#so this is a killer combo for me because never have i EVER had to TRY to shut up about something im obsessed with that would otherwise be

[doctorwhoisadhd]

please understand tha ti am trying. so. god damned hard. to be normal. about this right now

[xeeljii]

CURRENTS ⋆⭒˚.⋆

PART 1: New Person, Same Old Mistakes

WARNING! Explicit RPF! 

Summary: You and Joost were never lovers, never friends but something in the middle that ended up hurting more, you meet again years later and many things have changed but others stay the same. 

Word count: 4.9k

CW: 18+, f! reader, friends with benefits, mentions of past sex, jealousy, angst, rekindling (?)

The fall had been hard and fast as much as you didn’t want it to. Joost was cute and funny, killer combo and you had great chemistry in bed, cherry on top. The problem was that he had just gotten out of a committed relationship and was not looking for that again, good, cool, totally fine, neither were you. That is what your twenties are for just, casual sex and silly mistakes and he was perfect for that, until it wasn’t so perfect. Because again, he was very cute and very funny and you could lie to yourself about your feelings only for so long before they became unbearable like an invisible hand slowly choking you. 

You and Joost had met one of those days where he had been jumping around from bar to bar getting wasted seeing where he would end the night to avoid ending at his own place all alone again. He had told you you caught his eyes because you had such a pretty face, but in truth he just liked your laughter, you had been with a group of friends and the sweet sound of it kept calling to him like a siren song. He had finally built courage to approach you. You were very beautiful but more than that you were fun, he liked that, he felt like he could talk to you for hours without it getting tiring but also he was very curious to know what you looked like underneath all your pretty clothes so after seeing the way you kept blushing when his eyes lingered on you he bluntly asked. 

“Your place or mine?” He said it with way more confidence than he felt, in those days it was what he did, just fake it until you make it, and somehow it worked, sometimes at least. You had faintly seen trough it but he was so handsome and had an aura about him that pulled people in so you decided to ignore the warning signs. 

“Mine” You replied with a grin. 

Whether it was a good or bad decision you had no idea but you were unwilling to let such an opportunity with such a man pass you by. He had eaten your pussy like a starved man kissing through the lace of your panties, licking and sucking at your folds, you had never come that hard before, never had met someone who did it like it was pleasurable for them too and not just a curtesy at most. When you saw him disappear between your legs at first you had almost stopped him too shy to have him that close to you but he spoke before you could even gather your words. 

“I’m thicker than most so you need this.” He smiled a little self satisfied then looked at your wet heat and added. “But really you have such a pretty pussy it would be a waste not to.” He licked his lips in anticipation and then made you see stars. 

You thought he was bluffing at first but he was honest and he had you melting in his embrace with a few thrust and his deft fingers on your clit. That night he made you cum over and over until you couldn’t take his touch.

“I can’t anymore I surrender.” You said in fake dramatics putting your hand over your hard beating heart, he had laughed, a beautiful sound in the middle of the night, he had the prettiest smile you think you had ever seen, with deep dimples that adorned his cheeks.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” He asked, getting up from bed, you shook your head. 

“Just open the window or my landlord will kill me.”

“Well we wouldn’t want the girl with the prettiest pussy ever dying.” He had said cigarette hanging from his lips as he cracked the window open. 

“You are kind of a pervert.” You said shaking your head embarrassed and hiding behind the covers as you felt yourself blushing at his bluntness, he looked back at you and smiled as he took his first drag.

“If it is only kind of then it is fine.” He blew the smoke outside the room slowly.

The image of him sitting on your chair, naked, smoking out of the window of your tiny apartment would become ingrained in your mind for years to come haunting you when you least expected it. 

In the morning he had woken up and left before you but he had written his number in a piece of paper in the back of one of your shopping lists. Sure, he had probably been the best sex you had ever had, perhaps a little too rough at times but you weren’t entirely sure if getting involved with him further was a good idea, he very clearly had his own thing going on and while you weren’t entirely looking for a relationship you also weren’t entirely not looking for it so you were scared you would end up just being a disturbance in the middle of his easy going life. So you just threw the paper away, promising yourself to just let this be a night of fun and nothing more. But that was not what destiny had in plans for you at all. 

One night after some exams were done your friend group decided to party, someone had gotten tickets for a live show and that is how most of you ended up in some dark venue downing the cheapest drinks you could get. Just your luck, he was the performer. As soon as you recognized him up on stage you felt the room start to move underneath your feet, you felt dizzy like you would float away and yet you couldn’t move at all as if glued to the floor by his magnetism. It was the first of many times you would see him preform but it was your favorite and the one you kept closest to your heart. He was fun and charismatic, had people chanting his music back to him and dancing happily, his stage presence shone brightly but it also felt authentic. Time later you would realize when he was on stage he was most honest and truly himself and when he was with you, well you didn’t really know what to belive. 

You stood there in the middle of moving bodies with booming bass pounding in your ears, completely enamored by his presence, and you knew you weren’t the only one. Out of the corner of your eyes you would see all the pretty girls close to the stage raising their hands to touch him, to get his attention. Star power underneath the surface waiting to come out, he was standing at the edge of greatness and didn’t even realize it. Knowing you had actually had him in your bed not so long ago filled you with a weird sense of pride, but seeing their sparkling eyes beaming up at him also gave you a weird sense of jealousy that you knew you had no right to. At some point during his set you felt you had caught his eye and he seemed to smile when he recognized you but quickly looked away so you must have imagined it. Yet when it all ended and people were quickly dispersing after he disappeared back stage you saw security guard signaling to you with his hand when you looked at him he said. 

”You can come backstage.”

Your friend elbowed you with a giggle. “I didn’t know you were a groupie.”

“Neither did I.” You shrugged quickly and waved goodbye to your group to follow the man to the back of the venue.

You moved through long corridors until you reached a small room filled with people drinking and talking that didn't even look up at you. He appeared right in front of you, still shirtless and sweaty with messy hair sticking to his forehead. 

“Hi!” He said still a little breathless before pulling you in.

You looked around, everyone was busy on their own conversations, he had offered you a beer and you took it.

“Brining girls backstage after your show is kinda trashy.” You said with a small smile, he took a sip of his own drink and shrugged lightly. 

“Well I only bring the prettiest ones so it isn’t as bad, no?”

That one had hurt uncomfortably, you didn’t know exactly why so you just took a sip of the beer avoiding his eyes. He noticed your silence and tried to get your attention back, he had been eagerly waiting for your call and when you didn’t he felt stupid for not asking for your number instead.  

“You didn’t call me.” He said matter of factly staring you down, you were hoping he wouldn’t bring it up, not really sure what your excuse should be for that, he continued. “You just used me for my body and threw me out!” He added faking an insulted tone covering at his chest with his hands, you rolled your eyes at him and laughed. 

“You got me” You said all sarcastic.

He giggled then bent down a little to speak directly in your ear. “Then use me again. Or was I that bad?”

You had snorted shaking your head, you blushed deeply, red blooming over your face quickly.  He liked making you laugh, pulling that sweet sound off your lips and making you blush too, you would become so impossibly beautiful when a pretty red blush adorned your face, those became his favorite pastimes in the months he would be with you.

You had taken him back to your place that night and many after. It started a routine of seeing each other multiple times per week and then almost every day for months. He liked how you became bolder every time you did it, glowed more beautiful in the night with the light of the lampshade and became more outspoken about your desires, shy at first but then couldn’t get enough of him, it made him feel desired and important in ways that he hadn't in a long time.  It made him feel wanted like never before, it made his heart ache hoping for more but too scared to ask for it. And he got better too, was eager to listen to your little whimpers and sounds and the things you liked that made you wetter and hungrier.

He genuinely liked you, having sex was great but he enjoyed listening to you talk about your day, things so mundane he wouldn’t even know about but when coming form your lips seemed so interesting. He enjoyed showering together, in the smallest shower he had ever seen, while you giggled and pushed him away when he tried to grab you just to end up making out naked in the couch because otherwise your water bill would be too high. He like learning what foods you liked and which you didn’t, trial and error with each take out he brought when he visited, seeing the way your eyes lit up when he made a good choice and how you had the tiniest of pouts when he made the wrong one but still always so grateful, it made his heart skip a beat every time he could learn a new expression of yours. He just really enjoyed your company and your time, sometimes he would bring food but your would be too busy for anything else so you would just share a meal while you did your university work and he played on his phone or watched TV, those days ended up becoming his favorites even though he never told you, because when you were done you would always just ask him to stay the night saying it was too late for him to leave and he would, he wanted you to ask him to stay forever.

He liked sleeping in your embrace and waking up before you did to look at your calm beauty, but he also often left before you woke up suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that this was no longer just a fling and he didn’t know what his next step was. 

He would sometimes stumble into your apartment after a show, a little tipsy and all red to the tip of his ears, smelling of smoke but with a pretty smile adorning his face, a face you could never say no to. You didn’t like it at first, the smell of cigarettes would linger on your bed sheets but habit is a nasty monster and then it wouldn’t be so annoying, it would just remind you of him in a nice way even when he was gone by the morning. It also made you feel stupidly important, even though you knew he had no problem finding someone else to entertain his nights, he always seemed to be looking for you no matter how late or inconvenient making his way to your place was. And things were mostly fun, he would talk about music a lot, draw sitting in the little table at your kitchen and just enjoy spending his entire free days curled in your old couch even thought you distantly felt he could probably be doing something more exciting but you never asked because you didn’t want to ruin your own good luck. 

Those honeymoon days kept pilling one onto the other until his presence became a sweet habit and his absence hurt like hell.  He was nice and probably a lot better than some relationships you had had but not everything was perfect, not even close. He seemed to have this mask he would wear for the world, only really honest with his closest ones and you were clearly were not one of them, so you felt like you were staring from outside a window into him and taking whatever crumble of his love he felt comfortable giving you, it made you feel pathetic and so abandoned even when you shared a bed.

You stupidly yearned for more, but knew you wouldn’t get it so you just put on a brave front and kept opening your heart to him hoping soon he would do the same for you. You could tell faintly from the first time you met him he was putting on a persona, that the real man behind that wasn’t willing to come out and meet you and that was okay you kept telling yourself, he was hot and you wanted a warm body at night, that was all. But as the months pilled on, it became lonely, to have virtually a stranger sleeping next to you, someone who would make you cum over and over on his fingers, his mouth, his dick but refused to speak beyond the superficial and was way too good at changing topics when you tried to get closer as if he was slamming a door against your face but with a warm smile plastered on his lips.  

And in truth you were nothing, not real friends and not real lovers. He never once called you his girlfriend in almost a year you had been seeing each other and you never introduced him to your friends. You would meet on nights where it was cold and just play pretend of a life you couldn’t have. Sometimes he would have you backstage with his group and others it would be different girls and you never wanted to learn if he was also sleeping with them or they were just friends, you had no right to know and truly the less you knew the better. He didn’t sleep with them, not really since he met you, it just wasn’t as exciting as watching you remove your makeup while you rambled about annoying projects and evil classmates. Even if he had told you, you wouldn’t have believed him, so he never did. 

The real day things ended between you two happened a couple months before you actually stopped seeing each other. It was a long weekend, he arrived on Thursday night and stayed until Sunday in that little cramped university apartment you rented and that he came to love as if it was part of you. He brought some take out and beer as always and you were just so happy to see him. You spent the whole weekend having sex and eating whatever junk you could get your hands on at some point you stopped bothering putting on clothes that he would just take off. You would eat, fuck, bathe then sleep, wake up and do it all over again so much so the days started melting into each other in a delicious bliss that would last too little. 

Sunday night you were melting into each other’s touch for whatever time it was since he came.  He had looked in your nightstand for the bunch of condoms he brought only to realize too late it was all gone. 

“Fuck.” he whispered, you were underneath him all wet and pliant, ready for his touch. 

“What?” You said looking for what his eyes were searching for and realized. “Oh…”

“I’ll go to the store, give me a minute.” He said starting to get up already thinking about how cold it was outside, how warm your bed was, how pretty you looked and how stupid he was for not bringing more. 

“You don’t have to.” Your voice had felt distant like a whisper, he searched for your face in the dark of the room unsure of if he heard correctly, you looked away avoiding his eyes, you were bright red even in the dark of the room he could tell. “You can do it raw I don’t mind.” You mumbled against the pillows.

His dick had been harder than ever before. “Are you sure liefde?” 

He wanted to, of course he wanted to, had been dreaming about it constantly since the first time you had sex and would fantasize about it when he was away doing some show when he masturbated with your beautiful image in his mind.

“Yeah, I want you.” You had met his gaze, he kissed you slow deeply, like it was the first time he touched you. 

He had taken his time kissing at every nook and cranny of your body, softly massaging at your tired limbs, warming up his way with kisses and asking constantly if you felt good. You kept whimpering with soft tears streaming from your eyes from pleasure and from love at his ministrations, he had his fingers deep into you touching you softly like you could break while petting at your swollen clit, making sure you were ready to take him. When you had felt your climax building up you had pushed at his wrist. 

“I want to cum with you.” You whined. 

He knew in that moment he was in love with you, no matter how hard he had tried to avoid it the feeling just wouldn’t go away and now it was biting viciously at his heart threatening to tear him apart.

He nodded and slid slowly into you asking if you were alright all the way through as you nodded. When he finally bottomed out he stopped moving for a minute so overwhelmed by everything, he kissed at your forehead, at your cheeks, at your pretty nose and deep at your sweet lips. He kept his forehead against yours, thrusting fast in and pulling out painfully slow, your mouths were inches apart, breathing in the same air, lips brushing against each other in perpetual kiss, he reached so deep you could almost feel him in your lungs it was so delicious it made your brain stop working so you blurted out.

“I love you Joost.”

He suddenly pounded hard into you, his hips stuttered as he came without a warning and collapsed on top of you, his full weight on your body, panting heavily right on your ear. He gave you a few more weak thrust as he rode his high with you clinging to his back. 

“Fuck schat feels so good, so good.” He whimpered as held you close to his chest, you felt his heart beating wildly, felt his release paint your walls, and when he pulled out you felt cum start to trickle from your thighs. When he could finally regain his composure a little he looked up at you with beautiful blue eyes. 

“Sorry liefde, you felt too good.” He smiled up at you apologetic.

You loved and hated when he used pet names on you, loved it because it made you feel special and hated them because he would only use them in the middle of sex so he couldn’t be too serious about it.

He was never a selfish lover, he quickly gathered himself up and grabbed at the back of your thighs pushing them to your chest. 

“Hold for me yes?” He had said, you followed his instructions blindly before you saw him disappear between your legs, you felt his warm tongue lapping at your cunt deeply moaning into you sending delicious waves of pleasure up your spine, you were already so close you wouldn’t last at all.

“Joost!” You had screamed, the delicious sensation and the surprise at what he was doing right after cumming inside you mixing into one.

He pushed his fingers deep into your heat to keep you full, pumped into you at slow steady pace while his lips closed around your clit sucking generously and in no time you were coming undone under his touch, he kept licking you through your high prolonging it as much as he could before he felt you pull away from his touch with overstimulation. When you were done he raised his head from between your legs again, chin and mouth wet with your and his release and a proud expression on his face, he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand before laying in bed next to you and pulling you to his chest.

“Isn’t it gross?” You had asked when you could finally breath again so bewildered at what he had just done.

He laughed like the question itself was stupid. “No, not really. Nothing that makes you feel good could be gross to me.” 

He had left in the morning without acknowledging what you said that night. 

You tried to ignore how he didn't reply to your confession, tried to push it behind, tried not to feel pathetic about it. You tried to console yourself by imagining you were probably part of a club of girls he had taken to bed who had accidentally blurted out love confessions in the middle of it, yeah right, that has to have happened to someone else too, right? He was just so charismatic and beautiful you saw the way the front rows at his shows were always adorned with the prettiest girls and if you were not the only one this had happened to then it was less embarrassing. Except it wasn’t, because the thought of him being with other girls made you want to puke. After that you kept seeing him because clearly you had a complete lack of self respect or perhaps you were in love and couldn’t decide which one was worse. 

You remember the day he called you for the last time so well even when you have tried again and again to forget it. You were cooking dinner and just answered his video call while you kept moving around the kitchen. You talked for a bit about some university drama but could tell his mind was elsewhere, at this point you knew better than to push him because what he didn't want to share with you he simply wouldn’t say, you were painfully used to his selective silence. 

Finally he ended the suspense and he spoke. “I’m gonna be gone for over a month.” He sounded uncharacteristically formal and cold in a way you had never heard from him before but you didn’t notice it at the time.

“Oh.” you had said plainly as you continued chopping vegetables. 

To this day he wishes you would have looked at him at least once, then he wouldn’t have been strong enough to say what he did.

“I mean, you can sleep with others you know? You don’t have to wait for me.”

The sound of the knife on the cutting board was the only thing that made cut through the heavy silence inside the tiny apartment, you held onto that knife for dear life as if if you let go of it you would crumble instantly and you couldn’t do that in front of him.

“I see.” You mumbled feeling your eyes burn with tears you were holding back.

So he would also sleep with others right? That is what he wanted to say, he was just looking for a way to softly let you down, to let you know that whatever you had going on had become boring and stale and he was going to visit new cities every night and get his fill of as many pretty girls as he would meet and you would become nothing but a fuzzy image in the rear-view mirror of his life. You felt your heart breaking into dust at the realization that you were nothing to him, that you had always been nothing to him.

He had looked at you through the screen waiting to see if you would say something else, tell him you didn’t want that or curse him out for being so cowardly, for not even being able to face you, but you didn’t. 

“I have to finish this.”

Before he got another word out you ended the call with shaky hands, not even once looking up at him and those were the last words he would hear from your mouth for four years. 

You moved away. You couldn’t stand the thought of running into him, the thought of accidentally seeing him with someone else, you felt you recognized him in the shadows and it made you feel like you were going crazy. So right before he was set to come back you made the decision, quickly made arrangements for a program you had been eyeing at some point but didn’t want to commit to, however right now it was the perfect excuse to leave and never have to look back, never have to sleep again in that bed you once shared, never once having to be alone again in that tiny apartment where so many times you had fallen in love with him and that now felt like a prison collapsing on top of you. 

During tour you had stopped answering his texts and calls, that was fine, he felt he deserved it, but he wanted to make it up to you. At the time when he told you you could sleep with others he hadn’t really meant it, and he didn't do it either, he couldn't stop thinking about you even for a second but he had just felt guilty for making you wait so long even thought he was not even you boyfriend, so he thought this way it would be fine, less selfish with you, give you the opportunity to escape him. However, all he had done was hurt you and break his own heart in the process too. But he could still make it right, when he got back he would take you out, to a proper date in a nice restaurant because you deserved it, you deserved the moon and the stars and he had been an idiot for trying to pretend like he wasn’t deeply stupidly foolishly in love with you. He had bought you this perfume you mentioned once and he would talk to you properly, he would make things right again, he kept repeating himself, and he would figure out what he wanted of you.

When he actually came back you were nowhere to be found, painfully late he realized that you had never introduced him to your friends, never once told him exactly were you worked at or the name of your university and he had been so stupid and full of himself he didn’t bother to learn. Now all too late he realized he had no way of tracking you down. You had gone up in the wind leaving with a piece of his heart he didn’t even realize he had given you. 

As such is life you were back in Amsterdam, four years later. You didn’t feel paranoid that you would run into him anymore, rarely ever thought of him honestly and when you did it was almost a weird funny melancholia. Since then he had become a much bigger star than he would have ever envisioned and you felt a weird sort of pride that you had had a fling with someone like that. You never told anyone aside from a couple of really close friends who had had to dry your tears when everything went wrong but now it was fine. It was a healed wound that only ever really bothered you on cold days, but that was normal you kept telling yourself. You had met for a moment of your lives and were now old strangers, that was all that was left.

At least you thought so until one day after work while you are binge watching some series in your new apartment while shoveling take out into your mouth your phone rings. You had gotten lucky enough to get the same number as before and thought it could serve you to reconnect with some old friends from university but you didn’t even imagine who would be on the other side of the line. 

“Hello.” You say distracted still chewing, you don’t recognize the caller ID.

“Hey.” The voice sounds shaky, nervous, deeper, distantly familiar, no, you are lying to yourself, you know exactly who it is but you wish with everything you have that you are wrong.

“Who is this?” You ask in silent prayer that it is just a telemarketer and just your brain playing a bad joke on you.

“I know it has been a while but I didn’t expect you to not recognize me.” He says laughing uncomfortably, knows he has no right to be calling but still wants you to answer. “It is Joost, I’m Joost I mean.” He sounds stupid, he feels embarrassed, he feels himself blushing, his palms are sweaty holding tightly at the phone until his knuckles turn white.

“Oh.” Your voice sounds like a whisper.

“Listen I- I heard that you were back, I thought-” He stops, takes a deep breath he can’t hear you anymore, wonders if you already hung up, it would be deserved but it would still hurt like hell. “I was wondering if you would want to have dinner with me to catch up?” 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Part 2

MASTERLIST *ੈ✩‧₊˚ A/N: lets decide together!

[briardoll]

Okay so I know the poll isn’t over yet and I’ll still write about whichever one wins but I love romantic killer so I’m going to write about it here

☆〜（ゝ。∂）

My headcannons for romantic killer

• Tsukasa brings home little cat trinkets for Anzu when he goes shopping, he put them in her room for her without saying he bought anything.

•Hijiri is a really bad singer but he thinks he’s great because no one has ever told him otherwise for fear of losing their job.

•Makoto has period products that he carries with him for his female friends if they need them, he’s never grossed out by any of it because of all his sisters.

•Hijiri’s crush on Anzu was at first sight. When She got in the car he liked her immediately, that’s a reason why he was so willing to work to win her over.

•Saki gets on average 5-7 love confessions a day, sometimes from guys who have already asked her out!

•Junta is a master at sleeping in loud or uncomfortable situations since his younger siblings come and sleep in his bed when they have nightmares.

*We’re so twin like that, I have a billion younger siblings too, (four) so falling asleep in an uncomfortable position is second nature*

•Saki once had her brother beat up a creepy older guy who was following her around, it was witnessed by others and nobody ever followed or creeped on her again.

•Anzu needs white noise to sleep at night but Tsukasa can’t stand it. It’s always a battle about who will get their way that night.

•Anzu likes the weirdest food combos, like dipping her veggies in barbecue sauce, or adding cinnamon to her soup at dinner, it’s appalling to see her eat it to everyone around her.

•Junta likes pistachio ice cream, and Anzu makes fun of it and says he’s like an old man.

•Riri is constantly having to have their wand sanitized because Anzu keeps throwing it into contaminants for casting annoying spells.

•Makoto wears perfume instead of cologne because it smells better to him

•Makoto had really girly things as a kid because they were hand me downs from his sisters

•Hijiri is a germaphobe. Once Junta sneezed around him and he stayed home from school for a week because he needed to “quarantine” himself.

[boxxie-does-art]

I've just finished Orlam route.

FIRST OFF I KNOW I'M DOING IT extremly LATE BUT! I'm someone who unfortunatly has the combo procrastinater premium + "terrified of the end", just to end the game once I waited literally three months after the release of the finale because I thought my heart couldn't handle it (spoiler alert: it didn't). I ADORE Genzou's route, for me the only one acceptable (sorry) BUT ORLAM'S ONE???? I can't even put into words how I feel about this one, it's so wholesome TT !? The dancing scene between him and Iggy in arc 5 must be why this route could compete with Genzou's in my opinion. ALSO GEN WANTING TO BREAK ORLAM IN TWO WHEN THEY WOKE UP WAS SO FUNNY AND HEART BREAKING AT THE SAME TIME HELPP.. I cried this time again, how surprising. Also mom wanna put me in therapy cuz I cry to your games Carrot, so I'm probably gonna have to sue you for this (totally kidding, I love your work <3)

I've never felt so involved in such a story before, truly one of a kind. (Also really good choice of music, I cry to the ost every night before going to bet, especially the one of the final choice's scene)

Well. That's a lot of rambling. Had to spill this out to someone but my friends would probably punch me in the face if they hear me talking about OW for the millionth time☠...btw does anyone has advices to help me convince them to play? Because apparently talking about cannibalism, yandere and killer rabbits doesn't work on normal people.

ALSO DO IGGY'S GLASSES EVER BREAK????? I notice that just now but I swear these are the only thing that stays intact through the entire thing, are they glued to Iggy's head?????

[absolute-weirdo-inc]

UltraVerse Lore

Nightmare

-Nightmare is the main character

-Nightmare was found as a child (post-apple incident) and adopted him

-Nightmare is a genuinely good guy

-Dream basically abandoned him for the love of the villagers

-He is the same person as passive but was controlled ages 6-8 by an evil spirit (basically canon nightmare but a kid) so is now viewed as a villain since the spirit took his body on a joyride throughout the multiverse destroying 7 separate universes along the way

-Nightmare has bad trauma bcus of the villagers abuse

The MTT

-Basically act as one person since they are #codependentasfuck

-Chaos incarnate

-Nightmares precious babys (though NM wont admit it to anyone)

-The fight constantly

-Same lore as canon (No fanon horror ty bbg) ((We stan canon horror))

-Non canon ages (same with everyone else (ages shown further down))

Cross

-A bad guy

-Same canon as usual (obviously underverse isnt a thing but the events of Xtale still happened (this is important for his and ink’s relationship))

-Little brother vibes

-Hates annoying NM but it sometimes happens regardless

-Nightmares favourite child nonetheless

-The most idiotic of the bad guys but trys to act like hes a genius

Error

-Sometimes works with NM bug mainly on game night in the castle not on actual Multiverse shit (bcus ill be dambed if the baddies don’t get to kick each others asses in dumb games of charades (Nightmare kicks the most ass in scrabble bcus hes a fucking nerd and dust is surprisingly good at draw and killer guessing in picturnary))

-BBFs with Swap regardless

-Canon error all the way 0 exceptions (unless its for feather boas)

-Makes dolls for an orphanage in the omega timeline and donates the anonymously 😭

-Hates ink because he thinks he thinks hes a freak (no one on one rivalry bcus he prefers to put his time to good use and not use it on “a dumb looking, emo wannabe who sucks at everything and has the brain of a fucking sloth”… his words not mine bbg”

Dream

-A bit of an ass

-Truly believes he the hero (has no clue he’s fucking up the multiverse with all the positivity he spreads

-His anthem is literally SUI

-Overworks Swap without realising

-Was convinced by the village that NM is evil

-Drinks wine like everyone’s favourite english teacher who has had it up to here because of their incompetent husband (by incompetent husband i mean ink)

-I Stan him fr

Ink

-… underverse except hes dumb and is a dream simp lol

-BUT HES ALSO SO BBG

-hes just a combo of canon and fanon ink with a sprinkle of 💅

Swap

-ERROR BESTIE FOR LIFE AND AFTER (aka he has a childish crush on him and “FINDS HIS EVER SHIFTING FIGURE ALLURING”

-simp

-Left his home because he found out Alphys never planned on letting him join the royal guard and not only felt betrayed bcus everyone in his universe who matters knew but he also wanted to prove himself (in his words “WHATS BETTER THEN PROTECTING ONE UNDERGROUND” Error-“wH4T?”

“ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!” Error- “…’5uCS M3 wh4t?!”)

-Has met his fanon version… blueberry became jam

-Made some official armour

-Lost a bunch of weight after joining, he went from chubby to too skinny even for a skeleton

-Also has insomnia and nothing will help (not me projecting.. not at all

Ccino (yes Ccino is part of this multiverse)

-Basically the same as usual

-Him and Nightmare are best friends (no toxic shit bcus this ISNT FLUFFYMARE

yet)

-Would literally drop everything to have a conversation with one of his cats

-Is close with all the baddies and something joins them for game night (⚠️WARNING⚠️- Dont let this man play Monopoly, he is so cold hearted and will make you go bankrupt IRL, yes he is so good he made Horror cough up 100 gold after Horror landed on two of his maxed out properties in a row (he owns the whole fucking board))

-His brother is still alive and His name is Spresso (IDK where i found this idea for his name but ill hunt it down)

-Spresso is glad Ccino made lots of friends even if they are insane murders

Ships

I dont want to add a bunch of ships but like…

-Fluffymare

-Minor Drink

-Crepic

-Bloodycrop

and maybe more later. Im sorry my pubescent teenage brain wont let me write shit thats not gay as fuck.

Other shit

-There will be other characters like Lust and Reaper (obviously bcus of NMs lore) but i haven’t finished all my lore on their characters

-There is mentioned toxic swadmare bcus i can’t resist the angst

-Like mentioned Nightmare is the main character and since i tend to project he may not act canon (neither will anyone else tbh BUT I WILL TRY)

-this whole thing will be cringe because im a depressed teen who is still doing her GCSEs

-Also the updates will mostly be on my tumblr but i’ll post most of the writing on my ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/52174081

-Please dont hate me :3

[Love you all besties, thanks for your time]

[lorimnnn]

pt 1 of i wish i had a fictional boyfriend (slasher edition)

man, sometimes i hate writing these fanfics--- only because i become psychotically obsessive with the idea of this total devotion, then realise i’ll never truly have it. obviously, that’s a good thing (probably). having a slasher boyfriend would not be very beneficial in the long run (probably).

but i’m just thinking about how even these killers would treat us better than any real, available human being on this earth. how they’re already ten times more interesting than fuckin brad with his vape and trackies, choosing which hoe he’ll ghost this time or if he’s ready for fresh meat this week. or not even. just every other person we decide we’re into for no good reason, aware that we could do better but won’t risk being single for like, ever. 

like, these slashers--- when they obsess over something, it’s singular. it’s unparalleled. imagine that in a romantic context. everything about you is evangelised in their eyes, even your flaws. everything you hate about yourself or unsure about is only something that makes you more perfect in their eyes. you could do anything. I don’t know, you could even fart. ghostface would giggle but he wouldn’t get disgusted by it. y’all could grow out your body hair as much asyou wanted, if that’s what you wanted that is, and they wouldn’t care, because it’s just as valid as the hair that grows on your head, which varies in length depending on preference or convenience. and then there’s michael. all he’s ever gonna do is stand there like an npc, but even he’s more interesting that your local Brad. he cares. he would get you gifts and do things for you because he likes to and it’s the one way he knows to make you happy, and these Brads could know a hundred ways to make you happy and they won’t do it. Or Jason Voorhees. Tell me he wouldn’t pick flowers with you and go on a picnic. Tell me you couldn’t tell him everything, especially if you’re bothered about something and all you need is a safe place to cry. he would give that to you. so would bubba. and i’ll even bring fucking Patrick Bateman into this, because even if it’s straight up insane, his narcissism would not stop him from spoiling you as much as he could and letting you talk yourself up. he’d probably encourage you to love yourself and be just as self-centred.

I wish I had someone who could lay out their imperfections so openly, so honestly, and not let me just... find out about them. like, let me love you as a whole. i know they would love us as a whole. or obsess over us. i don’t know. 

man, i’m so lonely. i just want a hot slasher boyfriend, guys. tell me that’s not what we’re all here for ahhh

p.s. no hate if your name is brad or you vape or wear trackies/sweatsuit, but i will shit on you if you give the vibe that usual combo 😭 

[69consellationsinatrenchcoat]

disabled system asks: 1-4, 10!

1. Is your disability invisible, visible or both?

Both: invisible in the way that there appears to be nothing outwardly wrong with us (as doctors kindly keep reminding me) but visible in the way that we use mobility aids almost all the time. We wear a sunflower lanyard in public, and use a mixture of a cane, crutches and a wheelchair depending on the day.

I wish to add, as someone who has looked able bodied, and disabled in various fonts.. people don’t treat disabled people better if they’re in a wheelchair or visibly ill, and some are arguably worse to young wheelchair users.

2. Do you use mobility aids? If so, what for?

We do! As said above. We have a mixture of issues (ranging from endometriosis to POTS to hEDS to fibromyalgia) that create.. well, a mixture of issues XD. We’ll use the wheelchair on bad pain and fatigue days and carry the crutches.. or, on better days, just use the crutches to take some pressure off our knees, and aid as balance. As cool as our cane looks (photos later), we stopped using it as it was giving us pretty severe hip pain on one side from the way we had to lean to get support from it (still my fav visually though).

3. Is there a specific alter/part/headmate who fronts to deal with pain? How do they manage it?

Yes, that would be me. I split when we were very young to deal with injury, particularly blood. As our chronic pain increased, so did the amount of time I spent fronting, until I slowly became our most common fronter. Sucks though, cuz that was never meant to be my job, I was supposed to stay sitting on the sidelines only appearing to deal with first aid and other protector things. Instead, I’m here, and somehow I make it everyone else’s problem.

My appearance as most common fronter got us outed as a system because I’m so drastically different from the common fronters of the time. {its a little more complicated than that but you get the idea}

I manage it with a combo of pain killers (including medicinal CBD, THC, and flower, pregabalin, panadol, ibuprofen, codeine and morphine amongst other things… happy to answer questions about any of them if you’re curious), dissociation, weaponised tears and sheer fucking willpower… I wish I could say sheer fucking will was still working, but it is not very well anymore. There’s only so much one can deal with, and our pain has been getting steadily worse for the past few years with very little support (most of our illnesses have no cure, only management). We’ve reached the point where our doctors and specialists aren’t sure what to do with us and are wondering if there’s something they have missed…but uh, our tests, bloods and results are coming back clean. Looking into that at the moment lol.

4. Do you experience pain variety based on who’s fronting?

Oh hell, do we ever. Certain members of the system *cough* Kyle *cough* have dreadful pain tolerances - I always know when one of them is cocon because our pain skyrockets into impossible levels, even if I’m trying to keep it under control. Certain other members of our sys have average pain tolerances, some age regress to cope, others just curl up in a ball and sob.. depends on the alter - and the cyclical nature of parts of our pain make it difficult to manage, and to recognise how each alter is affected. Plus, it’s hard to compare pain tolerances when each of us have no other/barely any frame of reference.

10. Do you decorate your aids?

YES. We use a combination of spray paint, cheap nail polish, stickers and in the case of the wheelchair, holders designed for prams and bikes (water bottle holder, clips, bells, reflective stripes etc).. aids start out super boring and for us, decorating them and making them prettier is the only way to make them tolerable. And political - if the government is going to make our life into a political ‘issue’, we will turn right back around and make them aware of our existence ;)

the pic doesn’t grasp it very well, but we painted the chair’s spokes rainbow (and they look super cool when we’re driving it)

Thanks to @disabled-systems for the game <33

[unofficialadamtaurus]

What entertains me so much is that the way Adam was written, they try to make it seem like he’s some manipulative mastermind who does everything bad on purpose, where the fact is he’s probably not even that old enough or smart enough to even be THAT conniving.

Yes he’s a smart dude, but it’s just hilarious where they act as if his behavior would be something you could never see coming, especially for characters who— oh I don’t know— HAVE KNOWN HIM FOR YEARS. I mean there is times where they see some parts of him.

Yet. Let’s frame this guy to be some kind of evil genius up until he somehow loses every ounce of respect people have of him (why? people shouldve known what they were getting into, he’s not that fucking secretive good god they would’ve known) and make him look like a loser who also loses every ounce of thought process he ever had.

Have him bee-line to death even though when the Hell has he been shown to bee-line for that type of thing. Like for example.. IMO him finding Blake at beacon was coincidental (prove me if im wrong tho, but also dont blame because its been 15 million years since ive watched v3)

How would his ass even know that Blake was there? Anyway that’s not my point. I’m not saying he’s stupid, he’s really not. I’m simply pointing out that the writers just loved to make it seem as if everything he did was some big well thought out put-on-a-list plan to have power.

Even though before he looked completely fine to be in the rank he had before.

You seriously had to make a whole fucking character short just to implement one itty bitty scene where it seems like he wants more than the rank Sienna gave him.

You had to make a comic to show how deep he lies to people, Like ok maybe that one is a little more solid than the character short but why not show that behaviour more? If he’s so important?

He’s so sadly one dimensional, not a character handled with care at all. Being a hatesink fucking blows.

Why create an empty villain with shitloads of meaning and character just to throw him away? AND HIS ARC AWAY? Could’ve made him with love. Most cheap moment of “anyway!” anyone could ever have.

Racism and incompetence are a killer combo, lemme tell ya.

"Haha Adam is such an incompetent angry and petty loser" and "Adam is a cunning charismatic mastermind who has spent years building up power and influence in the WF in order to launch a (nearly) bloodless coup against a leader who was also framed in the narrative as charismatic enough to overthrow the leader before her" could theoretically coexist in a better written story as a villain spirals, but this show is not that. Adam's "spiral" is more of a sudden nosedive. Hiding any justifications for that nosedive in supplementary material is like trying to put rebar in concrete after the fact. You just can't do it because those afterthoughts actively contradict what we were already shown.

It doesn't help the idea that Adam's supposed to be charismatic that his voice acting is so on-the-nose Bad Guy that you're staring at everyone else in any scene like, "Yo! Do something! He's clearly evil!"

He didn't even find Blake at Beacon, Blake found him. Maybe he was looking for her, maybe he was interrogating-to-death any students he found trying to find one that could point him to her, but she was the one that found him. He just noticed her before she could retreat.

[outinthewastes]

I've been reading ST for years and absolutely love how almost no one is strictly a "good guy" or "bad guy" - they're folks with conflicting motives and morals (tho there are def people who are much more good than bad and vice versa). Phineas is especially scary to me because he's got that Niles Crane + Hannibal Lecter combo, so endearing that I forget he's a horribly cruel killer. Are your feelings about him now the same as they were when he was first introduced?

hah, niles crane plus hannibal lecter. that's perfect.

as an aside if you ever want to see niles crane playing that sort of thing there's a movie called Perfect Host that's pretty fun

Gosh I don't think my feelings on him have changed, mostly just gotten deeper, more attached? He was never meant to be a one off character, although I don't think I had plans for him initially beyond the prison chapters. I wasn't gonna kill him like Krow he just kinda disappeared from my outline.

I definitely wanted his appearance to be disarming in that Ted Bundy sort of way. He's handsome and kind of nerdy looking, tall, blonde. When people think of monsters they picture creepy little ugly guys like Krow but Phineas is far more dangerous. Phineas had a respectable job and kept up appearances as a normal person but there's something wrong with him. Maybe it was from being born in an extremely abusive cult to a fucked up mom who carried on some of their weird beliefs even after escaping. I think he would have been like this no matter what. Lots of people grow up in fucked up or abusive environments who don't go on to do violent crime. Most people I'd say.

Like, look at Jeffrey Dahmer. He experienced no childhood abuse. His parents weren't happy with each other and they argued a lot, but no one abused him. People asked him and he was adamant that his childhood played no part in what he did.

Anyway, a bit of a tangent.

Phineas will get his someday. I have more plans for him.

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Fighting Games is a genre that I have always loved because they allow for unique player expression like no other genre. You get a wide selection of characters to choose from hailing from various different countries and practicing different styles of martial arts or even wielding melee weapons.

We've been lucky to have gotten tons of different games to choose from, and I have personally singled out the nine most vital franchises to the genre; the pillars of the fighting game community, if you will. Unfortunately, I only get ten options per poll, so games like Killer Instinct, Marvel vs. Capcom or Injustice have been left out. But that's why the tenth option has been left free of choice, as I'm sure that some of you will have the most obscure niche options in mind and will immediately comment "why is X not here" so there.

I'm also not deliberately ignoring Super Smash Bros., I just have traditional fighting games in mind and it's kinda not. But it's very much still a fighting game.

I'm also specifically talking about series of games and not one offs so that's why no Skullgirls and so on.

Anyway, at the end of the day vote for whatever you like, just don't bust my balls about "excluding" your fave 🤣

Really wish I could add:

A. More options

and

B. Images to the options to make them look prettier.

But overall I think polls have been a great addition. Good job @staff 👍😁👏

Here's a few general thoughts

I have a weird relationship with Mortal Kombat. My earliest memory of it must be some older kids next to my grandma's house playing MK4 and letting me watch them play for a while. Then I definitely remember the PS2 era games' covers and the video store, the dragon logo is so cool, but I never actually bothered to pick any of them. Until I got the 2011 game when I had a PS3. I liked it a lot, I kinda liked the story but I never understood the normies obsession with it? And here's a hot take; NRS stories are not that good, certainly not any better than any other fighting game like Tekken or SoulCalibur. The only key difference is that they have relatively good writing, while the rest of the major game, which are mostly Japanese, have cringey anime dialogue that absolutely does not fit the dramatic NRS storytelling everyone has been trying to copy post 2011. I wish they would straight up drop it and go back to having a decent, eight-level minimum arcade mode with character endings and stop trying to do what NRS does, because it's not that great to begin with. Anyway, I have since developed a love-hate relationship with it. I got both X and 11, and while both are objectively good games, with 11 FINALLY even making the characters look not ugly for the first time ever, but I think I've kind of moved on from MK. I don't have any attachment to the overall plot, I only mostly care about Mileena, Kitana and co., I mostly prefer 3D fighting games in general and I'm not that good at it so... Yeah. Still a fan series though, both the Reboot Trilogy as well as the, mostly underappreciated, PS2 trilogy.

I was born in 1997 and arcades weren't really a thing in Greece? I remember only having seen a Tekken 5 cabinet at a bowling alley in my entire life, so I never got to experience the "birth" of fighting games with Street Fighter, and Street Fighter itself was almost completely absent from the PS2, save for a few Alpha and SFII rereleases I think. So I finally got to play Street Fighter during the later years of it's fourth iteration when I got Ultra Street Fighter IV for the PS3. I was VERY frustrated at the beginning like, I was used to Tekken, DOA and SoulCalibur style gameplay, all of which are 3D but also combo-heavy games. Street Fighter was not that at all and I thought this made it a bad game. But I decided to give it a second chance with Street Fighter V. SFV is, perhaps notoriously, more simplified in both it's inputs as well as it's overall difficulty, so it helped me appreciate the series a lot more. Most of the characters no longer look ugly too (heavy emphasis on MOST) so that helped too. What's more, I can now actually play IV a lot better, and I even had money to spare to get Super Turbo II HD and Third Strike for the PS3, though I do struggle a bit with those too still, Third Strike in particular. Street Fighter X Tekken is also my guilty pleasure, don't @me. My only real issue is that I seem to be mostly interested in the "less regular" characters in the series like Elena or Poison or Laura which means that I have to find a new main in every single game and... I really don't care for most of the cast, especially the ones who seem to be featured on most of the games and never skip an entry.

I've been playing Tekken since I was 8 or 9 years old and got Tekken 5, the first fighting game I ever owned and I've been obsessed ever since. I love the gameplay because I feel like the four-limb system feels so natural, you know? If you press the X button you get a left kick, if you press the Δ button you get a right punch. It's so simple. Nina Williams is probably my favourite video game character ever, after Lara Croft, and I just really the series as a whole. It's also the only game I feel confident enough to play online atm.

For some reason I was always vaguely aware of The King of Fighters existence since around 2010-2011 but I never felt the desire to play it? Mai was added in Dead or Alive 5 however and I absolutely loved her. I played so much as her. But as far as picking up her own games... Well... KOFXIV looked like shit and I'd heard that XIII, and KOF in general, was very difficult so that was a bit off-putting. After falling out of love with MK however, I had to feel the gap. And along came KOFXV! I was still not completely sold, but I had money to spare and I got the game and I now love the series so much? Definitely my favourite 2D fighting game series. I wasted so many years gatekeeping myself out of playing the games but, honestly, while I sometimes buy things on impulse, the money I can spend on games is a very specific and limited amount so I always try to actually buy things that I will actually play and enjoy. XV is fun, but it turns out the "ugly" KOFXIV and the difficult XIII are even more fun! Shout-out to KOF for having an amazing cast of characters too. Even with Tekken which has been with me since childhood there are TONS of characters I straight up hate or just don't care about. KOF has over 90 characters and the ones I actually hate are probably fewer than Tekken's. This is certainly not a quantity over quality case (the yearly release for the first decade of the series was insane though, I don't know why they thought that was a good idea)

SoulCalibur is another series I loved since childhood but this one I didn't personally own until my late teens. A friend's uncle had a Dreamcast however, and when he would visit him in the summer he would bring it over and we would play SoulCalibur a lot! I have several reservations about Namco basing the series entire marketing on "who's the guest this time?" and later on the character creation. The sole focus should be on the characters themselves, because SoulCalibur has the most detailed and complex backstories in fighting games. Period. But because SoulCalibur has devolved into an overglorified character creator and the guests get the only media focus the game is gonna get during its promotional period, I feel like the brand itself has lost its mainstream appeal. SoulCalibur I is one of the best fighting games, and it has zero guests and no customization, other than being able to choose different weapons for each character. Have your guests by all means, I personally had tons of fun with Ezio and 2B, and Haohmaru even peaked my curiosity for Samurai Shodown, and customization can be fun too, but don't make it your main selling point. It has evidently not been working as well as Namco wants it to. Tekken and Mortal Kombat have guests and customization too, but they're not the games main selling point, they only help bring in additional fans.

Dead or Alive is the booby pervy game, sure, but it's also a great fighting game? The fast-paced gameplay is extremely fun and satisfying, most of the cast is actually pretty interesting, despite the sexy outfits and bikinis and beach volleyball, and whenever there's a new DOA in the market it it will always be the best-looking fighting game available at the time. There's no contest. I had tons of fun playing DOA2 as a kid and I had tons of fun playing DOA5 as an adult, because since DOA became Xbox-exclusive for a while, I never actually owned DOA3 or DOA4. I wish I could have had more fun with DOA6 too but the game is just... Soulless, and that's a shame. The fact that both DOA and SoulCalibur are unlikely to get sequels any time soon is also very heartbreaking.

I was way past my anime phase when I became aware of Guilty Gear's existence, so I was at first hesitant of checking it out. However, a chain of events led me to eventually get Rev 2. See, Haohmaru was a guest on SoulCalibur VI, and Baiken was a guest in Samurai Shodown and I guess you see where I'm going with is. This is why guests should absolutely not go away, but it is much better they remain actual (fighting) video game characters first and foremost and not stupid horror movie characters that haven't been relevant for decades (fuck every single MK12 guest, but especially RoboCop) Rev 2 is so much fun. It's still hard however, so I'm not yet ready to fully embrace Guilty Gear, but Strive looks more and more appealing each day is all I'm saying. Jack' O and I-No may have helped.

Virtua Fighter forever revolutionized the genre by moving things for the first time in the third dimension. I only had a VF4 demo as a kid and I was creeped out by having to fight Shun Di, a drunken old creepy guy, in a dark cave on a raft as Sarah so I never touched the series again until 5. The game is really fun and I will forever be grateful for it because it eventually lead to Tekken and DOA's creation, but while MK having a "good" story mode does not automatically make it a good game, Virtua Fighter having NO story mode, not even arcade endings, doesn't help it's case all that much either.

I've been contemplating trying out BlazBlue lately, Rachel, Taokaka and especially miss Litchi look really promising, but I'm trying to let the thought mature in my mind first rather than making an impulse purchase. I haven't played enough of any of its installments to have an opinion on it, but I know tons of people love it so it must have a few things going on for it, right?

Shout-out again to Samurai Shodown, I love the "fencing" aspect of its gameplay, but I'm just not as invested to it's cast as I am in KOF's yet. I've also always wanted to try out Darkstalkers but Capcom seems to be hellbent on wanting to make this franchise DIE. I don't understand why they don't at least start adding it's cast in Street Fighter as "permanent guests", in the same spirit as Final Fight characters keep on coming back. Morrigan is too good a character to be left to rot. I'd also love to try Killer Instinct, but it's another Xbox exclusive so RIP. Finally, I do own the first Injustice, but American comic book super heroes have always been morbidly boring to me (except Spiderman and Batman & co.) so, consequently, both Injustice and Marvel vs. Capcom are of no interest to me at all.

[leatherforhell]

Things I Like About Myself, addressed to a Mr. Hobart Brown (@arachstar)

look at my hair isn’t it gorgeous

my eyes are dark brown which is so the best color

I have MULTIPLE ear piercings so I have OPTIONS which means I can have a goth earring a cute earring AND a seasonal earring. all at the same time. I’m a genius

I am so smart actually that should be its own point

I’m also hilarious. no one appreciates my humor enough 

speaking of kissing I am an excellent kisser 

Have you seen my tattoo?? gorgeous. designed it myself. can you believe

you have never in your life met anybody as good at menial chores as I am

I’m also great with kids. except for the swearing. but other than that I am so good

I have an excellent fashion sense

Actually my fashion sense is so impeccable that I can change styles every day and still look cute. have you ever seen me wearing the same outfit twice?? no you haven’t

I may not be good at cooking but I am good at finding food in a pinch, no one’s ever gonna be hungry around me

I also make the best fast food combos. stuff you’ve never even thought off. back to the genius thing

I do ALL THE JOBS and I do them ALL THE TIME!! construction? that’s me! janitorial? also me!! plumbing, electrical, tech?? damn I’m on a roll

did you know I can make a perfect circle without a stencil

I’m also good at juggling

dogs love me. actually all animals love me but like… dogs though

I might be bad at strategy games but I am a killer at fps

haha. killer. I am also good at puns

I have good taste in friends 🥰 nudge nudge

and also everything else tbh but especially music. hint hint

I’ve never once broken a bone despite all the dangerous Gotham bullshit. do you understand how impressive that is

Oh I didn’t even think about it because I never do my makeup but I’m great at that too. go me

I’m very expressive, which is great, because I live in the gloom capital of the world

I smell nice. or like, my soap smells nice. but I feel like it counts because I’m deliberately trying to smell nice

sometimes I can scare people just by using my I’m Not Mad I’m Just Disappointed face, which is always fun

I’m very good at shenanigans. you wanna do a hijink, I’m there

I have watched the pride and prejudice bbc miniseries in its entirety no less than eight times because I am Good Person and Jason wants to so I do it

I’m friends with some of the rogue gallery even though they are, infamously I would say, hard to get along with

I tip well

I’m bisexual

I’m very high energy

I am an EXCELLENT thief. literally how could anyone do better than ‘just teleport the thing to where I am.’ catwoman has nothin on me

I’m very good under pressure

I fall asleep and then STAY asleep, which is probably not a great one to list but I’m very glad I do it because I would be a monster if I didn’t sleep well

I’m a fast texter. speed demon 

as I said I’m not a good cook but I CAN make some mean tortillas. there’s an old lady in one of the apartment buildings I work on that was determined to make me learn how to cook one singular thing and that was the best we got

oh shit I speak so many languages! how did it take this long to mention that! I’m like a god damn universal translator! 

I’m very good with names AND faces

automatic designated driver and very good at it. nobody’s getting lost in an alley around me I’m keeping a close eye 👀

I’m a good dancer too! I used to be able to do pointe but I might break an ankle if I tried it now. but I’m still a good dancer in other styles

like did you know I can salsa. so sexy of me fr

I also know how to ice skate

and bowl! I’m so good at bowling!

I was a pretty cute kid, too. I wish I had pictures. I’ve only got one and it’s from a Photo Booth at the mall

my powers are really cool, actually. I can bend metal with my brain. that’s fucking cool

I know the subway and bus schedules by heart

oh and I can teleport! not just stuff but I can teleport ME 

I am also the person picking up all those leftover batarangs and whatnot. and putting them in neat and orderly piles. and then returning them to the Batmobile. in case anybody was wondering.

I picked a pretty badass name if I do say so myself 

I can do a back flip. fuck you thats 51 I’m so fucking good at this. bite me

[zergula]

Get To Know Me Sims Edition

I got tagged again, yay! Thanks @oasislandingresident Anyone else who wants to do this, I officially tag you!

What’s your favorite Sims death?

I don't think I have a "favorite" death but it's always the meteor strikes that get me. I haven't had too many happen in my game but when they do, it is an EVENT lol

Alpha CC or MaxisMatch?

Alpha for hair (SUPER SHINY PLEASE) maxis match for clothes and everything else

Do you cheat your sims weight?

There is no cheat in this game that I have not nor will not try. If I wanted to be miserable, I'd just live in real life so my sims get whatever they want, look however I want them to look, and never ever run out of money or get sick or anything bad. Nope, if there's a cheat for it, I'mma use it!

Do you move objects?

Absolutely. I am very particular about how I place things, I do not know why lol

Favorite Mod?

Probably the NRAAS mods or any mod that removes things that annoy me about the game. I use a lot of those!

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack?

I started playing Sims 3 late so the first pack I got was a combo Base Game, Late Night, and High End Loft stuff. World Adventures came next and then everything else very shortly after lol

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing?

Alive.

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

Autumn Moon! She is absolutely the most gorgeous sim I have ever had. She was the daughter of a sim I made and Anoki Moon.

Have you made a simself?

I started to but I can't seem to get it quite right, lol

Which is your favorite EA hair color?

I don't know, really. I guess it depends on what kind of look I'm going for on the sims.

Favorite EA hair?

Definitely this one from the Showtime pack:

Favorite life stage?

I play mostly as YA but my favorite is child life stage. Toddlers and kids in Sims 3 are A D O R A B L E !

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

A little of both, really. I love building but I am not as good at it as other folks but it's so fun to try and create different places! Gameplay sometimes feels like a time killer until I can think of the next place my sims absolutely must have.

Are you a CC creator?

I make patterns but other than that, no. I love all of the people who do, though, endlessly!

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad?

I don't know really. There are a lot of folks here on Tumblr and elsewhere that I consider friends and hope they think of me as a friend as well <3

Do you have any sims merch?

Weirdly, no. I don't think I've ever even thought about buying any. I spend enough on the game and stuff for the game, I think lol

Do you have a YouTube for sims?

I don't have a YouTube for anything but watching and occasionally commenting on videos.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing?

I have a certain list of things that I do before I even start a save now. Another list for once I start. It's a process but it's time tested and perfect! I use a lot more player made creations instead of defaulting to whatever EA gives us. I also do A LOT more travelling and challenges now.

What’s your origin id?

I have no idea.

Who’s your favorite CC creator?

ALL OF THEM

How long have you had simblr?

I don't even know. I think maybe 5 years now ? but it's probably longer than that. I know once I got here, everyone made me feel so welcome! Now you'll never get rid of me muuhahahahahahaaaaa

How do you edit your pictures?

I am really bad at editing any photo and my sims pics are just as bad, lol. I kinda just crop and clean them up a little but my ability really does not extend very far beyond that.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite?

Surprisingly to me, it's Supernatural. I say it's surprising because I had no interest in play occult sims or anything like that at all but Supernatural is essential to me for one reason and one reason alone: witches can magically upgrade everything in WAY less time than it takes to manually upgrade something. I know, it's a weird reason but that's seriously why. Big fan of Seasons and Generations as well!

[quickspinner]

Meme’ing on along

I blame @19thsentry-blog for tagging me in this. Also I called in reinforcement to help me pick fics because I am indecisive as hell. 😂

Rules: Pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the midpoint, pick a line (or a few), and share it! Then tag people!

You know I gotta make @verfound and @livrever suffer along with me, aaaand how about @haphira​ and @nerdypanda3126 too 😁

Okay here we go. I’m gonna start off with a Dragon Age fic just for the hell of it and the rest will be mlb.

To Those Who Wait | 4,638 words | Oneshot | Dragon Age Inquisition (Cullavellan)

“You won’t,” Cullen told her, taking her hand again. He was finding it hard to stop touching her, making sure she was real, though he certainly didn’t want to pressure her with his presence. She hadn’t pulled away yet. “Mia–I told her, about you. About–my feelings for you.” Maker’s breath, he hadn’t meant to bring that up so soon, but she didn’t look away when he said it, nor pull away her hand. He took heart from that. “You don’t have anything to worry about as far as that.”

Her smile grew, just slightly. “That’s good,” was all she said, but his pulse jumped.

“You must be tired,” he said quickly, before he could do anything foolish. “And I’m filthy. I’ll leave you to rest and…I’ll see you at dinner, then?”

She nodded, and he thought he saw a faint color grow on her cheeks.

Snake in the Silk | 3,932 words | Series: I’ll Never Not Know You: First Meetings | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

“This is the weirdest fucking day,” he muttered under his breath, carefully moving more underthings aside and trying not too hard to think about what other kinds of things a lady might keep in her underwear drawer. Ugh, why did the damn drawer have to be so deep—wait, was that—

Luka picked up a distractingly pretty blue pair decorated with black ribbons, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the familiar tip of Sass’s tail sticking out. “Got you, you little shit.”

Killer Combo | 60,783 words | Oneshot | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

Luka snorted, folding his arms. “Color me shocked. If only someone had warned you—oh wait. I did. Repeatedly.”

Jean pressed his lips together for a moment, clearly trying to keep his temper. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “We should have listened to you. We should have trusted you. Casey’s been miserable ever since. We’re truly, honestly sorry.”

"Good,” Luka grit out. “Thank you.”

“So you’ll play with us?” Jean asked, motioning vaguely towards the state, and Luka scoffed.

“No. Now get out of my face. I don’t want to see any of you and if I catch you even near my sister again, I got no problem going to jail for a night, you understand?”

Plausible Deniability | 4,679 words | Oneshot | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

The piping voice fell into place right about when he woke up enough to remember the night before. Luka groaned and pulled his covers over his head, wishing he could just curl up and die. He really did want to go back in time and kick drunk Luka’s ass. What had he been thinking, getting that drunk and letting Marinette bring him home alone?

Pink Frosting | 4,679 words | Series: Pink Frosting (Derbynette) | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

“I love it,” Luka said, taking the helmet and inspecting it. “Roller derby’s got a reputation for being sassy and aggressive and yet you’re bringing your own sweetness into it. I really love it.” He gave the helmet back and Marinette put it back on her desk. “So how do you actually play? I really don’t know much.”

He sat back and listened to her go on about bouts and jams and jammers and blockers , trying to follow but mostly just enjoying how excited she was. By the time she finally wound down, it was time for him to leave, but he was happy to see her enthusiasm restored.

“You’re really going to come to the bout?” Marinette asked, big blue eyes turned up to him as he stood to go.

“Absolutely. And I won’t have a single bandaid in my pockets, I promise.” He winked, and she laughed, and the sound followed him down the stairs and kept him smiling even as the bakery faded from sight behind him.

Triple Threat | 12,249 words | Oneshot | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

Viperion looked at her sharply but was blinded by the light of her power activating. He took a step back as she glowed brightly, and when he could see again, his partner was gone. He looked down to see the Multimice grinning up at him. One of them waved him down. Viperion knelt and put his hand down. One of the Multimice climbed onto his palm and he lifted her to his face. “I’ll stay with you,” she said cheerfully, hands on her hips. “Wouldn’t want you to get lonely.”

Viperion chuckled. “Welcome aboard.” He brought his hand up to his shoulder and the Multimouse hopped up.

Under the moon, by the sea... | 3,965 words | Oneshot | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

The movie was just as cheesy and silly as Marinette remembered, and Luka’s whispered asides had Marinette burying her face in his shoulder to muffle her laughter. Fortunately, the theater was not exactly packed, and no one made any effort to shush them. They both doubled over with barely suppressed laughter as Jagged threw himself dramatically into a mudslide down a cliff in the rain after his crocodile co-star, only to land up to his ears in a lake of muddy water at the bottom.

“Back before the age of green screens,” Luka snickered in her ear. “How many times do you think they had to do that take?”

The image of Jagged flinging himself repeatedly into the mud because the first take hadn’t been rock ‘n roll enough sent them both into another fit of giggles.

Pink Envelopes |  5,050 words | Series: I’ll Never Not Know You: First Meetings | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

Luka tried to remind himself as he walked to the T&S Bakery that he knew absolutely nothing about his mystery neighbor, and he shouldn’t be nervous. If he was lucky, he’d make a new friend. If he wasn’t, he’d buy them a coffee, make awkward small talk for half an hour, and go home and hide under his covers until he didn’t feel like dying of embarrassment anymore for being so incredibly wrong and his next hit song would be about shattered illusions and the stupidity of self-indulgent fantasies and he’d have to laugh awkwardly in interviews while trying desperately to avoid telling the truth of his inspiration.

Luka took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, acknowledging the thought and letting it go with his breath like his therapist had taught him. 

He shrugged his shoulders slightly to resettle his leather jacket, and then pushed open the door. 

Hey Gorgeous | 36,703 | Series: I’ll Never Not Know You: First Meetings | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

See?” he said softly, showing it to her. It was intimate, even a little sexy, but not at all explicit, soft with the morning light, her hair mussed and spread across the pillow, his cheek leaning on her temple, both wearing still sleepy expressions of contentment. The dark mark on Luka’s collarbone, visible just over the curve of her shoulder, and his eyes looking right at the camera, intense where hers were soft, made her body warm. “Can I keep it?” he begged. Marinette pursed her lips, considered the worst case scenario, and decided she wouldn’t die of embarrassment if, say, her parents saw it. It looked kind of like a sexy perfume ad, actually.

“Y-you c-can keep it,” she sighed. “B-but j-just for us.”

“Promise,” he said, saving the photo. Then he kissed her neck in a spot he knew was ticklish, making her scrunch her shoulder up.

“L-luka,” she laughed, and he leaned further and kissed her cheek.

“Can I keep these too?” he grinned, handing her the phone.

Indelible | 48,577 words (and counting) | Multichap | Miraculous Ladybug (Lukanette)

Luka had to admit there was something admirable about the level of audacity necessary to turn your worst trait into your brand.

Jagged might be an artist and he might be the greatest rock ‘n roll star of his generation, but a “pure” artist? Not even close. It was moments like this morning when he was reminded that Jagged was a businessman as well as an artist, and that all his lip-service to the purity of the emotion he put into his work was—well. It wasn’t all bullshit. Jagged’s songs were emotional, it was something Luka had always admired about his work, but he’d walked away from the meeting this morning feeling like Jagged’s tears must be shaped like tiny dollar signs.

[fyonnkalnonn]

I've been gone for a hot minute. That's because the HDMI cable I use for my Steam Deck went out, so I took the one from my PC instead. While I was gone, I finally got around to Marathon 2, Halo ODST, and Halo 4.

Marathon 2 is a tabletop RPG campaign where the DM has all this cool back story and high-level faction moves planned but they forgot to make space for the player characters to be involved. Also you get total party killed by a dragon when it just flew in circles and breathed fire repeatedly because, quote, "Well, when you think about it, that's how a dragon would really fight." There's still so much to love in Marathon 2's writing, and in its mechanical design, but it's largely failed by its level design. After a certain point, it was so reliable that walking into a new room would spawn 5-12 guys more or less on top of me that I started walking into rooms backwards so I could kill the guy who was going to be blocking the way I came in ASAP. It's like Doom monster closets but literally every single room and without any of the IWBTG-esque "I can't believe that switch was actually a door with eight imps behind it, you got me lmao" interplay between the player and level designer.

Halo ODST fucks. The character writing is kind of boring and trope-y, but the writing knows it and gives them exactly as much screen time as their tropes can sustain. Breaking up Halo set pieces with down-key navigation segments set to an astoundingly forlorn and romantic jazz soundtrack is brilliant. The combo makes the sometimes exhausting All Killer No Filler of Halo campaign design go down so smooth that I played the whole thing in one sitting, only stopping to eat. I wish had more to say about it but it's a case of "executed exactly what it set out to nigh perfectly, no notes."

Halo 4 continues the excellent mechanical design of Halo with the addition of Knights. Playing Halo games on Heroic taught me to play carefully, dismantling enemy groups from cover, advancing slowly. Knights and their entourage demand the same approach for dismantling enemy groups, but outright defy attempts to do it safely. To fight a Knight, you need to be right up in its fucking face, and you need to not give it even a second to breathe or it will recover. They make low-accuracy, high rate-of-fire weapons and shotguns really desirable in a way they tend not to be in other Halo campaigns. Which can you do more reliably: land six consecutive head shots against an enemy that can teleport or dump an Assault Rifle magazine into its face at point blank?

The campaign levels are solid, though it sometimes feels like it's missing je ne sais quoi. But the plotting is wretched. The game opens on a masturbatory lore nerd acknowledgement that is never relevant to the story even once. One of the characters is just 343 inventing a type of guy for Master Chief and Cortana to be smarter, braver, and more competent than. Over the course of the game, Halo 4 proceeds to Everyone Is Here! so hard that it's clear that on a long enough timeline for Halo 4-style writing, literally every character ever mentioned in Halo lore would meet Master Chief personally and either give him a blow job or get into a fist fight with him.

There are some really insufferable moves regarding making Master Chief the Ultimate Special Boy in an incredibly boring way that the franchise had previously avoided beyond "this guy's like fucking terrifyingly good at his job." Oh, and the Covenant don't speak English any more! One of the cornerstones of Halo, imo, is the game play complementing the serious storytelling by bringing the goofy comic relief.

Also, I spent the entire game uncomfortable with Cortana's Halo 4 design. It is unsurprising to me that they swerved to "AIs wear clothes now, actually" starting with Halo 5. Cortana spends the game frequently confused, having emotional breakdowns, frustrated with her decaying ability to focus, audibly distraught while desperately apologizing for outbursts and mistakes she has no control over, and in every one of those scenes she's naked in a way that makes her prior designs look restrained and modest.

[opia-tarot]

❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉

18+ astro notes

❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉❉⊱•═•⊰❉⊱•═•⊰❉

hey sexy people. I’m back! This has been requested so much, let me know if you like it! I’ve missed you! This post got flagged so i had to remove the saucy gifs which is very annoying😂

part 2

💧Eros-neptune people fantasise about sex SO MUCH. Doing chores? Sex. Studying? Sex. Ahahaha U can’t deny it🤫 Their fantasies can be so consuming, these are the people that zone out and you have to be like 👋😶 in their face. And i can’t forget eros 12h people. Yes i see you🤨😂

💧mars square uranus people…. Let me see your BDSM test real quick🤨📸These are the kinky fuckers.

💧I vote pluto 3rd for dirty talk president. You wanna be ruined verbally during sex? These people are great😂 These people can degrade perfectly or they love being degraded either way🤷‍♀️

💧Never underestimate a cancer mars in bed. They can be 🥺☺️ outside the bedroom and then once you’re in bed they’re like 👹 Also daddy kink central. I said what i said.

💧The most sexually versatile has to be pisces mars. They will usually try anything you wanna try, very open minded individuals and they make you feel so comfortable.

💧The type of people to get you dickmatized/pussy whipped are scorpio mars. The ex you’ll never forget about. They already know this ahaha. It doesn’t matter, you’ll always remember a scorpio mars.

💧mars-saturn either love sex or they don’t care. But if they do love it, they’re the type of people to go ROUNDS. Like a never ending cycle. 10 rounds? 20 rounds? Yes i’m looking at u too mars-jupiter🤨😂

💧The killer sex partners are venus 8th h. They will SPOIL u during sex. They are some of the best sexual partners. They just know how to put it down. You will get addicted to these people. Up at 2am like 📞🥺 i miss you and they’re like 😏. Once you have sex with them it’s over. OVERRRR.

💧If you want to have the best sex ever. Find a cap mars, yes okay scorpio mars you’re also great. But there’s something about cap mars….EXPOSING TIME🗣 these people are KINKY fuckers. Whoever said cap mars is vanilla must be having different ice cream because chile👀

💧mars-pluto….we meet again. You sexy sexy fuckers. 😂 Try and outdo mars-pluto sex drive. It’s impossible ahaha. These people have such dom vibes and more often than not, it translates very smoothly to the bedroom. They fuck you like they mean it. Ooof i can’t, and yes they like 👀 contact. You’re like 😩 and they’re like 🤫 look at me.

💧every leo venus has a praise kink. Period. I don’t wanna hear it, i already know i’m correct. Now here’s the killer combo for them-> Praise kink with a sprinkle of degrading. Like tell them they’re a pretty little slut and they’re like 🥺. Thank me later☺️

💧Never underestimate the likelihood of libra placements being switches. Not just because of the balance shit but it’s something i’ve noticed. Either switches or 🥺 subs.

💧If you want great aftercare, find a pisces mars or a venus-jupiter. Honestly these people will allow you to open up and relax. We loveeee. Very soothing.

💧You want animalistic passion? Find yourself an aries venus. These people are sexy in bed. They’ll have you like 🥺. These are the people that don’t care where you are or who could catch you.

▂▃▄▅▆▇█▓▒░love you░▒▓█▇▆▅▄▃▂

🌌

[watchmegetobsessed]

NUMBER ONE

A/N: i've been dying to post this fic for so long! i wrote this first so it's been sitting in my drafts for over a month, if not two haha! it's a good old fake dating trope with personal assistant reader, one of my fav things! happy holidays to you all, hope you are having a loving time!🎁

PAIRING: Harry Styles X PA!Reader

WORD COUNT: 10.3k

masterlist

This fic is part of ❄️ FANFICmas 2021 ❄️ Read more about fanficmas here!

“What do you mean you can’t come?! You promised me a month ago, Jonathan!”

Holding the phone to your ear you have a finger in your other to hear whatever he is saying on the other end of the line. The concert is still on and it’s almost impossible to find a spot backstage where you can actually hear something, not when Harry is blowing the place up, just as usual.

“I know! I’m sorry, but you know my brother is the only one in the family with a driver’s license other than me and he broke his fucking ankle, now I have to be the chauffeur for all my aunts during the holidays!” he growls in frustration.

“Then get a real chauffeur! Or can’t you drive them around after you’ve spent the night at mine?”

“Just tell your mom something came up for me, okay? And that I’m really sorry, I wish I could be there blah blah blah. I’m sorry, Y/N, okay? I really wanted to help you, but I can’t.”

Closing your eyes you take a deep breath, trying your best to hold your tears back.

You should have known this whole plan was the worst idea you’ve ever had, but when you’re desperate there’s nothing that sounds too ridiculous. The plan was to bring Jonathan home for Christmas so he can pretend to be your boyfriend and your family would stop bugging you about being single now that your sister is engaged. When Leila called you with the news a month ago you were extremely happy but you also knew you would never hear the end of it that your sister, who is three years younger than you is engaged and you don’t even have a boyfriend.

“I have a busy schedule and I’m focusing on my career,”you tell them every time, but they think it’s just a lame excuse. Well, it is an excuse, but you wouldn’t say it’s lame. It’s the truth, you don’t have much time left next to the tasks you carry with being a superstar’s personal assistant and tour manager at the same time. It’s a killer combo, but you love the challenges and you love the job. Your mother however thinks you’ll never find a husband if you keep working in this pace and she is already praying for your soul even though you’re only twenty-seven, you have plenty of time.

And besides… you’re not quite interested in dating. Not when the man of your dreams is right in front of you and he also happens to be your boss.

“It’s fine,” you mumble into the phone.

“I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

“Sure. I gotta go,” you sigh when you hear the last song starting.

You end the call with a bitter goodbye and take a moment to yourself to think about the trouble you brought on yourself. When your mom kept bringing up your nonexistent dating life over the phone you couldn’t take it anymore and opened your big mouth, telling her that you’d be bringing someone home for Christmas. Not anyone, your boyfriend. Which you obviously don’t have. Jonathan is your only straight male friend who you’d trust with the situation and it took some time to convince him to do it, but at last he agreed to be your fake boyfriend, however his brother’s accident screwed it all up and you’re supposed to fly home in a few days with him but… it’s gone to shit and you’re gonna have to explain to your family why you’re alone again.

It seems like a frown is etched onto your face, because as Harry runs off the stage, sweaty and high on adrenaline he freezes as he sees you, a quizzed look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you grumble. “Go and get ready to leave,” you tell him, sending out a few texts, avoiding to look at him. When he doesn’t move for several moments your eyes snap up at him. “Would you not be a pain in the ass and do what I asked?”

“Woah, what’s gotten your panties twisted?” he asks with a frown, but heads to his dressing room finally and you walk along him, busying yourself with your phone.

“I said nothing. I’m gonna go and talk to head of security. Meet me at the car in thirty.”

Harry wants to question your sudden change of act, but he has no chance as you run off to do your work.

Running your usual rounds in the venue you make sure everything is going smooth, the arena is slowly emptying out and the stage crew starts to take the stage apart and load everything into the trucks. For a little bit you forget about having to face your family, but as soon as you head out to the car to meet Harry it comes back clashing down on you.

“You’re starting to worry me, Y/N. You look like the world is about to end,” Harry comments on your act once again as the two of you climb into the car and head back to the hotel.

“If the world ended today I would be the happiest,” you mumble barely audible, but he still catches your words.

“You sound like an emo teen, would you just tell me what got you so upset?”

“I’m upset because I’m stupid!” you groan, folding your arms on your chest. The driver starts the car and you roll out of the parking lot, passing by hoards of fans, but neither of you care about them now. Harry is watching you intently as you load your problems out on him. “Jonathan was supposed to come home with me for Christmas, but his brother broke his fucking ankle so he can’t come and I have to go home alone!”

“Okay, I feel like I’m missing something,” Harry comments, eyes narrowed at you. “Why was he supposed to go home with you?”

Pursing your lips you think about telling him a lie. You don’t necessarily want him to know that you’re so desperate you told your mother you have a boyfriend when you’re as single as you can get. This is something only crazy people do who think that their life is a movie.

“I, uhh… I might or might have not told my mother that I have a boyfriend who I’m bringing home for Christmas. And that boyfriend was supposed to be Jonathan.”

“Wait, what?” he grimaces. “You’re dating Jonathan?”

“I’m not!” you growl rolling your eyes. “I just wanted him to pretend like we’re dating.”

“But… why exactly?”

Sighing sadly, you turn to stare out the window, the flickering lights of the city passing by you in a blur. You’ve never told anyone in details about what it was like to grow up with your sister. She was just always better than you. Prettier, more popular, she nailed everything in life. She was a cheerleader in high school and of course, prom queen, she’s been dating her boyfriend since the eleventh grade, she got into Columbia with scholarship and now she is working a perfect job, lives in a perfect house with the perfect man who’ll marry her soon.

You never blamed her. You couldn’t hold it against her that she had everything she wanted. It’s the way your family always treated the situation. You weren’t popular, didn’t get to be prom queen, hell you almost didn’t even go to prom because no one asked you out. You dropped out of college and started as an assistant in a law firm before you ventured over to celebrities. Two years ago you landed this spot next to Harry and you’re proud of what you accomplished, however your parents don’t feel quite the same. You never hear the end of it that you didn’t finish school, but Leila did, that your job is not the type they generally consider serious, but Leila’s is, or that you haven’t had a serious relationship in five years, unlike Leila… Nothing you do is good enough or just simply… enough.

You just wanted one Christmas when you’re not the disgrace of the family. Apparently, you wished for way too much.

“Doesn’t matter, Harry,” you mumble, shaking your head softly.

He remains silent and you’re convinced the topic is dropped, but when you reach the hotel and the two of you are heading up in the elevator, he breaks the silence and almost makes you faint.

“I could go home with you and pretend to be your boyfriend.” You turn to him with wide eyes, fully convinced that he is just pulling your leg, but he seems serious.

“Excuse me?”

“I could do it. Only if you haven’t told your parents that it’s Jonathan, because then we would have some problems with the change…” he muses.

“I-I didn’t tell them, but… Harry, you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can’t.”

The elevator arrives and you’re quick to storm out heading to your room, but Harry catches up with you in a heartbeat.

“I totally can and I’m willing to do it, Y/N.”

“You can’t! They know you’re my boss!” you shush him, but he just rolls his eyes.

“So what? That doesn’t mean we can’t be a couple.” You ignore the way your heart skips a beat as Harry talks about the two of you as a couple. This is not exactly the setting you imagined it come up.

“Harry,” you sigh stopping in the middle of the hallway. “This is just… ridiculous, okay? The whole thing was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have even come up with it. I’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Well… if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Of course I know, I’m the one who puts your schedule together,” you scoff and he just grins at you before walking up to his room and disappearing inside.

Not even twenty-four hours later you’re sipping on your afternoon coffee in a different city, laptop in front of you on the small table of the hotel bar, going through loads of emails, making calls to all parts of the globe. You’ll head to the venue soon to check out how the stage building is going, it’s been your usual for months now, life on the road.

Your fingers are typing away fast on the keyboard when you spot the familiar figure approaching you from the corner of your eyes. You don’t have to look up to know it’s Harry, wearing a black hoodie and grey sweatpants, a coffee in his hands as he lazily walks up to your table and takes a seat, inviting himself into your company.

“Have you thought about it?” he hums, stirring the black liquid as he stares out the window.

“I think about a million things a day, you have to be more specific,” you answer in a flat tone, eyes still glued to the screen.

It’s been the dynamic you built up. You like to be sarcastic, a bit rude to him but he always knows it’s just a game. It helps you keep a very fragile wall between the two of you so you don’t fall for him even more and at least you can do your job. Though Harry likes the bickering, even fuels it as much as he can, enjoying the little remarks and teasing.

“The Christmas thing,” he adds, taking a sip from the coffee, sliding lower in his chair.

“I have not,” you mumble, but it’s a total lie. It’s all you’ve been thinking about since he offered to be your fake boyfriend. You haven’t been able to wrap your mind around the absurdity of it: your boss, who you’re in love with, coming home with you for Christmas to pretend to be your fake boyfriend. This straight up sounds like the plot of a Netflix movie.

“Okay, then think now. Because I’ve thought and I came up with a few things that would convince you.”

“Harry, I’m working. My job doesn’t end when you run off the stage, alright?” you sigh, leaning back in your seat, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“You’re just answering Jeff’s million emails, that can wait,” he says and simply shuts the laptop down, your eyes widening.

“Are you fucking crazy?!”

“I am, but what’s new?” he smirks at you, crossing one leg over the other. “So. I’m the perfect candidate to be your fake boyfriend, because I know everything about you. We’ve been practically living together, I know the way a boyfriend would know you.”

“Harry, can you just—“

“Second, I’ve met your mother and I totally charmed her, she would love me!”

“You’re giving yourself way too much credit, H,” you roll your eyes.

“Come on, don’t tell me I wouldn’t make her swoon as your boyfriend!”

It’s hard to admit, but he is right. Your parents might not like your career choice, but they love Harry. They think he is the greatest person in the celebrity world and your mother even said that you should quit your job and just date him. As if that was so easy…

“Alright, third. I assume we would have to sleep in the same room so we would have to share a bed and we’ve done that before. Wouldn’t be a problem this time either.”

“Harry, how long did you spend thinking about these stuff?” you huff, your head rolling back as you let out a frustrated groan.

“Enough to make the perfect plan,” he smirks proudly. “Come on, it’s gonna be fun!”

“No, it’s not,” you shake your head right away. “You don’t know the shitshow that goes down on Christmas in our family.”

“It’s a shitshow everywhere, I can manage,” he shrugs.

“And how do you plan to explain to your mother that you won’t be home for Christmas on time?”

“Mum’s in quarantine, one of her girlfriends tested positive so now she is locked up as well. It ends after Christmas so we’re celebrating later.”

“I can’t believe you have an answer to everything,” you scoff in disbelief. “Why are you so desperate to do this?”

“Because I wanna help you! I can tell it’s something important to you and you do so much for me, I could finally do something for you! Just let me help!” he begs, running a hand through his hair and god, he looks way too good for your league. No one will believe you scored Harry Styles…

“I don’t…”

“Come on!” he groans in frustration. “It’s gonna be fun, we can spend some time together without any work loading on us. When was the last time we did that?”

“You took me out to dinner on my birthday,” you answer without a second thought, because you’re definitely keeping tabs on the times you spent alone with Harry.

“That’s right, but that’s been so long,” he whines. “I’ll be your best fake boyfriend, your family will fall in love with me and they are gonna finally get out of your hair about being single.”

“I never told you this is why I’m doing it,” you narrow your eyes at him.

“Y/N, I know you,” he smiles at you softly. “You’ve complained to me several times how your parents just keep bugging you to get a boyfriend and your sister just got engaged. You don’t want to go home alone and listen to them dragging you down because Leila is getting married and you’re not.”

You never thought he paid attention, not this much at least. But it seems like Harry remembered everything you told him and it’s making your chest ache. It would be easier to keep your emotions out of the equation if only he wasn’t the greatest man alive, always so caring and thoughtful. You’re afraid that if you’ll pretend to be dating Harry your heart will get broken, even more than it already is. That’s why you’re so adamant about not accepting his offer.

“You’ll have someone to complain to all Christmas, I think that’s a great deal, Y/N,” he smirks at you, slurping up the rest of his black coffee.

Just as you’re about to answer him, your phone starts to ring and the words die on your tongue as you reach for the device.

“I have to take this,” you mumble. Harry nods and standing up he grabs his empty cup.

“Think about it some more,” he softly tells you, giving your shoulder a squeeze before walking away. You pay one last glance after him before turning back towards your phone and answering the call.

It’s the last show before everyone is heading home for the holidays. The tour dragged longer than it was planned at the beginning, more and more shows were added, because Harry just wants to give the people what they want. That’s how you ended up with the last show being so close to Christmas.

Harry is on stage now, talking to a fan whose sign just asked for dating advice, he is wearing a magenta suit, of course, no shirt underneath. His smile is beaming as he is talking about how they should never trust a man who forgets their birthday and you’ve always found it funny how wise he can get when he is definitely no expert in dating. After all, he is just about to pretend to be your boyfriend for the holidays, what kind of sane man agrees to do that?

Fixing your mask you step out to the arena to the secluded area where crew members can get a glimpse of the show. You stay close to the wall, watching him parade on the stage, another rainbow flag glued to his hands, just like about every night. There’s no doubt this is his element, the place where he is himself the most and you’ve always admired how open he can get with thousands of people around him.

It’s not a surprise you fell for him, how could you not? You hit it off instantly when you started working for him at the beginning, an odd but deep friendship forming between the two of you quite fast. Being vulnerable with Harry feels like second nature, he is a great listener and has a magic power to get you to trust him right away. One month into knowing him it felt like you’ve known him all your life.

And loved him all your life.

While you shared almost every detail of your life with him, he has seen you at your best and worst, bought you tampons in the middle of the night and held your hair as you threw up from food poisoning, there was one thing you could never tell him: how badly you fell in love with him.

You know you’ll never get to have him the way you want. It just wasn’t meant to be, no matter how painful it is to accept it. But as you watch him sing his heart out on stage, the ache to get closer to him just grows and you’re desperate to get just a tiny slice of him.

That’s when you make up your mind that you’ll let him go home with you and pretend to be your boyfriend. Because if that’s the only way you can have him… you’re gonna take it.

It’s an emotional moment as Harry leaves the stage for the last time, he is throwing kisses everywhere, bowing and waving around before he runs behind the curtains where you’re already waiting for him.

“Great job,” you pat him on the back, the two of you heading to his dressing room.

“Thanks. Gonna miss this a lot,” he sighs, chest still heaving as he is trying to catch his breath. “When are you leaving tomorrow?” he asks, pushing the door to his dressing room open and you follow him inside, closing it behind so it’s just the two of you. He gets rid of the mask as he starts unbuttoning his shirt, his suspenders already hanging from his waist.

“You mean… when are we leaving?” you ask, biting into your bottom lip. He freezes and then his head snaps around to look at you, a cheesy grin already growing on his lips. “I thought about what you said and… if you’re still up for it, I would appreciate it if you came home with me to… pretend to be my boyfriend. God, this sounds so stupid,” you groan shaking your head.

“Oh, you won’t regret it, Y/N,” he chuckles and walking closer he yanks you into his arms, hugging you tight, almost knocking the air out of your lungs. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

“Yeah,” you mumble against his shoulder. “I really hope so.”

“Would you relax? You definitely don’t look like you’re happy to bring your boyfriend home.”

Harry places a hand over your bouncing knee as he pulls up to your parents’ house, your anxiety rising high when it comes into your vision. It’s decorated exactly the same as every year, your mother never buys new decorations, not even when they start to look rusty and worn down.

You shoot Harry an awfully fake smile, but he just chuckles as he places his hand back at the wheel.

“I will not take the blame for any emotional or mental trauma you might suffer from while you’re here, alright?” you remind him again.

“Yup, you want me to sign a contract?” he teases you smirking and you just smack his chest playfully.

He pulls up to the driveway and you see the curtains move in the window so it’s just a matter of seconds for your mother to burst out the front door and attack the two of you. You still haven’t told them who your alleged boyfriend is and she’ll probably flip when she realizes that it’s Harry.

“Get ready, babe,” Harry smirks as the two of you get out of the car and the front door flies open just as you expected.

“Finally!” your mom runs out, hands in the air as she approaches the two of you. You walk around the car, joining Harry by the driver’s side, his arm coming to curl around your shoulders to pull you to his side and you swallow hard, plastering a smile on your face, watching your mother finally realize who you’ve just brought home. She stops, mouth hangs open, covering it with her hands as she stares and you and Harry with wide eyes, while the man on your side is just smiling at her sweetly, always the charmer.

“Oh my God! Y/N, why didn’t you tell me?!” she screeches before taking the rest of the way to you, pulling you into a hug.

“Don’t freak out, okay? I wanted it to be a surprise,” you grit through your teeth as you hug her back before she turns to Harry, arms wrapping around him as well.

“I surely am surprised! Oh my, I was not expecting you, son!” she cheers, patting Harry’s dimply cheeks.

“It’s so nice to see you again Mrs. Y/L/N.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, just call me Martha!”

“Alright,” Harry chuckles, his hand coming to rest on your back. “Hope you don’t mind Y/N didn’t tell you about me, but we’ve been keeping it low.”

“Oh, I understand, though I’m a bit hurt you thought I wouldn’t keep my mouth about it!” she jokes. “But let’s forget about it, come on in! Don’t freeze out here. I’ve just made hot chocolate. Leila and Stanley will be here in a bit too, they are on their way already.”

Unloading your stuff from the car you head inside, your dad coming from the kitchen with a steaming mug in his hand when he spots the two of you, his eyebrows shooting up upon seeing Harry with you.

“You’re dating your boss?” he asks right away, no filter on him at all.

“Dad!” you roll your eyes at him, Harry just grinning next to you.

“What? Is he not your boss?”

“He is, but… it’s not like that, alright? We don’t work in an office or something like that.”

“That I know,” he mumbles and you bite your tongue not to comment on his words. “Well, welcome back, Harry.”

He extends his hands for your boyfriend and he takes it with a soft smile.

“Nice to see you again. And I know this might be a bit weird, but I assure you that we do everything we can to keep our relationship separated from work. It’s been going well.”

“I’m not one to judge,” your dad shrugs. “Worked with your mother when we got together,” he smirks, patting Harry’s shoulder and you let out a long breath. This could have gone better, but it’s not as disastrous as you’ve imagined it. Nice start.

The two of you bring your bags up to your old room, having a few moments to yourself as you close the door saying you’ll unpack.

“This went well, right?” Harry hum, sitting down to the edge of your bed and you try to ignore how weird it is to see him in your old room, the one you grew up in.

“It was fine. But I think Leila will be more skeptical than them, so we gotta convince her.”

“No problem,” he smirks confidently.

Not too much later you hear the front door open and close downstairs, your sister’s voice hitting your ear as she and her fiancé are welcoming your parents. You take a deep breath, mentally bracing yourself for the meeting.

“Okay, come on. Let’s say hi to them,” you say Harry, who’s been lying across the bed flipping through your high school yearbook until now. Shutting the book closed he jumps to his feet and follows you out of the room.

You spot Leila at the bottom of the stairs, Stanley right behind her and they look just the same as you remembered them.

“Hey! There you are!” she greets you with a bright smile when she sees you walking down the stairs, Harry trailing behind you. “And Harry! Hi!”

She doesn’t seem surprised to see Harry and the way they hug got you suspicious. Leila doesn’t seem fazed at all that Harry is the one she is seeing by your side.

“So, um… I know I didn’t tell you about it, but Harry is… the one I’m dating.” you explain, the words feel strange and unfamiliar on your tongue.

“That’s great!” she beams, but no trace of surprise is seen on her face still. Something is off. “Oh, let me put the tiramisu into the fridge,” she rushes off, Stanley following her behind with their bags as you turn to face Harry.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“What do you mean?” he asks with an innocent look.

“Leila doesn’t seem surprised to see you, you know anything about that?”

“That’s because I told her,” he answers as if it was the most usual thing ever, but you don’t share his opinion.

“What do you mean you told her?”

“I talked to her and told her that I’m the one you’re dating and you’re bringing me home for Christmas.”

“What the fuck?! When did that happen? And why are you talking to my sister?!”

It seems like you’re the only one who is shocked by the information, Harry doesn’t seem too shaken up by any of it. If anything, he is looking at you like you’re crazy.

“Talked to her on the phone yesterday. Why is that so shocking to you?”

“Because I didn’t know you were just casually making calls to my sister!”

“You talk to my sister all the time.”

“But that’s different! I’m your assistant, I need to keep in touch with the people around you.”

“I don’t think gossiping with my sister is your job,” Harry smirks at you. “I’ve kept in touch with your sister since I met her last year. Thought I would let her know that you’re bringing me.”

“And do you think she believed that we’re dating?” you nervously ask, glancing towards the kitchen where you can see Leila already arguing about something with your mom. When you look back at Harry he seems a little hesitant, but it disappears from his eyes pretty quickly.

“Don’t worry, she didn’t even question it. Come on, let’s mingle a little.” He puts a hand to your back, guiding you after the rest of your family, though you’re not quite in the mood to put up an act for now. However you don’t have much of a choice.

Somehow, you manage to survive the first day at home. Harry was right, he charmed the shit out of your mother and by the time dinner was over you were sure she was more in love with him than you. Your dad seemed a little skeptical at first, but it didn’t take long for Harry to warm him up and they sat down for dinner like old pals. Everyone seems to love Harry and the fact that you’re dating him.

It’s a shame it’s all just one big lie.

Wrapping yourself up in a thick blanket you grab your tea from the kitchen counter and head out to the sunroom to join Leila, Stanley and Harry for a late night chat. Your parents are already out, your mom is gonna be up by six probably in the morning to start everything for the big family gathering tomorrow, so it’s just the four of you.

It’s too cold to sit on the porch, that’s why you decided to take the evening to the sunroom where your mom keeps most of her precious plants. Arriving you see that you’re the only one drinking tea, an open bottle of wine sits on the table, Everyone nursing a glass of the red liquid as you hold your steaming mug in your hands, sitting down next to Harry. He’s been drinking a bit throughout the evening, though he is not drunk, and you know how touchy he can get with some alcohol in his system, but you still get surprised when he curls an arm around your shoulders and tugs you to his side.

“Apple and cinnamon?” he asks with a lazy smile, sniffing the air that smells from your tea.

“Yeah. You want to try?” you ask, voice barely more than just a whisper. You haven’t been able to get used to the little touches and looks you’ve been getting from Harry. You keep telling yourself not to fall too comfortable into this role, because it’s all fake, but it’s hard to draw the lines.

“No, I’m good, but thank you,” he smiles at you, taking a sip from his own drink.

“Oh my God, you two are the cutest,” Leila sighs and you look at her, meeting her dreamy eyes as she sits cuddled up to Stan’s side. “You haven’t told us how it happened, I wanna hear the story!”

You purse your lips, looking up at Harry you share a glance and he is the one speaking up first.

“It just… kinda happened. I slowly grew some balls and asked her out one day.”

“So you were always into her?” Stan asks.

“Since day one,” he answers, but his eyes are locked on yours and the damn butterflies in your stomach are going crazy. It’s really hard to remind yourself that it’s all just an act, especially when his fingers are delicately dancing on your arm and shoulder.

“And how did you ask her out? Did you just blurt it out or did you plan it?” Leila asks in excitement.

Harry’s eyes shift to his drink as he runs his tongue across his lips, probably coming up with a story he can feed them and you wonder what he’ll say.

“It was at the beginning of tour, just a few shows into it, in Dallas to be precise. She was in my room before the night of the show, going over my schedule for the next few weeks and I was trying to decide if I wanted to shave or not. We had some wine, just chilling and taking it slow,” he starts and you realize that this evening actually happened, you still remember it.

“She was lying on my bed on her stomach, typing so fast on her phone, I wondered how her thumbs haven’t fallen off,” he chuckles and you can’t push down a smile either. “Maybe it was the alcohol or I just finally came around and figured out what I want in life, but I sat down, took her phone and she whined, but I just stared at her smiling and… asked her to have dinner with me in the next city. Then she asked if I wanted her to reserve a table and if anyone else was coming, but I told her that it was just gonna be the two of us, because it’s gonna be our first date.”

Your lips part and your chest aches as your eyes are glued to his. He described that evening perfectly, everything happened like that except he never asked you out. When he grabbed your phone from you, he just stared at you as you whined and asked for it back and he cocked his head to the side before handing it back to you at last, walking back into the bathroom.

“That sounds just like Y/N, thinking that it’s a group thing,” Leila chuckles, snapping you back from your thoughts, you definitely got lost in the memory and the way Harry is staring at you right now.

“Uh, yeah,” you chuckle nervously, bringing your mug to your lips to busy yourself with something, but you were too fast with that and the hot drink burns your tongue.

“I kind of always knew you two would end up together,” Leila muses and you can feel your cheeks heating up.

“Sure you did,” you mumble to yourself, religiously avoiding to look at Harry for the rest of the evening.

You head up to your rooms about an hour later when the wine has run out and you’ve been yawning for a while. Leila and Stanley take her old room while you retreat into yours, Harry following behind and for a hot minute you forgot that you have to sleep in the same bed, but reality comes crashing down on you when he closes the door and it’s just the two of you after being surrounded by your family all day.

You use the bathroom first while Harry lies in bed, scrolling on his phone before it’s his turn. You’ve never been more anxious to sleep next to him, this whole day just turned your world upside down and now you have to share a bed with him, even though it’s not the first time. He has crashed in your hotel room several times not just on this tour but on several trips you’ve taken around the globe since you’ve started working for him.

Placing your rings to the nightstand you cocoon on your side of the bed, pulling the covers up to your ears as you lie on your side, facing the wall. The bathroom door opens and you listen to Harry fumbling around in the room until the mattress dips behind you and he makes himself comfortable on his side. Just when you think he’s gonna go to sleep without a word he speaks up.

“Are you mad at me?”

Turning around you give him a puzzled look.

“Why would I be?” you ask, your heart beating like crazy.

“Because you’ve been so quiet since Leila asked how we got together. Did I say something wrong?”

The two of you are lying now facing each other, your hands tucked under your head as you take just a split second to adorn his handsome face squished into your pillow. You wonder why everyone believed so easily that you’re a couple when he is clearly way out of your league.

“I’ve been just tired. My mother can be a bit too much all at once,” you say, forcing out a tiny smile.

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” he hums nodding into the pillow. “Tomorrow is the big day? Your whole family is coming over?”

“Yeah. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, the whole fam,” you chuckle softly, a smile tugging on his lips too.

“Alright, I’ll switch into full boyfriend mode.”

“Was it not that today?” you tease, making him chuckle.

“Kinda, but I can put some extra into it.”

“No need, you already charmed everyone.”

“Everyone? You included?” he asks teasingly, no clue how on spot that question was.

“Don’t get too cocky,” you warn him, trying to mask your real emotions.

“Okay, I’ll take it as a yes,” he grins, clearly pleased with himself. “Good night, Y/N.”

“Night, Harry,” you sigh, turning back around, your heart pounding in your chest and you can only hope he can’t hear it in the silence.

The house is packed and it’s not even nine am. You didn’t joke when you told Harry that it’s gonna be a shitshow. Your mom has three sisters, each of them at least two kids, but Aunt Carol spent her twenties popping babies out one after the other, gifting you with five cousins alone, so your home would be full if only they came over, but that’s not an option. You’re trying to fetch yourself a coffee, but your cousin Annabelle’s twin daughters have been running in circles in the kitchen, making you trip over them almost three times in the past thirty seconds. Today is going to be way too long and tiring.

If it wasn’t enough, the morning was kind of awkward.

Your bed is not the same size as the ones you’ve shared in hotels before, so you and Harry ended up tangled in each other sometime in the night and when you opened your eyes you were met with his chest, his arms draped over your figure as you were hugging his waist under the covers. You were so shocked, for a minute you didn’t even know what to do, then he woke up too, hugged you even tighter for a second before he realized the position you were in.

It was a bunch of sorry and no worries and awkward fumbling and mumbling before you jumped out of the bed and locked yourself up in the bathroom. You never plan to talk about it again, but it’ll be stuck in your head probably forever.

“Good morning!” Harry greets everyone walking into the kitchen, dressed in a pair of light washed jeans and a simple red sweater. He looks so cozy, you almost want to bury your face in his chest, but you just stare back at him, stirring your coffee, not even realizing that you should introduce him to the people he hasn’t met. Luckily, your mother takes the situation into her own hands.

“Isn’t it great that Y/N finally has a boyfriend?” your mom enthuses to your aunts and you just roll your eyes, sipping on your coffee. “I was starting to get worried that she’ll be alone forever!”

“Mom, I’m only twenty-six. It’s not like I was behind or something,” you scoff at her.

“You haven’t had a boyfriend in so long, we all thought you’d just given up to even look!” she laughs as if she just told the joke of the year, but you’re not laughing at all.

“I’ve been busy, I’ve been working a lot to get here in my career. I’m holding two positions on a sold out tour, that doesn’t leave much time to look.”

“One of those positions is an assistant, honey. Those are never too hard, I assume,” she smiles innocently and you’re quite close to throw the mug at the wall screaming. But before you could react, Harry steps over to you, pulling you in front of him, his arms snaking around your waist from behind as he keeps you tight to his chest.

“Well, it’s not,” he speaks up calmly. “I usually work on at least three projects at the same time and Y/N is the person who keeps it all together. If it wasn’t for her, my career would be literally over. And beside all that, she is tour manager, she stays in contact with about a hundred people on the daily basis and she makes sure everything goes as smooth as possible. I can assure you that Y/N works harder than anyone and I’m so grateful for her, every day.”

Everyone in the room is stunned from Harry’s little speech and you have to blink a few times before you can even move. Harry just smiles around before his eyes fall on you and he simply kisses your cheek before his arms fall from around your waist and he moves to pour himself some coffee.

Your mom just mumbles something that resembles a sorry before she is called away, your aunts leaving as well so it’s just you and Harry left in the kitchen for a few minutes.

“Hey,” you softly say, standing next to him as he is sitting at the kitchen island. “Thanks for… standing up for me.”

“Just told them the truth,” he smiles at you, his hand finding yours on the counter, squeezing it gently. “I hope you do know that you’re amazing at what you do, keeping everything together. I’m sorry your mom doesn’t see how huge it is.”

“Nothing is serious to her other than being a lawyer or a doctor,” you scoff rolling your eyes.

“She has pretty high standards,” he chuckles softly. “But if that makes a change… I’m really proud of you, Y/N.”

“Thanks,” you breathe out. If only he knew how much that means to you…

Somehow you survive the first part of the day without breaking down fully and it has a lot to do with Harry on your side. Every time one of your aunts or your mom or one of your nosy cousins comments on something about you, he swoops right in and not only stands up for you, but he always makes sure to keep you grounded and calm, touching you in any way he could. A hand on your arm or back, sweet and tiny glances and smiles, an arm curled around your shoulders or waist, he’s been really good at this pretending and if you didn’t know better you’d think that he is doing all of this for real.

Sometime after lunch you get caught up in a raging game of Scrabble and you lose track of Harry. When Uncle Thomas wins the third round, using words you all think are made up but he proves over and over again that they aren’t, you leave the table to look for Harry and make sure your family hasn’t wrecked him.

Walking upstairs you hear his voice coming from your room and as you get closer you realize that he is not alone, Leila is in there with him. As you appear at the door their conversation comes to an abrupt stop and Harry jumps to his feet as if he was just caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

“Hey, everything alright in here?” you ask, eyes switching between the two of them.

“Of course, we just had a little talk,” Leila smiles at you sweetly, standing up from the edge of the bed. You catch them share a look and your stomach drops, something is going on, but you have no idea what it is and it seems like they are keen to keep it away from you. In the matter of just a few seconds, your anxiety and darkest thoughts take over your mind and you come to the worst possible conclusion.

What if Harry is into your sister? He kept in touch with her all this time and now they are sneaking away from the rest of the family, this looks awfully upsetting, but you can’t let your mask fall.

“Hey, do you maybe want to take a walk?” Harry asks stepping closer to you, but this one time you want to keep some distance between the two of you.

“Um, I’m not feeling too good.”

“Oh, what’s wrong?”

“Just… I think I’m gonna take a quick nap, if that’s alright,” you mumble.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Leila asks, worry lacing through her voice and you just nod, forcing out a smile.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

She leaves so you can have some peace and you get to bed, pulling the covers over yourself, realizing that Harry is still in the room. He comes to sit on the edge of the bed next to you, brushing your hair out of your hair with a soft touch and it churns your stomach.

“Do you need anything?”

“No, I’ll just rest a bit. I promise I’ll be fine,” you smile at him and he doesn’t seem convinced, but nods anyway and leaves, closing the door behind him.

You’ve done this before, got yourself over the fact that you’ll never have a chance at Harry. But this time it hurts even more, because you got a glimpse of what it would be like if he was yours and now your heart is breaking more than ever.

An hour later when you wake up you feel a tad bit better or at least good enough to get back to pretending. While you were out, Harry befriended the younger ones in the house and as you get downstairs you find him in the living room, focused on a coloring book, all the other kids doing the same thing around the coffee table. When he spots you, he abandons his work and he is quick to get to his feet and rush over to you.

“Hey, how are you feeling? Any better?” His hand moves to check your forehead in case you have a fever, but physically you’re alright.

“Yeah, I’m better,” you smile at him and he pulls you into a hug, pressing a kiss to the side of your head.

For some reason, Harry doesn’t leave your side from that moment. He is just always around you, watching you like a hawk.

Dinner finally comes and you all gather around the table, naturally, you sit next to Harry and he keeps putting an arm onto the back of your chair as you both try to keep up with the conversation at the table.

“So when are you guys getting married?” You hear your cousin, Penelope ask and you don’t even look up, assuming the question was addressed to your sister, but the silence grabs your attention and when you raise your gaze you realize that she asked you.

“I’m sorry, what?” you chuckle nervously. “We’ve been dating for just a few months, P. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come on, I’m sure you want to tie this dude down as fast as possible!” she jokes, more people joining in on the laughing while you just grit your teeth. Harry’s hand moves to your knee under the table and he gives it a gentle squeeze before handling the situation.

“We’re not in a rush. Got all the time in the world, right, love?”

The way he called you love has turned you into jelly and you can barely manage to hum an answer as he smiles at you warmly. God, you’re so gone for the man, it’s ridiculous.

“Y/N, would you please bring in the tiramisu from the fridge?” your mother asks and you nod, standing from the table, but Harry moves with you at the same time.

“Let me help.”

You don’t protest, just let him follow you into the kitchen, grabbing the two massive boxes filled with the dessert before heading back, but right as you cross the archway of the kitchen your grandma speaks up.

“Hold on! Stop right there!”

You freeze, Harry right beside you as you stare back at your grandma with a puzzled look, but she just smirks back at you and it’s giving you a sinister feeling.

“Look up, darling!” she tells you and you do just that, finding a mistletoe hanging right above you, your stomach dropping instantly.

“Grandma, come on!” you groan, anxiety rising in your gut.

“I’m not the one making the rules!” she chuckles sweetly and it’s infuriating that you still can’t be mad at her, when she is forcing you into your most awkward situation ever. You dare to glance at Harry just for a second, seeing him with a blank expression, nothing can be read from his face.

“It’s just a silly thing, we’re not gonna…”

“If it’s just a silly thing, then get over with it and you can come back to the table!” she pushes and you have to bite into your bottom lip to stop yourself from a remark.

This is it. This is the moment where you’ll just die from embarrassment, because you’re sure Harry will not go through with it, that would be way over the lines and also, it would be stupid of you to think he would ever be okay with it. So you start thinking about a way to get out of this, but you don’t get far.

Because the next second, Harry’s hand cups your face, he turns your head, angling your head for him before his lips press onto yours.

A round of gasps and exciting murmuring washes over the room, but you shut it all out, only focusing on how Harry’s lips are gently sucking on your bottom lip, kissing you for the first time ever. It doesn’t end in just a few seconds, because when his lips let go of yours he goes right back again, kissing you a little more confidently and this time you return it as well, deepening it just a tiny bit. Your free hand moves up his chest to the base of his neck as you try to wrap your head around what’s truly happening, though it surely feels like a dream. One you’ve already had several times, but none of them were as good as this one.

“Get a room!” one of your cousins laughs, her voice bringing you back to reality, so you pull back, shock plastered all over your face and Harry seems to be mirroring the expression as he stares back at you. But a moment later you force a smile on your face, not wanting to draw any attention.

The two of you walk back to the table, place the tiramisu to the two ends and take your previous seats as the conversation carries on while you sit there in total disbelief that you just kissed Harry under a damn mistletoe.

Well, technically he kissed you and that just makes you even more anxious, not knowing what went down in his head before he made the decision. You have absolutely no idea how you’re gonna move on from this.

Later, when most of your family has left, only those are still around who are spending the night, some of you move to the sunroom again with some wine and leftover for the hungry men. It’s Leila, Stan, Harry and you, two of your cousins, one of your uncles and his wife occupying the beat-up couches your mom has moved to the room a few years ago. This time you’re having some of that wine as well, the conversation is going well and since there’s not that much space, you’re pushed up against Harry’s side while he has an arm curled around your shoulders. Ever since that kiss under the mistletoe something has changed, you can feel it in not just him but yourself too, but you don’t know yet what it really is and you’re a bit scared to face him alone in bed tonight. But for now, you’re just enjoying having him close to you.

Excusing yourself you take a quick trip to the bathroom, fixing your smudged mascara in the mirror before heading back. Just as you near the room you stop, seeing Harry and Leila in a seemingly confidential conversation in there, they are leant closer, pulling themselves a bit away from the rest of the group and your throat closes up at the sight of them. After the kiss you were way too busy to think about what you suspected before about Harry and Leila, but now it hits you like a train.

You should have expected it, Leila was always better than you in every possible way, you were always just a shadow of what she was. When you were a senior and she was a freshman in high school, you remember some of the boys in your class coming up to you, asking if you could introduce them to her. She was always the first one men noticed, the stunning and the pretty sister out of the two of you, why would it have been different with Harry?

With trembling lips you turn around and decide to take a few more minutes alone before returning. Making your way into the empty living room you sit down in the dark to the couch, the only light source is the Christmas tree in the corner, painting the room in a red and yellow hue. You pull your knees up to your chest and try your best not to let the tears spill out of your eyes, but it’s hard to control your emotions after everything that happened in the past two days.

You get sucked into your own dark thoughts and doubts so much that you don’t even hear someone else coming in.

“Y/N?” Your head snaps up at the sound of Harry’s voice and you spot him slowly approaching you on the couch with a worried look on his face. “What are you doing here alone?” he softly asks, sitting down next to you.

“Yeah, I just… I needed a minute. Why did you come inside?”

“Because you’ve been gone for like fifteen minutes, I was worried about you. Is everything alright?” Reaching out his hand falls on your knee and he gives it a gentle squeeze, as if he is saying that he is here and listening.

“Sure. I’ll be out in a second. You just… go back and enjoy the evening, don’t worry about me.”

“Y/N, I always worry about you and you seemed a little shaken up all day.”

“Nothing is wrong, Harry. Just go back, Leila must be looking for you.”

You couldn’t help the petty, bitter comment and you can tell that it took him by surprise as well. But it’s been bottling up inside you all day and it slipped your mouth.

“Why would she?”

“Harry, I’m not blind,” you chuckle bitterly. “It’s not a surprise you like her, but I hope you know she is a risky business since she is engaged.”

“Excuse me?” he huffs in disbelief. “Are you implying that I’m into your sister?”

“It’s pretty obvious,” you mumble under your breath. “You kept in touch with her, talked to her on the phone even before we came here… And when I found the two of you in my room earlier? That seemed pretty intimate.” Your cheeks are burning, but hopefully the dim lighting is hiding your embarrassment that you even have to talk about it.

“That’s… You got the whole thing wrong, Y/N, let me explain.”

“You don’t need to explain your feelings for her, I get it, I’m used to it, it’s totally fine.”

“Would you shut up for a minute and let me talk?” he laughs amused and you finally close your mouth, giving him the chance to talk. “I did keep in touch with Leila but not to the extent you think and most of the time she was just asking if you were doing alright because you haven’t answered her texts. I called her before coming here because it felt odd to come here without telling here, that’s all. Sure, I like her, she is a nice girl but… I assure you that I have no feelings for her or whatsoever. When you caught us in your room…”

He takes a deep breath, like he is getting ready for some kind of announcement and you’re holding your breath, staring back at him intently.

“She figured out that we are not dating.”

“What?” you ask, all blood rushing out of your face.

“Yeah, she saw right through us. But she also saw through me,” he admits clearing his throat. “She wanted to talk to me because… okay, I’ll just say it. She asked if I’m into you, because it seems like that and I told her that I am.”

Your stomach drops, eyes widen and your lips part at his words and it feels like you’ve just entered a parallel universe, because there’s no way Harry just admitted that he is into you.

“I told her that I’ve been in love with you for probably as long as I’ve known you and she urged me to tell you, because she thinks you feel the same way. Then you came up and I suggested to go on a walk because I wanted to tell you, but you didn’t feel good, so I just… dropped it.”

He rubs his face in his hands, letting out a long sigh as he leans back and stares in front of him for a moment before he continues.

“Then that kiss happened at dinner…” A tiny smile tugs on his lips and your heart is fluttering in your chest. “That wasn’t how I imagined our first kiss happening, forced by your grandma in front of your whole family, but… It didn’t matter, I was seeing stars, Y/N. Fucking stars and it was just a kiss!” He lets out an amused chuckle and you can’t help but smile as you listen to him intently, a feeling in the back of your mind still bugging you that it’s just a fever dream. “Leila has been bugging me to tell you all day, but I just couldn’t find the right moment and this is not that either I’m pretty sure about that, but…” He turns to you and reaching out he tugs a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I don’t care anymore.”

There’s a few seconds of silence of the two of you just staring at each other, letting everything sink in and you have no idea what to do or say next.

“I literally just admitted to you that I’m in love with you and you haven’t said a word, Y/N. I’m starting to worry,” Harry speaks up chuckling and you can’t help the grin plastering across your face.

“I think that my jealousy scene was pretty obvious,” you mumble back and Harry reaches out, cupping your face in his palm, making you melt into his touch.

“I can’t believe you thought I was into your sister who is engaged!” he chuckles and you shoot him a narrow-eyed look.

“Hey! You acted suspicious! And you can’t blame me, my sister always came before me in everything.”

“Not for me,” he hums and you could cry from his words as he scoots closer, his hands grabbing a hold of your legs as he pulls them across his lap, his palms resting on your thighs. “You’ve always been my number one.”

“Always?” you ask in a whisper, your faces getting closer with each passing second and your hands find their way to the base of his neck, your noses bumping against each other.

“From day one, I told you,” he smirks at you cheekily. “Are you gonna say something to my confession or you’ll leave me hanging?”

“Your ego could use some humbling,” you tease him, though your heart is about to jump out of your ribcage.

“Not the time for that, baby,” he warns you playfully before he finally leans in, closing the distance between your lips, kissing you for the second time today.

It’s similar to the one you shared during dinner, but somehow different. There’s no anxiety and guessing about what it means or how the other is perceiving it, because it’s clearer than daylight.

Your hands cup his cheeks and he grasps your waist, pulling and positioning you until you’re straddling his lap and you can’t help the moan that slips through your lips, right into his mouth when your chest presses up against his. His kisses are slow but demanding and deep, he is taking his time savoring the moment, doing everything he couldn’t when your family was watching you with curious eyes earlier.

His lips move softly against yours, sucking and tugging on yours, tongues and teeth clashing, it’s a bit messy, but you don’t mind it. It’s perfect.

“Where did they—Oh!” Leila’s voice breaks the moment as she walks in, quickly stopping when she sees the two of you tangled up on the couch. You pull back, trying to pretend like you weren’t just making out on the couch like teenagers.

“Hi Leila,” Harry smirks as you hide your face in the crook of his neck, still sitting on his lap.

“Didn’t mean to disturb the lovebirds,” she grins widely, knowing exactly what she just walked into. “I wasn’t even here!” she calls out, going back to the sunroom.

“I think we got busted,” Harry murmurs, his fingers carding through your hair.

“We did. And she’ll tease me about it forever!” you groan, lifting your head. “We’ll never live this down, getting together after pretending to be dating.”

“Don’t care, would do it all over again,” he smirks pleased, eyes wandering down to your lips over and over again.

“This feels like a shitty Netflix Christmas movie,” you chuckle and leaning closer you wrap your arms around his neck, pecking his lips shortly.

“Shitty?” he gasps dramatically. “You’re talking about our relationship!”

“We have one?” you tease him.

“Of course,” he grins back. “Your last one.”

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