated locations on earth. astronomers directly calculate the distance to a nearby star by measuring its incredibly small positional changes (its parallax) as earth orbits the sun.

warnings: staying up late, unhealthy study habits, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan

word count: 2,211

notes: this is for day 2 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “song/stars” and i have decided to write about stars! please enjoy!

⁂

“Barlow lens,” Virgil reads off the notecard.

“A lens that’s placed into the focusing tube to effectively double or triple a telescope’s focal length and, in turn, the magnification of any eyepiece used with it,” Logan recites. His glasses are off, his hands are over his eyes, and if not for the absurd amounts of coffee they had both consumed and the bright lights of the empty classroom they are occupying, Logan would probably fall asleep.

If not for the fact that Logan loves astronomy so much, he would gladly fold it in for the night and get some much-needed rest. As it is, Virgil is also in his class, and he does not hold the same inclination for the subject.

And also, Logan has a massive crush on Virgil and would likely do anything he asks, except Virgil doesn’t know that part. He likely thinks that Logan is helping him study because of his deep love of science.

“Good. Me now.”

Logan picks up a notecard at random and squints it, resettling his glasses on his nose. “Nebula.”

“Great clouds of glowing gas, lit up by stars inside or nearby.”

“Dark nebula?”

“Not lit up and are visible only because they block the light of stars behind them.”

“Latin for?”

“Cloud.”

“Good,” Logan says, tucking the notecard at the bottom of the pile, or as close as a pile as he can get. Their study materials have made quite a mess. The notecards that Logan made are sprawled across the table, some tucked under their notebooks, and Virgil’s pens are tossed along the table within easy reach. The whiteboard is already filled up with mixtures of both of their handwriting, highlighting key concepts that they’d wanted to go through in this study session. They’re almost all crossed out—all that’s left is general review of key terms.

“Oh, here’s a hard one for you,” Virgil says. His black hair is sticking up in tufts, because he’s been running his hands through it and tugging at the ends for the entirety of their marathon study session. It makes him look very cute. “Albedo feature, and tell me a prominent one.”

“A large area on the surface of a reflecting object that shows a significant contrast in brightness or darkness compared to adjacent areas,” Logan says. “And Syrtis Major, on Mars.”

“You didn’t even hesitate,” Virgil says. “You’re definitely gonna ace this final.”

“Well, obviously,” Logan says, and it only occurs to him to perhaps pretend at humbleness when Virgil snorts. Logan feels his face heat, and he says, “I mean—”

“Nah, nah, it’s cool,” Virgil says, stretching out his long, pale arms, and Logan hopes he isn’t too obvious as he stares at the subtle lines of his biceps, his triceps, his flexor carpi radialis. He had taken off his hoodie two hours in, and his binder not long after that, leaving him in a loose black cap-sleeved t-shirt. Seeing him in it is its own unique brand of torture. Surely if he can manage to recall terms while staring at Virgil’s collarbones and the hollow of his throat he will be able to withstand whatever foot-tapping and pencil-chewing will occur in the large lecture hall during their final.

“You’re the one who’s gonna go for a doctorate in this, it makes sense that you’re incredible at it,” Virgil says. “I know it’s a big deal for you.”

“It is,” Logan says. Virgil knows this. They know quite a lot about each others’ life stories—Logan is the first in his family to attend college in America, let alone achieve a doctorate here. His parents immigrated from Nigeria shortly after his birth and all of them have worked hard—his parents, to provide a life for him here, Logan, to get into a good university in the first place.

“I’m the one who has to worry about making it out of their lab elective with a decent enough grade.” 

He knows that Virgil works hard, too. Their scholarship depends on maintaining a certain grade point average. There is no way Virgil would have achieved this scholarship if he did not work hard, let alone the fact that they have been studying in each others’ presence for the entire school year.

“You’ve done wonderfully this semester,” Logan says stubbornly. “The only way you will fail is if they feed the scantron in wrong while they’re grading and that’s easily remedied.”

Virgil’s brow quirks. “Thanks, specs,” he says, then makes a face, as if realizing how much he sounded like Roman just then.

“It’s just,” Virgil says, then hesitates before he shrugs and looks down at his notebook, avoiding Logan’s eyes. “I dunno. Um, I never really thought college would be an option, ‘till I got my scholarships.”

Logan, familiar with this story, just nods.

“And I,” he sighs, before he says in a whisper, “I really like it here. At university. I didn’t expect to like it so much. I need—if I want to stay, and I do. I need those good grades. And I want to stay, and the scholarship’s let me put aside enough money so I nearly have enough for top surgery, which I won’t be able to do if I lose my scholarship. So. I’m a bit.” A drum of his fingers. “A bit anxious.”

Logan surveys Virgil for a few seconds.

Virgil’s black bangs has swept over his face, obscuring most of his expression from Logan’s view. But he can see the muscle in Virgil’s jaw jumping, his shoulders practically hiked up to his ears. Even without the verbal acknowledgement, Virgil is portraying enough of the physical signs of anxiety that is obvious even to Logan’s emotionally oblivious eye.

Logan pauses, before he reaches across and places his hand on Virgil’s wrist. He likes the feel of it there—Virgil’s skin, chilled from the air conditioning, cooling Logan’s warm palm. He likes the look of it, too, the contrast of them, Logan’s skin seeming even darker against Virgil’s paleness. Considering Logan is black, this is something of a feat, and Virgil would likely have some sort of joke about how he is so absurdly pale that he manages to refract light.

Virgil looks up and chuckles awkwardly.

“But, y’know,” he says. “When am I not a bit anxious, right?”

He does not dislodge Logan’s hand, though. Instead he covers Logan’s hand with his own—his hand is quite large, and it is also cool from the air conditioning. The temperature of Virgil’s hand does not quite explain the jolt in Logan’s stomach.

Logan considers him for a few more moments.

“I have another astronomical term for you to learn,” Logan says decisively, and slides off the desk, standing on his own two feet “But you’ll have to follow me to learn it.”

Virgil’s lip quirks up. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Virgil smile widens. “All right, then.”

Logan’s stomach flutters, and he quickly turns his attention to gathering his notecards and notebooks as tidily and swiftly as possible, placing them into his backpack.

Virgil puts all of his things in his own backpack, and when Logan asks him if he’s ready, he simply ambles along after Logan as they walk out of the empty, quiet building on their university campus’ quadrangle. 

Logan leads them to the center of the grassy area, looking around, before he nods decisively and sets his backpack on the ground. He opens a pocket and fishes out the compact travel blanket he has in there.

Virgil laughs as Logan unfolds it. “You have a blanket in there?”

“Of course I have a blanket in here,” Logan says, shaking out the blanket before he lays it out on the grass. “Blankets are ideal for providing significant warmth and offering protection from hypothermia and precipitation.”

“You and your Mary Poppins backpack,” Virgil says, but there is a tone in his voice that Logan... hesitates to describe.

Is it, perhaps, fondness?

No. Logan is likely projecting his crush onto Virgil. He has a tendency to do that. Wishful thinking has been studied by various disciplines of thought and it is a very common occurrence for many people.

Logan wishes it would not be so common for him, though.

Virgil sits on the blanket, then.

“So,” he prompts. “That astronomical term you wanted to teach me?”

Logan smiles, just a little.

“Star party,” he says. “A gathering of amateur astronomers for the purpose of observing objects and events in the sky.”

He tilts back so he’s lying down on his back. He would be looking directly up at the sky, but he tilts his head so he can see Virgil instead.

Virgil’s smile has gone soft. “You want to star-gaze with me?”

As an answer, Logan pats the blanket, as a silent entreatment for Virgil to lie back. Virgil grins, shaking his head, before he acquiesces, settling on the blanket.

It would be so easy to reach over and touch him. It would be only a little bit more effort to roll and balance himself on his elbows, so his face hovers above Virgil’s. And from there it would just be the slightest downward tilt—

Logan redirects his attention to the night sky.

Though it is, obviously, not quite as good a view as they would have had in a more rural location—light pollution is a given on such a large campus—it is still quite a nice night. There are very little clouds in the sky and it is late enough that the moon hangs almost directly overhead. 

Logan points upward at a slight slant, using his right arm rather than his left, so that he will be able to look over and see Virgil’s face without having to lower his arm. “Polaris.”

Virgil shifts, close enough that it would only take the slightest jostle for their arms to touch. “The north star,” he says, and squints up at the sky. “Which means,” he reaches up to take Logan’s wrist in hand, using his outer arm, not the arm that is nearly touching Logan’s, and directs it slightly and Logan can’t breathe, “that Ursa Minor is right over here. Shame we can’t really see it.”

Logan hesitates, biting his lip, before he directs both of their hands again. 

“We can slightly see Ursa Major, though.”

Virgil shifts again, his shoulder pressed against Logan’s. “Huh. We sure can.”

Logan traces the shape in the sky, Virgil’s hand cool, loosely wrapped around his wrist. Logan hopes that Virgil cannot feel how quick his pulse is. “Colloquially known as the Big Dipper.”

Virgil shifts again. Their legs are pressed together now.

Logan continues, trying his hardest not to react, “Though of course, the Big Dipper is only part of Ursa Major. An easy point to find so you can see the rest of the Big Bear, which is—which is a more direct title for Ursa Major.”

“Mhm,” Virgil hums. He can feel the warmth of Virgil’s breath at the shell of his ear. “Hey, I think I see Orion?”

Logan would look up at the sky to continue his quasi-lecture, but instead he turns his head so that he will be able to see Virgil.

Virgil turns at the same time. There is a soft smile on his face.

Logan swallows hard. A hand around his wrist. Continually shifting closer to touch him. What he’d thought might be fondness in Virgil’s voice.

Conjecture: perhaps... Logan isn’t submitting to wishful thinking. Perhaps Logan is simply observing.

“Virgil?” He whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Are you flirting with me?”

Virgil’s eyes crinkle up as his smile widens.

“Logan, I’ve been trying to flirt with you all semester.”

“Oh,” he breathes out. “Okay.”

Virgil lowers their hands from pointing at the sky so their arms rest upon their bodies, and he shifts his hands so that his fingers intertwine with Logan’s.

“I really like you,” Virgil says. His voice is trembling. His hand is shaking in Logan’s.

Logan’s eyes sting. He squeezes Virgil’s hand tightly. “I really like you too.”

Virgil laughs, but it sounds relieved more than anything.

“Um, okay,” Virgil says, looking a little stunned, as if he did not expect this to go as well as it is going. It’s very likely he did not, considering his anxiety disorder. “Cool. That’s—yeah. Great. Um. Wow.”

“I,” Logan says, and he bites his lip. “I do not have much experience with this. Liking boys. Dating, at all. I would like to have that experience with you. Would it be acceptable if I were to kiss you right now?”

“Incredibly,” Virgil says, “Incredibly acceptable.”

Logan releases Virgil’s hand, and carefully rolls so that he is hovering over Virgil the best he can. He has never approached kissing anyone like this before.

He has never kissed anyone before.

Logan takes in a deep breath, swallows hard, and figures he may as well just make an attempt. His heart is thundering in his chest. His hands are sweaty. He angles his face toward Virgil’s and closes his eyes.

Virgil’s hand settles on Logan’s back, and their lips meet.

And very suddenly, the two activities presented to Logan right now are star-gazing or kissing Virgil. And now he is kissing Virgil. He finds that he does not want to stop kissing Virgil.

Star-gazing would have to wait.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

“You make me call your name

Now I gotta have one more taste

One shot of your whiskey kisses all on my lips

I keep coming right back.”

- Whiskey Kisses, Mic Lowry

A/N: hello :D this one shot was intended to just be a blurb of bartender!harry teaching the mc how do body shots (thank you to the lovely anons that suggested the prompt) but then it spiraled and now here we are with a full-on piece! I hadn’t written true, start-to-finish smut in a while and figured it was time for some filth 😌 hope you enjoy!

masterlist : ask : bartender!harry tag

word count: 10.5k

content: friends with benefits, flirty pest!harry, teasing, fingering, and oral baybeeee

preview: 

“So,” Harry clears his throat with a light cough, his other hand coming out from behind the hidden scenes with a large lime cradled at its center, “there’s two ways of doing body shots.”

He places down the lime, expertly halving it down the center and then quartering it in another swift cut, leaving the fruit in four even wedges. He wipes the knife off with a dish rag, twisting around to chuck it in the dirty dish tub behind him. He picks up one of the slices between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up proudly for emphasis. “There’s the disgusting college frat party version of body shots, and then there’s the proper adult version.”

Harry’s nose crinkles in distaste as an afterthought, his next sentence clarifying. “We’re doing the latter because personally, I think it’s gross to drink anything out of someone’s belly button.”

A small, feathery laugh escapes Y/N, her teeth then digging into her bottom lip to keep her jitters in check. “Whatever you say, you’re the professional.”

Harry gifts her a satisfied smirk at the minute stroke at his ego. “Good girl— that’s what I like to hear.”

The phrase was said with nonchalant humourous intentions, but it makes the pit of her stomach tighten nonetheless. She can’t keep it at bay, not when she’s heard those same two words come from him under very different contexts— not when he’s panted them into her mouth in such a desperate, needy way, eager tongue lulling across the inside of her top lip as his long fingers had marked bruises along her jaw, hips roughly meeting her sore inner thighs. 

It’s ingrained in her head and she can never disconnect it and she has a feeling Harry recognizes that, which gives him all the more reason to bring up such matters as often as possible just to fuck with her. 

And he truly is well aware of the effect it has. He damn well knows the way it disorients her when he offhandedly uses pet names and remarks that have made appearances during their sexual encounters; he knows the way it revs her and it amuses him more than anything to see her fidget and fumble to keep composure. He adores having that influence over her and he thrives on wielding it to his advantage. 

Y/N swallows down her nerves, feeling them lodge in her throat and refuse to go down. The way he slowly bats his lashes at her suggestively doesn’t help at all.

Harry reaches across the bar, hovering the lime wedge over her face. He taps it gently against the center of her lips, the acidic juice rubbing off and making her skin tingle. “Open up for me, yeah?”

Y/N’s lips part on command and Harry can’t stop the pompous hum that runs along the back of his throat. “Always so willing, aren’t you?”

or Harry teaches Y/N how to do body shots but lime juice isn’t the only thing that ends up dripping down his chin.

///

“I can’t believe you’ve never done body shots before.” 

“It’s just never come up!”

Harry snorts in mild, disbelieving amusement, the still atmosphere of the room staining with the sound of his multiple rings clacking softly against tempered glass. 

He takes a firm grip around the neck of a Casamigos tequila bottle, dismounting it from its signature spot on the center shelf of the liquor wall, turning back around to face Y/N. He sets the alcohol container down on the waxed wooden surface of his work station, absentmindedly rummaging through one of the clean equipment tubs stored beneath it. 

She can’t help the way her lips twitch fondly at the obvious cinch between his thick brows, his mouth slightly down-turned in a pensive pout as he fishes for something out of sight. 

Harry comes up fruitful, a black metal pour spout glitzing dully under the muted lights of the closed bar. He unscrews the cap from the tequila jug, carefully fitting the accessory into the neck and turning it tight for good measure. He taps his fingers triumphantly against the crystal clear glass, rings once again filling the empty space with chimes. 

Harry’s gaze locks with Y/N’s, brows shrugging in a playfully expectant manner, one corner of his soft lips flicking upwards with sly mischief.  “Get up on the counter.”

She rests her chin in the palm of her hand, elbow propped casually on the tabletop to support the weight. She snorts dismissively, shaking her head a tad. “I don’t think so.”

He points at Y/N scoldingly with the tip of the spout, both brows jerking upwards in a deadpan expression. “You’re absolutely fucked in the head if you thought you were gonna confess to a bartender that you’ve never done body shots and leave without doing some. Now hop off it and get up on the counter.”

Y/N rolls her eyes grandly, slumping her shoulders with begrudged annoyance. “No.”

Harry stares at her for a second, reading her body language carefully— the pads of her fingers tapping jestingly against her cheekbone, the tiny crooked grin curling her delicate lips, the way her eyes are half-lidded in amusement, and the taunting rebellious sheen glinting across the glossy surface of her irises. She’s not refusing due to comfortability reasons; she’s refusing in order to purposefully get on his nerves.

He’s not surprised— pushing his buttons is one of her favorite hobbies, usually because the flirtatious teasing and joking defiance spurs into another one of her favorite pastimes: Harry thrusting between her legs. 

It��s obvious now that she’s being a pest to get a rise out of him and he’s more than willing to give it to her. Too willing, if he knows what’s good for him, but he can’t ever seem to resist her— can’t resist how much he loves the way she tugs at his strings so effortlessly. 

Harry releases his grasp around the long neck of the liquor bottle, setting his palms flat against the smooth red oak of the pub table. He teeters forward on his hands, ducking down until his line of vision is level with Y/N’s, so close to her face their noses unintentionally brush. The distance separating them is nearly nonexistent, so slim that she’s enveloped in a sphere of his intoxicatingly delicious scent as it wafts up from his flexing neck, tingling her nostrils with notes of ocean salt, cedar wood, and vague whiffs of the fresh linen candle that is continuously alight in his flat. 

He shackles her into place with unwavering eye contact, the darkened emerald hue around his pupils gleaming challengingly as his fluffy, shiny curls frame his strong jaw so beautifully it’s likely considered sinful. The white tee he’s sporting strains against his broad chest, the blocky, baby blue Enjoy health! Eat Your Honey! text stretching across his pectoral muscles, the doodle of a smiling bumble bee tempting her with the message’s double-meaning. She hates that she can see his nipples printing through the sheer cotton fabric. 

The warm breath of Harry’s words scorches her barely trembling lips, his lashes dusting the tops of his high cheekbones with a sultry, domineering air. His accented voice is thick and dark as the syrup he mixes into his cocktails, low in sound but heavy in impact. 

“Get on your fucking back or I’ll stretch you out over the counter myself.”

Y/N decides it's in her best interest to oblige.

She currently lays flat across the sleek counter, her hands folded across her tummy, digits tapping nervously at her abdomen. 

Harry is off to the side, retrieving a few other ingredients that seem to be necessary for what they’re about to engage in. She sees him shuffling about through her peripheral vision, glancing up at her sparsely and she can just make out the way his lips are cracked into a shit-eating grin at how easily he’d managed to set her in place.

She turns her head to face him fully, cheek pressing along the cold surface below her and causing her spine to involuntarily shiver. Her toes curl in her checkered sneakers as she anxiously waits for him to speak up, watching as he pulls out a black paring knife from below the edge of his bartending station.

“So,” Harry clears his throat with a light cough, his other hand coming out from behind the hidden scenes with a large lime cradled at its center, “there’s two ways of doing body shots.”

He places down the lime, expertly halving it down the center and then quartering it in another swift cut, leaving the fruit in four even wedges. He wipes the knife off with a dish rag, twisting around to chuck it in the dirty dish tub behind him. He picks up one of the slices between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up proudly for emphasis. “There’s the disgusting college frat party version of body shots, and then there’s the proper adult version.”

Harry’s nose crinkles in distaste as an afterthought, his next sentence clarifying. “We’re doing the latter because personally, I think it’s gross to drink anything out of someone’s belly button.”

A small, feathery laugh escapes Y/N, her teeth then digging into her bottom lip to keep her jitters in check. “Whatever you say, you’re the professional.”

Harry gifts her a satisfied smirk at the minute stroke at his ego. “Good girl— that’s what I like to hear.”

The phrase was said with nonchalant humourous intentions, but it makes the pit of her stomach tighten nonetheless. She can’t keep it at bay, not when she’s heard those same two words come from him under very different contexts— not when he’s panted them into her mouth in such a desperate, needy way, eager tongue lulling across the inside of her top lip as his long fingers had marked bruises along her jaw, hips roughly meeting her sore inner thighs. 

It’s ingrained in her head and she can never disconnect it and she has a feeling Harry recognizes that, which gives him all the more reason to bring up such matters as often as possible just to fuck with her. 

And he truly is well aware of the effect it has. He damn well knows the way it disorients her when he offhandedly uses pet names and remarks that have made appearances during their sexual encounters; he knows the way it revs her and it amuses him more than anything to see her fidget and fumble to keep composure. He adores having that influence over her and he thrives on wielding it to his advantage. 

Y/N swallows down her nerves, feeling them lodge in her throat and refuse to go down. The way he slowly bats his lashes at her suggestively doesn’t help at all.

Harry reaches across the bar, hovering the lime wedge over her face. He taps it gently against the center of her lips, the acidic juice rubbing off and making her skin tingle. “Open up for me, yeah?”

Y/N’s lips part on command and Harry can’t stop the pompous hum that runs along the back of his throat. “Always so willing, aren’t you?” 

She glowers at him from the side, her grumble strained and therefore lacking any real mass. “Shut up.”

He coos with exaggerated fondness, attempting to stifle an arrogant smirk. “I’m just happy to be your first time, s’all.”

“You’re so fucking annoying.”

“And yet you always end up in my bed. Funny how that works, innit?”

The tendon along Y/N’s jaw visibly tenses and Harry snickers to himself as he fits the fruit slice between her teeth, the peel facing inwards so that the part he actually needs is accessible. He then slides a bit further down the counter until he’s standing right beside her resting hips. 

He goes to lift her olive green knitted sweater, pausing for a second right at the hem. His fingers twitch excitedly as he glances up at her for permission, craving the rush that comes with absorbing her body heat. “Can I?”

Y/N jerks her chin once in a nod, teeth biting down harder onto the lime wedge when she feels his cold digits brush along her sensitive belly. 

Harry pushes her jumper upwards, bunching it up just under her bust. He can see how anxious she is from the way her lower stomach jolts.

His hand grabs something off to the edge of her scope and when it comes into focus, she sees its a metal salt shaker. He suspends it a few centimeters over her body, tapping out a line of salt that starts just above her navel and ends halfway up her stomach. She does her best not to move; the last thing she wants to do is make a mess over Harry’s freshly swept floorboards.

He sets down the container, snatching a tiny transparent red glass from one of the decorative drying racks, flipping it rightside up onto the table and laxly pouring out a tequila shot. 

“This is the right way to do it. Pay attention ‘cause I’m only teaching you once.” His light-hearted tone eases some of the gnawing in her bones. 

Harry bends down, the warm air that puffs from his mouth hitting the bare skin above her belly button and Y/N suddenly anticipates the feeling of his hot lips running across her tummy. 

Her entire body begins to quake, overwhelmed by the flurry of sensations. The trembling is hard enough that Harry notices, eyes flicking up to meet her’s, brows furrowed in a teasing chastising fashion. “I can’t do this unless you stay still, Road Runner.” 

Y/N has a difficult time talking over the citrus slice in her mouth, her words muffled but understandable enough. “Sorry— don’t know why I’m shaking but...but I can't stop.” 

One of Harry’s hands squeezes her outer thigh reassuringly. “I’ve had my lips on you in way more intimate places than this. It shouldn’t be that hard.” 

Y/N sputters into a round of nervous giggles. “Fuck off.” 

Harry gives her a disciplinary look full of faux sternness, trying to defuse the tension with some comedic relief. “Stop shaking or I’ll have to hold you down.” 

“Guess you’re gonna have to hold me down, then.” She quips back, kinking her eyebrows with attitude. 

What Harry does next she really wasn’t expecting at all.

She’d figured he would pin her hips down against the counter to keep her still, but instead Harry coasts a palm up the center of her barely-clothed chest, fingers wrapping securely around her throat. 

She nearly inhales the lime wedge.

The pads of his digits squeeze her jugular with just enough strength to jar her system into reboot, her whole body going deadly still in his dominant grasp. He presses the back of her neck down against the cold wood, coaxing her back to straighten out properly so she doesn’t start quivering again. The whole situation is utterly erotic and Harry knows it. The feeling of her pretty throat straining against his palm is all too familiar— they’d been in the same position not even three nights ago, though it had been on the floor of his bedroom and they'd both been wearing way less clothes. 

Harry was confident this would get her in line easily. The shock factor of such a bold, brazen move all out of the blue was bound to distract her enough to rid anything else from her mind, including the anxiety. The image it sketched was just a plus: Y/N staring at him all doe-eyed over the tops of her dewy cheeks, lashes fluttering with that needy innocent aura that makes the underside of his balls ache. It’s the same look she gets when she’s spread out across his sheets, clawing at the sides of his torso and pulling him deeper inside, begging for him to go harder. 

She had instinctively choked out a teeny whimper the second she felt his hand enclosing around her throat and he’s ashamed to admit his knees had buckled. It had been such a sweet, melodic sound and the fact that he had drawn it out of her so easily was threatening to pop a stiffy into his flared corduroy pants. Not to mention how good the contrast of his lilac polished nails looks against her supple skin, which seems to be glowing in the dim, bourbon-tinted lighting.

Harry licks over his mouth slowly, bottom teeth tugging at his upper lip. When he speaks, it’s soft and deep, stirring the gravel in his chest. “Better?”

Y/N boggles her head in a jerky nod, eyes flickering down to where her stomach is permanently clenched due to the heavy atmosphere of the room. 

“Alright, then.” 

He leans down once again, glimpsing at her one last time before he makes contact with the plush mound of her stomach. 

Harry’s tongue feels warm and textured as it slides upwards over the salt trail, the wet sensation sending her nerves into a numbed frenzy, a certain prickling washing across her scalp and pinching at the shells of her ears. 

Y/N drinks up the picture before her like a tall glass of fine wine, her mind absorbing every detail with crisp awareness. 

Harry’s messy auburn ringlets fall across his face due to his angle, the silky locks kissing across his prominent jaw and structured cheekbones. His lashes drop over his eyes in a euphoric stupor, faint pulses of white hot energy traveling across Y/N’s flesh and fizzing every cell of his. The salt burns the damp skin of his mouth, grating against his tongue as he works his way up as slowly as possible, refusing to surrender the sweet taste of the delicate skin that undercuts the bitterness of the ingredient. 

Y/N’s hand acts of its own accord, fingers prying away from clutching onto the edge of the counter and trading it for Harry’s roots. Her grip cards into the hair along the nape of his neck, following the curve of his skull right behind his small ear. 

The area is one of many sensitive spots she’s become accustomed to toying with since they had developed their unlabeled relationship; the vaguely sensual manner of this entire exchange has her unintentionally falling back on muscle memory. 

Harry’s actions pause for an elongated second, the broad expanse of his back visibly contracting under the fabric hugging his torso. His tongue leaves her body— much to her pining disapproval— as a small needy hiss escapes his swollen lips, accompanied by a breathy weak sigh through his nose. “Fuck…”

It’s a sound she’d had the pleasure of hearing before, usually when he was getting close and would try to hold off for the sake of dragging everything out. It’s desperate, it tremors, and it packs a punch like nothing else; it means he’s getting into his head about how she’s making him feel and there’s nothing hotter than watching him space out from how much bliss he’s drawing from her— from this. From something as simple as touching his mouth to her skin. 

Her thighs tighten together, the area between them growing uncomfortably warm. She wills her hold to ease up and nearly blacks out when he cradles his head into her palm, silently pleading with her to not completely pull away.

Y/N croaks out an apology for her sudden harsh behavior, bottom lip wobbling as his eyes list upwards to meet her own and she notices his pupils are blown way out of proportion. “S-Sorry. Force of habit.”

His head gives a choppy shake within her frail grip, teeth worrying the inside of his cheek. His voice comes out as an airy, intense whisper, almost as if what he’s about to utter next is something so private not even their shadows should be allowed to hear it.

“Don’t be sorry, minx. Was praying you would. You know how much I love it when you’re rough with me.”

With that last comment leaving her embarrassingly breathless, Harry sticks his tongue back out and laps up at the last couple of granules of salt left on her stomach, planting a sloppy, delicate kiss along the crest of her belly button for good measure. 

The way she gasps lightly strokes at his ego, a coy simper bracing against her tense tummy. Y/N holds in her next exhale to avoid giving him the satisfaction of gloating, trying her best to diffuse the bristling at the ends of her fingers and across her slightly damp cheeks. 

Harry proceeds to sponge his warm, cushiony lips to the different pressure points he, too, has grown extremely familiar with, talking in between each stop on his trek.  

He travels up the extent of her belly and across the center of her chest over her jumper, his words heavy and sticky. “Y’know I can tell when you’re holding out on me, right?”

He pools wet, tender pecks into the groove of her throat and onto the curve of her strained neck, finally reaching her face and gently bumping his nose against her chin, a stipple of his mouth chasing the gesture. He murmurs his thoughts in a low tone, brushing the pads of his fingers across her jaw and trailing underneath in such a sweet, admiring manner. He wanders upwards and halts right where her bottom lip curves the deepest, gluing one more light, lingering kiss to her cupid’s bow as the grip around her throat tightens just a hair. “And you know I’m more than capable of coaxing it out of you.” 

The hand that is wound into his velvet curls falls limply down the side of his tanned neck, coasting across the strong build of his shoulder and down to rest flat against his slightly heaving chest, nestled between both of his pecs, the joints of her digits vibrating with his gradually swelling heartbeat. 

Harry’s nose grazes over hers as he takes the lime slice from between her teeth, juice spurting and streaming out the edges of her mouth as a result. She instinctively licks across her itching skin, just barely skimming Harry’s lips as he pulls away with the fruit wedge in his mouth. She can feel the way his pulse jumps against his ribs just before her hand slips away due to the distance; it leaves her wondering if he had felt her own thundering against the palm he’d had around her jugular.

Harry grasps the halve between his index finger and thumb, fervently draining it as quickly as possible to get the tough part out of the way, tossing it into an unseen bin. His nose scrunches up at the sour, pungent taste, the buttoned tip twitching as one of his canopy green eyes squeezes shut, head ruffling in a sharp shake as if to regain his bearings. She can feel her stinging lips jerk with the beginnings of a fond smile at the way his loosely structured ringlets bounce to his motions. 

Harry talks through a full mouth, hand fumbling for the sleekness of the shot glass. “Fucking hell, that’s the worst of it.” 

He finds it when his knuckles accidentally knock across the rim, digits wrapping around the small cup securely and jetting it up towards his face while blindly aiming for the general vicinity of his mouth, hoping to get rid of the bitterness coating the underside of his tongue. He pounds it back without a hitch, Adam’s Apple bobbing grandly as the liquor sears its way down the back of his throat, accompanied by its accessory ingredients. Harry slams the stout glass down onto the counter, mouth pursing and both eyes screwing shut as the curdling aftertaste fades into a dull throb that froths the pit of his stomach with a recognizable warmth. 

“You would think you’d be able to handle your alcohol better, being a bartender and all.”

Harry’s eyes fly open at the coy remark that tinges the chilled air of the bar, vision zeroing in on its source as she lays across the wooden table with her sweater smoothed back into place, her intertwined hands resting calmly along the dip of her navel, and her enticing lips curled into a mildly condescending smirk. 

His brows jump up daringly at Y/N’s dig as he sets down the crystalline cup, quietly clearing his throat to make sure his voice doesn’t crack. He lewdly circles the tip of his forefinger around the hem of the glass once, twice, and then a third time before finally speaking up. “Someone’s being a fucking brat tonight, hm?”

Y/N’s eyebrows mimic Harry’s, her expression slathered in fake cluelessness, though the corners of her mouth betray her with smug glee. “Who, me? I would never, I’m an absolute dream!”

He pushes the glass as far away as possible— he wants to avoid it falling victim to what their conversation is insinuating. “A filthy wet one, at that.” 

Y/N’s knuckles whiten as her grip intensifies, her lashes blinking sluggishly. “Is that so?”

Harry leans down, the hairs along his skin standing up as his forearms make contact with the cold surface of the table. He slinks his head to the side, continuing to dance around the subject they both know this talk is unmistakably leading towards. “Very much so.” 

“So was that your plan all along, then? To get your mouth on me just to be a pest about it afterwards?”

He bites into the pad of his thumb to muffle a chuckle, irises twinkling like sea glass, framed by his perfectly sculpted, jokingly furrowed brows. His words are unapologetically blunt, biceps rippling against the flimsy sleeves of his tee as he shifts his weight, pastel yellow Vans squeaking against the polished oak ground. “It truly wasn’t my intention, love. But then you let out that pretty little moan and yanked at my hair so hard I saw stars and, well...quite frankly, I can’t let you get away with that, now can I?”

Y/N swallows heavily, drinking up a deep inhale to replace the oxygen Harry has robbed from her— the way he’s knowingly twisting the rusty golden H ring around his middle finger is doing her in. 

Her voice lodges in her lungs, the result being a docile, needy tone and the aching between her legs is too much for her to even attempt to mask it. “What do you want from me, then?” 

Harry stops turning his ring, instead walking his first two digits over her hip, picking at the button on her jeans mockingly and scoffing in dark amusement when she squirms. “Beg me for it.” 

The word slips past her lips all wispy and eager with no remorse or shame whatsoever. “Please.”

Harry pops the metal clasp of her jeans open, smiling deviously around the thumb between his teeth. “Again.”

Y/N puts more emotion into it, trying to convey how much she wants him so he’ll quit this annoying charade. “Please, Harry.”

He folds the flaps of her pants outwards, slowly tugging down the zipper and purring in pleasant surprise when he sees she’s sporting the pair of maroon lace panties he adores so much. “Please what?”

“Please—” She chokes up as she watches him flirt ominously with the tiny bow on the waistband of her painties. “Please touch me.”

Harry hooks his finger into the dainty material of the undies and pulls it back from her abdomen; the potential of the band snapping down onto her skin has her eyes watering. The pastel purple lacquer on his nail glints teasingly while a demand drips from his lips, thick and leisurely as his sight flickers sideways for a barely existent moment, interested in what lays below her undergarment. “Touch you how?”

Y/N’s self-control is wearing critically thin and it’s taking every fiber of her being not to pounce on him this instant. Instead, both of her hands snap around his wrist, the beaded bracelet he’s sporting stamping into her palm. She clings to him like a vine, guiding his fingers below her panties, lungs stuttering as his icey, chunky rings catch on the hood of her clit. Her voice is dry and uneven as she arches her hips just a tad against his cupped fingers. “Like this— touch me like this.”

Harry stays completely still for a few suspenseful heartbeats, staring at her with the colors around his pupils kaleidoscoping with different hues of muted sage and bright rosemary, the amber specks shimmering with silent power. Then, his hand begins to move, the pads of his digits lulling lazily against her core, bolts of bliss shooting up her spine.  

Y/N breaks their cemented gazes, watching in a starved haze at the way his knuckles and jewelry tent the flimsy lace of her underwear as his large hand bobs between her parted thighs. She can feel how wet she is— can feel how it coats his skin and makes his touch glide over her with ease. She can see the way his forearm flexes with effort, bent on infusing pleasure into every crevice of her body until she’s left breathless and quaking. Veins carve their way under his smooth, inked skin, shifting and bulging beneath the intricate rose tattoo and creasing the portrait of the nude mermaid she so strangely fancies. 

Harry removes the thumb of his free hand from between his teeth, bite marks indented into the soft tissue from how hard he was working on keeping himself together. He caringly tucks a strand of hair behind Y/N’s ear, his chaste demeanor heavily contrasting the vulgar scene unfolding a foot away. 

This juxtaposition of tenderness and eroticism is so typical of him when it comes to sex and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t live off it. The polarity between his gentle, soothing personality and the absolute filth of his sex habits constantly keeps her on her toes, excited to see what comes next and restless to take whatever he has to offer. There was never a boring moment with Harry and she never felt like her desires went unattended; he always gives her exactly what she craves— both the sweet and the sour. 

It’s similar to the incredible drinks he’s so well-known for: an even ratio of top shelf ingredients kept at a perfect balance, mixed thoughtfully to provide a signature cocktail that keeps her coming back for more. 

The tang was evident in the way Harry would bend her over the back of his couch, tainting dark bruises onto her hips as he would work himself inside her, gasping broken curses into the shell of her hot ear and grunting at her to continue pushing back against him. It’s in how he would decorate handprints across her ass whenever she’d slow down even the slightest, giving a relentless yank at her roots and scratching down the center of her spine until her back would arch obediently. The honey was in how he would then contradict his dominance by planting a gentle kiss to the back of her tense shoulder and to the nape of her sweaty neck, following the gesture with a tight, bashful mumble of, “God, please don’t fucking stop. You feel too fucking good for this to stop.” 

The bite of the liquor was in how Harry was willing to drag her up the metal and glass staircase to his loft during the busy hours of a Saturday evening, shoving her flat across the expanse of his kitchen island and ripping his tee over his head. It’s in how he would stuff the shirt in her mouth to stifle the screams he was hell-bent on weaning out of her, all because he had a full pub just one floor below but he didn’t give a single fuck; he just had to feel her stretching, writhing, and pleading under him. The toothache of the syrup was present in how just before he’d stuff her to the brim, he’d dapple his lips to the tip of her heated nose in a quiet instance of reassurance, accompanied by a teeny boyish smile that would hold more warmth than all the rays of the sun.

The acidity of the lime was prominent in how Harry would tug her into his lap and slam her down against his thighs, hooded eyes electric with greedy satisfaction at watching her mewl and quiver with every deep stroke she’d take of his cock, the bottom of her tummy bulging from its girth and length. It’s in the manner in which he’d snake one arm taut around her love-bite tattooed waist, the hand of the other weighing its first two digits heavy on her tongue until she’d gag and whine. The agave nectar undercurrent in tequila was distinguishable in how after they had both dismounted their highs and she had collapsed into his chest, dripping down her thighs and onto the sheets, he would nurse her jaw with the palm of his hand, thumbing over her swollen bottom lip with dreamy affection clouding his dim green irises. He would kiss at the top of her matted hair, tracing her water-beaded hairline with the bridge of his nose and cooing out a compassionate, “Did so good for me, pet. You always do so good.”

Their relationship was sweet and it was sour and it was beyond anything she could’ve ever hoped for or expected. It was definitely beyond what Y/N had expected when she’d set foot in the bar all those weeks ago, tagging along with a friend simply to appease their insistent request, hiding herself in the booth farthest from the thick of the ruckus to make herself as invisible as possible. Bars weren’t necessarily her scene; she’d rather people-watch than throw herself into the middle of a throng of half-conscious, sweaty bodies. She hadn’t expected that the lanky, built, incredibly attractive bartender with an eclectic fashion sense would even notice her, let alone clamber up onto the bar and yell across the room, singling her out as the chosen candidate for the nightly round of complimentary shots. 

She hadn’t expected they’d hit it off so well either, mostly because she had harbored a few traces of resentment towards him for forcing her out of the safety provided by her sequestered nook, and also because he had the most stupidly infuriating gorgeous smile she had ever seen— it was authentic, inviting, and it gave her an odd sense of soothing familiarity, which was unsettling considering he was a complete and total stranger. She hadn’t expected he would stir up jitters in her stomach, but after getting a spoonful of his personality, it seemed to be inevitable. He was sarcastic and giddy, full of inappropriate jokes and endless bundles of heart-fluttering giggles; when he engaged with her, he made her the epicenter of his world, which was so rare to find in people these days considering there was always somewhere to be or something else to do other than entertain some random person that was nothing more than a customer. 

But no, he gave her his full and undivided attention, listening to every word that rambled out of her mouth as he propped himself onto the counter on his elbows, chin resting on his knuckles with a delicate, encouraging aura highlighting the edges of his rosy mouth. Harry kept up with the conversation without a catch and returned her energy and enthusiasm tenfold. He remembered small details of the stories she was sharing and actually laughed at all her jokes, despite the fact that half of them came out as a jumbled mess; the way his emerald eyes were sparkling under the starburst design lights hanging above-head was fucking with her ability to form coherent sentences. 

Talking with him felt like stepping out into the sun on a canvas-worthy spring afternoon, the warmth of the heat waves running its fingertips along her bare arms and absorbing into her skin, making her bones ache in the best way imaginable. Making him smile felt like the shy caress of a faint draft, the wind smelling of honeysuckle as it wove its way between the ruffles of her clothing and skidded over the apples of her cheeks. Hearing his laughter was the equivalent of sitting in a field of grass, the ground warm under her touch, the blades silky between the creases of her fingers. It was buoyant, loud, and admiringly bold— it lacked the insecurity that tended to hold others back from fully enjoying themselves, scared of looking weird or making an unpleasant noise that might garner them disapproving looks. Harry laughed with his entire gut, a hand resting on his stomach as if to keep himself from bursting open, the ends of his eyes wrinkling and his two blocky front teeth showing. The tip of his nose would even twitch some, which was probably the most peculiar aspect of it all, yet it easily became her favorite mannerism of his. 

She was taken by him from the get-go and it’s almost pathetic how fast he’d had her wrapped around his pinky.

Y/N hadn’t expected to feel like that around Harry and she had used the vodka shots as an excuse for her overdramatic thoughts, but there was a frayed wire in her mind that had continued to spark for the remainder of that night, wondering how it was possible to connect with someone so effortlessly and provoke such chemistry so soon.

However, what Y/N hadn’t expected in even the slightest was ending up perched on top of the sticky wooden counter after the bar had closed, her arms wrapped around Harry’s strong shoulders as his hips had rocked between her naked thighs. She’d caught his tiny gold hoop earring between her teeth while she poured cracked moans into the dip of his ear, his tongue stifling the burn of the bite marks he was scattering along the underside of her clenched jaw, the low rumble of his accented voice— dense from the liquor— urging the heels of her shoes harder into the backs of his thick thighs. 

“Been wanting to taste your lips all fucking night.” 

One night stands were few and rare for her before that blurry, alcohol-induced detour. They were risky, unpredictable, and a right plague to leave behind the following morning— an hour or so of fun just didn’t seem to be worth the probable cost. But with Harry, it was like she was sold on the idea before it had even been an offer. He’d had a mesmerizing pull about him that left her wanting to get to know him better in every context humanly available, whether it be physical or emotional. He had puppeted his pretty face and boyish charm without issue and she had been in over her head long before she’d even realized she was sinking. 

What made it that much more appealing was that he wasn’t even trying— he was just being himself. The flirty yet non-overbearing, cheeky yet respectful persona he displayed wasn’t a display at all, it was just who he was and that innocent legitimacy is what propelled her to button their lips together the second he had made a move. 

A hesitant bundle of pecks had turned into a deeper, hungrier round of kissing that had been speckled with half-suppressed whimpers. It had then morphed into Y/N clumsily crawling over the counter and toppling into his awaiting arms, her whole body buzzing as he had giggled into her mouth between heavy breaths and feverish whines. 

The sloppy make out session had led to her fumbling with the leather belt around his slender hips as he had peeled her jeans down to her knees, his forehead falling against hers while he chewed his lower lip raw with impatience. It hadn’t been too long before he had moved her panties to the side with a tug of his index finger, her palm groping him shyly through his trousers and earning a soft, throaty, “Proper tease, aren’t you?” and then Harry was dipping inside her with a hiss streaming past the cracks of his gritted teeth. The drinks in their systems had acted as kerosine, setting every nerve alight as their bodies molded to one another’s quirks and customs, finding much-needed comfort in learning what made the other tick. She can’t recall how long it had lasted— she had been too lost in his company to care about the hands of the aged bar clock on the wall. When he had finally spilled inside her, it felt like forever and too soon all at once. Y/N had fallen apart right in his arms as the flat of his tongue tended to her racing pulse, blurbs of incoherent praise scraping across the roof of her mouth. 

And now here they are, after what feels like decades later, on the very same tabletop that had christened their “no strings attached” relationship in the first place. And here Harry is, lovingly petting at her hair while his fingers work her towards utterly ruining her underwear, his intensely colored eyes reading every jolt of her features like the pages of an immersive novel. And here Y/N is, working her hips to match his rhythm, teeth cutting along the inside of her bottom lip as tight exhales falter past her nostrils. 

She tilts her chin up, the back of her skull skidding against the counter, every dent and notch in the wood catching on her scalp and helping anchor her back down to reality. Her head halts when the blots of bronze in Harry’s irises come into view. 

His defined features have softened into an expression of doting awe, sculpted brows relaxed with endeared curiosity as his usually prominent cheekbones take on a softer appearance, crimson lips slightly agape. He’s studying her closely, basking in how she responds to his actions and using her body language as a cue. He continues to nuzzle at the baby hairs along her damp forehead, eyes flitting across different points of her face, waiting for her to give him any sign as to what he should do next. 

Y/N wills one of her hands to untie from around Harry’s lazily flicking wrist, trembling fingers climbing up to tether around the pearl necklace laying daintily within the dip of his collarbones. The beads are ice cold to the touch as she knots them around her knuckles, her sight sewn to his lips. 

The infatuation she carries for them is sad, really. Y/N thinks he has the most beautiful pair she’s ever seen, the softest she’s ever tasted, and definitely the most skilled she’s ever felt. She could gawk at them forever if time allowed, following every ridge, curve, and peak, idolizing all the different shades of pink that are never quite the same. 

But lips weren’t created for the purpose of just being seen— not when there’s so many better uses. 

Y/N gives the necklace a signifying tug as a quiet, vulnerable mutter betrays her, her interest still plastered to his swollen mouth. “Kiss me.”

Harry swallows thickly, struggling to catch a breath under her hungry stare, ears flaring at how frantic her sentence had come out. The emotion seems to have worn off on his own voice. 

“Say it again.” 

The pearls pinch at the loose ringlets that tickle the back of his neck, straining against his skin as she beckons him forward more insistently. He poises himself a mere inch from her mouth, her shaky exhales fanning over his cupid’s bow and fuck, he loves the suspense of it all. Loves the dynamic they share of toying with each other until the tension is practically palpable.

The hollow of Y/N’s throat flexes as she grapples with her words. “Kiss me. Please.”

And when he does, coincidentally enough, sweet and sour is all her muddled brain registers. 

Harry always tastes sweet. His lips have an inherently sugary quality to them, almost as if he’s dipped them in honey; it’s as addicting as any other part of him. His tongue is sour. It carries the remnants of the lime and tequila he’d just doused down, the flavor trickling through her taste buds and causing an aching throb along the back of her jaw. 

Harry’s fingers shift down from her hairline, his thumb settling on her cheekbone as the other four splay across the side of her face. The kiss is gentle at first, yet teeming with need, and it gradually starts to swell into a more passionate tempo. He slots their mouths roughly, turning his head to delve deeper, noses bumping and eyelashes brushing. 

Y/N’s so far gone that when Harry suddenly buries his middle finger inside her, she literally screams into his mouth. 

“Fuck, Harry— oh my God!” Her hips thrash upwards into his palm as he sinks up to his amethyst lion head ring. 

His wet, moany whisper streams directly into her chest. “Christ, you’re fucking soaked.”

Harry pumps the digit into her groggily, savoring the sensation of her squeezing around it as his thumb continues to stroke at the sensitive nub higher up. The soft sounds that drip from her bitten lips, the lusty fog over her glimmering eyes, and the way she’s guiding his hand nearly make him soil his pants. 

In any other circumstance, he’d be too ashamed to admit it— to admit that some casual fingering has him squirming— but with Y/N, he won’t even attempt to defend himself. She has him whipped and it’s more than obvious; fighting it is useless. Whether that extends into emotional territory or not…That’s something he’s not prepared to untangle.

Instead, he just focuses on the moment— on what they have right now; on what she has him feeling presently, which is plenty. The confession airs itself without much effort.

“You look so good like that— gonna make me cum without even touching me.”

The remark makes a lightning rod zip down her spine. “Y-Yeah?”

Harry draws back from her mesmerizing mouth, worrying her bottom lip between his teeth and letting it snap back. “You have me making a fucking mess of myself, pet.”

Y/N yanks him closer than before, planting a peck to his chin and then suckling lightly at the crescent along his upper lip. Her voice struggles to keep steady. “Want another finger.”

“Another one?” He slowly pulls out from between her thighs, aligning his second middle finger accordingly, rings clacking together. His typical snark is ever-present in his scoff. “So demanding.”

He can feel Y/N grin smugly against him, her tone mimicking his from earlier. “Always so willing, aren’t you?”

Harry rams her request inside, cooing with faux sympathy when she cracks a yelp. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

He curls the two fingers upwards, hitting a familiar spongy spot that he knows will drive her mad. 

“Thought this was what you wanted, yeah? For me to fuck you like this?”

His prediction materializes in the way she claws at the collar of his t-shirt, grabbing at anything she can get as her body starts rocking, riding his fingers. Harry grips her face in a flare of dominance, nudging at her lips with his own. 

“Baby just wants me to make her feel good, right? Y’want me to make you cum so hard you can barely walk up the stairs to my flat?”

He’s plucking at a chord at the pit of her stomach, her thighs trembling in response and he furrows his brows into a cautionary expression that warns her not to clamp them shut. It takes every fiber of her being to keep her legs from clenching together. 

Harry persists with his teasing, picking up the speed of his thrusts, his thumb relentlessly playing with her clit. 

“That is where you’re gonna end up, isn’t it? Same as always— spread across my bed in one of my shirts with your panties hanging off my dresser and my fingerprints bruised across your hips.” 

“Harry, I—” Y/N can’t even finish the thought, the words dissolving on her tongue as he bites at the flesh along the slope of her jaw, his own syllables charring her nerves. 

“S’not like the underwear matters much, anyways. You won’t need it until around noon the next day, considering you usually spend the entire morning bouncing on my cock. I’m not complaining, though. It’s the highlight of my day, if I’m being honest. You just look so cute pulling at my boxers, half asleep with that needy little pout on your lips, not to mention how adorable it is to watch you crawl across the bed into my lap with your nipples peeking through the fabric of my tee.”

Her hand leaves his wrist and spreads over the back of his, fingers carding between the cracks. She shoves him further inside and his jaw goes slack in aroused shock. She’s so shameless about it all and it makes him twitch in his trousers. 

“God, you’re so fucking tight. And, shit, I can’t stop thinking about the way my shirt just bunches around your thighs while you’re fucking yourself on me, thrusts deep and lazy as you beg me to play with your cunt while you use me to get yourself off. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it, love? Using me to make yourself cum? Meanwhile I just sit back with my arms behind my head until you get close. Then you’re scratching across my shoulders and panting into my neck, telling me how bad you want me to fill you up because you like how warm I make you feel.” 

Y/N’s balancing on the edge as Harry spins a miracle between her drenched thighs and she feels embarrassed for the puddle that’s likely spreading over the bar counter. 

“Such a dirty fucking girl. Especially when you grab my hand and place it right here.” He ducks his head and kisses at the center of her throat for emphasis, a conceited hum thrumming deep in his chest when she whimpers. “That’s when you decide to get into the proper filth. Stuff like, ‘You’re so fucking big, H. Already have me sore.’ and ‘Want you dripping down my thighs.’ But there’s so much more than that, though. What’s that one word you fancy so much? Need you to jog my memory.”

He’s switched to using his whole palm to rub at her clit, pounding deeper until his icy, chunky rings continuously thunk wetly. 

Y/N abides to Harry’s condescending question, gritting out the answer shyly. “Daddy.”

“Oh, that’s right. Daddy. How could I possibly forget when you always whine it into my mouth? ‘Harder, daddy, please.’ and ‘Want you to cum, daddy.’ and ‘I’m your good girl, daddy.’ And how about what you have me call you? Fuck, you just can’t seem to get enough of it. Your eyes always roll back when I tell you what a slut you can be. There’s that one phrase that you seemed to really enjoy the other day. When I said, ‘You’re such a darling little slut for me, aren’t you, baby?’ and you just melted.”

Y/N feels a familiar spark igniting at the pit of her abdomen, uncontrollably building. “Harry, I’m gonna—” 

All his actions immediately stop, fingers going limp between her legs. 

The sob she releases is anguished and irritated. “No, no, no— please don’t stop. M’close, H, please.”

Harry looks down at her over the crests of his brightly pigmented cheeks and she hadn’t noticed until now just how much this was impacting him, as well. She’d been so in her head she had failed so catch the way his whole body is trembling. 

He speaks so low and delicately it’s hardly audible, but the meaning of it punctures right through her ribs and into her gut. 

“Wanna feel you cum in my mouth.”

A few extended heartbeats tick by before his suggestion sinks into her brain and then she’s struggling to sit up onto her elbows, already in the process of swinging her legs off the edge of the pub table. 

Harry’s drops to his knees with a hollow thump to the elegant wooden floor, large clumsy hands fiddling with the waist of her jeans, riding them down her clammy thighs. Y/N maneuvers herself into a somewhat upright position, sitting back on her palms, fingers wrapping around the edge of the bar counter for support. He finishes easing her out of the high-waisted denim bottoms, discarding them on the ground beside his calf. 

Harry runs his warm touch up her goosebump-ridden legs, groping at her outer thighs and yanking her closer until she’s balancing on the cliff of the waxed surface. Y/N can’t stifle herself from swinging one arm out from behind her, blindly fisting at the curls along the crown of his head, shivering when he mewls weakly. He stipples his hot lips up her knee caps and along her inner thighs, spreading her open wider and wider as he trails upwards. His grip firms around her hips, holding her in place in preparation for the wriggling and twisting he knows she won’t be able to reign. Harry eyes her center with drunken desire, toying with the waistband of her racy lace undies, taking some time to just get a good look at how dark the fabric has become. 

Y/N takes this opportunity to ogle at him herself, gnawing the inside of her left cheek raw at how incredible he looks on his knees. His lavender flared pants compliment the polish on his nails, the pastel yellow of his Vans peeking through as he lounges back against his heels. Amidst all the commotion, his white shirt has become half untucked from beneath his belt and the desperate messiness his image paints is nearly enough to finish her off. Especially as her sight wanders upwards, catching on the small silver hoop shining on his right ear and then leveling with his view, his eyes owlish and puppy-like as he leans forward all the way and presses a lingering kiss right over the wet patch of her panties.

His voice is spaced out and distant. “Been thinking about eating you out all day.” 

Harry flutters pecks up to the elastic of her undergarment, taking it carefully between his teeth and tugging downwards. Y/N remains as still as possible as he coaxes the article off, one hand massaging at the back of her calf while the other stays secured to her hip. 

Once the last bit of material is out of the way and she’s finally bare, Harry straightens himself into perfect posture, hoisting both of her legs over his solid shoulders in one swift motion. Her heels knock against his taut back muscles, digging in with anticipation as he bites bruises into the junction where her inner thigh meets her crotch. 

Y/N tilts his head up a bit to get his attention, her tone bleeding. “Need your tongue. Please.”

He nods numbly in her grasp, wetting his lips slowly before answering in a hushed murmur. “Gonna give it to you, dove. Gonna make my girl feel so fucking good for me. Always do.”

And he truly does; Y/N never doubted that. From the first kitten lick he gives, she knows she isn’t going to last long.

His light strokes meld into deep, needy lapping, the flat of his tongue dragging against her clit in long trails, warm and silky. Every time he gets to the hood at the top, he gives a few quick flicks with the very tip, causing her to wring at his curls almost cruelly. He then proceeds to duck down until he’s at her entrance, flirting his tongue around the rim and dipping it inside as far as he can before the back of his throat begins to ache. 

He keeps this rhythm going firmly, every now and then allowing himself to wander some, suckling at the outer lips of her heat and gifting the area sticky kisses that make her shudder. 

Y/N’s head falls back between her shoulder blades, the weight straining the back of her neck but she’s too high off him to force her joints to comply. She can only muster enough energy to comb her fingers through his satin locks, scratching at his scalp in agreement as broken sounds of encouragement sting the back of her throat and drive his every move. 

“You taste like heaven, baby. So fucking sweet, can never get enough of it. Could spend hours on my knees for you.”

Harry prods the bud of her clit with the tip of his button nose, puckering his lips around it and sucking feverishly, grinning into her cunt when her legs clasp harder around his neck. He talks over a full mouth, the vibrations pinballing up the knobs of her spine. “Liked that, didn’t you?”

She adamantly shakes her head yes. 

He coats his palms along her outer thighs, squeezing teasingly and prying them open enough to get a better range. He then shakes his face, tongue expertly caressing every nook and cranny. 

Y/N’s nails crunch against the wood that runs along the underside of the counter. “Yes, yes, yes— shit, thank you.” 

Harry presses his lips together tightly, tugging at her folds for the heightened stimulation, preening at how the digits in his roots spasm. “More than happy to help, minx.” 

She manages to crane her neck forward, chin pressing into her heaving upper chest as she stares down at him with so much lust her eyes water. He returns her starved gaze, the lower half of his face utterly drenched, cheeks glistening with her excitement as the corners of his darkened mouth prick his dimples into place. Every ragged breath and every watery moan is inflating his ego beyond reasonable.

“I’m so fucking close, Har.”

He pushes his tongue deeper, head bobbing with newfound purpose as his lashes flutter up at her temptingly. He looks borderline ethereal with the amber lights reflecting off his glossy, cocksure irises, arms flexing with the strength it takes to keep her tethered down, the inking on his tan skin jumping to life. 

“Be a good girl and cum for me, hm? Want you dripping down my chin.”

This orgasm is definitely one of the best Harry has ever given her. 

It boils over from the bottom of her tummy, a relieving glow surging through every vein and warming her from the inside out. It splinters her bones with unimaginable pleasure, her whole body caving forward as he eggs the climax to its full potential. He continues licking into her tirelessly, brows raised in amused glee as he watches her come undone at the seams, crying out his name as the waves of satisfaction roll out from the bottom of her feet to the very tips of her ears. 

When Y/N finally regains her composure from the unrealistic surge, she nearly collapses right off the side of the bar table. 

Harry intercepts what otherwise would have been a very unpleasant finish to the experience, mounting onto his feet and wrapping a strong arm around the dip of her back, keeping her upright and safe. 

Her forehead plops against his, a dreamy giggle escaping past her marked-up lips as the last currents of gratification fade away. Harry’s own boyish chuckle tinges the electrified air around them, his free arm coming up to use his wrist as an impromptu cloth, wiping away the leftover wetness. It’s a simple gesture but it makes her belly throb. 

He then cradles her face with both of his obscenely warm hands, spongeing his lips to the tip of her unfeeling nose in an endeared, affectionate manner, all the lust in his mood replaced by loving concern. “You alright? Wasn’t too much?”

She wobbles her head half-heartedly, mind still submerged in the aftershock. Her throat is so battered she can barely get out her words. “It was perfect— you’re always perfect.”

To her unexpecting entertainment, Harry’s cheeks and neck dye a dull shade of raspberry red. He follows the outline of her plump bottom lip with his thumbs, attitude bashful and sheepish. “You flatter me too much. My head’s not gonna fit through the front door.”

Y/N snorts playfully, kissing softly at the pad of his left thumb. “As if your head isn’t big enough already.”

“Heyyyyy!” He pouts childishly, bumping his brows to hers as a minute show of revenge. “S’not the way to treat the bloke that just tongue-fucked you into nearly passing out.” 

His friend rolls her eyes at him grandly, pinching at his stomach jestingly. “Ever so humble.” 

“Keep myself grounded, don’t I?” Harry pulls away from their embrace, ducking down to retrieve something from the floor. He comes up with her crumpled panties hanging off his index finger, pressing his lips together to keep from bursting into a round of immature giggles. “I believe these are yours.”

Y/N snags them, giving him a pointed, deadpan glare as she tentatively slips them up her naked legs, shimmying them over her hips. 

A comical memory suddenly surfaces into the forefront of her thoughts. 

“Y’know what’s funny? If I recall correctly, you said we weren’t gonna have sex on the bar anymore. Something about it being ‘unsanitary and unprofessional.’” 

Harry freely splutters into the cheeky laugh he’d been trying to muffle, casually crossing his arms over his broad chest, tongue sweeping over the front of his top teeth coyly. One edge of his mouth flickers upwards into a shit-eating simper. “Well, this technically wasn’t sex.”

“Oh, really?” Y/N flattens her palms against the wooden counter, hopping off smoothly and sweeping her jeans up off the ground. She’s not sure what magic Harry used to get her pants off without removing her sneakers, but she knows she doesn’t possess it. She toes off her checkered trainers and begins easing her foot through one leg. “What was it, then? Meditating?”

Harry scowls humorously at her quip— it’s an inside joke that pertains to the code word he now uses for “masturbating.” It was courtesy of a drunken customer once asking him for advice on what to do when they couldn’t sleep and Harry had said meditating was a good way to unwind. Y/N had been visiting that night—as she did every weekend— and was sitting two seats down from the exchange when she had overheard the conversation, giving him a knowing smirk over the rim of her highball glass and shrugging her eyebrows slyly, her quiet mumble pouring a blush into his ears. “Yeah, sure. I’ve helped you meditate plenty through the phone.”

Harry leans his lower back against the edge of the pub counter, crossing his ankles and giving his wide shoulders a nonchalant shrug. “It was a little bit of touching and some innocent cunnilingus.” 

Y/N scoffs sarcastically, shoving her other foot into the opposite pant leg and yanking it up over her bum, buttoning the article with finality and smoothing her sweater down. “‘Innocent cunnilingus.’ The irony of it all.”

Harry kicks Y/N’s Vans towards her with the flat side of his own. “What’s ironic is you mocking me as if you weren’t begging for it a few minutes ago.”

She wiggles her toes into the shoes wordlessly. 

“S’what I thought.” Harry taunts. 

Now that she’s fully dressed, Y/N slowly drifts closer to him, finding amusement in how his stance straightens in sudden interest. His forearms tighten a smidgen over his pecs, fingers tucking underneath his pits so she doesn’t see them tapping anxiously. 

Y/N stops once her chest bumps against the shield he’s built before him, his neck visibly tensing. When she speaks, it’s suggestive and her undertone resembles velvet. “You know what’s the most ironic thing of all?”

Harry jumps when he feels Y/N’s hands wrinkling the fabric of his graphic t-shirt, a harsh tug untucking it fully from below his waistband. Her hands slip below the material, cold, pliant fingers tracing over the toned muscles of his stomach and massaging at the love handles along his torso. “That you went through all that trouble of showing me how to appropriately do body shots, but you don’t really know if I learned it.” 

He starts picking up on her hints, his biceps contracting at the feathery sensation of her fingertips spelling out random letters across the wings of his butterfly tattoo. He cocks his head down to get a better look at her, chin pressing into the alcove between his defined collarbones. Her lips are so close he has to force himself to keep from chasing them. 

Harry entertains the little game she’s dishing, voice low and heavy. “I guess that is pretty ironic.” 

Y/N reaches over his hip for something behind him, her hand coming back with one of the leftover lime wedges nestled at its center. She glances up at him from beneath her thick lashes, luring him in with that hypnotic aura she always works to her advantage. The lime slice ends up between her inviting lips, the rine facing outwards in the same manner Harry had placed his.

Y/N then balances herself forward onto the tips of her toes, the pads of her digits digging into his chest ever so slightly for reinforcement. She stretches her neck until her face is level with his and goes in as if to kiss him, transferring the lime into his mouth, juice squirting out and fizzing over his itching skin. 

“Get up on the counter.”

[lucientelrunya]

Like a lonely house pt 3

Phew, I feel a little like that bird meme "the risk I took was calculated, but man am I bad at math" (which I really am *points to the 70 years that are actually 80 years* !!), with how I went "Huh, there is no 50.000+words slow burn of them, but I want!!!" and my brain was like "well, do it yourself. Here, have Chapter 1, 3, 6 and 9, I already prepared them. Oh and here is some Ba Ye+Wu Xie-friendship" And then I struggle with how to bridge the gap between those chapters.....

This part is me struggling really hard. Trying to bridge those gaps and trying to puzzle Mystic Nine-Canon and Book-Canon together. Like, Wu Laogou??? He wasn't even born? My perfectionism can't handle this!! But I guess I am like Hamilton, I'll never be satisfied *sigh*, so ... yeah. Feel free to point out any mistakes you spot!

I should definitely add that this is canon-divergent... ish (which canon???), I'm not sure if there is anything I should warn about in this part, maybe just more sadness? But @psychic-waffles and @gaiahenshin wanted someone to hug Zhang Rishan so ... here you go I guess ^^°°° (I see those tags and reblogs and favorites and I am beyond thrilled every single time, I don't even know how to react!)

It takes a conscious effort to make his lungs work properly again and take a deep breath. Fo Ye had entrusted him with his legacy and he will do everything he can to not disappoint him any further. He has to face the consequences of what he has done, he has to. But before he can get a grip on himself someone tips his chin up to shine a flashlight right into his eyes. He automatically flinches back from the blinding light, dislodging the hand from his face in the process and finds Huo Daofu staring at him, flashlight in his hand and one brow raised. “Back with us?” he asks, eyes scanning Zhang Rishan’s face methodically and only taking a step back once he nods slowly. How long had he stood frozen, trapped in his thoughts for Huo Daofu to come over and start to worry?

“Good. Any more insights on god-radio?” What is he talking about? "God-radio?" Zhang Rishan repeats slowly, confused, which only makes Huo Daofu raise both brows this time. He pointedly looks over at the mural where Zhang Rishan's fingers are still touching the picture of said god. Ah, they must have thought it was still somehow communicating with him.

“Time travel”, Zhang Rishan mutters, trying to ignore the way Luo Que hovers anxiously at his side and the way Ba Ye has his hands wrapped around his upper arm like he had always done when he wanted to hide behind him or was whining about something (and the possible connection between those two things). His words cause several confused “huh”’s from different directions. Taking a slow deep breath he braces himself to say the words, to confess and take the blame for this mess. “No, I didn't get any further godly insights, but I think Ba Ye is right, he never died, he was, as you phrased it so nicely, plucked from the past and put here, now”, he says, inclining his head at Wu Xie.

“But why?” Ba Ye asks and Zhang Rishan makes himself turn his head to look at him when he says his next words. “Because of me.” And there it is. “Because this god was inside my mind and it was so incredibly thankful I gave it its freedom that it wanted to give something to me in return, to grant me a wish.” Not that he had wished for Ba Ye to be ripped out of his time, exactly, his thoughts had been a jumbled mess at that moment. He had never consciously wished for anything in particular. But Ba Ye’s sudden disappearance in the middle of a war had torn a hole into Fo Ye’s heart and, by extension, into Zhang Rishan’s (not only by extension, of course, because Ba Ye had been important to Zhang Rishan, too - is important - but to Fo Ye he had practically been family). He could have said how Fo Ye had looked for Ba Ye for months, for years, with a war raging right on their doorstep, when thousands of people were dying or disappearing, when the city they had so desperately tried to protect had been burned to the ground. How Fo Ye had never truly gotten over not being able to find him - save him - or at least find out what happened. He had felt Ba Ye’s absence all his life, a regret he couldn’t let go of, not even on his deathbed. A regret Zhang Rishan had taken into his own heart, after Fo Ye’s death, added to his own regrets and moulded into a lump of regret-failure-pain-bitterness-sorrow that his trained mind still hasn’t filed away properly. He has failed Ba Ye, too, and has missed Ba Ye, too. And this is his mess, this is what his jumbled thoughts had made a god do, so he leaves it at that.

Zhang Rishan is prepared for anger, for reproaches, for being smacked again, but Ba Ye’s face is unreadable and he doesn’t say anything, his fingers around Zhang Rishan’s arm only slightly tightening their grip. He waits for something - anything - to happen, (maybe for the sky to fall down or the earth to open up and swallow him), for him to wake up and realize everything’s only just been a dream - nightmare? - or for one of them to tell him he’s crazy and there’s no way this could be possible. And someone does: “But that’s impossible, that would be a paradox”, Wu Xie says and Zhang Rishan looks at him pointedly.

“A bootstrap paradox, to be exact”, Huo Daofu remarks and really, that’s the part of all of this he wants to comment on? “A what now?” Pangzi asks, squinting at Huo Daofu and Zhang Rishan is glad he is not the only one who has no idea what Huo Daofu is talking about. “A bootstrap paradox. It basically describes phenomena with a cause-effect-loop just like this. I mean, you don’t know my gran, but she was absolutely obsessed with the famous Qi Tiezui so I don’t know how many times I heard the story of his tragic, mysterious disappearance and all the questions and the search and Zhang Da Fo Ye’s heartbreak.” He looks like he wants to roll his eyes in annoyance at the mention of his grandmother. “But that’s exactly that. He vanished and you wanted to find out why and that wish brought him here in the first place. So what came first? There is no discernable point of origin for- what, I like Sci-Fi, don’t look at me like that!”

It is somehow reassuring and disconcerting at the same time that Huo Daofu of all people manages to sum up his thoughts like this, aside from his guilt. And that he is able to put a name to this, even if that doesn’t mean it’s a real thing. Fiction is fiction after all. How can there even be such a thing? But then, how could there be a god chained to a cave or a mysterious force controlling people like that or golden coffin water that saved people from certain death? After everything else he has already seen and lived through or just heard about in his life he shouldn’t be so doubtful. It’s also quite unsettling how much Huo Daofu knows about Ba Ye’s disappearance and how casually he mentions those details. But Ba Ye doesn’t seem too upset about the mention of Fo Ye’s heartbreak, at least for the moment. Instead he perks up at Huo Daofu’s words.

“Good, good! After all you heard and all you read about that then it must be a real thing, so I think we can all agree that all of this is real and I am real!” And, curiously, Wu Xie looks at Liu Sang, who jerks his head in a small gesture of confirmation that’s not really a nod. But it is obviously enough for Wu Xie to smile at Ba Ye and nod. “Yes, I think we can. And I wanted to ask you something. You were the one who stole one of my grandpa’s dogs, right?” The question makes Ba Ye laugh awkwardly and let go of Zhang Rishan’s arm, so he can gesture at Wu Xie.

“Of course that’s what he would tell his grandchildren about me. Let me tell you, I took out that dog’s gallstones and I brought it back safe and sound! And he acted like I murdered it!” Wu Xie laughs at the face Ba Ye makes, or maybe his helpless gesturing. “He always said you kidnapped that dog just to get back at him.” Zhang Rishan isn’t sure if he imagines how the conversation tiptoes on the line of ‘friendly conversation’ and ‘fishing for information’. But he hadn’t been present for the whole Dog-stealing-thing, so he keeps listening, ignoring Pangzi who starts to tease Huo Daofu about his obvious love for science fiction and then continues to question him about his favorites.

“Aiyah! That’s just what I told Fo Ye, that Wu Laogou would never give me his dog if I asked him because he would think I wanted to get back at him. But I really wasn’t! We needed his gallstones to cure Mo Ce so Fo Ye said I had to steal it if I wouldn’t ask for it. So I stole it, but as I said, I brought it back better than new, freshly cured. And he even made me apologize to the dog!” That is actually something he hadn’t known, but Wu Xie laughing and saying “Of course he would!” is enough to finally fully convince him that all of this is real. It puts his mind at ease and shifts his focus to other things he still has questions about.

They should definitely find out more about this god and the people that imprisoned it. He takes out his phone to take some photos of the mural and finds it mostly covered in white, but just like before it just crumbles away in little flakes. Surprisingly his phone still works and there is no trace of dampness to it. For a moment he stares at the screen and then at his arm, where Ba Ye's hands had grabbed him. The dried white stuff has crumbled away where the cloth had been moved or touched, leaving no trace, no lingering wetness. Deliberately taking note of every part of his skin he realizes that actually nothing feels wet or damp, even though he practically swam in that liquid. He can only recall the feeling of the liquid clinging to him and dragging him down like water-soaked and heavy clothing would do, but it seems highly unlikely that he was unconscious long enough for his clothes to completely dry. It's like whatever was in the pool only wrapped itself around him, like a cocoon, but didn't soak through anything.

Luo Que is still beside him, silently watching him. His arms are covered in white flakes, too, so he must have helped Pangzi get him out of the pool. “Do you remember what the liquid felt like?” Luo Que looks confused for a moment, furrowing his brows until his eyes drift down to his own arms and he seems to get what Zhang Rishan is asking. “Not really like liquid, it felt cool but not wet at all”, he answers, rubbing at one of the larger stains that crumbles away under his fingertips. This only confirms his suspicions, he wants this stuff analyzed. Luo Que finds a zip-lock-bag somewhere in his backpack and together they manage to get at least some of the white flakes and dust into the bag, although it seems to disintegrate once it gets shaken off whatever surface it had clung to.

Wondering if this is even really a tomb he takes pictures of the whole mural. It seems more like a temple - no, they didn’t worship the god here, so more of a prison for a god if there is a word for such a thing. He turns only to find Ba Ye watching him, staring at his phone. Of course, the kinds of cameras Ba Ye knows were big and bulky so he hands it to Ba Ye. “It’s a camera and a phone”, he explains, which only makes Ba Ye stare harder, turning the device in his hands. “It’s so small!” His wonder makes Zhang Rishan smile and he promises to show Ba Ye what it can do later.

Which seems almost like a cue for them to decide to carefully explore the rest of the tomb for more information and to find out if it really is a tomb. They take the dagger, the only remarkable thing on the altar and maybe something that can help them find out more about the people that used it. Maybe at least how old this cave is. Zhang Rishan is still unsure if it’s a tomb or a prison, even after they find two more caves with clay jugs filled with human ashes. Cremation is not exactly a common burial tradition for this region and there are no grave goods at all. Not one single treasure, to Pangzi’s great disappointment, no more murals, no scripture, nothing. It’s mostly a disappointment in terms of exploration, but maybe they can find out some more.

Since it already got dark when they reached the tomb they decide to spend the night in the cave with the pool, which is the only one with enough room for all of them (and they don’t really want to sleep next to rows of human ashes). It’s still quite dark, even with Pangzi’s heater instead of a fire but more comfortable than outside where Liu Sang had heard rain and thunder. None of them goes to check, there is no need to hurry back, they can spend one night in the cave and hopefully the rain will have stopped the next day.

Reception in the cave is strong enough to mail the pictures to some contacts and ask them to look into it. Ba Ye watches him curiously while he types in the message and Zhang Rishan shows him all the other functions - or at least everything he frequently uses his phone for, which makes Pangzi laugh. “Ahh, President Zhang,” he scolds, using the title he had never used before. “You are all about work! Show the poor man some good things! Here, look at this game,” and he tucks on Ba Ye’s shoulder to get him to lean over his own phone.

“Pangzi, the ‘poor man’ doesn’t have a phone to send you money for your stupid game”, Wu Xie leans on Pangzi’s other shoulder, grinning and obviously finished with his phone call. “Ah, Tianzhen, pay attention. I’m already done with that one, this is a new one. Here, look!” Judging by the way all three of them look at the phone it must be something cute and Zhang Rishan finds himself smiling again, glad and thankful that they include Ba Ye so effortlessly. He will need people who can care for him and help him if he decides he won’t forgive Zhang Rishan after they get a chance to talk about everything that has happened since Ba Ye vanished.

This thought wipes the small smile off his face and he distracts himself by texting Liang Wan, asking her when she will be back from her trip because he wants her to check Ba Ye, blood tests and all. He will do everything he can to make sure Ba Ye is okay (or as okay as he can be) and has everything he needs for a life in the 21. century. Which is another reason why he offers Ba Ye his sleeping bag, who simply refuses, adamant that they can share. They end up with Zhang Rishan sitting on one half, leaning his back against the wall and Ba Ye using his leg as a pillow, curled up next to him on the other half. It’s familiar, but he represses the memories, busying himself with shrugging out of his coat without waking Ba Ye to drape it over him because he can feel him shiver against his leg. It seems to be getting colder but he doesn’t mind. Ba Ye doesn’t wake, but when he looks back up Wu Xie smiles at him from where Pangzi is halfway wrapped around him, head on Zhang Qilings lap.

When they pack up the next morning it’s still raining and it’s really noticeably colder than before. Zhang Rishan lets Ba Ye keep his coat, he will need some protection against the rain in his thin changshan, even if the thick forest they had hiked through should offer some protection against the rain. But when they leave the cave there is no more forest, only muddy ground where lush undergrowth had been and some tree stumps that look long dead.

“Well, the forest was unusual”, Liu Sang says but still seems just as perturbed as everyone else. For a moment they just stand there and look around them. “I guess they really needed that god to grow something around here”, Pangzi jokes, but he sounds uneasy about it. And how could they not be, with miles of dead land around them where hours before there had been fruit trees and berry bushes in abundance. Zhang Rishan represses a shiver of uneasiness and just wants to leave this place as soon as possible. He is not the only one. Instinctively they walk faster on their way back, or as fast as they can. The rain had made the ground slippery with mud and dead plants. None of them feels comfortable about stopping for the night but it’s safer than trying to navigate through the dark. Thankfully the rain stopped some time before that and they manage get a fire going, but still all of them are quiet and thoughtful, no trace of the easy banter of the day before.

They are packed and ready to go with the first light of the next day. Without the rain the ground dries up fast and the sun is too bright and too warm, which is actually typical for this region. At one point they cross a very visible line where the dead zone ends and there are plants and trees again, but they don’t stop to inspect it further, too glad to be out.

It’s mid afternoon when they reach the end of the road where they had left their cars and from there it’s only roughly another two hours to drive to the small village where they had spent the night before setting out on this endeavour. The villagers don’t seem to know that a whole forest has vanished and happily accommodate them again in the small inn. They had seemed to avoid the general area of said forest and hadn’t wanted to talk about it before, just whispering about local legends of a ‘man-eating wood’. Luckily the owner of the small inn doesn’t seem to remember their exact number or he simply doesn’t care that they left the allegedly cursed forest with an additional person. He gives them the same rooms (which are actually the only rooms available) and goes off to prepare dinner.

They disperse to their rooms to clean up and rest for a moment until dinner is ready. Wu Xie had made sure that Zhang Rishan shares his room with Ba Ye so they can talk, but both of them seem a bit reluctant to start. They wash in a somewhat uncomfortable silence until Zhang Rishan takes off the bandages, inspecting the two cuts on his arms and is surprised at the 2 neat rows of staples. He hadn’t realized they were that long and deep that they required stapling and is actually impressed at Huo Daofu’s level of preparation for such a small trip. He obviously knows what he is doing, the cuts are clean and already healing nicely. “Let me help you”, Ba Ye takes the fresh bandages out of his hand, and starts slowly wrapping them around Zhang Rishan’s arms.

“I understand there are a lot of things that have happened since I disappeared, so just tell me”, Ba Ye’s voice is quiet and he keeps his eyes on his hands. And, taking a deep breath to brace himself, Zhang Rishan tells him. About the second attack on Changsha, the third, and finally the fourth one when they lost and everything they had tried to protect had been destroyed. He doesn’t go into detail about all the lives that were lost in the war, while Ba Ye’s fingers work slower and slower until they stop, hovering over Fo Ye’s bracelet. Zhang Rishan pulls his arms away to tuck down his sleeves, hiding the bandages and the bracelet alike, while he only briefly mentions the destruction and despair. Ba Ye had seen enough of that after the first attack on Changsha. He tells him about the years after the war, how they slowly rebuild and how Fo Ye kept looking for Ba Ye. There are not only sad things to say - Fo Ye had been happy in his marriage with Xinyue, Er Ye had been pleased with his new apprentice, the Huo-Clan had thrived, just like the Xie-Clan - although those outweigh the good things, because one by one he recounts the deaths of everyone Ba Ye knows.

“I’m sorry”, he finishes and hates that the words don’t do justice to the depth of his feelings. “You lost them too”, Ba Ye says, his voice surprisingly steady and almost gentle, and Zhang Rishan stares at him, at a loss. Yes, he did. But little by little, parts of his world crumbling away, piece by piece, until only duty remained. He’d had time to adjust to the holes, find ways around them, new paths that had grown old and used and then been torn away, too. What he had lost in the course of 80 years Ba Ye had lost in one day, one moment, one blink of an eye.

“Yes”, he says and doesn’t know how to put into words that their pain shouldn’t be compared, because there are not enough words to even begin to describe this. Pain is something he has been trained to file away into different threat levels, into different boxes. He is not allowed to have one named ‘unbearable’, but he doesn’t know how else to label the pain of that one moment when the worst thing has happened and it feels like the world just stops, just shatters and falls to pieces, never to be whole again. But everything stays the same. It’s just his world that shattered, his heart that has been torn apart never to be whole again. He is the one who changed, not the world. And he doesn’t even fathom himself how he had to change to survive that, who he had to become. Because he had become a person that would cause that kind of pain to someone else like this. He had killed countless people in his lifetime, on purpose as a Zhang, as a soldier, in the war or by mistake, by failure, by not being able to save them but he had never thought himself capable of such cruelty.

Whatever Ba Ye reads in his face (or maybe in his heart, because Ba Ye had always been good at reading hearts), it makes him knit his brows. Not in anguish or sorrow but something more akin to chagrin and he grabs the sides of Zhang Rishan’s sweater to roughly tug him forward into a bone crushing hug. And Zhang Rishan allows himself to be moved, just like he had always allowed himself to be moved whenever Ba Ye was tugging on him.

Ba Ye presses his face into the crook of his neck, arms wrapping tightly around his sides, fingers digging into his shoulder blades and Zhang Rishan can feel the shaky inhale against the bare skin of his neck. Carefully he wraps his arms around Ba Ye’s shoulders and holds him up when he feels the other man lean most of his weight on him. He doesn’t say anything, when he feels the wetness of quiet tears against his shoulder, just closes his eyes, offering whatever comfort he can offer like this.