#once on a windswept night game

[canonqueercharacters]

The canon queer character of the day is:

Wisteria from Once on a windswept night, who is a lesbian.

[ebi-hime]

Hi everyone! I'm writing a post to let you know that my free(!!!) metafictional yuri VN, Once on a windswept night, has been translated into Ukrainian! The story focuses on a mysterious traveller who stumbles across an abandoned church where two cute nuns live. By examining the church and talking to the nuns, you can learn about their pasts, how the church came to be abandoned, and about the mysterious tree which is growing in the middle of the building. As you get to know the two nuns, Madeleine and Daffodil, you'll also have a chance to speak to the narrator of the story: a woman called Lycrois, who seems to exist in a different plane of reality. Who is Lycrois and what is she hiding? That's something for you to find out! You can read Windswept night on Steam here or Itchio here!

[coneyislandbabey]

she's got a strange magic. -> w. rojas

WARNINGS: profanities, complete dork warren rojas, partially from warren's POV

SYNOPSIS: Warren is usually cool and confident, but there's something about you that makes him completely nervous. He's desperate to ask you out, and he's desperate to get it right. Written for this request! word count: 1,391

“Eddie, man, please,” Warren asked, standing in front of his best friend with his arms crossed. It was early afternoon, and they were the only two left at the house with nothing to do. Warren had been out on the deck smoking a joint and talking to himself for the last hour, and had gotten nowhere fast. In a rare moment of clarity, he realized he must be high as balls to be asking Eddie to help him like this at all. 

“That’s fuckin’ stupid, man, c’mon,” Eddie responded, scoffing. When Warren didn’t move or say anything, Eddie looked him over once more, reassessing. “You seriously want me to pretend to be (y/n) so you can practice asking her out?” 

Warren nodded. “You know her as well as I do, so you can be accurate!” 

Eddie let out a genuine laugh this time. “You’ve asked out a hundred girls before, man, and you never needed help. What’s the deal?” 

Warren dropped down onto the couch and sighed, running a hand down the side of his face. What was the deal, indeed. Eddie was right; he had asked out plenty of girls before. Hell, he’d been rejected by plenty of girls before, girls he knew would reject them before he even asked, and that still didn’t deter him. But you… you were different. You were a bartender at The Whisky, and the whole band had gotten to know you pretty well over the last few months, playing regular gigs at the nightclub. You were blunt, and took shit from no one. You had this hair that was always a little messy, a little windswept, and these alluring eyes that had grabbed hold of him the first time you looked at him and never let him go. Warren had tried flirting with you the first night he met you, hitting you with a line even he knew was way too fucking corny, and you shut him down so fast his head spun. Ever since, he had been harboring a bit of a crush on you. Every night the Six played The Whisky, he would tell himself that that was the night he would ask you out, and in the end he chickened out every time. 

“She just– she’s driving me crazy, man,” he said finally. “I’ve never been scared about a chick saying no to me. If they say no, whatever, I can find another chick. But her? Shit, I just need to get it right, you know?” 

Eddie fixed him with a deadpan stare. “Because you’re my best friend, man, I will do this for you once. But only once. Never ask me for this shit ever again.” 

“If you’re actually helpful right now, I won’t ever need to ask you again,” Warren grinned. 

“Alright,” Eddie said, leaning forward in his chair. “Pretend I’m her standing behind the bar. Hit me with your best.”

Warren cleared his throat, trying to imagine himself walking up to you at the bar at the gig later. He’d come over after they played, of course, because it was basically scientifically proven at this point that women found his drum playing sexy. And the whole being sweaty and shiny and amped up thing seemed to work, too. 

“Hey, sexy–”

“What the fuck, Warren, no,” Eddie shook his head, a genuinely pained expression on his face. “She already knows you, you’re not picking up some random woman after a show. You can’t fuckin’ start like that.” 

Warren groaned, falling back into the couch. “I usually have game! I just want us to be on the same page about that.”

“Look, the best thing you can do is just be fucking normal when you talk to her,” Eddie said. “She likes you on some level already, she always talks to you after shows. Not just to humor you either, man. So just… go for it.”

“Just go for it,” Warren repeated, nodding. “Yeah. Okay. Just go for it.”

***

It had been a good night. 

The Six had played, and they were always the highlight of your shift when they were there. Not even because of the music– which was fucking great, as you liked to remind them every time they stopped at the bar for a drink after a gig– but because of the band members themselves. You loved getting to catch up with Karen, who was probably the coolest chick on the Strip, in your opinion, and you loved the way Graham got all timid when you complimented his guitar skills. Billy never got a drink, but he always said hi, which you appreciated. Eddie always challenged you to come up with a new drink to give him, and you did your best to come up with something that tasted closer to diesel fuel every time. 

And then there was Warren. He’d certainly made an outstanding first impression, when he sidled up to the bar and fed you the corniest line you have ever heard in your life before the first gig the Six had ever played at The Whisky. You had shut him down, then– you had to after that line, your pride demanded it– but you could appreciate the way he looked nonetheless. You liked that he still came over to talk to you after each show even though you’d rejected him. There wasn’t any of that toxic masculinity, wounded pride bullshit with him. He always had a smile and a funny story for you, always listened to whatever you had to tell him while you half-distractedly made drinks for the other patrons. 

This had been a particularly good set, even for the Six, and you beamed as you caught sight of Karen slinking through the crowd toward you, ready to shower her in well-deserved compliments. 

“Hey (y/n)! How are you darling?” She asked, leaning over the bar to squeeze you in a quick hug. 

“I’m great! Happy I was working during your gig,” you said, grinning at the blonde. 

“I’m fairly certain someone checks to make sure you’re working before we agree to play any gigs,” Karen joked.

“Wow, well I’m feeling extra loved. I’ll get you your usual?” Karen nodded, and you started on her usual after-show martini. The two of you chatted while you did so, and Karen gratefully accepted the drink when you were done and bade you goodbye after someone across the room caught her eye. 

The bar got extremely busy with people trying to get their drinks while the next band got ready for their set, and for a while you got lost in trying to serve everyone as fast as you could. 

“(l/n),” you heard Warren’s voice from behind you, after the mass of people had been served and walked away. 

“Rojas,” you acknowledged, turning to see the curly-headed man leaning against the bar, smiling lopsidedly at you. “You want a beer or what?” 

“Shirley Temple, actually,” he shrugged, and you snorted in surprise. “How’d we do tonight?” 

“Amazing, but you knew that already,” you said, sliding the drink across the bartop to him. 

“True, I just wanted to hear you say it,” he nodded, that grin still firmly affixed to his face. 

You shrugged. “I would say it a million times over. You’re somethin’ special.” 

“The band, or just me?” He was joking, you could tell from the tone of his voice, but there was a note of sincerity under it all as well. 

“The band, sure, but you, Rojas, you’re somethin’ special all on your own.” 

Warren stayed quiet, a strange look passing over his face as he stared at you. You busied yourself with drying the glasses in front of you, bobbing your head to the music and trying to look unconcerned with whatever was going through his head. 

“Would you allow me the privilege of taking you out to dinner?” Your head snapped up to look at him, took in the clear, sincere look on his face. No frills. No corny lines. No overpowering compliments to butter you up. Just Warren, looking at you like he had his heart in his hand. 

You put the glass and the rag down and leaned your arms on the bar, a genuine, dorky grin overtaking your features. “Yes, Warren. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me again since the first time you tried it.”

tag list: @eonnyx

[angelkitty54]

Redesigns for superkids Sonya and Manik Acorn! Am a bit lazy with glove and shoe designs, unless I have something specific in mind they tend to be kinda basic... Going to eventually redo Estelle's design and also gotta name the baby too. Eventually :P

Sonya got a new haircut! Wasn't really satisfied with it before. Wanted a more windswept look but for it to also be a bit spiky for the hedgehog side of her. She has a longer tail than her mum just to further differentiate them. Sonya didn't just get her dad's speed, she can also turn invisible! Unfortunately she is not all that stealthy in general, nor can she turn her clothes invisible too, and she can't maintain it while using her speed either. Tho the last one is more of a concentration thing. With practice she probably could use her powers together, but seeing as superheroes are illegal in this AU, she's not going to get a chance to do so any time soon...

Bath time was a bit of a challenge when she was younger. It's just as well she's not that stealthy, but even so, hunting down a super fast kid that can turn invisible is a bit of a challenge. Her parents soon learned that if they let go of her once she was nekkid, she'd be gone and they'd have to chase her down. Shadow had the most problems with Sonya and bath time. Many a night was spent chasing after a sopping wet invisible chipmunk girl before he finally got the hang of it...

Manik mostly just got fluffier! Plus a little folded over ear (don't know what that's called if there is a word for it). Still got the gap tooth and shorter messier quills. Like his sister he also got another power as well as super speed: gravity manipulation! Given that he hasn't had much of a chance to explore his full capabilities, he's a bit limited with what he can do right now. When he points at something and says "heavy" or "light" he can increase or decrease the gravity on that thing making it heavier or lighter. Once he stops concentrating on the object it goes back to normal tho. Like Sonya he can't really use his powers together as he tends to lose focus when he's moving too fast.

He doesn't actually need to speak when he uses his gravity powers, but it's an unintentionally trained habit from when his parents were teaching him to control it. Sonic had turned it into a game and Manik has unknowingly limited his own abilities by the rules of said game. Potentially he is a lot more powerful than he's aware, but since he hasn't had the chance to fully explore his abilities thing will remain as they are for now...

[prongsfootandco]

Distraction

Day 14 of @prongsfoot-microfic

CW: Nsfw, cockwarming

On AO3

_

Sirius is buried under paperwork in his study as he tries to get his next invention approved by the Ministry when James gets in from work, windswept and muddy from his day on the quidditch pitch. Normally, Sirius finishes work long before James gets home for the evening, the benefits of being self-employed, but tonight he’s still working. Deadlines loom that he can’t ignore, not if he wants to get his idea off the ground. 

But James clearly doesn’t care. He bursts into the study with a heavy sigh and practically melts against Sirius’ back, his chin resting on top of Sirius’ head. 

“Merlin, I love you,” James murmurs, humming softly as he nuzzles into Sirius’ hair. “Take a break, sweetheart.”

Oh, it’s tempting. It really is. Sirius can recognise this mood in James in an instant, and it promises a night of sin and debauchery, but his work, for once, is more important. “I can’t, Jamie, not tonight.”

“Please?”

“James…”

“I’ll be good. I just need- need something…” James’ fingers trail over Sirius’ shoulders, running down his arms. Wet kisses are mouthed against his neck, and Sirius groans, rolling his head to give his husband better access. 

Shit. 

“Fine. On your knees, Potter. But don’t distract me.” 

James wastes no time, scrabbling to the floor and crawling under the desk. Sirius pushes his desk back to accommodate him, watching for just a moment as James settles, resting his head against Sirius’ thigh. It’s a gorgeous sight. A lesser man wouldn’t be able to resist, but Sirius has played this game before. He knows the rules. 

“Now what, Potter?” James asks, winking up at Sirius as he licks his lips. 

Smirking at his married name, Sirius rolls his eyes and drags his fingers through James’ hair. “Now you warm my cock, darling. No moving, no sucking, no tongue. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” James agrees eagerly. His fingers make quick work of Sirius’ jeans, and he sighs happily as he pulls Sirius’ soft cock from the confines of his clothes. For a few moments, James just stares at his prize as if it's the eighth wonder of the world until finally he brushes his nose along Sirius’ thigh and takes his cock into his mouth. 

It’s a miracle that Sirius doesn’t get hard, the wet heat of James’ mouth is the definition of temptation, and he wants to yank at his husband's hair, forcing him to take his cock deeper until he’s gagging on it, drool dripping down his chin, eyes glassy, cheeks flushed. 

Instead, Sirius takes a deep breath, letting his fingers gently stroke through James’ hair until he’s settled nicely, only occasionally humming quietly around Sirius’ cock in pleasure. There’s still work to do, so Sirius picks up his quill with a sigh and carries on with the endless stream of forms he needs to fill out, enjoying the warmth around his cock and the promise of more once he’s finally done for the day. 

Merlin, he can’t wait. 

[a-boros-named-seamus]

A Wolfsblood Moon-NaNoWriMo Day 1

Prologue

Deep in the forbidding and magic-forged range of mountains known as the World's Horns, there sits a broad, fertile valley known as Ahngtir.  Its lowland cities are lush with trade from the Moonsrest Sea and merchants passing between neighboring cities.

This story does not begin there.

Instead, we cast our gaze northward, to dark forests and windswept highlands when the wolves and winds howl in bone-chilling harmony and magic runs through society as thickly as mortar between bricks.

In these savage lands, two men whose names will echo for all of history are just beginning to write their sagas

Chapter 1

As I ran under leaf-laden boughs and the slowly growing pre-dawn light, I could feel the world shift around me.

The garish glows of night-colors faded from leaves and mushrooms as vibrant blooms started to unfurl.  Hoots and howls trailed off as the first strains of birdsong started up, and even the feel of wind through my fur changed ever so gradually.  Even the scenes shifted, the petrichor from the night's rain mingling with fragrant pollen and animal mush to paint me a picture of the world beyond the scant details of sight and sound.

To this I added my own scent and sound.  My paws thundered on the cool dirt and my snarls heralded the snap of bone as I ate a rabbit.  My scent sent the smaller animals that composed my breakfast running, and that made it all the sweeter when blood finally soaked my muzzle and still-warm meat slid down my gullet.

Once I sated myself, I took off on my patrol, using the blessings of my wolf's skin to search out any new dangers to the town and check up on known ones.  Grimfeather and her adorable gryfflets were sated, the game available in the valley precluding them from more sapient suppers.  The bandits lurking up in the old barrows were still behaving themselves after the last time we had to have a "Chat", even managing to avoid upsetting the treants.

There were whiffs of necromancy down at the battlefield graveyard along the Red Ford, though.  That was deeply concerning, especially considering the gnarled scar of magic upon the land there.  With that last check at the edge of the territory, I headed for home, the sun hanging low just above the horizon when I reached the gate, returning to my human flesh mid stride and grabbing my kilt from where i stashed it and wrapping the tartan cloth around myself so as not to scandalize the young maidens and bachelors.  I managed to time it just right, greeting the guards at the gate by name as the scent of almost-done pastries wafting down the street from the bakery.  By the time I reached it, the baker's lass was setting the pastries in the display, to be kept fresh and warm all day by the magic etched upon the glass.  

"Morning, Ingrid," I said as the bell on the door jingled

"Oh, Arthur!" Instead of the pleasant, lilting greeting she used for customers, she practically squeaked out my name in a voice several octaves higher than her usual, blushing and smoothing her dress.

I just smiled and nodded "Yes, it is I.  What's on the menu today?"

"Oh, it's all apple and pumpkin and cherry today," she said, pulling out a butcher's paper pouch, "I saved you a tart"

I took the pastry with a smile, bobbing my head and taking in the tart scent of the cherries, and then opened the paper and took a bite.  "This is delicious, Ingrid!  Tell your father thanks from me.  And thank you"

With that, I took my leave, whistling as I walked up the road to the manor at the center of town.  Like all structures in the Wolfswood, it was built for function first, with the details that displayed the wealth of its inhabitant coming in wards carved into the frame and lovingly made carvings on door frames and shutters rather than opulent carved marble or gold leaf. It felt the the whole town did.  Solid and old.

I let myself in the back way, grabbed my pack off of a peg by the door, and drew myself a bath in the washroom.  Runes at the joints of the old pipes drew water up from the well and heated it along the way.  Perfect for washing off the grime of the forest.  After washing and drying myself I dressed myself, pulling on my underthings and boots, then my tunic, and then pinning my kilt back on, making sure that everything sat right before walking down the wood paneled halls to the maproom.

Sitting behind the desk, draped in tartan in the same pattern as mine, save for the Ranger-Captain pin holding it in place was my mother, Ranger-Captain Brighid. Her knitting needles were clacking as she read over reports and wrote letters to be carried by raven to the smaller villages and thorpes in the area.

As I walked in and stood at parade rest she looked up and smiled "Good morning Arthur.  How was your patrol?"

I set half of the pastry i got from ingrid on her desk "The valley is calm, save for some trobling traces of necromancy over by the Red Ford," I said, fidgeting with my hands behind my back as my eyes slid across the room, across the books on the shelves, the basket of yarn, the magically updated map of the area, and my mother's cluttered-but-clean desk.

She understood, not demanding my eye contact, saying "Well that's no good.  We will have to put a watch on that area.  Any other trouble?"

"No, mum.  We'll have to keep an eye on the population of deer, but otherwise all is well," as I speak, she takes the tart and takes a bite, smiling at me as she swallows it.

"Good.  Make your reports, and then you're free for a few hours," she said, as amusement warmed her features, "I know that women hold no interest for you, but let that Ingrid lass down gently, otherwise you'll have to start buying the pastries you bring me every morning"

That gets a chuckle from me. "Of course, mum.  She knows, she's just nice."

The amusement then grows into mischief as she says "That is good.  Wouldn't want her to be disappointed when you and Cathair finally realize that you two are in love"

I have to take a moment to recover from choking on the water i was drinking out of my flask "Mother!" It comes out as a startled yelp  "He's just my friend!" I left the "closest" part out, since that would just encourage her "And, in any case, I'm not even looking for love right now," I say, trying to regain my composure.

Outside the maproom window, across the main square, there was a whoosh as the smith, Arden, brought the forge-fire to life with his magic, passed down from master to apprentice for centuries.  If Arden was up, it meant Cathair, his apprentice, was not far behind.

"Well, I will not keep you.  Go enjoy your morning, and we'll go take a look at the Red Ford this afternoon."

I gave my mother a smile and a nod, and turned, heading out of the room and then out to the square, thinking warmly about Cathair.

Chapter 2

As I stepped out into the square, i breathed in the warm air.  A relic of older days, it was encircled by a tall wall, with guardposts set atop and gates where the streets flowed out into town.  Within the wall's circumference were all the important services of the town.  The master smith, the post office, a tavern, the winter storehouses, a small library, the apothecary, a few shrines, and even a mage's tower all sat inside the walls.  There was another, stouter, wall around the rest of the town, of course, but all of the important buildings were gathered in the main square.  In times of war or calamity, the buildings in the main square could house the whole town, with a bit of difficulty.  The skills of Arden, and his necessity to keeping the rangers and guard well equipped, meant that he got pride of place directly across from the manor.  He usually preferred to prepare the forge by himself, and Cathair's skills were such that his abilities could be trusted not to slip.  Which meant that I could steal a good half hour of his time each morning.

Cathair was sitting on the porch, eating porridge and sipping at a new favorite kind of tea of ours that one of the traders brought up from down south, called coffee.  As always, i stopped to take the whole of him in, from his thick black hair and beard, to his piercing gold eyes contrasting his green skin, to his strong, tusked, jaw and muscular torso and across his powerful arms.  Even his clothes i fixed in my memory, a fusion of kilt and apron popular among smiths and other craftspeople over a long sleeved tunic, rolled up past his elbows, revealing hard won scars from his training as a smith.  Upon seeing me, those gold eyes lit up and a grin split his face under his tusks, mirrored on my own face.

"Arthur!" he called, sitting up and setting down his spoon.

I crossed the distance between myself and the porch in a few quick strides, grasping the forearm he offered me and saying "Cathair, it's good to talk to you!  I've missed having the chance the last few days!"

"Even if you hadn't been running all over hither and yon on four paws, I'd have been too busy with the forge to talk" he said, sitting back down and pouring me a cup of coffee.

"Well, that is how it goes.  It ended up being a lot of work for not much, but blazes if the evidence didn't have us all fooled."

"You're telling me.  Arden had me hammering out weapons and shields left and right only for it to end up being a teenager who misused a transformation spell scroll and ended up a wyvern"

I chuckle, taking a sip of my coffee after taking a moment to pull some of the heat out and toss it into the air, and say "Well, the armory can never be too well stocked.  One never knows what may lurk in the deep wilds."

Cathair nods, silent for a moment as he finishes his porridge.  "Well, I should go help Arden," he says as he gets up.

I get up too. "So soon?  Doesn’t he get ornery when you do that?"

"And?  He needs the help.  See you tomorrow for our day off?"

I felt my lips pulling into a wide grin. "Wouldn't miss it"

He then walks off, doing small, interesting, stretches to prepare for his day.

[bouncingkadachi]

Gifts Sunk Into the Sea

Summary: “Grief is just love with no place to go.” — Jamie Anderson

OR: You are eleven, your grandfather is dead, and you are alone in a house that suddenly feels far too big for one.

Word Count: 1,198

Note(s): Pre-game start. POV Second Person. The player character is small and trying their best, OK.

Also available on AO3!

The house seems bigger after your grandfather dies.

Objectively, you know that’s a silly thought. You’re eleven, not stupid. Your grandfather’s passing—the news delivered to Chief Gara and your family by way of an impersonal slip of a letter via the courier Felyne—doesn’t suddenly negate the fact that this was the same house that you were born and raised in, surrounded by the same furniture and tools and decorations. The shutters of your ocean-facing window still creak stubbornly until you give them a sharp tap to the top-left corner, after which they swing out with way too much gusto. Your shelves are still overflowing with jars of pretty shells gathered off the beach. The half-finished braided strap that you’ve been testing a new pattern on as a present for your grandfather is still thrown halfheartedly over a small loom covered with yarn. Everything is still the same as it was when you woke up this morning, before the windswept courier had arrived with the letter.

There’s no body to send off. There’s not even your grandfather’s Kinship Stone. Instead, the village elders enshrine the letter as a cheap substitute and push the little boat into Kamuna Bay for the last farewell. You track the wavering speck of candlelight as it drifts further away from the shore while the Songstress carries out the rest of the rites. Later, you nudge a lantern up into the air so that it can join the rest that are flocking off towards the Sacred Mountain. The entire time, you are childishly hoping that perhaps this is all some sort of ridiculous skit; a horrible prank; an unfortunate oversight, perhaps. Any moment now, Guardian Ratha will see the rising lights calling him and your grandfather home, and slip back down through the clouds.

Nothing ever comes of your wishful thinking.

Kayna’s family eventually herds you towards their own house, where they feed you soup and wrap you in hugs and let you stay the night amidst sympathetic faces, all bound together by loss. They let you stay as long as you’d like, actually, on account of you being neighbors and everyone’s habit of coming and going from each other’s houses to begin with. But eventually, you start to miss your bed. You miss it less for the bed itself, but for the familiarity of the bright red covers—a buoy of constancy in the murky sea that your grandfather's death has thrown you into.

Auntie’s lips purse when you tell her this. She fusses and shoves a basket laden with fruit and sweets and pre-portioned meals wrapped in coconut leaves into your arms. She fusses some more when you put on a brave face with all your might, yet even that doesn’t prevent your feet from dragging as you make your way down the scant few meters between Kayna’s house and yours. You think you hear her muttering to her family that she’s going to drag you back to a house that’s warm and full and alive. You wish she does it. You’re glad she doesn’t.

Your house—your house, because you never knew what exactly happened to your parents and your grandfather is dead now—is quiet. It is empty. It is familiar and foreign all at once. It feels like the walls might press in and squeeze all the air out of your lungs. It feels much larger than it reasonably ought to be, now that it doesn’t have the possibility of your grandfather’s larger-than-life personality to make it snug and cozy.

There is a tidal wave of feeling upsetting your stomach, even days later. Your eleven-year-old vocabulary is terribly ill-equipped to deal with it, but you know anger. You know it in the frustration that spills over from how slowly your crafting project is going. You know it in the glare you give the knotted strands of thread in your hands. Feeling indignant, you find, is easier than feeling sad or whatever else is in that hot lump lodged somewhere deep in your throat.

You fight with the yarn and tell yourself that you shouldn’t miss him that much anyway. Your grandfather wasn’t home all that often to begin with. He was always traveling here or there, his arrivals and departures heralded by little more than the tell-tale sound of his Rathalo’s beating wings. But when he did come back—

When he came back, his Rathalos would hone in on the pier and touch down with such gentleness that the waters below wouldn’t even ripple. He would laugh as you sprinted towards him, full-bodied and deep and with the kind of genuine joy that made his eyes crinkle. When you would inevitably slam into him like a torpedo he’d just take the impact, letting Guardian Ratha support his back with a nudge of its great scaly head. And then he would greet you, large hands cupped on your cheeks, calloused from a life spent in the saddle. He’d rub his thumbs in hard enough to give your face artificial color, but not once have you ever minded. Only your grandfather greeted you like that, after all—fond and overenthusiastic and again and again and again on the short trek back home, just because you liked it. 

There won’t ever be anyone who will greet you like that ever again, even though you’ve always gotten and continue to get plenty of affection and love from your fellow villagers. There won’t be anyone to tackle in welcome on the pier anymore. When you go on trips out of the village, there would no longer be a familiar steady presence to guide you across the meadows or through the tangles of jungle. Guardian Ratha would no longer shadow your steps, gingerly picking up any spilled herbs and shrooms from your basket with his teeth. You are convinced, with all the power of your small childish self, that you will never find anyone who can laugh the same way that your grandfather did ever again.

Despite everything, you finish the strap, and sink it in the bay by heaving it into the water with a tremendous throw. Grief, you’d learned, was all the clumsy precision of small fingers and all the care of a hurting heart pouring into a project that would never be seen by its intended recipient. It is the habit of continuing to document the little going-ons of your life, of picking out your favorites and readying them to be shared, only to face the resulting misery when they sit, untold, in the hollow of your chest. Maybe—just maybe—you will finally be free of this nebulous feeling after you’ve sunk ten or even twenty more straps into the sea. Or maybe you will turn the bay into an entire graveyard of threads, and still it would not be enough. You are not sure which is worse. No one seems to have an answer for you, though they try their best.

You are eleven. (You are only eleven.)

Your grandfather is dead. (There was nothing to bury, not even his Kinship Stone.)

You are alone in a house that suddenly feels far too big for one. (You are alone.)

[veebs-hates-video-games]

And a couple more failed attempts to play games.

Persona 5 Strikers is the least fun I've ever had with a Warriors/Musou game. It has the same agonizingly slow pacing the mainline SMT/Persona games frequently do (and Metaphor too, judging by the demo), which works for some people but is totally incompatible with my ADHD. And then even after like 40 minutes straight of dialogue (in a supposed action game) the gameplay just doesn't do it for me at all in any way. I award you no points. Get off my computer. Somehow the only SMT/Persona-adjacent games I've actually enjoyed are still Tokyo Mirage Sessions and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.

Also Once on a Windswept Night is another victim of "second person is not a valid point of view". I wish I could set up custom filters to block that stuff like on AO3, because it's just not my jam. I will give it points for being the only thing I've ever played on the Steam Deck that somehow broke the keyboard overlay so badly that I couldn't even close or hide it long enough to force quit the game.

I like it more when I don't live up to this blog's name quite so well as I have been this week. Maybe I'll have better luck next week.

[myladybelle]

𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐍? | prologue

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: art donaldson x female!reader x patrick zweig 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you’ve always been content being second place to your best friend tashi duncan, waiting for the day you can quit tennis. your world is upended when you meet art and patrick, and you’re forced to embrace a life in the sport you’ve been too afraid to claim for yourself. 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠(𝐬): bad relationship with controlling mother, use of y/n 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 605 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: y/i stands for your initial since your and tashi’s nicknames for each other are the initial of your first name. this prologue is a quick intro to the reader and her relationship to tennis and tashi. more to come very soon, i hope you enjoy xx 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭

𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐃𝐀𝐋𝐄, 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊 – 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐘 𝟐𝟗, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗

The last thing you expected was to get a text from Tashi Duncan asking you to meet at her hotel during the Phil’s Tire Town ATP Challenger in New Rochelle. Four weeks from the 2019 US Open and your attempt at winning your 20th Grand Slam title, the woman who used to be like your sister wasn’t on your mind. Even though you liked to think you’d moved on from the tumultuous relationships that plagued your teens and twenties, one text from Tashi was all it took to throw you off your game at practice that day.

UNKNOWN: I need to see you. New Rochelle Ritz-Carlton lobby, tonight. -T

You had to laugh at the universe’s sense of humour. 

Tashi was practically around the corner. You’d been raised in the affluent and perfectly manicured town of Scarsdale, New York, in a lifeless estate your mother earned with her illustrious tennis career. You hated every second of it growing up. Ever since you could remember, you promised you wouldn’t end up there. Yet here you were on the estate that your career-long endorsement from Nike practically signed the cheque for. It had a private tennis court where your father now coached you and was, coincidentally, ten minutes away from your former best friend’s hotel. 

You didn’t owe it to Tashi to come see her. 

After all, she was the one whose venomous words had cut the ties of your friendship in the first place. But that was after Art and Patrick. Your lives had been so different before that fateful night you first met the pair of best friends. You agreed to meet Tashi for the sake of a friendship that used to be the only important thing in your life.

Y/N: I’ll be there at 8pm if you come alone

Her reply came seconds later as if she was sitting by the phone waiting to hear from you.

TASHI: Thank you, Y/I. I’ll leave your name at the reception.

In your earliest memories, your hair is tied out of your face, your tennis shoes are laced tightly, and you’re staring up at your mother as she corrects your posture. You’re holding a Wilson tennis racket, a children’s version of the same model your mother used at Grand Slams in the 70s, and holding back tears. You couldn’t have been older than five, and your future was written for you. 

Your tennis coaches emphasised to your mother that this stage of tennis training was essential to making the sport fun and fostering a love for the game, and she’d ignore their advice.

The first time tennis was fun for you was when you were fourteen years old, and you played a girl named Tashi Duncan at a tennis club match for girls. Her backhand was like thunder, and for once, you forgot all of your mother’s perfectionistic laments and realised how exciting the game could be when your opponent truly loved the sport. When you won the match, Tashi looked windswept and stunned. While you expected her to give you a reluctant handshake before rushing off to regroup with her coach, fourteen-year-old Tashi Duncan had given you a hug and asked to exchange numbers.

“I’ve never played with another real tennis player before,” Tashi gushed when you typed your number into her phone. “I can tell you actually understand the game. I look forward to battling it out with you again.”

Neither of you realised that most of your battles would play out off the court or that they’d hurt far more than losing a game of tennis.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #633

Top Ten Fictional Cities

If there’s one thing I like in my fiction, it’s a good sense of place. You want to be immersed in an alternative world; so it’s nice to know where you actually are. Of course, tons of fiction is set in real places: whether that’s an historical drama like The Crown necessarily inhabiting the palaces Queen Elizabeth did actually occupy; or a film such as The Full Monty being specifically set in contemporary Sheffield; or even the bulk of the MCU taking place in what’s supposed to be a believable version of New York. Plenty of films and shows and books and everything else revel in their location; how many times have we heard “the city is a character”, usually when describing urban crime dramas (or, frankly, Batman films)? But it’s true; a great location can ground a story, or it can transport you. There can be a realness even to the most fantastical of fictional locales.

And I really do love a fictional locale. Whether it’s the unrecognisable cityscapes of the likes of Blade Runner or The Fifth Element – ostensibly set in real-world cities such as Los Angeles and New York many years hence (“many years” in Blade Runner’s case being, er, 2019) – or places that are made up entirely, it’s great to see the wildness, weirdness, and even the realism that these made-up metropoli deliver. Think about it: how many of your favourite fictions take place in not-real location? Of course you can look at total fantasies like Lord of the Rings, or sci-fi stories that exist on other planets; but whether it’s as crazy a place as Roger Rabbit’s Toontown, the sprawling cities of games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Crackdown, or even the fictionalised township of Derry, Maine in several Stephen King stories, across the gamut of genre, medium, and audience, we have places that aren’t real giving us stories that feel real.

Because, again, the best settings reinforce the fiction they envelop. I don’t want to pre-empt the list itself, but look at how Gotham and Metropolis reflect the heroes that live there. This can be both sublime and ridiculous: the way the fictionalised cities of Grand Theft Auto serve not only to reinforce the themes of the games they inhabit, but also work as subtle (and not so subtle) parodies of American life; but also the way you’d get a place like Duckburg in Duck Tales, or even Far, Far Away in the Shrek movies, that really don’t have much purpose other than giving fantastical cartoon characters a home and allowing for some wince-inducing puns when it comes to the names of shops and stuff.

Blimey, I’ve wanged on a bit this week.

Anyway, I love a made-up city, that’s what I’m saying. And that’s what this list is, if you hadn’t guessed. Now, as usual, I’ve given myself rules; one is that these are supposed to be cities. There’s one that I’m not certain of (I’ll come to it) – it might be a town, technically, but I’ve allowed it on the basis of its iconicness (is that a word?). Also, they have to be fictional; so the likes of Marvel’s New York or Blade Runner’s LA are out. As are, frankly, the in-all-but-name cities of GTA; I don’t really think Liberty City is any more fictional than the New York inhabited by the Avengers, it’s just got a made-up name to go along with its made up buildings and locations. This has also stretched to Neo-Tokyo from Akira, which is really just Tokyo with a hole in the middle. However, I am allowing Mega-City One.

I think that’s it. Let’s go on a city break!

Gotham and Metropolis (Batman and Superman comics, from 1938): yes, once again I cheat at the start. Two cities! But often they’re thought of as twin cities, so, y’know. Whatever. Anyway: they are always a yin and a yang, the light and the dark, reflections of their principal heroes. Metropolis, shining city on the hill, beacon of the future; Gotham, dark and brooding gothic vision, its windswept alleys awash with rain. They’ve been called New York in the day and New York in the night, and as representations of the beauty, optimism, darkness, and danger of cities – of American cities; of America – they’re perfect. So perfect they’re almost certainly the first fictional cities you thought of too. So perfect they can be high-tech futurescapes, twisted neon-drenched, fume-belching furnaces, or just broadly realistic interpretations of real places (in Donner’s Superman, Metropolis is literally New York, Statue of Liberty and all). No fake place is as redolent. They are the ur-cities. And, of course, they have the best superheroes.

Coruscant (Star Wars stories, officially from 1997): the retro-futuristic art deco stylings of its skyline is one thing – the hovering platforms in the clouds, the vast curving domes of the buildings – but the fact that the entire planet is one big city is its big talking point. Taking the concept of sprawling metropolis (small “m”) to its most ridiculous degree, it’s a crazy sci-fi concept in a film series built on crazy sci-fi concepts.

Autobot City (The Transformers: The Movie, 1986): the notion of the Autobots – long trapped in their crashed spaceship – building a permanent city on Earth was cool enough. But the fact that it can transform into a bristling battle-station is even better. And its design is cool; a sci-fi version of a medieval fortress, moat and all. Gets extra points because, depending on who you believe, it may turn into an actual Transformer, or just have one sleeping beneath it. Fun fact: in the original script it was even referred to as “Fortress Maximus”!

Springfield (The Simpsons, from 1987): it’s a hell of a town; the schoolyard’s up and the shopping mall’s down. This is the minor controversy, because I don’t know if Springfield is a city or a town; but to hell with it, chances are if you didn’t think of Gotham or Metropolis, you thought of this place. Over thirty-odd years of the series, Springfield has developed into a believable, if exaggerated, township; we know some of these locations like the back of our hand. Moe’s, the Power Plant, the burning tyre yard, Springfield Elementary, yada yada yada. It’s a perfectly realised unreal place.

Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor (The Lord of the Rings, 1954): technically, I believe that “Gondor” is the realm and the huge walled city. Its seven walled levels climb upwards, providing multiple rings of defence, and looking somewhat like a giant swirl on top of a colossal cupcake. The promontory rock jutting out the front, and the beautiful citadel on its topmost level, make for an incredibly striking and unique design, as well as offering functionality. It’s an amazing, fantastical, incredible location.

Mega-City One (Judge Dredd, 1977): whilst this city does contain New York, it also stretches across pretty much the entire eastern seaboard of the US, so it’s, y’know, big. Possibly the poster child for sprawling post-apocalyptic metropolis, it’s a vast, corrupt, horrible place overseen by a fascist police force. Pick your depressing sci-fi trope, it’s here. Interesting to ponder what it says about the British view of America, really.

Ankh-Morpork (Discworld stories, from 1983): possibly lower down the list than some would have it, because (whispers) I’ve not read much Discworld. But as a place, it’s incredibly well-realised, a brilliant multifaceted fantasy location that feels incredibly real and dynamic and lived-in, and (typical for Pratchett) reflects our own world so perfectly.

Rapture (BioShock, 2007): it’s part-city, part underwater laboratory, yeah? But the notion of a man-made utopia going to pot is a common sci-fi go-to. Here, the distinct areas of the city, and how they reflect the various obsessions and perversions of the pseudo-fascist nutters who ran the place, are beautiful to behold and terrifying to ponder. Plus, as an emergent and interactive bit of design, the location is tremendous to wander around, the retro art design great to behold, the distressed and decaying façade of gaudy old-timey whimsey disturbing but also quaintly amusing.

Zootopia (Zootopia, 2016): cities in talking-animal movies usually just look like real cities but there’ll be dreadful puns, like a burger place called “McDognald’s” or something. Zootopia tries to imagine how all these different animals would co-exist, with fascinating results, including different temperate zones, vast tubes connecting different areas, and buildings of varying sizes that result in our relatively-diminutive leads towering kaiju-like over the proceedings.

San Angeles (Demolition Man, 1993): I was worried this was a bit of a cheat too, as it’s an amalgam of two real cities, but this new metropolis emerged from the ashes of a devastating earthquake so – like Mega-City One – it counts. And for once we have more of a culture than a design that stands out; true, the three seashells and sexy curvy cars are a highlight, but it’s the way this city imposes its morality, the way the future erased 20th century vices, and the way – frankly – everyone speaks that sets this out as a fascinating little town of tomorrow. Be well, San Angeles. Be well.

[jamesgalgano]

ALL TOO FAMILIAR GAME

All too familiar game By james a. galgano

Sailing Ship lost passing in the night Windswept embraces the sails billowing forward Within the deck below the crew cowers in fear As the bomb cyclone overtook control Steering the galleon into approaching storms intensity The captain puts on a fractured face of calm Until the vessels masts begin to bend in the wind The sails are drawn closed in hopes to remedy The obvious plight portending doom and calamity The awaiting horizon holds little hope a certainty Had the world been flat as once believed The ship would have fallen into the gravity of despair Now they are just the grips of whirlwinds care Propelling it towards an inevitable inescapable doom The media description of its demise only sought out blame Ignoring the lives lost in life’s all too familiar game Where life may be what we make of it Despite all being captive prisoners to what can’t be rearranged It all ends as fate would have it without those lives’ lost names Within the embrace of life’s all too familiar game

[silvertonguc]

     brown eyes, forever bright with life and eagerness, expanded upon asriel's initial words. so ... current summons was not consequence of careless actions? lyra, who could easily have reeled off a dozen recent incidents of which she fell firmly in the centre of, pursed gaping lips together to prevent digging herself a deeper hole and shrugged off earlier comment. 

     "oh ..." came eventual reply, careful and more thoughtful than was typical. "nevermind." thankfully, her father appeared distracted and, if lyra read him correctly, in an unusually cheerful mood.

     gradually, as they walked, curiosity grew to profound levels. once entering their lounge, intense orbs bored into ice blue, as though attempting to decipher what might be communicated before the words could form. pantalaimon, in ermine form, gravitated towards stelmaria, white neck extending towards larger, spotted form while small ears twitched.

     despite remaining lost for guesses, lyra hoped her father would share information from travels she longed to one day join... the type of information the child might develop adventurous games from, or might dream about that night. certainly, she could not have anticipated the man to reveal he was courting, much less a woman so recently met. 

     "what?" words barely sounded before the 'extraordinary', 'intelligent' woman her father had only just met was summoned into the lounge, a most unsettling, unique daemon stalking beside her.

     while the two of them were introduced, windswept, untidy youth fixed the duchess with a half-smile, half-sneer... subtle. lyra believed herself capable of expressing automatic dislike without the trouble initially suspected catching up to her after all. 

     "err... thanks?" mumbled the princess in response to marisa's greeting. following a brief glance in her father's direction, brown eyes returned to the newcomer, "how do you do?" pleasantry tasted terribly bitter, forced up dry throat as lyra attempted to process her shifting universe.

Asriel said nothing about the state of Lyra, she was his daughter and he was King, the most powerful person in this region. Why should he care if anyone had a problem with Lyra's untidiness? In truth, he had been, perhaps, far too lax with her, not that Asriel came to that conclusion. His advisors suggested it at times, and he paid them no mind.

"You didn't do anything, not that I know of anyway." Asriel chuckled. "As suspicious as that sounds, I'll let the matter drop. No, I simply want to tell you something, Lyra. Something important."

By now, as Asriel led Lyra into their lounge, Marisa was finished getting ready after their little excursion. As such, she went downstairs to the lounge where Asriel asked her to meet them, though she waited outside until Asriel would call for her.

"Now, Lyra." Asriel began, serious now despite his earlier, relaxed tone. The regal snow leopard watched Pantalaimon with soft eyes, as soft as the small smile that remained on Asriel's face as he spoke to their daughter. "On my recent journey, I met someone. Someone extraordinary. She's intelligent, she's beautiful, and she's very excited to meet you, Lyra. I intend to court her, to see if she will be a suitable match for me. But I must admit, I already feel very strongly about her. So I want you to give her a chance, alright? Have an open mind." he told her. Eager, perhaps too eager, Asriel called out to Marisa before Lyra responded. "Marisa?"

The woman walked in, her movements as graceful and delicate as the golden monkey's that walked by her side. He wanted nothing more than to leap into Stelmaria's embrace, longing to be against her plush fur again, but he kept himself in check. Marisa focused on Lyra, smiling gently at her. There was a bit of hesitation, but only a bit, and she did a good job of hiding it. She would certainly talk to Asriel later about this; The girl was covered in grass stains and her hair was a mess, but despite it all... this was her daughter. Seeing her for the first time, Marisa felt her heart begin to melt.

"Lyra, this is Duchess Marisa Coulter. Marisa, this is my daughter, Lyra." Asriel introduced.

Marisa fought back the urge to cry. She remained composed, and her expression was gentle as she gazed at Lyra. The golden monkey looked over at Pantalaimon, tempted to reach out, but again refraining.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Lyra." Marisa spoke.

[blossom-hwa]

these endless summer nights | k.sy

inspired by the song endless summer by cashae. you should give it a listen :) also I am experimenting w new fic layouts so sorry if everything’s a little different atm 💕

Pairing: Hoshi x gender neutral!reader

Genre: fluff, university!au, summer romance!au

Triggers: allusions to sex (nothing graphic), drinking

Word Count: 7k

This summer feels endless, spent in each other’s arms.

Yeonjun (TXT) Ver. | Seventeen Masterlist

You got me wrapped around your finger

Every moment I see you

At the end of the night I’m begging please, don’t go

.

When you wake to summer sunshine streaming through the slats of your window, the first thing you see is the mop of hair that is decidedly not yours sharing the pillow beneath your head.

“Oh my god.”

The sleeping boy doesn’t awaken, which gives you a moment to process the embarrassment of having spoken to no one at all, as well as relive the memories that brought you to this moment right here.

A party you weren’t supposed to be at but that Seungcheol invited you to anyway. Drinks, music – conversation over a thumping bass with people you had just met, some games where you learned too much and laughed too loud. Someone’s hand on your knee as you spun a bottle, giggling like a teenager, then sharp eyes smiling into yours and that same hand drifting up to touch your cheek as you leaned in, mind abuzz and lips tingling as people cheered in the background –

The boy in your bed right now, soft breaths still fluttering gentle against your skin.

This time, as your eyes drift to the hair spread across your pillow, you don’t say a word. Instead you lift a hand from the rumpled sheets to touch the mop, running your fingers lightly through the soft strands. It was styled last night, you think – artfully windswept like he’d spent the day at the beach nearby, those sharp eyes crinkled into the smile he greeted you with as he laughed under the sun.

“Isn’t it a little weird to be touching a stranger’s hair while they’re sleeping?”

The words that burst from your lips are a lot stronger than oh my god this time.

Dark eyes blink open, already narrowing into that laughing smile you were remembering just moments prior. And as his gaze meets yours under the light spilling through the window, right after you had just started to calm your heartbeat, you have to take a moment to catch your breath again.

“I think I touched a lot more last night,” you finally say. He’s still so close, hasn’t bothered to shift away or move at all from his place against the pillow. If you wanted, you could give in to the lingering urge to press closer, closer, and have those lips against yours once more.

When he laughs, raspy with sleep but bright as the sun, the urge only grows stronger.

“Fair enough.” He shifts, then, letting the blankets slip from his bare shoulders. “So what happens now?”

What happens now, indeed. Not kissing, probably. But you don’t want to part from this sunshine boy either, don’t want to leave behind the messy hair and blooming smile and strong, gentle touch you remember he used with you last night, hands soft and warm against your skin.

Maybe for another one night stand you would’ve showed him the door, bade him a polite goodbye and never thought about him again. But today, as you shrug off the blankets, letting them pool around your waist...

You smile back.

And as he stares up at you with sunlight dancing in his eyes, you dare to believe he finds your grin as beautiful as you find his.

“I’m kind of hungry,” you say. “Breakfast?”

.

Starry eyes under moonlight

Then you lean in and can I

Take this moment to say this feels so right?

.

Breakfast does happen. Not in your apartment because you haven’t gone grocery shopping yet and Soonyoung – that’s his name, the name of the boy made of summer sunshine – agrees that he’d probably like something more substantial than cereal, but at the little café down the street. Coffee and pastries, maybe more expensive than you’d have liked, but worth it for the little sparkle that lights in Soonyoung’s eyes when he bites into his chocolate croissant, and worth more for the words that fill the air between you two as the morning passes on.

Lunch happens too, then, after you walk with Soonyoung to his place where you sit on the couch and play with his orange cat, Horangi (“He’s like a little tiger!” “He’s an orange tabby, Soonyoung.”) as he changes in the next room. He pays this time for the street stall food, greasy and delicious and worth every cheap penny, and then there’s a park nearby that Soonyoung mentions and your heart jumps a little to see the hope in his eyes as he looks at you. As though he feels the same way, doesn’t want this – whatever this is – to end.

The sky is blue and the grass is green and Soonyoung shines bright against the sun with every word that falls from his lips, every laugh that echoes in the open air. And when you look at the time that’s passed, hours whiled away since the moment you touched his hair under the morning sunlight, and tell him that you really need to go grocery shopping or your roommate who’s coming back tomorrow might actually kill you, he insists on coming, and then insists on helping you carry the bags back to your home.

“You really didn’t need to come with me to do something as boring as grocery shopping,” you say, dropping your bags on the kitchen floor.

“But I wanted to.” He giggles in this silly little way that makes your heart flutter ridiculously, and that kills any residual argument that might have found its way to your lips.

Putting away groceries turns into making dinner and that turns into the two of you sitting at your kitchen table, sharing from the several dishes laid across the top. Soonyoung’s cheeks bulge like a chipmunk, or a hamster, or just one of those little animals that store food in their cheeks, and when you admit that this is the reason why you’re giggling, he just shrugs. “The food’s really good.”

You may be able to cook, but your simple dishes are absolutely not worth the way he’s shoveling food between his lips. You let him know as much.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shoves another spoonful into his mouth. A stray drop of sauce lingers at the corner of his grinning lips. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Your only response is to wipe the sauce away, failing to hide the smile threatening to split across your face.

Soonyoung insists on helping you with the dishes and then spends more time distracting you than actually washing. You splash water at him in retaliation and then your cackles fill the apartment as he screeches, swiping soapy droplets from his face. He sits himself on the counter and cracks jokes until your sides ache with laughter and you can barely hold yourself up to place the last dish away to dry, and when you meet eyes with him again, you can’t help it when your gaze falls to his lips once more.

You walk him out when he admits he needs to go, an early dance practice tomorrow that he can’t miss, and even though you know you couldn’t afford to spend another late morning in his arms because of your own schedule, the urge to grab his hand, ask him to stay, beg him not to leave almost overwhelms your throat when he turns to you under the pale moonlight outside. His eyes look like stars against the dark sky.

“Today was nice,” he says first, voice softer than it’s been the entire day. Moonlight glitters on his face and still he shines as though the sun were still in the sky.

“It was,” you breathe, and that’s all the cue either of you needs to close the gap between your lips.

He kisses like a dream, playful and serious all at once, an arm sliding around your waist to bring you closer, closer as your own hands rise to his cheeks, caressing the soft skin. He’s gentle and he’s strong and he’s everything that urged you to stay with him all day when you would’ve left anyone else that morning without a second thought.

“Text me when you get home,” you say when you pull away for air, hands still gripping those of the boy made of sunshine.

“I will,” he promises. “I’ll see you again.”

It’s so easy to laugh with him, fingers intertwined as though neither of you will ever let go. “I’ll hold you to that.”

.

Eyes on you, eyes on me

Can’t let go, ‘cause it’s all I need

.

He’s a dancer, the boy made of stars and sunshine. Which you knew – that first night he’d mentioned an early dance practice he needed to wake up for – but somehow that knowledge still doesn’t quite prepare you for what you find when you show up to his studio a few days later, a response to the text he’d sent earlier that morning (I’m free after my practice today! ends at 5 :3).

Soonyoung, sweat plastering dyed hair to his forehead, limbs like water as he spins in front of the walls of glass and mirrors. The look in his eyes freezes you in place – electrifying, you think, like the dazzling flashes of lightning that strike during the beachfront storms – and you stay there, rooted in place even after the music has long stopped playing and Soonyoung has turned to you, those very same eyes crinkling into the sunshine smile you’ve grown to miss over just these past few days.

“Y/N!” He bounds over, arms outstretched, and you almost fall into them before he suddenly drops them, embarrassment shading his cheeks red. “Oh, uh – I’m pretty sweaty, sorry I forgot –”

“When were you going to tell me you could dance like that?”

Soonyoung’s mouth closes. Opens. Closes again. His ears are red too, now, and if you weren’t still in shock over the last few moments of your life you might’ve been laughing with the affection welling in your chest.

“I – um – let me shower,” he finally says, voice a little higher pitched than you remember it. This time you do laugh, at his voice and the pout that settles on his lips at your first giggle. “I’ll be done soon, promise.”

He comes out ten minutes later, hair damp from the water, and you resist the urge to run your fingers through it as he leads you through the glass studio doors. “You’re really cute when you’re shy,” you say instead, smiling as his cheeks return to the same light shade of pink they were earlier. “I would’ve thought you’d be used to this kind of compliment by now. You’re… that was insane, and I was only there for a minute.”

The sun is still bright at five seventeen pm on this warm summer afternoon, and its rays seem to frame Soonyoung’s pink face like a painting, a living painting of a boy born from sunshine. But no painting could capture the moment when he looks at you, eyes shy and sparkling, and says, “Yeah, but it sounds a little different, coming from you.”

.

Eyes on you, eyes on me

.

You find an empty bench in the park, sit there and talk about everything and nothing all at once as the sun plays between the trees. Dappled light falls on Soonyoung’s face and as his hands wave in the air, animating the unfortunate story he wants to tell you about his roommate and some murderous pigeon (he’s my best friend, he says, you’ll love him when you meet him, and it doesn’t escape you that he says when and not if, like he sees you in his future with no room for uncertainty), you can only laugh and nod and stare, unable to pull your eyes from his warmth, a sunflower following the light of his smile.

When the sky starts to turn pink and purple, the remnants of day fading into night, you finally stand from your perches on the bench. Soonyoung takes your hand on the way to the convenience store under his apartment and holds it as he pays for the packets of ramen you tote back to his place. Horangi the cat greets you two at the door and you let go to give him the attention he desires and deserves, but the lingering warmth of Soonyoung’s fingers stays pressed to your palm long after.

There’s no party tonight, but there is convenience store ramen and half a bottle of wine Soonyoung finds in the back of some cabinet. There are no wine glasses – I broke one and my roommate broke the other literally a week later at the exact same time, you’d have thought it was planned – so you use mugs instead.

You laugh at the setup when it’s finished, cheap wine and cheap ramen laid out like a feast. So does Soonyoung, warm giggle brushing against your neck as he sidles up and takes your hand in his again naturally, so naturally, like they belong together.

This time, he doesn’t let go.

.

Can’t let go, ‘cause it’s all I need

.

(When you wake up in the morning, legs tangled together beneath rumpled sheets, you’re still holding hands.)

.

So pull me closer, closer

While we still have time

.

The last wall between you crashes down with the passing of that day, a wall of casual touch and affection that you didn’t realize you could have built so strongly in such a short time – but Soonyoung is different, different in the way you seem have to known each other, known each other’s bodies and minds even before you met. He knows how to kiss you slow and deep, knows how to hold you close to his chest so that you can feel his heartbeat against your skin. He knows when to tangle your hands together and when to squeeze to let you know I’m here, I’m still here, I’m not going away anytime soon.

Days with him feel like years and seconds all at once. Time passes in scenes, in moments – you’re at the beach in one, splashing each other in the waves, and the next he’s loafing on your apartment couch as type away at the kitchen table nearby. He’s dancing down the street, movements exaggerated for your laughter, and then he has you pressed gently to the wall, lips swallowing the last giggles on the tip of your tongue. One summer night after another, endless – Soonyoung is forever, you come to believe, eternity in the graze of his hands against yours, in the moonlit sparkle of his eyes under the night sky.

.

And let me hold you, hold you

On these endless summer nights

.

When he holds you, it feels as though you swim among the stars.

.

So pull me closer, closer

.

One hot evening in the middle of July, Soonyoung calls you as you’re leaving the lab to the setting sun outside. “I’m dyeing my hair again.”

“… Now?”

“I’m going white blond,” he continues as though you never said anything. “You wanna help?”

Your feet immediately go to turn in their tracks, heading for the bus stop in the opposite direction. You pause though, wary of the sudden movement – because you like Soonyoung, like him so much, but there’s still that little residual fear that you like him a little too much and that won’t be good for you or him in the long run.

You talked about this with Joshua and Seungcheol, though – told them how you felt about Soonyoung, how you’ve never felt this way for anyone else before, but that you were worried things were moving a little too quickly to be safe. For all their usual joking around they’d listened carefully as you spoke, and when you were finished, they had advice to give.

“Is moving too fast the only thing you’re worried about? Or has he… done anything, I guess, to make you feel uncomfortable about being in a relationship with him?” Joshua had asked.

“I’ve never been uncomfortable with him,” you’d said, and even as the words left your mouth you knew they were true. There have been moments of miscommunication that made things pause, of course, but uncomfortable? Never. “It’s just the speed, I guess.”

“Well, you say you’ve never felt this way about anyone else.” Seungcheol had shrugged. “If you click so well with him, I don’t think it’s fair to use other relationships as a golden standard to hold him by.”

Which was – fair. And true. Their words settled your misgivings and you’d told them as much, gratitude in your smile. Of course, Seungcheol had immediately claimed best man rights when you and Soonyoung inevitably get married or whatever because “I’m the one who invited you to that party so I was basically your matchmaker,” so maybe Joshua was the only one who deserved your gratitude.

So when Soonyoung calls that day, after that initial pause, you let your feet guide the way to the other bus stop and scoff into the phone. “It’s funny how you still think you need to ask.”

.

While we still have time

.

Seokmin opens the door when you arrive and immediately points to the bathroom. “Tell him not to make a colossal mess, please.”

You laugh and so does he, because if there’s one thing you both know about Soonyoung, it’s that he does what he wants how he wants, and like the hurricanes that sweep the beach, only rarely can anyone divert the path of destruction that follows. But that’s him, Soonyoung, his power and passion lighting the world, destroying it as it stands only to build it up anew.

“Seokmin says not to make a mess,” you tell him anyway as the two of you cover every open surface in preparation for whatever chaos will follow. “He said please.”

“No promises,” is all Soonyoung says, the summer sunshine grin splitting his face even as the sky grows dark outside.

He’s wearing an old t-shirt, a ragged towel stained in many colors slung around his shoulders. It’s clear he knows what he’s doing by the way he handles the dye, mixing it and then carefully applying it to his hair with the confidence of someone who’s done this sort of thing many times. He obviously doesn’t need you for anything other than cleanup, maybe – especially not with your complete absence of knowledge in the art of hair-dyeing.

“Why’d you ask me to come?” you ask when the dye job is done. His hair is white blond now, just like he said, and he looks as handsome as ever. You really want to kiss him.

Soonyoung blinks. “Were you bored?”

“No!” And you weren’t – watching him dye his hair was an experience in and of itself and you can’t deny your pride in being the first to see him with the new color. “I just… didn’t do anything to help.”

He shrugs, then, cheeks puffing out with his smile. “You didn’t need to help,” he says, going back to wiping down the counter. “I just wanted you here.”

.

And let me hold you, hold you

.

You cook for him and Seokmin later that night when your heart has stopped skipping beats and your brain has calmed down because Soonyoung is abysmal in the kitchen and Seokmin has been tired these days. It’s made a little difficult, however, by the way Soonyoung can’t seem to keep his hands off of you for even a second.

“Are you ever going to let go of me?” you ask at some point, amusement rippling across your words as you attempt to maneuver yourself around the tiny kitchen, one Kwon Soonyoung hugging your waist from the back with his nose nuzzled into your neck.

Soonyoung looks up slightly, meeting eyes with you in the faint reflection of a metal pot. His newly dyed hair almost seems to glow in the light overhead sparking off the metal. It seems he embodies the brightness of the universe no matter what, the sun, the moon, the sky, the stars, and in that moment as his smile widens, you know – you know –

You love him.

And maybe if you hadn’t had that talk with your friends, you’d be freaking out right now about love coming too fast and being unsure whether or not this was love or infatuation or something else that would burn too bright and too quickly, leaving you scorched in its wake, but today you only find yourself sinking further into Soonyoung’s hold, smiling back at him in the reflection.

If this is love, it’s more beautiful than anything you thought it could be.

.

On these endless summer nights

.

When Soonyoung still doesn’t answer, you nudge him with your shoulder. “Are you?”

His head ducks down, burying his nose into your neck again. “No,” he says, and you can feel the sunshine smile on his face warm against your skin. “Never.”

My god, you think as he sways you side to side, his arms never once falling from their place around your waist. I love you so much.

.

(Endless summer nights)

.

(When Soonyoung drops you off at your apartment the next morning, Joshua the token disgusted roommate says he’s never seen a grosser couple than the two of you. Seokmin, despite having sworn that he is the epitome of a sweet summer child, agrees wholeheartedly.)

.

Skies have never been clearer

Grass has never been greener

And the feeling gets stronger, each and every time

.

Soonyoung wishes – really fucking wishes – he remembered how you two met. The exact way, not just the generic we saw each other at a party and kissed and one thing led to another and we ended up in the same bed. He wants to remember the moment you met his eyes or he met yours, what he said to you that ended with his hand on your knee as you spun an empty glass bottle in the center of a rowdy circle, what led to the smile on your face as you leaned in to kiss him, the yells of the crowd blurring to background noise in his ears against the soft pressure of your lips.

But there is one thing he does remember, a memory that he will always treasure – waking up to you the morning after, your fingers running soft in his hair, and his first coherent thought being that in your presence, all the colors in the world only seemed brighter.

The sun was spilling through the windows, light spinning gold onto your face and body still half covered in the sheets. He’d said something dumb and you’d freaked, he knows, a litany of curses spewing from your lips, and that only made him laugh because you looked so cute, flustered in this way.

I think I touched a lot more last night, you’d finally replied, raising one eyebrow.

To Soonyoung it felt a little like a challenge. The eyebrow raise was what did it, finished off the perfect retort to whatever his dumb mouth had decided to say. He remembers half of him wanted to egg you on, say something else to prolong this verbal ping pong match, but there was the tiredness still pulling down his eyes and the tipsily hungover headache behind the bridge of his nose and the knowledge that even though he might want to learn you, to know you more than just the blissful last night, he might be overstaying his welcome. One night stands are one thing. Staying after is another.

So he’d laughed, then, almost on reflex, and conceded your point. It was a good one. And he’d asked what would happen next, because that’s all he could think about then – overstaying his welcome, possibly not overstaying his welcome, getting the opportunity to maybe talk with you more than you did last night and preferably not over alcohol spiked drinks, and he was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t catch your mouth opening to speak –

But he saw the smile blooming wide across your face as you slipped from the blankets, the way sunshine turned brighter against your eyes and cheeks.

And in that moment, nothing in the world could have made him look away.

.

Locked in you and I can’t find

These emotions so can I

Take this moment to say this feels so right

.

There’s – something about you, Soonyoung thinks, something indescribable, a je ne sais quoi if he’s feeling fancy – a quality to you that seems to breathe life into everything you see, everything you hear, everything you touch. The sky looks bluer, the grass greener when you walk by his side in the park, your laugh spilling music into the air as he tells you about the unfortunate tale of Seokmin and the murderous pigeon.

He is an impulsive person. Comparatively, at least, to most of the people he knows. But even Soonyoung can’t believe how easy it is to talk to you, to laugh with you, how much he wants to stay by your side despite only having known you for a matter of days – it’s moving fast, even for him.

He tells Seokmin this on a day you aren’t over. His roommate, his best friend just looks at him and asks him one question. “Do you think it’s a bad thing?”

He pauses. Thinks. Horangi the cat purrs in his arms, and idly Soonyoung recalls how much his cat loves you too.

“I don’t think it’s bad,” he finally says, long and slow. “I’ve just never felt this way about someone before.”

Books speak of soulmates, of red threads connecting one part of a soul to another, of birthmarks left by a past love’s kiss, predestined fate pulling lovers together slowly, surely. Soonyoung knows it well, has seen it mirrored in so many dances and stories, has felt the love expressed by all sides of the equation in the presence of a truly happy couple or throuple or anything beyond or in between. He knows it. Has felt it.

But only now does he believe it.

You are the sun, perhaps, and Soonyoung a planet pulled into your orbit by a brilliant smile accompanied by an outstretched hand so warm with gentle light that he couldn’t possibly refuse. There’s no way he could tug himself away.

Nor does he think he’ll ever want to.

“It’s cheesy to say,” he says, every word weighing heavily on his lips. “But if soulmates exist, something tells me Y/N would be mine.”

There’s a mildly disgusted look on Seokmin’s face that mixes strangely with the oddly genuine expression in his eyes. But despite the embarrassment beginning to tint Soonyoung’s cheeks pink and his ears red –

Something in him rings certain that his words are true.

.

Eyes on you, eyes on me

Can’t let go, ‘cause it’s all I need

.

He knows it, knows that it’s love, this one night stand turned summer fling that will turn hopefully into something more – he knows it’s love when he shows up to your university still sweaty after dance practice to listen to a talk you’re giving about something he has no chance of understanding.

You’d mentioned it offhand on the way to your apartment, groceries laden on your arms and his. A little presentation on the work you’ve done so far this summer, barely ten minutes in the entire conference but still something to acknowledge what you’ve managed to complete. “It’s an opportunity, anyway,” you’d said, but even then Soonyoung could tell by the little tremble in your words just how much those ten minutes meant to you.

“Can I come?”

The words had left him on reflex, and only when you looked at him strangely did he realize what he’d said. And by then it was too late to take it back, but he didn’t want to, even when you admitted that all the science and math talk might honestly bore him to sleep. “What day is it?” he’d asked, and put the event into his calendar (right after a dance practice, but that would be fine) before helping you carry the groceries up to your apartment. “I’ll be there.”

Sweat still trickles down the side of Soonyoung’s face by the time he finds the university building and then the appropriate room. He gets a strange look from a security guard and several well-dressed adults who must be conference attendees, but he ignores them as he slides into a seat in the back. You stand at the podium, looking oddly relaxed for how jittery you were yesterday when he saw you, and he remembers the reassurance he’d tried to give before he dropped you off at home.

This is your work. You know it better than anyone ever will. You’ve done everything you can to get this far, and this is your moment to shine. Take it and run with it.

People say that science and the arts couldn’t be more different, one logical and rational and the other fueled by the imagination. But as Soonyoung watches you speak at the front of the room, not a waver in your voice as you look steadily out at the crowd, all he can think is that this is, at its barest bones, a performance. A culmination of your work presented to a crowd of those who understand, just like Soonyoung’s recitals on stages in front of thousands.

Soonyoung doesn’t understand your talk. Well – there are parts he gets, things that ring a few bells from high school and college gen-ed courses that he’d long forgotten until now. But even though you explain things well, this is a performance prepared for experts in your field, not laypeople like him, just like how his auditions are tailored to things that the judges will understand but not the general public. By all counts, you should’ve been right – coming here should have bored him to pieces.

But your eyes glow with a low, steady flame Soonyoung hasn’t seen before, embers rising from ashes as your voice brims with fire, passion in every perfectly-enunciated word, and he is – electrified, probably, that’s the only word that could even hope to encompass how he feels in this chair, listening to you speak.

That’s it, he realizes when you’ve finished talking, applause filling the room as you smile at the crowd. That’s it. Love – listening to your passions even though he doesn’t understand, falling for the fire in your voice and the determination in your eyes as you calmly answer question after question. This is love, built and grown and carefully tended over the course of these endless summer months –

You step off the stage to another round of applause, and the only thought echoing through Soonyoung’s brain is I love you.

.

Eyes on you, eyes on me

.

He finds you in the crowd after the last speaker has finished, surrounded by a few other people who look far more professional than he does. You nod and laugh to one of them, ask something to another and promise something else to a third –

Then you see him, and the way your face lights up could rival all the stars in the galaxy.

Soonyoung smiles, shaking his head slightly – don’t let me interrupt, keep talking to who you need to – and it looks like you understand because you go back to your conversation, but as soon as the last person slips into the crowd you turn to him, walking over with sure, giddy steps.

“You came!” you say, a breathless smile swept wide across your lips. “Did you see me?”

“Of course,” Soonyoung manages to answer around all the emotion still pressing tight against his heart. And as you wrap your arms around him and he pulls you as close as he can into his chest, all he can think is –

.

Can’t let go, ‘cause it’s all I need

.

Even in a room of thousands, I would still only to see you.

.

So pull me closer, closer

While we still have time

.

Soonyoung doesn’t usually wake up before you, a result of combining his preference for sleeping in as well as the fact that his schedule generally starts later than yours. Sometimes, though, like on this early August morning, his eyes blink open before dawn. And while that’s usually a curse because Soonyoung very much values his sleep, if he happens to be in the same bed as you when the dawn wakes him, he’ll take it as luck, good luck in this case.

He teased you the first morning you woke up together, said something about watching him and touching his hair while he was still asleep. But he never meant it, really – or at least he definitely doesn’t mean it now. Because being able to pull you close in your slumber and feel your breath flutter peacefully against his skin is the greatest gift the world could have given him in return for the indignity of waking up early.

You shift a little in his arms and Soonyoung can tell you’re about to wake up by the way your eyes flutter once, twice, before you curl into him a little more. “Isn’t it a little weird to be watching a stranger while they sleep?” you mutter, eyes still closed.

Soonyoung pouts exaggeratedly as you blink yourself awake, but he knowingly destroys the effect by bringing you closer. “After all this time, how could you say we’re still strangers?”

.

And let me hold you, hold you

On these endless summer nights

.

A sleepy little laugh that’s more of a sigh falls from your lips that Soonyoung would kiss if you weren’t so particular about morning mouth. “No,” you admit, snuggling into his chest. “I think we’re a lot more than that, now.”

Soonyoung kisses the top of your head. “I’m glad you think so too.”

.

So pull me closer, closer

.

You take a beach trip one weekend when the sun shines hot and bright and not a cloud dots the blue, blue sky. Jun screams and Joshua looks on in disgust and Seokmin yells as you rub sunscreen into Soonyoung’s back, but Soonyoung can only laugh as you stick your tongue out at everyone who dares mock the two of you and threaten to throw several handfuls of sand at them.

“And put on sunscreen!” you yell, waving the bottle menacingly through the air. “Unless you want to get burned to high hell, by the sun and by me!”

God, he loves you so much.

.

While we still have time

.

The sun’s too hot so Soonyoung sprints into the water the minute you’re done with his back, screeching as the sand burns his feet. You follow behind, apparently, and Soonyoung only realizes that you’re here too when you plunge into the ocean with a splash that sends water flying all over him.

Spewing saltwater, Soonyoung turns around to face your doubled-over figure shaking with laughter. Which is a good thing, because you don’t notice him coming towards you until it’s too late and both of you have toppled into the water.

There might be tears in Soonyoung’s eyes when he comes back up – between the saltwater and the sun, he’s not sure. What he is sure of, though, is that you’ve never looked more beautiful than now, surrounded by the sparkling blue ocean and the shining hot sun, cackling in his arms.

.

And let me hold you, hold you

.

You build a bonfire, because Jeonghan likes arson and Seungcheol is generally willing indulge his boyfriend’s criminal tendencies in a controlled, contained sort of way, and also because it’s the typical sort of thing to do at the beach even if you aren’t teenagers anymore. As the sun sets on the ocean, you lean your head on Soonyoung’s shoulder with a little sigh. Firelight glows off your face.

Soonyoung turns around to meet your eyes with his. Then, in full view of all the single people around and in full disregard of their groans, he decides to meet your lips too.

.

On these endless summer nights

.

(“Mm, salty,” he says, pulling away.

You slap his shoulder. “You’re disgusting. Why would you say that?”)

.

(Endless summer nights)

.

(Soonyoung grins. “And yet you’re still here, letting me be disgusting to you.”)

.

(Endless summer nights)

.

(“Yeah.” You lean against him again, rolling your eyes as the fading sunlight flickers across your smile. “I guess I am.”)

.

Don’t think I’ll feel this way

Again when the night is done

.

Summer always ends. Soonyoung knows this. Time always flows no matter how static it seems, but as August winds to a close, he still can’t help but feel a little shocked. Where did the time go from the start of June and the party where he met you, all the way until now at the end of August as you sit on a bench by the beach, holding hands as the sun begins its descent beneath the waves? It’s as though the last three months were no longer than a second spent in your arms.

His head rests on your shoulder, your hand raised and combing through his hair. A comfortable silence has filled the air and Soonyoung can feel sleepiness settling over him in waves the longer he sits there, basking against your side.

“Summer’s almost over,” you say, almost to yourself. If Soonyoung wasn’t so close, he might not even have heard you.

“Mm.” He opens his eyes, turns just enough to look up at you. “Back to school.”

“Ugh.” You both laugh, but this time Soonyoung feels a little uncertainty ripple through the air where only comfortable silence had reigned prior. Clear as day, he sees the question hanging invisible in front of you as the sun sinks further behind the ocean.

What does that mean for us?

“I think this summer was the best one of my life,” Soonyoung admits quietly. Your eyes shift downward to meet his, still sparkling even in the fading light. “And I can’t deny it was because of you.”

Slowly, the hand on his head comes down. You take his fingers between yours, lacing them gently together. “I agree.”

Soonyoung sits up, never once breaking contact with your hands or your eyes. You look back steadily, softly, like you love him as much as he loves you. Something he’s almost certain might be true.

Only that hope keeps him from bailing right then and there, cracking a joke and leaving this charged atmosphere behind.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is…” He swallows hard, forces himself to keep meeting your gaze. “This wasn’t just a summer fling for me. If it’s okay with you, I don’t want this to end.”

.

The summer never ends with you, oh it’s just begun

.

When Soonyoung says this to you, his eyes earnest against the setting sun, you have to remind yourself that this is real. That the summer wasn’t a dream, that Soonyoung wasn’t a dream, that everything he just said to you was – it was real. It was from him. It was true.

It wasn’t just wishful thinking that he felt the same way as you.

With this realization bursting warm in your heart, you curl your fingers into his. Look up into starry eyes.

And smile.

“What do you mean, end?” you say, and the grin blooming across Soonyoung’s face rivals all the beauty of the sun and the stars and the moon combined. “We’re just getting started.”

.

So pull me closer, closer

While we still have time

.

You go back to your place after and since Joshua’s out for the night, Soonyoung takes the opportunity to cuddle you full and well on the couch as a white noise movie plays in the background. You can’t stay long – both of you have things to do early tomorrow – but where he might once have felt a sense of urgency with the knowledge of the ending summer looming in the near distance, Soonyoung finds it a little easier to relax this time.

You have all the time in the world, now.

When the movie is over, you poke his side. “Up.”

He whines. “Don’t wanna.”

You poke more insistently. “Up.”

In the end Soonyoung stands, but only after he essentially forces you to pull him up off the couch and then off the floor. You’re smiling, though, a laugh barely repressed in your throat, and Soonyoung can see it very well as he kisses you once more.

He pulls back to look into eyes that hold a galaxy of stars, and in that moment, the words build up and spill out before he can even think to take them back.

“I love you.”

For a moment, you just blink. Soonyoung feels himself starting to panic – it wasn’t planned, it wasn’t discussed, maybe he said it too soon because even though you did agree that you wanted this, maybe you weren’t ready for that sort of declaration just yet –

“What a coincidence.” You raise a hand to his cheek as a slow smile spreads across your face. “I love you too.”

.

And let me hold you, hold you

On these endless summer nights (on these endless summer nights)

.

(You walk him out of the apartment after that, but you linger on the street. Soonyoung doesn’t leave either, just stands there with your hands in his even as the moon begins to rise higher in the sky.

“Text me when you get home,” you finally say, an echo of that second night.

Soonyoung pauses. Squints. “What do you mean?” he asks, looking at you with those soft, moonlit eyes. “I’m with you.”

His fingers squeeze yours, summer memories glittering in his smile.

“That means I’m already home.”)

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 prayer for Seokmin and his pigeon problem. no I will not elaborate)

[juicegremlin]

Hugs (5+1)

~ 2 ~

TW: discussions of touch aversion, angst.

The second time it happens, the circumstances are less dire. Andrew is lounging on the couch while Nicky demolishes Aaron in Mario Kart, and Kevin busies himself with homework on the cushion chair. Andrew is half reading, half watching his brother get his ass handed to him. He can’t decide which is more entertaining.

“Jesus fuck,” Aaron exclaims, all but throwing his controller down.

Nicky grins and whoops. He reaches a fist behind one shoulder and Kevin absently bumps it, muttering about one of the French revolutions. Nicky folds his arms and levels a fake pout at Aaron.

“Aww,” he croons. “Are you gonna cry, Aaron? Is widdle baby a sore loser?”

“This is some bullshit,” Aaron spits. “There’s no way you won five games in a row. You have to be cheating.”

“Cousin of mine, do explain to me how one cheats at Mario Kart.”

“Think how many games we’d win if you put that much effort into exy,” Kevin mutters, but nobody’s paying him any attention.

Neil chooses that moment to come in through the front door. Andrew’s eyes lift, but only just barely. He’ll be damned if he lets the sudden rush of warmth show—not even if Neil is looking especially windswept today, or if his lips split into a wide grin at the sight of Andrew on the couch.

“Neil!” Nicky beams. “You’re just in time to watch me beat Aaron a sixth time.”

“No way in hell.” Aaron pushes angrily to his feet, brushing Dorito dust from his pants. “I’m done.”

Nicky sighs. “That’s on me. I let him win too many board games as a kid. You wanna play, Neil?”

Neil shakes his head, drawing Andrew’s attention back up. Neil’s grin has slipped a bit. His shoulders are hunched, weighed down by the straps of his backpack. His hair is mussed and there are circles beneath his eyes. Andrew knows for a fact Neil didn’t get much sleep last night; it seems the day’s classes did little to energize him.

“I’m okay,” Neil says.

Nicky shrugs. “No biggie, I should get on my homework anyway. Kevin, can I have you proofread an essay for me?”

Kevin tears his eyes away from his laptop. “What for?”

“Gov.”

“Yeah.”

Nicky drags Kevin into the kitchen so that they can collaborate over the counter. This leaves only Neil and Andrew in the living room, acres of carpet apart. Neil traverses them easily, letting his bag flop unceremoniously to the floor. Andrew looks up from his book.

“You look terrible,” he comments, blandly.

Neil grunts in response. He makes a vague gesture that Andrew interprets as scoot, so Andrew lifts his book and shifts to the far edge of the couch. Neil flops into the vacated space.

“I could sleep forever,” he muses, closing his eyes.

Andrew hums. “That would shut you up.”

“I can think of other ways to accomplish that.”  

Andrew looks up just in time to catch Neil’s tired wink, and it sends a jolt of something hot through his chest. He turns the next page in his book with a little more force than it warrants.

A few more seconds pass before Neil speaks again. “Hey, Drew?”

“What?”

“Yes or no?”

Andrew looks up again, raising an eyebrow. He flicks a meaningful glance over the back of the couch, to where Nicky and Kevin are still clearly in eyeshot.

Neil smiles, shaking his head. “Not like that, I just want to put my head in your lap. Can I?”

Andrew blinks at him. It’s happened once or twice before, but never in front of the others. They try to avoid PDA on the general. And Andrew supposes Nicky and Aaron are preoccupied, but… still.

Neil recognizes his hesitance. His smile softens a bit.

“A no is fine, Drew,” he assures. “I can lie down somewhere else.”

“I know it’s fine,” Andrew snaps. He lifts his book, creating a perfectly Neil-sized gap between the spine and his thighs.

Neil doesn’t move immediately, though. Even exhausted, he’s always on the lookout for lines in the sand.

Andrew rolls his eyes. “It’s a yes, Junkie. Get over here before I change my mind.”

Neil’s smile returns with a vengeance. He crawls across the brown leather to pillow his head on Andrew’s left thigh, turning his nose towards Andrew’s stomach. He takes a moment to look up with those bleary, Atlantic eyes of his, red lashes curling up to meet his browbones. Andrew looks away before his own expression can give anything up.

“Can I put my arms around your waist?” Neil asks.

Andrew nods, and Neil’s hands gently encircle his torso. He lets one rest just below Andrew’s ribs, rubbing slow, deliberate circles over the fabric of his shirt with a thumb.

It’s even less of a hug than before, but it leaves Andrew feeling the same way: utterly exposed, yet securely so. Like he could dangle himself from a rooftop and Neil would be there to reel him back in.

The thought rips through him like it has something to prove—and perhaps it does. His jaw clenches, but he manages to keep the rest of his body from tensing. The last thing he needs is for Neil to think he’s done something wrong (even thought the battered part of Andrew is convinced that he should—that Neil should be punished for dismantling Andrew’s defenses so thoroughly), so he forces himself into stillness. He can adjust to this. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.

But it does—always. When it comes to touch, for Andrew, every step forward is a trudge through molasses. Every line budged is a battle ceded. He wonders when Neil decided to fight for him, when anyone else would have taken up arms on the other side. He wonders what makes Neil different.

Or, maybe it isn’t that he’s different—maybe its that he and Andrew are very much the same. They were both brought up to be tortured, violated things. Their combined understanding of human cruelty could blow anyone else’s out of the water.

There is intimacy in pain, Andrew supposes, and perhaps there is closeness in the way Neil knows, like Andrew, the way it feels to be scraped raw from the inside out—to be left so empty only mildew and memories can settle in the hollows.

That, or Neil feels the same way Andrew does when they touch. When they look at each other.

That truth is a little harder to swallow.

But when Neil breathes a soft “thank you” into the fabric of Andrew’s sweatpants, Andrew thinks he could learn to choke it down.

-

-

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | +1

I don’t have part 3 written. When will it be up? Who knows?? Not me!!! Check out my current long-term project over on Ao3 tho, I’m consistent there, at least: Skin Comes Apart (Angel In Lothian).

[autumnslance]

This Home Wrested Forth

((My piece for the Blackest Night @drkzine with lovely original art by @cassigator!

Sidurgu & Rielle go to Gridania and find an unexpected familiar face, who asks the Dark Knight to provide the sort of justice only he can. DRK & WHM story completion, Sid's 2nd person POV. Below the cut for those who prefer Tumblr to Ao3.))

Your clan fled the Empire, crossing Ilsabard in search of homelike climes. Aldenard was safe—for now. Even so, the tribe moved often, looking for a place to settle. Every time, you hoped you had found a place to call home.

Later, you think the Fury has a vicious sense of humor.

You were a child; you tended the goats and played with your friends, games that often ended in blood and bruises, for Xaela play rough to prepare for a hard world.

Coerthas had the right sort of mountains and meadows. It was also in a never-ending war with dragons—not legends, but flesh and blood creatures of intellect and fire. Auri horns and scales set your clan apart. From the insults hurled by cursing adults keeping their children away, they thought you were draconic heretics as well.

Knights came, but Xaela are made for war, as your eastern cousins upon the Steppe say. Sometimes you wonder why your people fled west.

You wonder when you dream of the knights’ return, of burning homes and rivers of blood. You stumbled over your favorite goat, its throat slashed, square eyes blank, as a knight dragged you by the hair to join your parents for execution.

“Look away,” Mother begged. But you couldn’t.

Not until it was your turn to face the sword that never came, and instead a man in black armor offered you a new Path.

--

Rielle is the family you have now, a pesky little sister, though you dare not say it aloud. Fray taught her conjury before his death, and she took to it like breathing. The trials you faced together made her learn quickly, but she wants a proper education, as Fray once did.

You grumble all the way to muggy Gridania. Once you might have found it a pleasant climate, but those days are long gone and you’re wearing full plate.

It’s not your first visit, and this situation is less fraught. Rielle is introduced to other students; a young Padjal, a Hyur adolescent who can hear the Elementals, and—

“Alaqa?”

In your hazy memories, there is a serious girl with pale hair against dark skin, bark-brown eyes often disapproving. Delicate, everyone said; her magical gifts left her ill-suited to be a warrior. Yet she could be cajoled into raucous play and emerge triumphant in her own way.

The serious child survived the slaughter, becoming a quiet woman who smells of moss, with dirt under her nails and conjury in her touch. Her magic tastes like windswept plains and a wildflower whose name escapes recollection. She blinks, similar confusion giving way to elated relief.

“The Matron Herself must have sent you, Sidurgu,” Alaqa says. You worship Halone, so it’s no surprise she venerates Gridania’s patron. You can’t recall your clan’s religion, so why not adopt the gods whose lands adopted you?

The girls get acquainted, laughing at another table. You and Alaqa speak haltingly in your childhood language, tasting the rust in every syllable, each word further opening the creaking gates of memory.

“I spent enough time in Coerthas to know what you are,” she says. “You can help.”

You scowl into your ale. Immediately after finding one another, she wants a favor.

Hearers stand between the people and the Elementals, interpreting nature’s whispers into proclamations. Gridanians understand from their earliest years sustainable practices that keep their Woods in harmonic balance. Newcomers must rely on permission from Hearers to determine if they can integrate into the weave of man and nature.

“While the Greenwrath is a concern, mostly the Elementals don’t care,” Alaqa explains. “Not when it comes to people's daily lives. Elementals don’t experience the world as we do, and they don’t ‘speak’ in words. Hence the Hearers.”

You see where this is going. You’ve seen it among clergy that abuse commoners, among the knights that slaughtered your clan and hunted Rielle. “And some hear what they want, or simply make up what they will, and people can only take them at their word.”

Alaqa nods. “I believe this is happening now to the Ala Mhigans in Quarrymill. Since the liberation of Gyr Abania, there’s been a push to ‘send them home’, nevermind many have been here for over twenty years. Their children are forestborn; the Twelveswood is their home.”

A Hearer using his privileged position to force refugees out. Not the visceral violence of the knights, but violence all the same on people who have suffered enough, who have found a home despite all odds.

A familiar rage boils in your chest, a furious howl rising from the abyss.

Justice is needed everywhere.

Alaqa’s rare smile is fierce, seeing your answer before you speak.

--

Most of Quarrymill’s townsfolk are native Gridanians—primarily Midlanders, Elezen, Miqo’te, a handful of Lalafell—but a few Highlanders and Hellsguard live in their own small district.

It’s humid, insects buzz about your head, and your boots are muddy. You’ve never yearned more for Ishgard’s icy stone streets. You follow Sylphie as she tends to people in the hamlet. She asks after their health, if they’ve enough to eat. Questions receive brief replies at best; the forest-dwellers are an insular lot. For most, life moves normally, though they mention the Wailers have been giving them a harder time about hunting and harvesting, after Hearer Bannon’s claims that the Elementals are concerned about the Ala Mhigan presence.

The Hearer in question is speaking with a woman, a small child clinging to her skirts. Bannon’s standing too close for propriety, especially with how she’s trying not to step away. He’s perhaps only slightly older than yourself and smiles unkindly as you walk up. She looks down.

“Is everything all right, Greda?” Sylphie asks.

“We were simply speaking about the recent difficulties,” Bannon says. He is fair-skinned and flinty-eyed. “I was offering Mistress Greda guidance on how she may appease the Elementals.”

“Looked like badgering to me.” You cross your arms.

“You are a visitor here,” Bannon says. “You cannot be expected to understand the delicate balance we must maintain at the Elementals’ behest, lest disaster fall.”

“Any gods who threaten their own people aren’t worthy of veneration.”

By necessity, you’ve learned to quickly pick out the righteous from the rotten among priests and knights. This conjurer isn’t difficult to understand. He’s just like some clergy back home. Under your glower, the Midlander’s false smile fails, expression growing thunderous.

“I suggest you make your visit brief, lest such views bring the Greenwrath upon you and yours,” Bannon turns to Sylphie. “Have care with whom you mingle, young lady. ‘Tis easy for such influences to drown out Nature’s voice.”

“I listen carefully,” Sylphie responds coolly.

Greda doesn’t relax even after Bannon leaves. “You needn’t get involved.”

“Someone must. What did he want with you?” You ask.

She looks away. This too you recognize; she’s been made to feel shamed and afraid. You’ve seen it often in the Brume, and familiar anger coils in your gut again. “He says my late husband’s actions are part of the trouble. He… joined the Griffin, you see…”

Sylphie frowns. “While the events at Baelsar’s Wall did cause a stir, why would one rebel’s actions matter more than the Griffin’s?”

You study Greda. A Highlander in her early twenties, shapely, with warm brown skin and dark gold hair.

“That’s his offer? The supposedly upset Elementals will allow you to stay in the forest if you but agree to his suggestion?”

Her head snaps up, cheeks darkening further as she trembles. Sylphie looks confused. “I…I didn’t,” Greda stammers. Tears well in her green eyes. “I can’t be the reason everyone suffers, but I won’t…”

“No. You won’t. And you aren’t—it’s that bastard. I’ve seen enough.”

You walk away, Sylphie hurrying to keep up. “What’s that supposed to mean? Sid? Oh, no wonder Rielle calls you—”

“Don’t.” Gods, you can’t have her calling you a chocobo’s arse too. “Let’s find the others.”

--

You pause to watch Rielle and Gatty. They’re sitting on the upper walkway built into the town’s palisade, legs dangling as they chat and share lunch. Sylphie joins them, distracted by their enthusiasm and her own youth.

“They’re having fun,” Alaqa says, joining you.

“While they can.” Your life isn’t easy and Rielle remains in it by choice. These moments when she can be the girl she is, with others her age, are rare.

Your duty is going to take that from her. Again.

“Bannon’s supposedly intervening with the supposedly upset Elementals to take advantage of people.”

Alaqa frowns. “If we could prove this corruption of his office to Brother E-Una…”

“You wouldn’t have asked for my aid if you could. Take Sylphie and Gatty back to the city. I’ll need Rielle’s help.”

“What are you going to do?”

You grin. “What I do best. Justice demands no less.”

--

It doesn’t take long to bait Bannon. Loitering outside Greda’s house while he makes his rounds, followed by accepting a simple adventurer’s job into the woods, soon has you surrounded by the Hearer and six young men from town. You sigh, realizing they’re all Ala Mhigans.

“Promising them lenience from the Elementals if they get rid of the annoying foreigner?”

Bannon sneers. “You are a blight on our Woods. The Elementals will recognize their…dedication.”

Their sacrifice. He’s hoping you murder these boys if they don’t overwhelm you. You draw your blade and shrug. You can try not to kill them.

Though you might have to, as Bannon goes for Rielle. He doesn’t expect her to be battle-tempered, to counter his command of the elements, drawing on those same forces with expertise beyond her years. She’s fought alongside the Warrior of Light, and it shows. Your friend would be proud.

Meanwhile, you are making a fool of yourself. If Ompagne were here, he’d be scolding and laughing. Two youths dash in close under your blade to take you with their fists. Two use lances to match your greatsword’s reach. Two others keep distant with short bows.

They grew up in these woods and are desperate to stay in their home, to fight the perceived threat.

Focus, Sid. Rielle can manage.

You roar, body checking one pugilist into the other, smacks from your gauntlets leaving them dazed, though it earns you a decent blow from a lance.

There’s a shout to the side; Rielle deflects Bannon’s earth spell into an archer, breaking his bow and leaving him nursing bruised limbs. You grin, knowing you look feral, rounding on the lancers. They falter as bloody rage swirls around you. They are not hardened warriors; you remember that as you break their spears and strike with the flat of your blade, cracking ribs.

The last archer stands his ground, Halone bless, though his nervous aim is poor. He doesn’t expect your leap to his position, for you to grab the bow and backhand him with it before flinging it aside.

A strong wind nearly bowls you over.

Rielle shrieks.

Fury colors your vision, the abyss howling against your horns. Bannon dashes into the trees. Rielle tumbles to a stop at the far end of the clearing.

Gatty is already there, magic in her hands. “She’ll be all right,” she calls.

“This way!” Sylphie shouts from the treeline behind you, in the direction Bannon ran.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

She shrugs and points, frowning. “Alaqa went that way.”

“Take care of Rielle and these boys.” You plunge into the forest.

No underbrush catches your armor, no roots trip your feet. Perhaps you’ll ask the girls about that later.

You think you’ve gone a quartermalm when you find Bannon ensnared in spiny vines, Alaqa nearby with hands clenched.

“How dare you, you filthy outsiders!” Bannon snarls.

“How dare you,” she replies. “Falsifying the Elementals’ whispers for your own gain, coercing desperate people.”

“I am a child of the Wood!” He shouts. “I Hear the Will of the Forest!”

“What does the Forest say now?” You ask as you stalk nearer, blade drawn.

He swallows, trembling. Like any other false priest. “Th-the Greenwrath will strike you down!”

“Perhaps,” Alaqa answers. “If the gods decree, so be it.” She looks at you, eyes clear and cold. “But I will not abide a man to drive us from our home. Not again.”

You remember playing with your friends. You remember the goats, your father’s laughter, your mother’s songs.

You remember the burning homes, the blood, the knight’s grip on your hair and your parents’ pleas. You remember Ompagne ending the violence; too late for most, but not for you and her.

Your blade is swift, and more merciful than the Hearer deserves.

--

You leave the Archer’s Guild after a few bells. You didn’t think you had warranted the Bowlord’s attention, but someone convinced not only E-Sumi-Yan to vouch for you, but the Warrior of Light as well.

The second was less surprising than the first; family looks out for each other, and timing has ever been that hero’s forte.

Rielle is waiting with Alaqa, Sylphie, and Gatty. “It went,” you say before they can ask. “While the Elementals seem silent about Bannon, Lewin still wants me out of his Woods.”

“They’re silent on the matter of the Ala Mhigans too,” Sylphie says. “The Fane’s sending someone new to tend to Quarrymill. Hopefully, they’re more honest.”

“If they aren’t, you can always mention it in your letters.” The ferocity behind Rielle’s grin is familiar; you’re not sure to be proud or worried she’s picking up your habits.

“Or don’t, as it’s too damned hot and muggy in this forest.”

The girls giggle at your growling. Alaqa shakes her head, amusement in her eyes if not on her lips. “With so much more for Rielle to learn, we're sorry to see you leave so soon. Our own fault...”

“More that bully’s,” Rielle answers. “Perhaps you can visit us!”

You groan, thinking of the trouble this group could get up to in Ishgard. The girls laugh all the way to the Carline Canopy. There’s time to try those famous eel pies before catching the airship.

Goodbyes are said, promises to write made. Your duty is taking Rielle from her friends and education, even as you both want to return to your cold, stony city.

Funny how much you’ve missed it.

Alaqa catches your arm and pulls you down to brush her horn along your own. In the tongue of your childhood, she says, “Thank you.”

You straighten, nod, and hope your stoic expression holds, though Rielle’s face tells you it hasn’t. “I did my duty,” you answer in kind. “You’re welcome.”

Rielle leans halfway over the rail to wave as the airship pulls away. You hold the back of her tunic and watch until the trees obscure the view of your friends. Appropriate, somehow; Alaqa and the Ala Mhigans found a home in these woods, while you return to where you found your home.

So long as you can fight, no one will take that from you.

[theweasleysredhair]

Distracted [F.W.]

Character: Fred Weasley

Word Count: 2628

Requested?: Yes/No

Summary: Fred Weasley is hot and boy, does he know it.

WARNINGS: it’s a lil spicy, read with caution. a couple of saucy comments, just the usual with fred idk.

Tags: @gracemayhateyou @criminalyetminimal @firewhisky-kisses @obsessedwithrandomthings @angelinathebook @iprobablyshipit91 @potterverseimagine @slytherineheir @kpopgirlbtssvt @rexorangecouny @mytreec @hemmoporro @thisismysketchbook @acciotwinz @shadowsinger11 @aaannabbanana @lestersglitterglue @anyasthoughts @lxncelot @harrypotter289 @starlightweasley @wand3ringr0s3 @ickle-ronniekins @sehunasbitch @cryingforcrystalpepsi @kashishwrites @girl-next-door-writes @susceptible-but-siriusexual @crissdanvers @whizbangs-78 @heart-of-tempered-steel @oh-for-merlins-sake | message or send an ask to be added/removed!

Disclaimer: Gif isn't mine, credit to whoever made it

A/n: i am really feeling fred atm, so here’s an extremely self-indulgent freddie thirst fic for all my lovelies who are also irrevocably in love with him - enjoy!

~*~

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST MY WORK! REBLOGS ARE ABSOLUTELY FINE! <3

+ + + + +

Fred Weasley knew just how to get under your skin. It was a skill he had, a talent of knowing exactly what to do to get you hot and bothered, especially when you weren’t expecting it. It was especially frustrating when you couldn’t do anything about it, considering you were stuck in limbo between being friends and being more, and whilst you liked the lingering stares and longing touches, you couldn’t help but want more with him.

You had hoped he would’ve asked you to the Yule Ball last year - in fact, everyone was insistent that he would - but then he’d asked Angelina instead, which was hard to watch - George had laughed with his brother, but had grabbed your hand under the table in comfort - and made you doubt Fred actually returned your feelings at all.

Despite this, you’d actually ended up going to the ball with an extremely cute Durmstrang boy yourself, so you weren’t completely complaining, and of course, Fred had actually ended the night with you in his arms, dancing to the musical stylings of The Weird Sisters. It was also the night of your first - and only - kiss with Fred, under the stars in the Courtyard, in front of the fountain.

It was perfect, and you thought maybe things would change between you, maybe you’d be more, however when he didn’t act any different, never mentioned it again, you decided to keep quiet about it too.

In fact, you’d been pretty good at keeping your feelings under wrap since then. Of course, everyone knew how you felt - or at the very least, suspected - but no one said a word (besides Hermione, who you’d confessed everything to after she’d asked about it, knowing she wouldn’t say a word but also that she wouldn’t stop asking until she knew the truth).

And you were fine. Everything was fine. Until you got invited to the Burrow a few weeks before summer ended, and when you’d arrived after a month or so of not seeing Fred, you’d felt winded at his first smile of greeting, and felt your heart beating out of your chest when he’d pulled you into a hug, holding you against him as you buried your face into the jumper he was wearing at the time.

His hair had been cut since you’d last seen him on the Hogwarts Express, and whilst you’d liked the long hair - had enjoyed the way it had felt as you ran your hands through it that one time you’d kissed him - you couldn’t help how attracted you were to him with shorter hair, constantly feeling the urge to tug at it whenever you saw him.

He looked especially good when his hair was all tousled, windswept - exactly like it was as you watched him sitting on his broomstick outside as he waited for his siblings to be ready to play a last practise game of Quidditch before you’d all be leaving for 12 Grimmauld Place before the school year started back up again.

You were sat at a table in the kitchen underneath the large window overlooking the garden, giving you a perfect view of the sunshine and your friends playing Quidditch. Also a perfect view of Fred wearing a tight t shirt, holding his beater’s bat behind his neck, resting it on his shoulder blades as he showed off his biceps and laughed as Ron nearly fell off his broom due to a particularly sharp dig from Ginny’s elbow.

They’d asked if you or Hermione wanted to join, however you knew you wouldn’t be much use playing Quidditch when Fred was being as distracting as his was, and besides, you had a Herbology project to work on. Hermione had also elected not to play, not having much of an interest in playing Quidditch, and instead resided in her room with a book she’d borrowed from Molly.

You glanced out of the window as the boys flew up on their broomsticks, letting the quaffle, snitch and bludgers fly out, immediately beginning to play. You’d always loved watching Quidditch at Hogwarts, cheering for your house and the excitement and thrills that came with it. There was always an added element when you knew that Fred was playing too.

He was a good beater - possibly the best in Hogwarts, tied with George - his actions fluid as he flew around the air with ease, practicing new strategies and working on his skills after a school year of being unable to play due to the Triwizard Tournament taking over.

You watched his arms clench as he hit the bludgers away, his hands grasping the bat in a way you wanted him to grasp you. Something about the way he flew around and hit the bludgers so easily made you sigh contently as you set your quill to one side, forgetting about your project.

The exercise coupled with the midday August heat meant practise didn’t last too long - much to your dismay - but enough to make Fred sweaty, clearly breathing heavily as he jumped off his broom and grabbed a water of bottle he’d discarded to one side before playing.

He downed nearly half the bottle, before wafting his t shirt a little to cool himself down, then suddenly, as if someone had taken one of your daydreams and brought it to life, he lifted the bottle and tipped it over his head, the water cascading down his hair and face.

You watched as if it were in slow motion, the water drenching his already tight-fitting t shirt, the fabric clinging to the outline of his abs as he closed his eyes and let the water cool him down.

His biceps clenched as he brought his arm back down again, and you were once again brought to the attention of his hands gripping the bottle, gaze following along his forearms as you stared at the veins protruding.

Your mouth dropped a little, heart pounding as you watched water droplets fall down his face and collarbone, as he opened his eyes and ran a hand through his now wet hair sticking to his forehead, trying to mess it up a little more.

He then pulled up the bottom of his t shirt to wring out the excess water, exposing his abdomen and suddenly you forgot how to function, barely being able to breathe as you took in the sight.

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked as she entered the kitchen and wandered by your table, noticing your faraway look and the fact you hadn’t actually started your project yet. She grabbed some leftover food from the counter and turned to look at you.

“Fred Weasley is what’s wrong,” you grumbled, turning away from watching him reluctantly, “He’s infuriating... ly good looking.”

Hermione shook her head with a soft smile, “I really don’t know what you see in him.”

Thoughts of Fred wearing a wet t shirt danced through your mind as you swallowed harshly. “I don’t know either,” you lied.

“Well, let me know if you want any help with your project - I’ve finished mine,” Hermione offered as she headed out of the kitchen. You called out a “Thank you!” to her retreating form as your attention was pulled back to the eldest twin outside.

He was laughing at something someone had said, before he began making his way towards the back door, which so happened to be near where you were sitting.

Your heart was pounding as he entered the room, you averting your gaze from him as you pretended you were looking at anything but him.

“Like what you saw?” His voice suddenly rang out through the room. You looked over at him - it taking all your effort to not stare at the way his shirt was clinging to him - and cleared your throat, blinking up at him innocently.

“Excuse me?”

“Noticed you watching me outside, especially at the end. Darling, do you find me pouring water down myself attractive?” Fred replied with a cheeky grin shot in your direction, before heading over to a high cabinet and grabbing a glass out, filling it from the tap.

“I didn’t even notice,” you shook your head adamantly, sneakily staring at the way his drenched t shirt accentuated the way the muscles in his back moved.

Fred’s smug expression as he turned around told you he didn’t believe you in the slightest, “Are you sure? Because it definitely seemed like you were enjoying the view.”

“Don’t be daft, I’ve been here working on my Herbology project,” you gestured to the parchment in front of you, gulping as you realised you still hadn’t actually written a word down, much less even opened your textbook.

Fred smirked as he noticed this, bringing his glass of water to his lips slowly as he took a sip, “You do realise windows work two ways, right love?”

And indeed, this had been a fact you’d forgotten, in your distracted haze. You felt your heart beating faster as you hoped - prayed - he was just playing around and didn’t actually look up to see you ogling him from the window. How embarrassing.

“I am aware of that, yes,” you nearly stuttered, hoping you came across nonchalantly but knowing by the grin widening on his face that you’d failed.

“So you know I could see you checking me out, right? All your staring,“ he teased, running a hand through his wet hair and making you forget where you were for a moment.

“I wasn’t staring at you,” you scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest, “I was staring at George.”

“Oh yeah? If that’s true, what colour shirt was George wearing?”

You knew he knew he had you with that, as your mind went blank. Because truthfully, the only person you’d been staring at was, in fact, Fred, and you hated that he was extremely aware of that.

“Green?” You guessed, hoping your guess was miraculously correct. Watching as Fred grinned at you knowingly, you knew immediately you’d gotten it wrong.

“Red,” he corrected and you sighed helplessly.

You stood up to face him properly, pushing your hair back out of your face as you looked up at him. Fred’s eyes travelled down your frame for a few seconds, him absent-mindedly biting his lip at the sight of you.

He blinked, taking in the sight of you wearing denim shorts, fitted to your thighs - thighs he wanted wrapped around him - and his breath caught in his throat as he realised the light coloured shirt you were wearing, knotted at your waist and showing a slither of your stomach, was in fact his.

He found himself distracted, vaguely aware that you were speaking to - or rather, ranting at - him, as he stared at you, before zoning back in just as he heard you say, “I mean, what would you do if I suddenly grabbed a bottle of water and poured it over me?”

Images began flying through his head. There were a lot of things he would do, most of which involved him pressed against you and his hands all over you, preferably with you moaning his name.

“Maybe you should do it and find out,” he said completely seriously, wanting nothing more than to watch as you poured water down yourself.

You rolled your eyes, albeit feeling a tad flustered, “Can you just... change your shirt please.”

“Why, is something distracting you, love?” He asked almost innocently, tilting his head to one side - almost as if in concern, however his cocky grin told you that he knew exactly what he was doing.

You gulped, not being able to stop your eyes from wandering down to his clenched abs, covered by the wet material of his t shirt yet not leaving much to the imagination. He, of course, noticed this and saw an opportunity to tease you even more.

“Well, if you really want me out of this shirt...” he sighed playfully and shook his head with a smile, before placing his glass down and grabbing the bottom of his shirt, and pulling it - slowly - off of him.

You watched as the fabric pulled from his skin, knowing he was doing it on purpose yet not being able to turn away, your mouth dropping a little as he exposed his toned torso, shorts hanging low on his hips.

You felt your mouth go dry, eyes widening a little, both mentally cursing and proposing to him just from this sight alone.

He pulled the shirt over his head and ran a hand through his hair again, and you fought the urge to dramatically collapse back into the chair behind you as he smirked at you.

This boy was going to be the death of you.

“Fred,” you spoke warningly, forcing yourself to look back up to his eyes - which, unfortunately for you, were just as distracting.

“Y/n,” he replied with a cheeky grin, leaning back against the counter, his hands gripping onto the counter sides, making the veins in his forearms pop out, and you swore you lost the ability to breathe in that moment.

“I mean it.”

“What? I’m not doing anything,” he pretended to be innocent, “It’s too hot to wear a t shirt at the moment.”

“You’re too hot,” you mumbled under your breath, then cleared your throat, hoping he didn’t quite catch what you said. When he didn’t react, you assumed he hadn’t and continued on, “You know exactly what you’re doing. You’re insufferable.”

Fred stepped closer to you, enjoying the way your breath hitched as his hand reached out to hold your waist. He then leant forward, his face centimetres from yours, a smirk gracing his lips as his tongue darted out across his bottom lip, “You know you love me.”

“Oh do I now?” You moved a little closer, looking up into his eyes as he moved his lips subconsciously towards yours. “Yeah,” he confirmed, nodding a little, eyes half-lidded, “You do.”

He paused for a moment, his free hand reaching to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear as he cupped your jaw, “And I love you.”

“Do you?” You whispered as his lips brushed against yours gently.

“Course I do,” he mumbled, looking at you softly before pressing his lips properly against yours, the hand on your waist squeezing a little before moving to rest against the small of your back, pushing you towards him to ensure there was no space left between you.

His lips moved against yours roughly, his tongue licking into your mouth as your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down towards you. His hands guided themselves to hold the back of your thighs, just under your bum, and you only just heard the “Jump.” that he’d muttered against you, before you did as he said.

Your legs wrapped around his waist and he sat you on the table beside your long-forgotten project, him leaning you back on said table ever so slightly as he gripped your hips. One of your hands moved to lay flat on his bare chest, the other running through his still-damp hair and tugging a little just as you’d imagined.

He pulled away, breathing heavily as he continued to press kisses to your lips, moving down your jaw and towards your neck.

“Still want me to put a shirt back on?” He grinned against your skin. “Nah,” you bit your lip as he kissed just under your ear, before moving to grab his hands in yours, jumping off the table and pulling him towards the stairs, aiming to head towards his bedroom,

“I’d rather just take mine off instead.”