#my goal of doing this before the end of may is looking slim

[beaversatemygrandma]

You know. DMVs really are their own hell, aren't they? Like, it really feels like it's impossible to get in with a walk-in unless you get there at the crack of dawn, and that's actually impossible because in order to get there, i need to go with my grandma (getting the license need and Adult. God.) and go drop my sister off at school at 8-830. then that means getting there at 9 and having that 50% chance of actually getting inside. So drive a kid to school, you're basically already out unless you sped there at 100mph and ran every light. Today, i woke up at 7, helped her get her shit together, drove her to school, and then went to the dmv only to stand there outside in the blazing sun for hours, getting a minor splotch of sunburn on my nose, only to make it 10 feet from the front door and the receptionist telling everybody that walk-ins were cut off for the day.

Yeah. Yeah. I could get an appointment. IF THERE WERE ANY AVAILABLE.

[strom-in-the-sky]

Hi, I read your chubby reader story and fell in love. It would be great to see another one again. I would be very happy if you do it, but this time, dazai is very serious and he learned that his s/o was being bullied before, or he saved her when she was being bullied at that exact moment. a story

Hi! Sorry it took me so long to reply to this. I lost motivation to Wright it. 😔

My bella~

Horrible Wright, chubby reader, gender neutral is such but more leaning to female reader. dazai calling reader Bella or girl. Bullying. Comfort. Suggestive ending. No y/n only you.

Osamu loved you. He loved how you called him Osamu than dazai. It made him feel so alive. He felt human. He loved you dearly so much. At first, he never expected to fall in love, but he adores his Bella so much. The way you're so much softer, then him God knows he is more stinky as a twig. But he loved to share a big meal with you, not that he cared to eat alot- he adored seeing you cheeks puffed up! He just wants to squish them or bit them like mochi! Don't get him started on the legs! He loves them! In a non sexual way. He loved to rest his heaf on your lap when you're at his apartment or just squish them like a cat. The same with your chest, he could lay on you for days and sleep like a bear on a cave for days on end without moving. Dazai was living the best life in his opinion. Dazai doesn't care for size or what you look like he adores all women. Dazai adores you, and it was clear as day at times when he completely stops flirting with other women and showers you with love and affection. You're the last person he wants to hurt. And dazai. Dazai is very dead on with his goals.

♡

Dazai took you on a date to the mall. And he left yo to go get ice cream since it was very hot. It was clear as day dazai was a handsome man. Giving his looks, body, and voice. He was everyone go to man for a woman. So when a group of girls eyed him with you. They were jealous and spiteful women. They tried with him first only to get ignored. He gave them a smile and, ever so polite, brushed them off. So a peaceful you sitting at the chairs waiting for your boyfriend to come back. The group of girls. Three the middle one with blond hair seamed the leader of them all. Snickering and laughing. "Did you see that ugly woman with him? What could possibly be going through his head? He must be getting paid to date her!" They were chatting loudly. At first, you brushed it off before it became more and more clear. They were shaming you. Before walking over.* "yea! What are you even doing with a man like that, uh? You should give me his number. I bet I can give him a batter woman to take care of." The blonde hair woman spoke. She smirked as she slimmed and pretty. I'm not saying you weren't you where the perfect looks for a woman may be even better than you could... she had the looks and style, and dazai did used to flirt with women her type....

Dazai had come back as he started at what was happening now. dazai wasn't stupid. He acted stupid, but he never is. He can take a situation and read it clearly as day. So when he saw the same girls he rejected, he came over with the ice cream cups in hand.* "Bella! Why haven't you told me you were making friends! I hope my lovely girl hasn't been waiting long for this dirt bag, leaving his poor Bella all alone!" He moved to sit next to you as he placed the cups down and wrapped his arms around your waist. "My pretty Bella, I love you so much." He softly mumbled as he smothered you in kisses. Gently bitting your cheek in a playfully nip before he looked out at the girls with a look. 'Watch it.' His look screamed as he rested his head on your shoulder. "You know Bella, my favorite type of girls are anyone but you. You Bella are my favorite, " he meant in so many different ways the way you dealt with him when you didn't have to. You where way better then any bitchy girl in his eyes. His Bella. His Bella he loved so much. The girls scoffed as the blonde was about to say something as dazai cut her off. "Also, Bella! I have to thank you for the wonderful pillow you gave me earlier. Best I ever nap at the agency!" He didn't give the girls time to speak again before they stormed off. He looked at you with loving eyes. "I love you Bella. I truly do mean it. I don't care what you look like. Your my world... and I plan to give you the best I can" he mumbled in to your ear before he pressed more kisses to your cheek.

"I love you two Osamu"

Oh, how he loved how you spoke that to him. It made him melt inside. How is someone loving like you cared for him. He would risk it all to keep you happy. So once he got up tugging you along with cups in hand.

"We should go home! It's so hot in always! And plus, I want to treat my wonders, bella~"

.

.

.

......

"Your not licking ice cream off my boobs again Osamu-"

"wait- WHY NOT-?!"

-

Not proofread. Rushed.

[sam-glade]

Reducing verbosity, improving clarity

Part 3/3 of my editing process. Part 1 link. Part 2 link.

This is what I do to a novel or a novella before showing it to anyone (including beta readers). I’m posting it in hopes that it will help someone, and I’m not expecting it to work for everyone. Take any parts that help you!

The goal of this step is to make the style more crisp and direct. If you're going for a slow or very poetic style, this may not be as applicable.

Two things up front:

‘Imperfect’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’. Good writing can have imperfections.

The goal is to get the manuscript to a stage where the imperfections won’t be distracting to beta readers.

The idea is to convey the maximum amount of meaning in the minimum number of words. Be as specific as you can.

Large paragraphs

I go over the manuscript and compare the size of paragraphs. If they look close to square on a laptop screen, I’ll see what I can do about them. I personally don’t mind a paragraph of description or exposition, but the one rule I adhere to is that it must be immediately connected to what the character is thinking, feeling, or talking about. 

E.g. I need to give a description of the uniform most of my characters wear.

‘So he sat there in the ashen coatee with white facings, unbuttoned to reveal a white waistcoat, both creased after a long day. Little swords on his shoulder straps signified his division, and three stripes on the buttons of his jacket marked him as a sergeant. His long slim Sword was at his side — not as slim as a rapier, and with only a simple cross-guard over the grip. And yes, it looked more silvery than cold iron should, and it glowed faintly in the dark, but when it was sheathed, it looked very ordinary. I’m just a simple Sword, Ianim’s appearance said. Move along; there’s nothing interesting about me.’ → I deliberately highlight the details about the weapon that are out of ordinary, AND explain how Ianim feels about the outfit.

If it doesn’t do that at the end, and is still long, it needs to be shortened or tied into the current situation.

Laundry list of actions

Here, I’m looking for paragraphs that list a handful of actions, without any introspection or description. It usually means I’m spelling out every little action, when the reader will fill in the blanks easily if I remove a good portion of them. It’s things like ‘looked around and located X’ or ‘walked across the room’.

E.g. ‘He rolled his eyes around, trying to locate whoever was speaking. He felt a faint touch on his left shoulder and twitched, promptly hissing in pain. The hand was withdrawn. He gathered his strength and turned his head in that direction.’ → I don’t lose anything by cutting the first sentence. In fact, it works better without a convoluted description of looking around.

Too many clauses

Another kind of sentence that I come across in my drafts is of the form ‘Something was X and Y happened to it’, which can be rephrased as a single clause.

E.g. ‘The roof had collapsed in one corner, and water dripped through it.’ → ‘Water dripped through a hole in the corner of the roof.’

E.g. ‘Once Master Varré had returned and deposited the supplies in the kitchen, the four of them sat down to a simple meal.’ → ‘Once Master Varré had deposited the supplies in the kitchen…’

Reiterating spoken words with actions

I want my dialogue and action tags to add something new to what’s said, not reiterate it. I look for actions like ‘sighed’, ‘frowned’, ‘nodded’, ‘shook their head’. I’m NOT advocating for removing all of them by any means. They’re sometimes needed to induce a pause in dialogue, and are slightly better than saying ‘he paused’. Quite often, an ellipsis will work just as well.

Examples of reiterating dialogue:

“It’s taught in the second year of the cadet course, but…” He frowned. “I don’t see why not? → remove ‘He frowned’

Gullin nodded sharply. “Yes, ma’am.” → the line of dialogue can be cut.

“I can’t deny it. It is regrettable, but I don’t think I can deny it.” He sighed. “I wish it wasn’t the case though.” → remove the dialogue tag. Yes, when I read this sentence, I instinctively hear a sigh there, but nothing hinges on it being there, and removing it doesn’t mess up the rhythm.

“Do you not want to take it outside, sir?” Gullin checked. Master Varré thought about it, but shook their head. “Not necessary. We are not going to release our Swords.” → remove ‘not necessary’

Dialogue thing that I do

On a similar dialogue-related note: as I write I ‘hear’ the words spoken in the character’s voice in my head. As a result, I VERY often end up with dialogue, where the action in the tag is performed by a character other than the one who’s speaking – usually to indicate a pause or a non-verbal reaction.

E.g. 

Master Varré sprang out of their chair and started pacing around the hall. Lissan watched them warily.

“We need evidence, solid evidence before we can mention this to anyone. No offence, kid, but your word won’t cut it.” Lissan nodded seriously; he’d expected nothing less. “I’m going to Redguard to check [their] records.”

→ This is spoken by Varré, not Lissan, though the action tag indicates something to the contrary. I need to add something like ‘they said’ to clarify it. 

Another dialogue thing that I do

A couple of my characters deliberately hide their emotions, and their reactions are measured. I tend to indicate it with phrases like ‘he allowed himself a sigh of relief’ or ‘he permitted himself a small smile’. Now, I want to bring it to the reader’s attention, when the character’s control is important in the scene – e.g. they’re keeping their cool during an argument, and allowing themselves a small smug smile when they come out on top. However, it’s not adding anything when their self-control doesn’t contribute to the conversation – which is most of the time. Even then, not every controlled reaction has to be preceded by a phrase like this; a few mentions are enough to establish the background tension, but soon it gets repetitive.

Hence, I’ll remove it:

Every time – in conversations where the characters can relax, e.g. when talking to their buddies at a pub.

Most of the time when the character’s self-control is important. I’d leave it in no more than half of the gestures (smiling, sighing, rolling shoulders, rubbing their eyes, etc.).

Thesaurusising/rephrasing

Especially in narration and in longer paragraphs, I find sentences of the form ‘they tended/liked/had a talent for doing X and Y’, where X and Y are close in meaning. I can remove one of them or replace them with a more generic word that covers both.

‘She had an incredible talent for reading hints between the lines and figuring out what was not said’ → Yes, that’s exactly what reading between the lines means. I’m removing the second clause.

Sometimes, especially in dialogue, I leave the rephrasing for dramatic effect, but only when I’m confident that it adds something.

E.g. “Because ever since I’ve met him, he wanted to be seen not as the Prince Successor, not as a grandson of the White Dragon, but a normal guy.” → this stays as is.

Describing the obvious

There’s usually no reason to describe something that the reader can reasonably assume to be the case. E.g. if you say it’s raining, you don’t need to follow it up by saying the clouds covered the sky.

UNLESS

The few exceptions I can think of:

One of my characters focuses on their surroundings to avoid doing something. E.g. they aren’t in a mood to talk and they let a conversation happen around them without listening, they focus on the chips in the walls or the grain of wood on the table.

When a character is bored or waiting for something, they might look around their surroundings. Adding descriptions to pass the time is often a good alternative to saying ‘they waited’.

When the ‘homely’ is surprising. E.g. the character has been on a run for a while, squatting in abandoned buildings or sleeping outdoors. When they finally get home, I’d elaborate on the comfort of it, to pull the reader out of the default atmosphere of the last few chapters.

I still consider these tricks to be exceptions to the rules – best used sparingly.

[poisedpen]

✒ Planning...for the Neurodivergent!

I think that for most people the term "planning" conjures pictures of perfectly executed layouts and neat, tidy handwriting. While these things are certainly impressive, sometimes it feels like it prioritizes style over function. Journaling, and by extension, planning, does NOT have to be expensive, time consuming, or perfect.

When I first started dipping my toes into the community a few years ago, I got probably two weeks into a proper “bullet journal” before I gave up. My ink smudged, my stickers peeled, and I found that spending hours making the perfect layout was sucking away my limited time.

As a newly diagnosed and treated ADHD-er, I have found some success in a printed planner. All the months, weeks, and days are already laid out for me, and I have the time at work to fill out everything I need.

But what about someone who doesn’t have the luxury of down time at work? What about someone who gets overwhelmed just THINKING about all of the long-term projects and obligations they have on a day-to-day basis? A chronic procrastinator? Someone whose phone’s to-do list is just BURSTING with tasks, but there’s no prioritization?

Introducing…the pocket notebook!

The main objective of this is to find a pocket notebook that is portable, slim, and enjoyable to write on. Field Notes are quite popular among the stationery crowd, but they’re also on the pricey side for only 48 pages. If you have the money and you enjoy them, go for it! But there could very well be something just as perfect for you waiting at the dollar store.

Yeah, it’s small, and therefore may not be the most comfortable thing to write in. However, it’s not truly meant to be a full-blown journal. No– instead of shoving it into an endless to-do list or note on your phone…you are making your idea tangible.

Your phone, and by extension all of its notifications and applications and features, is designed to distract you. By removing all of that and placing a simple, analog tool in front of you…it is, in theory, easier to focus on what matters.

Think of a cool story idea at work? Jot it down. Remember something you need to do on the way home? Birthdays? Events? Goals? Jot it down. There are no rules. If it's important to you, keep it.

The pocket notebook isn’t really intended to be a super-organized or coherent space for your thoughts. It’s a catch-all for things that might slip your mind later. Then, when you get a chance to rest at the end of your day, you can look back and transfer that idea to something a little more organized. This can be a more structured planner, a journal, a story document, a discord chat, etc.

But hey…maybe that’s still not your cup of tea. You don’t have the time to sit down and reflect on your day. You don’t want to have to organize everything into neat little boxes. It’s just a concept at this point, but…I might have something for you.

✒ MY PSEUDO-PLANNER METHOD

This is in part adapted from other methods I’ve seen people use, but specifically made with my partner’s struggles in mind. He has been using his phone’s default to-do list to write down tasks, but by doing so other things get pushed to the bottom. There’s no real way to “prioritize” them, and after years of using this system there were simply so many that he didn’t know where to start.

So, after a little bit of nudging, I had my partner write down every single thing in his phone’s notes and to-do list in the front of his pocket notebook. Since he struggles with prioritization, I went ahead and did the following steps for him. (If you struggle with this and have a friend, partner, or family member willing to do the same thing, definitely use them as a resource!)

✒ STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

I chose three things my partner NEEDED to get done before a certain deadline (In this case, seeing his parents for Thanksgiving).

I transferred them to a clean page and wrote the due date at the top.

I crossed those tasks off of the task masterlist.

I “sealed” his task masterlist with a piece of washi tape (masking/painters tape also works great!)

I left space at the bottom of the page for additional notes he may think of throughout the week.

For many neurodivergent people, seeing a HUGE LIST OF THINGS YOU NEED TO DO is the single most discouraging thing ever. By removing the list of things from normal view, I’m relying on the theory of “out of sight, out of mind”. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t still get those things done! It’s more about tricking your brain into only thinking about the most important things you have to do in that time period. And then...getting the satisfaction of crossing them out once they're complete.

I have actually been using a method quite similar to this for my full planner. I tape folded half-pages full of long term goals, purchases, and other lists to my monthly page so that I can go back and reference them when I feel up for a new task. By keeping them hidden from my regular view it helps me feel less anxious about ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO ACHIEVE and I can instead focus on the short-term necessities.

(Please excuse my mess...I'm moving into a Hobonichi Cousin for 2024, and figuring out my process in this cheap planner in the meantime!)

✒ OTHER TIPS

Pick a notebook you like! Paper smoothness, paper thickness, size, lined, dotted, gridded, etc.

Use a writing utensil you enjoy! Rollerball, fountain pen, sharpies, pencil, whatever!

Think of it as a sensory experience when it comes to the above. If you enjoy the act of it, you’re more likely to do it!

If you are able to carry around two differently-colored pens, use one to underline/add contrast for readability.

Use a paperclip to keep your place.

If you have it available, use sticky notes for tentative plans that aren’t set in stone yet.

You ARE allowed to tear pages out, cut them, modify the cover, etc. NO RULES! It's your spce.

You can prevent bleedthrough to other pages by keeping a thin, paper-sized object behind your page. (Like shitajiki/pencil boards)

✒ CONCLUSION

The main point behind EVERYTHING I’ve written here is that digital tools aren’t for everyone. Notion, Obsidian, Trello, etc. are great resources, and there are many people who have great success when using them. However, I am sure there are many other people like my partner and I who have developed a kind of “clutter blindness” to things that aren’t immediately in front of them.

You aren’t stupid for needing things broken down into exact, detailed steps. You aren’t inherently irresponsible because you miss deadlines or misplace important information. You need accessibility. The world may not be built for people like us, but there are so many ways you can learn to help yourself achieve your goals

(Please feel free to add your ideas and modifications to this post! I'd love to see what your methods are-- perhaps they might help me, as well!)

[pocket-luv101]

A Crown of Flowers || Chapter 2

Fandom: Genshin Impact Ship: CynoNari

Summary: A tournament is held for the Valuka Shuna’s hand in marriage. Cyno enters the tournament hoping to find his childhood friend, Tighnari. (Royalty AU)

Ch.1 || (Ch.2) || Ch.3 ||

Countless people joined the tournament for the chance to marry the Valuka Shuna and join the royal family. To select the ten strongest warriors among the participants who would fight in the main tournament, the first round would be a battle royale. Cyno stood in the center of the arena scanned the spectators and searched the crowd for Nari. However, that was a nearly impossible to do in the midst of a fight and the distance between the arena and the seats.

Cyno dodged a sword strike and then stabbed the ground at his opponent’s feet. When they jumped back to avoid his spear, Cyno swept the sand into this eyes. He used the distraction to leave the fight and continue his search. His eyes fell onto the empty throne where the Valuka Shuna was meant to sit. However, the podium was empty. He questioned why the Valuka Shuna would hold a tournament to find a fiancé but decided not to watch the fight.

An arrow passed his temple, so close that the wind hissed in his ear. He started to follow the arrow’s path to search for the archer and defend himself. A scream behind Cyno made him pause and he turned to see a man fall to the ground. Had the arrow been meant for the person behind him or did the archer miraculously struck the person after he missed? A second arrow answered him.

He quickly stepped to the side to evade the arrow. Cyno looked down at the ground where the arrow struck the chalk line marking the boundary of the battle royale. The man wearing a fox mask stepped in front of him with his bow string drawn taunt. While he couldn’t see his face, he carried himself with a regal and proud air.

“You were one step away from eliminating yourself because you were staring at an empty chair. Keep your focus here if you wish to marry the Valuka Shuna. You won’t win this tournament by fighting half-heartedly.” The man warned. He aimed his arrow at a warrior across the arena and struck his leg. Cyno concluded that the archer was talented and neither of his earlier arrows missed. The masked fox left him with the advice and ran back into the battle royale.

Cyno ran after him. Before the battle, the masked man had approached him and Cyno thought he was familiar. “What is your name?”

The man’s steps slowed but he didn’t stop. He looked back over his shoulder to Cyno but he didn’t give him his name. Instead, he said: “My title is Viridescent Vigil.”

“Congratulation. As the ten warriors to advance onto the main tournament, the palace will provide you with lodging and food.” The sage said. “You may walk freely through the west wing and use the training grounds. However, you are forbidden to go beyond the places I’ve listed. This is for the royal family’s safety and we hope you understand. The tournament will start in a week so enjoy yourself for now. We have prepared a feast for winning the first round.”

After the battle royale ended and only ten warriors remained, they were escorted to the west wing of the palace where they will stay for the duration of the tournament. Cyno had hoped that he could sneak into the maze where he used to meet Tighnari. The chances of meeting him there after years was slim but he wanted to try.

He originally returned because he was worried that he was hurt or in danger. His concern heightened when the people he questioned claimed there wasn’t a fennec fox named Nari in the palace. He had countless questions to ask him. Beyond that, he needed to know that he was safe. Cyno often felt like an outsider in the rainforest but those feelings vanished when he was with Tighnari.

He walked past the array of food to find a place where he could rest alone. To win the tournament, it would’ve been better for him to eat with the other warriors and access their strength. His goal wasn’t to win the Valuka Shuna’s hand in marriage though. He decided to sit next to the window so he could enjoy the cool breeze at night.

Cyno discovered the masked fox was already sitting on the windowsill. His back was facing Cyno and his tail languidly swayed behind him. He had assumed that the man wore a costume for the tournament but the subtle movement of his tail and ears were more than a prop. As he approached, his tall ears twitched and then he turned around.

“I thought everyone would be enjoying the feast. Did you wish to sit here and admire the view of the rainforest? I’ll move.” Vigil closed the book that he was reading and swung his leg over the rail to leave. He could feel his gaze through the mask. “You’re injured. Naphis should’ve told you that you can seek treatment at Bimarstan. I’ll show you where it is.”

“These scraps are superficial at best so there’s no need to waste bandages and supplies.” He brushed aside his concern. With a light huff, the fox crossed his arms and jumped down from the window. Cyno could easily picture him rolling his eyes behind the mask. What colour would his eyes be? His ears reminded him of Tighnari’s and he imagined that he would also have unique turquoise-amber eyes.

The fox placed his hand on Cyno’s shoulders and lightly pushed him towards the window seat. He guided him to sit and ordered: “Stay here while I get a medical kit to treat your wounds. Don’t be stubborn and say they aren’t serious. Even small scraps can become a risk once they’re infected. I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”

He left before Cyno could stop him. From how he spoke, he decided that it would be better to stay rather than leave. He could imagine the fox tracking him down and give him a lecture even as he treated his wounds. Cyno looked down at the book that he had forgotten in his rush. He recognized the title, A Thousand and One Jinn, because it was a collection of folktales from the desert. He didn’t expect someone from the rainforest to be interested in the topic.

“I’m back.” The fox’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. The windowsill was large enough for two people and he sat next to Cyno. He balanced the basket of bandages on his knee and then held out his hand to him. “I’ll start with that cut on your arm. The herbs I used to create the salve have a numbing trait so this won’t sting like others. Tell me if it does hurt, though.”

“Why would you help your opponent? We might face each other in a fight tomorrow.” Despite his skepticism, he placed his hand in his open palm.

“That gives me more reason to do this.” He gently coated the scar on his arm with the salve. His fingers traced over the faded scars Cyno gained after he became General Mahamatra. He held him gentler than the other doctors who treated him, as if he were glass. “I studied botany and medicine in the Akademiya. When I graduated, I took a vow to help the earth and every living being on it.”

“Why would a doctor join this tournament to marry the Valuka Shuna? Someone like you would probably be happier working in a hospital or the rainforest.” Cyno slowly began to feel curious about the fox and his identity. “You asked me why I joined the tournament. Can I ask your reason?”

“This might offend the Valuka Shuna but I have no wish to marry him. I have something to prove and I can only accomplish that by fighting strong warriors. Therefore, I want you to properly treat your wounds after each battle.” He finished wrapping his wound and then sat back against the window frame. “If we’re interrogating each other now, General Mahamatra, I have a few more questions for you. What is the desert like? I’ve only read about it in my books.”

“I can imagine that it’s hard to travel through the desert with your fur. Perhaps, you can visit during the night when it’s cooler. You won’t be able to see much but the pyramid is close to the border.” Cyno stared at the horizon where they could see the pyramid. The fox sat beside him and their shoulders brushed together. At first, Cyno was too surprised to move away from him because he didn’t expect a stranger to act so comfortable with him.

He opened the book between them and pointed to an illustration of a goddess. “The first place I’ll visit would be this ocean of lotuses. Even if they aren’t enchanted by the goddess, the lotuses have unique traits that I can study. Father says he’ll have someone deliver lotuses to my lab but it’s not the same as picking them myself.”

They discussed the book and, with each turn of the page, Cyno relaxed into the moment. He was reminded of when he would read with Tighnari. “Can you read while wearing that mask? It must obscure your sight during fights as well, considering you’re an archer.”

“I don’t want to marry the Valuka Shuna and the notability that winning the tournament will give me would be troublesome. I plan to disappear and return to my normal life.” He explained. Cyno thought that wearing a mask was suspicious. On the other hand, he could sense that his words were truthful.

“You’re confident that you’ll be the victor.” Cyno had to admire his confident. After he watched him fight in the battle royale, the fox’s words were from more than haughtiness. If they faced each other in the finals, it would be ironic that neither wished to marry the Valuka Shuna. Cyno tapped his finger against the paper. “What did the librarian say to someone who checked out over a hundred books? Don’t overdue it.”

Instead of a laugh or chuckle that Cyno hoped for, he made a long sigh. He muttered beneath his breath, so quietly that he almost didn’t hear him, “Your puns haven’t improved in years.”

“What?” He turned sharply and his movements were so sudden that it startled the fox. His hold on the book slipped and they reached out to catch it at the same time. As Cyno grasped the book, he felt something soft brush against his cheek. He caught a glimpse of his real fox ears behind the mask. He wore a golden earring that Cyno knew all too well. “Can I see your face?”

“No.” He climbed off the window ledge. “I should go and rest for tomorrow’s match. Honestly, the joke you made was bad enough that I would forfeit the tournament just so I wouldn’t have to hear another one.”

“I should’ve known that I would face the General Mahamatra in the finals. Your strength is highly praised.” Despite those words, Tighnari spoke confidently and nocked an arrow. They stood a few feet from each other and waited for the battle to begin. His eyes narrowed behind the mask as he watched Cyno. “Why did it have to be you?”

In the previous matches, Cyno would scan the crowd and he’ll only start to fight once his opponent attack him. Yet, his eyes were focused on the fox before him now. He dashed forward with his spear and he drew his bowstring back to counter his attack. Cyno didn’t attack him though. To his confusion, he stopped a few feet in front of him and stabbed his spear into the dirt.

He knelt onto one knee and held out his hand to him. “Why do bees have stick hair? Because they use honeycombs.”

“Pardon me?”

“Why did the cookie go to the doctor? It was feeling crumby.” Cyno listed countless jokes that caused a hush to fall over the crowd. He ignored the crowd around him and stared at the fox mask. He touched the hands gripped tightly around the bow and the fox’s stance slowly relaxed. “What happens when a flower blushes? It turns rosy.”

He couldn’t make sense of why Cyno would make jokes. His red eyes were resolute so he couldn’t bring himself fight him. When the guards entered the arena, he held up his hand signalled for them to stop. “What are you doing, Cyno? This is supposed to be a battle.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. However, you said my jokes were so bad that you would forfeit the tournament instead of listening to them. This is the only way I can win.” He squeezed his hand and lightly tugged him forward. He stumbled forward and fell into his body. Careful not to remove his mask, Cyno whispered into his ear. “I could never fight you, Nari. I only joined the tournament to find you.”

[altschmerzes]

and what is this "still upcoming favorite stuff in my dead are mine" that you speak of? not to sound like a broken record but i have been waiting for chapter 6 since july and it is killing me! please drop some clues or teasers or anything!!

ahhhhhh yeah i know it's been a long time!!! it's getting edited, and it'll be up soon, i'm sure!! if it's any consolation chapter 6 is i think about 30k so there's that. below the cut is gonna be some bullet pointed varyingly-detailed references to scenes coming up that i really love, and also a somewhat extended preview clip from the opening of chapter six!

every character in this fic gets at least one hug - and yes i do mean every single one - and i'm looking forward to THAT very very much

there's a scene late in chapter 6 which can best be summarized as 'judith earns her girl scout first aid badge and harrow, who comes from a planet without medical care, sees someone perform cpr in front of her and is like What The Fuck-'

harrow learns she likes having her hair played with and she WON'T actually die on the spot if she lets someone do that

harrow has a bit of a strong reaction to the way someone refers to gideon and gideon is like ???? ? ???? ?? ????? ? ??? about it

harrow has a dream about the third

cam holds it together Until She Doesn't

the teens act like teens and harrow would like to know Is This Allowed

"And there they sit in silence with their hands haphazardly, unfamiliarly linked between them: Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Silas Octakiseron, alone together in their damnation."

and the clip from six (cw for described like.... harrow is building a new body for palamedes so. there's that.)-

It feels like an eternity passes before Harrow has regained enough strength to be sure that she is up to the task of recreating Palamedes Sextus’s body from nearly nothing. She knows it’s no longer than half an hour. The short distance that the brightest spot of light visible through the half-destroyed ceiling moves before she lifts herself from her slump against the vacated cot says as much. It feels like a lot longer.

During that half hour, Camilla makes Harrow drink an unholy amount of water, and the quiet sound of Magnus speaking to Jeannemary and Isaac floats over to her for so long that she wonders how he hasn’t run out of things to say. They don’t seem to reply much, and the longer he talks the less they do, until Harrow would guess it has just been Magnus’s voice for maybe ten minutes. Sometimes she hears Marta and Judith, though their exchanges are brief and purposeful.

Neither of the Eighth move or speak at all. Colum lays in a deep and impermeable unconsciousness, barely breathing while his heart labours through beat after sluggish, exhausted beat. Silas is awake, but he may as well not be. He stays exactly where he’d ended up, slim hand pressed to the thready carotid pulse in his cavalier’s neck, face buried against the couch cushion and his own crumpled arm. The only way Harrow can even tell he’s not sleeping is the lines of his body. He’s just too tense to be asleep.

The tangle of dirty, bloodied hair that hangs loose down Silas’s back bothers Harrow. She doesn’t like to look at it; it makes her anxious in a way she can’t quite explain.

Harrow doesn’t bother telling anyone what she’s doing when she determines she’s ready to set upon the next task. She simply hauls herself up off the cot, coughs the lingering trickle of blood from her throat, and starts for her goal without a word.

Lifting the sheet and pulling it away, Harrow gets down onto the ground and studies the remnants that she and Camilla had managed to collect in the blown-out crater where Palamedes had died. There’s more than she feels like she remembers there being, but less than she’d hoped. Harrow squints hard at the chips. She chews the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, and begins rearranging the fragments. It may not help much, but she at least wants all of the pieces they do have in the right places before she really gets down to trying to make anything out of them.

One by one, Harrow cracks the knuckles on each of her hands. There really isn’t a point to doing it except that the repetitive movement and the pops that send a slight ache through her hands are soothing. The voices in the room, as well as the faint shuffling fabric noise that means someone is moving, die out and fall quiet as the others notice what she’s doing. Harrow ignores them. Footsteps approach and someone crouches behind her shoulder, and she ignores them too. She knows what Camilla sounds like by now, the rhythm of her steps and the pattern of her slightly-quickened pulse, and besides, Harrow has a job to do.

Unfurling a fully-formed skeleton out of the fragments that they had so painstakingly collected should be child’s play, but Harrow finds herself oddly anxious, concentrating hard on details she could do in her sleep. She needs every piece and particle of bone to come out perfect. The skeleton is the scaffolding on which all else is built, and if she makes a mistake at this stage, there will be no point in the rest of it. Harrow spends a particular stretch of time meticulously shaping Palamedes’s skull from the soft clay of osteocytes that respond to her whims as if they are part of her and not of him. She redoes the curve of his left eye socket four times. There’s a faint, persistent imperfection in its shape, a flaw in the degree of the slope where the zygomatic bone meets the frontal bone of the face.

They’re his most striking feature, Palamedes’s eyes. Harrow would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from him, change it irrevocably through shoddy craftsmanship. She would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from Camilla. She cannot be the reason that Camilla Hect looks at her necromancer’s face and doesn’t see the boy she’s always known, just as she has always known him.

Camilla shouldn’t be watching this. Harrow can’t see her, bent as she is over the newly built skeleton at her knees, but she doesn’t need to see to know that the Sixth cavalier has barely so much as blinked since this work began. Even knowing both of these things — that Camilla is watching and that she shouldn’t be — Harrow also knows that it would be futile to attempt to get her to look away. There isn’t enough energy to waste any on a fight like that, not when it would be lost before it truly began. Instead, Harrow relegates the thought to the far recesses of her overtaxed brain and shackles it there, ordering it to sit down and be quiet. Camilla’s presence, her attention, lays over Harrow’s back like a heavy cloak.

Now that the skeleton — the scaffolding — is complete, deciding where to move next is tricky. It makes the most sense to progress methodically system by system, perfecting one before taking up the next. A few issues quickly arise with that plan, however. For one, Harrow can’t build the organs until she has something to hold them in, but she also doesn’t want to wait until the chest and abdominal cavity are sealed over to construct them. The nerves and vasculature present a similar problem. She stares at the bones for a while, turning the issue over and over in her head.

When Harrow progresses from the skeleton and into the meat, it reminds her of stitching lace. She weaves the body together in a complex series of stops-and-starts, periodically diverting from one area to finish another, then returning to the first. She slicks ribbons of cartilage and tendon along the lines of the bone to thread the joints together, puts down layers of muscle tissue, building out a home for the organs. Those are harder — the structure of each is so complex, so different from the one beside it, and Harrow has never spent much time with flesh magic. She almost wishes the Third necromancer was here, just so she could consult with someone who truly understands what lies around and between the bones she is so familiar with.

It helps that the bits Harrow had to begin with — the bits from which all the rest have been grown — were formed from cells that carried Palamedes’s DNA signature. Those cells, the strands of microscopic code inside of them, remember the person they used to be — the shape of him, the way he was built, the way he existed and functioned — it’s all in the memory of those cells. All Harrow has to do is coax her magic into listening to them, following his lead. It’s like a river that’s run dry, swelling again with new water after a long rain and racing down the same path that it has run for centuries.

When she’s finally finished, has put the finishing touches on the monument that she built to house the only person who has ever been truly able to challenge her skill as a necromancer, Harrow regards the body with a critical eye. No matter how she studies him, she cannot find a flaw, and she studies him for quite some time. She isn’t forgiving about it, either. Harrow goes so far as to lay a palm across the cold, dead forehead and peel back the lids to study the empty, clouded-over grey eyes.

The body that Harrow has raised for Palamedes Sextus out of dust and blood and little confettied bits of bone is perfect. There’s even a chip in his front left incisor that Harrow remembers in a faint, shadow of an impression, though she’s not entirely sure when she would have seen it, and a tiny scar almost hidden in his hairline above his right ear. She hopes that Palamedes feels the same when he wakes inside of it. Hopes it feels as perfect to him as it looks to her.

After she has determined this, Harrow waits there, bracing herself on the bruisingly hard floor for a few moments longer, just looking at him. She’s no longer looking for anything in particular. She’s just looking at him, at the still face and the closed eyes, the short hair that lays neater than she’d ever seen it in life. It’s a sharp contrast to the other bodies she has fixed. Palamedes’s hair is clean and orderly, like he’s just freshly washed and dried it.

Palamedes looks strange to Harrow like this. It unsettles her. He looks young and human, laying there still and quiet on the ground, more like a boy and less like a sentient sheaf of grey papers wearing glasses. The lack of his glasses probably contributes to the impression, and Harrow concludes that the effect of seeing him without them is profoundly eerie. It makes her want to hunt down a pair to place over his eyes, though he could make no use of them in this state.

There’s only one thing left to do now, before she goes back in for him.

[serialfirstdater]

London #1: The London Nurse

So, I moved to London. Woot! That means a new pond to fish in. I won't bother writing up my remaining dates in Toronto. For analytic purposes, I went out with 9 guys before I left for London since I restarted Toronto dating in 2023.

Now to officially kick off the London Dating Series!

I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do. And that was getting on the apps too early before I landed in London.

I re-opened Hinge and started swiping at the end of May. I came across a cute half-Asian, half-white guy and we immediately hit it off. We soon transitioned to video and phone calls, keeping in contact daily for the entire month up until I arrived.

For that month, we shared our goals, interests, and whatnot. Messaging him daily became a routine for me. He really liked me because I was pretty, we had similar goals, and were interested in each other.

Every day he would say how attractive I was and constantly asked for photos of me. I can see why this would be too much for other people. However, I was interested in him, and it didn't bother me as much (at the time). I saw he was heavily invested in me.

I will admit when I found out how much he made in London as a nurse, it affected my enthusiasm for moving to London. I thought nurses here made as much as they do back in Canada! My brain had already forecasted what it would be like to live in London with our salaries combined, which truly stressed me out. I can't help but forecast if I am interested in a guy.

Throughout our time chatting, I kept re-iterating that there was a chance we might not work out irl. The reason is that I have had this happen to me many times, where I hit it off with a guy via phone call or video chat. Then once I meet them in person, I lose all interest. He kept denying it and saying that as long as we were attracted to each other now, he couldn't see it changing.

Boy oh boy, the man was so wrong.

He came to pick me up at my AirBnB as he was too excited to see me. When I saw him in person, I was shooketh. He was a lot bigger in person than I expected.

The thing is that he used to be obese when he was younger. But he managed to lose all that weight when he was 22. I thought that meant he reverted to a normal-sized guy. However, what I saw was not that. He said he gained some weight, but I thought that just meant a little belly. I was wrong.

Despite having a slim face, I could only describe him as a skinny guy wearing a fat suit. It was a complete turn-off and I knew it was over.

He took me on a 5-hour date and was excited the entire time that I was finally there in London. He tried so hard to impress me. So much so that before we met up, I told him that one of my plug convertors was broken. He immediately purchased a new one for me from Amazon.

For our date, he took me to a Japanese restaurant that he kept claiming was the best in the city. To be honest, it wasn't that great and that's coming from someone who likes to eat anything and everything. I believe the restaurant is popular because everything is super cheap.

When I watched him eat, he hunched over and took tiny sips from the miso soup. I think it was an obese person's habit? It looked like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. As mean as it is to say, I was turned off by his table manners.

Throughout dinner (and the date), I didn't know what to say. I had many moments where I was quiet and he asked me what was wrong. We had been chatting every day for a month, and I knew everything about him. But now that I lost interest, I had no more conversation starters.

He later took me around London and I had him take several photos and video clips of me in front of the Big Ben tower. Then it was bubble tea.

When we finished bubble tea, I told him I was thinking of walking to my AirBnB. He insisted that he walk me back, despite it being a 1.5-hour walk. He asked if he could hold my hand or if that was too fast. However, when we first met, he immediately put his arm around my shoulders when walking without asking for my permission or gauging my comfort the entire time.

"Um, I am not comfortable if that's okay..." I told him, as we started to head in the direction of my AirBnB.

He got quiet, then asked, "Did you want another date?"

I grimaced internally and said, "I am uncertain."

He asked why or if there was a reason.

I knew there was no way I could tell him it was because I felt a little catfished. I did not realize he was bigger than I built him up to be in my mind.

"I rather not get into it, I hope that's okay," I told him.

He went quiet and I tried to make conversation for a few minutes. After about five minutes or so, I asked if he really wanted to walk me home. That was when he said he'd just get on the tube and head home.

He hugged me goodbye and thanked me for coming out. Told me to message him once I got home safely.

Once he left, I broke down because I felt truly awful for breaking his heart. I called back home to my cousin in Canada and told her what happened. That night I questioned everything, including why I moved to London because everything terrible happened in the last 24 hours. This included a rough commute from the airport to my AirBnB, to my AirBnB being a slumlord rental (that took 3-4 days for me to fight for an early check-out and partial refund).

I was only sad for that night because I went to my first Thursday Dating event in London the following day. I felt so much better, knowing that I was no longer tied to the London Nurse so I could start fresh with my new life in London.

[meditating-dog-lover]

New exercise plan

So I've been following Fitness Blender's HIIT workouts since last July. So for almost 10 months! HIIT is hard and makes for a great workout since it improves your strength and endurance.

However, the physique I ended up with wasn't totally what I was looking for. I looked at older pics of myself from 2018-2021 where I feel like I had a great physique. I am so upset that I was harsh on myself and body when I was 23 given that I looked pretty good. Only problem is that I used to restrict a lot of food and did not work out a lot. I never want to restrict anymore, but I do want to get into shape at the same time. And I've done this before in 2020 and 2021. There is something in common with both years.

Now I'm looking to be fit, but I want a lean and toned and slim physique. I don't want to look muscular and bulky. One might think that you need to diet and starve to get there. But not quite.

The only program that helped me achieve this is Rachael Attard's programs. It's mostly pilates focused along with walking and some high intensity cardio (running and HIIT). I know to some that sounds unusual (especially for someone who does a lot of lifting), but her programs helped me get the physique I wanted. Long and lean looking. I did Lean Legs 1 back in March and April 2020 and Glutes Abs Legs in August and September 2021. I wish I understood the science behind how her program helps, but it just has. Fitness Blender seems to have a more comprehensive, knowledgeable and healthier mentality and approach when it comes to health and fitness which I really respect. But physically, those LL and GAL programs helped me a lot.

The idea is to eat a balance of proteins, fats and carbs, to do a lot of walking, and to do some resistance training 3x a week and high intensity cardio. Since I started taking my multivitamins I feel far less cravings for junk and sugar, which helps a lot in the diet department. Even after a long day of work I come home and want something healthy (veggies, sweet potatoes and lean proteins as opposed to chicken tenders and fries). I also make my own snack using fruit, Greek yogurt, chia seeds and dark chocolate instead of getting baked goods and coffee from outside (sweet cravings are reducing). I had a few bites of red velvet cake today since I went out for dinner with my family. I didn't feel like eating pizza (had a small piece) and had some bread and olive oil and shrimp zucchini fettuccine. I don't want to feel like I'm restricting because I'm not, I just want to feel like I don't crave junk food multiple times a week. I don't count calories, but I have in the past. It becomes obsessive and unhealthy which is why I no longer do it.

I walk a lot already which is great. Working in a lab and pacing around and having 2 dogs really helps.

Now the tricky part comes down to the resistance training and high intensity cardio. This is what sculpts my body. In 2020 I did 3x resistance training and 3x 20-30 min running in place sessions. In 2021 I did 2x resistance training and 1x HIIT. I'm not sure what the best approach would be. She refers to HIIT as resistance training though it's more of a high intensity cardio workout. I also don't like running. Her resistance training workouts are pilates inspired so they make you lean, toned, and flexible. And some workouts are challenging enough to work in a sweat which is what helps in fat loss. The HIIT workouts I'm not so sure how they are targeted for a lean physique compared to other HIIT programs (Fitness Blender).

My diet is looking better, I still walk a lot. How do I include the "resistance training" and "high intensity cardio" into the equation- I have no clue. As long as the resistance workouts are challenging and make me sweat.

Again my goal is to be lean and slim. I've achieved this in the past and did a great job. These workouts may sound simple, but adding them up together makes them a challenge which help in fat loss and learning out the body. I'm not the most physically active person, so maybe some of this trial and error can help me find an effective workout routine that I can do with my busy schedule and that I can enjoy and see the slimming results I want to see.

[harrywritingsbyme]

Just The Way You Are

Based Off Of This Ask

And This One

A/N: Anon…tysm for helping me out of my brain fart and suggesting/requesting this concept. I may or may not have cried (more like bawled) while writing this one. I love it sm and I feel like it’s perfect bc it’s so  relatable for so many, so I hope you like it bby🥺!! and I just realized that this is my last full post of 2020 which is absolutely insane…enjoy🙃

What you saw in the mirror was always a struggle for you. You were heavy in the chest, your hips were wide, you had chub in places where you didn’t want chub, and you had an endless supply of thighs. For the longest time you’d been in the never ending battle with your weight and with your figure. For years, you struggled to lose weight and slim down, trying your hardest to fit into the mold and standard of beauty that was placed before you. You tried so many of the fad diets you’d found on the internet and countless workout routines that were supposedly going to give you that instant gratification and the appearance you were chasing after.

 But at the end of it all, you got nothing. In fact, you came out with less than what you came in with. The only thing that came out of those efforts was even more disappointment in yourself. And the disappointment and dissatisfaction that came from those efforts was just a portion of the mountain of disdain and sadness that was already growing inside of you towards yourself. There were so many times where you just wanted to give up on it all. You felt like you’d never be seen as beautiful by yourself or by anyone else. You felt like there was absolutely no hope and that you weren’t going to be able to be loved by anyone because of your outward appearance. You felt stuck. 

And you felt stuck for a while. You went back and forth between fighting to get out of this state and just letting it be that way for who knows how long. You went on and on in this cycle until you became tired of being that way. It became exhausting. You’d reached your lowest point, you were drained. You realized that you couldn’t stay like this forever, nor were you going to allow yourself to stay like this anymore. So you pulled yourself up and you came up with a way to get yourself up. Even though it probably wasn’t the best mindset to have, you came to the resolve that if you couldn’t change it and if you weren’t going to be accepted and loved by anyone on the basis of your looks, you might as well accept and love yourself the way you were. And believe it or not, that pessimistic yet strangely optimistic mindset actually got you to a much better place. Sure you still had your insecurities about the way you looked and sure your heart sunk a little bit when you looked in the mirror, but you were feeling better than before and that’s all you cared about. You weren’t completely over the hill in regards to the negative feelings towards yourself but you definitely made progress and that’s all that mattered to you. You were finally feeling better. 

And you only got better. After making it to the point of feeling a bit better about yourself, you met Harry. He managed to shower you with all the love and affection you never thought you’d ever receive from someone. Even though you were strong in your convictions when it came to finding any type of approval in a man, you couldn’t resist Harry. He was an absolute dream. Along with loving you and your body, he was everything you could’ve wanted in a partner. There was no other way to describe it, he was just amazing and you didn’t want to let him go, nor were you planning to. You didn’t even entertain the thought. You held onto him and you enjoyed the pure bliss that came from being together. The both of you were completely head over heels for each other. And as you and Harry’s relationship grew, you blossomed. You became confident in yourself and you were able to stop putting yourself down. You’d reached the better place you were desperately searching for all this time. You were happy. This time, it wasn’t a facade that you were putting up to disguise your true and beyond negative feelings. You were truly happy. 

But with all good things of course, they either come to an end or come at a price. And being with Harry came at a price. You and Harry tried your best to keep your relationship away from the prying eyes that were constantly surrounding him. But you could only do but so much with that. It wasn’t that long before everyone found out who you were and made things a bit harder for you. After a little over nine months into your relationship with Harry, you began noticing an all around influx in your social media’s along with the press in general. Your picture was everywhere and there were so many people who were taking and interest in you and talking about you. You knew it came with the territory of dating someone who had an enormous amount of fame the way Harry did, but it was still very foreign and it was something that you weren’t prepared for. There were so many comments that made you happy and feel better about the situation. They were so happy to see you dating Harry, especially since you were very different from the women he’s dated and has been associated with in the past. Seeing those things always melted your heart and made you feel so good inside. 

But for some reason, the bad always crept in and overshadowed the good that was being brought your way. Along with an influx in positives, there was an influx in the negatives with the main target being your appearance. You tried to block it out and not focus on the negative, but those feelings that Harry was able to break through in the beginning came creeping back. Harry tried to console you in any way possible given the fact that you had talked to him a little bit about your past struggles. He took the time to remind you that you were desirable and that you were beautiful and that he loved you. Now while you were still down about what was being said about you, Harry’s words definitely provided comfort to you and made the situation tolerable. They didn’t miraculously change your thinking on the matter, but Harry’s words were able to stop you from going into the dark place you were in before which was what you needed at the time. Since everything was coming down onto you all at once, that was exactly what you needed. And eventually, with Harry’s help, you were able to make it through that incredibly intense time. 

Not too long after the news broke about your relationship, you and Harry celebrated your one year anniversary together, the both of you were beyond ecstatic about the milestone and your lives together going forward. The both of you were so happy to be together and so happy to have made it through the hell that was the past three months following the revealing of guys’ relationship. As you two continued on together, the negativity still came your way though. You tried your best to block it all out and keep moving forward to the best of your abilities but you weren’t able to let it all roll off you back. Some of it stayed with you, prompting you to just spring into action. Because you had so many people talking about you and your appearance, picking you apart at every turn, you were became determined to make them shut up. And the only way you knew how to do that was by going to work out with Harry. You figured that if you were able to do what he was doing, you’d be able to transform and as a result get them all to shut up and leave you alone. 

So you gave Harry the lame excuse of wanting to accomplish the health goal you had set for yourself which marked the beginning of your anxiety and stress filled workout journey. Harry bought right into that positive notion too, completely ready and willing to help you accomplish your goal and completely oblivious to your true motives towards wanting to start working out with him. From that point on, the two of you got up early at the same time five days a week to work out. It was incredibly hard for you to do but you were beyond motivated to shut everyone up and go back to having that peace you once had within yourself. 

You just wanted it all to stop. 

Now while you were extremely determined to workout, Harry began noticing some things that prompted red flags to go up in his head. The main and number one thing that got his attention was your excessiveness in regards to working out. After helping you get accustomed to working out the way he did and on the schedule he did it, you ran with it and never stopped. You began working out all the time, making your schedule seven days a week and sometimes twice a day. You were pushing yourself so hard and he was worried about you. He knew that you struggled with your confidence and body image so he didn’t want to discourage you. But he didn’t want you to hurt yourself either, nor did he want you to feel like you had to work out and change yourself for him or anyone for that matter. He knew that something had to be done and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. 

He decided to step in and do it all this morning. Normally it’d be an off day but since you were on seven days a week, you were getting up early to head downstairs to the gym. As you were moving to sit up, Harry tightened his grip around you, keeping your body down on the bed and against him. 

“Harry, you have to let me go.” You whisper back to him, trying to wiggle your way out of his grip. 

“No I don’t, you deserve a rest day anyways.” He mumbles back to you through a yawn, beginning to fully wake up as well. 

“I need to do this babe, I don’t be long.” You try and reason with him, still trying to release his grip from around you. 

“Okay fine, but can we please talk before you go down?” He bargains, even though he had no intention of letting you go down there. 

“Sure.” You agree, stopping your attempts to free yourself from his grip.

“Thanks baby.” He hums before unwrapping his arm from around you and sitting up in the bed to almost hover over your body. “So what’s going on?” He asks calmly yet  bluntly. 

“What do you mean?” You reply back to him with a puzzled look spread across your face to match your response. 

“You’ve been working out so much recently and it’s becoming a bit concerning sweets. I want you to reach your goal, I really do! I just want you to be healthy about it.” He softly points out to you, bringing his hand down to your cheek. 

“I’m fine Harry. I really want to reach this goal so I’m doing everything I possibly can.” You attempt to justify your actions over the past weeks, trying to steady your breathing a bit as well as you adjust to the touchy subject at hand. 

“Well I understand that and I’m so proud of you for going at this with that determination, I really am. It’s just that I don’t want you to be doing this because of all the things going around online.” He explains, his voice filled with  worry and concern. “I know it’s hard, but if you’re doing this, you should be doing this for you baby. That’s it.” He adds. 

When he says this, your heart sinks. You weren’t doing this for you. And you didn’t want him to find out your actual reasons for working out seven days a week and practically killing yourself because if he did, which he ultimately was, it was going to crush him. And the last thing you wanted was for him to worry about you. You could see all the worry and concern painted all over his face and you hated it. You hated it so much that you began to cry, not being able to hold back the tears that were already bubbling up in your eyes. 

“Oh my-baby please talk to me!” He begs, wiping the tears that were falling from your eyes. 

“It’s just so hard Harry. I’ve never had this many people coming at me about the way I looked. The only people I had to worry about before with this were myself and anyone I came in contact with. But now it’s everyone and it’s too much. I just want them all to shut up and leave me alone.” You rush out through your tears, completely breaking down below him. 

“I’m so sorry baby.”

“The only reason why I’m working out so much and trying so hard to get through it all is because I love you so so much. I can’t go back to that dark place anymore, I just wanna stay out here in the light and happiness with you. It’s just so hard when you have so many people coming at you all at once and it makes you want to just give in so that you can have peace.” You sob. When Harry hears this, his heart breaks into a million pieces. He was assuming full responsibility for this. He felt like if it wasn’t for him entering your life, you wouldn’t be completely broken before him right now.

“I’m so sorry that you’re going through all of this baby. It’s all my fault and I feel horrible for even putting you in this position.” Harry sighs, feeling tears beginning to form in his eyes as well. 

“But it’s not-“ 

“It is my fault.” He quickly interjects. “You’re going through this torture because of me and I’m so so sorry. I love you so much baby and I wish that I could just end all of this for you.” He whimpers, feeling the hot tears streaming down his face. 

“I love you too Harry. And it’s not your fault.” You reiterate, making it clear that you didn’t blame him for any of this. 

“I just need you to remember that I love you so much. I love all of you so much.” He says firmly to you, locking his eyes with yours to really reach you. He couldn’t stress how beautiful you were in his eyes enough. You were absolutely amazing to him and he just wanted to touch and admire you all the time if he could. He wanted to constantly shower you with all the love and affection you deserved. He wanted the girl he loved to know that she was absolutely stunning and that he couldn’t get enough of her. He needed you to know that. It was so important to him that you know how beautiful you were.

And he planned on making sure you knew just how beautiful you were. He quickly wipes his face before pulling your legs apart and moving in between them.

“Harry what are you doing?” You ask at his sudden movements. 

“Shh, just let me love on you baby.” He coos down to you before bringing his lips to yours. The kiss is soft but filled with passion. You could feel it radiating off of Harry and down onto you. As he continues to kiss your lips, you feel his hands glide down your body, tugging up at hem of the shirt you slept in. Keeping his lips on yours, he pulls it up your body detaching his mouth when he pulls the shirt off of your body, leaving you in just your panties below him. “You are so beautiful.” He admires, taking in your pretty much naked body. Everywhere he looked he found something that he loved. There was no part of you that he hated. In fact, anything you hated, he loved.

Without wasting anymore time, Harry jumps right into his praising session so to speak. He starts at your lips, leaving you one final kiss before leaving a trail of kisses down the lower portion of your face and neck, going all the way down and stopping at your chest. He brings his hands up to your ample breasts and he cups both of them in his hands. He then lifts his head up a bit to lock eyes with you.

“I love these so much. They’re so pretty and they fit perfectly in my hands.” He whispers, bringing his mouth to one of your breasts and capturing one of your nipples in his mouth. He then begins to suck on you, using his hands to squeeze wherever he couldn’t have his mouth. As he did this, your eyes fluttered shut and your mouth hung open, allowing little moans to escape as you enjoyed the physical and emotional pleasure you were receiving from Harry. Even though it was just the beginning, you knew what he was doing because he’d done it many times before. And every time he did it, you had the same reaction. You were in a completely blissful state and you felt loved every single time. Those feelings were only intensified since you and Harry talked and you really expressed what you were going through. And now that you let all of that out, you felt lighter and you were so ready to feel good again. Harry then removes his mouth from your breast and latches onto the other, doing the exact same thing as before. Squeezing your flesh and rolling your nipple between his fingers as he sucked on the other. He continues on like this a little longer before moving down your body.

“I love this tummy of yours.” He hums delightedly, leaving kisses all over the area, making sure to leave kisses along your sides as well, nipping at your chub every once in a while too. “Can’t wait to put out baby in here.” Harry hums, enjoying the idea of having a baby with you. 

“Oh my goodness Harry!” You chuckle through your labored breaths. 

“You’d look so pretty, maybe even prettier than you already are if that’s even possible.” He praises, smoothing his hand across your empty stomach. Harry then moves on to the next part of your body. 

“I love these hips.” He groans biting into and kissing the flesh of your hips. “Love grabbin’ them when I fuck you. So good.” He sighs, thinking back on the times he’s pushed into you. He then moves even lower. He begins to leave kisses along the side bands of your panties, bringing his mouth closer and closer to where your need was mounting. But instead of going there, he keeps going down and stops at your thighs. 

“I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m in love with your thighs. Like they’re absolutely delicious and amazing.” He rambles up to your before biting into one of them, squeezing the other as he did this. Harry loved how fleshy your thighs were. He couldn’t get enough of how they quaked and jiggled when he fucked into you. They were so soft and plushy, how could Harry possibly resist them?! Once he’s done loving on your thighs, Harry lifts himself up so that he’s kneeling between your legs before quickly pulling you onto your side to give your ass a couple swats, causing you to yelp out to him from how it stung. “I didn’t forget about your ass either baby, I love pulling it apart and having my face buried in it.” He says before pushing you back into your original position below him. 

“And now to the last stop.” He announces, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties before tugging them down, lifting your legs up to fully pull them off. He tosses them to the side and spreads your legs for him, revealing your soft and puffy center. “I love your pussy. It’s magical if m’being completely honest. It’s all puffy and  warm and sticky. It’s just the best. Feels amazing around my cock and it tastes amazing on my tongue.” He heavily praises before going in. He could see that you were already dripping so he knew that it wouldn’t take long at all to make you let go in his mouth.

With his mouth on you, Harry licks a wide stripe up your folds, pushing his tongue into you. When he does this, your hands go straight to his hair and your thighs begin to close a little around his head, prompting Harry to moan a little and rut his now hard cock against the bed. Even though this was all about you, Harry couldn’t stop himself from getting hard. In fact, he got hard because it was about you. Anything you did had the power to turn him on. He was constantly getting hard because of you. In fact, as he licked into you, Harry was rutting his hips down into the bed to relieve some of the pressure in his cock. All Harry wanted was to be wrapped up in you all the time. Just like now, Harry was eating you like his life depended on it as your thighs were wrapped around his head. While you were in heaven, Harry was in heaven as well. As he continued on, your were absolutely losing it too. His mouth felt absolutely amazing on you. You were already buzzing from the way he practically worshiped your body so now that he was full on eating you, you were incredibly close to letting go. 

“Feels so good!” You moan out to him, feeling a warmth spreading throughout your body. “Think m’gonna cum.” You pant, tightening your grip on him. To push you right over the edge, Harry moves his tongue up from your entrance and just sucks on your buzzing clit. This does the trick perfectly. As you let go, Harry could feel himself getting closer to his own release so he continues to push himself back and forth against the bed. 

Once you’re all done and your body goes limp, Harry leaves a kiss to your clit along with a kiss to each of your thighs, both of your hips, your stomach, and both of your breasts before stopping at your face.

“I love you.” You hum lazily, still recovering from your release. 

“I love you too baby.” Harry hums with a little chuckle, enjoying how tired out you are. “I love you just the way you are. I know it’s hard for you and I’m incredibly sorry for that. But we’ll get through it, right lovie?” 

“Mhm!” You mumble happily. 

“That’s right, and no more excessive workouts. If you wanna do some extra workouts, let me know so that we can have sex instead.” He proposes happily. 

“Can we “work out” some more then?” You breathe out.

“I’d love that. 

Masterlist

[enmy-writes]

Just Let Me Help You

Summary: Zuko, trying to keep is girlfriend safe, unintentionally gains the trust of the Gaang after a showdown with Combustion Man.

Word Count: 2728

Fandom: ATLA (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Pairing: Zuko x Fem!Reader

Genre: Mostly fluff, is fluff-angst a thing? Idk guys I’m soft, you tell me.

Rated: 18+

Content Warnings: Profanity, some gore graphics (brief mentions of blood, killing, murder), uhhhh that’s it I think I’m sorry if I forget anything else.

****Huge shout-out to my friends Kenz and Jenna for editing this and hyping me up. Hopefully, since this semester from Hell will be over soon, I’ll be able to write more. Please request things! Thank-you all for supporting this and let me know more of what you want to see in the future :) Also, feedback is always welcome. Enjoy!****

_____________________________________________________________________

They had landed the war balloon days ago, stalking the tired and defeated Team Avatar and trying to figure out how the complicated Fire Prince would convince the people he chased for months that he wants to help them now.

(Y/N) was stoking the hot flame provided by the fire bender, making sure the coals were burning a cherry red before she added leaves and herbs into a pot to make a stew for the two to enjoy. Her eyes followed Zuko as he paced back and forth, practicing what he was going to say when he finally decided to confront the rebel group, lips turned upward in an amused smirk.

“Hey, Zuko here…” she heard him say before he started rambling a bunch of nonsense about his past; from his discovery, to Azula, to his father-- all the tragic topics. It took him about three minutes, but he finished with a hopeful look in his direction.

“Well?!” He clenched his fists at his side in a nervous gesture, only wanting to get this right.

The girl on the log cleared her throat before speaking, obviously hiding her laughter from the sensitive boy. “Well… it’s perfect. I especially liked the ‘Hey, Zuko here’ part. I’m sure that Aang and his friends with be very pleased to finally learn your name instead of thinking you’re called ‘Angry Ponytail Hotman’.’’

He groaned loudly, rubbing his eyes with clenched fists. The melodic laughter from his companion tempted him to give up his quest and just run away with her and live a happy life free of his father and his destiny… whatever that may be.

Still laughing, (Y/N) stood from her log by the fire and made her way to Zuko, coming up behind him. Her arms slid right around his slim body, holding on tight as she tried to pull his mind from the depths of his insecurities.

“Zuko, love.” Her voice is soft, but intense. “Just go down there. I won’t lie, they might not take you right away. You have done a lot of damage to them and their goals.”

His warm hands slide down the tops of her forearms and slide between her chilled fingers, entwining them together as Zuko grips her like she’s holding him down on the land they’re on.

“I… I just…” He struggles to get his feelings out, finding it hard to convey how he feels even to the girl wrapped around him.

She shushes him. “I know.” Is all she says, as they stand there in a momentary comfortable silence before she detaches from him to continue dinner.

____________________________

Zuko had told her to stay behind, that he’d be back to either get her or because he failed to convince the group that he came to support them, instead of harm them.

“Zuko! I could easily be an alibi for you. A reason for them to trust you!”

“No. End of story. They could attack me and you’re in Fire Nation clothes. You’re staying here.”

A staring match between the two only lasted a few seconds, but (Y/N) let it go; remembering Iroh’s advice that sometimes the boy has to do what eases his mind to grow.

The empty pot gleamed an orange glow from the flames, a light in the dark woods that surrounded the two as they lounged by the fire.

(Y/N) was carding her fingers through the upset prince’s hair while he stared at the sky; confused. His emotions spilling onto (Y/N). He didn’t talk much about the encounter, only enough to tell her that they wouldn’t be helping the Avatar defeat his father anytime soon. Rather than pressure him, she offered her solace with calming actions rather than words.

The two had met in their early childhood, (Y/N)’s father being the leader of the Yuyan Archers and of course the Fire Lord wanted the talented girl to meet his… troubled son. In hope that she could help bend his son into the ruthless leader the nations needed to proceed him. Though they didn’t see each other as much as they should have due to (Y/N)’s schooling, the two quickly became close friends and were often found with Lady Ursa quietly running around the palace grounds.

His banishment led to (Y/N) perfecting her skills, and becoming the master she was destined to be, given there was no more distraction. No one could understand her in the way that Zuko did— they fit together like they were made for one another. Where he was hotheaded, she was cool; Where he was nimble and direct, she was resourceful and hidden. The two were the perfect set of opposites who ultimately balanced each other. And one without the other was a heartbreak everyone could see.

When she heard the news of his return, she rushed to the palace; radiant as ever. In an instant, the two fell back into where they left off;  barely any words needed between the two. Her fingers and lips had trailed over his scar often in those few days, brushing away the tears and insecurities that came with it.

Leaving the Fire Nation with Zuko wasn’t even a debate in her mind. She was tired of the life of lies and torment that her nation inflicted upon the world. She had spent the last two years relocating and rebranding people who were targets to the Fire Nation. In total, about one hundred innocent lives were saved from her dangerous missions. Her skill level was better than even her father’s, and she prided herself in her abilities. (Y/N) was truly a professional in her art with the eye of an eagle.

When she caught Zuko writing a letter to her with packed bags on his bed, she instantly went into the shadows and caught up with the boy easily, hiding in the balloon behind the engine for a while until it was too late for him to turn back. It was hot and the most uncomfortable thing she has ever done, but she regrets none of it. She joked with the boy; how did he not question a pile of fabric behind the piece of equipment that holds fire? She let it go after he hugged her close and cried for a while.

“Don’t do that shit again, Zuko.” Her voice was stern, though her voice stern, she held him close. She ghosted her fingers over his tense shoulders; the shoulder that carried such burdens. She pressed her fingers into his shoulders; trying her best to rub the tension from his body. 

“I won’t. Never again. Don’t leave me, I need you.”

A rustle of leaves and broken trees in the forest near the edge of their little camp put the two into defense, instantly gripping her perfectly crafted bow and quiver. Her ears pricked at a slight movement and she aimed her bows in the direction of the noise without even looking. Suddenly, green clothes fill the area as a younger girl makes her way into the clearing. Startled, Zuko sends a wave of fire towards the intruder, burning the girl.

Everything happened fast.

(Y/N)’s left foot—her plant foot—sunk into the ground and twisted inward, releasing a loud crack into the air. The Earth girl was long gone now; Zuko had been screaming at himself when he heard the cry of pain and the sickening noise that left the lips of his girlfriend.

The earth has released its hold on her, but the damage was done. She kneeled, trying to hold back tears but failing as they kept streaming down her face in a pain response. Zuko’s own eyes filled with tears as he ran over to her, helping her sit down and take the tension off of it.

The joint was already beginning to swell, black and blue and purple and yellow starting to show up in swirls around the area. Zuko carefully tried to feel the injury, barely touching the girl in fear of hurting her more. (Y/N) sighed, pushing his fingers away and ignoring his protest. She rotated her foot outward, cringing at the pain, but crying out when she turned it the other way. Zuko cupped his hands around her ankle, hands heated slightly to hopefully alleviate the pain.

“Baby… it’s okay—”

“No, you’re hurt! I knew this would happen!” He cuts her off with a panicked yell. (Y/N) places her hands on the sides of his face, forcing his eyes upon hers with a slight wince of discomfort.

“It’s most definitely, at worst, a fracture. I can still move it outwards without a lot of pain. It’s, like, a week off my foot at most and then another week with a splint and a crutch. I am okay, Zuko.” They stared at each other for a solid minute, saying nothing.

"Promise?" Zuko whispered.

"You think I would lie to you, Zuko?" She says as she wraps her pinky his for good measure

They turn in not too long after, (Y/N)’s ankle wrapped up in some extra clothes for stability. Zuko’s arms hold her to his chest as they slip off into the world of dreams.

_________________________

Oh shit. She thought from her perch on top of the cliff edge. The assassin that they have also been trying to find has been blowing up the place, really testing the stability of the edge of the cliff in shakes after shakes like an earthquake. Zuko had told her to stay at camp, but unfortunately for Zuko; (Y/N) was never that good at listening to commands.

She was sitting down, watching the Avatar, his friends, and her boyfriend try to figure out how to win this fight against the combustion bender, feet dangling over the edge. She didn’t want any pressure on her foot from standing on it; settling for the dull throbs of pain coming from the force of gravity alone.

Some third eye. (Y/N) thought to herself as she watched her boyfriend get too close to being blown off the edge of the cliff, wincing. She quickly strung her bow, aiming it at the man. She smirked, a devious smirk, and aimed it in a precise location.

Zuko was still trying to talk the man out of it when suddenly, his eyes went blank and the grossest sound he has ever heard reached his ears. Everyone watched the man, confused as to why he just stopped. It’s not until red trails down his forehead and around his nose in a slow trickle that they look at his eye.

In the middle of the red eye, that at one point seemed indestructible; an arrow sat; a perfect shot — his perfect shot. "Bullseye!" (Y/N) howled, her voice resonating in his ears.

In the midst of Zuko's panic, he failed to recognize the cliff he was standing on becoming increasingly unsturdy; turning he locked eyes with the archer. A ghost of a smile graced her lips, pride radiating off of her. Though he was angry, he couldn't help but share her pride. He locked eyes with his girlfriend who was sitting nonchalantly on the cliff edge above them all, waving nonetheless, when he told her to stay back. It’s then that the earth beneath him rumbles and falls, taking him with it.

“Zuko!” She screams, jumping to her feet; a loud crack coming from her ankle, buckling under the pressure and bringing her to her knees.

With a hobble in her step, (Y/N) climbed down the cliffside. The tears ran down her face at a ferocious pace, making her way over to the cliffside, a loud sob relented from her mouth as she saw Aang helping Zuko up over the edge of the cliff. 

"Spirits, Zuko!" She breathed, limping her way over to him and hugging him tight. "I should kill you, you fucking idiot!" She sobbed, pulling him into her chest. 

Zuko huffed out a laugh, wrapping his arms around her. He took deep breaths, calming his nerves from his near death experience; he focused on the feeling of her hand carding through his hair to grip it tight, and the hold on his shoulders. As he calms down, he remembers that he told her to stay put; and he sharply pulls away.

"I told you to stay at camp!" He huffed, "I told you I was coming back for you!”

She scoffs pushing on his forehead with two fingers. “In case you have forgotten, Zuko, I have authority issues. If I weren’t here, who would be saving your stupid royal ass? No one! You’re welcome, by the way. He wasn’t going to negotiate, Prince Pouty, and you and everyone else here is no good to the world dead.”

“You—You---You could’ve been hurt! (Y/N)! Or worse!” His protest was a whisper, trying to make the scene more private as he’s aware of the crowd around them.

“Zuko, love, I can handle myself. I’m a master at my craft--.”

"—your craft of carelessness, you could've been killed—"

"—but I wasn't Zuko!"

"That's not the point." His voice stern, making it clear that the conversation was done for now. (Y/N) simply nodded, pulling away from him and fixing her clothes.

Aang, Toph, Katara and Sokka watched the two as they argued; watching as they continuously tried to out-care the other. They watched as the two eventually stopped arguing, instead remained staring, as if daring each other to speak

“That was a ... nice shot? I guess?" Aang spoke, clearing his throat and drawing the couples attention to him. "He's definitely you know, dead."

(Y/N) smiles at the boy. “Thank you, Avatar, for helping save this dumb ass from falling off a cliff.” She gets up and bows to him. Zuko suddenly picks her up, the world turning sideways as he put her bridal style in his arms.

“Stop putting weight on your ankle!”

“I’m literally showing respect to the person who just helped you, is that a crime?”

“What if you break your ankle so much that you have to cut it off.”

“Oh, now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Okay well you were first when deciding to sit on the edge of a cliff with a broken ankle.”

“You’re right! Sitting is dangerous. Next time, I’ll make sure to stand so at least I’ll have a better chance of reacting if the cliff side starts falling from under me. Oh wait, you were standing, and you still fell.”

Zuko sets her down on a broken rock that’s suitable enough for her to sit on. “Will you just shut up already and let me help you.” He reaches for her ankle, but she moves it from his grasp. Their eyes meet again and narrow in competition.

A mess of limbs as the (Y/N) evades the grip of Zuko, occasionally slapping his hands away if they get too close.

Sokka tilts his head in confusion and opens his mouth. “Is he—is he actually caring for someone?”

Aang nods. “I think? I don’t know, they’re kind of fighting a lot.”

Toph cringes, “Guys, I think it was me who hurt her in the first place. Last night at their camp. Zuko instantly stopped trying to help me when I heard her scream.”

“Guys… I think I’m supposed to let him be my master. I mean, he did just risk everything to save us.” Aang says, eyes locked on the one member who he cares more about than anyone.

Katara, still holding off on agreeing, looks to the two Fire Nation kids again.

“Ow! You bit me! Are you crazy?!” Zuko yells, shaking his left hand out.

The stranger girl laughs cheerfully. “Only crazy for you, stupid.”

And a phenomenon occurs. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation blushes and looks down at the ground, a huge smile on his face.

“I hate you.” Is all he says.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

Katara, seeing the humane side of the prince, finally lets her guard down and walks over to them. Zuko’s eyes widen at her proximity, but the water tribe girl holds his gaze.

“I’ll heal the girl if it gets you two to shut up. And you have to find dinner for tonight.”

Katara’s eyes widen again at the sight of the crying prince who suddenly bows to her feet, thanking her with his whole heart. He then turns to his smiling girl beside him and pulls her into a hug.

“Thank you, (Y/N). For everything.”

“I’ll always help you… stupid.”

[theadventurousdork]

Dani Clayton and Jamie Taylor: A scene by scene study on the dynamism of a queer romance

by theadventurousdork

Well, here we are! An unnecessarily long essay breaking down Dani and Jamie’s scenes together that I decided to write purely for the fact that they have taken a hold of my queer little heart and haven’t given it back yet. Grab some awful tea or coffee and take a read, if you’d like! 

Episode One

In this episode, we see Dani and Jamie meet for the very first time. This is the beginning of them and their story. It all starts in the kitchen of Bly Manor where a dirt covered Jamie walks in just in time for the residents of Bly to gather for an afternoon lunch.

“The gardener didn’t even introduce herself to the new au pair. She barely acknowledged her at all. Simply treated her as if she’d always been there. The others in the room just assumed they’d already met, which, if she were honest, was how the au pair felt when she first saw the young woman.”

Jamie walks in without even batting an eye to the new guest meanwhile, we see a soft eyed Dani looking over at the gardener with a gaze that gives the audience the first look to the gravitational pull that seems to be set between them. With Dani explaining her belief that she has seen someone on the parapet of the old wing, Jamie’s reaction is cold. She looks down at the table with a hardened look. She looks almost hurt. We learn later on that Jamie was the first adult resident of Bly to find the dead body of Rebecca Jessel floating in the lake of the manor which has probably resulted in trauma for Jamie as she remembers her late friend. With Owen and Hannah also finding the possibility of someone being on the balcony to be slim, the residents carry on with their meal. As the introduction to Jamie’s character, we are able to see her cold and guarded exterior. However, we also see her wit and humor as she comfortably pokes fun at Miles and Flora. The space she takes when she walks into a room isn’t empty for she fills it with her bold personality and Dani immediately takes notice of this yet she doesn’t show any hint of openly acknowledging it. 

Episode Two

Episode two sheds a different light on the pairing. This episode gives us the first look at Dani’s trauma and the weight that she’s feeling on her conscience. But first, we see her changing the tide at Bly as she puts Miles and Flora to work in the garden as punishment for locking her in a closet. As Dani and the children pull weeds, a relaxed Hannah and Jamie watch from a distance just as Owen offers them drinks. As the trio sip on their gin and tea, they discuss Dani and how her presence is a nice addition to the grounds of Bly. This is where something I call “testing of the waters: part one” occurs. Jamie asks Owen if he thinks that Dani’s pretty before continuing to poke fun at his inability to answer. Now this seems rude, especially considering Hannah’s negative reaction to it even going as far as to remind her that romances don’t fare well at Bly. However, I feel like Jamie does this purposefully to see if Owen would provide any reaction that would indicate that he would have any intent of pursuing Dani, which he quickly shuts down as he states that he only has eyes for Hannah. Jamie’s choice to do this can boil down to a simple poking of fun or maybe something more in terms of her trying to understand, and maybe even deny, the gravitational pull that she’s feeling towards Dani by deflecting it to Owen. 

This episode also offers the first glimpse into Jamie’s humanity and her deeply empathetic nature. As a distressed Dani storms outside in tears after being triggered from seeing her dead ex-fiancé’s glasses, our favorite gardener comes to the rescue with buckets in hand. Now this is probably the first time that Dani has physically seen Edmund’s glasses since she packed them away before leaving Bly which can explain her intense reaction to finding Flora wearing them. The part to highlight about this interaction between Jamie and Dani isn’t the fact that Jamie tries to console her but is the way that she does so. First and foremost, the gardener tries to make au pair laugh. She makes multiple attempts in her dialogue to make Dani crack the slightest smile. Jamie’s dialogue saying, “there we are,” after Dani finally gives into the attempted jokes shows how laughter was Jamie’s initial goal. 

“How else do you think I keep all these fucking plants watered? With my endless well of deep inconsolable tears. That’s how. It’s what got me the job in the first place.” 

After she accomplishes this, she goes on to relate to Dani by telling her that she cries several times a day in an effort to make Dani feel normal and not alone in her vulnerable state. To see someone as cold and guarded as Jamie admit to something like this quickly humanizes her and puts her in the position of becoming a dynamic character. Finally, Jamie tells the au pair that she’s doing a great job and leaves a smiling Dani to watch her as she leaves. This offers insight to how Jamie doesn’t like seeing people in distress. She radiates a grounding energy and puts it upon herself to ensure that no one feels like they’re in over their head. 

Dani is able to return the favor as she finds an angry Jamie kneeled over a massacre of her rose bushes. Jamie’s hotheaded attitude is shown as she wastes no time getting up to confront Miles for cutting her roses before they were ready. The point to highlight in this moment is that Dani hears her out. Dani listens to Jamie’s grievances and not once tells her that she’s overreacting. Dani hasn’t known Jamie for long but she knows the importance of plants to the gardener and she doesn’t give Miles a pass at ruining something that matters so much to her. Having two separate scenes showing that each half of the pair have the power to talk each other down regardless of having known each other long, serves as a taste as what’s to come for their journey together. 

Episode Three

Here we see “testing of the waters: part two” as the keepers of Bly watch over a sleeping Miles and Flora by a crackling fireplace. A tired Hannah rests her head on Owen’s shoulder as Dani and Jamie watch from across the room. Jamie goes onto ask Dani if she wishes she were leaning on Owen instead of Hannah and explains how every woman in town fawns over Owen without him even knowing it. This key moment goes hand in hand with Jamie’s testing of the waters in episode 2 when she tests Owen’s potential attraction to Dani to now testing to see if Dani would be interested in Owen. Jamie’s subtle comments allow her to see the odds of Dani liking Owen without risking any awkward interaction that would potentially be too invasive. With Owen being the only man in the house, it’s understandable for Jamie to want to see if Dani would pursue him which in turn would signal that Dani may not be interested in someone like her.

What comes next is what I like to believe is the moment that Jamie begins to fall for Dani and I mean really fall for her. The conversation about love and possession is beautifully done and sets the distinction that will go onto separate Peter and Rebecca from Dani and Jamie. After a vindictive history lesson on the toxicity of Peter and Rebecca’s relationship, Jamie mentions the idea of loving someone versus possessing someone to which Dani replies that she doesn’t believe should be possible. The effect of this is seen on Jamie’s face as she looks at Dani. It’s a face that says that she’s staring at someone who understands. Understands the fragility of love and the thin lines that separate healthy versions of love from toxic ones. It happens in the span of a second but we can see a switch click in Jamie’s mind just before she breaks her gaze. From what we collect of Jamie’s past a few episodes later, we come to understand that she has always been owned. Stemming from a broken home and growing up in the foster care system, Jamie has always been someone else’s possession to claim ownership of but never was truly loved and nurtured. To hear someone finally understand that there’s a distinction between loving someone versus feeling like they have the right of possessing them, must feel like a moment of overdue comfort. 

After a restless night due to seeing Edmund’s ghost again, Dani wakes up the following morning to see Jamie asleep on the couch. This scene lasts merely thirty seconds so why make the choice to keep it in? What significance does it really hold? Is there any significance at all? For me, the significance is comfort. I feel like there’s a level of comfort that Dani feels when she realizes that Jamie was just down the stairs as she laid awake the night prior feeling as if she were alone in the depths of her own shadows. 

The new day ends in the tragic news that Owen’s mom has passed away. After a sympathetic Hannah sends Owen off and leaves to light a candle for the deceased, the gardener and au pair are left to give their own goodbyes to each other. As Dani voices that she’s glad that Jamie stayed on the grounds throughout the day and the night prior, Jamie agrees and the two share an uninterrupted gaze at one another. Here is where we see Dani’s first advance as she takes hold of Jamie’s hand. Ever so slightly does Jamie latch back before Dani quickly pulls away. 

“Who the hell knew?”

Those words leave Jamie’s mouth as a mixture of relief and shock paint her face as she gets into her car. Dani watches her drive away with an expression that reads “did I really do what I think I just did?” This moment is cut short as she turns around to see Edmund’s ghost staring blankly from behind her. Fear overcomes Dani and a scream is let out as Edmund gets sucked backwards by an invisible force. Up until this point, Edmund’s ghost has remained stagnant, either appearing in a reflection or in parts. This extreme motion of getting pulled backward into the manor can be read as a way to reflect the intensity of the emotions that Dani is feeling in that exact moment. The amount of tension that Dani must have felt to muster up the courage to reach for Jamie’s hand must have been extremely intense which in turn would evoke an intense manifestation of Edmund’s ghost. 

Episode Four 

Episode four is what I call the episode of guilt. In this hour, we delve deeper into Dani’s past and the darkness that she’s been holding in her heart. Dani’s life just before Bly is revealed and we see snippets of her life with Edmund. From childhood best friends to teenage lovers to getting engaged, Dani and Edmund almost seemed like the perfect set up to an 80s romcom. Almost is the key word here as it’s revealed that Dani breaks up with Edmund just before he storms out of their car into the path of an oncoming truck, killing him right in front of her thus revealing why Edmund is haunting her. Flashforward to Bly, Dani has begun to see Edmund’s ghost more and more. His first appearance in the episode is in Dani’s bedroom mirror just as Jamie helps unzip her dress. If it weren’t apparent in the episodes prior, Dani holds an immense amount of guilt. This guilt doesn’t only stem from being the reason why Edmund was killed but also lies in who she is. Edmund’s presence is symbolic for the guilt that Dani feels whenever she is just on the brink of exploring her sexuality. We see that every interaction that Dani has with Edmund’s ghost occurs just after she shares a moment with Jamie. With Jamie being a tangible representation of what Dani desires, her visions of Edmund become more intense and more frequent as her guilt increases. 

The episode continues to show Dani experiencing Edmund’s haunting again when Jamie arrives back to the manor after attending Owen’s mom’s funeral. Here we see Dani catching herself staring at Jamie from across the table. When Jamie catches her gaze, Dani retreats to the sink where we see a mixture of nervousness and excitement across Dani’s face as she looks over her shoulder to take one more look. This moment filled with butterflies and yearning is cut short as Edmund’s hands slide across Dani’s hips as she sees him in a reflection which causes her to panic. Edmund’s presence is growing closer and stronger as Dani has begun to navigate her feelings for Jamie.

In a flashback, we get a glimpse into possibly one of the first times that Dani’s internal conflict of her sexuality crosses her mind. As Dani gets a dress fitted, the female tailor makes flirtatious passes at her. We see Dani acknowledge these advances and isn’t opposed to them occurring. The scene switches to a guilt stricken Dani, her eyebrows furrowed above saddened eyes that wander upward to Jamie who’s helping prep the table for dinner. This quick glance up to Jamie holds so much. The internal turmoil that Dani is feeling in this moment is palpable. To think that all of her moments of repression have led up to this. This feeling of wanting. This feeling of yearning. To live openly and authentically as the person she’s always been.

Later that night, the keepers of Bly hold a bonfire to honor those that they’ve lost. A weight can be felt on the four as they remember their late loved ones by the warmth of the fire. The concept of found family lies in the heart of those who find a home at Bly and can be seen through Hannah and Jamie’s odes to the late Rebecca, Dominic, and Charlotte. 

“Because from here on in, the shadows get deeper… the nights get longer. We’re heading into the dark and we have to hang onto each other. So, we can only carry so much.”

As they commemorate who they’ve lost, Jamie mentions Dani and how she believes that Dani is the key to getting Miles and Flora back to themselves. A moment of pain rushes across Dani’s face as Jamie states how she believes that Dani is stronger than she thinks. To be in the midst of an internal conflict yet hear how someone believes in your strength can be something so painful to hear as you struggle to believe it yourself. We see Dani in a battle with herself as she fights to live authentically regardless of the guilt she’s carrying. 

Eventually, the gardener and the au pair break away from Owen and Hannah to go to the greenhouse. A pivotal moment in the growth of Dani and Jamie’s relationship occurs here when Dani makes the decision to lay everything out on the table for Jamie and finally explain her history with Edmund as well as sometimes seeing his ghost. 

“I’ve never told anybody that.”

These words that leave Dani’s mouth are so intimate and so vulnerable. Jamie takes what she’s being dealt and handles it with such a level of care that ensures that Dani knows that she’s being heard and respected. As we’ve seen Jamie talk Dani down from a breakdown in episode 2, we see a parallel here where Jamie takes it upon herself to make Dani laugh in an effort to console her. This moment is cut short as Dani musters the courage to ask the heartbreaking question that allows Jamie to make the decision whether to take or leave Dani and all of her baggage.

“Think I’m crazy?”

The pain in Dani’s face as she asks this shows just how scared she is to be rejected by the one person she wants the most. Without even a hint of hesitation, Jamie reassures her that nothing has changed in her view of Dani’s strength. A wave of relief comes over Dani as she’s hit her tipping point of acting upon the feelings she’s been suppressing all this time. She kisses Jamie and a moment of vulnerability is shown on Jamie’s face as she gets the confirmation that Dani is sure in her decision to do this. This moment is short lived by Edmund’s ghost appearing just behind Jamie, causing Dani to retreat in a panic. This is probably the worst cockblock in the history of cockblocks. Dani quickly retreats as Jamie mirrors her actions and immediately puts her walls back up as embarrassment sinks into them both in different directions. As the pair make it back to Hannah and Owen, Dani is visibly disappointed with how things ended up. Jamie’s comment of “it’s all good” as she guides Owen away from the bonfire shows how she would prefer to move on right away instead of confronting the confusing messages she’s just received from Dani. 

The final scene of the episode is what I like to call Dani’s last straw. Dani’s guilt has turned to anger as she makes the decision to confront her own shadows by throwing Edmund’s glasses into the bonfire. Flashbacks of kissing Jamie intercut the scene to really solidify Dani’s desires to move on and be able to freely love her without the burden of her past. 

“It’s just you and me then.”

Dani is tired. She’s waited for this moment. She’s finally accepted this part of her and she stares straight into Edmund’s ghost without any more fear. She’s found the strength to move on. 

Episode Six

The sponsor of this episode is cement as Dani and Jamie cement their relationship in this hour. The episode begins with Dani’s attempt at reconciliation after the unfortunate cockblock of a certain dead ex-fiancé in episode four. Dani wakes up at the crack of dawn to visit Jamie in her greenhouse. Dani’s entire existence in this moment is ridden with nervousness as she puts on her best “everything is normal” face. Jamie is quick to notice how out of character waking up this early is for Dani to which Dani dismisses. We see that Jamie’s cold and guarded exterior is back and for good reason considering the unfortunate events at the end of her and Dani’s last interaction.  Dani’s eagerness to patch things up puts her through several attempts at getting a reaction out of Jamie, each of which ends up being shut down. First is the gesture of giving Jamie coffee which results in her gently spitting it back into the cup. Next is Dani’s attempt at voicing how lonely she’s been.

“No Owen. No you.”

Dani’s voice drags on a little longer here to emphasize how Jamie’s absence the last few days have created a noticeable emptiness at the manor. Jamie responds with a simple “sometimes people wanna be alone” which seems like her own personal choice. However, Dani finally gets a reaction through Jamie’s icy exterior when she makes her laugh after a terrible attempt at a British accent. This mirrors the other instances prior where Jamie has made the effort to make Dani laugh in order to ease any emotional tension. After the ice has been broken, we see Dani’s first wind of confidence as she asks Jamie out to a boring ol’ date at a boring ol’ pub. We can see relief and a sense of pride strewn across Dani’s face when Jamie catches her drift. This marks the beginning of a fresh start for the two. 

The next time we see the pair is in the kitchen as Jamie surprises Dani by coming back to the manor after initially leaving.

“Made it halfway home and I thought ‘rough day, maybe Poppins might fancy a little boredom.’”

Dani’s shocked excitement quickly turns into awkward nervousness as Hannah and Owen wave them away to spend time together. Jamie gently takes Dani’s hand and guides her out of the room. This presents the reaffirmation that Jamie still cares enough to try again with Dani.  

The gardener leads the au pair somewhere off on the grounds of Bly to a secret area where moonflowers have bloomed. She explains how difficult they are to grow in England and how fragile their lifespan is. 

“That’s a lot of work for a flower that only blooms once.”

“That’s what people feel like to me. Exhaustive effort, very little to show for it.”

“All of them?”

“All of them. Even you. Even me… especially me.”

Jamie’s emphasis on herself shows her insecurity of not being enough after anyone makes the effort to break down her walls and gets to know who she really is. What follows is a tear-jerking speech that gives insight on Jamie’s past and her painful upbringing. From the details of her childhood like growing up in a broken home, being forced into foster care, and serving time in jail, we begin to understand why she puts such a strong, guarded front. The absence of a family unit in her youth and young adulthood has resulted in her feeling like she may be unlovable. Like she might not be worth the effort of loving. Just as Dani did in episode four, this is Jamie laying everything out on the table for Dani to decide whether or not she will take or leave Jamie and all of her baggage. After Jamie finishes her monologue, Dani gets up and doesn’t say a word. She takes hold of Jamie and kisses her. No words can alleviate the pain that Jamie’s endured but the effort of loving her can be a start. Dani pulls away for a brief moment to reveal a relieved Jamie smiling back at her after she has realized that Dani has chosen to accept her for everything that she is. 

The next scene they have together is the morning after Dani finally gets her first restful night’s sleep. 

“The au pair could not remember that last time she’d slept this well. And she thought perhaps she never had.”

The moment to highlight in this short scene is Dani stopping to look at herself in the mirror. She is finally able to see her truest self without being haunted of guilt. She smiles as she looks at her reflection and to a sleeping Jamie in the bed next to her. She’s finally made peace with herself. 

The final Dani and Jamie scene of the episode occurs at the end of the day just as Dani puts Flora to bed. Here we see the purity in the relationship that the two are creating. We see Dani unapologetically long for Jamie as she says she’s going to leave for the night. The au pair’s subtle look at the gardener’s lips as she speaks and the inching closer and closer to her shows just how high Dani’s confidence levels have risen to after being able to finally love freely. To see Dani in such a smitten state of mind is a breath of fresh air for not only herself but for us, the viewers, who have seen her in such a trapped state of mind when it comes to loving someone. The innocence of longing, in tandem of making the promise of spending other nights together, show how much care and caution they are taking in order to ensure that they’re building their relationship in a healthy manner. What they are both experiencing shows a trade off of what they each have to give to the other. Dani has accepted her sexuality, which is something that seems like Jamie has already done long ago. Meanwhile, Jamie is being loved and wanted, potentially for the first time which is something that Dani has already experienced in her past. Each half of the pairing offers support and guidance to the other as they begin their journey as a couple. 

Episode Nine

This final episode of the season was an absolute doozy in terms of Dani and Jamie’s relationship. I’ve watched all of these scenes a solid million times over and I bawl my eyes out every. damn. time. But I mopped up my tear-soaked notebook and carried on for the purpose of this essay. The episode picks up action as Flora sacrifices herself to save Dani from being dragged and choked to death by Viola, the Lady of the Lake. As Jamie and Owen arrive back at the manor after both having awful dreams, they briefly see Hannah as she says that they’re needed at the lake. Jamie bolts the second she hears Dani yelling. She knows Dani’s in trouble and wastes absolutely zero time trying to find her. Jamie yells Dani’s name and you can feel that her sense of urgency has one goal in mind: save Dani. 

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s Us.”

Viola has accepted the au pair’s offer. Besides Flora, Jamie is the only witness to see Dani’s last moment of belonging to only herself. From this point on, the darkness begins to fester deep within Dani’s soul and Jamie must live knowing that there was nothing that she could do as she watched Dani let part of herself go to let Viola in. Jamie runs into the lake as Dani’s trauma starts almost immediately. Her breathing is quickened, and she can’t stop repeating those final words that she felt deep in her bones. The gardener holds the au pair and takes one look at her as she already notices the effects of trauma. Dani’s darting eyes are panicked as she struggles to register that Jamie is there with her. Her breathing finally slows as Jamie holds her close in her attempts to calm her down. Jamie is Dani’s grounding force in this moment. Dani has finally freed the ghosts of Bly but at the cost of her own self. Her own life for the souls of the others. 

The following scene highlights the days following the incident at the lake, immediately starting with Jamie and Owen looking into the well to find Hannah’s dead body. I wanted to highlight this moment just for the sake of Jamie for she has been there to witness all the deaths of her loved ones firsthand. She was the first adult to find Rebecca in the lake, one of the first to find Hannah in the well, and the first to see Dani die in more ways than one. She just can’t seem to catch a break but after all… death is beautiful, it’s natural.

Jamie finds Dani as she packs away her things however, Dani’s mind appears to be somewhere else. Darkness has begun to burrow itself into Dani’s soul. She’s shaking. She’s terrified. She’s mourning the loss of herself. 

“I feel her. In here. It’s so quiet, it’s so quiet, but she’s in here. And this part of her that’s in here, it isn’t… peaceful.”

Dani explains how Viola’s presence feels like a beast waiting for her in a thick jungle. She feels hopeless again but this time feels heavier than all the rest. She has something to lose here now. She has a relationship with Jamie to lose, she has an entire life to lose. It isn’t as simple as feeling the guilt of losing someone or the guilt of loving someone. This feeling isn’t human, this feeling of dread goes beyond what the stages of grief entails. Where is she to go if she can’t go within herself to find peace? 

“She’s gonna take me.”

A tear falls down Jamie’s face as these heavy words fall out of Dani’s mouth. This is the first hint of Jamie losing Dani. The fear of the inevitable fills the room with such a weight that no words can alleviate Dani’s pain. Yet Jamie tries. She tries her damn best. She offers her company with the seal of a pinky promise. She gives all that she can offer: herself and her love. Dani’s feeling of darkness doesn’t have to be lonely this time. 

After a final goodbye to Henry, Miles, and Flora, the gardener and the au pair set off to start their lives together as the image of Bly fades away into the distance. Their life together starts at a diner as Jamie plans their course of action, hoping to end up in Vermont to see snow by Christmas. Here we see Dani looking at her own reflection in the tableside jukebox before stopping Jamie as she worries that they’re planning too far ahead. Dani’s cautious. She doesn’t want to get either of their hopes up. 

“One day at a time is fine by me. As long as those days are with you, Poppins. One day at a time is what we’ve got.”

There’s a brightness in these words which in turn reflect onto them. There’s a light in this moment that shows that they haven’t lost their footing yet. And thus begins the final climb to their highest point before the tragedy that lies ahead occurs. We flashforward to a year later to The Leafling, the flower shop that the pair have opened up together. Dani is still Dani and Jamie is still Jamie but more in love this time than the last time and the time before that. 

“You see, I’m not sick of you. At all. I’m actually pretty in love with you, it turns out.”

Here we see the reintroduction of the moonflower. The symbol of Jamie and Dani’s love. The last time we saw the moonflower was back when the pair finally made the choice to accept one another and start their relationship. This time, we see the moonflower one last time as Jamie chooses to solidify their love by finally breaking the big L word. 

A montage ensues of the gardener and the au pair’s life together. Years have passed and peace was just finally in their grasp. Or so it seemed. This feeling of fluttering innocence is put to a halt as Dani sees Viola’s reflection in the door of the flower shop. Dani stops in her tracks as she stares at the reflection, her face is still as she stands in a quiet shock. That is until she sees Jamie through the door, smiling at her with such a playful gaze. This instance shows yet again that Jamie is Dani’s grounding force even after all this time and Dani’s own reflection returns not even a second later. This is a moment for the audience to take a peek into Jamie’s importance in Dani’s life, especially at a point that something so vengeful is making its way to the surface. To see Jamie’s smiling face cut through the image of the beast in the jungle, we can’t help but feel the same pain yet also the sense of relief that Dani must feel in this moment. Although Dani returns to herself, we can’t help but feel Viola’s presence looming. 

The scene that follows is another significant milestone in Dani and Jamie’s journey together as Dani comes back home with a dying plant that’s concealing an engagement ring. Above the surface, Dani has put the ring in a dying plant because she knew that Jamie would waste no time investigating how to save it. But this can also be interpreted in relation to Jamie’s moonflower speech where she says “every living thing grows out of every dying thing” to show how their relationship is taking the next step of growth as she pulls the ring out of a dying plant. The ring itself is a traditional Irish Claddagh ring, which shows how Dani did her research and chose a ring specific to Jamie’s northern heritage. The hands that make the band of the ring represents friendship, while the heart representing love, and the crown representing loyalty. These representations are fitting for the relationship that the pairing has created and for Dani’s proposal speech. 

“Here’s the thing - you’re my best friend and the love of my life. And I don’t know how much time we have left but however much it is, I wanna spend it with you.”

The thing to highlight about Dani and Jamie’s relationship is that it runs on Dani’s timeline which is something that is so important to showcase, especially considering how Edmund had made almost all the choices for her in her previous engagement. Jamie understands this and has always insured that Dani felt comfortable before progressing further into their relationship together. In this moment, Jamie finally has a promise of love while Dani has security in the person she loves the most. As Jamie accepts her proposal and the two share a moment of celebration, Dani’s face of worry as she hugs Jamie shows that she feels an inability to be fully happy. She’s unable to fully give herself to Jamie in this moment which in turn shows how Viola’s presence is getting closer and getting darker. 

We jump slightly forward in time to the pair visiting Owen’s aptly named restaurant, A Batter Place. After a moment of remembrance for Hannah, Dani looks into the reflection of a metal water pitcher to see Viola’s reflection yet again. Dani’s face is surprised by this sight, but she keeps it quietly to herself as to not ruin the moment of reunion. If we compare this instance to the first time Dani looked at her reflection at the tableside jukebox at the diner years prior, we can see that this moment is filled with much more darkness. The light that used to be inside of her is dimming. Although Jamie is holding her and is physically next to her in this moment, she doesn’t cut through the darkness anymore. Jamie’s power as a grounding force is dimming as well. 

“So, they’re all happy?”

The inflection in Dani’s voice here is so subtle that only Jamie takes notice of it. Jamie looks at Dani and senses that something has gone off in her. Owen continues to explain how Miles and Flora have no recollection of the events that took place at Bly. No recollection of the sacrifice that Dani made to save them. 

“So, if they don’t remember Hannah…they don’t remember…”

Dani’s voice trails off here. She looks down and is caught in the bitter realization that her sacrifice has been forgotten. This feeling of a looming darkness, this feeling of living a life that’s ticking down to her own demise… was it worth it? Jamie can feel Dani’s pain immediately as her eyes stayed glued on Dani who’s trying to see if there would be any way to remind Miles and Flora about what she did.  The gardener stares at au pair without breaking away and in this instant, we can see that, along with Dani, Jamie is breaking too. Breaking under the burden of knowing that she can’t take Dani’s pain away.

The scene that follows shows Dani washing dishes where she sees Viola again in the water. She panics and finally admits to Jamie that she’s been seeing her more and more. The tension that was present between them moments earlier immediately fades away as Jamie wastes no time in trying to console Dani. Jamie’s blind optimism here has a slight tinge of desperation as she refuses to let Dani slip away into the abyss that’s growing stronger and stronger. Dani’s interaction with Viola’s reflection in this moment sets off an alarm bell within her, unlike the other times where she sat quietly and dealt with it on her own. This is Dani’s tipping point. The highest level of fear is felt as the reality is beginning to sink in that the beast is coming for her. Another thing to note here is that even after all these years, Jamie still makes the conscious effort to make Dani laugh. 

“I’ll do the washing up from now on, yeah? You’re shit at it anyway.”

Dani can’t help but give the smallest laugh, but it’s more than enough for Jamie. Through Jamie’s optimism, we have begun to see that she’s not only consoling Dani but also herself as she tries to convince both of them that they can have so much more time together. The episode continues on with the train of heartbreak as Jamie comes home after receiving civil union paperwork for her and Dani. What comes next is what I feel like is the most heartbreaking Dani moment in the entire series. Dani stares deep into an overflowing bathtub where an ominous Viola stares back at her. Jamie is quick to bring Dani back to reality but Dani has lost her footing. Her hold on Viola has flipped to Viola having a hold on her. 

“It’s like every day I feel myself fading away, but I’m still here, and… I don’t really understand how that is.” 

The fear has withered away into emptiness as Dani struggles to stay afloat. We see Jamie so pained as she watches the light fade into a grey nothingness as she listens to Dani talk about how she is beginning to lose herself to the beast. 

“I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and it’s getting harder and harder to see me.” 

To listen to the love of her life slip away through her fingers has Jamie in a phase of denial as she continuously refuses to let Dani break apart. We see the gardener’s optimism wavering as she tries her best to help the au pair hold onto herself. Dani’s voice as she says Jamie’s name is filled with nothing but pure hopelessness and despair as she dips further and further into uncertainty. Yet Jamie doesn’t lose hope. Jamie would never give up on Dani as she repeats the words she told Dani in the diner all those years ago. 

“One day at a time.”

However, Jamie has run out of answers. She can only offer comfort now. 

Next we see Dani hit her lowest low as she is taken over by Viola and awakes to see that she almost strangled Jamie to death in their sleep. Dani is shocked and broken as she sits in the disbelief of what she almost did. The time has come. The beast has arrived. Viola has waited years until Dani was so broken down and so vulnerable, that she would finally be able to take her. However, we can’t help but believe that Dani fought off Viola this long thanks to the love her and Jamie shared.

The gardener wakes up the following morning to find an empty space next to her. She reaches to the empty space in the bed and then for the note left on the bedside table. It can only mean one thing: her biggest fear has come to light. With her strong will and determination, Jamie gives one final push and flies back across the pond to Bly to face what she’s been in fear of all this time. The amount of immense grief that is felt in this moment, to be at the same place that the love of her life began to be taken away from her all those years ago, must be incredibly damaging. The manor holds so much of Jamie’s life. She found her family there. She created a beautiful garden on those grounds. Her and Dani’s love blossomed on the same grounds that she first began to lose her that night at the lake. Jamie storms off to the edge of the water. Her face is so tired. She already knows what she’s going to find and yet she still doesn’t lose the hope that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be true. 

“The gardener said the words she’d heard those years ago; she willed it with everything she had. You, me, us. Us. ‘Take me with you,’ she cried in her heart. ‘Take me. Drag me down like you did the others.’ But the lady in the lake was different now – the lady in the lake was also Dani. And Dani wouldn’t. Dani would never.” 

The agony and desperation that we see Jamie endure in the moments that we see her find Dani laying at the very bottom of the lake is a type of pain that is unmatched from any other moment of pain that we’ve seen this season. Her muffled screams as she takes a hold of her heart, only to let her arms go in despair under the water is something so haunting yet so unbelievably moving to see her love so much considering how far she’s come from the cold and guarded gardener we saw all the way back in episode one. She would’ve given up everything. Absolutely everything to take Dani’s place. Given up everything to join Dani at the bottom of the lake. Unlike Peter with Rebecca, Dani could never take Jamie down to the depths. Dani could never harm a single soul, let alone the one person that mattered the most to her. By letting Jamie go and taking Viola’s place as the lady of the lake, Dani has broken the cycle of violence that’s haunted the grounds of Bly for centuries. As Jamie was the hero of Dani’s story, Dani will always be the hero to Jamie’s. 

The final act of the season ends with an older Jamie finishing her story to the wedding guests. 

“She would know nothing of the gardener, nothing of their life together. The details, the specific moments would all fade away. More time will pass, and the water will wash away the delicate features of her; of her beautiful, perfect face. But she won’t be hollow, nor empty. And she won’t pull others to her fate. She will merely walk the grounds of Bly, harmless as a dove, for all of her days. Leaving the only trace of who she once was in the memory of the woman who loved her most.”

We see an older Jamie comfort a teary-eyed Flora who is afraid of the time when she would also lose the love of her life. Jamie comforts her with advice that we can only ever assume she learned in her time with Dani. The final scene shows the gardener’s nightly routine as she stares into reflections, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the au pair. As she drifts away into sleep, a hand wearing a golden wedding ring rests gently on her shoulder. Our haunting love story has come to an end. And the rest? Well the rest… is confetti.  

[taexual]

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (17)

    jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: angst → smut (dom!jjk themes but only because he can’t control himself lol)

words: 8.2k

    chapter seventeen

Namjoon dropped you off back on campus and was even kind enough – or guilty enough – to offer his help in your search for Jungkook, but you didn’t want to take up any more of his time and, in the case of actually finding Jungkook, you didn’t think you’d make the situation better by having Namjoon with you.

The first thing you did after you exited his car on campus was leave the campus – because you thought that Jungkook may have lingered by the club where Parental Advisory performed tonight; even if his bandmates didn’t seem to think so, since Yoongi insisted they’d lost their lead vocalist – and walking around in the shoes you’d picked today was almost enough to make you regret not asking Namjoon to drive you around, after all.

You hadn’t worn heels but the ballet flats were still not fit for this much walking and, once you circled the club twice and even asked the manager – who was having a smoke outside – if he’d seen Jungkook, you decided that you could understand why Yoongi had been so upset about his bandmate’s disappearance. 

As you returned to campus, you decided that you were also ready to strangle Jungkook once you finally found him.

“Have you heard anything from him?” you asked in your text message to Yoongi and then informed him, “I’m on my way to my dorm now to change into more comfortable shoes but I’ll check some of the buildings where he has classes after that.”

Just as you passed the library – and peeked inside because, although slim, there was the possibility that Jungkook may have been hiding out here (he wasn’t) – your phone buzzed with Yoongi’s reply.

“The guys and I will check them,” he was saying, “are there any other places on campus that have some significance to you and him?”

You did a double-take when you finished reading the text, not liking the wave of awkward and misplaced guilt that returned when you fully grasped what Yoongi was implying – he may not have been accusing you of anything, but he was, clearly, convinced that you were the reason why Jungkook missed the encore of his show and then disappeared off of the face of the Earth.

“I’m not sure,” you started to type back as you walked past the double-doors of your dormitory, startling your seemingly drunk RA who had been dozing off on the couch in the first-floor lounge. You stopped typing to press the elevator button, but then resumed, “I’ll walk around. He couldn’t have gone far.”

“He could have,” came Yoongi’s arbitrary – but, frankly, objective – response and you sighed as you read his words, your reflection looking very gloomy in the mirror of the elevator. “But let’s hope he didn’t. If you find him first, kick him where it hurts most. And then punch him for me, too.”

You couldn’t help snickering at the absurdity of the situation that you were in – you definitely never thought you’d end up bonding with Jungkook’s bandmates over your mutual frustration with him – as you typed back your response.

“If his phone isn’t back on within the next ten minutes,” you were saying in your text, stopping for a second when the elevator ding! announced that you’d reached your floor, “I will be doing a lot more than just—”

You stopped typing as an audible gasp escaped your lips, prompted by the sight at the far end of the hallway, right by the door of your dorm. Your phone nearly left your hands, on its way to crash on the floor. You’d caught it—miraculously—your eyes still locked on the figure, sitting on the floor by your door.

“Jungkook,” you said, meaning it as a question but not being able to articulate it properly due to your shock. The dim lighting of the hallway made it difficult for you to make out if it the silhouette was actually him, or if it was someone who was incredibly similar to him.

“Oh,” the person replied and – clumsily – stood up, relying heavily on the wall to help him support his weight. It was Jungkook alright. But barely. “You’re here.”

“I’m—of course, I’m here. I live here,” you said, not sure how to react. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

Various unintelligible sounds left your mouth after he said this – the first syllables of all the words you wanted to say in the moment; all of them rated-R – until you settled on watching him for a minute to get some time to form a coherent thought and to asses the damage.

It didn’t look like he’d been in a fight. It simply looked like he got very drunk and plopped down on the floor next to your dorm room.

“Waiting for—Jungkook, fuck—do you know that your band is literally out there, looking for you?” you demanded after inhaling sharply. “There’s a whole search party for you and you’re—you’re here.”

“I was waiting for you to come back,” Jungkook said. He was a lot more sober now than he was hours ago, but he still wasn’t sober enough to recognize his own guilt. Actually, he was probably never sober enough to feel guilty about anything, but alcohol had little to do with it. “I was going to drive over there to find you—”

“You’re drunk,” you snapped, interrupting him.

“Yeah, and that’s why I didn’t,” he said, pausing for more effect as he waited for you to express your admiration for his self-control but, after it didn’t come, he cleared his throat and, sounding disappointed, explained, “I knew you would give me shit if I drove a car drunk and I promised you that I wouldn’t. So I didn’t. I waited for you here instead.”

“You should have known that drunk-driving is unacceptable because that puts you and everyone around you in danger,” you countered, the moral superiority in your voice clouding the meaning of your words, “and not just because I would give you shit if you did it again.”

He rolled his eyes but chose not to expand on this argument because you didn’t look like you were in the right mood to understand his point of view about “conforming to societal norms”, even if it meant that he was putting himself – and those around him – in danger. Not to mention, he was still too tipsy to hold out a proper conversation.

“How long have you been here?” you asked after he didn’t reply.

You were well-aware that you were having this conversation in the hallway when you could have, theoretically, had it in your room. The door was right there. The key was in your handbag.

But entering – and inviting him inside – wasn’t something you were ready for just yet. The adrenaline from not knowing where Jungkook was and what had happened to him still hadn’t faded. Your breathing still hadn’t calmed down – funnily enough, it would not calm down for the rest of the night, but you didn’t know that yet.

“A while,” he replied just as you remembered you were supposed to let Yoongi know you’d located the missing boy. You got your phone out while Jungkook continued, “I bribed your RA with my six-pack of Heineken. Well, actually, it wasn’t really mine, I just took it from the bar, but—”

You stopped typing the text message to give him a hard look. “You stole six bottles of beer?”

Jungkook blinked, thrown off by the fever in your eyes. “No. I took them.”

“Without paying?” you asked. He nodded. “That’s stealing.”

“I do it all the time,” he waved his hand dismissively – and pushed himself off the wall in the process, only to lean back against it again a moment later, when he realized he was still not steady enough on his feet. He nodded his head at your phone, “ask Yoongi. The manager knows us there. We get drinks on the house.”

“I’m—how do you know I’m texting Yoongi?”

“You said there was a search party for me,” he said, taking you off-guard with his accurate conclusions. You wondered what sort of effect alcohol had on him, “Yoongi is the only one that cares enough to lead it.”

He didn’t mean to make it sound sad – in fact, his facial expression remained the same: somewhat cautious and a little irritated – but you still felt an unpleasant pang of misery in the pit of your stomach.

“He’s—well, I care, too,” you said with a nervous cough that was meant to rid you of all pity you felt towards him because pity didn’t justify what he did. “A lot of people care. You can’t just disappear like that in the middle of your show and—”

“It is Yoongi you’re texting, right?” Jungkook asked suddenly, his eyes narrowing. “Not someone else?”

He was probably trying to be nonchalant about it but, consciously or not, he ended up making his question unbearably obvious. The “someone else” may have been an abstract concept to outsiders – your peers, lurking by their doors and watching the argument play out through their peepholes – but you both knew whom Jungkook had in mind.

“Yes,” you said. “I was texting Yoongi. We’d agreed to let each other know if we found you.”

“Okay, good,” Jungkook said and proceeded to act like this was all a mere misunderstanding that wasn’t worth a lengthy discussion. “Can we go inside now? It’s weird to talk in the hall.”

“Are you going to tell me why you got drunk before your show?” you asked, your voice on the edge of yelling. “Or why you skipped out on the encore?”

Understanding that answering this was the one condition to enter your room, Jungkook sighed. 

He was hoping you’d come to your own conclusion about this and he could just roll with whatever you thought was the truth – that he was useless, untrustworthy, reckless, and any other thing that people regarded him as – because explaining himself meant talking about his feelings. And he was so good at pretending that he didn’t like to do that.

“Because you weren’t there,” Jungkook answered.

You couldn’t help but groan. You’d gotten so tired of his no-more-than-four-word responses to serious questions, you couldn’t hear any more of them. You hated having to ask specific questions to get him to talk when he knew very well what you wanted to know.

“What is that supposed to mean?” you questioned irritably. “I wasn’t at your previous shows and that didn’t seem to be a problem.”

“Before—”

“Not to mention,” you continued, choosing to let it all out now that he’d shown you he wasn’t going to be completely upfront with you, “you knew where I was. We’d talked about our plans for tonight extensively, and I wasn’t supposed to hear from you until the barbecue ended and you wrapped up your show.”

“Okay, fine,” Jungkook said, his voice rushed. He didn’t want to hear any more of your accusations because he knew he would lose the battle of wits – he would have lost it on an ordinary day, but today, everything he said seemed extremely wrong. “It’s because you were with him.”

“With Namjoon?” you clarified, crossing your arms over your chest.

Not liking your defensive stance, Jungkook swallowed and said slowly, “yes.”

You looked away from him then – as if you were gazing into an unseen camera and waiting for someone to yell that you’d been punk’d – your eyes losing focus.

“Are you kidding me?” you asked with a complete lack of enthusiasm.

“I’m not,” he replied, his jaw clenched. “My own father sent me the picture.”

“The picture?” you raised your eyebrows, almost laughing. “It was just a picture of the company employees! Namjoon happened to be standing next to me. You can’t seriously be acting like that because of something as minor and irrelevant as this. I thought we’d already talked about this.”

Completely forgetting every past conversation, Jungkook rolled his eyes.

“Minor and irrelevant,” he repeated, an undeniable snarl in his voice. “Is that what this is? At this point, you spend as much time with him as you do with me.”

“Why is that a problem?” you challenged. “We’d already agreed you wouldn’t do this! I am allowed to hang out with my friends. You have no reason – or no right, for that matter – to react like that. You know there’s nothing going on.”

“I’m not—”

“And I spend even more time with Inna than I do with Namjoon,” you cut him off, “why was she never an issue?”

“Oh, so, Inna, Namjoon, and I are all the same to you?”

You squinted your eyes, trying to see through the trap he must have set for you with this question. “Yes.”

“Oh, how brilliant,” Jungkook scoffed, pushing himself off the wall and turning his back to you as he spat, “your three closest friends.”

“I wouldn’t say—”

He turned around suddenly, his gaze full of blazing fire. “Do you kiss them the way you kissed me last week?”

His words seemed to punch you right in your lungs and all breath left them as you stood there, trying desperately to inhale and suddenly feeling a lot more drunk than he was, despite not having had a single drop of alcohol tonight.

“I didn’t think we were going to talk about that,” you said lamely, all conflict having left you along with your breath. It wasn’t really a response to his question but it was the best you could do when he was looking at you like that.

“We weren’t,” he said. “But only because I could see how much you didn’t want to. I could tell you were pushing me away—”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” he interrupted you before you could properly interrupt him, and continued his tirade, “and I understand your reasons. I left you seven years ago and friends aren’t supposed to do that. They don’t abandon friends.”

Faced with this point-blank truth, you were forced to lower your eyes to the floor as you attempted to lie, “I-I didn’t—”

“I told you of my reasons back then,” Jungkook said, not needing your excuses. He knew what the truth was and he didn’t blame you for feeling insecure. “I wanted to keep you safe from myself. And maybe I have my reasons now, too.”

“What?” your stomach dropped. When you looked up at him again, he was already standing a few steps closer to you. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to walk away from you,” he said, spilling his next words in one single breath, “but I can’t handle just fake-dating you because the thought of someone else dating you for real, makes me want to tear the fucker up to pieces.”

You didn’t say anything, not entirely sure if you understood his speedy delivery correctly or if your heart was banging against your ribs for no reason.

“And maybe that’s why I should leave,” he spoke then, taking another step towards you and taking over your personal space not with just his words, but with his presence, too. “But we’re both adults now. I’m still learning how to properly be one, but I’d already missed one opportunity to be with you and I can’t miss another one. So, even though I should, I can’t fucking leave. I don’t want to.”

Speaking quietly, you asked, “then don’t.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said and you couldn’t find it in yourself to lift your eyes to his and settled on watching his lips instead, which was about ten times worse, “I am—I’m in love with you and I don’t want to be the same as the rest of your friends for you. And I really don’t fucking want to be the same as Namjoon.”

“Namjoon—he drove me here,” you found yourself saying as your mind short-circuited, “to look for you. He’s kind and understanding but neither of us are interested in one another. He… I think he always knew that my heart was elsewhere.”

This time, it was Jungkook who needed a full explanation, not an off-handed excuse. “Where?”

Right here, you would have said but you chose to show him instead as you leaned in closer, removing the remaining bits of distance between you by gently touching his lips with yours.

Jungkook reacted immediately, responding to you and refusing to let you pull away by placing one of his hands on your right elbow and another one on your waist. He wasted a split-second when he pulled back to inhale, but then he made up for it by kissing you again, his lips closing against yours in a tight lip-lock.

You pulled back, however, a smacking noise echoing around the hallway as you did, whispering to him, “are you still drunk?”

“Not in the slightest,” Jungkook replied breathlessly before pressing his lips to yours again.

Kissing him back and feeling how the quick, gentle pecks turned into deep, open-mouthed kisses as his tongue caressed your lower lip before making its way into your mouth, made your mind hazy and you were forced to hold onto him tighter.

He sighed into the kiss; the feeling of you clutching the flaps of his jacket was more than enough to make him lose his mind. 

And then you let go suddenly, pulling away yet again.

“Are you going to do it again?” you asked because you had to hear him say it. “Are you going to leave? Stop talking to me?”

To be honest, Jungkook would have promised you the world in that moment. Hell, he’d have promised you the whole universe when you looked at him like that – with eyes full of need and parted lips as you tried to catch your breath.

“Never,” he told you.

You seemed to read his mind. “You better not be saying that so we could keep kissing.”

He could have laughed at this if he didn’t know how much this meant to you – how much this meant to you-and-him – but he did know, and that’s why he took your hand, pulling it away from the flap of his denim jacket, and placing it squarely on his chest.

“I promise,” he said in tandem with his heartbeat.

Your lips crashed against each other again and the collision could have had painful consequences if your hands wouldn’t have been there to soften it. You held onto one another, pulling each other closer despite already touching everywhere it was possible to touch.

You could still taste the alcohol on his tongue but you could also taste him – mint and strawberries – especially when he used one of his hands to tilt your face in the right angle that allowed his tongue to play with yours. And then, as if he’d just snapped his fingers, you completely forgot about your surroundings and focused on kissing him back.

His touch ignited your skin and, as soon as he lifted the corner of your shirt and barely grazed your bare hip with the tips of his fingers, you already knew he’d started a fire you couldn’t put out.

In a rare moment when your mind cleared – all because Jungkook needed to inhale before he kissed you again – you realized that you were still in the hallway where, technically, anyone could have seen you.

Except that didn’t scare you much.

What scared you was this very realization: you wouldn’t have cared who saw you here, as long as he was still so close.

“My keys,” you whispered. He understood what you were saying – and what you implied by that – but he’d have rather been struck by lightning than voluntarily pulled away from you.

And so, forgetting your sanity for a yet another moment, you cherished in the feeling of his lips on yours, letting him push you against the wall next to your door.

Only when his body was pressed so tightly against yours that you found yourself trapped in the most delightful way possible, did you realize that this wasn’t going to be enough and you needed to leave the hallway before it escalated.

“Jungkook—” you tried again, pulling away this this time. Naturally, he lowered his head to kiss the side of your face instead, going down to your jawline and planting kisses on your neck, all while you desperately tried to find the keys in your handbag, your hands – and your entire body – shaking. “I can’t—ah, please, let me—the door—”

Jungkook would have pulled away from you if you’d asked but you weren’t asking – you didn’t want him to. And he had a hard time focusing on what you were saying anyway, especially when the beginning of his name never left the tip of your tongue.

Finally, your fingers located your keychain and pulled it out from your handbag. But blindly unlocking the door proved to be even more difficult than finding the keys.

Had you been less lost in each other, you could have stopped kissing for one minute to enter your dorm room, but any thought of disconnecting your mouths and bodies seemed ridiculous and impractical. Why would you waste your time by not kissing each other?

You managed to push the key into the lock through sheer luck, and then, hoping to open the door, you took a step forwards, away from the wall and into Jungkook – who didn’t mind being the one who held you, not letting you get too far away from him.

The speed with which you entered your room once the door was opened, would have probably knocked you both off your feet. But God favored those who were in love, and, the thing that you ended up knocking down, was just the bowl for keys that you and Inna kept by the door. You couldn’t have cared less about it – you barely even heard it clatter against the floor.

Following the invisible pull towards your bed, you and Jungkook successfully maneuvered past the door frame separating the bedroom area from the hallway, and – only stumbling once, when he pulled back to take his jacket off – you finally reached the privacy of your room.

“If you want me to stop,” Jungkook mumbled against your lips, his forehead pressed to yours as he held your body against his; your bed was right behind you and you knew you’d have fallen on it with the smallest push from him, “you have to tell me now because—” he kissed you again with the same raw hunger as before, “I don’t think I’ll be able to leave otherwise.”

“No,” you breathed, matching the intensity of his kisses with your own, “don’t stop.”

And that was the permission he needed to nudge you forwards until he landed on top of you on your bed, leaning on his elbows on either side of you. It was so similar to the way you’d made out on Sunday night in his parents’ house, and yet, it was so different, too, because you were past the point of caring about any interruptions now.

If someone knocked on your door right then – if someone walked in – you wouldn’t have even flinched.

Lifting your shirt and exposing more of your skin for his impatient fingers to explore, Jungkook was forced to break the kiss again, so he could fully take the garment off. And then he had to pause again so he could take a quick breather because of how ethereal you looked like this: half-naked and daring him to keep going with your eyes.

“Jungkook,” your soft whisper brought him back to life and helped him realize that this time, he wasn’t dreaming. This time, he had you here with him.

And so, he took his own shirt off before leaning down to kiss you again – clumsily and sloppily – and the new feeling of his bare skin against yours was enough for you to arch your back off the bed, all so you could feel more of him.

“Fuck,” Jungkook cursed before bringing his hands up your sides and kissing down your neck. Encouraged by the sound of your whimpers when he gently brought his teeth over the spot below your collarbone, he sucked on the skin there with more force, leaving faint bruises.

Your hands slid down to his waist – reaching for the buckle of his belt – but they froze when you felt his tongue soothe over the new mark he’d made on your neck. It stung but you felt more pleasure than pain and, for a good minute, that pleasure was all you could focus on.

You felt his fingertips dance around the edge of your bra and heavy breaths left his lips when he brought his face back to yours, stopping just close enough to feel the pull of your lips, but far enough to still be able to look you in the eyes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, successfully undoing your bra in his first attempt – he wouldn’t have called himself an expert in that particular area; he was just determined to always get what he wanted and he wanted you.

You barely had enough time to hum in response before he lowered his face and reconnected your lips, sliding the straps of your bra down your shoulders in a motion so slow, you nearly threw him off the bed and did it yourself.

Instead, you chose to concentrate on finally undoing his belt, which wasn’t going well due to how badly your hands were shaking. But, once you finally succeeded and got through to the zipper of his jeans, it seemed like Jungkook was no longer so dead-set on taking this slow, either.

“Oh,” a sigh passed your lips when he threw your bra to a side and repositioned himself in-between your legs, his hips grinding into yours in a dangerously satisfying way that only left you wanting more. “Please, Jungkook.”

“I know,” he spoke and his normally melodious voice seemed deeper now.

He placed a kiss to your lips again and then pulled away to slide your jeans down your legs, tossing them aside before bringing his hands over the bare skin of your ankles, then up your calves, over your knees, and down your thighs again.

“Jungkook,” you tried again, “do something, please.”

“Hmm,” he wasn’t entirely aware of his surroundings as he cherished in the feeling of your skin right under his fingertips. He had to touch – to feel – all of you, so every bit of your body, every crevice and every wrinkle, remembered him.

Your breath got caught in your throat when he finally reached the waistband of your panties, and Jungkook was convinced he was going to die when he took them off of you – but he didn’t mind dying in the slightest, not if he got to see you like this first.

“I’m going to make you feel so,” he said, lifting your hips off the bed—just barely—so he could slide your panties down your legs, “so good.”

And he resolved to show you that he meant it, peppering the insides of your thighs with butterfly kisses that were the complete opposite of the tight grip he had on you. 

Hooking your legs over his shoulders, he felt the way your body shuddered in anticipation as his kisses neared your core and he could feel his own pants tighten uncomfortably around his now rock-hard length.

Placing a soft, chaste kiss right above your clit, Jungkook heard your deep breath and that encouraged him to keep going, applying more force to his kisses as he went lower. Finally, just as your hands grabbed fistfuls of the sheets underneath you, he spread your lower lips with his tongue and lightly—so lightly, that you weren’t sure you didn’t just imagine this—licked his way up to your clit.

“Oh, shit,” you threw your head back and Jungkook – who’d already proved how much positive reinforcements meant to him – released a guttural breath that vibrated against your core.

The sensation added more to the blissful feeling of his tongue as he finally flattened it against your mound, licking and sucking with a loud and sloppy slurping sound.

You gasped when the previously teasing motions increased in speed and his tongue circled around your entrance, touching and tasting you in clockwise movements, never forgetting to pay special attention to the most sensitive spots on and around your clit.

“You taste so sweet,” Jungkook spoke breathlessly and you struggled to understand him not just because of how good he was making you feel with his mouth, but also because he did not pull away far enough and his words quavered against your core. “Talk to me.”

“I-I’m—that’s good,” you tried to say but your head was spinning, “so good, you—oh! Oh, fuck, Jungkook!”

Almost screaming out in surprise, you felt his fingers against your core, gentle and careful for the first second, but eager and energetic the next as Jungkook explored the wetness around your entrance. Bringing his tongue over your clit, he slid two of his fingers inside, ready to stop and wait for your reaction but that was not needed.

Arching your back off the bed, you sighed deeply and pleaded far louder than you’d intended, “p-please—”

Smirking to himself as you struggled to finish your sentences, he sped up his movements, not giving you a moment to collect your breath as he rubbed the insides of your walls with his fingers and sucked on your clit, the slow movements of his tongue contrasting with how quickly he was moving inside of you.

“Good girl,” he said, his hot breath against your core making your whole body tingle. He felt one of your hands touch his hair, grabbing onto it; softly at first, but gradually pulling harder when the circling motions of his fingers sped up. “Are you close, baby? Tell me.”

You were close – and the pet name only increased the burning pleasure inside of you – but, at that point, you were only capable of moaning weakly, “hmmm, yes. Don’t stop, please, d-don’t—”

Gasping again as Jungkook removed his mouth from you, readjusting himself on the bed so he could move his fingers in and out of you quicker, you squeezed your eyes shut and tried desperately to keep your sounds to a minimum.

“Nngh—so close,” you spoke and just then, you felt his thumb rub vicious circles on your clit. The motion was so delicious, you were forced to abandon your attempts to stay quiet, almost shouting when you felt your walls tighten, already so close to your edge.

He could feel you clench around his fingers – a feeling that did no good to the painful hardness in his pants – and applied more force to his movements, maintaining the same speed that allowed him to pay equal attention to your swollen clit and the soft walls inside of you.

“Come for me,” he said, his voice coarse. “I want to watch you come for me, baby, please.”

“Fuck, Jungkook,” you groaned, barely able to catch your breath as he thrust his fingers in and out of you, circling and curling them in a way that was just right, until the knot in your stomach unraveled with a pop so strong, your whole body seemed to lift up from the bed as you whimpered, unable to make any other noise.

Watching you lose control of your body, Jungkook used his free hand to hold you down as he kept the pace up with his fingers while you rode out your high. Barely any sound left your mouth when you reached your peak but your heavy breaths and the rise and fall of your chest as you came still overflooded his senses.

Jungkook didn’t think it was healthy to need someone this much.

When you opened your eyes a moment later, still breathing heavily, he was hovering above you, leaning on one arm as he sucked on his fingers, exhaling shakily when you bit your lip.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to have you here like this,” he said, “how long I’ve wanted to hear you sound like this.”

Still overwhelmed and momentarily rendered speechless by the strength of your climax, you replied to him by sitting up so you could reach his lips with yours.

Kissing him – and hearing him growl into the kiss as soon as your hips pressed into his, adding pressure against his hard length – you could distinctly taste yourself on his tongue, but Jungkook wasn’t going to give you a lot of time to analyze all the different sensations you were feeling; he flipped you over until he was on his back, and you were straddling his hips.

Being on top of him gave you a lot more control of the situation, but it also made the shaking of your hands all the more obvious. You lifted yourself off him slightly to slide his jeans and boxers down, not bothering with teasing him – even though, that would have been the fair thing to do, considering how slowly he’d undressed you before.

He didn’t regret that one bit – that was plain obvious in the darkness of his lustful eyes that followed your every move – but he did wish you went a little faster because each brush of your hands right by his length made him think he was going to explode.

“There’s a condom,” he said, swallowing, “in the pocket of my jacket.”

You had to look around the room to find the jacket and, when you located it, it still took you a few minutes to get the glittering wrapper out. Biting your lip as you made your way back to Jungkook – sprawled almost helplessly on your bed – you couldn’t help yourself.

“Do you always carry condoms around in the pocket of your—”

“No,” he replied, obviously not very interested in discussing his condom-bearing habits when you were unwrapping the packaging with your teeth after your fingers weren’t enough.

“Ah, so today was a special occasion?” you asked, smiling teasingly because your heart wasn’t really in this conversation, either – you could analyze why he’d brought the condoms with him later.

Unrolling some of the latex in your hands, your fingers finally touched his length as you pinched the tip of the condom and rolled it down his shaft. Jungkook exhaled with a low grunt, not particularly enjoying himself in a position this vulnerable – he didn’t think the simple act of putting a condom on had ever aroused him this much before – but not being able to do anything about it because this was you.

And if you wanted to take your time with the condom – since you seemed to double-check to make sure if it was really properly on; he thought you were just teasing him, really – then, he was going to let you take your time.

For the first twenty seconds, anyway.

Just as you raised your eyes to meet his, Jungkook sat up and pulled you closer to him, only lying back down on the bed when he made sure his arms were wrapped around your body, which was pressed against his as tightly as he could manage without breaking any of your ribs with his arms.

“If I wait any longer,” he whispered, his mouth so close to yours, you could almost taste him as he spoke, “I’m really going to pass out.”

“Well,” you said, your heart beating wildly behind your ribcage and echoing against his chest, “then don’t wait.”

“Fuck,” was the last word that left his mouth before he connected your lips in a messy, open-mouthed kiss and sat up a bit to reach his length with his hand and position himself at your entrance. “Tell me if you want me to stop.

“Mmhmm—oh,” your hum of approval was quick to turn into a shaky gasp as his length slid inside of you, stretching you out far more than his fingers had before.

He watched your facial expression the whole time, entering you slowly, inch by inch, so he could stop if he noticed any pain. Mercifully, the only thing he noticed in your eyes was a silent plea to keep going – well, that, and the fact that you did most of the job for him by lowering yourself on him until he was fully inside of you – and Jungkook was sure of it: he was most certainly going to lose it.

“I’m not going to last long,” he warned breathlessly, “you’re s-so tight—you feel so good—I—”

His grip on you had loosened, which allowed you to place one hand on his chest and push him into the bed, until his head landed back on the pillow. As soon as he bottomed out inside of you, he stopped and you closed your eyes, focusing on your breathing for a second, before you looked up at him again and lifted your hips.

“F-fuck,” Jungkook whispered, his hands clutching your hips so tightly, he was probably going to leave imprints there.

Lowering yourself on him again, you sighed deeply, unsure what brought you more pleasure – the sight of his starved gaze and swollen lips as he allowed you to set the pace, or the feeling of his length, caressing your inner walls and reaching places so deep inside of you, you could have used a warning.

“Y-you’re so—mm, good,” you mewled, your hips rising and falling on top of him as you tried to get used to the feeling but failed, your walls clenching around him each time you moved.

“Baby,” Jungkook said and it was almost a whine, “I need you to go faster. Can you do that for me?”

“Hmm,” you weren’t sure what he was saying.

Your senses were malfunctioning as you lost yourself in the feeling, so, instead of going faster, you lowered yourself until you could feel your walls hug his entire length. You stayed still for a moment, but hearing him sigh in desperation, you finally started to move again – grinding your hips against his quicker.

“O-oh,” the sudden change of pace took him off guard as Jungkook squeezed his eyes shut. The feeling of your warmth wrapped so tightly around him was pure bliss. “That’s good. Y-you’re doing so good.”

You continued to move on top of him, grinding your hips in large and smaller figure-eights, as Jungkook slid his hands up and down your sides, feeling your silky skin and gently kneading your breasts. He brought his fingertips over your sensitive nipples and, noticing how your breath got caught in your throat as soon as he did, he applied more pressure to his touch.

“Jungkook,” you said weakly and then completely lost your voice when he sat up – suddenly reaching even deeper inside of you, even though that probably shouldn’t have even been possible – and brought his tongue to your nipple, carefully toying with it at first, and then sucking harder later.

Your hips were still moving against his but you were losing your stamina, not at all helped by the fact that his smallest touch nearly tipped you over the edge.

“Fuck, Jungkook,” you sighed and, somewhere in his own name, he heard the request for him to take over.

Fully immersed in the feeling of having you on top of him, Jungkook had no plans to change the position. He pulled away from your breasts, licking his lips, and then, finding a more fitting position on the bed, he locked both of your arms behind you by wrapped a hand around your waist and lifting his hips off the mattress.

He roughly thrust into you once – and then once more because he couldn’t stop himself – and then paused to gauge your reaction. Your head was thrown back and your eyes were closed, but your parted lips and the excited movement of your hips as they met his when he moved, was a clear indication that you didn’t mind the faster pace.

“Look at me,” he instructed, not moving until you did. “Good girl.”

Finally, he slammed his hips into yours again, this time not pausing for a single second, even though both of you were completely breathless already. His length drilled into you, rubbing your walls until the fire in your stomach started to spread and you involuntarily closed your eyes again, throwing your head back in pleasure.

“Jungkook—”

“What did I tell you, baby?” he asked, holding your hands behind your back with one of his arms, as he used his other hand to bring your face to his again. You opened your eyes. “That’s it. Are you close?”

“Hmm—I-I’m—” the next words didn’t come out when Jungkook straightened his posture and thrust into you with enough force to send you backwards until you were laying flat on your back again. “Fuck, I’m really close.”

His hips continued the relentless pace but he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to keep going, especially with the way you squeezed around him each time he re-entered your warmth. You could already feel your orgasm creeping in as you bit your lip and felt your vision go out of focus, the ceiling of your room spinning as the whole place seemed to shake from the force of his hips.

“Don’t look away,” Jungkook spoke, breathing heavily and setting himself up for failure because he nearly collapsed as soon as you returned your eyes to his – all dark and clouded with near-euphoric delight. “I want you to look at me when you come, yeah? Will you do that for me, baby—please?”

“Y-yes—” you managed, barely getting the word out before you felt Jungkook readjust his weight by leaning on one arm and lowering his other one to your core.

He brought his thumb over your clit and, matching the speed of his hips thrusting in and out of you, he began to rub circles on your already over-stimulated center.

“Jungkook!” you weren’t sure if you were screaming, your heartbeat was too loud in your ears as you felt yourself tip over the edge. “Oh, fuck, fuck—right there!”

“Y-yeah? Does that feel good, baby?,” he groaned, “I can’t hold out for much longer, so I’m going to need you to come for me. Hmm?”

“I’m—please, fuck—” your pleas turned into an incomprehensible mess when Jungkook applied more pressure to your clit, flicking it before rubbing it in circles again, and you were completely done for.

Throwing your head back against the mattress and lifting your hips to meet his, you reached your high and Jungkook – cursing and trying his hardest not to lose his balance – bit his lip because he knew he was going to follow right after you.

His hips had slowed, although only a little, as he continued the assault on your senses by thrusting his throbbing member into you and simultaneously rubbing your clit all through your orgasm. 

Your warm walls that hugged his length tightened around him when you came and, groaning loudly, he felt his own climax take over him. He stopped moving with one final thrust into you, loud grunts mixed with your name leaving his lips as he released himself into the condom.

Breathing heavily but still not getting enough oxygen, you both stayed still as you tried to recover.

“F-fuck,” Jungkook exhaled when he regained some control of his body. His eyes met yours and he did not hesitate before adding, “I love you. I’ve loved you for so fucking long.”

You allowed a heavy moment of silence to pass as you watched him. Then, you propped yourself up on your elbows and brought your lips to his. The kiss may have been less enthusiastic than the one in the hallway earlier tonight, but it still didn’t lack any heat.

“I love you,” you replied, the words as pointless as they were necessary, because your feelings for each other had been obvious from the very beginning, but neither of you confronted them. “I’ve loved you for much longer.”

“No,” he disagreed, kissing you again as he pulled out of you and rolled off to the edge of the bed so he could discard of the condom. Turning to look at you one more time before standing up, he said, very matter-of-fact, “I’ve loved you my whole life. Through every happy moment and every fuck-up, and every—”

With your lips stretching into a smile, you warned, “don’t try to one-up me with your pillowtalk.”

He already had his back turned to you as he walked towards the bin in the corner of your room, but you heard him laugh. When he turned around to return to you, there was a wide smile on his bright, red lips, still wet and swollen from kissing you.

“That’s not pillowtalk,” he countered, laying down next to you and draping an arm over your waist as he nuzzled his face into your neck with a delighted hum, “that’s just me telling you what I was supposed to tell you on the day I talked to you at my party.”

“I’m glad you told me now,” you replied, lifting one of your hands to touch his disheveled hair and the few stray curls that were stuck to his sweaty forehead, “even if you did cause a scene today.”

The softness of your touch was almost the exact opposite of the hidden razor-sharp meaning behind your words. Jungkook – who’d closed his eyes so he could breathe you in – suddenly lifted himself up on his elbows and gave you an inquiring look.

“I did not cause a scene,” he said, not in a very defensive manner because he did not think he needed to defend himself, “I was peacefully waiting for you to come back home. You caused a scene when you saw me.”

“I—oh, wow,” you scoffed in surprise, “you really are an expert at blame-shifting.”

He would have protested – and he was going to – but laying here next to you, with not a single piece of clothing preventing him from feeling the softness of your skin, he just shrugged. There were far more important things to focus on, he decided as he traced indiscernible patterns on your navel.

“Don’t do that again, though, okay?” you asked him then.

Smiling – because he was proud of his title as the resident Little Shit – Jungkook replied, “which part, exactly?”

The feeling of his fingertips dancing on your stomach was distracting, but you persevered for the greater good.

“Don’t change all of your plans if I spend time with someone else,” you said, swallowing. “Don’t put yourself in danger.”

“I won’t.”

His promise was brief but he leaned down to kiss you to seal it, and the feeling of his lips against yours had more impact than just his words alone. Then, pulling away a moment too soon, Jungkook surprised you with a warning look in his eyes.

“But don’t ask me not to kiss you in public,” he said. “Don’t ask me not to hold your hand. Don’t—”

You blinked, not following him. “W-wait, why? I wasn’t going to ask.”

“No, but you already did. At the last party we went to?” he said and then tried to jog your memory by adding, in a vexed tone, “when you were talking to Brock, and I—”

The party – and the long, long conversation that followed – returned to your mind even before the mention of Brock. You were just trying to understand why Jungkook was thinking about all of that now.

“Well, that’s because you were being a possessive dipshit,” you told him as an explanation, not an excuse.

You weren’t apologizing for standing up for yourself when you felt like your dignity was threatened, and he didn’t need you to. What he needed, was for you to understand that:

“I still am a possessive dipshit,” he said with the most unapologetic grin you’d ever seen adorning his features.

“Oh, yeah?” you raised your eyebrows, the mock-surprise completing your sarcastic look, “would not have guessed.”

“Funny,” he leaned down to kiss you again before making it clear, “I can’t stop myself from wanting everyone to know—”

“But they do know,” you said, cutting him off but not sharply, “everyone knows, Jungkook. You’ve made your point.”

“No, people still have doubts about us,” he said, “they’re still not fully convinced that you’re—that we’re together,” he paused, flashing back to the night at the party and remembering the words you’d said to him then, “but they don’t matter. It’s not about them. It’s about us. And I don’t want to imply that I own you or that you’re an object—or anything of the sort. I know you’re a person. You’re a great person. And you belong to yourself. You’re yours. B-but can you be a little bit mine, too?”

“I am,” you said and, even though you may not have always liked it, this was the truth. There was no way around it. So, pressing a soft kiss to his waiting lips, you admitted, “I’ve always been yours as much as I’ve been mine.”

keep reading | masterlist

[enigma-im]

Sixth day of Christmas...

Trope: Sex Pollen (NSFW) Relationship: Alien x Human Word Count: 4,639

Living in a science station on a barely explored planet may sound like the start of a horror story. For me, it's a dream come true. To study life on a dwarf planet with a single colleague is the total isolation I crave. It's a real perk that my coworker is such a sweetheart. I've spent countless trips trying to keep my cool around cocky narcissistic scientists whose only goal is to make some profound breakthrough. My coworker this time isn't even remotely like that.

Aziraphale is a Silphurs, a cold-blooded species that has nearly a reptilian look to them. With their horn-like spikes that protrude from the back of their head and long smooth tails, most people quickly label them as lizards. Though they lack scales, to my surprise. When Aziraphel first began working beside me I was fascinated by his smooth dark leathery skin. I promptly weirded him out the first week as I appraised him like a prized pig. It was a habit I slowly grew out of.

Together we work in isolation upon dwarf planet Xena, studying the flora and fauna of this little island in space.

Today we are looking at a new flower that's been popping up around the lakes. It's a small pink crocus looking flower, fit with a thick stem. The wildlife has been swarming these little buds and it's stirred up quite the mystery for Aziraphel and I. with the coming of 'spring' the flowers have sprouted very quickly.

"So you say the mammals have been eating them," I ask, looking at the potted plant.

"Birds too. Though the insects have kept their distance," Aziraphel explains.

I hum in thought," the first plant we found that insects aren't fond of."

Aziraphale plucks a petal off the flower, taking it over to his station. I continue to exam the bud, looking at the roots through the container. All week we have been watching this plant in the wild, utterly fascinated by its attractive properties.

"Could it be the nectar? It may be a tasty treat for the animals," Aziraphel asks offhandedly. I shrug, stepping over the bin holding the plant. Leaning over I give the flower a sniff, admiring its sweet scent.

"Smells like the honey candies my mother use to give me," I say.

"really? I thought it smelled rather musky," he says over his shoulder," I can smell it from here."

I take another whiff, doubling down on my honey candy choice.

"Olfactory senses are a bit different between you and me, it seems," I joke," yours being about a hundred times better than mine."

He scoffs, picking off pieces of the petal," it's a miracle your people survived this long with clearly insufficient senses."

I snort, walking over towards him," bold coming from someone who can't hear when the microwave goes off." he throws a glare my way, his smile ruining its seriousness. I snicker, walking around to begin looking at the cells of this attractive plant.

Staring down in the microscope I take not of the plant cell, watching the cell wall break from the solution I added. The proteins break apart, spilling out the cytoplasm. The organelles follow, breaking at they come in contact with the solution. As I watch, a bead of sweat rolls into my eyes. I wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my coat, groaning at the heat.

"Hey, I know you're cold-blooded and all but I'm dying over here," I call out. I hear him swivel out of his chair and walk over to the thermostat.

"it's only 70 in here, I thought you agreed that was the optimal temperature," he passes me a teasing smile. I swipe at my head again, reaching back and pulling my hair up. Fanning myself with my hand I look to him.

"Well, I'm sweating up a storm over here," I answer.

"don't think you're getting sick, do you?" he walks over. He presses his palm to my head, I relish in the cold. "You're burning up," he reaches down to my cheeks," you're all red." I can't help but turn in his palm, stealing his cold for my own. He doesn't let go, pressing his palms flush to my skin.

"Only this one time will I admit that being cold-blooded has benefits," I press his hand against my forehead.

"fine by me, I get to steal your warmth," he smiles," but I can't stand here all day, I'll get you a cold rag."

I watch him walk away, uncomfortably warm immediately. He grabs and wets a rag, looking strangely appealing as he does. His clothes hug is slim frame well, his pants framing his legs nicely. As he catches me staring I turn away embarrassed. He walks over and places the cold rag on my head. The instant relief nearly makes me groan.

"thank you," I hold the rag for him.

"No problem. Do you want to go back to you're room," he asks, pressing his palm to my cheek again.

"no, no," I shake my head," I'm just a little warm, I think I'll make it." he hums, not really agreeing.

"if you say so, but if you feel worse I'm forcing you to go to your room," he scolds. I roll my eyes, swatting his hand away.

"Ok, mom," I joke," I promise I'll stop working if I get worse."

We get back to work, standing on different ends of the room. I put up my hair and keep the rag on the back of my neck. Sweat soaks through my shirt after a bit, dampening my hair. It's hard to focus on work, losing my breath once in a while. My heart feels like it's racing and I'm prone to dizzy spells when I walk too far. I try to power through.

I sit at my desk, dropping my head to the back of my chair. I try to use the rag to cool my face but it has begun to warm up. Frustrated I toss the useless towel to the table. My heart bangs against my chest and I can't seem to catch my breath. I feel wrong, dizzy, and incomplete. A dull ache begins in my lower stomach, migrating further south till I feel like I'm throbbing. I don't understand this new need, an empty feeling that's starting to make me panic.

Aziraphale walks over to check on me, already concerned as he spots me.

"Are you alright, you do- whooaa," he recoils from my desk, covering his nose. I watch him fidget by the door, looking lost between running and staying put. It's kind of cute.

"What's wrong," I lull my head to the side. He startles, snapping his eyes to me.

"Uh, it just smells rather musky in here," he answers, selecting his words carefully," I think you're sick."

I try to sit up, groaning as I do," yea, I don't feel too well. I should probably go lay down."

"g-great idea," he fidgets," do you, uh, need some help?" I try to wave him off, leaning forward out of the chair. As I stand I sway. I catch myself on the desk the same time Aziraphel grabs at my hips. His cold hands burn through my clothes like a block of ice. It's sharp and intoxicating. I groan, dropping forward against his chest. His body is freezing against my scorching skin, I can't help but run my hands over his neck, cuddling my cheek against him. I feel him gulp.

"Terri," he squeaks," w-what are you doing?" I can't pay attention, too focused on touching every visible bit of him. He is all I can think about, all I need. A small part of me is dying of embarrassment but the comfort is all I can think about.

"Cold," I purr under his jaw. My hands reach up under his shirt, touching his flat stomach. My insides throb as I feel him up, wanting more from him than just his cold skin.

"Terri," he yelps," t-this is- I can't-" he whimpers at the end. His hands grab at my shoulders, not really pushing or pulling. I continue, lifting his shirt to his chest. Pressing my forehead to his sternum I begin pressing soft kisses to his pecs. His leathery skin is so divine, soothing me like nothing else. I crave more, demand more.

Aziraphale is flustered at all the attention, bumbling like a fool as he tries to figure out what to do. He finally tugs me away, taking a step back with a deep breath.

"Terri, what is going on with you," he pants," this isn't like you."

I actively try to fight back the urge to jump him, focusing on staying put. Looking at him becomes too hard that I have to turn away.

"I-I don't know," I say between breaths," I'm so hot and bothered that I can't think straight."

"are you, uh," he hesitates," aroused?"

I snap to attention," excuse me?"

"Sorry," he jumps," it's just you smell…so good." his voice drops at the end, a rumbling purr. The sound shocks straight to my clit, nearly bringing me to my knees. I whimper, fisting the fabric of my pants.

"D-don't do that," I whine," you'll kill me if you do that."

"Sorry," he rubs at his face," let's just get you to your room and you can take a cold bath."

I weakly nod.

He helps me to my room, keeping a distance until I sway. Every time his hands touch me I'm nearly undone, falling into his arms and fighting back the urge to kiss him. It's a long walk to my room.

We make it to my room where we stand around awkwardly. He stays by the door but he doesn't look like he wants to leave. His fingers fidget with his shirt, picking at the ends. I'm hyper-focused on every move he makes, my muscles thrumming with energy.

"Well, I'll leave you to it and try to find out what's wrong," he shifts back and forth on each leg," yes, g-goodbye"

Seeing his back sends a wave of panic over me, forcing me into action. I jump for him, snatching him by the shirt and tugging him towards me. In a haze, I grab his face and force his mouth against mine. It's forceful and harsh, his teeth nick at my bottom lip. At this moment…it's intoxicating.

I pull back, looking at his wide-eyed face. He looks at me, scared and excited. I huff.

"Don't go," I beg. He nods," will you help me?" he nods again.

I tug him into the room, him closing the door behind himself. We stare at one another, the calm before the storm. Quickly I jump on him, wrapping my arms and legs around his body. I pull him into another kiss, grabbing at the spikes on the back of his head. His hands hold the back of my thighs, eagerly trying to kiss me back. It's clear he has no experience with this, just following my lead the best he can. Either way, it's making my lower stomach ache.

He fumbles his way to the bedroom, bumping into the bed with a grunt. I'm dropped onto my back, him crawling on over me. I tear at his clothes, petting at every newly revealed inch. He tries to get my shirt off but he's just getting in the way. Frustrated, I push him off and onto his back. I straddle his hips, throwing his shirt off in a rushed frenzy. He sits back and lets me work.

I crave to lick every bit of his chest, nibbling and sucking the cold leathery skin. My hips grind against him, feeling a hard protrusion poking at me. There's so much I want, I need, to do to him. I kiss up his body before slanting my lips against his. My tongue peaks between his lips, startling him. He timidly presses his against mine, groaning as I twirl mine with his.

I don't notice one of his hands sneaking between us. Only when he slides his fingers into my pants do I whimper in his mouth. He palms at my crotch, getting his bearings before he slides between my lips. The curious prod to my engorged clit makes my back arch. His gentle poke is nearly enough to break me apart. He slides the pad of his finger over me, I tear myself off his lips and bury my head against his neck.

"P-please," I huff and puff. He pets me, paying attention to my little nub with laser focus. I writhe and wiggle, whimpering and whining near his ear. My body feels on fire, ready to burst with minimal attention. A few more swipes and I'm crying out his name. I'm grinding hard into his hand, forcing his touch till I get my fill.

As my bucking slows Aziraphel tries to take his hand back. I flatten my body against him, trapping him with a growl.

"Do you feel better," he whispers, his trapped hand petting at my stomach.

" a-a little," I trace my nose under his jaw," it's still too hot." he hums in thought.

Before I know it I'm twisted on my back, Aziraphel between my legs. His eyes are focused, calculating, as he reaches for my pants and tugs them down my legs. Tossing the clothing aside he lays on his stomach between my legs, staring at my soaked cunt. I flush at his attention, aroused and nervous at the same time.

"What a-are you doing," my stomach twitches as the urge to buck towards him is strong. He grabs my hips, holding me still as he studies me.

"I have an idea," he mumbles. I whimper as I take in the whole sight, Aziraphel laying between my legs without his shirt. He tears his eyes from my pussy to me, softening slightly at my debauched face. His thumb pets at my hips as he gives me a sweet smile. I whine again.

Aziraphale looks back to my cunt, lowering his head and taking a tentative lick up my seam. My back arches as a moan tears up my throat. He takes another more confident lick, touching at my entrance and clit. I feel dizzy. More certain he presses his lips to mine and laps at my cunt. I wriggle and buck in his hold, clenching my eyes shut against the pleasure. It's hot and lava-like. His tongue is warmer than his body but cold to me. It's erotic and holy to my needy cunt.

I peek down at him, watching him eat me out. His thumb still pets at my hips, adding a small bit of appeal alongside his mouth. His eyes are closed, pleased hum vibrating into his tongue. He seems to enjoy this as much as me, his tail lazily swinging back and forth down the bed. Watching him is enough to push me over the edge, reaching down and grinding his head against my crotch. He groans with me, nearly purring as I shout out my pleasure.

He stops as I fall back into the bed, releasing his head in favor of fisting my hair. I take a moment to catch my breath, watching the lovely sight of him crawling back over me. He pets at my thigh, rubbing soothing circles against my skin.

"You feeling better," he asks. I shrug, getting distracted by the throbbing tent in his pants. The thing moves with every breath, begging me to grab him with a single-minded focus. I reach for his belt, trying to tug him forward. He swipes my hand away.

"No, we aren't doing that," he scolds," I got to let myself have some morals here. I'm already taking advantage of you." I pout, ready to try to persuade him. He distracts me with a finger between my legs, prodding at my entrance before sinking in. I grunt, damn near purring as he adds another.

The day is spent in utter bliss. He takes good care of me, not leaving me wanting for too long. He keeps his pace till I'm passed out in the sheets, feeling cooler than I did earlier. It seems all it took was some beautiful orgasms to soothe this beast.

I wake up the next morning alone, feeling sore but sated. I don't know if the fact that I'm alone should be good or bad. Heading off to the bathroom I try to convince myself that's it's for the best. I don't even know how I'll face him today, remembering how I jumped him like some uncontrollable whore.

The morning in the lab is…tense. He tiptoes around me and I can't help but do the same. The conversation is kept so single sentence answers. We both try to stay out of the other's way, even making up excuses to be on the opposite side of the room.

I sit in my little cubicle with my desk, trying hard not to look out to the lab and watch Aziraphel. It's a losing battle. I watch him walk by the crocus flower, pausing for a moment. He leans over the bin and takes a tentative sniff. He chuffs, scratching at his nose.

"Terri," he calls out," I think I figured something out."

A bit too eager I hop out of my chair and head over to him. My body thrums slightly the closer I get. Before I can stop next to him he grabs me by the shoulders and guides me away from the bin. I allow him, confused all the while.

"We should put the flower in a contained area," he suggests, meeting my eyes for the first time today. My thoughts come back to now, caught off guard by his suggestion. d "What," I ask. He flusters a bit, looking over to the flower then back at me.

"Well, you see," he stumbles, petting at the back of his neck," I think.. Perhaps the…" his shoulders sag. "The flower kind of smells like how you did yesterday and I'm almost convinced it's what made you sick," he finally spits out. I gawk at him, thinking back on yesterday's events. That morning I took a whiff of the flower, not thinking much of it, and shortly after started getting symptoms. It's a fair guess, perhaps even the correct answer.

"I think you might be right," I huff in amusement," it explains why the animals have been eating it. Spring is mating season."

"I feel rather silly now having to lock away a plant," he laughs," a rather potent aphrodisiac to mammals and birds. Makes sense why it didn't work for me." I chuckle along with him, it dying off back into an uncomfortable silence. It's clear he's uncomfortable with what happened yesterday. Hell, I am too. But there is no reason we can't be adults about this.

As we awkwardly shuffle in place, I speak up," hey, about last night. I'm sorry I came onto you like that, I put you in an uncomfortable position."

"No, no," he waves his hands," don't need to apologize, you couldn't help it. I know that wasn't really you and I won't hold that against you."

"yea," I fiddle with my hands," we can just pretend it didn't happen, and go on like before." he nods, looking to the floor in thought. With the situation settled I'm left a bit lost for what to do.

"yea," he still nods," I don't think I can do that." I startle at his words, a cold feeling sinking into my gut.

"W-what," I stutter. He looks up from the floor, seeming rather serious.

"I want to pretend that what happened didn't happen, more for my sake than yours. I'd like to be able to look at you and not see your face twisted up in pleasure as you cum on my tongue. It would be easier if I didn't, but at the same time…I really want to see that face again, " he takes a step forward," Terri, I liked what happened yesterday. I liked doing that thing with our mouths, I liked touching you and holding you. I hated how it came to be and I hated how you didn't have a choice, but I loved doing those things to you. I would give anything to do it all again, with actual consent and want from you instead of that drugged up lust. I want you, Terri, I really want you."

His confession feels like being punched in the gut. It's not what I could ever expect from him. We've worked together for nearly a year now and not once did he hint at wanting to be more than friends. We have a good relationship working together and I'd dare say I enjoyed his company. Now…now everything is different. I can't look at him as a coworker or even a friend. Even now all I can see when I look at him is his face buried between my legs, eyes closed and humming in bliss.

"I don't know," he takes a step back," a lot happened yesterday and you may honestly want to pretend it didn't happen. I can respect that and go on if it bothers you. I didn't want to agree if there was a chance to…never mind, I'm sorry." I watch him turn around to retreat, fidgeting and scolding himself. The sight plucks at my heart.

Taking a few rushes stepped forward I grab him and tug him around. I cup his cold cheek and drag him into a sweeter kiss than our first. He's still untrained and uncertain but he gives it his all as he wraps his arms around me. His attempt is cute, pulling a smile up to my cheeks till I have to part.

I pet at his cheek," it's called a kiss and I would love to do more of those with you."

His sharp teeth peak through his lips," a kiss. I'm a fan."

He tugs my against him again, twisting us and lifting me onto the table. I'm didn't expect to consummate our choice now but I'm not going to argue. He smirks up at me, fitting himself between my legs. Before he can go in for another kiss he glances off to his left. I follow his gaze to the flower.

"Nope," he picks me up off the table, taking me to another end of the lab," I'm not doing that again." I bark out a laugh, teasing the edges of his spikes as he sets me down on another table. He quickly pulls me back into another kiss.

Our rush is exciting, though less frantic than yesterday. He discards my shirt, not paying any mind to my breast as he pets down my stomach and licks at my shoulder. His fingers pluck at my pants buttons, tearing them down to my ankles as I frustratedly tug at his shirt.

With him distracted with my cunt I finally get to grab at his crotch. He throbs in my hand, his cock mysteriously wiggling. Curious, I pull him out of his pants. I'm excited but confused with what I see.

His bright red cock is writhing in my palm, the tip twirling around my fingers. It looks like it came from a slit, emerging from his body eagerly. I squeeze him, fascinated by the pre leaking out his pores. He shutters, slapping his hands on either side of me.

"Please," he whimpers," I couldn't relieve myself last night and I may go mad if you try to tease me now."

I snicker at him, tugging him gently forward and nudging him against me. Letting him go and wrapping my arms around his shoulders I leave him to lead. He takes a breath, reaching down and grabbing himself. We both watch as his tip pokes and prods till it finds my entrance. His cock makes me shiver as it begins to wiggle frantically inside me. He pushes on, seething as he bottoms out. He shutters, letting out a shaky breath as our hips touch.

"what blessed torture is this," he pants, almost wheezing. I bite back a snicker, petting at his head in support. He shutters again.

His hips begin to buck, moving in short little bursts before growing in length. The feel of his cock is blessed, something I've craved since yesterday. He begins to plow into me, a wet slap sounding from where we meet. My thighs feel sticky, the thought of it not being only my slick passes by. An odd little tingle starts deep inside me, growing the more he slams into me. I gasp, tugging him close as a sudden burst of pleasure shocks up my spine.

Aziraphale licks up my neck, rumbling with a growl as he clenches my hips. He ups his tempo, shocking my body to attention. I cry out into the lab, nearing my end with the sudden fire growing because of him. My stomach clenches, sitting at the blissful peak for almost too long. It almost hurts when I cum, clenching around his still pumping cock.

"Shit," he digs his nails into my hips. He bucks into my fluttering heat, milking me for all I'm worth till he barks out a cry. His face buries against my neck as he cums, fluids puddling on the table. He pumps a few times before stilling inside me, his cock pulsing with his release. I pet at his back and kissing him on the cheek. He shutters more, taking a bite of my neck. His hips buck some more, surprising me with his movement. He continues to pulse, more fluids showering my insides.

"Are you still cumming," I ask in awe. He doesn't answer. His teeth dig into my skin along with his nails.

I sit back and let him take his fill, a little glad when he finishes. He releases my neck, giving it a lick before leaning back. Our eyes meet and I can see the content in his smile. He looks happy, sated, and cute. I pet at his cheek.

"You didn't warn me about the mess," I joke. He scoffs, pulling out and watching his cum leak out of me.

"It didn't occur to me," he answers. Reaching forward he thumbs at our mixed fluids, grabbing a bit and bringing it to his mouth. Licking the drop off he hums. "delicious," he smirks. I push at his shoulder, chuckling as I hop off the counter. He helps, keeping me steady.

I look back at the counter, wincing at the cum dripping off the edge. "Little glad it's just the two of us here," I half-joke.

"I might be glad too," he wraps his arms around my waist," could work with fewer clothes now."

I shake my head, amused with his suggestion. There's no way I'll be doing that but it's a little flattering that he would want to see me naked again. I grab his spikes and tug him down for a kiss. He growls, tugging me closer, and palming my rear. His tongue laps at my lips, delving into my mouth with the smallest bit of acceptance.

"You wanna go again," he mumbles against my lips. I hum, petting up his chest.

"I think we should move the flower before we try anything else," I answer. He pouts, looking behind himself to glare at the cursed plant.

"Yea, probably have to deal with that," he grumbles.

"yea, I'm not allowed near it," I shrug. He twists back around, grinning down at me.

"I prefer you not drugged, thank you very much," he kisses my forehead," this is way better than yesterday anyway."

I hum with a big goofy grin on my face.

Yea, I liked this way better.

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Quarantine: A Love Story: {That Fourth Of July👀}

Chris Evans x Reader

Warning: Cursing, Lite Angst, Plot, Stand Alone/Addition Chapter, Flirting, Slow Burn, Tease

Words: 2.7k

Note: This is a standalone/addition chapter. I wanted to give you guys a glimpse of what Fourth Of July was for Chris and Reader as it is referenced a lot and does hold significance for both of them. This is where it all began.

I hope you guys enjoy this. If you enjoyed this LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG.

As always, thank you for reading!!! ❤️❤️

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

***Slightly Interactive***

Previous Chapters:  Q1 |  Q2 |  Q3 |  Q4 |  Q5 |  Q6 |  Q7 |  Q8 |  Q9 | Q10 | Q11 | Q12 | Q13 | Q14 | Q15 | Q16 | Q17 | Q18  | Q19 | Q20 | Q21 | Q22 | Q23 | Q24 | Q25 | 

~~~~~~~~~~~

-Fourth Of July, 2017- 

“I can’t believe you said that to him,” Tara said as everyone around you busted out laughing.

 You did your best to stifle yours, but it was difficult. You took another swig from your beer bottle and leaned back to brace your elbows on the lounger behind you. Your elbows bumped into someone, making you tilt your head backward to see Scott sitting there. He winked at you before he took a sip from his bottle, and you did the same.

 “What was I supposed to say? Hey, I like the way your swim trunks look on you?”

 “I think that would have been better than you’d look a lot better with them off,” you replied.

 Snickers followed.

 “Okay, Ms., I always know the right thing to say,” Scott began. “Let’s say you approached whoever it is that you’ve been eying all night. What would your opening line be?”

 “Oh no, you will not drag me into this,” you objected.

 “No, no. I think that’s a good question. What would you say?”

 You sighed and guzzled from your beer bottle, trying not to answer.

 “There are many variables. With you, you probably just wanted to get your tip wet,” you blurted out.

 “Okay, let’s say you also wanted what I wanted, the same thing. What would this opening line be?”

 You thought for a few moments staring down the beach at nothing in particular. After a few moments, Chris’s face came into focus as he walked toward the group of you from the direction you’d been looking. Of their own accord, your eyes roamed over him, taking in every detail the dwindling daylight allowed. His khaki shorts fit his frame perfectly, clinging to the right places. You could tell he was slim but also that he had plenty of muscle mass. When your eyes took in the unbuttoned salmon color short-sleeve button-down he wore that showed his white undershirt, it gave you full sight of the muscles he was still sporting thanks to Marvel.

 He was a good looking man. There was no denying that Scott’s brother was a good looking man. It was clear with how many conquests he’d had and how many women lusted after him. You sunk your teeth into your bottom lip and traced the spout of the bottle along your mouth, completely unaware of what you were doing. As he got closer, your eyes met, and Chris’s eyes zeroed in on your mouth.

 “You look like you were made for sin, and I have a long list of ways we can do it together. The list begins with suck, but there is no end to what I want to do to you,” you said as you stared at Chris.

 No one around you spoke, but you wouldn't have known if they had. All you saw was Chris. The way he looked at you made you feel--plain and simply feel, and you hated it. Over the last few months, you’d taken notice of this lingering thing between you. Whenever you looked at each other, spoke to one another, or even hung out together, it was present. You didn’t know how to explain what it was, but just because something couldn’t be explained didn’t mean it wasn’t present, no matter how you wished it wasn’t so.

 Everyone around you erupted with applause forcing you to look away from Chris’s eyes.

 “Impressive,” Tara complimented.

 “Shiit, I’d take you up on that offer,” Scott added, making you giggle.

 “No end, huh.”

 Embarrassment filled you, but something else entirely brought your eyes to Chris, who was still looking at you, and the way he was doing it made a slow tingle journey up your spine.

 “What about a game of football before we lose the light?”

 With that, everyone began to scatter to make it down the beach to begin a friendly game of football. Only this was not a friendly game of football. It was a teasing one. You and Chris were cast on opposite teams. After one play, it was clear to see that everyone was either drunk or very tipsy because no one made a touchdown or even came close to it. All anyone accomplished was stumbling over their own feet, bumping into each other, and nearly losing the ball to the water. It was a mess, but a fun mess.

 Play after play resulted in absolutely nothing but a face full of sand, or your legs tangled with someone else’s and plenty of laughter. Halfway through the game, in a play that Scott formulated, he thought it was a good idea to throw you the ball expecting you to cross the volleyball net being used as the goal point. With the ball in hand and several beers and glasses filled of dark and light liquor in your system, you attempted to run for the goal. You heard the loud cheering of those around you and dodged everyone who was coming at you. You felt like you were Tebow, Romo, or even Sanders. It didn’t take you long to start feeling yourself and begin imitating the Heisman pose every chance you got. Everyone erupted with laughter at your antics. When you thought you were home free, someone threw you over their shoulder and ran you to the water, then threw you in.

 Your scream was loud as you sputtered from the water in your mouth and the sheer shock of the temperature of the water. When you stood, you saw Chris standing there with the football under his arm.

 “Cool off.”

 You couldn’t help but laugh, as did everyone around you. Taking the opportunity of Chris being distracted, you ran to him then tackled him sending him back into the water as an incoming wave crashed over the two of you. When you came up, you saw everyone running to the water shouting as they began flinging water everywhere.

 Chris had a smile on his face watching you stand. “Ha, you cool down!”

 He laughed but then charged you, making you take off down the shore as if you could outrun him. Within a few seconds, Chris managed to throw you over his shoulder again and began wadding out to the open sea. Your laughs melded together until he tossed you over again. The two of you remained in the water playing together, laughing and just enjoying each others company.

 By the time you returned to the sand, you were soaked, and because you hadn’t gotten to take off your clothes before being mercilessly thrown into the water, your clothes were also drenched. In the bathroom, you thought of your options. You could always just walk around in your bikini. It wouldn’t be inappropriate because you were at the beach after all. It may draw eyes to you, though, you thought. You began to regret your bikini choice, mainly the bottoms that left very little to nothing to the imagination.

 As you dried off, you peeled off your clothes off of your body and examined yourself. After contemplating your options for a few minutes, you heard a knock at the door. When you opened it you saw Chris standing there, shirtless. His eyes looked over your body twice before you realized you’d fully opened the door rather than cracked it. Fixing your mistake, you left your head poking out.

 “Hi.”

 Chris cleared his throat, then dipped his head before he spoke. “Em, since it’s my fault, here you go.”

 He held out the shirt he’d been wearing earlier. Just looking at it, you knew it was going to be oversized on you.

 “Uh,” you began while slowly reaching for it.

 “Take it as a peace offering,” Chris added flicking a lopsided grin on his face, a grin you met with rolled eyes.

 “You’re lucky this is my only option, but don’t you think this makes up for what you did,” you teased, taking the shirt

 “Oh really. What do I have to do to make it up to you then?”

 The way he asked had you meeting his eyes, and that was where they stayed. You bit your bottom lip then looked away. “I’m sure you can figure something out with all your—experience.”

 You smiled, then held up his shirt. “Thanks.”

 You closed the door, then threw on the shirt and tried to find a way to rock it without it looking like it wasn’t a planned look. It took you longer than you liked, but when you finally made it out of the bathroom and back to your friends, you were comfortable with how you looked. Everyone was now around a bonfire broken off in their own conversations as a movie played on the projected screen. You didn’t see Scott right away, so after getting your phone, you found a free blanket and laid down, getting comfortable.

 About ten or so minutes, Scott joined you, filling you in on his quick sexcapade. As you listened to him, you thought, of course he’d disappeared for a little fun. You didn’t knock him for it; hell, it wasn’t a bad way to enjoy the Fourth of July. By the time he finished giving you all the details, everyone had begun making their way to the beach to watch the fireworks that would blast out over the water. You told Scott to go ahead and save your spot so you could grab another beer.

 At the back of the lawn, where there was a makeshift bar set up, you rummaged through the bucket searching for the beer you wanted, but you couldn’t find not even one.

 “I think I took the last one,” a familiar voice said.

 You turned and saw Chris standing there in a tank that showed off some of his tattoos and your favorite beer in hand.

 “Seems you did.”

 “If I gave this to you, would I then have made it up to you?”

 You smiled and stepped closer to him, close enough to take the beer with no resistance. “Nope.”

 Chris smiled while staring down at you. You didn’t move and decided you wanted to see what he would do. The way he’d been looking at you all night had finally had your curiosity overflowing. You’d heard the rumors and stories of the conquests Scott’s brother had and how he enjoyed one night stands. You were not above them, especially if the man was good looking and not an asshole. Chris licked his lips, then spoke.

 “So what do I have to do?”

 “I think what you have to do might be the same as what you want to do. If that’s the case, try it.”

Long moments stretched with the two of you gawking at each other, both waiting for the other to make their move. You decided that if he made a move, you wouldn’t reject him, but you would not be the one to make a move. The first thunder of fireworks exploded across the sky, lighting up the lawn with bright red light. Everyone at the shore erupted with applause and cheers, but you and Chris still held each other’s gaze.

 He lifted his hand, hesitated, then lowered it to your cheek. He then slid his thumb across your skin. You didn’t know if he were wiping something away or just touching you because he wanted to.

 “What do you want, Y/N? hmm?”

 He looked lost in your skin as his fingers continued to enjoy its suppleness.

 “For you to take what you want,” you slid in, walking away from him toward the shore.

 Every few steps, you looked back at him only to turn back around in a teasing way. You were teasing him and hoped he took the bait.

  -Chris-

He wanted to take the bait more than anything. He had been watching you all night, and he had seen you staring right at him with what you’d said about your chosen pick up line. He wondered if you were gearing it to him. he wondered about it so much that it drove him crazy the whole day. He purposely threw you in the water, knowing you hadn’t brought a spare change of clothes. It was slightly manipulative, but the part of him who decided was not the logic-driven Chris. It was the desire-driven one.

 From the day he’d met you, he knew you would be a problem. He knew you would tempt him in a way he hadn’t been before, a way that made him uncomfortable and went past wanting to stake a claim sexually. For months, your intellect tempted him. The mental sparring that was so natural with you was attractive as hell. Then the whole night peeks of your body tempted him coupled with your wit and charisma, which made it incredibly difficult to resist you.

 Earlier in the bathroom, he didn’t know if you’d opened the door so widely on purpose or if it was unintentional. He’d imagined pushing you back until your ass collided with the sink, then he imagined hoisting you up and kicking apart your thighs. He’d wanted to push those skimpy bikini bottoms to the side so badly. He’d suppressed the urge, but the sight of you in his shirt didn’t help matters. You looked like his. As he approached the crowd at the shore, he decided he’d claim it because possession was nine-tenths of the law, after all.

 “Oh my god, it’s beautiful,” you said with a gasp as you gaped at the sky in awe.

 The colors that light up your face had him even more hypnotized with you. The wind blew, and the hem of his shirt lofted enough for him to see the almost thong cut of the bikini bottoms you wore, and he moved before he even thought not to. He rested his hand at your pelvis and waited. It took a few seconds, but you placed yours over his and made a swirling “s” along his skin toward his forearm.

 “Fuck,” he whispered.

 The hushed word brought the eyes of Scott and Tara. They both looked at him quizzically, silently asking him what was wrong. That was all it took for him to remember his promise to Scott. When Scott looked away, Tara’s eyes remained on him. They seemed to be sorting through his layers until they found what they wanted. She lifted her hand and tapped his temple, then turned back to the fireworks. Fuck, he thought.

 No matter how badly he wanted you, he couldn’t have you. The facts were simple—you weren’t his. You can’t possess that which isn’t yours and that which does not want to be possessed. Softly he sighed and lowered his hand from your body. You didn’t let it fall, though. Instead, you hooked your fingers with his and held him. His eyes lowered to your entwined fingers, and he hesitated for longer than he should have. When he glanced back up, your eyes were on him, but your lip clenched between your teeth.

 Another crack of fireworks lit up the sky, but your attention was on him rather than the green in the sky. Every color was your color, he thought, then wondered if these colors would still look good glowing off of your naked body. Recognizing his thoughts, wants, and desires were dangerous, he released your hand the minute you directed your attention to something Scott was saying. You kept your hand out, waiting for him to take it again, but he didn’t. Instead, he took several steps back.

 He stood there debating with himself, going back and forth, telling himself to take your hand, but the second he even moved a muscle, he chastised himself, telling him to resist. This was the process for several agonizing minutes. With his eyes glued to your ass and the skin that taunted him every time the breeze blew, he fought the urges that came over him one by one. When he looked up, he found your eyes on him. You looked so good, as if you were the child of two pure angels. There was an innocence about you that he didn’t understand, and something that radiated off of you that had him coming to one final realization. You deserved better than this. He saw you held our hand out to him, but the only thing he knew he should do was walk away. So, he backed away, all the while staring into your eyes. The confusion he found there, he understood. He was confused too. The hurt was what took him by surprise. Unable to stomach it, he turned and walked away from you, the colors and the light you brought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Notting Hill AU Snippet #6

When they finally leave her brother's house, Lena is simultaneously exhausted and wired. Exhausted, because even a good time takes it out of her, and yet wired because the world's most famous woman is right next to her on the sidewalk, nudging shoulders as they walk down the block. It makes for a heady combination, which is the only reason at all that Lena finds herself rising to Kara's challenge of climbing over a wrought iron gate to the garden beyond.

"For the record," she huffs, struggling to find purchase with her bare hands, "I am not dressed for this-- whoopsie daisy!"

What the FUCK did she just say?

"What did you just say?" Kara echoes, her smile audible in the dark.

"Nothing," Lena brushes off as she resets. "Just, trying to get a decent foothold-- whoops!"

She slips again, and this time Kara laughs, the sound loud and musical. "You said whoopsy daisy. Like some mid-century housewife--"

"You keep distracting me!"

"From what? Another whoopsy daisy?" Kara nudges her aside, dusting off her hands. "Step aside, miss priss. Watch the professional work."

Lena obeys, turning her head aside to avoid her nose brushing a very toned, very firm ass as Kara shimmied her way up and over the fence in one try. Lena's mouth goes dry at the smoothness of the motion, and the way Kara's arms strain against the slim cut of her blouse.

Kara may be an actress, but she's clearly no waif.

The woman in question grins at her from the other side of the fence. "You know, you say you're not intimidated by a silly rule, but I think there may be some subliminal hangups..."

Lena scowls. "Oh, like hell."

Boots scrabbling against the fenceposts, Lena hauls herself up through sheer willpower alone. By the time she lands on her feet on the far side, Kara has disappeared further into the garden. With a quiet curse, Lena brushes herself off and straightens her hair before trotting after her.

"Wow..." Kara breathes when Lena catches up. "It's like it's own little world in here."

Lena watches her observe the garden, noting the way her eyes sparkle in the faint light trickling in around them. The field they stand in is lush beneath their feet, and even in the dark the scent of fragrant flowers fills the air.

Kara makes her way over to a bench, and reads the inscription on. "To June, who sat on this bench every day. From John, who always sat beside her."

Lena smiles at the sentiment, and the way Kara's voice softens as she reads it. It's beautiful, and she says so.

"I guess some love does last forever," Kara remarks, half to herself. She sits on the bench, smoothing her hands across the wood as if to ask its owners for the privilege. After a moment, she notices Lena watching. "Come sit with me."

Lena does, and they spend the night with Kara's head on Lena's shoulders, looking at the stars.

---

The next night, they go on a proper date. Or at least they try to, except Lena can't find her glasses and Querl is absolutely no help in finding them, so she watches the entire movie through the prescription lenses of her snorkel mask.

Luckily, it only makes Kara laugh, even if it earns Lena a couple handfuls of popcorn in her hair from being pelted. Afterwards, Lena takes them to her favorite sushi restaurant, and makes a show of ordering in Japanese.

"Arigato gozaimasu," she finishes, handing over her menu. When she looks across the table at Kara, she's pleased to see she's impressed.

"Now how did you learn Japanese if you've never traveled?"

Lena shrugs. "I may have dated a few travelers in my day."

"Uh huh," Kara deadpans. "What else did they show you?"

Looking up, Lena lets a lascivious grin curl her lips. "Maybe I'll get to show you."

Lena revels in the fluster that marks Kara's acceptance of the sake that comes a moment later, and marks the red blush that heats under tan skin. The conversation shifts away, but continues, and Lena lets it, content with the impact she's made.

As the meal winds down, they linger a little bit, trading information they haven't shared yet.

"What's the one place you want to go, above all others?" Kara asks.

Lena sighs. "I don't know." Kara looks at her suspiciously, and Lena lifts her hands. "I could give you the same tripe I give any customer in my shop, but the truth is, the idea of travel has never really been the destination for me."

Kara looks surprised at that. "Oh?"

With a hum, Lena nods. "For me, it's always been more about who you're traveling with. And for a while there, I thought I had someone, but she never wanted to go anywhere. In the end, it turned out she just never wanted to go anywhere with me."

It still aches. Her split with Veronica had been so sudden, it split Lena's entire entire world apart. It had been bad enough to learn that Veronica had well and truly checked out of their relationship long before she ended it. To hear that Veronica had never really been in it in the first place had--

"Then she's an idiot," Kara says, bringing Lena out of her thoughts back to the present day. She reaches across the table, and links their fingers together. "And it's her loss."

Lena forces a grin. "Funnily, that's exactly what my therapist said..."

A round of raucous table from the table behind them drowns out whatever else she might have said. Glancing over, Lena registers a group of young to middle aged men in suits-- likely stock brokers, in this part of town. They were rowdy even when they came in, but now--a round of sake later-- they're downright obnoxious.

The next one who speaks doesn't bother to mind his words or his volume.

"Give me Kara Danvers any day."

Kara meets Lena's eye across the table, rolling her eyes as his buddy chimed in.

"Didn't like her last film. Fell asleep as soon as the lights went down."

"Don't care what the films like-- if it's got Kara Danvers, it's fine by me. I mean, have you seen that ass."

Lena's jaw clenches. Kara's hand slips away, as does her gaze.

"Oh hell yeah," another one continues. "And you know she's just begging for it. Never wonder how she got that gig in Dirty Dancing, did you?"

"It sure as hell wasn't because she could dance!" They all laughed. Lena shifts in her seat, blood boiling, but Kara catches her eye, shaking her head no. Too late.

Lena rises to her feet and marches to the offending table. "Excuse me, boys, but every single person in this restaurant can hear you. And while I'm perfectly happy to watch you reveal yourselves to be the absolute cunts you are, I take exception to the fact that you're talking about a very real person in the process."

The table stares at her, shocked.

"You." Lena glares at the worst offender. "Does your mother know you debase women with the same mouth you use to kiss her on the cheek? How about your girlfriend, though I find it incredibly doubtful you've managed to shag anyone with that kind of charm."

Kara tugs on Lena's arm, trying to pull her away. Lena almost goes, but turns back at the last minute, nearly colliding with the server hurrying in with the table's paid check.

"Actually, I'm not finished. Until each and every one of you learns a woman's favorite song, color and five year goal, you sure as hell don't get to wonder what flavor condom she prefers, you got it?" Her gaze lands on the platinum credit card in the ticket tray, and smirks in triumph when she sees it's a corporate card.

"And I'm sure that Lord Holdings will be thrilled to hear all about how their employees behave while they're out eating on the company's dime."

At that, the man she'd skewered a moment ago finally recovers enough to scoff. "Hah, and what do you care? What are you, her sister?"

"Actually," Kara speaks up, coming to stand beside Lena. "She's my date."

Dead silence follows as every single one of them registers who exactly is speaking. Finally, one of them tries to sputter an apology, but Kara waves it off.

"Oh, no, don't worry about it. I'm sure it was just joking between friends, just as I'm sure your dicks are the size of peanuts. Enjoy your dinner!"

With that, Kara turns away, snagging Lena's hand as she does. Allowing herself to be towed away, Lena flips them the vee and grins, then joins Kara in trotting out of the restaurant.

As soon as they hit the street they both start to cackle, drawing stares as they laugh maniacally. Lena's heart is pounding, as is Kara's, judging from the way she holds a hand against her chest.

"Oh, my god... I-- I've never done that before!" Kara laughs. "I don't know what came over me!"

"What, standing up for yourself? You're a natural!"

"No, you were amazing! I dunno, I just heard you and I saw you facing off against them all alone, and I just-- did that! I just did that!"

Kara laughs again, and Lena tugs her closer by the hips. Pressing a kiss to her lips, Lena smiles at her. "It looks good on you," she purrs. "You should do it more often."

Kara smiles back at her, rubbing her thumbs on the ridges of Lena's hips. "Maybe I will."

Lena could kiss her again, but Kara steps back, tugging them back in the direction of the hotel. "Walk me home?"

The walk back is spent in comfortable silence, but as they near the marquee of the Ritz, Lena's heart starts to pound for a whole new reason when Kara turns to her. "Wanna come up?"

Lena nods. "Yeah. I'd like that."

Kara gives a small of relief, and smiles. "Good. Give me five minutes."

The next five minutes are the longest of Lena's life. But she waits them, hands jammed into her pockets, and counts every second before finally allowing herself to head up to the room.

When she knocks, she isn't entirely sure what to expect. A robe, maybe, left open to reveal tantalzyingly firm abs. Matching lingerie, even, to match Kara's eyes.

What she doesn't expect is Kara fully clothed with panic in her eyes.

"You've got to go," Kara whispers.

Lena freezes, but keeps her smile in place. "Why?" she whispers back.

"Because my boyfriend, who was in America, is in fact here in the next room."

previous / next

[arhvste]

MIYA ATSUMU - PROVE EM WRONG 

- summary - irked by his brother and his wife’s flirting in front of him, astumu decides it finally time to prove to his family that he too has settled down and with someone he genuinely loves at that - fluff - x f reader

- an - this is the alternative route to the osamu fic i wrote which is based off of this ask an anon sent in earlier, someone suggested i do both brothers with this plot and i think they were joking but i did end up getting a little carried away and writing two different routes for it so here u go >:)

-

“Oi, Samu! Stop flirtin with ya wife right in front’a me and get cookin, I’m starvin!” Atsumu whined as he rested his head against the kitchen prep counter which was currently occupied with countless cooking utensils scattered across the cool metal surface and various ingredients dotted around.

“Yer just jealous I have a gorgeous wife and you don’t” With a smug smile, Osamu wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist bringing her  in close enough for him to press a quick kiss to her flour dusted cheek.

“Yuck! Not over the food I’m beggin ya!”

She giggled and pulled her husband back in close to her before turning to give a quick smile to his irritated twin.

“Perhaps we should find you a girlfriend Tsumu! I know a few people who I’m sure would be at least willing to go out on a date with you.”

“Yeah, you’d probably have to pay em first!”

Atsumu huffed before sitting up properly with a smirk painted across his face.

“Actually, no need. I’ve got a girlfriend already.”

Osamu narrowed his eyes at his brother unsure whether to believe him or not. Atsumu was known for being sly especially when it came to him.

“Really? How comes we’ve never met ‘er then?” Osamu quizzed, eyes boring into his complacent brother’s.

“Cause she’s always busy and when she’s not she’s usually at my practices, besides, media’s a pain in the ass we don’t want them following us and bein annoyin wherever we go.” Atsumu spoke matter-of-factly.

Still not buying his brothers claims, Osamu thought of something that would surely catch Atsumu out of his potential lie. He nodded towards his wife to back him up and she sent him a knowing smile already knowing what he was thinking.

“We were thinkin of having the family over this weekend for dinner cause we’ve got an announcement to make, why dont’cha bring yer girl with you?” Osamu observed his twin watching for any signs of panic or discomfort but Atsumu’s face stayed content as if he was trying to provoke the couple in front of him.

“Lemme see if she’s free, I only have training in the morning but I’ll check if she’s got anythin going on before I drag her out.” Atsumu pulled out his phone as he stood up after checking the time. “Ah shit, I gotta get back, Omi’s gonna kill me if I’m late one more time, see you Saturday I guess.” He shrugged and waved to the confused pair left in the prep kitchen.

“Yeah, see you and yer girlfriend then.”

Atsumu smirked as he headed out to leave for practice, the sudden excitement for Saturday to arrive flooding his mind.”

If there was anything Atsumu loved more than you, it was proving people wrong.

“y/n! Baby I’m home!” Atsumu called out, entering the sleek apartment closing the door securely behind him.

“Coming!” Your melodic voice called out to your boyfriend bringing a smile to his face. He heard the sounds of your feet padding across the heated floor towards him. After a few seconds of waiting, you finally reached your tired boyfriend who offered you a lazy smirk as he brought you into his arms.

“There’s my girl.” He muttered pressing a feathery kiss to your cheek before pulling you in for a deep kiss to your lips. He pulled you in even closer, hand supporting your lower back and the other moving down to give your ass a quick squeeze signalling for you to jump so he could carry you. Never letting his lips leave yours, Atsumu dragged his hand from your back to help his other hand in supporting the weight of your body now your legs had instinctively wrapped around his slim waist as your hands carded through his soft golden tufts. He carried you over to the couch and sat, having you straddle his waist before pulling away to allow yourselves to catch your breaths.

“What’s gotten you so worked up?” you huffed as you leant back slightly to look into his glinting eyes.

“Nothin much, saw Samu and his wife earlier… they don’t believe you exist.” A pout etched onto his face as you raised your eyebrow.

“Should I be offended?”

“Nah, guess they’re right, they haven’t met’cha yet, but we’re both so busy we never found the time to introduce ya.”

You hummed as Astumu pouted, face buried in your neck, his warm breath tickling your neck.

“Actually,” Atsumu began. “Would’ja mind comin to meet them on Saturday? Like, my whole family. You can say no if yer busy or if yer not ready I totally get-”

You shut the boy up with a quick peck and smiled gently at him.

“Tsumu, I’d love to meet your family.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course.”

Atsumu felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder, he didn’t think convincing you would’ve been that easy. He was confident that you would’ve been open to meeting his family at some point, but there was still the lingering thoughts of doubt in which you may not have thought he was taking you or the relationship seriously, but after seeing your genuine smile and hearing your firm answer, Atsumu’s doubts washed away and a satisfied and relieved smile came over his face.

“They’re gonna be so mad when they see just how hot my girlfriend is, yer gonna show everyone who comes up, I just know it angel.”

You playfully hit your boyfriend's chest with a firm look on your face as he laughed.

“Don’t say that! I bet your family's great Tsumu, I can’t wait to meet them.”

Although you’d already said yes to meeting his family, Astumu felt his heart warm at the sound of you saying you were excited to meet his family. The fact you were happy to be involved even more in his life only made him want to let you even further in if he could. Atsumu was never really one for long-term relationships hence why he’d never bothered introducing any previous girlfriends to his family because he knew it would end eventually due to the fact he had to spend so much time travelling and at training. He had been taking a break from dating when he met you. You were introduced as the new MSBY social media manager, you were given the task to run the team’s official social medias, monitor the player’s accounts and keep an eye on certain articles while organising interviews and event appearances. It was a big job but you took it head on from the get-go thoroughly impressing Atsumu who made no attempts to hide his interest in you. Hell, he even went as far as to get scolded by you a few times for posting some risky shirtless pictures to his instagram purely for the fact he knew you were monitoring the accounts and that you’d see them.

5 months later and Atsumu had finally convinced you to let him take you out on just one date. But one date soon turned into two, then three, then seven and the rest was history. He wasn’t sure why you’d eventually given into his persistent flirting and whining but he didn’t particularly care either. He had you now and that’s all that mattered. You were the only girlfriend he’d had who understood and accepted his demanding work schedule because you yourself were on a similar schedule which he thanked the heavens for. Thinking back, Atsumu probably should’ve brought you to meet his family sooner but with the excitement of constant games, intense training, interviews and event appearances and grasping onto whatever time he could get alone with you, proved to overpower the thoughts of how significant it is for your partner to meet your family.

Whatever, they were getting the chance to meet you this weekend so better late than never he supposed.

Saturday rolled round quickly and you and Atsumu were exhausted from a weeks worth of demanding work but there was no way in hell Atsumu was going to forget about how he needed to wipe his brother's smug smirk off his face when he introduced his incredible girlfriend.

Dressing nicely, the two of you rushed out of the apartment a little later than planned but Atsumu didn’t mind. Being a little late just meant more people would arrive before him allowing him to make a big entrance and cause a scene about who he’d brought along. You weren’t an accessory to Atsumu and he hoped you weren’t thinking that’s what today was about. Sure he had a petty side goal, but he was genuinely proud of you and would show you off whenever he could especially in front of the other MSBY players who’d only scowl at him when he’d wrap his arms around your smaller frame from behind while mouthing a ‘mine’ for the other men to sulk over.

You arrived after a 15 minute drive and Atsumu opened your door for you guiding you up towards his twin’s spacious home.

Knocking a few times, Atsumu gave your hand a quick squeeze of reassurance as you felt your heart pound ever so slightly quicker at the thought of meeting your boyfriend’s whole family.

The door was opened by Osamu who already had a look of amusement written across his face, ready to ridicule his brother for lying. His face dropped when he saw you holding his brother’s hand and blinked a few times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“He didn’t pay you to come with him did he?” Osamu questioned with shock as Atsumu sent a sharp flick to his brother’s shoulder. You hummed in amusement before smiling lazily at your boyfriend’s twin.

“My presence is an extremely high price, I doubt he would’ve been able to afford it if he wasn’t so persistent and annoying.”

“Tsumu, I approve, I like her.” Osamu snickered before letting the two of you enter his warm home filled with members of the Miya family.

A chorus of welcomes came their way as many family members rushed over to gush over how ‘out of Atsumu’s league’ you were and ‘why had you wanted to date someone as messy as him’ only for you to laugh brightly and tell his family countless stories about Atsumu’s antics at training and post match celebrations.

Astumu didn’t even mind you were poking fun at him every so often, growing up with Osamu had gotten him pretty used to it but he was more focused on how naturally you fit into his family. It was like you were meant to be a part of it. 

Watching you as you spoke and laughed with his family, Atsumu let his thoughts wander to when and how he’d eventually go about making you officially part of his family one day.

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