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stardust-kenobi · 4 years ago

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Necklace

Poe Dameron x Fem!Reader

Summary: Poe returns to base after a very risky and long battle against the First Order. In the time he’d been gone, and his life flashing before his eyes, he wants to show you how badly he missed you, and how much you mean to him.

Warnings: Filthy, descriptive, SMUT (fingering, m/f oral giving and receiving, daddy kink, choking, vaginal sex) starts with some adorable fluffiness from my fav little resistance pilot 🥺 mentions of death and blood...but yeah mostly smut.

A/n: I’m unapologetically horny for Poe. I’ve been dying to write content for this man, I love him so much. If anyone has any Poe/sequel specific blog recommendations, lmk!

Word count: 4k

Request from @princessxkenobi. You’re the best✨💕 hope you enjoy! Btw, I took your request and RAN with it lmao

gif is not mine

Your stomach tumbled aggressively in your abdomen. Every pilot that joined Poe on their dangerous mission, almost three weeks ago, was currently exiting their x-wings...except Poe. The Falcon lowered from the sky, landing roughly on the grass. Exiting the ship was Finn and Rey, but still no Poe. The love of your life, your soul mate, your other half...was he gone?

You swallowed hard, forcing back the sorrow lump in your throat that crept up with the realization of what could have happened. A sickness formed in your stomach when your eyes scan the field of landing ships, still not identifying his distinguishable transport.

“No..” you whispered your cry. A cold, stray tear fell over your cheek bone. Your vision went blurry and your mind became a looped, dizzy mess in the wake of your distress.-

Before you fell apart completely, something interrupted you.

“There’s my baby girl” A voice broke the empty air behind you. Your gasp was caught in your throat and you found it hard to breathe for the milliseconds between your pain and your relief. Your body swung around swiftly for your eyes to meet Poe’s loving gaze. His bag slid from his shoulder to meet the ground. He hustled toward you, arms spread open to welcome you into his embrace.

“Poe...” You mumbled softly. That was the only word that your trembling lips could develop in your moment of shock. You reminded yourself to breath. 30 seconds prior to this engagement, you assumed that you’d lost the love of your life to the relentless violence of the First Order. But he was here, he was holding you, he was alive.

“God, I'm so happy to see you, y/n” His head rested atop yours and his arms provided shelter around your body.

“I thought you were gone, Poe” you looked up at him, tears still pooled in your eyelids. Your voice broke as his name rolled off your tongue. That same lump in your throat returned, or maybe it never left.

“Shhh” He calmed you, his hand caressed your head to comfort your distress. “It’s okay”.

The active twinkling stars in the night sky illuminated his features for you to admire. You scan every inch of his face, taking it in as if you’d never see him again. As you scanned upward, you suddenly noticed the dark red liquid dried to his forehead. Your stomach sank.

“What happened?” You direct your attention to his injury. “Are you okay?”. You pulled a rag from his abandoned bag, and quickly tried to clean it from his skin.

“Oh...yeah, I’m okay, y/n. It doesn’t hurt. Just got blasted and hit my head on the side metal of my x-wing. It was a...a close call...but I got out of there in time.” His voice was like honey to your ears in the midst of your worries. Poe picked up your hands that had fallen from gripping his body. Gentle kisses graced your knuckles. “To come back to you, baby”

“I missed you so much, Poe. I didn’t see you land and immediately assumed the worst” you admitted to him, still holding back your tears that were slowly subsiding.

“I didn’t mean to worry you, I’m sorry” he assured.

“I’d be a mess if you hadn’t come back” You admitted.

“That’ll never happen, y/n” He assured you, with no real ability to promise this, but it was comforting to you in the moment.

He kissed your forehead and offered a warm smile, resulting in a grin forming at your lips as well. It quickly turned upside down at the sight of a tear trailing down Poe’s face came into view.

“Poe what’s wrong?” You asked so worrisome.

He instantly looked distressed from your inquiry like he was barely holding it together prior to your concern.

“It was really hard out there. Seeing you just-” his broken voice interrupted his thoughts “it made me remember how lucky I am to have you in my life. It could be over in an instant. But I have you” he pushed through his shakiness. Your thumb meets his cheek to wipe away his sorrow.

You pushed your body up against him, and planted a kiss onto his unexpecting lips. It was deep and passionate and definitely what he needed to feel. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down into your face.

There were others wandering around you, unloading gear, welcoming the pilots back home, rejoicing in the success, but you knew that the intimacy of your kiss would go unnoticed by anyone else. You felt alone with Poe, like no one else existed in the whole galaxy.

He encouraged the kiss further, rotating his lips around yours slowly. The moan that crept from his mouth indicated a desire for more. The relief of being reunited sparked a hunger in you as well. You wanted him.

You both gathered your composure after a few minutes of consoling each other, just thankful to be safe, and together.

“I need to be alone with you” he said, sounding as if he would go insane if he wasn’t able to have you soon.

“Let me show you how much I really missed you” he whispered into your ear. You shoot him an are you sure? look considering the abundance of company around you. Surely there’d be no privacy for a while, and you’d have to be very quiet in his small quarters. “I need you” he practically begged. You happily nodded in agreement.

“C’mon” he smirked and took your hand, leading you away from the commotion of the base and to the partial privacy of his room. There were people that he stopped and spoke with on the way there. You were so eager for alone time, it was torture every time your journey was interrupted.

You both finally arrived. He closed the door behind you. The familiarity of the harsh fluorescent lighting and the tight enclosure of the room was oddly comforting, but surely not romantic.

“Well that won’t set the mood, will it?” He chuckled, referring to the uneasy lighting above. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, and lit a small candle on the table next to the cot. The lights shut off, revealing a sudden romantic environment, softly lit by a single flame.

A small, black curl laid lonely on his forehead, which you slowly moved away from his face. You stood there together, in the middle of the room, absorbing each other’s presence. Your anticipation rose for what was about to happen. You missed his bare body against yours. You needed him now.

He subtly licked his lips while studying the curve of your bottom lip. Once you both understood that you were alone, he practically pounced onto you with a burning hunger in his gaze. Poe’s kisses were heavy and intimate. Every movement of his mouth was rhythmic. His hands gripped your face, as if to pull you even closer to him, which was completely impossible.

“Fuck I missed you baby” he breathed in between the bursts of fusion of your mouths.

“Me too” you managed to say before his lips were on yours again.

He walked backwards slowly and pulled you with him. He sat down onto the cot and guided your legs to straddle him at his waist. Poe maneuvered the cloth of your coat down your shoulders and slid it down to the floor, leaving you in a thin cropped tank top and your shorts. His calloused hands drew goosebumps where they touched when they travelled over your arms. His kisses transported to the skin on your neck, cascading down to the collarbone. You leaned into him, absorbing the delicacy of his admiration.

You moaned quietly which grabbed his attention almost immediately. He looked up at you, the same starving look of desire in his eyes with a cocky smirk plastered onto his face.

“What was that about you showing me how much you missed me?” you purred into his ear, teasing him, and placing your lips at his neck now. Your fingers worked to unbutton his shirt. The motions you made at his skin earned a small groan from his lips. This subtle sound alone formed a heat between your legs.

His grip, already around your waist, tightened as your question rang his ears. Poe knew that sex with you was always paradise, but taking it slow always resulted in a level of intimacy he’s only ever felt with you. He needed to take his time with you, but at this moment it was so hard for him to do so with how badly he missed you.

You removed his shirt, revealing the broadness of his chest, presented to you so closely. You cannot help but stare intently at his features. Your fingertips traced the outline of his chiseled abdomen. The necklace he always wore, that you’d never seen him without, remained around his neck. You loved the way it looked on him, and wouldn’t dare take it off.

Poe swiftly removed your top that clung so tightly to your body. He is met with the sight of your breasts that were unrestrained under your clothes.

“Oh baby girl I missed these” he cooed and cupped your exposed tits in his hands. His brows furrowed in a look is desperation before his lips wrapped around your stiffened nipples. You moan at the contact, you can feel yourself become even wetter by the second.

You rolled your hips forward, and when you did, you felt the bulge that was begging to be let free from his pants. He moaned instantly when you brushed your core against him.

Poe made a quick decision to stand up, lifting you by your ass, and turned to place you firmly on the cot. Your head was rested on his pillow while he positioned his body above yours. The curl that previously sat on his forehead now dangled above your face, which made you chuckle, but also, he looked so hot like that. The chain of his necklace hung down from his skin, too, something he knew was a huge turn on for you. You liked for him to fuck you while it swung in your face. When he noticed you stare at it, he giggled.

“I know you like that, don’t you?” He smirked. You nodded your head, offering no words, eager for him to proceed.

“Poe” you breath, simultaneously grasping at his belt.

“Be patient, baby” he commanded before attacking your lips again. His tongue forced its way between your lips and explored your mouth freely. Moaning into his mouth only made him kiss you harder. The feeling of his hips rested between your thighs through the layers of both your pants was agonizing. Your knees and thighs tried to push themselves together. He felt this around his hips and pulled his lips from you instantly.

Leaning back onto his knees, he unbuttoned your shorts and slowly slid them and your panties down your thighs. After throwing them onto the floor, he sat there and took a long, sensual look at your naked body, licking his lips at what he saw. At this angle you could clearly see how restricted his cock was for you to observe the long outline.

“Fuck. I missed this view so much princess” he groaned while lowering his body back onto the cot, his face moving in between your thighs. His face was inches from where you were aching for him. “Do your best to be quiet, baby” he lightly laughed through his nose and smiled at you sweetly.

“I don't know if I can but I’ll try” you joked.

And with that, his tongue curled onto your clit, taking you into his mouth. Your body twitched at the sudden sensation you’d been robbed of for weeks. The second he tasted you, a low, gruff moan leapt from his throat. His tongue swirled over your sensitive clit, rhythmically and consistently drawing figures with the tip.

“Fuck, you are so wet already” he took a break to look up at you. Not breaking eye contact, he leaned up to push two fingers into your mouth.

“Suck on them” he demanded. You obeyed and sucked on his coarse fingers. He watched with pleasure as you moistened them in your mouth. He then removed them and replaced his glistened fingers at your entrance. Without hesitation, he pushed them inside of your wet warmth.

“Oh fuck” you sharply moaned. His tongue returned to your clit while he pumped his fingers inside of you. He moaned too, turned on by your pleasurable sounds, sending vibrations across your sensitivity.

Your hands found their way to his head, your fingers locked in his waves of black strands. He curled his two fingers, adding to your pleasure. Already, you feel your climax approaching.

“Poe, I’m close” you announced. He instantly pulled his mouth and fingers from your pussy, causing agony for you. He suddenly crawled up to you, hovering over you. His fingers replaced themselves at your core, but it was his flattened fingers pressed against your clit this time. He began to rub firmly back and forth, responding to how you bucked your hips at his touch, picking back up where you left off.

“I want you to look at me when you cum, baby girl” he growled, face so close to yours, intently staring at your expression while you displayed how good he made you feel.

You felt the tightness bundle between your thighs while his hand set a constant pace that perfectly stimulated your clit. You could feel how intense it was going to be before you even reached your orgasm.

“S-shit” you stuttered, focused on your climax.

“That’s it, yeah” he encouraged you.

It washed over you like an ocean wave. Radiating from the center of your euphoria and spreading across your body. Your attempt to be quiet was weak, your moans and whimpering filled the air of his small room. Neither of you cared anymore who was on the other side. Poe’s eyes never left you while you threw your head back in pleasure. Your legs quivered in his touch as he did not let up once during your orgasm. You think he may have rubbed you faster once you hit your peak, causing a more intense high for you.

A very long ride came down slowly. You tried to catch your breath during the time that Poe slowed his motions and removed it from you.

“God, you look so fucking hot cumming for me, y/n” he cooed in your ear, still hovering above you. His tone grew kinkier by the second.

You giggled, unable to form coherent thoughts, let alone any words. Poe pushed himself back into his knees.

While staring deep into your eyes, looking at you with an primal expression that indicated how badly he was about to destroy you, he slowly unbuckled his belt, never breaking eye contact with you. You melted at how fucking hot he looks before his clothes are even completely removed.

His pants meet the ground, his underwear going with it. Seeing his fully erect cock pulled a whimper from your throat. He blushed and pushed a smile from his face.

“On your knees” he commanded, standing next to his cot. He usually wasn’t this demanding during sex, but something seemed a lot more dominant in him tonight. You loved it, so of course you obeyed.

“Yes, sir” you purred at him and got on your knees in front of him.

“Listen to me, baby girl” he started, grabbing the back of your head and tilting it up at him. “Suck daddy’s cock like a good little girl”.

The words leaving his mouth caught you off guard, sent shivers down your spine, and made your clit throb more than it was following your orgasm all at the same time. You’d never heard him talk like that before, nor had he ever mentioned a kink for this. You surely had no objection to going along with it.

You smirked at him, wrapping your fist around his shaft and placing the tip at your extended tongue. You teased him lightly.

“C’mon baby. No teasing” He smirked. You look up at him with baby doll eyes before proceeding.

Giving you no time to cease your teasing, he very suddenly forces his cock to the back of your throat. You gag initially, but adjust quickly to your mouth being completely filled by his length.

“Mmmm” He groaned as he held your mouth steady wrapped around him.

Deep, hungry moans crawled out of his mouth when you began to bob your head back and forth onto his dick. You used your technique that you know drove him crazy, and tried a new motion with your tongue.

“Oh, fuck. Yeah, good girl” He reacted instantly, meeting your innocent eyes again. You loved hearing him praise you and encourage you with his moaning.

You add your hands to the bottom section of his length while you continued to swirl your mouth around the top of him.

“So fucking pretty with my cock in your mouth, baby”

You move faster now, paying close attention to the tip, knowing that was his most sensitive spot. His breath hitched, and you could tell he was eager to have himself buried somewhere else inside you.

“But y’know...I think you’d look prettier with my cock in that tight little pussy...you think you can handle that?” He growled at a level of a whisper, his words made you melt. He abruptly removed himself from your mouth and lifted you from the ground and onto the cot.

“Yes, daddy” you purred back at him. Poe’s eyes subtly lit up, he was so glad you were into this, too. He returned you to your position from earlier, comfortably flat on your back, knees up. He loved to start in missionary because he wanted to gaze into your eyes when he first fills you.

He hovered back on top of you, positioning his his hips between thighs, one arm was placed firm in the mattress beside your head, the other trailed up your thigh, soaking in the feeling of your soft skin. Wasting no additional time, the tip of his cock parts your slit and he pushes himself into you.

A sharp, prolonged gasp escaped you as he buried himself completely inside of you, his hips as close to your body as possible.

“God damn, baby girl” his voice turned soft when he truly felt how wet you were for him. He brought motion to his hips and looked down into your eyes. His necklace hung directly above you, swinging with every thrust he took. You watched it, loving the way it looked around his skin. His expression held a look of lust and angst simultaneously, which made your heart beat faster. He dared not to break eye contact with you. Watching your eyes roll back from the pleasure of being fucked by him drove him crazy. And despite the roughness of the passion you were sharing as a result of your time apart, you were still his baby girl and wanted to be as intimate as possible.

“Yes, Poe” you whimpered. A scowl appeared on his face.

“Who? You know my name” he growled at you, pounding your pussy harder with aggression.

“Daddy” you moan, louder.

“Good girl” his voice was so gruff. Suddenly, his hand was wrapped around your throat, applying pressure. You struggle to breath in the most erotic way. Your gasping transformed to whines. Poe loved to watch you wear his fist as a necklace while he fucked you.

“How am I supposed to last, when you look so fucking gorgeous being filled with my cock?�� He whispered, lips brushed against your ear, chills erupted down your body. His grip on your neck was released.

“I love you” you mumbled, allowing a grin to develop on your face. You said it out of no where, but you needed him to hear it. Poe’s seductive stare instantly transformed to a smile, as if he was breaking character from the rough exterior he presented.

“I love you, too, y/n” he breathed before kissing you so delicately and slowing his hips. “Now, turn around” he returned to commanding your actions. You get on your hands and knees, backing yourself up to him, craving to be fucked from behind.

No warning was given before he slammed his dick into you again. You cried out, not expecting how good it would feel. At this angle, he reached your sweetest spot with every thrust. You found it impossible to muffle your sounds. He watched as your ass jiggled against him every time your skin touched. His calloused hand motioned circles against your ass cheek, prepping it for what he would do next. He pulled back and brought the flattened palm to meet your skin, slapping it firmly. When you moaned out in response, he did it several more times, and enjoyed every strike against your ass.

“Forget being quiet, I want everyone to hear you getting fucked, got it?” Poe growled. You didn’t hesitate, and released all your expression of ecstasy into the small room, knowing your voice was escaping the walls. His voice joined yours as well, which was music your ears.

He curled his hips into you harder and faster now, his fingertips scratched down the length of your back. When you leaned your head back into it, Poe grabbed the bulk of your hair, using it as a handle while pulling your head back with it.

“Oh, god” you cried as the pleasure became unbearable.

“You like being daddy’s good little slut? Huh?” he grew louder. You melted yet again at him speaking to you like this.

“I do, I love it”

“You wanna cum again, baby girl?”

“p-please” you begged.

“Uh-uh, please, what?”

“Please, daddy, make me cum”

“Well, since you asked so politely” he cooed, bringing his hand around you to rub your clit while he continued to fuck you. Being filled and having your most sensitive area stimulated simultaneously was overwhelming. You could already feel your second orgasm forming in the pit of your belly.

“Fuck, Poe, I’m so close” you desperately whined.

“I’ll let that one slide for now” he scolded for addressing him incorrectly.

You felt your orgasm unravel, spilling over your body and spreading inside you. Your body trembled, unable to handle the overstimulation you experienced. It was longer than before, keeping you in a state of euphoria for what felt like hours.

“Yessss, princess, cum on my cock” he praised.

Riding out the end of your glorious high, you became suddenly aware of how loud you were, but you still didn’t care.

“I’m gonna cum too” his breath grew shaky. “When I pull out, I want you to turn around” Poe instructed. You turned to shake your head in agreement.

And with that, he removed himself, his moans growing choppy. You turned over onto your back as requested and positioned your mouth under his length and extended your tongue.

“Oh fuck” Poe stroked himself over you, crying out deeply in euphoria as he hit his climax. He released his hot cum all over your face, some making it onto your mouth. What was left on your cheeks, you gathered with your thumb, bringing it to your mouth and swallowing it while Poe watched.

He collapsed next to you on the small cot that was barely big enough to fit both of you.

“That was...” you began, struggling to properly describe your satisfaction.

“Incredible” he completed your sentence.

“Yeah” you agreed, a giggle trailing your words. “So that’s how much you missed me, huh?” you teased. Poe pulled you into his arms, your head rested on his chest as it rose and fall with his breathing.

As you tried to catch your breath, you were both jolted by an alarming banging at the door.

Shit.

“Can you guys, uh, maybe keep it down in there?” Finn’s voice travelled through the wall. You looked at Poe, absolutely mortified.

“Yeah, bud, we’ll do our best. Hope you enjoyed the show” Poe yelled, dying of laughter at the situation. But you? Not so much. You’d never look Finn in the eyes again.

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penig · 2 years ago

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The Gunter-St. Anthony Ghosts

Since @clouseplayssims didn’t remember the story from her ghost tour of San Antonio (which in any case could not have been comprehensive - I have never set foot in a downtown San Antonio building that didn’t have a ghost) I will tell it here. I did skim the relevant sections of Docia Williams’s books on San Antonio ghosts to refresh myself of on details, but I am telling you the story, not providing a case study of the crime or the supernatural occurrences, so this is the story as I know it, not the facts per se.

Once upon a time - in February 1965, to be as exact as I’m getting - a man checked into Room 636 of the Gunter Hotel with a tall blond woman in tow. He gave one name to the desk clerk, but signed a different one on the check with which he paid for the takeout they got at Schilo’s Deli. Neither was his name, as the people at Schilo’s knew perfectly well, as his mother and the stepfather whose name he signed were regular customers. The Schilos decided not to say anything and to bring the matter up privately with his stepdad. It was not the first time he’d forged a check on his stepfather, but this one was relatively small. His real name was Walter Emerick. No one knows the blonde’s name.

Later that week he stopped in at a department store, alone, to buy a meat grinder.

A funny smell started coming from Room 636. Guests complained. The “Do Not Disturb” sign was always on the knob. The maid decided it must be still out by mistake and let herself in to eradicate the smell. She saw a man standing by the bed, which was all over blood. He put his finger to his lips in the “shhh” sign, picked up the bundle on the bed, and walked out. He was already down the elevator by the time she parsed this well enough to start screaming.

The bathroom was bloody, with a red water line in the tub. The bed was bloody. The women’s undergarments were bloody. The fire escape was bloody, but the weather was drizzly and if there was a trail it had washed away. A .22 bullet casing was on the floor and a .22 bullet in the headboard. Nobody’d heard a shot. Despite the testimony of the department store clerks, no sign of a meat grinder. No one had seen the blonde since the trip to Schilo’s, the receipts for which had been left in the room and led the police to Walter’s identity and history of non-violent crime.

Down the street at the St. Anthony Hotel, a man using yet another name tried to check into Room 636, but it was already taken, so he took Room 536. Events at the Gunter had made the news and the search for Walter had begun, so when the security guard noticed that this man seemed nervous, he called in a tip. The police took multiple men to Room 536, but when they knocked and identified themselves, Walter shot himself with a .22 pistol and died without saying a word.

The bundle was nowhere to be found, but it takes less than a minute to walk from either hotel to the Riverwalk, and there was construction going on all around there at the time, too. It’s not hard to imagine fates or final resting places for a tall blonde body rendered small enough to carry. Or for a meat grinder, for that matter.

To be completely fair to Walter, the St. Anthony was haunted long before he got there, and he wasn’t there long enough for any particular behavior, apart from his suicide, to distinguish itself enough to separate signs of his lingering spirit from those of the honeymooners, maids, and regular patrons of the patio already hanging out there. But nobody was ever comfortable in Room 536, ever again. To the best of my knowledge it’s been used for storage for decades.

Meanwhile, back at the Gunter, Room 636 has been divided into two much smaller rooms, which are a little darker than they should be. But many people, including ones I’ve met, have waited for the elevator on the sixth floor in the company of a tall blonde woman who wasn’t there when they held the door open for her. She seems perfectly ordinary, until she’s gone.

In the late 90s, the Gunter Hotel received a plain post office envelope, addressed to the Gunter Hotel at the zip code in use in 1965, containing nothing but a metal hotel key of the sort we used to have before electronic locks replaced them, on fobs with the hotel’s name and address and the room number printed on them. It was the key to Room 636.

Which supports the theory that the bundle was an aborted baby, the blonde simply walked out, and the whole mess (except the forgery) could have been avoided under Roe vs. Wade; but if that’s what happened in Room 636, why wait 30 years to mail the key back? Why was there a bullet in the headboard?

And why is the blonde still waiting for the elevator?

#ghost story #crime story #mystery #cw: blood #cw: murder #San Antonio #history #ghosts

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beautifulletdownfics · 4 years ago

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The Nearness of You - A Harry Styles One Shot

A friends to lovers one shot feat. birthdays, pining and stolen purses.

Hello, please enjoy this fever dream fic that came to me a week ago and is now somehow 13.5k and gracing your eyeballs. I’ve never written a one-shot of this nature before and it was quite a refreshing distraction from my usual, long-form fics. Thank you to Anne @oh-honey-styles for the encouragement (bullying) and for posting the pic that inspired it all. To everyone else, read on x katey *Because this is quite lengthy, I’d recommend opening in a browser because the Tumblr app can be glitchy*

My masterlist Chat to me here

“When you're in my arms And I feel you so close to me All my wildest dreams came true” The Nearness of You, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

You love the cold.

London in February isn't everybody's cup of tea, but you feel positively giddy walking down the icy Soho street in your new & Other Stories snow boots. The hard, black leather is already making your toes ache, and they're rubbing against the heel of your left foot, but they'll stretch to size, and you can tell these are going to be Your Signature Boots. The wind whips against your cheeks, red flushing them as you cross the laneway and push open the door to the chic little restaurant you've followed on Instagram for years but never had an excuse to try. Figures Harry chose it for tonight. Sometimes you wondered if the coincidences were a little too … Coincidental.

"Hi," you smile brightly to the maître d', "I'm uh … I'm here for the birthday? For Harry?"

Do I need to say his surname? You think to yourself.

"Can I have your name, please?" The suited man pulls a piece of paper out of the reservations book and waits for you to identify yourself. Your chest is rattling from the cold and the flurry of nerves you're all too familiar with ignoring.

"Y/N," you say your full name, taking in the dark floor of the restaurant, the flickering candles on the tables and lining the bar that takes up the entire left side of the room. The whole place is beautiful, just like you've double-tapped online; all deep reds and burgundies, vintage posters, and mismatched, dark wooden furniture. A jazz record plays just loudly enough to fuse the conversations at all the tables into one comfortable sound. It would make for a sexy place for a date, you decide, stolen touches under the table would feel thrilling and seductive.

The maître d' nods, you're on the list, "Back in the private dining room," he says, "Follow me this way."

You push your evening bag further up your shoulder and walk half the length of the bar, your eyes adjusting to the darkness. You catch the bartender watching you as you go, he's cute, and you give him an awkward little wave before calling out ahead of you.

"Sorry, excuse me," you get the attention of the man leading you through, "Can you point me to where I need to go? I'm going to get a drink to take in first if that's okay?"

"Just there," he points to the doorway at the back, next to the kitchen pass, "The curtain on the right."

Thanking him, you watch as he walks back to his station by the front door. You turn to the bar and rest your hands on the cool wood. They've stuck the pages together of old Little Golden Books for the drink menus, but you'll be ordering what you always get on birthdays, so don't take in the beverage options as you flip through The Tawny Scrawny Lion. You remember it from when you were a kid.

The bartender moves to stand in front of you, a gleam in his eyes and flirtatious smirk on his face, "Pretty good read, that one. You have to order a drink though, this isn't a library."

You laugh, he's laying it on a bit thick but probably just after the tip, "I was more a The Poky Little Puppy sort of girl."

He gives you a grin of approval, flipping a napkin up onto the bar in front of you, "What can I make for you?"

"I'll have two Old Fashioneds, please," you lean forward onto your elbows to give your feet a rest as he pulls up a second napkin and then two crystal, lowball glasses. "They're pretty," you comment without thinking.

"It's all about the glass," he confirms quickly, dropping brown sugar cubes into each one and then shaking bitters on top. Your eyes focus on the way the squares dissolve and fall in on themselves as he speaks again, "I'm Jack."

"Y/N," you give your name for the second time, throwing a brief smile his way, "I've never actually watched someone make these before."

Jack pauses and gives you a teasing look, "Do you want me to stop so you can get something to write this all down?"

You laugh and roll your eyes at him as he goes back to making the drinks. You're stalling. You know when you go through the curtain in the back there'll be a dozen people who're all dressed nicer than you, with more impressive jobs than you, who have funnier, more outrageous stories about the birthday boy than you. You'll need to stand awkwardly in the doorway for a few moments too long before Harry notices you, and then your greeting will be watched by all his cool, London friends.

You know better than to let any of that dull your shine—you really do—but you've had a rough few months, and if you're honest, you'd like your first time seeing Harry since the summer to be a little more low-key than this. So that's why you're wearing the new boots that hurt and might not suit the dress code because they're new and you feel good wearing them with this outfit. It feels a little special to be out celebrating Harry's (belated) birthday in a semi-new ensemble. You managed to fluke getting your hair and makeup just right, and yes, your legs do look pretty fantastic in these tights with the short, roll neck, knit dress, thank you very much.

"Here you go," Jack brings your attention back to him, you can smell the citrus twist in front of you, and the crystal glass deflects the light from the candles, "Can I put this on a tab for you? You're with the birthday?"

"I'll pay," you tell him, already digging for your card and holding it out to him.

"Oi!" You hear a very familiar voice call out from the far end of the bar, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you shiver, "What're you payin' for? What's she—don't take her money!"

You keep your arm out steadily to Jack and raise your eyebrows at him, "Take it," you urge him quickly, feeling him pluck it from your fingers just as you turn towards the voice you know so well.

That familiar Tom Ford cologne hits your nose just as Harry hurries up and deposits himself heavily against the bar, right up in your personal space. His broad frame blocks out the room to you, and he's lit softly in the dim light and looking radiant from within, as per usual. He's got his crazy eyes out—accusing you—and his eyebrows are pinched together slightly, but he looks good. Happy. Rested. Pleased to see you.

Harry's always pleased to see everyone, you tell yourself, Hold it together.

He pulls you into his chest for a hug. Your cheek presses just below his pecs, and you feel the way he's grown more defined since you last saw him. The material of his t-shirt is soft and smells clean. It's a tight squeeze he gives you, one that you resist reading into. Was it healthy for there to be so much comfort in a simple hug? Was your whole body allowed to tingle and fizz from the embrace of a friend? Was it pathetic to have been carrying around in your ribcage the same crush from when you were thirteen?

Affirmative. Without a doubt. Yes.

You haven't seen Harry since mid-September, the last time he was in London. Well, the last time he was in London and had time to see you. You're sure there were probably business trips, Christmas definitely. And going off Instagram, you think he might've flown into Manchester and spent a long weekend with Anne back in October, but if it was any of your business, it would've been your business. You needed to be grateful simply for what you got; intermittent texts about books he'd read or maybe a happy drunk voicemail if he thought of you at the right time. He sent an email at Christmas with a charitable contribution in your name instead of a gift.

"It's so good to see you," Harry says as he pulls away, all crinkled eyes and broad smiles. You don't know your grin has launched his heart into space and that despite having just gone to the bathroom, Harry feels due for a nervous wee. He thinks you look fucking gorgeous tonight. Knowing you've done your hair, and eyeliner, and picked that dress to come out and celebrate his birthday … It sends a jolt of desire straight to his groin—beauty blooms in front of his eyes in you.

Tell her, you idiot. Twenty-seven could be the year.

"Hi," you chirp at him happily and pick up one of the glasses in front of you, "I got you a drink."

Harry watches you fondly and then dramatically looks off to the side, lets out a little huff, "Typical Y/N, buying her own drink … You really think I wouldn't have one here for you?"

Nevertheless, he says a quiet thank you, takes the glass from you and deliberately sniffs it as if he's not sure what's inside or if he'll like it. You smack his arm lightly at the show and pick up your own glass, chinking it to the side of his and watching him over the rim as you both take your first sips. The familiar taste and view fill your tummy with gurgling happiness that sits high in your chest. He's dressed almost exactly how you expected him to be—smart, high-waisted dress pants and a printed t-shirt. You're glad you didn't go too formal, the restaurant is nice, but it's not Hatted or anything, not like the place he took you in LA that time, where you felt like the biggest idiot in the world for not realising beforehand, was properly fancy.

"Fuckin' delicious," he rumbles slowly, bringing you back to the cocktail, "A classic."

"Happy birthday," you tell Harry sweetly, thankful for what's likely to be your only quiet moment with him all night, "Sorry I couldn't make it to the LA party."

"Ah," Harry waves you off, "Your job's much too important here."

He means it. Harry's beyond proud of you. He's always telling people you work for the NHS, saving lives and keeping the country going. The party in LA was thrown together by some people at the last minute, and even though most of the friends he left in the backroom when he went to find the bathrooms a few moments ago were able to fly across for it, Harry's not the least bit put out by you not being able to. Would've been a big trip for you to do on your own and he knew there's no way you'd miss his London celebration. And you sent over a gift, which shouldn't have surprised him. His actual birthday was spent in LA, and that morning a parcel arrived from you—two new notebooks and a novel Harry read the back of and instantly knew he would love. It's what he read on the flight home to the UK.

Trust you to want him to have the gift on his birthday—go to all that trouble of packaging it and sending it over—when you were going to see him in London ten days later anyway. Harry could do worse than a friend like you.

"I just need a bit more notice than four da—

—Please," Harry's shaking his head at you, hating watching you apologise for something he really doesn't care about. "I'm glad you're here tonight," he tells you genuinely, fingers reaching out to brush your bangs away from your eyebrow briefly and—did the room just spin around you?—get a glimpse of the bronze sheen over your eyelids, "I haven't seen your new hair in person, looks lovely."

Lovely? he scolds himself, Lovely is a nice jam scone, lovely is a hug from mum …

"Oh," you coo, automatically sending your own fingers up to where Harry's had just been to reposition your newish bangs, "Thanks, still getting used to it, wanted to do it forever but wasn't brave enough to I guess."

"I like your natural hair colour, too," he continues slowly, eyes running over your whole head, "I mean, I loved how it used to be … But I like this a lot."

Shit, Harry's already failing to adhere to the strict series of pep talks he's given himself over the last couple of days. He's babbling, and he's probably just made you think he's not liked how you've had your hair for the previous twelve years. Is he buzzed from the cocktail or from the way your cheeks have gone a little pink since he touched you? His compliment made you squirm, and Harry wants to do it again and again until what he's feeling makes sense.

"Just, you know, feels like a throwback to the old days," he mumbles through another sip of the cocktail you both love, a glint appears in his eyes as he continues, "When you had Barbie overalls and would spend half a day plaiting your whole head in those tiny little rat tails."

Your mouth opens into a horrified O, and you let out a single laugh, "Rat tails? They were cool. And I was eleven when we met, I'd definitely already outgrown the Barbie overalls."

"Whatever you say," Harry smirks at you, signature dimples appearing on his cheeks, "I just remember those little beads from the ends of them ending up all over the bottom of the pool."

You smile at the memory. You remember duck diving with Gemma to collect all the beads so they could be put back into your hair the next day. Nearly drowning from laughing so hard at Harry and the other boys trying to stand on your backs in the water. Summers with Harry were always spent laughing. The local pool and skate park saw all your adventures. When Harry's dad moved in next door to your family after his parent's divorce, you and your brother hung off the fence, peering into the backyard to see if any toys or a trampoline might appear signally new kids next door. They didn't, and it wasn't until the summer when Harry and Gemma arrived for their holidays that you jumped the fence with ice lollies and offered yourself up as a new friend.

"Simpler times," you muse to yourself, looking up and catching the perplexed look Harry was giving you, "Spaced out a bit, sorry."

"I've missed my little weirdo," he grins at you affectionately, angling a little closer and levelling his head down to yours as he bit his lip and frowned, "Are you doing alright though?"

You let out a little sigh and avert your eyes to where Jack, the bartender, is busy making trays of drinks for different tables. Harry observes you carefully, a twinge of guilt forms for causing the sad look that's come over your face, but also for not having asked the question weeks ago. Gemma told him at Christmas, an off-handed comment about you being newly single. When he heard the evil gremlin in him was fucking relieved, just like he always was.

"I'm fine," you try a smile out and pull your lips up higher when you don't think Harry buys it, "Better. Had my crisis haircut and drank myself to tears with my work friends. Just a normal break up, really. M'getting used to them at this point."

A small, white lie.

Each breakup bruises you deeply. Talking about it afterwards fills you with a shame that makes you feel naked, like everyone else can see what's wrong with you but you. As though it's obvious why nobody's picked you yet. You don't ever want to talk about it afterwards, (especially not with Harry) don't want to draw attention to it. Prefer to let the disappointment and loneliness pool in your tummy and sit there heavily, weighing you down, waiting for the One Day someone spectacular might come along and be buoyant enough to float away with you.

You're looking for your forever. You want the cheesy romance, and the love, and marriage, and kids, and the whole stupid thing. You want to be wanted and loved and cherished. That's what you're ready for. You just can't find anyone who's ready for that with you. So, you date, have mediocre boyfriends who rarely make it to the first anniversary, then pick up the pieces and try again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

"Well," Harry swallows, reaches out for your arm to make sure you look at him, "You look beautiful tonight. And it's his loss, he's clearly a monumental idiot."

You give Harry a noncommittal hum in response. Just as you're about to say something you shouldn't—get into details you bet Harry really isn't that interested in knowing—you catch the movement of someone appearing from the doorway behind Harry and then approaching you both.

"Harry, mate," you don't know the guy who's recognised Harry's back and is calling out for his attention now, "Thought you might've fallen in."

Harry snaps around quickly to the voice, blocking your view. You take another sip of your drink and pull in a deep breath. Not fitting into any of Harry' groups socially has its downfalls. If his sister wasn't around, you tended to have to make friends at anything Harry invites you to. You're not part of his Holmes Chapel crew or his LA friends, and you definitely don't fit into the London group. Over the years there have been faces you've come to find familiar, but you're still the singular, hanger-on friend from Harry's second childhood home.

Peering around Harry's shoulder, you catch the end of a look between the two guys you think alludes to this new friend gauging whether Harry needs rescuing from you. You briefly wish the ground would open and swallow you whole. You know that look well.

"Aiden, this is Y/N," Harry raises his arm and angles to pull you around in front of him.

You hold up your drink, awkwardly, "Hi."

Aiden gives you a hesitant smile, "Hello," then he raises his eyebrows at Harry, "Harry, you coming back in, mate?"

Harry bites his lip and chuckles, reading the look on his friend's face, "You're a prick, I don't need saving. Known Y/N since I was twelve, we were just catching up."

You feel yourself go bright red, and you're thankful for the forgiving lighting. This isn't the first time this exact scenario has happened to you. You've been on the receiving end of that uneasy look before—his friends checking if the girl who isn't there with anyone else is supposed to be there at all. Backstage at the O2, a member of Harry's security once hauled you to the tour manager's office to check your VIP credentials were legitimate. You'll take that story with you to the grave.

Aiden deflates slightly and waves a hand your way, "Shit, sorry, thought he'd been cornered by a fan again … I mean, a pretty fan to say the least but …" he coughs into his hand when Harry gives him a glare you don't see, "Great to meet you."

"No worries," you wave it off like it's nothing. The truth is your brain has short-circuited at Harry's palm resting on the small of your back, he's not moved it from when he first brought you forward. Friendly touches weren't strange between you, but this lingering, comforting hand is burning a hole in you tonight. You haven't been out and had anyone touch you since your breakup, and Harry is setting off all you nerve endings. You tilt your weight onto your other foot to pull back from him slightly, but Harry's hand travels with you. "We should go back, I might use the loo first though, is it that way?"

Harry watches you point in the direction of the bathroom, you're flustered and he really wishes he could tell Aiden to buzz off so he could just take another few minutes with you. Brief you on who was in the room you were about to go into. You wouldn't know any of them, and Harry always appreciated that you came to things on your own, particularly when you wouldn't know anyone aside from him once you got there. He should have invited his sister so you'd have a buddy. Or told you to bring a friend. Not a boyfriend, though.

He watches you take the final drag from your drink and put the glass down on top of the bar, "Thanks Jack, t' was dee-lish," you catch the attention of the bartender, throwing him a beaming grin. And Harry watches the way the guy's features light up at being called on by you. Envy rumbles in Harry's gut, he recognises the dumb smile and dopey nod of Barman Jack's head. Has felt it a hundred times himself when he's been on the receiving end of your quirky humour.

You walk away, and Harry feels Aiden watching him, "She's fit," he comments, trying to get a rise out of Harry, reading the room perfectly.

"Fuck you," Harry grunts at him.

Harry sits opposite you at the long table in the private dining room.

You nurse a glass of rosé and eat the food slowly, savouring it. You deliberated over the menu for a long time before settling on what to order, you've seen photos of most of the dishes online, but there were several new ones too. Harry goes off your recommendations but spends a lot of the dinner talking to the people sitting beside him. He knows if he tried talking to you right now, he'd just get lost in you, which is both rude for a birthday party and bound to be too conspicuous.

You insert yourself into a conversation with the girls sitting next to you and pretend you're good at making friends. They spend most of the meal talking about something that was on the telly the night before. You were on shift so missed it, but pretend to be interested or like you might've seen it—anything to not stick out like a sore thumb.

Harry watches you out the corner of his eye the whole time. You've shrugged off your jacket, and he recognises the gold necklace you've got around the collar of your dress, sitting over the black fabric on your chest. He's pretty sure it was a gift from Gemma a few years ago, you wear it all the time. Harry makes a note to get you something that compliments it for your birthday coming up. You're chatting to one of his mate's girlfriends and Lisa who's been on his publicity team for years. Those would've been the two he'd have introduced you to first as well. He can't stop watching the way your lips turn up every time something funny is said, or one of the girls makes eye contact with you. Watching you try with his other friends always makes Harry feel warm and giddy for some reason.

Fuck, he's missed you. And he berates himself for the fact he never seems to remember that until he sees you again. (It's strategic usually, his heart doesn't take your company well when he knows you're going home to someone else) You're so engaging and kind and unintentionally charming, and you always have time for him. Harry knows he's not an easy human to be friends with; he constantly ducks in and out and is never around for the big things, let alone being available to call on a random day to just hang out with. The friendship is always on his terms, and he knows it makes him a selfish prick. You definitely could've done with a call a couple of months back when you had your heart broken. Like always, he missed it, and by the time he was sending you a message about an episode of Midsomer Murders, he felt as though the moment to console you had passed, and Harry didn't want to draw attention to the fact he wasn't around for it.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?" His head snaps back around to the person next to him, thoughts still on you across the table. He agrees with whatever was said and does his best to catch up.

Harry's got to stop thinking about how you're single at the moment. He really does.

A few hours later, it's the girl sitting to your left, Lisa, who first mentions the idea of kicking on.

It's after dessert—after everyone sang happy birthday to Harry over a round of espresso martinis—and you're starting to think that if you leave now, you'll be home before midnight, which means the tube won't be too deserted to feel safe. You're also at a comfortable place to wake up without a hangover in the morning. Two cocktails and a glass of wine over dinner, because any more and you're scared you could say something stupid to the wrong (right) person.

Harry's face lights up, and he looks around the room, eager at the idea of going to a bar or two for more drinks. He's not been out in London for the longest time, and he's happily buzzed enough to not be too worried about running into people. Feels like this group of friends have gelled well together. How often does he get to have a night like this in London? Hardly ever.

"Yeah, let me sort out the tab and then we're good to go," Harry says, pushing his seat back from the table and standing up, his hands hunting his pockets for his wallet and phone, "I'll be right back."

When he goes, you decide now's as good a time as any to split. You pull your coat on and say goodbye to the friends you made over the meal. Lisa gives you her business cards as if speaking to you had been part of her job, you slip it straight into your coat pocket and can already picture it at the bottom of the garbage in your kitchen. You revisit the bathrooms, and when you come back out into the main restaurant area, Harry's still leaning against the front desk, chatting to the maître d' from earlier.

He feels your small hand land on his back and jolts upright at the contact, your gentle voice calling his name softly, "Harry, I'm going to head home."

He spins around, and you catch the fall of his face, "What? No … No. You're the one I want to hang out with the most," his bottom lip juts out and his brows furrow. "Y/N."

"Thanks a fuckin' lot, mate," you hear a male voice laugh at your back, they slip behind you and out into the chilly air, and Harry flips them the bird. You were pushed closer into his chest as they jostled past and he steadied you with his arms latched onto your forearms. Still watching outside, you see a cigarette lighter flare-up on the footpath and the end of an orange butt glow spectacularly in the night. When you glance back at Harry, he's not looking happy.

"Don't pout," you tell him lightly, you reach up and press the skin taut between his eyes smooth again, "Can't wrinkle that rockstar face of yours."

His face lights up, and his skin heats where you made contact, "You can't go yet."

"Harry," your features tangle into something like a grimace, "You'll have a better time without me. Everyone seems to be pretty tight—"

—Y/N," he gives you a final, pleading look, "Please come."

You make out like you're stomping your foot in defiance, "Fine."

"Score!" Harry cheers under his breath, shrugging his jacket up over his shoulders and saying a final round of thank yous to the staff. When you're out on the street at Harry's side somebody mentions the name of the next place and points the direction of it, Harry places a hand on your shoulder as you start to walk and leans down to your ear, "I just have one condition for you coming."

You pull back and look at him, "I don't think you get conditions when you've begged me to be here."

"A birthday condition then," he edits, pressing his lips together and smiling at you with his eyes, "You have to promise to do what I say before I ask it."

You narrow your eyes at him, "I suppose you only turn twenty-seven once. You can have a single wish from me."

Harry laughs and slips his fingers under the strap of your evening bag, "Give me this."

You think briefly he means to carry it for you, which is a strange thing for Harry to request. But then he unzips it in front of you and starts rifling around inside it, slipping your phone under his arm so he can move around the lipstick and tissues and emergency Galaxy bar to eventually pull out your small purse.

"Harry! What are you—

—Ah, ah!" He holds it all away from you and reminds you of the promise. "This is mine for the night," he says, slipping your purse into his coat pocket. "Otherwise you'll end up buying too many rounds."

You try to sneak your hand into the pocket after your wallet, "Don't be stupid. It's your birthday, I'll buy every round if I need to."

"Exactly my point," he steps away from you down the street, and you skip to be back at his side. He's stolen your money and your chocolate bar.

"Harry, give it back."

"Nope," he pops the 'p' and hands you back the bag, the Galaxy bar hanging from between his teeth, still in the packet, "You promised. Now hurry up and walk, and I might give you a bite of this. 'm freezing my balls off, we are not in LA anymore."

So that's how you end up in the next bar, your handbag a little lighter, squished into Harry's side with a pleasantly sour cocktail he paid for between your fingers. The booth is so far into the back wall you're not even really sure which direction the front door is anymore. Somehow, you've managed to sit ten people around a booth probably designed for six, but nobody seems to be bothered.

Your whole right side is on fire, though.

You can feel Harry from the top of your shoulder all the way to your ankle. His hip sits neatly next to yours, Harry's left elbow rests just above your right thigh, and your knees press together every time he gets excited when he speaks and unintentionally opens his legs up. If Harry's bothered by it there's no way you'd know, he's hardly looked at you since you all sat down, much less uttered a word of discomfort about the seating arrangements. Makes no sense really, when he seemed so desperate for you to stay out with them.

(Next to you Harry's felt like he was high most of the time, he's flashing in and out of the conversations around him. Because he can smell your perfume—Stella by Stella McCartney, he'd know that fragrance anywhere, you've been wearing it since you were seventeen—and you're warm and snug beside him. He feels completely insane. But he also feels inflated with a heart-crushing joy at having you so close. He's trying his best not to draw attention to it or to you because what he's always liked most about your friendship is that you're just his. God, he needs to do better at seeing you more often, talking more, being more. Each breath as he's touching you is like a crack of electricity through his chest that aches beautifully. Nobody else feels like this. Even when he's dated, what he's felt with them can't hold a candle to his boyhood crush on you.)

You sip your drink and laugh at the embarrassing story that's being told about Harry, oblivious to his torment. Oblivious to how Harry feels your forearm brush his leg and has the overwhelming desire to deposit his palm on your thigh and keep it there, probably forever.

It strikes you that the last time you saw Harry was before the current anecdote about him in Italy happened, and at the table, it's being spoken about as though it was ancient history. You wonder what historic classification your memory of thirteen-year-old Harry would get, that time he attempted to bleach his hair with lemon juice. He ended up with second-degree burns on his forehead from the acid reacting with the sun.

Or the time Gemma stayed in Holmes Chapel for the summer because she had her first boyfriend, and so you spent six weeks learning that maybe you'd been wrong about who your favourite Styles child was. Maybe the boy who, when you were eleven, didn't impress you much, suddenly at thirteen, demanded all your attention. Made that summer become the first where you considered your outfits and whether your mum sending you next door with homemade snacks made you look lame.

"… And of course, Harry can't walk away from a dance floor when he's on the tequila …" everyone around the table laughs. Harry peeks at you to make sure you are too, but he's not very good at it because you notice, a smile flares on your lips.

You're used to long periods of not seeing each other, it's how it's always been. Harry and Gemma spent the summers with their dad and then returned to Holmes Chapel for real life. Sometimes that's what it still felt like, as though each time you saw either of them you were acutely aware there was a foreign Real Life they would go back to without you.

Harry in particular. You were used to not seeing him for months on end, usually the whole school year. Just a few messages over MySpace and birthday cards, and then, when you were out of school, invites to parties Harry couldn't come to anymore—'I'm in Australia, how insane is that? Sorry, I'll miss your 18th …' or 'I can only stay until the 8th, could you maybe graduate a week earlier? ;)'—and emails every other month with a new mobile number for you to overwrite his contact in your phone with. You're not saying you feel hard done by in your friendship, you don't. It's just always very take-what-you-can-get with Harry.

"You've got your thinky eyes on," he's pivoted his whole body towards you, hips twisted in an entirely uncomfortable looking position. Harry's got his resting elbow on the table right next to where your hand holds your drink, and he's looking down at you with careful eyes, "Where are you?"

"The pool a dozen summers ago," you answer easily, pursing your lips together and running a knuckle along your hairline, "Thinking about your ah, burn incident."

Harry's face explodes in a grin, and his eyes roll up to the ceiling and then capture yours again, "For fuck's sake, you're never going to stop bringing that up, are you?"

"You were a horrible blonde," you remark quickly, "If you ever so much as blink in the direction of a packet of bleach you have to call me, okay? I'll have no issue telling you, categorically, you should never dye your hair."

"Categorically," Harry mimics you childishly, "Alright, I get it, you went to uni. No need to use words with fifty syllables to make me feel stupid."

You bring your glass up to your lips, "Come off it, Harry, you're ten times smarter than me."

His forehead raises, "You're the cleverest person I know. Don't make me call Gem to confirm it."

"Don't bring your sister into this, Harry," you deadpan.

He goes to reply but holds back, something unnamable travelling across his eyes as he watches you lick your lips after taking another sip of your drink. Harry's leaning a little closer than he might usually, and despite the fact he's a few drinks in he still smells only of Tom Ford and clean clothes. He's just about to ask you what you're doing the next day when he gets hit in the side of the head with a coaster.

"Hey," he cries out, pulling back from you and frowning around at the group trying to figure out who the culprit is," 'M the fucking birthday boy, watch it."

Lisa is the girl directly across from Harry and yourself, and she's is the one who threw it. She's giving Harry a coy smile and holds up her empty glass to him, a not so subtle request makes the drink in your hand feel like a concrete brick. Something dirty you don't like having. She's got captivating blue eyes and straight blonde hair—exactly Harry's usual type. Your heart sinks as he slides out of the booth next to you, laughing at her flirtatious request and taking a tally of who else wants a new drink.

"Y/N?" Your name is delicate on his lips, and it makes you want to cry. Why is it so easy for you to make things feel like they mean more with him?

You direct your smile his way, "I'm good, thanks."

His head tilts to one side, "You sure?"

"Positive," you nod, feeling your cheeks burn as everyone watches the exchange.

"Okay," Harry taps the table with the corner of his phone, "I'll be right back."

After a few moments, you sneak off to the bathroom, happy to see Harry's beaten you back from the bar when you return. He's sitting in your spot, deep in conversation with the person beside him who you recognise from the radio. Tentatively, you slip in next to him, careful not to touch him this time. Harry's got his hand casually resting on the table, turning your glass forty-five degrees one way and then back the other way as he speaks. You think about reaching over and pulling it out of his hand gently (you're losing your buzz, and Little Miss Bombshell across the table has made you feel silly and juvenile) but it looks to be an almost serious conversation, so you don't. With a smile plastered on your face, you look around the table, resisting the urge to pull out your phone to check if either of your flatmates has text you to meet up with them somewhere.

It's a delicious whiff of your perfume behind him that turns Harry's head. You're back from the bathroom, although nobody was able to confirm that's where you went when he got back from the bar and asked after you. Harry pushes your drink over and gives you a smile, taking note of the fresh layer of lipstick and messy oomph to your hair that perfectly shows off the new style and bangs.

Golden, he thinks, As always,

"Your new hair really does look beautiful," Harry tells you, the bar stilling around you as his face becomes all the world is for you at that moment, "Next time, don't wait for a dickhead to break your heart before doing something to make yourself feel good."

You swallow down the thickness in your throat, "Thanks, Harry."

Walking to the next bar, Harry can't stop himself from asking.

"What happened?"

You kick your foot out as you wait at a set of traffic lights, half the group ran to cross, but you, Harry and a couple of others were too slow, "What happened with what?"

Harry watches his breath fan out in front of his face, "With your ex, with …"

"Tim."

"Tim, yeah," he turns to look down at you, hands tucked into his coat pockets, "What happened with Tim?"

"Nothing really," you start strong, then shrug one shoulder as you think about it. It's safe to cross so you wait until you're stepping up over the gutter and onto the opposite footpath before you continue, "Probably a lot of little things but … Always felt like he thought I was asking for a bit too much. I guess in the end he just didn't like me all that much."

The way your voice drops kills Harry, he's not detecting self-deprecation but something far worse. He's detecting acceptance or acknowledgement or like you're confessing some truth that should have been obvious.

"Y/N," he stops walking and halts you as well, lets Adrian and Lisa walk around and out in front of you, "If he didn't like you very much then he's got some kind of chemical imbalance. I mean it, this guy's not worth a second of your heartache."

It's not like Harry's a dickhead about it, not like he thinks you should date people with more money or status or who are more impressive. A person isn't their job or what car they drive, he knows that. Harry's not about judging anyone, but you really do seem to date guys not worthy of you. He hasn't met many of them, but Harry knows this to be true because if they were worthy, you simply wouldn't be single right now. If you dated someone half-decent, there wouldn't be a chance in hell they'd let you go. You're beautiful and thoughtful and intelligent and funny—so funny—which means Harry knows without a doubt that this Tim guy was an absolute fuckwit.

"It's not necessarily about the guy," you start and Harry can hear the thick emotion in your voice, "Is it? It's about the idea. The disappointment is more about not getting the fairytale, not finding my person. Not getting the whole package everyone else seems to have found. I know Tim wasn't right—truth be told I didn't end up liking him very much either—doesn't stop me from being sad that I still haven't found it."

"'It'… That's what you're looking for?" Harry asks, eyes out front where the rest of the group are all stopped waiting at another set of traffic lights.

They're laughing and chatting loudly to other people on nights out, and hanging off street poles to get funny pictures. He doesn't want to catch up to them, not when the two of you are in the middle of this conversation that's making his heart race and his hands sweat. He starts taking smaller steps.

"Yeah," you breathe out, almost sounding ashamed of yourself, "Don't seem to be looking in the right places."

Look over here, Harry thinks.

"But I mean, each breakup I end up getting something out of it," you've flicked your positivity switch, "This time I got these boots and bangs," you kick out your foot and watch Harry take note of your footwear, "Last break up I got four houseplants and a new watch … It's not all bad. What about you?" you turn it back on Harry, "Are you seeing anyone at the moment?"

It's hard to tell with Harry. You either find out from his sister or sometimes, social media. Although that's all usually trash. Generally, when Harry's seeing someone, you'll hear it confirmed from Gemma, and the next time you see Harry, it'll be something you're assumed to know. You haven't seen Gemma since Christmas time though, for your annual festive get together, and she didn't mention anything. Tim had ended things with you a few days before, so that was the main topic of conversation.

"No," Harry confirms what you'd already deduced—and hoped—in your head, "Not for a while now."

"Got your eye on anyone?" You quiz faux cheekily, your smile a little too wide.

Yes, you, he says to himself as he looks at the side of your face.

You hope he's not got some girl in LA he's into. Just like you'd hoped his answer to the previous question. But the hope was silly, something that bloomed in your chest each time you saw him and died again before you were home in your bed, alone.

"I'll let you know," he says aloud.

You think you see something else there in his expression, but you know you can't have. Your mind is swirling, and you're feeling a tingling sensation all over that you know you shouldn't. It'll only leave you disappointed when you part ways tonight and don't see him for another few months. The tiny bits of maybe mores and perhaps are dangerous to things to cling on to now, they'll all turn into Nothings very quickly.

Someone steals his attention away from you when you get to the next street corner. Most of the group are gathered there, and you're not sure whether to believe it when Lisa says they missed the green man to cross the road because they were talking. She sides up to Harry and starts waving her hands around in an animated story about something or other. Harry crosses the street with her, and you give him up for the night.

But he's acutely aware of what's happened. Harry's not stupid—he's emotionally intelligent, and spent enough time with Lisa on nights out before—and he can see that she's deliberately pulled him aside. He likes her, quite a bit, but she doesn't make his insides flip, or his toes curl. She's firmly Just A Friend. Harry hasn't spent countless hours over the years thinking about her, lying to himself about how he's completely fine when she starts dating someone new. He's never thought about an alternative life, one where he stayed at school and went to uni and got a regular job and maybe (definitely) ended up with her.

He's imagined that life with you—more than once. More than a dozen times, if he's honest. For years now, Harry's bitten his tongue and smiled through the pain of not being able to have you. And sure, most of the time it's a dull ache, deep in the recess of his mind, that needs to be called on or conjured to really be felt, but it's always been there. He's always had an (Astronomical) Soft Spot For You. Ever since that summer you broke your arm falling off the back of the ramp at the skate park, and he first saw you cry. At fifteen he didn't know what the hollow but sharp pain through his heart was as he rushed to your side, but now he knows that was the first sign he didn't see you as just a mate. Would never again see you as just a mate.

And now, hearing you use the word 'it'. You say you're out there dating idiots trying to find it and Harry's just unwaveringly sure he that could be him. He wants to be it for you.

You've pulled out your phone and fallen behind, face pulled down as you type away furiously. Harry watches you out of the corner of his eye, half just to watch you and half to make sure you don't get separated entirely from the safety of the group.

"Y/N," he calls out, unable to keep up with Lisa's story and unwilling to try to tune back into it. She stops short, and annoyance flits across her face, but Harry still turns to you, still crosses his arms over his chest and gives you his best scolding look, "It's the oldest trick in the book," he goads you. Lisa sighs behind him, and he ignores it.

Your head slowly comes up and takes in Harry (and Lisa sulking behind him), "What is?"

"Fallin' behind so you can peek at my bum."

You point at the long coat Harry's wearing that goes to his knees, "Can't see half of you under that thing."

"Ah, ha!" He calls out, his pointer finger floating in the air right in front of your face, "So you've tried."

You shove his shoulder and step around him, trying like anything to act neutrally. You're aware Lisa is still watching on, and you're not used to your friendship with Harry being quite so carefully observed. You know your face has gone red and you're really not going to involve yourself in a pissing contest with her. It's not classy and certainly not your vibe.

As you walk away, boots clip up behind you, and Harry heavily drapes his arm right across your shoulders, pulls you into his side, "Was just teasin', love."

"I know," you respond quietly, not upset, not really.

"Though I might've made you sad," Harry continues solemnly, "Know you get embarrassed in front of people."

Your face cracks into a smile, "Opposite of you, hey, you're practically an exhibitionist."

He should flirt because you've led him to a pretty easy window into a dirty joke, but something has Harry hanging onto his regret, "I mean it, shouldn't tease you …Should be old enough to use my words, tell you what I think."

You've got no idea what he's on about, "Harry, the teasing was fine. Where's this bloody bar though?"

Up ahead, everyone's standing on the footpath in a clump. Harry can feel the next words on his lips but has to hold them in when his mates turn and see he's finally caught up. They're waiting a few minutes for a table, someone explains, then they'll be able to go in. Harry thinks how little he feels like another drink at another bar. A few people walk away from the group to share cigarettes. You're standing a little bit away, under the sign for the butcher next-door and kick your foot back against the wall like the slight movement might warm you up.

As he steps up to you, Harry watches you get distracted by the group of people spilling out of the bar you're all about to go into. He doesn't want to take advantage of knowing you're newly single also doesn't want to let this opportunity pass. You're always dating someone, or he is, or there's some other reason not to. There's always a reason to hold back from you and Harry refuses to believe it's the drinks he's had nudging him into this. Neither of you is drunk, he wouldn't even say he's tipsy anymore. Just warm and contemplative and less inhibited than usual.

"C' mere," he calls softly, the tips of his boots landing right in front of yours, your bodies a hands' width apart. He wants you closer.

"Harry—

He opens up his coat to you and when you don't move—your brain is busy short-circuiting—he acts for you and winds his arm around your shoulder to encase you in the warmth, "Get in," Harry says, "You're shivering."

You're shocked by the contact, at him being so close and inviting you in and then just taking you in his jacket. He's wrapped the lapels around both your bodies and forced you against his chest. He hums against you, but you're feeling incredibly awkward with your arms hitched up against your chest and pressed rigidly into his shoulders. You've not been in a hold like this before and certainly not with Harry.

He pulls back and digs around for your wrists, "You've gotta put them around me," he stretches his arms behind his back, taking yours with them and instructing you to really settle against him. "There, that's better," he wraps the jacket back around you, and the two of you stand like that—hearts pressed together, scents converging and your whole frame shaking against his—for what seems like far too long for it mean nothing. Right? Your thoughts ricocheted around inside his jacket and go nowhere, solve nothing in your mind.

Over your shoulder, he sees the rest of the group have gone into the bar. He's not surprised none of them called out, Harry's angled you both away from the door and with his head ducked down against yours they probably (hopefully) missed you both there.

It's Harry's twenty-seventh birthday, and maybe that's made him sullen or introspective. Made him think about the passage of time and how another year has passed him by, yet here he stands in the same place as ever—wanting you. Wishing for more, or waiting for a moment that feels right, or hoping something will happen. With growing older comes a sense of regret and an acceptance that twenty-six has happened and anything he wanted to achieve by that age but didn't he never will. There's only the future. Only the things he can do. And the mix of all that with the cocktails has Harry feeling as though he has to act on this. Every birthday he thinks maybe by the next one the Somethings or the Maybes might have happened, and you won't be standing in front of him as just his friend.

"Always had a thing for you," Harry says, his chin resting against the crown of your head while his arms link around low on your back, holding you against him, "I've always liked you more than I should."

Oh god, you think, your chest freezing in place, I'm hallucinating.

"What?" Now your heart is really racing. Or maybe it's completely stopped, seized up and fallen out of your chest onto the salt-covered footpath.

His voice comes out evenly as he repeats himself, "Feels bigger than a crush, but I guess that's what it is … Since we were kids."

(Oh, how those words have been his best-kept secret for all these years but now, in less than two seconds, he's let go of them more easily than almost anything else he's ever done)

"Y/N?"

Harry thought he'd be scared. Thought this would be a moment of panic. Every time he's imagined this he's thought 'and I'd be absolutely shitting myself because what if she doesn't feel the same way?' but now that he's said it he's almost completely calm. The only reason he's worried is that he can feel how hard your heart is beating—even through the layers of clothing—and surely that quickly can't be good for your health.

You're speechless, and he leans back so he can see your face and, oh your eyes. Why on earth didn't he say it to your face, so he could be looking in your eyes? Watch his words project across your expression and settle into your mind.

You look worried, and Harry's transported back to that time he had you on FaceTime when he was somewhere on tour with One Direction. He was telling you about how management was going to let them fly friends out on tour, bring a little bit of home along and give the boys some needed space from each other. You were nodding along and so excited for him but sure Harry was talking about someone else, that this was just news and he'd called up to tell you how he was inviting the boys he went to school with in Cheshire or people he met through X-Factor. Of course I'm bringing out you and Gem, you idiot, he'd told you when you were surprised to get an invite, Who else did you think I was talking about?

He kind of loves watching the look on your face right now, the cogs turning in your head and wheels spinning, furiously trying to figure out what Harry means.

Why isn't he terrified of what you're about to say?

"Why … but you've… and I've…"

Your hands have moved to his hips so you can see him properly, and Harry's encouraged by the fact you haven't pulled away or pushed him off you. You're watching him with a puzzled look on your face and a burning heat across your cheeks.

He brings his forearms up to rest on your shoulders and smiles at you, "I wasn't brave enough to act on it … Guess I didn't want to fuck it up. Didn't want it to not work out. Couldn't stand you becoming an ex."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Right." You don't seem capable of more than one word at a time.

"You feel bad for yelling at me about the chocolate bar now, don't you?" Harry's narrowed his eyes playfully.

That does it.

Your eyes snap back up to his face from being fixated on staring at his neck, "Chocolate bar … No, what the fuck, Harry."

He laughs. A real laugh that comes from the base of his tummy and squeezes his eyes shut and crinkles his nose. His head falls back, and it's a deep, uninhibited laugh, "Don't stomp your new boots at me," he eventually says, crooking his head down to be almost pressing his forehead against yours. "You've been my favourite girl for years, I've always been a pansy idiot who didn't want to wreck the friendship."

"Oh, and now you don't mind wrecking it?" You bark back sarcastically, unsure why you're angry at him but you are.

"No," Harry says softly, moving through your emotional responses seamlessly, "I don't think it's going to wreck it, do you? Think twenty-seven has finally given me the balls to pursue it. To tell you how I feel. How I've always felt."

Your eyes instantly ball with hot tears you weren't prepared for, "You're an idiot."

"I am," he agrees readily, fingers playing with the ends of your hair.

"Why have you told me this now," your voice is small, unsure.

Harry frowns, now he's starting to panic, "Do you … Do you not feel the same? Or do you not think maybe you could?"

Oh, if only he could have been in your head every time you saw him these last few years. Heard you talk yourself down and away from anything more than platonic, from any thoughts that might elevate you in his eyes. You've spent all this time trying to convince yourself to believe you were nothing more than a friend to him, and now this.

"Harry, are you sure you—

—I'm sure," he insists quickly.

"I just—

—I'm sure."

You're suddenly very embarrassed by the conversation the two of you had earlier about your ex. The conversation where you basically told Harry you're incredibly desperate to settle down and find The One. He's so achingly cool, and you feel like a little tinned tomato, thin-skinned and persistently flustered.

Tinned tomato? Really? You berate yourself, Case in bloody point.

"Y/N"

You scratch roughly at your forehead and grimace at whatever thoughts are going through your mind, "I'm just …"

Harry brings one hand up to fix your bangs, carefully sweeping the hair back across your forehead evenly, letting the pads of his fingers dust over your skin, "I think if you didn't feel the same you'd have said No by now."

His words steal the air from your lungs, "Harry, you've just always …"

"I've always?"

"I never thought …"

The smile comes up over his face gently, "It's me, Y/N, please finish a sentence. I'd really like to kiss you, but you haven't yet said anything to imply you'd be open to that …"

You pull your lips together like a reflex you can't help, you've rarely let yourself fall that deep into imaging things with Harry, but your body reacts to his words in an instant, "Promise you're not kidding …"

"I promise I'm not kidding," Harry said sincerely. "I'd never kid around about this, Y/N."

You believe him, and ten seconds of bravery comes over you, "I was thirteen."

His eyes narrow slightly, trying to figure out what you mean, "Thirteen?"

"My thing for you," you continue quietly, heart racing as adrenaline swamps your legs, "Started the summer I turned thirteen."

Harry hears the slight shaking to your voice and almost misses what you've said. Then it hits him.

"Oh yeah?" He squints at you and pulls up his nose with a smile, a secret little smile that will never belong to anyone but the two of you. The Smile that happened just before Harry leant down and kissed you for the first time, pressed his warm lips against your cold ones and really breathed you in.

He holds it like that for a moment, your lips touching but not moving. Then his hands come up to cup your face, and Harry moves his mouth to one side, just a touch. You open up to him, and he has the brief thought that this is probably the Most Important Kiss Of His Life. His insides curl in on themselves as he gets completely lost in you. Completely lost in how perfect this moment feels and how much finally kissing you feels like a relief.

You can't believe this is happening. You're still tucked into Harry's coat—warm and safe—but now you're joined at the mouth, and Harry's a really really good kisser. He's got his thumbs pressed into your cheeks and his fingers laced through the hair around your ears. When his tongue first licks your bottom lip and then goes searching for yours, you don't think you've felt yourself flicker On so quickly. A soft moan escapes your lips, and Harry's kiss somehow becomes harder, his nose bumping yours where he'd been good at keeping things smooth until then. As quickly as it intensifies, Harry takes a slight step back and drags his mouth away from yours.

"Y/N," he breaths out your name, sealing your lips with one of his thumbs as he pulls back. Harry's taking stock of your face (hopefully) getting used to being this close to you. Noting the way your eyelashes kink out at an odd angle right at the corner of your eye, and the freckle that's so close to the edge of your mouth he's never noticed it before. Harry's can feel your heart has slowed down, and the expression on your face right now is content, but curious. He's also sure he can see fear under it all.

"Well," your voice shakes, because Harry's looking at you like you've only dreamed and now that you're here you're not really sure what happens next. You kissed Harry.

He clears his throat lightly and his hands both fall to hold either side of your neck, "There's no way I'm going back to not being able to do that whenever I want."

Then, he kisses you again. You feel yourself melt against him as Harry's chest presses back against yours. You link your arms around his waist, clutching the back of his shirt between your fingers as Harry leads the kiss with a hand on your neck and the other holding your chin carefully. You've picked up right where the last one let off, hungry and exploring and a little bit desperate (perhaps a lot desperate) to have more of each other.

But then his phone rings in his trousers pocket, right against your hip, and you jump away in surprise.

"Shit," Harry mutters, pulling the stupid machine out, cursing the universe, "Sorry … It's Aiden," he tells you with an eye-roll.

And then you're back to reality. Your drinks have all worn off, your feet ache, your ears are freezing, and you've just made out with one of your oldest, best friends. Shit.

"Oh," you take a hearty step back, hands slipping out from Harry's coat and your body bracing the full brunt of the cold night, "Yeah … That's—

—Aiden," Harry barks the name of his mate down the phone while at the same time hooking his free arm around the back of your neck and pulling you close again. He's not giving up touching you that easily, and he doesn't care, quite frankly, about giving you any room to start internalising or retreating from him, "No, we've gone to get some food … I'll see you during the week sometime. Tell everyone thanks for—Yes, I'm serious … I don't care, saw all you lot last week … I'm hanging up now. Bye."

You listened in on the conversation because it was really all you could do. Aiden was obviously inside the bar, and they were all wondering where Harry got to. We've gone to get some food, Harry told him, so they'd know he was with you. (You supposed he was hardly going to say, 'oh yeah we've been out the front making out') Bits and pieces of the other end of the conversation, you were able to pick up on, but not enough to truly know what was said. By the end of the call, Harry was smiling though, you could hear it in his voice.

His nose found the shell of your ear and Harry leant into you, "Come back to mine, or we can go to yours … Watch a movie, play Scrabble, anything … Just wanna be with you."

"It's two o'clock in the morning, Harry," you murmur, your mind struggling to make sense of what's just happened. You're outside a club in Soho held against Harry's chest with lips that know what he tastes like and a body that's on fire.

"I'm not tired," he shoots back, "Are you?"

"Well, no but—

—Great," Harry turns towards the road, takes a few steps to the curb (you trot along with him under his arm), as he flags down a black cab. "Mine or yours?"

His question is simple, he prompts you to answer by calling your name as he opens the door for you and gestures for you to hurry up and get in.

"Yours," you say.

Harry doesn't speak much in the cab, you figure it's about privacy. You hope it's about privacy. The thirty-minute drive out of the city and to his place feels much longer. Halfway through he reaches over for your hand and gives you a reassuring smile across the back seat. You thought the journey might make you sleepy, the sitting down in a warm car would bring the haze over your eyes and bring the long day to a close in your mind. But you could never feel sleepy with Harry's fingers playing with yours, or when he leans over and kisses your cheek for no reason at all.

At his house, Harry tells you to make yourself at home while he turns on the kettle for a cuppa. You kick your boots off in the hallway, and your feet start throbbing in relief as you follow his retreating form. It's certainly not the lusty, hurried entry you imagined you might have. Which only plants doubts in your mind about what's actually going on between the two of you.

"I'm just going to use the bathroom," you call out ahead of you, turning back to the stairs and taking yourself up to Harry's second storey.

Upstairs you don't take long. You're looking a little worse for wear—who wouldn't at 3am—but you're not really in the mood to try to fix yourself. Even if you did Harry would notice, and that felt like something you wanted to avoid. As you walk back to the landing, you wriggle your toes in your socks and happen to look back down the upstairs hallway. You've been in this house dozens of times before but this time feels different. It feels quiet and intimate somehow. Just as you're about to go down the first step, you see Harry's bedroom door is open on the opposite side of the stairs to the bathroom, and you notice something that makes you stop.

The book you got him for Christmas is sitting on his bedside table.

You're standing over it before you realise that your legs have started moving, looking at a picture of Anne, Gemma and Harry, a bottle of water and the book. You pick it up, the cover a little bent and the spine cracked to where he's read. Harry's using the birthday card you send along with the gift as a bookmark. The top of the familiar design sticking out the top of the pages, you can't even really remember what you wrote inside. Something generic probably. Platonic.

Happy birthday, old man! Have a wonderful day, sorry I can't be there in person. Love, Y/N.

The floorboard at the top of the stairs creaks and you turn around to Harry looking surprised to see you standing over his bed. He's got two cups of tea and a family-sized Dairy Milk bar under his arm. Something churns inside you, this was Harry as you'd always known him. Except now you looked at his lips and wondered why the hell you weren't kissing him.

"Oh, yeah, I've been reading that," Harry sees the book in your hands and walks towards you, "It's excellent, unsurprisingly."

A smile starts on your face, "You doubted my selection ability?"

"Never," he returns quickly and then raises his eyebrows at you, "Looking for anything else?"

You feel your cheeks heat and you drop the book back into its place, "No, sorry, I was coming down the stairs and saw … I'm sorry."

Harry passes you a tea, "It was really kind of you to send something over. Was fun having something to unwrap on the day."

"I'm glad," you smile and take a sip of the tea. It's sweet, and you screw up your face, "This is yours."

Harry watches you with a strange expression on his face as the two of you swap mugs. He's worrying his bottom lip, obviously weighing something up in his mind. You see it when he decides what he' going to do about it.

"I've got something I want to show you," he tells you finally, tilting his head back to the door. "Wanna come see?"

"What is it?" You ask automatically, but Harry's already walking out the door, and you have to hurry to catch up.

He leads you into his study, and you hover in the doorway as Harry sets his tea and the chocolate down on the desk. He pulls Bananagrams out of the draw and places it next to the mug.

"We're actually going to play Bananagrams?" You ask.

He looks back at you, "You'd prefer actual Scrabble?"

"I didn't know what you meant by—I guess I …"

Realisation dawns on his face, and he widens his eyes, "Oh, you thought it was a euphemism."

"No!" You snap back quickly, feeling the heat rising to your cheeks (for the record, yes, you thought 'a movie or Scrabble' was a thinly veiled way of Harry suggesting … something else), "No, I just … I just don't think I'll be able to spell words right now."

"I didn't think you were still tipsy" Harry states, shit-stirring.

"I'm not!" You squawk at him. "I'm… I' m—You kissed me!"

He grins, loving the fact he's driven you a little crazy, "Yeah. Want me to do it again?"

Harry's playing with you. He's teasing. And you know it but what you don't know is how he's so confidently jumped to it. Not when you feel like you've been left on the street outside the bar trying to figure out what the hell this means, and what's going to happen tomorrow when he stops looking at you like that. You don't like to think this whole night could've been him playing with you, you don't know Harry to be that cruel. But there's a tripwire in your mind you keep getting snared on.

It's Harry.

"C' mere," he reaches his hand down across the room between you both, "C' mere and kiss me again. You don't seem to be getting it."

"Getting it?" You're cut off by Harry taking two big steps toward you and then planting his lips on yours again.

His palms find your hips, and you hold him in the same spot. It takes a moment for the two of you to find a rhythm, and even then, you're too in your head. You're struggling to remember what little Harry's said about this whole thing. You know he said he had a crush on you and you've gotten the distinct impression he wasn't too fond of your ex. But for all you know Harry's been kissing his mates like this for years but just never gotten around to kissing you. You might've been next on the list. He's a friendly guy. Maybe a crush isn't what it used to be. Or maybe—

He pulls back from your lips with a huffy expression on his face, "Y/N," he says quietly, "I'm a man with an incredibly fragile ego, whatever you're worrying about is really getting in the way of kissing you."

"I'm just—

—Let me show you what I brought you in here for," he interrupts you, takes your hand and tugs you towards the window. Then, he puts a hand on each of your shoulders and directs your attention to the wall.

It's lined with record sale plaques for singles and albums over the years—double Platinums and Gold-Somethings. Harry watches you eyes run over them all, a proud but unsure look in your eye. You're not sure why he's showing them to you, he knows that. He hopes you're not intimidated by them, he's certainly not showing you to try to score any points. There's a sweeter gesture behind it. He points to one leaning against the wall, not hanging. He's got it resting on the bubble wrap it was sent over in.

Stepping up closer behind you, Harry rests his chin on your shoulder, "That one's for you."

"What?"

"I want you to have it, been saving it for you … If I ever got brave enough."

The question falls from your lips before you really think about it, "Why would you want me to have it …"

Harry waits to see if you'll let on you've figured it out, he thought it was pretty obvious really, but you've never been one to elevate yourself or assume, and Harry knows that about you. So, when you don't keep talking, he confirms it for you, "That song is about you."

You just blink, eyes on the framed plaque taking in the name of the song and hearing it in your head.

It's about me? You think you want to hear it, you need to Google the lyrics and make sure you have them right in your head. Harry wrote a song about you. Harry wrote that song about you.

"When … When did you write it?"

"You mean why?" Harry raises his head and steps to stand next to you, he observes your face carefully.

"No, I mean when." You're starring at it like the plaque might answer the question, "When did you write it?"

Harry runs a hand over his head as he thinks, "A few years back, after that time you came out to LA … Didn't record it until this year though …"

Harry watches your face expand in surprise and then crumple back down to confusion. You really don't get it. He's not sure how to make you in one night. He supposes he can't. So he trails his hand up the back of your arm and then around your back, tilting his head down and waiting to see if you'll pull away. When you don't, he kisses the corner of your mouth and then opens his wider to take you lips in his properly.

It's different to the kisses outside the bar, now that you're both out of your outer layers Harry can feel your body against his in ways he's only dreamed, and it's sending everything straight between his legs. Harry's hands explore your back and the curve of your hips, thumbs almost reaching the underside of your breasts but not quite. It's a little awkward when he senses you've felt him hardening between you. Usually, lust clouds that moment, and Harry doesn't mind intimate partners being acutely aware of how they're affecting him. But with you he's a little hesitant, he senses the awkwardness on your side. Friends don't feel those body parts on each other, friends don't… He almost groans when your mouth leaves his without warning.

You think he'll probably change his mind about all this.

"Have you changed your mind?" You ask, not able to stop it.

Confusion colours his features, and his lips smack together, like he's savouring tasting you, "Wha—

"About wanting to be kissing me," you clarify.

"What? No." Harry's eyebrows have shot up, and he's shaking his head, "I barely even started! Didn't I just say I wrote that song about you—why the hell would I—want to do more than just kiss you—You think I'm gonna change my mind?"

You shrug, "Maybe. I don't know."

"Well," he stands up straighter and pins you with his stare, "I'm not. I promise I'm not going to change my mind. And I promise I'll never make you feel like you're asking for too much. Ever."

"Now you're trying to make me cry," you say, hearing him repeat back to you the insecurity leftover from your conversation about your ex. You're half kidding with your words but also not. You believe him. You trust him.

Harry grimaces, sways your bodies together gently, "I really hate seeing you cry, could you not? I had other plans."

You sniff through a laugh as Harry wraps his arms around your middle tighter," What plans are those?"

"Well, I literally thought Scrabble," he tells you through a smile, trying his best to make you laugh, "But I'm open to whatever dirty things you were thinking as well."

"You'll win Scrabble."

So, Harry instructs you to bring your tea and your sore feet back into his bedroom. He gets you a fluffy pair of hiking socks and tells you to take yours off, and your tights, and get comfortable on the bed with him and the block of chocolate. You've polished off a family size together before, the sugar going straight to your heads and always leading to a giggly night of reminiscing and Almosts.

This time though, you only get halfway through the tea and Harry pushes the chocolate off the bed onto the floor in favour of you straddling his hips. It started with a stolen kiss against your temple, and then another on your cheek, and one close to your lips, and then you captured his face in your hands and really kissed him. Within a few moments, Harry was dragging you over to him. His hands settle on the swell of your backside as it sits against his thighs and your lips trace the line of his jaw. This was really happening. You'd really let him peel off your dress and flick off your bra. His shirt was somewhere with the forgotten snacks, and you seemed extremely eager to keep feeling his hardness pressed between your legs.

"I swear to god, I never dreamed this would happen," he murmurs, hissing when your hips pressed into his at a different angle, "Was sure I'd be going to your wedding one day, completely miserable and probably end up drunk and causing a scene. Embarrass you so badly you'd never want to see me again, and you'd just run away with your stupid husband."

You pull back and watch Harry ramble, your bare chest rising and falling against his, "You're a real glass half full kinda guy, aren't you?" you smile at him.

"I just," his eyes drop to your chest, nipples puckered for him, and he scrunches them shut then drops his forehead onto your sternum with a big sigh, "This is fucking unreal, and my brain is just struggling to comprehend—you're breathtaking, and I feel like my chest is gonna explode."

"It's also 4am, so there's always the potential your brain is just plain tired," your index finger is drawing circles on the back of his shoulder as Harry leans against you, you pause and run your hand over the back of his head, "Maybe we should sleep for a little … I'll be here when you wake up," you say in response to Harry squeezing his arms around your waist tightly as if you were going to disappear. Or worse, leave.

His indescribable green eyes find yours in the light from the bedroom lamps, "Will you let me hold you while you sleep?"

"Yeah," you nod, although somehow that question seems more intimate than the lack of clothes between you at the moment. You're distinctly less dressed than Harry, who's still got his trousers on, you're only covered by your underwear.

"We don't have to rush this, right? Got all the time in the world now," still, as he speaks his palms trail up your back and then down again, skimming the sides of your breasts, "Just don't wanna miss anything is all."

"I promise I'm incredibly boring in my sleep, won't miss anything," you tease, "Might be the only time you get any peace."

Harry tightens his forearms around your back and finds the soft skin below your ear with his lips—once, twice, three little kisses—"I feel pretty at peace right now, just having you here. Feels like I'm living a dream."

You don't reply for a moment, but you let your body rest against Harry's in a comfortable hug, your voice is quiet, "You really wrote me a song?"

"I did."

"I've always loved that song."

“Well, it's been yours all along."

"Nobody's ever written a song about me."

"I should hope not."

"Are you going to write another one?"

"Without a doubt."

Chat to me here

#OOOO SHIT what have i done #well #1dff #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles X reader #harry styles stories #harry styles imagines #harry fic

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whump-town · 4 years ago

Text

The Blood That Haunts Me

post-scratch fic

no pairings

Hotch has a bad heart

word count 6k

In Savannah Hayes’ experience, Saturday’s are typically for parents with screaming toddlers looking for emergency medicine to soothe their fears about whatever toy their child has shoved up their nose or to ask an aged nurse what to do with this croup that just won’t go away. It’s scrapes and bruises from a fender bender with kids just learning to drive and roughly two to three broken arms from seven-year-olds learning to ride a bike without training wheels. With any luck, there will be only one underage kid in a banana bag and the college kids will be in and out for stitches and gone as quickly as they come. There’s always the regulars - older men and women that buzz with the opportunity to be out of their houses even if it’s to withstand the pain of stitches and staples on their thin skin.

Rarely has Savannah faced a Saturday where she knew someone being pulled into her emergency room. Virginia isn’t the biggest place but her friends are young and healthy and Saturdays are for squirmy children and stupid teenagers. When she sees him with his ankles stretched out over the end of the stretcher and a large hand weakly fighting with the paramedic to hold the oxygen mask over her face she’s certain of his identity. She’s good with faces and his is unmistakable.

“You shouldn’t be on break yet, baby.” Derek picks up on the first ring, the sound of Hank babbling loudly in the background making him chuckle deeply as he moves. The phone pinched between his shoulder and cheek, she can hear him pick up their son. Talking back to the baby.

Savannah is sitting in the emergency room, camped out behind the desk as she catalogs patient information. Despite it being a Saturday, the hospital is startlingly pretty timid (knock on wood). When there is a new patient the clatter is noticed. So when Hotch came in, supine but weakly fighting against the oxygen mask pulled down over his mouth, Savannah noticed. Even drugged and combative, he’s distinctly himself.

And as Savannah tells Derek, describes the man she’s quite fond of, he doesn’t believe her. Hotch doesn’t go to the hospital and no one’s heard from him in forever, he’s probably not even in Virginia. Garcia said Jack started high school last fall and if they were home and situated again with no contact then… Well, what are they supposed to do? “Derek--” Savannah can hear the pitch change in his voice. Derek goes from dismissive to genuinely worried and now pulling at strings because no one has talked to Hotch in months (nearly two years) and the idea of seeing him now is terrifying. “I am positive that it’s Hotch.” She leans around the monitor, frowning as she watches some nurses she knows buzz around him. Throwing out words she can’t make out entirely but she can see what they’re doing and it makes her heart jump a little to hear medications that they put orders out for.

Hotch makes a noise - it has to be loud for her to hear it from the distance she’s at. “Baby,” she stands and it makes her heart do a weird clenching thing when she catches a glimpse at his face. Sees that he’s crying and clearly upset. “Derek, he’s getting all kinds of agitated. I’m gonna call you back in a second, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer and tosses her phone down on her chair before calling out for one of the nurses she recognizes with a wave.

The nurse smiles when she sees Savannah - she’s got a particular gift with patients like Hotch.

“I know this one,” Savannah says, approaching the bed. “What have you got?”

Savannah doesn’t have all the details on the accident that occurred in 2009 with George Foyet. It’s not Derek’s story to tell and it’s not exactly the easiest one to bring into conversation. She’s aware of vague things like his collapse a few years later from scar tissue that caused him to bleed internally and that Hotch's ex-wife was killed by a serial killer. Mostly, she knows that Hotch is dependable and secure and that when he went into witness protection nearly two years ago his absence had crushed them all. Even if the likes of Emily Prentiss and her just as stubborn as hell husband would never admit it.

“Mild tachycardia and respiratory depression -” The nurse tells her about Hotch’s underactive thyroid, something he’s supposed to take medication for ever since the stabbing damaged the organs function. How it’s throwing his heart into tachycardia and it’s getting worse, not responding to medicine yet.

Savannah may not know what happened with George Foyet but she knows Derek regards Hotch as this infallible wall of a man. One she’s come to understand he thinks can’t ever fall down and one that, despite how fondly he’ll speak about him, annoys the hell out of him. Personally, Savannah thinks Aaron Hotchner is just a sweet man. She likes him and his little quirks. He’s quite the odd pairing when he gets together with Emily and Dave but they’re a funny crowd.

What she isn’t expecting is the mess of scars littering his chest. Experience allows her to date some of them by sight - their distinct shape and coloration clustering them into the same time frame and she can’t imagine how someone gets over half a dozen wounds like that at once. They don’t end there. On his right side, there’s a nearly faded out of existence scar from a chest tube. A puncture wound- something blunt she’d assumed by way of its roundness. Even a few rougher-looking, jagged scars that she assumes are shrapnel because Derek has nearly identical ones.

Savannah is a few moments too late to prevent Hotch from being pulled down by a sedative but he’s fighting it, blinking slowly to try and remain awake. “Hey,” she greets softly, turning his wrist over so she can see IV sight in his elbow. It’s secure and there’s nothing special to note but it’s going to bruise. “Long time no see Agent Hotchner.” She squeezes his fingers, smiling at the recognition behind his eyes even if his lips only form a silent mouthed version of her name.

With a smile - remembering the first time they met and how gently he’d taken her hand before shaking his head and admonishing “everyone calls me Hotch” - she reaches down and fixes his hair. He’s let it grow out since he left the BAU. Derek had been livid when he got word that Hotch wasn’t coming back despite the fact that he too left the unit. “How are you feeling, Hotch? Can I call someone?”

His eyes slide shut and for a moment she thinks he’s given in, sunk down low where his pain and his ailments can’t get him. He taps a finger against her palm and she understands he’s still here. “Morgan?” he rasps.

She nods, “Derek already knows you’re here. I imagine he’ll have the whole crew here in no time.” He grimaces, cracking an eye open to give her a look she understands entirely. She’s only ever faced their smothering worry once when Hank was born but she knows it’s a lot. It’s hard to imagine they’re going to somehow be less present and attuned with him than they with her. He’s not looking forward to that and it’s understandable. “Don’t worry,” she promises, “I’ll have your back when they get here.”

He nods, dull eyes sinking back under his eyelids. She holds his hand until she’s certain he’s fallen asleep.

“So,” the nurse asks softly. She moves and tubes and wires around so that they’re not laying against his bare skin. Folding the blankets over Hotch’s hips and leaving his chest bare. He’s still tachycardic, breathing laboriously through inflamed lungs. “How do you know this guy?”

Savannah sits down on the edge of the bed, taking Hotch’s hand into her own. Working her thumb in gentle, hypnotic motions between his knuckles and smiling sadly at the relieved rasping sigh that leaves his parted pale lips. “Family,” she answers because she’s not sure what the answer really is but in some way… yeah, family.

The nurse nods, going about what needs to be done while Savannah stays on the edge of the bed. She does what she can until she clears her throat. “Hey,” the nurse smiles, sympathetic to the soft faraway look in Savannah’s eyes. “Doctor Hamilton admitted him so I need to take him up to the--”

Savannah stands immediately, nodding. “Yeah,” she lays his hand back down on his chest. Stepping away from the bed, “sorry.” She shakes her head, stepping back as the brakes come up and he’s set into motion. “Second floor?” Savannah assumes.

The nurse nods, “he’ll be in room one seventeen. I’ll let the desk know he’s one of yours.”

Savannah watches him disappear down the hall, met at the mouth of the hall by other nurses and staff nodding as they take him to the right floor. She’d been there long enough to see his heart monitor and to identify the ventricular tachycardia plaguing him. He’ll likely need a pacemaker and she’s already racing to a solution. He’ll need to be monitored after surgery but can go home. Hank’s a little too small still but they have the guest room. If Derek cleans up the mess he lets Hank make in there--

Savannah’s heart sinks to the floor and she turns around. Hit with the sudden memory of the last event she saw Hotch at and remembers slowly that Hotch has a son and someone needs to find him.

All morning something had been off, Hotch didn’t have to say it for Jack to know. The oatmeal was made oddly, Hotch’s hands trembling so much he’d gotten the measurements wrong. Too much brown sugar but Jack hadn’t seemed to mind it being too sweet. He’d been distracted by his oatmeal and unalarmed by signs he hasn’t learned to be aware of. If Hotch had gotten up late or made breakfast and then laid down on the couch then Jack would have noticed. Bad days come frequently and like most storms look and sound distinct.

High anxiety days are an early rise, the sound of lights being turned on and off as Hotch fails to get comfortable in any room. Coming out of his room and finding his father curled up on the couch. His knees drawn up and a pillow pressed into his chest, a heated blanket wrapped around him like a cocoon. It’s lightly tiptoeing around the house so Hotch stays asleep and avoids him once he does move and allows his aching back to stretch out. Jack knows to keep his music down and to call Jessica if Hotch locks himself away.

Though time has dampened it’s severity it’s not impossible to find his father trying to work through untreated PTSD or ride out an intense wave of depression. Leaving him immobile or desperate for a distraction. Jack knows those things. He understands them and, like the blasting siren that screams out before a tornado, Jack knows when to duck for cover and ride out the storm.

But Jack had no idea what a heart attack would look like. What to expect or even if a heart attack had been what he’d seen.

Hands over his ears, Jack Hotchner sinks into the emotionless walls surrounding him. Trying to find the place past his body where everything ceases to exist. Insistently, against his will, he’s pulled back to a decade ago. To the sound of gunshots tearing through the only home he’d ever known. To Emily wiping his tears away with the palm of her hand, their backs to the carnage his father created in the fall. To a hospital not unlike this one where his father was patched up - open wounds covered and drugs numbing his rough edges - until Jack had finally been able to see him. The feeling of his father’s chest, broad and forever, solid as he’d curled his legs into his lap. His father cried softly as he explained what happened, what he’d done.

“Mommy isn’t coming home, buddy.”

Pinching his eyes shut, Jack rocks himself back and forth. He can’t go there. Not alone. He can’t go back to Foyet. He’s too old for those silly games. Too old for nightmares and monsters hiding under his bed. Unaware of the ones still crawling out of his father’s closet, wrapping their cold fingers around his ankle and threatening to pull him into the darkness with them.

You’re never too old for monsters.

Spencer had found the time to confide in Jack about being raised by a mentally ill single mother. His intent was to demonstrate to Jack that not only did he understand the pre-teens intense fury with his father but that the emotions would abate and Jack would have only a few moments to decide what to do next. How Spencer had turned eighteen and had to have his mother committed to an institution. A decision that haunted him but that he ultimately understood it was simply the only option. One day, Spencer clarified, Jack would understand the way his father worked.

Until that moment, Jack had been more or less paying attention. When it came to all things Uncle Spence, Jack typically has a longer attention span and all the patience in the world but the moment Jack realizes this was a one-on-one sort of deal he was done. He wanted out. But Reid stuttered. That one day, and the words had come out so quickly if he’d had a chance Reid would have stopped them, Jack would realize just what that meant. He’d look at his father and all the magic of his childish love would fall away and Jack would be left with his father’s bare bones. And it would be terrifying but, often, that’s all love is: all the bits bleached down to their true forms.

He gets it now, okay? The nutty academic parent with bouts of deep depression, an obsession with their jobs, and no idea how to say I love you like everyone else. He gets the comparison now. Can he be done? He wants to go home. He’s done learning this stupid lesson about love or whatever bullshit this is supposed to represent. When does it end? It’s going to end, right?

Derek Morgan falters in the doorway, stalled like an engine as he stands at the edge of the messy room. Hank hums in Derek’s left ear, bouncing his foot against Derek’s hip as he stands stationary and trying to wrap his head around everything happening. It’s overwhelming. Derek hasn’t seen Hotch in two years and if the sight of him alone - laid out right here - doesn’t bring its own intense wave of anger and longing then the sight of his uncovered chest is it’s own thing as well.

Hotch is on the bed, curled slightly to his right with the blankets leaving his pale chilled skin open. Even with his face turned into the pillow behind his head, he looks deathly pale in comparison to the white bedspread. Entirely too limp, too still as he lays there pulling in breaths audible over the hiss of the canal running under his nose. Nearly drowned out, consumed by the natural hums of the hospital and constant motion of the monitors to his left and the dissatisfied beep of the blood-pressure cuff around his right arm.

Savannah warned him of what he’d find once he got inside in case she got called away to a patient when he got there. She told him the buzz around the staff, what Hotch’s cardiologist thought and it stung to hear her warn him ahead of time what Hotch looked like, worse, she imagined, than what Derek was imaging. Weaker, she’d said as if the word was some sort of betrayal. He’s weak and Derek can’t push him and he’d wanted to advocate for himself but he couldn’t.

With tears in his eyes, he’d promised to be on his best behavior and Derek realized just how awful he and Hotch could be towards one another. How everyone sees it. He’d wondered if… Well, if Hotch hated him for it. They’d been close once. Partners. Haley used to joke she half expected he’d steal Aaron away from her. That old joke used to make Jason laugh so hard, the two of them together were the cause of all his worry and stress. Now…

Well, now Derek is standing in a room that can’t be more than a 120-foot space with far too much equipment in it feeling like he’s never been so far away from Hotch. So disconnected.

Hotch makes a soft sound from the bed, twitching his nose and flexing his fingers. There are more drugs than blood in him, keeping him weak and tired and unable to pick apart his surroundings. Hazy eyes blink open, peeled apart like they each weigh twenty pounds, and the simple act of keeping them open burns. He can’t make out the world around him very well but he sees the empty chairs on his left and the expanse of white all around. The hospital, he knows, and no one showed up.

Maybe they finally got wise and are leaving him to his own devices. Leaving him to rot where he won’t be missed. Sinking into the fibers of the bed and disappearing. They’ll stop pumping him so full of drugs and just let him wilt away. He wants it, craves the nothing he knows he’ll find. No masks or deception or this anger he feels burning and rearing its ugly head. Just nothing.

Derek steps into the room, sniffling to draw in some noise before he steps into Hotch’s line of sight. Hoping not to startle him, as he clears his throat, meeting Hotch’s gaze for only a moment looking down at his shoes. “Just me and Hank,” he offers. He tucks his hands into his pockets. He can feel Hotch still looking at him, hearing those painstakingly slow, labored breaths. He wishes he hadn’t come. To escape all this restless vulnerability.

Hotch’s eyes sink back shut, pale lips parting to mumbling, “Derek,” under his breath. Savannah told him Hotch wouldn’t even likely know he was there. The drugs are affecting his mental facilities, sedating him to keep him calm while they run tests. When he can remember what’s happening he’s scared and when he can’t… he has a baseline memory that hardly differentiates friend from foe. It’s the latter of which Savannah needs him to be aware of because Hotch’s heart can’t handle the stress. His mind is too clouded and his body too weak, he just needs someone to hold his hand. Someone to distract him.

Derek’s expecting a conversation. For Hotch to say something. To apologize for running off or to pay Hank some sort of mind. There’s not even a stiff silence, Hotch looks so weak, so pliant Derek isn’t sure he can even speak. He realizes that despite all the hefty warnings, despite everything that he was told he still walked into this room expecting Aaron Hotchner. He wanted, he needed the man in the suit, with that stern scowl, and gravelly voice. He’d needed the mask and instead he got the man. The man without the armor, just blood.

And it scares him.

It scares Derek that Hotch can’t put up his shields, that he can’t hide and play their cat and mouse game of anger and misunderstanding. They only have blind defeat.

Derek sits down in the visitor’s chair, shushing Hank when he squirms with agitation. Hank immediately starts touching everything in sight. Reaching and leaning dangerously out of Morgan’s lap, to touch the bed and smack his hand against the rail. A sound that makes Hotch’s eyes peel open to slivers before they shut again, unbothered. “Don’t touch that,” Derek pulls Hank into his lap, redirecting his attention.

He knows, from the low whine Hank lets out, that this isn’t going to work for very long. Mercifully, there’s a knock at the door and Savannah peeks her head in. Waving at Hank who fights his limbs out of Derek’s hold to be placed on the floor so he can propel his body in the direction of his mother.

“Hello baby,” Savannah scoops him right up. Grinning at that way he toddles, that quick toddler pace because he doesn’t know how to pump the brakes. How to set himself into motion that isn’t just guided by leaning forward and running.

Derek stands from his chair, clearing his throat and glancing down at Hotch before looking back to his wife and son.

Savannah can see his hesitation, his worry. “Why don’t we go to the cafeteria and get a snack? Hmm?” She jogs Hank up in her arms and he brightens at the offering - knowing pudding or a cookie is coming his way. “Derek?” She offers out her hand to him, “come on. I’ll explain everything to you downstairs.”

“Ugh--” all he can see is Hotch shivering. His skin slick with sweat from the strain on his body but the way he’s curled into the side. Trying to produce warmth where it isn’t. “Just give me a second.” Derek knows he can’t just throw the blanket over Hotch and he works himself up, gets upset just thinking about the mass of awful scars keeping his friend held together. All the old scars are bare for anyone and everyone to see. If Hotch had the presence of mind for it, he’d be upset.

With a gentleness born with great amounts of stress, Derek gently works the lower half of the blanket over Hotch’s leg. He folds the lower half over and hesitates, stares at Hotch, and wonders just how much he’s allowed. Hotch is cold and Derek knows that means his arms too but that crosses their line. They’re never spoken out loud, only shot through glances about trust and touch but Hotch is asleep or maybe lost to his haze of drugs (and Derek’s not really sure if there’s a difference between those two things). So, he picks up Hotch’s hand, swallowing against the uncomfortable swell of his throat when he feels just how cold the other man’s skin is. He tucks Hotch’s hand carefully against his chest.

Hotch’s face twitches, a grimace that makes him jerk his head but he doesn’t move his hand so Derek leaves it. Carefully, still watching and waiting for some explosive reaction but none come. Derek turns the heated blanket up to the highest setting, making sure even Hotch’s shoulders are covered. Tucking the blanket just under his chin.

Hotch groans from the back of his throat, a startling noise that comes with blinding panic. His eyes fly open, darting around the room and to Derek but not seeing. Derek can’t tell if it’s pain or fear but the machine over his shoulder picks up pace, reflecting Hotch’s distress. Hotch swallows thickly, mouth opening and eyes flicking around the room. Twisting, fighting his body in a futile battle where he loses no matter the outcome. Kicking out and dislodging blankets as he’s blinded by his pain.

“Step back Derek.” Derek just stands there, frozen. Savannah grabs him by the arm and pulls him back, allowing other people to come into the room. “He’s okay,” she mumbles, eyes glued to Hotch. He’s fighting blindly, anything and everything. His heart can’t take it, her eyes flick from his bare skin to the monitors. To the staff also taking note. “Derek, we can’t be in here.”

They pull the crash cart close, preparing vials of medicine before their eyes.

“What’re they--” Derek can’t move. He stands there watching them move blankets out of the way. Listening as they pull open a drawer and settle a machine on top and he knows what it is. Doesn’t need to be told what’s happening next. “Savannah.” He stumbles back, shaking his head. The machine wines, a high-pitched squeal that makes Derek’s heart pick up.

He doesn’t see, doesn’t watch.

He’s standing in the hall when the machine fires off. Can close his eyes but can’t unhear the sound of Hotch’s low groan, a punched-out sound but he’s alive. Still pulling in breaths.

��Morgan?”

He was still a baby the last time Morgan saw him. Quickly trying to climb to his father’s height but every bit as graceful as a colt, and angry. Angry with his father for falling into this same repeated history and questioning what he knew. How much of his father’s strength is something else? What does he really know about the man who raised him? Because he got himself a chunk of history, started to understand the man he’d always blindly turned to. His hero. Instead, he got glimpses, stories about the boy his mother knew and he could no longer recognize him.

But standing here now is a whole teenager. Blonde hair grown out and even taller, built unmistakably like his father with all height in his legs and pale.

“Jack.” Morgan stumbles back when Jack collides into him, long arms wrapping around him. “Oh my God,” he whispers. “When the hell did you get so big?” He’s standing there, a whole armful of the kid he used to give piggyback rides to.

Jack pulls away and wipes his eyes, furiously wipes his eyes so that Morgan can unsee the tears streaming down his face. “My-- My dad,” he asks. “Did you see him?” Jack looks at the room, alerted by the sounds coming from within, but Morgan steps in the way. “Morgan is he-- is he in there?” Jack worms his way out of Morgan’s arms, a whole tangle of long limbs.

Hotch would be proud to know Jack is exactly like him, real scrappy. A lot of fight for such a lanky person.

“Jack,” Morgan pulls him away from the door. Despite how much he wants to go to Hotch too, that’s not where Jack should be. That’s not what Jack should see. “Come on, kid. We can’t go in there. Come on.” The fight leaves him easily enough, he’s really just a kid standing there looking for someone to tell him what to do. Anyone to point him where he’s supposed to be.

Jack still wants to turn, as if pulled by strings.

“I called Rossi,” Morgan offers. Something to distract him, something good. “Everyone else? Reid and Garcia and Emily? They’re on their way, okay?” And even with loaded promises Jack can’t find the nerve to respond. Their names used to be a solace. Someone to call when he needs help with his math homework. To show up with books on whatever cool thing he’s into this week. His family.

People he hasn’t seen in forever.

They do come.

Hank’s ambling about, babbling to Morgan as he pulls his father around the waiting room. It’s his excited squeal that alerts them to the other’s arrival. To Reid holding the door open so the others can pass. The pile-up that happens, shocked inhales and silence as they stand there and look at the carnage. At Jack’s tear-stained face and Morgan going where Hank pulls but empty, fearful.

“Uncle Dave?” Jack stands up, wiping at his face with the back of his hand.

Dave smiles, “hey kiddo.” He doesn’t argue against the armful of Jack he gets, just closes him up. “Christ,” Dave whispers. “You’re a giant.”

“What is he feeding you?” Jack turns around and finds Emily and all she can do is laugh as he hugs her too. Finds herself all wrapped up in his long arms. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” she whispers, “letting you get so big.” She squeezes him tight, cups the back of his head.

There’s not much more time for reunions, never much time for anything.

“Aaron Hotchner?”

Never get used to this part either. The sitting. The waiting. The calling.

Savannah was right about the tachycardia.

“With your permission - ” and it’s important that detail be added. That Hotch can’t make this decision for himself anymore and it’s resting entirely on the shoulders of Jessica or Dave and Emily alternatively. That doesn’t mean it’s not like a kick to the gut. A cruel taunt. “We would like to prepare him for the surgery now while he’s stable.” Stable? Is that what he is? Laying back there with defibrillator pads on his chest and sedated to the point that Morgan wasn’t sure Hotch could even recognize him.

Jack sniffles, ducking his head and whispering to Emily. Attached to her hip, clinging to her. She shakes her head and brushes his hair back, “it doesn’t work like that, Jack.” Jack’s lower lip trembles and it breaks Emily’s heart so she interrupts the doctors. Despite the voice at the back of her head telling her this isn’t a good idea. Despite the sour twist in her stomach. The way she knows Hotch wouldn’t want this. “I know there are strict rules,” and that alone should be enough to know they’re likely to be shot down. “Is there any chance he can go back before the surgery? This is his son, he’s fifteen. He’ll be sixteen soon. You’re hardly breaking the rules at all.”

Soon is a bit of a stretch. Jack’s an October baby.

The doctor looks at Jack and sighs like this is really putting him off but nods. “Yeah, quickly. Five minutes, do you understand? You can’t be back there long,”

And Jack thinks he’s won something grand. That he’ll be faced with the same mirage Morgan was expecting. His dad will be sitting back there tall and strong, probably just tired like he’s sick. But he takes one step into the room and wishes he hadn’t come. Hadn’t asked.

They haven’t removed the defibrillator pads on his chest just pulled a blanket over his stomach but that only minimally covers the damage. There are still visibly warped bullet wounds and jagged surgical scars to be seen. But Dave has seen all that. He’d been there to watch the blood spray out when the scar on Hotch’s shoulder took place. Shouted as the gunshot sprayed out and Hotch grunted, being sent back into the wall behind him. But that was… God, that was a lifetime ago when Hotch was just a kid.

Dave turns behind him and sees Jack frozen in the doorway, eyes wide. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jack nods but he can hardly move, can’t force himself to move further into the room. He’s seen his father shirtless, not enough times to really gather anything but he’s seen the damage of years of this job has caused. But this is different. Jack isn’t six, isn’t watching him shave. He’s standing there watching him pull in laborious breaths, struggling to keep living.

“You know,” Rossi sits down in the visitor’s chair. “When you were born he cried so hard that Gideon had to call me.” He looks back at Jack, watching his face for some inclination that he’s going to either come into the room or run away. “Haley was exhausted but… She was beautiful, always was. No matter if she was showing up at the office to haul your father home by the ear in her pajamas or crying her make-up off in the waiting room waiting for your knucklehead father to get out of surgery.”

But he’s missed the point.

He chances a glance to Hotch, watching his pale face twist in discomfort. “You were born at eleven at night and by that point I was already in bed and done for the night by ten kind of guy.” He can still remember sighing and almost ignoring his phone when it had gone off. “I got to the hospital and your dad was sitting on the floor just outside the room, sobbing so hard I thought he’d pass out.” It’s still pretty surprising he didn’t pass out. “Didn’t think he could do it. You were so small, small, and pink and screaming your little head off.”

Jack huffs, smiling as he kicks at the ground. Looking everywhere but his father or Dave.

“But I picked him up,” grabbed him by his shirt and forced him to his feet. Managing the tough love Gideon couldn’t bring himself to enforce. “I don’t think he stopped crying until he fell asleep. Just sitting there with you in his arms crying.” Rossi sighs shakes his head. “Honestly, you were tiny. Had a-- Had a thing with your heart and…” Rossi had held Jack after Hotch and Haley finally managed to catch some sleep. A nurse had figured he or Gideon one had to be a grandfather, why else would they be there? They’d sat there with Jack for about an hour just gushing over how small and cute he was. Trying to keep the baby content so Haley could get some sleep.

Drowsily his voice cuts through the silence, nothing but a ghost of a whisper. “An atrial septal defect.” It’s all he can manage but it’s enough to get their attention. Jack had been born with an atrial septal defect and they knew about it in advance just after Haley’s pregnancy got tricky. It was just a tiny little hole in his atrium, closed before he was a whole year old. That doesn’t mean it didn’t scare the hell out of them first. Leave them to check his bassinet every few hours. To make sure he was okay, still breathing.

“The doctor said I shouldn’t play soccer because of it.” Jack manages a few steps and comes to the very end of the bed. His fingers just barely touching the bed frame. “But you let me play anyways.”

Hotch clears his throat, shakes his head. “I didn’t. Jessica did.” He grimaces, shifting uselessly to find a position that doesn’t hurt. “Said-- She said if you were anything like me you’d find a way.” He’s talked himself breathless, gasping and fighting to breathe. “Might as well-- Might as well make it easy on myself. Just let you do it.” So he had. He signed Jack up for soccer despite his own fears and went to every match he could. Every practice. Until he was the only parent paying attention.

He coughs softly, setting off a weight and ache in his lungs. “Jessica--” he cuts himself off, coughing until he holds his breath and fists the sheets in his hand to keep from still.

Jack looks away, fixes his eyes on the floor.

Dave calls it. Hotch won’t admit he’s not okay and Dave would venture Jack has that same stubborn-streak, doesn’t want to think that Hotch isn’t okay.

“Come on,” Dave motions for Jack to follow him. “Times up, better get out of here before they kick us out.” Five or so minutes, that’s all they had and that’s passed. “You’ll be fine,” Dave promises.

He struggles to get his breath, to say something coherent. “Wait,” he grabs Dave’s shirt. Hospitals are so cold, they’re scary and miserable and he doesn’t want to be here. He wants to go home. “I’m sorry,” he manages. “I’m sorry.”

Dave pulls Jack on, can’t leave him behind, and can’t stay any longer.

“What did he mean?” Jack asks. He keeps looking back, looking over his shoulder to the room. “Why’d he say that?” He has to run to keep up with Dave’s pace. “Dave, please. Why’d he say he was sorry?”

Dave stops and just stands for a moment, looking at the hall before them. “He’s scared,” Dave answers, finally. “He’s just scared, that’s all.”

He doesn't think he’s going to make it. That’s the horrible ugly truth. That’s why he apologized. Just in case.

“Come on,” Dave holds out his arm. Smiles a smile that doesn't even try to make it to his eyes and wraps an arm around Jack. “It’s going to be okay. You know that?”

Jack looks back over his shoulder once more, to the room. He doesn’t buy it for a second but he nods anyway. “Course,” he answers.

“Good. That’s good.”

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #savannah hayes #derek morgan #hank morgan #jack hotchner #david rossi #emily prentiss #spencer reid #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau

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pinkchanelbag · 4 years ago

Text

— there’s no one else; chapter two.

a jean kirstein x reader mafia au.

last | masterlist | next

series summary: a boy caught in a web with his survival depending on balancing niceties between his predators. a prim girl on thin ice that leads down the path of least resistance. no one too close and no one too far, no allegiance unquestioned, and no child whose value and future goes without evaluation like a playing card that determines their worth. to be destined for big things is more like being doomed to them, but that’s the way it goes. it’s just family matter.

chapter summary: the party begins.

wc: 1.9k.

cw: still nothing lol

note: putting this out short notice cause it’s JEANBOYS BIRTHDAYYY BABYYY anyway enjoy heeheee and my apologies for the slow plot thus far i swear it picks up trust me bro.

the venue is obnoxiously grand. the garden is more akin to a football field than anything else. there is no central lighting, but rather pure white string lights everywhere, everywhere. tucked behind and underneath tables and wrapped around trees and laying in the overhead greenery and in the bushes that act as walls. wherever you look, your eyes are strained, and you’re sure the dining hall can be seen from the moon.

speaking of the dining hall, the organizers cleverly blocked off the front entrance to the building so that one is forced to walk the expanse of the entire garden—surely to ooh and aah at its elegant taste—in order to get inside through the back door entrance. in other words, having to greet every single member of the family before so much as putting your clutch down.

you apply a friendly, attentive expression to your face each time pieck stops to greet someone new, having mastered the art of being engaged but not so engaged it’s troublesome, while in reality being completely disengaged in any way. as pieck converses with a bulky man drinking wine and you pick apart the key points (“we don’t got the ammo to make deals with top contractors—legal team in shambles—not good to have a weak spot”), really you are letting your eyes wander over the shrubbery which has been trimmed to perfection. yes, the lights are a pain and the band is too loud so early in the event, and there is not enough walking space between the bushes so people squeeze together to reach the large clearing of the garden. a perfectly obnoxious party, except you can’t help but appreciate the greenery. somehow, it is the only thing about this evening that doesn’t seem ridiculous. or maybe you’re just unusually irritated tonight.

your eyebrows knit so slightly at this realization. why are you being so disagreeable? impatience and intolerance seem to grow in your chest for no particular reason. you make a note to identify the source of your mood, and quickly resolve it. there’s work to be done.

karina braun is a kind, opinionated sheep of a woman. she is liked by all, and not because she’s particularly easy to like, but rather because she’s hard to hate. stuck in her times and not having much intellectual value, she is possibly the most important woman in all the families. being the mother of reiner braun and the head of the braun-galliard family, gives her luxury without responsibility. you’ve only met her once before, and she possessed the kind of ignorance many privileged older women have. but still she’s kind, so you can’t justify how she makes you weary.

her birthday, funnily enough, constitutes one of the very few gatherings that frowns upon trying to discuss family matter during the events, unlike a young girl’s birthday. it has to do with respect, you suppose.

you spend your first half-hour at the party hovering around pieck as she makes small talk with associates, becoming increasingly nervous at your lack of breakthrough in communication with the family. you know the most important thing is your encounter with karina, and that will open up further talks with others, but you stall to approach her, imperceptibly steering pieck further away from the centre table where the older woman sits. not yet.

“are you going to keep leading me through the same semi-circle, or are you just going to go talk to her?” pieck asks calmly. you curse her intelligence in your mind.

“i’m just nervous,” you murmur, smiling politely at a group of men at a distance that eyes you like the business deal you are.

“you should be, but that doesn’t change that you have to do it.” your eyes flick to look at the woman beside you for a moment. her expression is not encouraging or consoling, nor is it unsettling. it’s fitting. what you and pieck have is less than friendship but more than acquaintanceship. often you feel as thought she’s reading your emotions like an open book, which can be scary considering how many of them you really hide. but if and when she sees them, she doesn’t seem to care, whether they’re incriminating or worthy of sympathy. she sees you, and that is all. it’s not a comfort, nor a curse.

“what are you waiting for?” she says, but it’s a genuine question rather than a push to complete the task at hand. you realize you’re waiting for porco. you want porco at your side. you want his strength and his jagged-edged ambition, and the forcefulness that makes you do the things your heart has no energy for.

“i just think it would be better if the boys were here,” you breathe. again, pieck sees your meaning, and your fright, and leaves it be.

for the next eternity, you drink champagne and stretch back your memory to know if all parties are this boring once you become an adult, or if the braun family has a particular talent for making you crave the sight of paint drying. the closest thing to entertainment—and not the hired folk who attempt to call themselves singers—is gabi’s voice, which can be heard no matter where in the garden you stand. she tells stories, strikes up arguments, and gathers food and drink with her friends, all at top volume. for some reason, you don’t find amusement in this either, and really start to worry about this attitude problem you’ve got this night. to add on, porco’s meeting seems to stretch painfully long. it was a short-notice meeting, which either meant something very very good or very very bad—more so when he told you he was being picked up for it by reiner, colt, and annie. some of the most important family members gathering for an emergency meeting means trouble. your anxiety bubbles in your stomach, and you worry that your not approaching the woman of the hour is reaching a point where it might be seen as—rude.

the guests are alerted that dinner is ready. it’s not long before each person has situated themselves along the tables that line the large garden. the seating plan is loosely maintained, but you have nowhere near the entitlement to mingle among other tables. you find yours and stay at it, and it’s only then that you get an idea of just how many people are at this event. each table is packed, holding roughly six people, and there are too many to count in the chaos, but they create a semi-rectangle in three respective rows. you make out countless bodies but few faces, just an endless sea of tuxedos and lovely dresses. at the front of the garden is the head table, where karina sits alone save gabi’s bouncing body going back and forth. your table is is only a few feet from hers, but you take a seat that puts your back to her front so you don’t make the unforgivable mistake of accidental eye contact. you’re to sit with porco, and his table—the galliard table—is the one closest in importance to the braun table. you are the only one at the table, further reminder of porco’s tardiness. the longer you fiddle with the white cloth on the surface, the more you worry about what exactly the meeting could mean.

and then pieck comes and sits across from you without a word. as always, you know it’s only family matter—the concern that you look out of place—motivating her and not your obvious discomfort, but you’re grateful nonetheless.

as the servers stream into the garden like white-clad troops armed with dome platters, a champagne glass’s unmistakeable ding ding ding catches the attention of the guests. a table near karina’s opposite side, not quite flanking her but near enough to display some importance. a man stands with his glass raised, looking unfitting for the position with the way his arm hesitantly dips and re-straightens. bertholdt, yet another notable name in braun-galliard (and it’s your job to know all the names), seems to be the only person around able to give the welcome speech. it’s easy to listen only selectively to the announcements and shoutouts, disregarding all the thank yous and remember whens and listening in for honored guests (who are honored because they’ve proven themselves useful). luckily for you, bertholdt’s clumsy speech has a clear distinction between the two categories, his eyes downturned to cards in which he lists off important guests and whatever thing they did to end up on he list before him.

“a special welcome to general theo magath of the mexican military, who has been so generous to the family’s trade routes…” bertholdt’s words are careful, partly because of the nature of the things he is sharing, but also because all his actions have been careful since his fall from grace. formerly one of the most reliable heavy men in the family, bertholdt’s reputation was shot to hell when an important—very important—family member was killed on his watch. despite having happened years and years ago now, it took extensive efforts to just convince the higher-ups that he wasn’t in bed with the killer. it’s common knowledge that bertholdt’s incident was the first and last time someone “had it easy” from braun-galliard due to his close friendship with reiner himself.

“an especially relieving guest to see here tonight—“

and—finally—the stragglers stalk into the clearing. like most others, you hear of their arrival from the ripple of murmurs long before you see them, seeing as their whereabouts are blocked off by tables and bushes. a few people stand up, but are quickly beckoned to sit down again and redirect their attention to the speaker, who clears his throat nervously.

“carry on, bertholdt,” reiner’s affecting voice breaks through the space, and it’s enough to settle the audience, or at least have them pretend to pay attention while the late-comers shuffle through the outskirts of the tables to find their seats. bertholdt proceeds slowly.

“…a person i’m sure we will all come to rely on during this chaotic time…”

you catch the first glimpse of porco as he turns the final corner of the rectangle, reiner walking before him and colt and annie just behind. reiner is the first to arrive to his table, the invitees seeming to hold their chests a little taller for the family’s true head—in every way except on paper—as he slides into his seat and presses a kiss to his mother’s cheek.

“…a great legacy behind him and a bright career ahead, and we’re surely glad he’s kicked it off in our company…” bertholdt goes on. you and porco’s eyes meet, and immediately you know something is the matter; you’re just not sure if it’s fury or ecstasy in his gleam.

colt and annie find their seats in the table just after yours, and finally porco is near enough to see—and ignore—the look of alarmed curiosity on your face. he arrives to the table, giving pieck a look of “we’ll talk later,” and briefly stopping behind your chair. his calloused hands are on your arms for a moment, running up and down comfortingly.

“—a happy welcome to—“

“hey, doll.”

“—jean kirstein.”

and your eyes flick away from porco’s and into the crowd of faceless bodies, and the anxieties that kept your brain buzzing with life halt and collapse to the floor of your mind like dead flies.

jean?

#nia.tne #nia.jean #nia.txt #jean kirstein #jean kirschtein x reader #jean kirschtein imagine #jean kirschtein headcanons #jean kirschstein #aot x reader #aot #attack on titan #snk #porco galliard x reader #porco galliard #pieck finger

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dabi-drift · 4 years ago

Text

Yaoyorozu, Hawks, Bakugou, Amajiki, Dabi, Mirko & Geten with a Genderfluid S/O:

If you want any characters adding here or to anything else I write, just drop me a comment or an ask!

Momo Yaoyorozu:

☿ It was hard enough for you to acknowledge your own gender- fully understanding it was a different topic - so coming out to Momo was going to be tough.

☿ Really tough.

☿ She was a lovely girl and a wonderful girlfriend.

☿ But could you really expect her to be supportive of something so complex?

☿ Your gender fluctuated a lot - sometimes you'd feel distinctly outside the binary, and sometimes you'd feel more masculine, or more feminine.

☿ You hadn't noticed this until recently; you rarely gave gender a second thought.

☿ Looking at yourself in the mirror and questioning everything that felt a little off, you'd figured that maybe you just wanted to feel special, a little different.

☿ So you researched. A lot.

☿ You had a system that no-one understood because you were still deep in the closet: a different coloured strand/extension in your hair (on one side only) that stood out but was never questioned.

☿ Red = Feminine, Purple = Non-Binary, Blue = Masculine, Green = Third Gender/Multigender.

☿ Coming out was a decision you spent countless nights debating.

☿ No-one 'deserved' to know, it was really nobody's business…but being gendered correctly 100% of the time did sound nice.

☿ Deep breaths, and positive thoughts.

☿ "I identify as…no, I am genderfluid. You, eh…you should probably know that."

☿ This sweet, precious thing was confused at first.

☿ But you explained it:

☿ "Sometimes I'll feel more masculine, more like a boy, sometimes feminine, neither or both/all genders? I'm still wrapping my head around it too, but eh…it can change a lot. Sometimes a few times a day. Um…sometimes one gender will stick for a while. That's why figuring it out can be…confusing. But it's also enlightening, uh…kinda nice, warm, y'know?"

☿ Instantly says she understands and supports you.

☿ Expect a flurry of hugs and kisses.

☿ Acts like a very proud girlfriend.

☿ Pays extra attention to your hair - never wants to get anything wrong.

☿ If she does, she'll apologise immediately and reprimand herself.

☿ Go easy on her, she'll be an utter mess.

☿ Overall, her love for you is unconditional, and she makes sure that you know she's sorry.

"You shouldn't ever have to be scared to explain who you are."

Keigo Takami/Hawks:

☿ Keigo knew something was amiss.

☿ You'd been dating for two years, and although he never pried, he couldn’t help noticing the way you'd suddenly become uncomfortable when someone addressed you, or when you stayed in one set of clothes for too long.

☿ It wasn’t always the same, and he just figured it was anxiety and general insecurities coming to the surface.

☿ So he held you closer, wrapped you in his wings and fussed over you for hours (or however long his job would allow).

☿ He didn’t have a lot of time to consult the internet.

☿ He also didn’t want to pressure you into revealing anything.

☿ But now, the topic was unavoidable.

☿ You'd broken down, crying and mumbling to yourself when you thought he couldn’t hear you.

☿ He finds you kneeling in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom.

☿ Rushes to your side in an instant.

☿ "What did the mirror do to you, dove?"

☿ Very, very worried, feathers shaking around you.

☿ Defensive birb, ready to protect you from that loathsome mirror.

☿ "I-I look so…so girly today! It's awful! My chest, and…and…I don’t have a binder, and I…"

☿ Doesn't understand, but is determined not to worsen your mood.

☿ "Hey, look at me. What are binders, and where would we get one?"

☿ He places both hands on your cheeks, and you lean into him.

☿ "They're…they flatten your chest, um…sports bras and binders…I-I've never bought one, so I don’t know…"

☿ He nods. "Do you wanna come with me to look for one?"

☿ You're perplexed - shouldn’t he be weirded out by this?

☿ He laughs, and somehow, it warms your heart. "I just want you to be happy. I'd do anything to make that happen, angel. You might need to explain all this to me, though. I'm a newbie, after all."

☿ He takes physical notes - nothing will catch this man out.

☿ If someone misgenders you, he'll correct them immediately.

☿ If someone acts ignorant or spiteful, he'll 'politely' tell them how to adjust their attitude, and how to address people outside the gender binary.

☿ I.e, respect them even if you don't have a complete grasp on their identity, and never, ever misgender or marginalise them.

"You are yourself, not how others perceive you."

Katsuki Bakugou:

☿ You decided to use pronoun badges. There were some awesome-looking designs out there, and you'd been feeling a little more confident lately. It couldn’t hurt to clue your classmates in, right? Plus, you supposed Katsuki ought to know…he was your boyfriend, after all. He'd definitely be pissed if he discovered this a few years down the line, rage about you not placing enough trust in him, and it'd be a huge mess…

☿ You'd never interrogated him on LGBTQ+ issues, so you weren't sure how he'd take your news; he wasn’t always the most accepting (Midoriya & the quirkless community being obvious testaments to that).

☿ Needless to say, instead of being confused, he was frustrated. Why was he with someone who didn’t even know their correct pronouns? He pointed it out, very matter-of-fact.

☿ When your dazzling smile suddenly dropped, he became concerned. Was he the idiot after all? Why did he upset you? What in the Nine Circles of Hell possessed him to do that?? He didn’t even say anything bad! All he mentioned was…

☿ Oh. Shit.

☿ This boy isn't accustomed to apologising, so don’t expect it to flow naturally. He’ll try, because he loves you, but he won't keep eye contact for very long and he'll recant every few seconds.

☿ This perceived insincerity only masks his guilt, though. He’ll beat himself up for years, unless you stop him. This boy has no chill. He's always the first to go off on people when they disrespect or degrade you, so he's gotta make amends in some way, right?

☿️ Honestly, if there are any pronoun badges with really cool or pretty designs, he'll buy them for you. He'll also get for himself, to prove his acceptance and solidarity. He won't ever allow you to feel alone again. He's more than okay with your identity - it changes absolutely nothing about you. If anything, it gives you a sense of completion. He's here for that, 100%.

☿️ You better believe he'll fight for your rights.

☿️ If there's any hate/intolerance directed at you, he'll explode. Quite literally.

☿️ You'll be tasked with ensuring no-one dies. Unless you want them to, of course.

☿️ They'll deserve it.

☿️ Katsuki is very perceptive, so when he gets to grips with it, he'll most likely notice every indication (however subtle) of a gender change. He'll carry spare pronoun badges around, just in case you lose yours.

☿️ Secretly, he's swimming in pride.

☿️ He's kinda like 'Yeah, that's my awesome partner! Look how cool they are, flaunting their pronouns like that, all confident and happy!'

☿️ This boy adores the ever-loving shit out of you. He hates reflecting on the day you came out, because he handled it so poorly at first. Thankfully now though, you're more secure.

"Gender doesn't matter. I'm gonna be a hero, not a hater."

Tamaki Amajiki:

☿️ (Y/n) wasn’t a dead name, but sometimes the very mention of it made your skin crawl.

☿️ It was a gift from your parents, so you wanted to keep it.

☿️ But it was a very gendered name - you couldn’t escape that.

☿️ So you decided on a few more - ones both your mind and heart adored.

☿️ The names corresponded to different gender identities, and although you weren't out just yet (though you planned to be shortly), they gave you the fluffiest feeling.

☿️ Because you hadn't come out, you didn’t bother making it easy for people - no different coloured bracelets, rings or anything to highlight your gender at the time.

☿️ In your heart, you knew who you were.

☿️ Still…everything seemed tied to the binary - official documents, school, the chatter of other students…you'd seen and heard it all.

☿️ These people didn’t accept non-conformists.

☿️ So why should Tamaki?

☿️ Sure, he was kind-hearted, heroic…amazing, but what would he do? What would he say, when you finally came out? You couldn’t remain in the closet forever.

☿️ No way that was happening! You were human too, your feelings mattered! Surely you were allowed to voice your truth…

☿️ Tamaki loved you.

☿️ He'd be accepting…right? Memorising some more names and pronouns shouldn’t be so tricky.

☿️ To minimise discomfort for both of you, you chose to explain things in his room.

☿️ He got really nervous at first - he thought you wanted to break up.

☿️ Boy was sweating profusely, coming up with all sorts of counter-arguments in his head. He really, really loved you.

☿️ "(Y-Y/n)-"

☿️ "Um, could you maybe call me (O/n) today? It's an…off-spectrum day."

☿️ Cue more confusion than Momo.

☿️ He'll ask about it in a really gentle voice - being anxious himself, he can easily pick up on other people's signs.

☿️ "Basically…my gender's fluid, so…you know how 'sex' is biological and 'gender' is a sense of identity? Well, sometimes I align with my birth sex, sometimes I don't. Today is…one of those days."

☿️ He'll hold your hand while he listens, squeezing it periodically to reassure you.

☿️ Now it's your turn to question the strength of your relationship.

☿️ This boy's love is deep, though; he cares way too much to let anything come between you.

☿️ Plus, nothing about you has actually changed.

☿️ You've just come into yourself, gained more comfort in who you are.

☿️ Tells you how proud he is.

☿️ Asks you to let him know when you sense your gender change, so he never calls you by the wrong name or pronouns.

☿️ It's They/Them today, but who knows about tomorrow? Or even an hour from now?

☿️ Finds gender-neutral compliments and nicknames, and does a ton of research.

☿️ Has an entire script in his head - if you want to come out but can't speak for yourself, Tamaki will push aside his anxiety and recite the words he's practiced a million times.

"You've finally found yourself - only change if it feels right."

Touya Todoroki/Dabi:

☿️ Your identity was really important and dear to your heart.

☿️ But that didn’t stop those you cared for tearing you apart whenever you tried to speak up.

☿️ Your family, your friends…you loved them, but they just couldn’t accept you.

☿️ So you killed them.

☿️ You went on the run, evading police and heroes alike for years.

☿️ And then, you found the League of Villains - a strange dynamic, kind of like family but much more welcoming.

☿️ Yet, your identity stayed hidden. You didn’t have the strength to harm all these people, if they rejected you.

☿️ Besides, there was more solidarity here than there ever had been with your blood relatives.

☿️ Dabi was your companion, though whether that meant closest friend or love interest, you didn’t know.

☿️ He was observant, transforming his thoughts into words regardless of how that affected people.

☿️ He pointed things out immediately.

☿️ "New bracelet?"

☿️ You paused, half-shocked, half-afraid.

☿️ You knew that he'd see through any lie you posed.

☿️ The truth would be the only thing to save you from his flames.

☿️ "That means something, doesn't it, (Y/n)?"

☿️ Step 1: put the drink down so you don't shatter it in anger.

☿️ "Yeah, um…this colour means 'masculine'. I'm a guy…now."

☿️ His face betrayed nothing.

☿️ "Like a reverse Magne?"

☿️ You wondered if that was a genuine question or an attempt at humour.

☿️ Todorokis don't understand jokes.

☿️ "No…she's a transgender woman, I'm genderfluid. I'm not confined to a single gender. It, uh…it changes."

☿️ His nod didn’t instil you with confidence.

☿️ "You out to the others yet?"

☿️ "Didn't think they'd accept me."

☿️ He made a 'Really? You're the least weird of the bunch' face.

☿️ "Ah, I'll just burn 'em if they don't."

☿️ You were too stunned to employ a comeback.

☿️ He contemplated for a while.

☿️ "So, you got any other names?"

☿️ Helps you plan how to come out to the rest of the League.

☿️ Will legitimately burn the haters.

"Found families are more accepting than the real thing."

Rumi Usagiyama/Mirko:

☿️ You bought three mugs - 'It's a Girl', 'It's a Boy' and 'It's a Mess'.

☿️ The excitement had been bubbling away inside you for weeks.

☿️ Rumi still didn’t know that you were genderfluid, but she was about to learn.

☿️ There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that she'd accept you.

☿️ You hadn't told her yet because it was a big thing - lots to take in, and you needed to be completely sure of it, and of your relationship.

☿️ You weren't gonna tell just anyone.

☿️ Dating Rumi was awesome, and this was just the next stage.

☿️ It didn’t go according to plan.

☿️ Not at first.

☿️ "You're pregnant?!" Was her very concerned response.

☿️ She kept muttering about how she needed some space to think things over.

☿️ Until you dragged her back, exasperated but determined to explain yourself.

☿️ "It's in reference to myself. I wanted to let you know, in a funny way, that I'm genderfluid. There's a Girl and a Boy one, and the other is for Non-Binary."

☿️ She made a noise like she understood, but you saw the confusion.

☿️ "Today's an Enby day, but you might have a girlfriend tomorrow. Or a boyfriend. Who knows?"

☿️ In an instant, the biggest smile took control of her face, and she brought you into a crushing hug.

☿️ "So I could have a girlfriend, a boyfriend and a murder partner??"

☿️ "Eh…if you can do the jail-time, count me in."

☿️ This one won't necessarily search for information herself, but she will consult you whenever she's having a difficult time processing something.

☿️ You're like,, the expert in all things LGBTQ+, and she loves listening to you talk so passionately.

☿️ She's really glad you told her - that you trusted her with something so important.

☿️ She feels loved, and makes sure you do too.

☿️ Asks if you ever thought she'd reject you.

☿️ "Nah. We'll go strong forever, Rumi."

☿️ She's overjoyed, honestly.

"You're so brave for coming out, and if someone doesn’t like it, I'll kick their butt."

Geten/Iceman:

☿️ Geten didn’t have the faintest clue about gender identities. He accepted male and female, but without a proper education or motivation to learn anything beside his quirk, you didn’t expect him to understand. You would've held it in, if you were strong enough to deal with the constant misgendering.

☿️ If you use Neopronouns, you're especially worried. They aren't as widely welcomed as the general She/He/They. And Geten being the angry, feral gremlin he is, his temper was a major concern.

☿️ You couldn’t change for him, so if he decided to lash out or disapprove, you'd be crushed. You'd obviously have to walk out of the relationship, if he didn’t do so himself. As deeply as your love ran, you simply couldn’t put yourself through such anguish. You weren't of the soundest mind, so to be rejected by Geten…

☿️ He isn't gonna understand unless you sit him down, crack open the slideshow presentation and maybe start crying? He'll feel guilty, but he doesn't ever wanna see you in distress. He said as much, in the beginning of your relationship.

☿️ So cry. Cry your little heart out, and he'll do everything within his power to comfort you. He's not the most receptive to other people's emotions, but with you, it's different. He's always by your side, always watching over you. His hugs are a little stiff, but wrap your arms around him tightly, and he'll protect you with his life.

☿️ "So…genderfluid?"

☿️ His tone is gentle, like he's afraid to cause any more tears.

☿️ "Yeah, um…you identify with your birth sex, right? Well, I don't…not all the time. And if you could…could use those pronouns? That would mean…a lot. To me. It'd mean everything, actually…"

☿️ He's quiet for a while, still trying to make space in his brain for all this new information. It isn't something he needs to 'come around to', though. He'll be completely painful and respectful. He's bound to slip up a few times, but he'll always correct himself.

☿️ Hates seeing you cringe whenever he makes a mistake. Always vows never to let it happen again.

☿️ You're okay though - you know it's gonna take time.

☿️ Angry boi never uses your gender identity as an insult, and openly condemns (threatens) anyone who does. He'll want to prove himself - prove he's gonna love you regardless of gender, regardless of everything!

☿️ Honestly doesn't know why you were so nervous to explain this. When he said his love was unconditional, he wasn’t lying.

“There’s no way I couldn’t accept who you are.”

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arcturusreads · 3 years ago

Text

Christmas Whiskey Part Two - Merhayes

@merxmac asked for a part two to this fanfic so I hope this doesn't disappoint. Also, if y'all have prompts please send them my way, my dissertation is killing me and I'd love a distraction

Cormac wasn’t surprised when he got home on Christmas Eve to find his boys still awake playing video games and Irene in the kitchen prepping the turkey. He’d managed to draw the boys’ attention from their game long enough to propose the idea of dropping in on Meredith and her family during their walk.

He wasn’t at all surprised at Irene’s eagerness to the suggestion. His sister-in-law had been wanting to meet Meredith since her own visit to the hospital. Once she’d found out that the General Surgeon was out of her coma and back on her feet, she’d kept asking Cormac when they could meet. So far, he had managed to put her off by saying that Meredith was still recovering and that everyone’s schedules at the hospital were still crazy as they came out of the peak of the pandemic. What Cormac had been surprised at was how easily the boys agreed to it, Austin even saying that he was looking forward to it.

***

Christmas morning had passed. By the times the boys had woken up, it was more like afternoon. They’d opened presents, lit a candle for Abigail and the boys messed around with their presents, which included a new set of goalposts in the garden that were a bit studier than the ones that Cormac had put-up when they had first moved there, and a drone. Cormac and Irene spent most of their time in the kitchen sorting out Christmas dinner. Afterwards, they’d all sprawled out around the living room, half comatose, wondering why they decided that a second helping was a good idea.

It was 5pm by the time the four of them had managed to haul themselves out of their seats and change out of their pyjamas. As he shrugged on his jacket, Cormac couldn’t help but feel slightly jittery at the thought of seeing Meredith today. He had texted her that morning to wish her a merry Christmas and ask if they should bring anything over to hers. She’d said that there was no need, they had enough food to last them until the end of January but said she was looking forward to seeing him.

“Mac, you ready?” Irene nudged him with her elbow. “What are you smiling about?” She teased.

Cormac hadn’t even realised that he had been smiling in the first place and quickly replaced his expression with a more neutral one.

“Probably thinking about Dr Grey again,” Liam joined in on the teasing as Austin made kissy faces behind his brother.

“You know it’s not too late for me to take those drones back.” Cormac threw an arm over each of his sons’ shoulders and began walking towards the door.

***

There was a large park that happened to be smack in the middle of the route between Cormac Meredith’s houses. After taking a long walk around it and having a kick about with the football the boys had bought with them. They began to make their way to Meredith’s.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t have brought anything with us?” Irene asked him for the 20th time as Meredith’s home came into view.

“We’re bringing Da, I’m sure that will be more than enough.”

Cormac groaned, a red flush crawling up his neck. He stopped in his tracks and turned around to face his family. “Can I trust you all to behave when we go in there?” He was praying that they wouldn’t make any comments in front of Meredith, or he would be mortified.

“I’ll have you know that me and my nephews are the best-behaved people you know.” The smirk on their three faces told him otherwise and he shook his head and he began walking again.

“Heathens, the lot of you. Don’t know why I put up with it.”

He was responded to with snickers and rolled his eyes. As the Hayes family walked up to Meredith’s door, Cormac cursed at the butterflies in his stomach. Damnit, he was a grown man with two teenagers. He should be past this stage of feeling nervous about seeing a woman. It wasn’t like this was a date. She’d invited him over as a friend, their kids were going to be there.

Cormac continued trying to convince himself of this as he knocked the door. It didn’t work though because the moment Meredith opened the door to his family an entire zoo erupted in his stomach. She wasn’t dressed up to the nines, in matching white loungewear and hair half pulled up but it was the flush on her cheeks that caused a wave of feeling to wash over Cormac. The grin on her face, the glint in her eyes and the ease of her shoulders. She was radiant.

“Hey, sorry it took a while to get to the door. We’re used to people just walking in and out. Come in!” She ushered, Cormac, his boys and Irene into her home.

Before Cormac was able to say anything, Irene stepped forward with a grin on her face. “Meredith, I have to say it’s nice to finally meet the woman behind the name. I’m Irene, Mac’s sister-in-law.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Irene. Sorry we couldn’t meet sooner.”

Irene waved off the apology, “I hear you were a bit tied up, so no worries. Thank you so much for inviting us to your home.”

“I have an open-door policy at this house, you guys are always free to drop in if you need anything. Most people do. Austin, Liam, feel free to hang your coats up. You guys have a good Christmas?””

Mer turned to the boys who were slightly surprised that she had managed to identify them both correctly. They’d only met two or three times and they hadn’t even expected the surgeon to have paid much attention to them.

The boys nodded and launched into how their Christmas had gone so far. Cormac couldn’t believe with how much ease and comfort the boys spoke to Meredith. Sometimes he found it hard to get two words out of them when he got home from work.

Meredith began to herd the four of them into the living room where everyone else was lounging around. Cormac realised he hadn’t actually said anything to Meredith since he had gotten there, he reached out and gently grabbed her arm, pulling her back towards him.

“Hey?” Meredith looked at him, slightly confused.

Cormac quickly let go of her arm, “Uh, sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “Just wanted to say Merry Christmas.”

“The same thing you text me this morning?” Meredith teased, arching a brow. “Merry Christmas to you too, Hayes” She grinned at him, seeing him slightly bashful was a new thing. Cormac was usually a lot surer of himself.

“Come on, let’s head in.”

Meredith found that there was no need to make any introductions to the kids. Austin and Liam and sat on the floor with them, which was covered with blankets and cushions. Liam had started to chat with Zola and Bailey whilst Austin was taking a keen interest as Ellis showed him what she had gotten for Christmas.

As Cormac said hello to the other surgeons in the room, Meredith headed into the kitchen and began to heat the milk to make the hot chocolate. Whilst she was never going to be the next MasterChef, hot chocolate was one thing that she could manage.

Stirring the pan of milk, Meredith looked out onto the living room. Seeing the way both Cormac and Irene had settled into conversation with everyone else. Seeing both her and Cormac’s kids getting along so easily. A feeling passed over her that she had not felt in a very long time. Not since Derek had been alive.

She’d always felt at home here, a sense of belonging but now there was a feeling of completion within her. There was nothing missing, her heart didn’t feel as though it was yearning for anything. It was like something had just clicked into place.

“Can I help you out?”

Meredith had even seen Irene approach her, “You’re our guest! Go and relax.”

“You wouldn’t let us bring anything, the least I can do is help you with the hot chocolate. Where can I find the mugs?”

Knowing that Irene wasn’t going to take no for an answer, Meredith directed her towards mugs. “They’re in the cupboard to the left of the sink.”

“You know, I haven’t seen Mac like this since before my sister died,” Irene placed all the mugs on the counter next to the stove and began to spoon the cocoa powder in there. “When he first moved back to the states, I was excited to have him and the boys here but he wasn’t himself. Not that I was expecting him to be after everything he’s been through.”

Irene sighed, placed the spoon on the counter and turned to face Meredith. “Ever since he told me that you were awake again and leaving the hospital, there’s more light in his eyes. He’s more playful, like he was before. His tread isn’t so heavy anymore.”

“I, uh,” Meredith wasn’t quite sure what to say. She knew that things had changed between her and Cormac, but she didn’t think that any of the changes that Irene had mentioned were down to her. “I mean, work has gotten a lot more manageable lately with the Covid numbers going down so that’s probably helping.”

Chuckling, Irene began to stir the hot chocolate and Meredith poured milk into the mugs. “We both know that isn’t true. My brother-in-law has started to fall hard for you, Meredith. I just don’t want to see him hurt if you don’t feel the same way but from the way you’ve been looking at him, I’m going to guess that you do.”

With that she picked up two mugs and walked into the living room with them. Meredith stood, mouth agape as she watched Irene walk away. Her own sisters had only danced around the topic about Cormac and her, teasing her and making the odd comment when they were seen together. They definitely had not been as forthright as Irene had just been with her.

“Momma! Hot cocoa time!” Ellis’ voiced pulled Meredith out of her thoughts as she took as many mugs as she could carry into the living room.

Eventually there were only two mugs left and as Meredith made her last trip from the kitchen, there was only one person, other than herself left without a mug.

“Hot chocolate?” Meredith offered the mug to Cormac who took it gratefully, their finger brushing against each other.

“Thanks, Grey.”

Looking around for a place to sit, Meredith found that the only place left was next to Cormac on the two-seater.

“Do you mind?” She asked, motioning to the seat next to him with her head.

“That you sit on your sofa in your house?” The glint in his eye made simultaneously made Meredith’s stomach flip and made her want to punch him

“I don’t know why I bothered asking…” Meredith muttered under her breath, but Cormac managed to hear and laughed.

From the other side of the room, Irene kept an eye on them the entire night. Now 100% sure that Meredith Grey did feel the same way about Cormac and come hell or high water, she was going to make sure that they both did something about it.

#merhayes #grey's anatomy #cormac hayes #meredith x hayes #mcwidow #meredith grey #mcwidows #cormac x meredith #excuse me whilst i rearrange the alphabet

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lady-divine-writes · 4 years ago

Text

The Hitchhiker - Chapter 1/4

Picking up a hitchhiker isn't exactly the dumbest thing Kurt has ever done, but it's not exactly the smartest either. When he comes across Blaine Anderson caught in a sudden downpour, he can't just leave him on the corner to drown... can he? (1756 words)

Read on AO3.

“Excuse me? Sir? Do you need a ride?”

Kurt flashes as confident and honest a smile as he can to the man standing on the side of the road. But the second those words leave his mouth, he hears his father’s voice in his head yelling: “Kurt Hummel! What the hell are you doing? Picking up a hitchhiker? Are you out of your mind!?”

And Kurt has to admit, the voice is right.

There is a fifty-fifty chance that this man, standing alone in the dark by the side of the road, is a violent serial killer. His outfit alone perpetuates the stereotype - indigo jeans, white t-shirt, leather jacket. He has an olive-green duffel slung over one shoulder and he's carrying a guitar case, for God’s sake! What are the odds that there’s actually a guitar in there!? If Kurt picks this man up, he has a greater chance of becoming a statistic than of that man being a musician! Kurt should drive away now without an inch of guilt, floor it without looking back.

And he probably would have deferred to his better judgment and stepped on the gas had it not been for a few things.

It's pitch dark out for a start. Only a handful of street lights line the curb, installed twenty or so feet apart, which creates long expanses of shadow in between. The road they're on is in the middle of nowhere, with trees towering on both sides of them. This doesn’t help Kurt’s argument any since it seems like just the place a killer would lie in wait for a potential victim. But, in that same vein, someone or something could be stalking him, waiting for Kurt to drive away so they can pounce on him from the trees. Then it would be up to the reach of this man's legs and his athletic ability to save him.

This leads directly to reason two: the man is a klutz. In the five minutes Kurt has been stuck at this red light, he’s seen him smack himself in the face with his own bag, drop his sunglasses (pink rimmed Wayfarers, no less), catch them, then fumble them again, and step in the same puddle twice. If this man is a serial killer, he may not be the most competent one on the planet.

Three, just as Kurt’s light turned green, it started raining. And not the light drizzle he has come to expect during his infrequent forays to San Diego, but an honest-to-God downpour. Kurt saw the man turn his face up to the sky, his shoulders slumped, wholly defeated by this new development. He put the butt of his guitar case on the toes of his shoes to keep it out of the mud, then attempted to wrap his jacket around it.

And Kurt’s heart melted.

Kurt is a musician himself. Singer more than musician but he has friends who play the guitar. His stepbrother Finn owns a Fender that he sold plasma to afford. Puck's Gibson is the only thing he has never hawked when he needed money. And Sam, in this man's position, would take off every stitch of clothing to protect his Blueridge if it came down to it. Kurt can imagine this man’s whole life wrapped up in that case, which he is now convinced does hold a guitar.

Kurt isn't a gun enthusiast by any means, but he thinks a semi-automatic should be able to withstand some weather. He may want to Google that one later on… provided he’s still alive.

And about that guitar case: it isn’t a plain, generic, black guitar case. The thing is covered in travel stickers and bling. It has a personality all its own. An easily identifiable personality. If this man is a killer, Kurt is pretty certain every human on the West Coast would know about it. He’d be nicknamed the Kitsch Case Killer or something along those lines. That case sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s no way a man carrying a guitar case decorated like an old-school Lisa Frank binder is getting away with swiping a pack of gum, not to mention murder.

To a lesser degree (Kurt tells himself so he doesn't have to admit how idiotic this idea is), this is the most a-dork-able man Kurt has ever seen. He looks more like a puppy than a predator (weak reasoning, he knows). But Kurt has instincts about people that are usually on the money. He has to give himself credit for making it this far in life. Kurt is tougher than he looks. He has taken his fair share of licks, and he’s still ticking.

Plus, he has bear repellent in the pocket of his jacket the size of a can of Aquanet. He feels he has his bases covered.

The man walks slowly towards Kurt's car, the curls piled atop his head hanging heavily down his cheeks the wetter he gets.

No, Kurt can’t leave him out here.

“Um. Thanks. Thanks a lot,” the man says, cautiously eyeing Kurt up and down as if he may be asking himself Kurt’s same string of questions in his head. “But I… ” The fact that he isn’t jumping at Kurt’s offer, that he’s glancing anxiously down the road, mulling his options even as rain pours down his back, puts Kurt at ease. The man looks like he’s trying to gauge if Kurt might have a weapon hiding somewhere on his person, contemplating if he’ll come out of this alive if he accepts this ride.

Ironic, but that proves that there are two sides to every situation.

The man looks about to step away and decline until a fork of lightning turns night into day for five seconds, a boom so loud following it shakes Kurt’s rental car.

“Sure. Okay. Why not?” He pulls open the rear door in a rush but still wary as he puts his belongings into the backseat and joins Kurt in the front. “Thank you so much. I didn’t expect it to rain this hard, or I might have stayed in my hotel room one more night.” He runs a hand through his hair, cringing at the water that sprays the headrest.

“Not a problem.” Kurt reaches behind the seat and grabs the towel he’d fished out of his luggage earlier when he’d done the same thing. But the rain was only a sprinkle then – angel spittle, his mom would have called it. “I couldn’t just drive by and leave you out here to drown.”

The man chuckles. It, much like the rest of him, is too cute for words. “My name’s Blaine.”

“Kurt.” Kurt extends a hand for Blaine to shake. Blaine looks at it, hesitates a second before taking it, still questioning Kurt and his intentions, Kurt assumes. Despite being stuck in the rain, Blaine’s hand is warm, comforting in a way Kurt speculates a serial killer’s hands would not. “Well, Blaine, where you headed?”

“Oh, uh… I’m trying to make my way to L.A. But you can drop me off anywhere between here and there.”

“Ooo. Actor? Producer?”

“Unemployed schlub, unfortunately. Currently riding my brother’s couch. He’s the actor. I’m the… the failure.”

Kurt pulls onto the road again and heads for the highway. “That’s a really unkind thing to say about yourself.”

“It’s what… well, it’s what my father would say.” He wrings his hands uncomfortably. “He’d also say I’m a disappointment, a waste of a Harvard education, a bum… ” He shivers. Kurt raises the temperature of the heater. Blaine glances at Kurt in embarrassment, and Kurt gets the hint that it’s not the cold that has him trembling.

“I know it’s not my place to say, but I’d stop listening to your father if I were you. It doesn’t seem like he has anything worthwhile to say.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know me,” Blaine says under his breath, with an edge like a growl, the kind wild animals give when you stumble into their territory unaware. It sets the hairs on the back of Kurt’s neck on end, and he starts second-guessing this decision.

Relax, Kurt. The man’s just beat down. Exhausted. You understand what that’s like.

Blaine sighs, sinking into the passenger seat and leaning his head against the window. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying to be nice. It's been a long day."

“I understand. And I may not know you, but I know fathers," Kurt continues. "A father’s job is to be supportive of their children, no matter what they do in life. Succeed or fail, win or lose, they should always be in your corner. And if he’s not, screw him! Surround yourself with people who want to lift you up, not tear you down.”

Blaine winds his arms around his torso, hugging himself tight. “I---is that the way your father treats you?”

“Yup,” Kurt answers with a subconscious smile at the mention of his dad. “He supports me in everything, even the stuff he doesn’t entirely agree with. And when things don’t work out, he’s the first person there, helping me to my feet and encouraging me to try again.”

“Sounds like a great guy. You’re lucky.”

“He is," Kurt says proudly. "And I am.”

Blaine fixes his gaze to the road ahead as Kurt merges onto the highway. He chews the inside of his cheek, stares too hard at the rain-slick asphalt, not shifting focus. It's as if he can't bring himself to look at Kurt when he asks, “So, you think you’re a good judge of character?”

Kurt nods. “Yes, I do."

"How do you know?"

"Experience. I have a decent track record.”

"Surround yourself with a lot of questionable people, do you?"

"I guess you can say that," Kurt agrees with a laugh, thinking of the people who have come into his life that he has adopted as his own: Rachel, Dave, Santana, Puck, all of them rivals or bullies. Or both. But now, a cherished part of his found family.

People he hopes will miss him if SDPD finds him by the side of the road tomorrow with his throat cut.

Stop it, Kurt! Relax! You're in no danger! Everything is going to be fine!

Blaine shrugs, examining his wet hands as if he’s reading something etched on his skin. “Someday you’ll be wrong.”

“Probably." Kurt meets Blaine's eyes in the reflection of the windshield, flashes his confident smile again. "But I don’t think that day is today.”

#klaine #klaine fic #klaine fanfiction

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mimik-u · 4 years ago

Text

Gloves, Chapter 2.

Summary: There's a reason that Yellow Diamond doesn't take off her gloves.

AO3 Link / Previous Ch.

—

Her heels clicking harshly against the quartz-inlaid floor, Yellow Diamond swiftly conquers the hallway that ends at a set of pale, pink doors, watching with cool disinterest as her Pearl scurries ahead of her to unlock them. She drags her finger along the panel in a quick succession of movements. The diamond icons flash once in affirmation, and the doors slide open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a seemingly empty chamber inside.

“Once the diagnostic from the Reef arrives,” Yellow says, her voice as low as her natural timbre allows, “send it to my screens immediately.”

“Yes, my Diamond.” Pearl dutifully withdraws, salutes, and bows low, though she’s not entirely able to obscure the fact that her hands are trembling at the exact nexus of their crossing.

It isn’t a detail in her subordinates that Yellow typically notices, nor concerns herself with... but, of course, it isn’t every average cycle that a royal Pearl is cracked either.

Diamonds are rarely so careless with their things.

And yet, this particular dilemma isn’t strictly about carelessness. After all, carelessness would be simple to identify, discipline, and eventually excuse, conveniently burying it beneath all the other minor boundaries of decorum that Pink has dared to infringe.

No.

From what she has gathered, this wasn’t about carelessness at all.

Yellow absently clenches and unclenches her gloves as she steps over the threshold, the doors closing behind her with a serpentine finality.

The empty grandiosity of the room, with its high, vaulting ceiling and vacantly floating bubbles, draws her eye upwards at first, and she can discern no visible damage beyond a missing panel, perhaps—easily remedied by any Bismuth worth her minerals. However, when she glances down to see where the panel may have landed, it becomes readily apparent to Yellow that the initial reports hadn’t exaggerated the carnage.

In the center of the floor, where an intricately embedded mural of the Diamond Authority’s insignia used to be, a sizable crater has been scooped out of the ground, mercilessly excavated, the diameter comparable to the bottom of one of the royal palanquins or even the base of a gigantic statue. Jagged cracks vein what had once been glassy pink quartz, revealing the bare, white foundation underneath.

And there are fragments everywhere.

Innumerable shards upon shards.

Try though Yellow does to pick around them, she still shatters pieces beneath her heels anyway as she makes her way across the room, where doubled doors open up onto a crescent-shaped balcony.The archway frames a remarkably quaint image, frangible and delicate—like a stained glass window of so many carefully arranged pieces.

Pink Diamond sitting on the ground.

Arms curled around her legs.

Forehead reverently kissing her knees.

Shaking shoulders.

Shivering hands.

Moonlight walking its silver fingers along the curvature of her bowed spine.

If she notices that she isn’t alone anymore—and surely she must given the distinct crunching noises—then she doesn’t give herself away, unmoving from her vulnerable position, unstirring.

When Yellow is right behind Pink, she crosses her arms over her chest and tries to appear cross, but the familiar trappings of a habitual facade elude her as she stares downwards at the younger Diamond.

Yellow wears her hardnesses like they’re pieces of armor, but even armor has its weaknesses.

Even armor cannot withstand pity and compassion.

The inexplicability and irrationality of love.

So she crosses her arms, but the gesture does little to no good; her toughened eyes melt anyway—liquid gold.

“Moroseness doesn’t suit you,” Yellow says, and her voice is lighter than she originally intended, almost but not entirely, verging upon, kind. “Blue tells me that you’ve been in your chambers all day.”

Silence for a moment, stretching thin in an already threadbare, starless night.

Yellow frowns impatiently, but then—

“I thought you were away,” Pink croaks, her voice seemingly hoarse from disuse. “Gone to Pallas for a couple of cycles.”

It’s true. Mere hours ago, she’d been on an entirely different planet, an adjacent star system away, overseeing the construction of resource gathering infrastructure. The reminder that she’s going to be behind schedule on that project is enough to pique her annoyance.

“Yes, well, I received at least four separate reports that you had cracked your Pearl before I had even properly disembarked from my ship,” she replies, her tone regaining some of its usual briskness. “I had no choice but to turn around.”

At the blunt phrasing, Pink lets out a low moan, bringing her gloved hands up to cover her ears, and Yellow’s rough edges sand themselves down all over again.

Her gem aches.

And pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, she sighs ever so softly and stares upwards into the vaulting sky above the two of them. In the absence of stars, there is darkness. In the darkness, the shapes of bitter memories begin to play out across the blank tableau like a horrible pantomime, littered with grotesque silhouettes.

The knuckles in Yellow’s left hand ache from the tension of clenching them.

“So I’m here now, Pink,” she continues, her voice yielding again, bending to foreign softness, trying it on like an ill-fitting sword. “And I would like to know what happened—in your own words. Before I have to debrief with White.”

The very name of their matriarch sends another visible chill down Pink’s spine, and she begins to rock back-and-forth, dragging her hands downwards from her head, holding herself by her puffy sleeves.

“S-she’s going to send me to the Tower, isn’t she? She was already cross with me this morning, a-and I... I was so angry with her and... and I didn’t mean to... Pearl... she was just standing right there! And I...”

But she can’t go on, her barely coherent speech lapsing into sobs, and Yellow watches as a pulse of light briefly illuminates the balcony in a wave that vibrates the very air and all the molecules around them.

Lush and magenta, it could have only originated from one source.

Pink Diamond’s gem.

Pink Diamond herself.

“Calm yourself now, Pink,” Yellow demands, a measure of urgency in her voice as she lowers herself next to the younger Diamond, kneeling on both of her padded knees. “No one’s going to punish you for this.”

(White might have, of course, had Blue not swiftly interceded on Pink’s behalf, diplomatically placating the elder Diamond, promising correction of course…)

“But then again, maybe you should,” Pink half-whispers, her voice muffled against her knees. She twists her gloved fingers deeper into her sleeves. “Punish me, I mean... I hurt Pearl... I cracked her... I’ve... I’ve never done that to a gem before. I-I don’t even know what happened.”

“Walk me through it,” Yellow says immediately, settling into a more comfortable sitting position. Even though she’s not standing anymore, she still looms some ten feet above Pink, casting the smaller gem in her elongated shadow. “Every last detail.”

Pink’s response to this proposition is immediate.

Desperate.

Stripped of all pretense.

Nothing left but raw, visceral emotion.

And quiet.

Her response, her supplication, her plea is quiet above all.

“Please…” She whimpers. “… please don’t make me relive it, Yellow.”

Even though she knows that the younger Diamond isn’t looking at her, Yellow staunchly shakes her head anyway.

“What have you been doing on this balcony all day but reliving it?” She asks knowingly. “One more time will scarcely hurt more than it already does.”

“You cannot possibly know that.” Pink mutters, resentful, self-loathing, utterly convinced.

“But I can,” Yellow replies fiercely, matching the fervency in the other’s tone, the bitterness, the complete and utter self-loathing. “I do know that… I’ve lived through it.”

And it is this that finally commands Pink Diamond’s undivided attention.

She looks up so suddenly that it’s a wonder that she doesn’t pop her neck in the process, her bloodshot eyes wildly raking Yellow’s face for a confirmation of this baldly stated truth. And Yellow, without missing a beat, stares back at her ruthlessly—lips pursed, shoulders squared, her nosed upturned in the beginnings of a snarl—as though daring her junior to challenge her.

She’ll win.

She always wins.

After a pregnant moment, the silence electric with unspoken meaning, Pink seems to accept Yellow’s words at face value, nodding slowly, the grip she has on her sleeves loosening a fraction of an inch.

“If I do it…” She begins quietly. “If I tell you… could you… will you tell me how you lived through it?”

Yellow’s opposition to this unsavory idea must immediately evince itself in her expression because Pink flinches, as though already stung by the harshness of an incoming refusal.

“Please…? I just… I don’t want to be alone in this feeling, Yellow,” she whispers, closing her eyes, her delicate features screwing themselves up against their own pronounced agony. “I… I feel like a monster.”

And undisguised tears slip down the Diamond’s pink cheeks, collecting uncalmly upon the point of her chin.

Falling unceremoniously into the abyss between her knees.

Yellow makes an awkward, jerking movement as though to pat her, to console her, but she can’t quite seem to subjugate her hands into working order.

She ends up planting them on either side of her, the spines of her knuckles perpetually tensed, mountain sharp.

She’s never been good at the whole emotion-thing.

That’s always been Blue’s forte.

Stars, even Pink’s.

Maybe even especially Pink’s.

“Am I a monster, Yellow?” She continues without prompting, suddenly opening her eyes, as though stricken with realization.

With epiphany.

With awful and complete horror.

“I… I went above yours and Blue’s heads to ask White if I could finally get my own colony. And she said no—I wasn’t ready… I didn’t deserve one yet… and I was bothering her with my silly trifles… all my impetuous games…”

Yellow can see it all unfolding in her mind’s eye—White lofted on her high throne, staring down at the younger Diamond with that sharp, saccharine smile that has always so clearly indexed danger. A not entirely inconsequential part of her wants to immediately scold Pink, to abuse her for having been so reckless to approach their matriarch about this matter in the first place. Of the three elder Diamonds, White has always been the least patient with Pink’s youthfulness and immaturity; indeed, she specifically delegated Yellow and Blue to deal with her because she’d already reared two Diamonds from emergence herself.

But Yellow bites her tongue.

Pink is already punishing herself far more efficiently than Blue and Yellow ever could.

“She dismissed me to my chambers… and I… oh, stars, Yellow… I don’t know what happened next. I yelled, and I screamed, and the next thing I knew, I was glowing pink. My hands, my arms, my face… and when I came back to myself… when I stopped glowing… Pearl was on the floor. And she wasn’t moving… her eye… her gem…”

Bifurcated down the middle, the reports said.

The damage extensive.

Repair questionable.

Pink Diamond begins to cry again, pressing the heels of her palms against her running eyes in a vain attempt to stop the spillage.

“B-Blue told me to be more careful with my emotions… that I needed to keep them under control… but I didn’t listen to her,” she sniffs miserably. “And now I’ve hurt my Pearl. She didn’t do anything wrong… she was just… there.”

Too close to the explosion.

Collateral damage.

(Expendable damage.)

If Pink has anything more to say on the matter, she doesn’t proffer it willingly, lapsing into agonized silence as she continues to rock back-and-forth on the ground.

Yellow swallows painfully and half-wishes that she had never engaged in this conversation.

That she had allowed Blue to console her.

That she had not broached the subject of her own stark failure.

But the hypotheticals of actions long done and buried hardly strike her as being productive; all the things that she should have said, should have done, and didn’t do can afford her nothing but misery.

She didn’t allow Blue to console Pink.

She came of her own volition and free will.

And brought up her own miseries.

And presented them before Pink boldly—as an indelible commonality between them.

Every choice has its consequences; every word exacts its price.

And Yellow Diamond’s price and her punishment and her eternal condemnation is the truth which resides so uneasily beneath her gloves. She curls and uncurls her fingers.

And feels the cold material slide against her naked skin.

“I was barely 12,000 years old,” she begins hoarsely, “when I hurt Blue Diamond.”

“What?”

Pink seemingly can’t help herself. She looks up again—shocked, disbelieving, alarmed—and Yellow finds that she cannot stomach these very expressions, so she glances upwards, forcing herself to be interested in an empty sky.

The moon has never looked lovelier without all of her silver companions.

She has never seemed lonelier either.

So small against a dark infinity vast.

“A battle on a planet I was conquering wasn’t going well,” she goes on in a practiced monotone. “I was losing gems left and right to the local organics. And I was embittered and angry—so utterly disappointed with myself… but Blue tried to console me. You know how she does.”

Yellow had placed both of her palms flat against the nearest wall as electricity began to expand from her gem outwards through her body, surging down her arms, pooling in her bare fingertips. The wall beneath her had begun to heat beneath the energy—cracking, blackening, burning. She hadn’t even realized what was happening, her anger so complete that it overwhelmed all reality and sense. And then—

“She touched my arm to try and calm me down, but I was generating too much energy,” Yellow continues flatly, each word militaristically disciplined. It’s all she can manage to tell this story. To remember it without wanting to weep. “We weren’t as strong then as we were now. And she… she poofed right before my eyes.”

Even though this happened so many hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years ago, Yellow can still see every facet of Blue Diamond’s gem falling through the empty air.

She can smell the smoke that strangled the air.

And hear the devastating thud as Blue clattered unceremoniously to the ground.

Cold.

Lifeless.

A mere rock without form.

Yellow Diamond screamed and did not stop screaming for a very long time.

“And because we are Diamonds”—she glances down at her own gem, unimpressive in the darkness, dusted and dull —“because we require so much light to make and remake ourselves in the rare event of our disincorporations, she did not reform for almost a year.”

Three-hundred and forty one cycles to be exact.

And Yellow Diamond waited almost every last one of them by her side, mourning and mourning and despising herself and—

“No,” Pink whispers, her voice hushed. When Yellow finally dares to glance down, she sees that the younger Diamond is staring at her with open-eyed terror. “You can’t have done… we’re… we’re D-diamonds. We can’t just… I’ve never… you can’t have poofed her! Diamonds don’t… Diamonds can’t poof!”

“But I did,” Yellow responds coldly, her nose twisted in a sneer she does not feel, “and she did. We have that capacity within us.”

White Diamond disciplined her in the Tower for days, but to this very day, she wishes that the punishment had lasted longer—as long as Blue had remained a gemstone, wedged inanimately upon a pillow.

She would have deserved it.

She had craved to be punished for the brutality of what she had done.

“After that, I took matters into my own hands. I couldn’t allow myself to lose control in such a way again… not with anyone… especially not with—“

But she cannot bear to say the name aloud, the single and beloved syllable sticky and hard on her imperial tongue.

So she swallows the damage.

She pushes past it.

And looks away from Pink as her cheeks threaten to color.

“I commissioned gems to make me gloves that would insulate my own powers when they proved to be unruly.” She says it all very clinically, as though this tragedy hasn’t entirely shaped her worldview for some hundreds of thousands of years. “And I sought, by sheer willpower, to tame what was left of my unruliness by excising emotional excess, because I swore, from that cycle onwards, that I would never hurt Bl—a fellow Diamond again by my own strength.”

Encased, entombed inside her gloves, her fingers still ache with the guilt.

She pulls her arms across her chest again just as she senses Pink shifting.

Moving closer.

It is only for her safety that Yellow moves away.

“I’m so… I’m so sorry, Yellow,” Pink says quietly, “I… didn’t know.”

“But now you do,” Yellow replies, her voice softening—so very incrementally—somewhere in the middle. She forces herself to look at Pink Diamond again and hopes that her eyes are far more stern than her inflection. “And I would like you to take a singular lesson from this story.”

“And what is that?”

The question is desperate.

Agonized.

The young gem would do anything to learn how to not hurt another.

(The cruel irony is that hurting gems is part of what is prescribed by the Diamond duty.)

“There are some parts of us that are so dangerous, Pink Diamond, that we must forever hide them away. Conquer them. Annihilate them. Vanquish them from plain and immediate sight.”

Yellow Diamond curls the tips of her fingertips into her arms, digging into golden skin.

“It’s to protect the gems around us,” she finishes neatly. “The gems whom we care about.”

Pink’s lower lip trembles.

It doesn’t escape Yellow’s sharp notice that she’s mimicking the elder Diamond’s posture, arms crossed defensively over her chest.

“The gems that we love,” she echoes miserably as a another tear glances down her sharp cheek, pale pink in the light streaming in from the chamber.

Yellow stares at her incredulously.

“Don’t be preposterous, Pink. Diamonds don’t love Pearls.”

“… I know,” comes the defeated reply. “I know… I was just… saying things.”

Stupid things.

Treasonous things.

“Yes, well”—frowning, Yellow pulls up her comm screen with a single swipe through the empty air, checking to see if she’s had any messages since she’s been on the balcony—“that isn’t anything to say so casually.”

“Yes, Yellow…”

A pause then.

Loaded.

Charged.

Pink bites her lip in hesitation, as though weighing whether or not she should speak, moderation warring against impulse, and impulse ultimately winning because she bursts aloud with winging words—

“Have you heard anything, though? About her? Is Pearl going to be alright?”

URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE REEF.

SUBJECT: PEARL 3A. CABOCHON D3.

STATUS: DECOMMISSIONED.

NOTE: THE DAMAGE TO THE PEARL'S PROJECTED FORM UNSALVAGEABLE. HARVEST RECOMMENDED.

Yellow Diamond quickly closes the missive before Pink can peer upwards to read it for herself, dispersing the screen in a burst of silent static.

“No,” she returns almost softly. “Not yet.”

#yellow diamond #pink diamond #pink pearl #volleyball #yellow pearl #s: steven universe #mimiku #gloves #oh my god #why is this so long hiohasihfioho

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