#sorry he’s just so puppy coded sometimes and I’m always thinking ‘he’s so happy here. if only he could wag his tail to show it :(‘

[peapod20001]

Ohfgh Mason with a tail..

[boldlyvoid]

Of Quartz I Will

Amethyst You So Much✨ Part 2: Of Quartz I Will

Summary: after 2 years of dating, Spencer decides it's finally time to get Y/N something to match her Amethyst bracelet.

Warnings: fluff, gun violence, shooting tw, Reid's season 5 knee injury, hurt/comfort, emotional smut, body massage, hand jobs, riding, penetrative sex.

word count: 6K

Spencer notices her as she walks in, through the briefing room window, she’s wearing his purple shirt. He wanted to wear that for work today but couldn’t find it anywhere, now he knows why.

“Excuse me,” he says to his group of teammates as they contribute reading case files.

“Hey,” Spencer grabs her attention from the railing beside the briefing room. “I’ve been looking for that shirt everywhere.”

“It’s mine now,” she smiles, setting her things down at her desk for the night. “I’ll buy you a new purple dress shirt.”

“Buy yourself one, I like that one,” he whines.

“Finders keepers, doctor Reid. Either stop leaving your shit on my bedroom floor or move in already.”

Everyone hears it. All eyes are on them as they bicker in the middle of the bullpen, including the team of profilers just beyond the window.

“Okay,” he agrees. “We’ll talk about this later.”

She climbs the stairs quickly, giving him a good morning hug even though it was 9pm. “I love you, that’s why I’m wearing your shirt.”

He smiles against her shoulder as he holds her, “I love you, more so in my shirt.”

When he sits back down at his chair at the round table, everyone is waiting with a raised brow. They want details, they want his opinion, they want to hear him stutter and see him blush like he used to. But he doesn’t.

“Yes, I will be moving in with her. We have people to save,” Spencer reminded them. Avoiding eye contact and flipping through the files.

Derek tugs on his amethyst bracelet, he hasn’t taken it off since he got it, almost 2 years ago. “Are you ever going to get her any other jewellery?”

“When she goes home I’ll show you,” he whispers, still avoiding eye contact as they all gasp. “Keep it cool or I will kill you.”

He keeps an eye on her at her desk, smiling when she looks up to see him. She blows him a kiss and waves softly a few times, but other than that, they don’t talk for the rest of the day.

—

The next time She sees him, he’s in her bed sound asleep as she’s coming home from work. She sits on the edge of the bed and brushes his hair away from his face to wake him up gently, he blinks into the morning sunlight to see her.

“Good morning,” he smiles.

She’s in his pink shirt today. She liked to keep something of his close on bad cases that take him out of town. In this case, out of the country. He was in Canada for a few days, the case was horrific and she had to deal with all the office work in Penelope’s absence.

“Amethyst,” she whispers, it was part of their secret code.

Spencer, being a cunning linguist, he loved anagrams.

They had Amethyst for I miss you, Quartz for of course, and Olive for I love you. It was easier to keep the PDA to a minimum at work, not wanting to sit in a seminar like Derek and Penny about sexual misconduct and hostile work environments.

“Olive,” Spencer replies, pulling her down into the bed so she can cuddle in.

“We can’t stay, there’s another case. JJ told me to bring you in on my way home,” she explains softly. “They need you to go to ER Doctor Barton’s house, in McLean, he got a note saying someone was going to kill his son. So far they’ve also connected him to a few surrogate kills of Hispanic men, they need the speed reader to go through all his recent surgeries.”

He sighs, holding her tightly and snuggling in against her back, “no.”

She laughs, “Spencer, you can read really fast and the faster you read the faster you can come home to me.”

“Fine,” she has perfect logic, he always tells her that. “Are you driving me to the guy's house?”

“Yep, so we can stop for coffee and talk in the car, I really did miss you a lot,” she struggles out of his grasp to turn and face him, opting to hold his face in her hands as she looks at him. He’s exhausted, just like her.

“I missed you too, I’m sorry I was gone so long,” his voice is barely a whisper, “We should take a day off together soon.”

“Yeah,” she smiles wider, completely in love with him. “I’d really like that, maybe we can look at apartments?”

“Apartments?” He repeats the word with a grin, raising his eyebrow softly. “I thought you liked it here?”

“It’s too small, I want to get a cat, if you’re bringing your closet here we’re going to need a bigger one,” she ranted. “And actually, I was thinking if you’re on the same page as me and this is a long-term thing for you too, what if we just got a bigger place and got a mortgage and start a little life outside the FBI, together?”

He’s so in love with her, “get my bag?” Is all he can say.

“What?” She’s so confused, shaking her head softly as she comprehends it.

“On the floor there, grab my bag, please there’s something for you in there,” he points behind her, trapped under her and the blanker so it’s not like he could get it himself.

She gets up, placing the bag on the bed for him as she watches him dig through it for a little box. “Arminius helped me pick this out.”

He had become best friends with the owner of the rock shop, she wasn’t surprised to hear that he had gotten something else from there for him. It made her giggle with excitement, bouncing softly as Spencer sat up and moved his bag out of the way.

But then he got out of bed, he’s in a pair of purple boxers and his hair is a mess and he’s so nervous and she has no idea why until he gets down on one knee.

“I was waiting to do this.”

“Holy shit.”

He nods with a shaky laugh, “yeah, I’m in it long term if you are?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to drive you to work now?” She laughs, unable to stop smiling as the two of them stare hopelessly at each other. She hasn’t even looked at the ring yet, too occupied with the wonderfully happy look on his face.

“Quartz,” is all she can say, flabbergasted as she keeps laughing with a shocked smile.

He takes it from the box and she watches as he slides the most beautiful purple Amethyst ring over her ring finger and then her hands are back on his cheeks. Pulling him into a kiss, she can’t seem to hold him close enough as she breathes in. Holding her breath as she keeps him there.

He pulls away with a laugh, “when are we supposed to be there?”

“Now.”

“Damn,” they’re all giggles.

And it doesn’t stop, she takes off Spencer’s shirt and he puts it on instead, matching it with a vest and a tie while she makes him a coffee and can’t stop smiling as she glances at the ring.

It really only made sense for their engagement to happen in the same place she fell in love with him.

Sure, she liked him a lot when he was getting her rocks and she really wanted to get to know him more after his last note, but it was the bracelet that made her fall in love. He went out of his way to make her smile on what felt like the worst day of her life, and she knew she wanted forever with him from then on out. Now she was going to get it, she was going to be Agent Y/N Reid, and her ring was absolutely perfect.

He catches her taking photos of it in the sunshine when he comes out of the bedroom. She still can’t stop smiling, it’s just so perfect and she’s just so in love with him.

They get muffins from the bakery under her apartment before getting in her car, “where is it?” Spencer asks, playing the role of GPS whenever they drove together.

“120 Kensington Road, McLean Virginia,” she members it clearly.

“Take a right,” Spencer smiles, and she’s off.

She drives with one hand, looking at her ring almost more than the road as Spencer held her other one. She pulled up to the Doctor’s house and he didn’t want to leave. Sighing, he looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

“I will see you when you get home, I’m going to call out after this case is done and you get mandatory 24 hours off for back-to-back cases,” she said, knowing protocol almost better than him. “Go to work.”

“Fine,” he frowns again, getting out of the car and walking around to her door. She rolls the window down and tilts her chin up, leaning out for the kiss he’s waiting to give her.

“Let me know when you’re done, I can come and pick you back up,” she whispers against his lips between kisses.

One last smooch and he pulls away, backing up so he isn’t tempted to stay any longer, “olive.”

“Olive,” she replies with a smile, waving slightly before he disappears behind the door.

She releases a long sigh, melting into the chair as she lets the butterflies swarm around a bit in her stomach, it felt wonderful.

She went home, napped from 10 till 2 and then sat in bed to stare at her beautiful ring for a little while. She couldn’t believe he proposed just like that. All she asked was if he wanted to get a mortgage on a house and she guesses he heard "spend the rest of your life with me."

Sometimes, when Spencer was on a case in Virginia and too busy to keep her updated, she would turn on the police radio and listen to what was going on around in the area. It was good to keep her mind preoccupied and to remind herself that he was safe.

At least that’s what it used to do.

“Shots fired at 120 Kensington Road, McLean Virginia, 10-999, 11-41, all units in the area are requested.”

“10-999, officer down, 11-41, send ambulances,” she whispers to herself, remembering all the dispatch lingo from the office.

She doesn’t have time to panic, she unlocks her safe and grabs her gun, loading it and then she’s out the door, in her car and pulling up behind the sheriff's car as she’s running out.

She tosses her badge up to show the cops as she tries to run onto the scene, “I’m an FBI agent on his team, let me through!”

She slides her knees along the grass, surely ruining her jeans as she dives for him. She places a hand on his bloody knee and looks everywhere else, “are you okay? Are you good? Holy shit, Spence?”

Her breathing is so heavy, she clutches her chest with her left hand and tries to calm down as he looks up at her and they breathe in and out a few times without breaking eye contact. He’s completely fine, there’s just a bullet in his knee, he assures her.

“I’m fine,” he laughs lightly, wincing at the pain as he leans forward to kiss her gently.

She’s there only 2 minutes before Derek, JJ and Rossi are pulling up on the scene. Everyone huddled around them on the grass as the EMTs bandaged his knee up before taking him to the ambulance.

“You need to call Emily,” Spencer speaks over everyone, “something happened to Hotch, I’m fine here with Y/N, just go see him.”

He was always going to be fine with her, that was for sure. She never left his side, except when they took him in for surgery and forced her back into the waiting room. But as soon as he was okay again, his hand was in hers.

—

He was given a month off after his knee surgery, but he still ended up in the office most nights. Becoming more of a night owl than usual as he accompanied his fiancé to her desk and sat beside her as she did her work. It was really nice to spend time with her and not have to do anything.

Of course, he filled his time by going over other case files, things they weren’t able to get to as a team and things that didn’t fit the criteria of the BAU. He made phone calls and sent emails, helping small-town cops make simple connections and doing more good that way.

He sat at her desk, his leg resting over her lap as she made a few phone calls. Handing the background of the cases, filing off invoices and approvals. Dispatching units and requesting files and overrides from other departments. She was amazing.

She hangs up the phone, finally, after 45 minutes of rolling her eyes and sighing as she was transferred from office to office all around America. She places her hand on his leg and absentmindedly runs her hand along his shin, staring off at the desk, silently.

“Are you okay?”

She nods, “do you think you’re healed enough to start looking at places?”

He nods back, “actually, I already found one. Hold on,” he slides his leg off her lap and stands with his crutches, hobbling over to his desk where he looks through his files for a new folder.

When he comes back to her, he places the folder in her hands, “forever homes,” is listed on the tag and he sees her heart melt in her eyes. She opens the folder as he sits down, there are about 15 pages of house and apartment listings printed off.

“When did you do all this?” She whispered, shocked and not wanting to cry at work.

“Before I got shot, I was on the phone with Penelope and I asked her to help me find some, she printed off like 50 and I selected the good ones, but there’s more if you don’t like an-“

“Babe,” she cut the rant short, “I’m sure I’ll love any of them, as long as they come with you.”

He pulls a specific sheet from the pile, “this one is my favourite.”

She can see why, it’s a large, green exterior, Victorian home. There’s a turret and a porch, large windows with a bench seat in the kitchen. A garage, 4 bedrooms, a finished basement, a study and a pretty nice backyard.

“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but Derek said he’s willing to help teach me how to fix some stuff,” Spencer pressed his lips together awkwardly. He really wanted this on.

“Let’s get a Realtor and set up a walk-through,” she agreed, “and we should bring Derek because he’ll know more than most inspectors anyway. I don’t want to get a place with a cracked foundation or a faulty water heater.”

He smiled again, “remember last week when I had that extra appointment?”

She tilted her head, “no, there is no way you’ve already been there to check it out without me.”

“And I put an offer in, but I was waiting for your approval,” he adds, nervous for her to hate it.

“With what money? I thought we were doing this together?” He’s not sure why she’s upset, normally she loves his surprises.

“When I sold my moms house, I invested the money and it’s been gaining interest for years now,” his voice is soft, “I got through college with scholarships and if I was ever down on money I just had to go to one casino and I always leave with two grand, minimum, I promise, I’m really in this for the long run. I know what I'm doing.”

She smiles, picking up the listing and calling the agency. “Hi this is Y/N Y/L/N calling, my fiancé, Doctor Spencer Reid, recently put an offer in on the listing for 247 Chestnut Drive, I’d love to come and see it soon and take some measurements and things. If you could call me back…”

Spencer is so in love with her it hurts. He wants to scream right then and there, like a kettle on a hot stove for too long, he’s bursting at the seams. She hangs up the phone with the best smile he’s ever seen, “I’m going home early, cause I’m sick, care to join me?”

She stands then, putting her hand out for him so he could stand with her help. “Quartz,” he replies, taking her hand and stands, she gathers their things and she clocks out. No one really cared about all her sick days, she did her job well and they wanted the good doctor to be taken care of.

When he finally gets to show her the inside of the house, she is so in love with it. The hardwood is all original, same with the railings, shelves, banisters and countertops. They're all rustic and beautiful, she can’t help but run her finger over everything as she looks around with an open mouth. X

The kitchen cabinets are green, there is a beautiful colourful wallpaper as a backsplash… and it’s completely empty. It was a remodel, some house flippers did it up and didn’t want to stay. It was made more modern, updated appliances and every safety protocol met. It was perfect.

She turned to him with a smile after only 5 minutes of looking, “this is it.”

“Good,” the women showing them around said, “because your offer was approved, with your say so I can get everything started with escrow.”

“Holy shit!” Y/N cheered, jumping a bit and showing off while Spencer just leaned on his crutch. She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek a few times.

“You can start that paperwork,” Spencer smiled, holding her back with his face in the crook of her neck.

—

The hardest part of moving is transporting all of Spencer’s books from one home to another. It's at least 30 boxes of books and Derek will be faxing his chiropractor bill to Spencer within the week.

His office here was huge, floor-to-ceiling oak shelves and green walls, full of all his books and belongings now. It was his own space in the house he shared with his future wife.

It felt crazy to him.

She used to just be the cute girl in the office, he can remember the exact moment he laid eyes on her. She was walking around aimlessly with some files in her hands when he turned around at his desk. She looked lost, overwhelmed and like she was about to have a breakdown.

She looked at him with the same fear he felt on his first day, he took the file from her and knew exactly where it was meant to go. She followed behind him, quiet as a mouse as he placed it in a folder by the wall under a sign that said "Anderson."

He turned with a press-lipped smile and a nod and then they went their separate ways. Silent conversations became their thing, the only time he really heard her voice was when she called him in in the middle of the night or when he heard her on the phone.

Other than that; she smiled when they passed each other, she’d tap her watch when he needed to be doing something Hotch asked for and was preoccupied with something else, she even knew exactly what he was looking for by just observing his chaos. Always able to pull a sheet of paper from the bottom of the stack with ease, and always silently, until that one day she said sorry to him after slamming the phone.

Now he knows that she talks in her sleep, she likes to go over her plans out loud in the shower every morning, and she sings all day long. Be it little tunes, hums, random tongue clicks or whistling, she’s always making noise. His favourite, however, was when sometimes she’d remember something she was trying to remember during a conversation they had, 4 days prior, and she’d scream it out like he knows what she’s thinking every second of every day.

He was in love with her voice, he never wanted to stop hearing it.

He was in love with her face, he never wanted to stop seeing it.

He was in love with her body, he never wanted to stop touching it.

He was in love with her mind, he never wanted to stop exploring it.

All those thoughts rushing to his brain and rushing a new form of butterflies for him. Like anxiety, but happier. Like he couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her. It was anticipation rather than fear.

She really was it for him, and as he unboxed his life into the house they were about to share for the upcoming future, it all became very real. This was how the rest of his forever was going to look with her. All their memories from here on out were going to take place in this house, in these rooms.

When he picked this house, it was just a fun idea, and now he looks at the hardwood floors and thinks about how wet baby feet are going to sound during bath time. He wonders how many times the creaky steps are going to let him know she’s coming up to bed, he wonders what screaming matches and fights and love-making will happen beyond the bedroom door across from his study.

He wonders if she’s going to love him as long as he wants to love her.

He opens his study door then, “Hey, babe?”

“Yeah?” She calls up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Can you come up here?”

She marches up the stairs, still not used to the creaky staircase or the length of stairs she had to climb, soon enough, she’s on the second floor and walking into his study, “what’s up?”

He doesn’t know how to ask, he doesn’t even really know what he wants actually. He just missed her, and she was only just downstairs.

“Can I have a hug?”

It comes out more pathetic than he predicted, cringing at the embarrassment as he shrunk into the couch.

“Quartz,” her voice is soft as she approaches him.

Sitting on the brown leather couch that was once in his apartment, she wraps her arms around him and he holds her back softly.

Resting his head on her shoulder, he just wants to hold her for a while. Eventually, they end up laying down with her on his chest, still holding each other as silent as they were in the beginning.

“I love you,” Spencer whispers against her hair.

She snuggles in more, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder softly, “I love you, too, are you okay?”

He nods softly, “I was just thinking about everything and I wanted to hold you.”

She swoons, “do you remember the first night we cuddled like this?”

He nods again, brushing his chin against her head each time, “it all feels like history repeating like it’s supposed to be this way for us.”

“I like to think so,” she agreed. “I actually think you’re my twin flame.”

He hums, thinking about it, “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

“So soulmates are kind of like mirror souls, they are exactly everything that the other needs and they fill the missing parts for each other." She explains softly and he can already tell where her rant is going.

"I don’t think that’s us because we are too similar; sometimes we butt heads and don’t see eye-to-eye, and you drive me crazy a lot of the time because we have the same anxiety and daddy issues, but it’s also because you do things I think about doing and then I can’t do them because they're done already and they’re my calm down things so then I have nothing to calm down with, like yesterday-“

“Babe,” he whispers, “I know, we finish each other’s sandwiches, that’s what your niece said when she saw us together.”

It makes her smile and he can feel her cheekbone against his chest, “twin flames are what happens when one soul is ripped in half and sent to two bodies. They’re capable of surviving separately, as long as they have the right kindling, but they burn brighter together.”

“People sometimes think fire is living because it consumes and uses energy, requires oxygen, and moves through the environment,” Spencer says softly, “have you ever seen something catch fire on both ends?”

“Yeah, a few times, why?”

“It’s never about burning the item entirely, both fires are only concerned with connecting to each other for mass destruction. They always burn in the strangest patterns, but they always connect first before devouring the victim.”

She sits up to look at him, “are you saying I devoured you?”

“That would be de-flowered,” he teases, “but no, I’m saying it makes sense. We really have been burning through everything to find each other.”

“I cannot believe you just said I de-flowered you before the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said,” she laughs, “and it was a mutual de-flowering, might I remind you.”

“I will never forget,” he coos, leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers.

She pushes him back against the couch, it’s been forever since they’ve really done anything. With moving, Spencer’s recovery, her working nights and sleeping all day. It hasn’t been rewarding in a long time, it’s just been enjoyable.

“No,” he whispers as she starts to trail kisses down his neck. “I’m not having sex on the couch the first time we do it in the house.”

She laughs against his neck, pushing herself off the couch and extending a hand to him, “did the doctor even say you can yet?”

“I can’t do all the work, but I can give a second opinion?” He couldn’t stop the grin on his face as she hauled him to his feet.

“Let me heal you,” she whispers, and he knows exactly what she means.

She lays him down on their bed, on top of the covers with no clothes on as she gathers her things. She closes the blinds, turns on her amber lamp, and lights her candles. But his favourite thing that she adds is the sound therapy… helping the water in his body vibrate at the right frequency to calm him completely. She’s going all out for this one.

Much like the first time.

She’s naked too, both of them completely unfazed by each other’s naked form by now. She sits between his legs with all her chakra stones in her hands and she sets them down on his stomach before arranging them in order where they’re supposed to help on his body.

The Amethyst is just above his head for his crown chakra, touching his scalp gently. He closes his eyes as she places a Lapis Lazuli on his third eye, in the centre of his forehead. An Aquamarine on his throat. Rose Quartz on his heart, Tiger’s Eye on his solar plexus, Pyrite on his belly button and finally, Fire Agate at his core.

He always felt so totally relaxed like this, even the first time she ever laid him down like this. He was so calm, he knew he was in good hands and seeing her bless the room made him feel even better.

“Only good may enter here,” the words she repeats every full moon when she opens the windows and blessed the whole house. Keeping them safe, happy, healthy and loved.

She kissed the scar on his knee, causing him to open his one eye to see her. She was laying between his legs now, head resting on his hip as she lightly ran her fingers over his knee, ticking the skin where he finally had feeling again. It took forever for the numbness to go away, even longer for the pain. But she was so patient with him the whole time, taking the best care of him.

She doesn’t mind that he’s hard, she’s very close to his dick as it rests on his stomach beside the crystal.

She kisses his hip, inching each kiss over until she’s pressing one right to the shaft of his dick and he takes a deep breath. Knowing she’ll stop if he forgets how to do the breathing exercises she showed him. He wasn’t allowed to tense his body, this was about pleasure and there was no rush.

For either of them.

He’s done this for her a few times over the years too, just as slow and sensual as she was being. It was calming, rewarding, they bonded with each other and really felt like one being this way.

He heard a cap open, but he was so used to it by now that it filled him with contentment rather than excitement. He remembers the first time she said she wanted to do this, getting some skin-safe, homemade, vegan massage lube and almost turning inside out with how awkward she was asking to do this for their first time.

She sat on her knees between his legs with a small bounce as she got excited about her favourite part. She sat with the bottle resting between her thighs, warming up while she ran some of it over her hands. She massaged his thighs first, getting all the knots and making sure there was no “Charlie's on any horses”, the first time she said that he almost cried laughing and ruined the mood for a little.

She took the rocks off him then, sitting more on his hips as she drizzled the warm oil on his chest. He let his hands rest on her knees, wanting to feel her skin while she felt his. Her hands felt like magic, running over his chest, arms and shoulders like this was her job. She knew every crook, every cranny, every pressure point and soft tissue on him. His body was just as much her’s now.

It's when she presses her body flat against his that he knows the mood is changing. Her breasts are flat against his chest, her hands are behind his head as she looks down at him, her groin pressed right against him as he aches for contact, grinding up into her slowly as she stares into his eyes.

“Better?” She whispered with a small smile, already feeling how much calmer he was, she just wanted confirmation.

“Much,” he’s just as quiet in his reply. “If I don’t bend that knee, it’ll be fine.”

“I don’t mind doing all the work, baby,” she kisses him quickly, “I know you like it more like this anyway.”

She slithers down his body then, his body slick with oil as she easily glides down and creating the most wonderful amount of friction with him. He groans, tossing his head back against the Amethyst on his scalp.

She sits on his good thigh, avoiding pressure with his bad knee like he was an old man now. She makes contact with the only part she didn’t message, adding more of the massage lube to her hand before lazily jerking him off. He keeps a hand on her thigh, groping and managing her right back as she kept a perfect rhythm.

She occasionally grinds against his thigh, mostly when he moans and groans. Extremely turned on by him having a good time, proud of herself for relaxing him, always complaining that he was too tense, she really knew how to release the pressure.

Just as she gets into it, the calming sounds of rain and high-pitched frequencies come to an end… Rhiannon starts playing and he literally watches her come alive; changing her rhythm to match the beat as she starts to grind against him more, she only added his song to the queue, somehow an hour had passed and her music was resuming.

And when Spencer said she was eclectic, he meant she could go from listening to a rare Canadian band called the Tragically Hip, to Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Evanescence and back to Fleetwood Mac. He had no idea where the mood was about to go.

He moved his hand up her thigh as he tried to power through the pleasure, her hand was so amazing he was bubbling away under his skin. He manages to get his middle finger between his leg and her, massaging her clit as she bucked her hips down on him.

Mutual pleasure in any sense was enough for them, seeing the other being perfectly content after everything they went through; it was euphoric. She leans up then and kisses him desperately, unable to stop stroking him as she sucked his tongue into her mouth.

She smiles against his mouth as the song changes again, it’s the song from the ending of Dirty Dancing, he knows how much she loves that movie. Her kisses get softer, she’s so gentle as she strokes him just a few more times before throwing a leg over his hips and lowering herself onto him in one go. Bottoming out faster than before, both of them making the same moan as they curled forward for each other, mouths clashing as they held onto each other.

Grinding together, Spencer kept a hand on her to help her ride as she was preoccupied with her hands in his hair and kissing his neck as they moved in tandem. It was so good, he was incredibly close but he wanted to hold off as long as possible to feel her finish first.

His ultimate pleasure was knowing she was pleasured, he massaged her clit once more between their bodies and she shuttered, “right there,” her words are small as she kisses under his ear, tugging his hair softly as he moans so she can lick at his neck as she moves her hips up and down, gloriously.

He can’t keep his eyes open, everything is too much and he’s so relaxed; it’s like his body is floating on a cloud as she rides him like they’re actually in heaven. He was really having the time of his life and it made him smile at the end of the whimper he released as she tightened around him suddenly and on purpose.

She moves faster, and so does his wrist as he helps her over the edge first. She’s panting in his ear as she rides him with purpose. She cums with a gasp and then he’s gone, her whole body stuttering as she let out the most relaxed and uncontrollable moan he’s ever heard from her.

His grip on her ass tightens as he holds her hips down, he cums with a gasp and it’s so powerful he passes out.

—

He’s so cute when he sleeps.

She’s got him all cleaned up, everything put away and where it’s supposed to be in their new room. She just lays beside him as she watches him nap, blissed out and relaxed, she doesn’t even care that it’s such a typical guy thing to fall asleep right after.

That was kind of her mission.

He’s been so stressed, he wasn’t going to tell her because he didn’t want his stress to become her stress like it so often did. Feeding off each other like a fire, he really knew how to give a phrase to a feeling. But he was stressed because he was in pain from his knee and no matter how much he lied and said he was fine, she knew he wanted to relieve the pain but he was afraid of even taking a Tylenol.

This is the most relaxed he’s been in months.

She ordered a pizza while he was asleep, it arrived before he woke up too. She sets the pizza box, 2 bottles of pop and a roll of napkins at the end of the bed, gently, before getting back into her spot.

She brushed his hair from his face and kissed the tip of his nose gently, seeing him scrunch his face and swallow before blinking awake. She smiled at him, “Hi, sleepyhead.”

“Hello, beautiful.”

“I ordered pizza,” she whispers.

“Olive,” he replies.

“Well yeah,” it makes her giggle but she has to say it, “I got our regular green olives, mushrooms and extra cheese.”

He laughs too, extra happy after both the sex and his nap. “I love you,” he says the full thing this time.

She presses another kiss to his lips before hauling him into a sitting position, “I love you, too.”

It’s the best night of her life so far.

the house

Taglist: @dreatine for inspiring a part 2 <3

@shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor @blanchardsbk

[atlafan]

Heal - One Shot

a/n: werewolffry is here!! I rewrote this like three different times because supernatural au’s are just not my thing, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I didn’t research anything, I sort of just came up with my own lore, and based some of it off of the show Teen Wolf, but not by much. Feedback and reblogs are super helpful, I can’t wait to know what you think! I have some other Halloween requests, but keep them coming! I’m hoping to post one every week until Halloween. Enjoy! (not proofread)

Warnings: Fluff, a little angst, smut (pegging)

Words: 14.8K

Harry, Niall, and Louis are all werewolves; it was that simple. What wasn’t simple was they were university students, trying to live regular lives. The three of them all came from different families, but these families had truces, so they were allowed to interact. Over the years, hunters had started breaking their codes, and wolf numbers were starting to dwindle, so many families were starting to extend their packs to keep everyone safe.

Harry’s family was probably one of the most important; they were healers. Healers were a rare and special breed of werewolf. They were basically the wizards of their kind. All werewolves had the ability to heal themselves, sure, and they could take the pain away from others, but healers had the ability to fix broken bones, extract bullets and close wounds without stiches, they had herbs and “potions” to help humans when they felt so inclined. They were pure, kind, and empathetic. Anne was the head, the matriarch, and Gemma was next in line. However, Harry, needed to be protected at all costs. Male healers…they were easily persuaded, and often got a little too attached to the people they mated with. The women were much more reserved, careful, so when Harry was in secondary school, and started dating…Anne had Gemma give him a little talk about the birds and the bees.

Now, there were no rules saying that wolves couldn’t date or mate with regular people. Because of the dwindling numbers over the years, many partners were being turned. It was essentially like going through the process of converting religions. There was some studying involved, some promises that needed to be made, and some understandings on both parties’ sides.

The boys had all grown up together, and they all learned how to fight and protect themselves, although, Harry hated fighting. As a healer, he had his qualms about hurting other people. He’d always feel bad if he accidentally hurt one of his trainers, rushing to their side immediately to help them. Louis, once a very free spirit, had become hardened after becoming the leader of his family’s pack. No one blamed him, his immediate family got murdered by hunters. Now all of his cousins and other family members looked to him for guidance. It was why he took a gap year before going to university. He also wanted to wait to be able to go with Harry and Niall. Anne was grateful that Louis would be watching over her son. Niall was great and all, but he could be a proper dolt in his own right. He was a skilled fighter, but that was about all he had going for him.

They were going into their second year, and this year they had a flat all to themselves. Being in the dorms…well, it was nothing short of a disaster. They were in a triple their first year, and that was just not enough space for three young werewolves. Now they all had their own rooms so they could do as they pleased. Harry was excited to start his new semester. There was a girl he enjoyed the scent of that worked at the bookstore café last year, and he hoped she would be returning. She was the only one that made his coffee correctly. Not that Harry was snooty, but he was practically royalty, so he had his moments where he acted a little spoiled. He wasn’t sure how someone could fuck up a small black coffee with a little butter in it, but if it wasn’t her who made it, it was fucked up. She was American, so he had no idea if she had just been studying abroad last semester or not.

As much as he frequented the bookstore café, he didn’t say more than his coffee order to her. It killed him. He wanted to flirt with her, tell her how good she smelled, and god, did she smell good. It’s what drew him into the café in the first place, the scent of honey and vanilla. He didn’t talk to her because he didn’t know her, he didn’t know her family. Anyone Harry dated in secondary school he had known his whole life. He knew if they came from a hunter or not. He wasn’t sure how things worked for werewolves in the states. He had no idea if the codes were different, and anytime he asked his mother about it she just told it was something he didn’t need to worry about. The girl seemed nice enough, but Gemma had explained to Harry long ago that male healers were gullible when it came to the people they wanted to mate with.

That’s not to say Harry didn’t mate…he mated often, but mostly with people he had no mental attachment to. He didn’t like the idea of not having a lot of control over his mind, so he stuck to random hook ups. At first he didn’t believe Gemma when she first explained everything to him once he hit puberty, but when he found himself in the woods one night with a rabbit in his teeth that he had killed for his regular girlfriend, he understood. He dropped it out of his mouth. “She’s not a werewolf, she won’t want that.” Gemma had said as she put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you want to please her, but this isn’t the way.” She had chuckled. His sister had laughed at him. He didn’t want to give her a reason to do that again. Granted, he was fifteen, and in puppy-love, but still.

He had learned to control himself, as did Niall and Louis, when it came to the people he was attracted to. He was cautious and observant, and perhaps would just admire from afar. Much to his delight, and surprise, as he was walking around campus with Niall and Louis before classes started, he saw the girl in the bookstore window helping put out inventory. Harry smiled to himself. Even if he was still too shy to get to know her, he could at least sleep peacefully knowing he’d be getting a decent cup of coffee.

//

Working at the university bookstore was an easy gig. Sure, once in a while Y/N would get a disgruntled student who wasn’t pleased about how expensive a book or a sweatshirt was, but other than that things were pleasant. She loved seeing prospective students and their excited families come in to buy their first piece of memorabilia. The bookstore also house a small café for students to grab some coffee and a pastry, and sometimes they’d stay to do some studying. Sometimes she was behind the bar making drinks, sometimes she’d be working the register, and other times she’d be in the back taking stock.

One of her favorite customers was a boy she barely knew, but had seen around campus plenty. His name was Harry, and he’d order a whipped black coffee with butter every morning. She didn’t work every morning, but any morning she was working, she’d make it for him.  Or, that’s how it was last semester, anyways. She had no idea what year he was, he could have finished school last year for all she knew. Y/N chose to study abroad for the entirety of her college career. She had done some traveling in high school, and loved it. She felt way more independent going to school in England, and way more adult. She and her roommates had their own flat this year, and she was excited to really make the space her own. She was in a cramped dorm last year, so having her own room was a major step up.

It was syllabus week, but she was dreading her Calculus class. It was the last math class she needed, thank god. In her first year she had to take algebra, and then precalc. She was a biology student, so she needed Calculus. It was just a lot to balance with her other major courses. Taking bio, chem, and math classes all at the same time was a pain in the ass. Another pain in the ass was that there weren’t a ton of other girls in her classes. Just awkward boys who thought they were smarter than her. She can’t help her jaw from dropping when she sees Harry walk into the classroom. His eyes scan over his options and then widen when he sees her. He knew he smelt something good. He smirks when he sees her obviously flustered, and he walks over slowly to sit down next to her. He flashes her his award winning, shit eating grin, and takes a notebook out of his backpack. He could feel her heart racing, and he almost felt bad, but her heart did that every time he came into the bookstore café. At first he thought it just did that because she was busy, but he realized soon he just made her nervous. Another reason he didn’t say more than a few words to her, until today that is.

Harry turns slightly to look at her, resting his cheek on his fist. She does a double take and sees he’s looking at her. She furrows her brows at him.

“Sorry, you just look really familiar.” He says. “Don’t mean to stare.” He was trying to play it cool. He didn’t want to seem like a stalker.

“Oh! It’s okay, um, I…I work at the campus bookstore.”

“That’s right! You’re the girl who knows how to make my coffee. I think you’re the only one who works there that can do it right.” He sighs.

“It’s not difficult.” She mumbles. “Maybe it’s just the unusual order that throws the others off.”

“Adding butter to coffee isn’t that unusual.” He rolls his eyes. He was talking to her like they were old friends. Maybe in his mind they were. She blinks at him. “What?”

“Nothing…it’s just, well, this is the most you’ve ever spoken to me.” She blushes slightly and takes a pull from her water bottle.

“I could say the same thing to you, you know?” He smirks.

“I’m not the one with the intimidating eyebrows.” She points at his face. “You’re very serious looking.” She gives him a soft smile to let him know she’s only teasing and he smiles back.

“I’m a bit shy, nothing more to it than that. Promise I’m not some scary monster.” God, the irony could have killed him alone.

“Um, how come you’re in calc one? Like, what’s your major?”

“Art History.” She blinks at him again. “I’m an allied health minor, need stats and calc for that.”

“Oh!” She laughs. “Makes sense.”

“What about you?”

“Biology. This is the last math class I need, thank god.”

“Not a fan of math?”

“It’s not that I’m not, I’m just annoyed. I took calculus in high school, but I didn’t know about the math placement assessment last summer, so I had to start out in college algebra last fall. Big waste of time.” She sighs. “Art History and allied health, that’s an interesting combination.”

“Needed a backup, you know how parents can be.”

Truth be told, Harry would go off to be a doctor if he could, but he’d expose himself no doubt. People would catch on to him working “miracles”. It was the empath in him, he just wanted to help anyone and everyone. His mother allowed him the minor for a couple of reasons. One, to scratch his itch for wanting to help people, and two, to learn more about how the body worked so he could properly heal others.

“I totally get it.” She scoffs.

“What do you want to do with bio?”

“I haven’t quite figured out my specialization yet. I don’t think I want to be a doctor doing surgeries, maybe forensics? Working in a lab, that kind of stuff?”

“That’s noble work.” He smiles and she smiles back. “Are you working at the bookstore again this year?”

“Mhm.” She nods. “Sort of have to if I wanna afford things.” She chuckles.

“Cool, good to know I can still get my coffee how I like it.”

“Is that all I’m good for?”

His eyebrows raise as her lips curl up. Oh, she was flirting with him. He has to suppress every urge in his body to not just yank her out of the classroom and take her home with him.

“We’ll have to see how well you do in this class. You may also be good for tutoring.” He wasn’t bad at math, but maybe he could pretend to be if it meant they could start hanging out.

She rolls her eyes at him and shakes her head.

“I’m Y/N, by the way.” She says as the professor walks in.

“Harry.” He whispers, and the class gets started.

//

Y/N bursts through her door later that day. Her roommates were getting lunch started.

“You’ll never guess what happened in calc! That hot guy that used to come into the café last year is in my class, and he sat next to me! He remembered who I was, and he remembered the way I make his coffee. I swear to god we were flirting, oh my fucking god!” She squeals and her friends giggle.

“Slow down, Y/N.” Talia says to her. “He’s just a guy.”

“But he’s not.” Y/N pouts. “He’s so fucking hot, and he seems really sweet.”

“It’s not a great idea to shit where you eat.” Georgie says. “I hooked up with a guy in one of my classes last year and it was super awkward.”

“Who said I was going to jump into bed with him?” Y/N scoffs. “Maybe I just wanna be his friend.” She shrugs and grabs a cheese stick out of the fridge.

“Mhm, a friend who you’d like to bone.” Talia smirks.

“Well…it’s not like I haven’t thought about it. He’s so handsome…he probably sees lots of girls. Although, I’m pretty sure if he snapped his fingers I’d take my pants off for him.”

All of the girls laugh as they eat. This semester would be interesting to say the least.

//

Harry started chatting up Y/N in class after that first day, and he went to the bookstore café every time she worked. Even if he wasn’t in the mood for a coffee, he’d pretend like he was, but it didn’t go much deeper than that. His life was complex, and he had to be careful about who he brought into it.

As he got older, Harry realized he had the ability to shift completely into a wolf, but only on full moons. All werewolves could do this, they just needed to reach a level of maturity to do so, and it was extremely dangerous because if they stayed like that for too long, it was difficult to shift back. However, Harry enjoyed going out on the full moon and just running around it his heart’s desire. It also served to satisfy many of his primal instincts. He could go out and kill a small animal, eat, and feel zero remorse about it. The catch was you had to be naked before shifting, and you’d shift back naked, so you had to leave yourself clothes. Niall thought it would be funny to steal Harry’s clothes after he shifted back.

It was extremely early in the morning, and Harry was standing in the middle of the woods naked. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, he could just hop from tree to tree, and get back unnoticed, but he found himself in a well-traveled runner’s path. Plus, he was tired from a night out of wolfing it up, so excuse him for not being thrilled with Niall’s prank. He had learned to control his body temperature, so it’s not like he was cold, he was just annoyed. He needed to listen carefully to every little thing. From afar he hears music and someone breathing heavily. Normally he wouldn’t be so phased, but the scent was familiar. Harry freezes when he realized it’s Y/N, so he quickly hides behind a tree. If she was ever going to see him naked it wouldn’t be like this.

Her music wasn’t up terribly loud, she wasn’t an idiot. Running alone early in the morning meant she couldn’t just zone out, no, she needed to be aware of her surroundings. However, it was fall and she was running in a wooded area, so she strips over a hidden tree root. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but it catches her ankle the wrong way, and Harry can feel the ligaments snapping. He winces for her. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Because of the way she twisted as she fell, her head knocked into the stump of the tree, and it knocked her out.

“Shit.” Harry says to himself as he peers at her limp body.

He had a couple of options. He could easily pretend he didn’t see what happened, and continue to get home unnoticed and let someone else find her, or he could go over there, pick her up, and take her to his place to heal her. He goes with the latter, physically not being able to just leave her. He looks around to make sure no one else was coming, and he strolls over to her. He kneels beside her, putting his palm over her forehead to make sure she was really knocked out. He didn’t want to startle her if she woke up. Something about seeing a naked man over your unconscious body…it probably work out well for him. He closes his eyes for a moment, just to take a little of her pain away, then he hoists her up, carrying her bridal style. He takes a deep breath, his eyes glow red, and then he sprints through the trees back to his flat.

“Took you long enough, what did you do, take extra-long to make me feel bad?” Niall says as he opens the front door. His eyes widen when he sees Harry carrying the girl.

“Got a bit side tracked.” He grunts as he walks in.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” He scoffs. “She tripped, and got hurt. I need to take her up to my room to help her. Where’s Lou?”

“He went to the market, we were low on groceries.”

“Good, keep him occupied when he gets back. I don’t think he’d be terribly happy about this.”

Niall nods as Harry carries Y/N up the stairs. He lays her down gentle on his bed, and her eyes flutter open some as he walks to his dresser. She thinks she dreaming because she can faintly see a man’s ass, a perfect ass might she add, and then her eyes rolls back into her head, passing out yet again. Harry grabs some things from his closet, namely a first aid kit. He starts with her ankle. He wraps his large hand around it, taking her pain away. He couldn’t take it all, and he couldn’t fully heal her. That would be too suspicious. He’d need to leave her in a little bit of pain. He heals her ligaments, though, and leaves it to make it feel like she may have just twisted it the wrong way. He wraps a makeshift splint on her for show, and then he moves to her poor head. She had an egg growing out of it, so he takes a deep breath and pops it back in with his thumb. He rubs his palm over her skull to feel around for the potential of a concussion, but he doesn’t feel anything that serious. She’d have a headache at most so he gets up and grabs a water bottle from the case in his closet, and a couple of aspirin from the first aid kit. Since he’s dressed now, and she’s mostly better, he feels like he can wake her up now. He nudges her shoulder gently, and her eyes flutter back open. She flinches when she sees him.

“H-Harry?” She sits up, and winces, grabbing at her ankle. “What’s going on?” She whimpers, and he thinks it’s about the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Her bottom lip slightly jutting out as she assesses herself.

“I was going for a run this morning, uh, the same path you were on I’m assuming, and I saw you trip. You hit your head pretty hard, so I carried you back here, I hope that’s alright.”

“You…you carried me all that way?”

“You’re not exactly heavy.” He mutters, and her cheeks grow red. “Here, uh, do you want some aspirin?”

“Yeah, thanks.” She takes the two pills out of his palm and the water bottle. “My head really hurts.” She looks down at her ankle. “Do you make this splint?”

“I didn’t know if you twisted it or sprained it, so I thought it would be good as a precautionary measure. I think you caught it on a tree root.”

“I’m usually a lot more careful than that…I’m sorry if I troubled you, or ruined your run.”

“You didn’t.” He smiles. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Y/N.”

She gazes at him. Before she can speak his door flies open.

“Harry.” Louis says. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Hey, mate, thanks for knocking.” Harry grits his teeth.

“I need to speak with you and Niall, so take your friend home, now.” He leaves and slams the door shut. Harry sighs heavily and looks at her.

“Sorry about him, he, uh, gets uptight about house rules. Niall probably left the milk out overnight or something.” Harry shrugs. He could feel her worry radiating off her.

“It’s okay…you don’t have to take me home I should be able to make it.” She swings her legs over the side of the bed, and uses his shoulder to help her stand. She winces once her bad foot hits the ground.

“It’s really no problem. I’d feel better knowing you got back okay.”

“You’ve done enough, Harry.” She winces again as she takes a step. Maybe he should have taken more of her pain away. Now he feels guilty.

“I could give you a piggy back ride.” Her eyebrows raise at him. “Would you like that?” He chuckles.

“I…you’d really carry me all the way to my apartment?”

“It’s a flat, darling, we’re not in America.” He rolls his eyes and her face flushes at the term of endearment used so condescendingly. “And yeah, I’d carry you. I bet you’re not even that far away, c’mon.” He wraps his arm around her wrist to get her to stand behind him as he squats. She climbs onto his broad back and he lifts her effortlessly. “Light as a feather, you are. Now, where do you live?” He asks as he takes her out of his room and down the stairs.

“24D…Pine Street.”

“Pine’s barely a block away from here.” He looks over his shoulder and smiles at her on the way out.

“Won’t we look funny like this?” She nearly whispers as he carries her down the street.

“Nah, we probably just look like a proper couple. I’ve got no problem with that…do you?”

“No.” She rests her chin on his shoulder. She inhales some of his cologne and she likes what she smells. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but he just smelled really good to her. “You’re a proper cutie, Harry.”

“Look at you using our slang.” He chuckles. “I am pretty cute, huh?”

“Try being humble, hm?” She nudges the top of his head and it makes him laugh.

His grip on her tightens when they reach the front steps of her flat.

“Hand me your key.”

“I can make it from here.”

“I have to make sure you get inside okay.”

“I will, Harry. I…I’d like to run myself a bath, and I don’t need you there for that.”

“You don’t? Too bad, I’m an excellent bath buddy.”

“Put me down.” She says with a shaky voice, and he smirks. He gently lets her down to her feet and he turns to look at her. “Thank you for being so kind…”

“Do you often run alone?”

“Yeah, my roommates don’t really like it. I don’t blame them, running’s the actual worst, but I don’t really like lifting weights much, so it’s the lesser of two evils for me.”

“Text me sometime, I’d go running with you.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to her.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He smiles. “We could be two proper cuties out running together.”

“Mhm, okay.” She scoffs as she puts her number in his phone and texts herself. She hands it back to him.

“I mean it, you’re very cute.” She rolls her eyes at him. “You are! Especially in calc when your brows are all furrowed when you’re concentrating.” He steps a little closer to her. “You get this very serious pout on your face, it’s adorable.”

“Why…why are you watching me in class, and not paying attention?”

“You’re distracting.” It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t meant to be sexist. He wasn’t a little boy getting a stuffy from a bra strap, but she always smelled so good, and anytime she moved he’d get a fresh whiff of her. She looks down at her tattered sneakers and then back to him. She felt like she could easily get lost in his eyes. “Will you let me know later how you’re feeling?”

“Yes.” He nods at that and starts walks down her steps as she keys into her flat. “Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m…working later if you wanna come by the café.”

He grins at her and turns to keep walking. She takes a deep breath as she gets inside. She had a lot of squealing to do with her roommates.

//

“Tell me again why you thought it would be a good idea to leave Harry, of all people, in the woods naked? I know you’re bored because you’re not allowed to be on the football team, I’m bored too, but that doesn’t mean you can prank him like that.” Louis was scary when he got mad at the boys. He didn’t yell, but you could hear the clear disappointment in his voice, and that was ten times worse. “Well? I’m waiting for an answer, Niall.”

“I guess I wasn’t really thinking.” He mumbles as he sits with Harry on the couch. The two of them looked like little puppies being scolded for shitting on the rug.

“No, you weren’t.” Louis huffs. “And you.” He looks at Harry. “You thought helping a girl, while naked, was an equally good idea?”

“I couldn’t just leave her there!”

“I know you couldn’t.” Louis sighs. “You just shouldn’t have been left alone. We’ve been lucky at this school so far, I’d like to keep things as easy going as they are. You brought a total stranger here.”

“She’s not a total stranger.” Harry mumbles as he twiddles his thumbs. “She’s that girl I’ve been crushing on from the bookstore, and she also happens to be in my calc class…so I know her.”

“We don’t know if she’s harmless or not.” Louis says.

“Looked pretty harmless when Harry carried her in like a limp noodle.” Niall chuckles, and Louis shoots daggers at him, getting him to shut up.

“Did she question anything?” Louis asks.

“No…I didn’t heal her fully so she wouldn’t be suspicious.” He runs a hand through her hair. “I had to help her, she smells to fucking good to not help.”

“You’ve mentioned that a couple of times, but I’m not smelling it.” Niall says. “Smells like any other regular person.”

“It’s because he likes her. You know how it is for us, we really like the way a person smells when we really like them. It proves the attraction.” Louis sits down on the coffee table in front of them.

“And I know she likes me back.” Harry says proudly.

“Yeah? How?” Niall inquires.

“Well, not only did she tell me I was cute, but she gets aroused around me all the time, especially today when I took her home. I could smell it. I’ve been trying to be careful and not act on anything, but I don’t think I can do that anymore.”

“No one ever said you couldn’t date.” Louis says. “You just need to be careful. You know how easily you lot can get attached.”

“I’m fully aware.” Harry rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t be going out into the woods to fetch her a dead rabbit.”

//

Harry started coming by the bookstore even more after that. Y/N had told her friends what happened, that basically Harry was her knight in shining armor. She got excited every time he’d walk into the bookstore. Even if it wasn’t a shift where she was making coffee, she’d make his for him. A flirty friendship had started to form between the two of them. Sometimes he’d come at the end of her shift so he could walk her home, or they’d go grab a bite to eat. She wondered why the most they had done is hold hands, but she didn’t mind that he was taking things slow with her, it was actually a breath of fresh air. And the antics they’d get into in class…he’d pass her notes, actual notes! Sometimes they’d do homework together too. He was slowly swallowing her whole, and she didn’t mind one bit.

“Hello, love.” He says to her as her shift is ending.

“Hi, Harry.” She smiles. “How was your day?”

“Good, better now.” He sighs with a smile and she blushes.

“I just need to take care of some things in the back, and change.”

“Alright, I thought you could come over for a movie tonight. I could order us some food and we can just hang out.”

“I’d like that.” She smiles and goes into the backroom. About ten minutes later she comes out good to go. “Could we watch something with a Halloween vibe? Nothing too scary, of course.”

“Sure.” He loops his arm through hers and she giggles as they leave the bookstore. “You’re into Halloween and all that?”

“Into it? I love it! We decorated our flat yesterday with a ton of Halloween stuff. You’re not a fan?”

“No, I don’t mind it.” He shrugs. “Just think people can get carried away with their costumes sometimes.”

“I agree, some people ruin it for everyone else. I don’t like the scary aspects of it, like, you won’t catch me at a haunted house.”

“Oh, but I’d protect you, Y/N.” He smiles down at her and she blushes.

He gets her inside and he tells her to go up to his room, and to get comfortable. Louis always preferred if they hung out that Harry brought her over, so she was no stranger to their place now. He grabs some menus from the kitchen and meets her upstairs.

“What are you in the mood for?” He asks her. “Chinese, Italian…?” He furrows his brows at the menus as he looks over his options.

“You pick, I’m fine with whatever.” She says.

“Chinese then, do you like dumplings and stuff like that?”

��Yup.”

“Brilliant.” He sits down next to her and grabs his laptop so he can order everything online. He sets it on his desk, and turns his TV on. He sits up against his headboard and so does she. “Here.” He hands her the remote. “You can pick the movie, babe.”

Her heart fluttered every time he called her that. It was just like any other term of endearment, but she still really liked it.

“Hmm…” She flips on Netflix to look over her options. “Oh! What about Teen Wolf, the old one with Michael J. Fox?”

“Uh, that’s a little unrealistic, don’t you think?”

“Well…duh, it’s about a werewolf.” She scoffs. “The whole thing is unrealistic.”

“I just mean, um, oh, look…Hocus Pocus, now that’s a classic.”

“You’re absolutely right. Way better choice.” She hits play and he sighs with relief. “Besides, the show Teen Wolf is way better. I mean, the first two to three seasons were good, and then it just got really bad, but it was still fun.”

“Are you, like, a wolf fanatic or something?”

“No.” She laughs. “It was on MTV when I was younger and it was fun to watch.” She shrugs and looks up at him. “Don’t worry, I think you’re much cuter than the actors on the show.”

“You do, huh?” He puts an arm around her and she cozies up to him. “Good to know.”

She lets her arm fall on his waist as she gets comfortable, and her leg even goes over one of his. It was a proper Netflix & Chill and neither of them had any problem with it. About thirty minutes into the movie, there’s a knock on the door downstairs.

“That’s our food, I’ll be right back.” He pauses the movie and gets up.

“Do you wanna eat downstairs? I’d feel bad about making a mess up here.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s fine.” He chuckles and goes downstairs. He returns shortly with the food. “Alright, I got dumplings, sushi, egg rolls, rice, noodles, and veggies.”

“It smells so good.” She licks her lips and opens the sushi first, popping a piece into her mouth. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“The dumplings.” He mutters as he bites into one.

Eating a dumpling satisfied the more primal side of Harry. It was plump and juicy, like a small animal that he might be ravenous for on a full moon while he’s shifted.

“I like them a lot too.” She takes one and bites into it. She grabs a napkin to dab the corners of her mouth. “Mm, so good.”

“Want some water?”

“Please.”

He grabs her a bottle from the case he keeps in his closet. They eat a bit more while watching the movie, and then Harry puts everything away downstairs so they can go back to cuddling. He pops a piece of gum into his mouth, and offers her some as well.

“We’re gonna have a Halloween party, by the way.” She says to him.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, would you maybe wanna come? Niall and Louis can come too.”

“We usually lay low on Halloween…lot of freaks come out that night, you know?”

“Please?” She pouts. “I have a really cute costume planned, and I want you to see it.”

“What is it?” He blushes.

“I can’t give it away, then you won’t be surprised.” She boops his nose and he smiles.

“I’ll…I’ll ask them to see if they wanna go.”

“Great.” In a bold move she kisses his cheek. His eyes widen as he looks at her.

“C’mere.” He says, and pulls her onto his lap. She straddles him and wraps her arms around his neck. “I like you a lot, you know that, right?” He tucks some hair behind her ear.

“I think so.” She says shyly. “I like you a lot too, Harry.”

“Can I kiss you?”

She nods yes, and he cups her cheek with one of his hands while the other grips her hip. He presses his lips to hers, and her eyes flutter closed. Her hands slide into his hair and he tugs her closer. His fingers dig into the skin between her shirt and pants. Their lips move along each other’s. Her lips were so incredibly soft, he just want to-

“Mmph!” She grunts as he bites down on her bottom lip and sucks on it.

Harry had learned a lot of restraint over the years, so he didn’t need to worry about his teeth growing sharper or his nails growing longer, or even shifting slightly. He just needed to keep his breathing steady. She seems to like what he’s doing because she doesn’t tell him to stop. In fact, she rolls her hips down on his and tugs at his hair harder. She opens her mouth slightly, and he takes it as a signal that he can lick into her. His tongue swirls around hers, and she moans again. Her breasts press against his chest, and she continues to grind against him.

She tugs his head back to get some air and she moves to kiss on his neck. She mouths and licks over the area just under his earlobe, and his hands squeeze at her hips.

“Y/N.” He breathes. “It’s getting late, do you wanna spend the night?” She pauses her actions and nods yes against his neck, causing him to chuckle.

“What, um…” She moves to look at him. “What do you feel like doing? Do you wanna stop?”

“Do you?”

“N-no, but I feel like we should. I really do like you, and I don’t wanna mess anything up by moving too fast.”

“I feel the same way.” He smiles. “Want something of mine to wear to sleep?”

“Yeah.” She smiles. He pecks her lips again before she moves off him.

Harry grabs her a tee shirt and a pair of boxers. He also gets her a spare tooth brush, and off to the bathroom she goes. She gasps when she sees Louis waiting in the hallway when she’s done.

“Spending the night, pet?” He asks her.

“Y-yeah, is that alright?”

“Course it is.” He smiles. “You know you’re welcome here.”

“Thanks, well, goodnight.” She smiles and makes her way back to Harry’s room.

“I knew you’d look cute in my clothes, but wow.” He blushes.

“Oh.” She blushes too. “Thanks.” She looks him up and down. “You’re gonna wear sweats to bed?”

“I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable.” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Don’t be silly, you’ll sweat buckets if you stay like that. Sleep how you normally do.” She says as she slips into his bed.

“Can’t do that…”

“Why not?”

“Because I usually sleep naked.”

“M-maybe just your boxers?”

“You’d be okay with that?” She nods yes at him. “I’m just gonna go use the loo. I’ll be back.” Harry washes up quickly, and then turns the light off when he comes back in. He takes his clothes off, staying in his boxers, and then he gets into bed with Y/N. “Did you let the girls know you’re staying here?”

“Mhm.”

They both slide down and face each other. He slots a leg between hers and rubs at her side and back. Harry really liked being petted on, so he figured other people did too. He never got any complaints, anyways. She sighs slightly and moves closer to him. She nuzzles her face into his chest and she realizes it’s bare. It was pitch black in the room, so she couldn’t see any of his tattoos. He pets on her until she falls asleep. His eyes flutter closed, and he falls asleep holding her.

//

The next morning Y/N wakes up with an immense amount of pressure on her bladder. She was laying on her back, she never slept like that, and she couldn’t physically see Harry. She hears snoring from under the covers, so she pulls the blankets back to see Harry’s head in her lap, and his body wrapped around the rest of hers. It was a little bizarre, but not the weirdest way she had ever woken up with someone. She doesn’t want to startle him so she runs her fingers through his hair and scratches at his head. His hold on her thigh tightens and his eyes flutter open. He looks up at her dreamily, like a puppy, and then he flinches when he realizes his head is in her crotch.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry.” He says as he sits up and knuckles at his eyes. “I have zero idea how I ended up like that.” A lie, but he couldn’t very well tell her the truth.

“It’s okay! I just really need to pee.” She giggles and climbs over him to get up. “Be back in a second.”

Harry takes a deep, and gets dressed in some joggers and a sweatshirt as he waits for her. She comes back in, feeling much fresher, and smiles at him. Harry uses the bathroom next and walks in on her just getting her clothes back on.

“Do you mind if I keep the boxers?” She says as she zips up her jeans. “Men’s underwear is so much more comfortable.”

“Consider them yours.” He smiles and wraps his arms around her waist. She presses her hands to his chest. “I’m glad you stayed over. Can I make you breakfast?”

“I’d like that, but I have to get back to my place so I can shower before my shift in a couple of hours.” She bites her bottom lip. “But another time for sure.”

Harry nods, and walks her down the stairs to the front door. She kisses him goodbye, and he watches her walk away. He desperately wanted to go to her Halloween party, but he knew it would be tough convincing Louis.

“Hey.” Harry stands in Louis’ bedroom doorway.

“How was your night?”

“Good, Y/N just left.” Louis nods at that. “She invited us all to a party at the end of the month.” He mumbles.

“Oh, yeah? That was nice of her. When exactly?”

“Halloween.”

“Very funny.”

“C’mon, Lou, what better night of the year to blend in.”

“The hunters could be feeling the same exact way, Harry!”

“It’s not like we’d be party hopping.” Harry whines. “We could go, make an appearance, and then leave.”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Niall chimes in as he heard the conversation. “We could wear costumes that have masks or face coverings so we’re not as obvious.”

“What do you propose?” Louis asks. “The three fucking musketeers? The Justice League?”

“Well, we’d all look fabulous in spandex, so I’d be cool with that.” Harry smirks.

“No.” Louis shakes his head. “I’ll need to be able to see your faces. I’ll go as David Beckham.”

“Wait, you’re serious….we can go?!” Harry asks excitedly.

“We could use some fun.” Louis sighs. “And I know you really like this girl, and we’ve all started to trust her. She’s no threat. We can go for an hour, at the beginning of the night, and then we’re out of there.”

“Thank you!” Harry throws his arms around his friend. “I can’t wait to tell her.”

“Is she your girlfriend now?” Niall asks.

“I don’t know what we are. We only made out last night, I didn’t wanna take it too far in case I lost control. I didn’t think I would, but I could tell I was really fighting to keep my teeth from shifting. She smells so fucking good, I woke up with my head in her lap.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I feel really comfortable around her, you know?”

“Could you not be so stereotypical?” Louis smirks.

“Yeah, it’s literally puppy love.” Niall chuckles.

“Don’t make fun of me.” Harry pouts. “She doesn’t know that I know, but she sprinkles a little cinnamon into my coffee, literally giving me a treat. I’ll gladly be her puppy.”

//

Louis dresses as David Beckham, Niall dresses as a basketball player, and Harry dresses as Zorro, but without the mask, Louis wouldn’t let him. They all walk in, and plenty of people are there already. Harry scans the room and his jaw drops. Y/N was standing in front of a tapestry on the wall taking pictures with her roommates. The three of them were dressed like bunnies, classic 1960’s playboy bunnies. His mouth waters, she looked good enough to eat.

“How nice of her to dress as your favorite snack.” Louis nudges him. “Have fun.”

Y/N giggles as she looks at that photos. She turns in Harry’s direction and beams at him. They make their way to each other through the crowd of people.

“You made it!” She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, leaving a nice, red lipstick mark behind. “You look so hot like this.” She looks him up and down. “Doesn’t Zorro wear a mask?”

“Lou wanted to be able to find me easily.” He smiles nervously. “And…if anyone looks hot it’s you, I…this is the last thing I’d expect you to be wearing.”

“They were on sale at the costume store.” She blushes. “And the accessories were easy enough to find. We figured it would be fine to dress a little skimpier since we’re not leaving here.”

He circles around her, like he was checking out his prey, and he nearly loses it at the sight of the cotton tail at the base of her spine, never mind how perfect her ass looks with the nylons she’s wearing. He thinks of the thong she must be wearing.

“You’re not even revealing that much.” He clears his throat. “Still plenty left to the imagination.”

“Mm, well…” She tugs at the open collar of his shirt. “Hopefully not for long.” She says against his lips and then backs away. She smirks and walks away from him as his mouth falls open. He was a little shocked she’d deprive him of a kiss.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He walks after her.

“I need to mingle with all my guests, and be a good hostess, don’t I?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Go on and have something to drink, Zorro.” She winks at him.

“Sure thing, Bunny Rabbit.”

She giggles and continues to walk away from him. Harry didn’t want to seem clingy, so he lets her go about the party, being a good little hostess with her roommates. He, Niall, and Louis all sip on the same drink to keep up appearances. Alcohol and drugs had zero effect on them, which at times was extremely annoying, but for the most part it was fine. They needed to keep their wits about them anyways. Y/N eventually finds her way to Harry, keeping her arm snaked around his waist. She felt special to have him as her guest. He was so fucking handsome, and she knew there were people looking at him, wishing they were the ones standing with him. His arm was draped around her shoulders, his thumb rubbing at her bare shoulder. She almost wanted to pull him upstairs, but she wasn’t the type to do that at a party. No, it could wait until everyone left, when they’d have a little more privacy.

“Hey.” She says to him, and he looks down at her. “I need to go use the ladies room, could you hold onto my drink?”

“Course, love.” He kisses her temple and off she goes with her heart fluttering.

After she’s done in the bathroom, which takes ten fucking minutes because the costume was impossible to get on and off, she makes her way through the party. She gets the distinctive whiff of weed coming from outside. She groans, and steps out and sees a group of people passing a blunt around.

“Guys, not to be a party pooper, but you can’t do that here…”

The group makes an annoyed noise, but they listen to her. Suddenly, she’s alone outside, and she realizes how fucking cold it was. She shivers, and moves to go back inside…

//

“Talia, have you seen Y/N?” Harry asks her. “She went to the bathroom twenty minutes ago, but she’s not in there now.”

“How do you know?” Talia slurs.

“Because Niall just fucked some girl in the bathroom, that’s how I know.” Harry says bluntly.

“Oh, then I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Maybe she went up to her room. You can go check if you want, she’s been dying to get you alone in there all night.”

“She has?” He perks up.

“Duh.” She rolls her eyes. “She’s crazy about you, mate.” She walks away from him.

Concern washes over his face because he knows she’s not in the building. He’d be able to feel her heart, he’d be able to smell her, but he can’t. He finds a freshly fucked Niall, and Louis and tugs them both into a corner.

“I think something’s happened to Y/N.”

“What do you mean?” Louis says.

“She’s not here anymore. She wouldn’t have just left without telling me, she had me hold her drink…she clearly thought she was coming right back.”

“I can feel how worried you are.” Niall sighs. “Do you think she might have gone outside for any reason?”

“No idea, but we could check it out.” Harry says, and they all make their way through the flat, and out the back door. All of their eyes glow red so they can see outside better. Harry takes a whiff, and his head snaps to the left. “Over there, there’s something…an object…” He runs towards it and the boys follow. It was one of he her heels. “Oh, no.” He picks it up and nearly wants to cry.

“Don’t worry, Harry, we’ll find her.” Louis takes the shoe and sniffs it to get her scent, as does Niall. “Hunters may have taken her to get to you, so we need to be smart about this. No fucking around, and no full shifting. Claws and fangs at best.”

“I don’t understand hunters.” Niall says. “If they just got to know us they’d see we’re not dangerous in the slightest.”

“We used to be.” Harry says. “But you can brush up on your history later, right now there’s a girl in the woods dressed like a bunny that we need to go rescue. Poor thing’s probably freezing.”

//

There Y/N was, cold, annoyed, and tied to a tree. She had tried to scream, but someone put their hand over her mouth. They dragged her out into the woods, and she lost one of her shoes. They were awfully expensive too. There were a few people with guns standing near her, and two others pacing around. She had zero idea what they wanted with her. She had cried out of fear, but she was quiet now.

“C-could I at least have a sweater or a blanket? F-fucking freezing out here.” She stutters through her sentence. “Not exactly dr-dressed for this sort of thing.”

“Be quiet, or we’ll gag you.” A man with a gruff voice says to her.

“G-gonna have to buy me d-dinner first if you wanna do that.” She musters up the energy to smirk, and a woman comes over to her with duct tape. She slaps it over her mouth.

“There.” The woman says. “Keep warm with that.”

Y/N tries wiggling her toes and fingers to keep her circulation going. It was only a matter of time until hypothermia would kick in, and she knew that.

“Where are they, hm? Bumbling idiots.” A man says to the woman.

“Maybe Harry doesn’t care about the bitch as much as we thought.” The woman shrugs.

Harry growls lowly when he hears that. He, Louis, and Niall had found the spot the hunters were keeping Y/N easily.

“How many total?” Harry asks.

“Ten.” Louis says. “Keep your emotions at bay. They may be willing to kill, but we can’t do that. Niall and I will knock out as many as we can, and then call for backup. You focus on getting Y/N out of there. Bring her back to our place, and give her something to fall asleep. Then in the morning tell her she was drunk and had a bad dream.”

Harry nods. All of their teeth and claws were out, but nothing more. He knew he had to look scary like this, but he couldn’t worry about it right now. The girl who he was seriously falling for was tied to a fucking tree. Her shoe fell off, but her bunny ears had managed to stay on, although they were a little dented now. The three take a deep breath, and jump up nimbly into the trees. Harry slips down the tree she’s tied to, and cuts through the ropes easily with his claws.

She looks down at herself as she feels the ropes loosen, but she stays put not wanting to bring attention to herself. Y/N sees two figures moves swiftly, knocking the various people around her over. They evade the bullets being shot at them (the guns have silencers). She has no idea what’s happening. The men around her suddenly fall, and she gasps. A figure with a broad back picks them up effortlessly and tosses them into a pile of other people. He turns to look at Y/N and her eyes widen.

“I’ll explain everything later, I promise.” His voice was deeper, and she felt sedated. “Need to get you out of here, trust me?” She nods quickly, and he wastes no time picking her up bridal style, he claws digging into the meat of her thigh, and he jumps up in the trees.

She felt like she was on a roller coaster ride as she clings to him. She didn’t know a person could move so fast, but clearly Harry wasn’t an ordinary person. He was a thing she had only seen on TV or read myths about. Once he gets her inside his flat, he retracts his fangs and claws, and his eyes turn green once more. He carries her up to his bathroom and sets her down on the sink counter.

“This is probably gonna hurt.” He says as he starts to tug on the tape covering her mouth. She nods and closes her eyes. She squeaks out a noise as he rips it off. “Took it like a champ, babe.” He rubs his hands up and down her arms and shoulders.

“Been getting my lip waxed for years, that was nothing.” She breathes.

He looks her up and down. Her nylons were all ripped up, and she had dirt all over her. Did they fucking drag her? He growls angrily just thinking about it.

“I found your other shoe.” He takes it out of his pocket, and she nearly melts. “Did they hurt you?”

“They dragged me through the woods, and slammed me against the tree when they tied me up.” She pouts. “Almost knocked the wind out of me, but I’m okay.”

“I can make you feel better.” He cups her cheek. “But I need to draw you a bath in order to do it. You’re freezing anyways, so it’s a good idea all around.” He moves to turn the water on, and he grabs some bottles from the linen closet.

“Harry…”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t look at her as he sprinkles whatever’s in the bottles into the warm water.

“Who were they? What did they want with you?”

“They either wanted to kill me, or take me as a prisoner.” He turns to look at her. He takes his jacket and shirt off, and her eyes widen. “M’not getting in with you, I just need to mix it all together once the tub’s full, and I don’t wanna get my clothes soaked.” He defends himself.

“No, I just…you have so many tattoos. I didn’t notice it the other night when we slept.”

“It’s really not a lot, Lou has way more.” He bends down to take her other heel off, and he puts the shoes together neatly on the floor. He stands back up and grabs at the bunny ears. “You’ll wear these again for me sometime, yeah? Be a shame if you didn’t.” She nods at him and he sets them down on the counter. “Good, bunnies are my favorite.”

“Your favorite what?”

“Snack.” He says as he grips her hips, helping her hop off the counter.

“Right.” She swallows, and her eyes rim with tears.

“What’s wrong?” He asks as he turns the water off in the tub and starts mixing everything.

“Are…are you going to kill me?”

“Now, why would I offer to make you feel better and then turn around and kill you?”

“I don’t know! Nothing’s exactly clear, Harry!”

“Okay, be cool, yeah?” He stands up straight. “There’s no reason to freak out.”

“No reason to freak out?! I was just taken from my own home, tied to a fucking tree, and then you come and you have these big teeth and these talons, and…shit, I need to text my roommates and let them know I’m okay. Or, maybe that I’m not okay…”

“They’re claws, not talons. I’m not a bloody chicken.”

“What are you then, hm?” She puts her hands on her hips.

“I’m a person, same as you.”

“My eyes don’t glow red, Harry.”

“They could, maybe you’re just not trying hard enough.” She makes an exasperated noise at him, and motions that she’s going to leave. “Okay, okay…I…I’m a werewolf. I was born this way, I wasn’t turned, but a lot of us these days are. The hunters want me because I’m a healer, and I come from a family of healers. They must have caught wind that I go to school here, and they must have noticed that we’ve been hanging out so…to get to me they took you. I feel absolutely terrible about it because the last thing I would ever want to do is put you in any danger. It’s why I barely spoke to you last year. I didn’t want you getting dragged into all this, and here you are now…literally being dragged into it.” He huffs.

“Great, so now I can add bestiality to the list of things that are wrong with me.” She shakes her head, more so saying it to herself. She looks at him. “I’m in a lot of pain, so I’m going to disregard a lot of what you just said, I’m going to not ask any more questions, and I’m going to chalk this up to being an extremely elaborate Halloween prank or something.”

“It’s not a prank, Y/N. I know it’s a lot to take in, I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head. “And being with a werewolf doesn’t make you into bestiality.” He chuckles softly. “You saw me out there, I didn’t grow any extra hair, my ears didn’t get all long and pointy, and I’m pretty sure you’re the only one with a tail on tonight. It’s not like what you think, we blend in really easily. I can shift so I can look like what you may have seen, but it’s rather uncomfortable and unnecessary.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Of me?”

“No.” He sighs with relief at that. “I’m scared that they’re going to take me again.”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because…we have ways of protecting ourselves and others. I have something I can give you to keep you safe.”

“Like what?”

“I…I have to bite off one of my claws, and put it on chain for you to wear.” She grimaces at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll do it in the morning, and it’ll grow back. I can even paint it a nice color, I have some nail polish.”

“Wonderful.”

“C’mon, the bath is gonna get cold. I’ll step out so you can get in, and-“

“I want you to stay in here with me.”

“I’ll come back, I just wanna give you some privacy.”

“I need you to unzip the back of this stupid thing for me first.”

She turns around and sighs heavily. She looks at herself in the mirror, and is shocked at how fucked up she looks. Her mascara had run down her face, and her bunny nose and whiskers that she painted on had smeared.

“Do…do you have any face-cloths?” She mumbles.

“Yeah, babe.”

He steps over to the linen closet after unzipping her. He hands her a blue cloth and steps out of the bathroom. He hears the front door open and close, and races downstairs to Louis and Niall.

“Cleaned up and taken care of.” Niall says. “I need a shower.”

“Y/N’s getting into the tub. I ran her a bubble bath so I could heal her.”

“I told you to put her to sleep.” Louis grits his teeth. “I really don’t like it when you don’t listen, Harry.”

“M’sorry, she…she just looked so scared, and I couldn’t lie to her. We can talk to her in morning, can’t we? It’s not like she’s the first regular person to get involved with a werewolf.”

“True, but you should really have ran this by your mum first. She’s not gonna be happy.” Louis says.

“I’ll deal with her in the morning too. Let me go tend to my bunny, yeah?”

He goes back upstairs, and taps on the door before entering. She was in the water, covered by the bubbles. She had pulled her hair up into a bun on the top of her head. He sits down on the toilet and faces her.

“I need to stick my hand in.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyebrows raise at him.

“To make what I put in work, I have to stick my hand in the water.”

“Alright.”

He leans forward, and dips his hand into the warm water. His eyes glow red, and she feels every cut and bruise on her body disappear. She feels better than she had before the night even started.

“Holy shit.” She breathes as he takes his hand out of the water.

“How’s the temperature, still warm enough?”

“Yeah…it’s…it’s perfect.” He nods at her and she sighs heavily. “So, you could literally rip me to shreds, and you’re choosing not to?”

“Why is it your first instinct that I’m going to kill you? It’s what the hunters think too, and it’s just not the case, love. Especially with my breed. Healers don’t like hurting others, even in defense. We’re too empathetic. I wanna keep you safe more than anything.”

“Are there others? Obviously Niall and Louis, but, like, in our classes?”

“Not that I know of. The three of us stick together because we’re all in the same large pack. Our three families came together for safety. Other packs just tend to leave others alone, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” She snaps.

“I never meant to put you in danger, Y/N.”

“Do you have a towel for me, I’d like to get out now.”

He sighs and gets up. He grabs her a fresh towel, and hands it to her. He turns around so she can stand and wrap it around herself. She steps out of the tub and looks up at him. She groans and presses her forehead into his chest.

“I can feel how conflicted you are.” He says as he wraps his arms around her.

“Must be nice to just sense how someone’s feeling.” She scoffs as she nuzzles into him. A thought occurs to her and she looks up at him. “Is that why you curled up with me the way you did that night? Like…are you more dog than person when you’re sleeping?”

“Wolf, I’m not a fucking dog. And…I don’t really know. Sometimes we can do that when we feel really safe with someone.”

“You feel safe with me?” Her eyes widen.

“Well…yeah. And you always smell so good.” He mutters as his hands splay on her back, pulling her closer to him.

“I…I think you smell good too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but I can never quite put my finger on what cologne you’re wearing.”

“I don’t wear cologne.”

“What?!”

“It would fuck with my natural scent too much. I have to wear a scentless deodorant even.”

“So…you just naturally smell good?”

“I…” He thinks for a moment. He had read about this before, and from what Louis and Niall said about not being able to smell anything particularly special about her, some things were starting to connect. “Let’s go to my room, Niall said he needed to shower.”

She nods, and he grabs all of her clothes as they make their way down the hall. She sits down on his bed, after he sets her things down on his desk. Her eyes scan over the broadness of his back, and how his muscles flex while he digs through his dresser. She clamps her legs together after shaking her hair out of its bun. He stands up straight after getting a whiff of her. She was turned on? He turns to look at her.

“What?”

“Nothing, here, you can wear these.” He tosses her some boxers and a shirt.

“What if I wanna be like you and sleep naked?”

“Y/N, it’s late and-“

“That bath gave me a second wind.”

Harry wasn’t doing anything in particular, but healers had a way of bringing out confidence and truths out in others. Especially when they seemed to be this connected. They could be soulmates for all he knows, but he doesn’t want to say that and scare her off.

She stands up and walks towards him, reaching around for her bunny ears, and putting them on. She smirks at as he swallows.

“You’re really okay with all of this?” He puts his hands on her shoulders.

“I know I wanna be with you. Maybe I shouldn’t want that, but I do. I…I don’t think I could stay away from you even if I wanted to.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Is…is someone going to tell us we can’t see each other anymore?”

“No.” He scoffs. “I’m like a prince, no one tells me who I can and can’t see.”

“Good, because…” She presses her hands to his chest and lets her towel fall. “I got all dressed up tonight because I wanted to look cute for you, and I’m really sad it all went to waste.”

“It didn’t.”

He cups her cheeks and presses his lips to hers in a searing kiss. He backs her up against his bed, and lays her down. He gets his pants off, and climbs on top of her. . She wraps her legs around his waist and he grinds his clothed dick against her. She groans and scratches her nails down his back. He kisses down her body, and looks up at her to make sure it’s alright before he dives in. She nods frantically, and he goes for it. He licks all around her folds, essentially making out with her other lips, and then he sucks on her clit. Her hands fly to his hair, and she tugs harshly. He moans against her, and her mouth falls open. Her hips buck up towards his mouth. He thought she tasted so fucking good. He was nose deep, moving his face from side to side, and she loses it. He licks her clean and pops his head up.

“Holy shit.” She breathes. He chuckles and gets his boxers off. He moves to sit up against the headboard. His tip was leaking for her. “Are…are you that big because of the wolf thing, or…?”

“Nah, that’s just good genetics, love.” He grins. “C’mere, bunny rabbit, come bounce on my cock for me.” Her mouth falls open and does as he says quickly. She swings her leg over his lap, and lines him up with her. “Wait, uh, do you, like, want me to use a condom, or-“

“M’on the pill, it’s fine.” She smiles at him and he nods. “Thanks for asking, though.” The head of his cock pushes inside her and she bites down on his shoulder as she takes him deeper, inch by inch. She lets out a puff of air once he’s all the way. She looks up at him with big eyes. “Will you help me?”

He bites down on her bottom lip as he moves her up and down on his hard dick. She was so snug around him, he was starting to lose control a little. His claws grow and he scratches at her love handles. She gasps into his mouth.

“Shit, sorry, I-“

“No, it feels good, it’s okay.” She smiles and moves around in a circle on him.

“Here I was thinking you were this innocent little thing.” He smirks and runs his nails down her back. Her head rolls backwards and he notices goosebumps raise on her skin.

“I usually am, but you’re bringing something out of me.”

“Do you feel good?” He asks as he nibbles on her neck.

“Yeah, really good.” She bounces faster up and down on him. “I’ve wanted this for a while.”

“Me too.”

He slots his mouth over hers, and licks into her. She moans into him. This is exactly what they both needed right now. He retracts his claws and before she has a second to protest he snakes a hand between them to rub her clit.

“Oh!” She gasps.

“Gonna make you come again, baby.”

She moans out as she feels it bubbling in her stomach.

“You can come inside me if you want to.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah, I really wanna feel it.”

He nods and rubs her faster. She cries out into his neck, and then he bursts inside her. He fills her to the brim, and it has her panting. He kisses her tenderly as she whimpers. He takes the bunny ears off her and tosses them elsewhere before carefully lifting her off of him. He lays her down, and grabs the towel she was using earlier to clean her up.

“Thank you, that’s so sweet.” She says tiredly.

“It’s the least I could, I made a fucking mess inside you.” He chuckles. “There we are, all clean.” He tosses the towel in his hamper and knees back onto the bed. She rolls over onto his chest as he turns the lights off.

“That was really great.” She nuzzles into his neck. “I’ve never felt so confident with someone before.”

“I enjoyed it too.”

“So, do you get, like, animal instincts or urges sometimes? Like, do you ever randomly chase after squirrels, what am I dealing with here?”

“No.” He laughs. “Nothing like that, although I really enjoy getting my head scratched, like, behind my ears like a dog would.” He mumbles the part about the dog. “The only time I would chase after another animal is I’ve fully transformed, and I only do that on full moons. It’s liberating to just run free like that.”

“Will you be able to tell when I’m getting my period, or if I’m on it?”

“Yeah. I have a keen sense of smell. My hearing’s enhanced too.”

“Oh my god.” She sits up a little. “So did they just hear everything?”

“Probably, unless they’re asleep already.” He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, no need to be embarrassed, alright?”

“Are…are you gonna have to transfer schools since the hunters know you’re here?”

“We shouldn’t need to. We’ll need to see how many of them are here and what not. My mum might send reinforcements if need be. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have fucked you if I thought I wasn’t going to be able to stay.”

“Okay.” She settles back down and he pulls the blankets over them.

“Do you mind if I sort burrow under the blankets again? I could just rest my head on your stomach.”

“Sure.” She smiles and he pecks her lips. He shifts under the blankets, and rests his head just above one of her hips. She mindlessly scratches at his head and he sighs. “Comfy?” She giggles.

“Very.”

//

The next morning Y/N sits comfortably in Harry’s sweats in the kitchen while Niall makes her breakfast. Harry and Louis were on a video call with Anne and Gemma.

“Does it bother you that they’re having you babysit me?” She asks him as he sets a bowl of fruit in front of her. He was making pancakes as well.

“Not at all, love. The conversation doesn’t really concern me. Harry’s talking to his family, and Louis is a pack leader so it makes sense for him to be in on the chat.” He sets a short stack in front of her.

“Thank you.”

“So…” He drums his fingers on the kitchen island. “You know everything?”

“I wouldn’t say everything, but I know the three of you are…a little special.”

“And you’re not scared?”

“The three of you rushed into the woods to save me. I’m more scared of the people who dragged me out with guns on their hips.” They hear a noise from upstairs that sounds like a puppy just got kicked. “Jesus, what was that?”

“Oh…Harry must’ve just ripped out one of his claws.” Niall gives her a soft smile and digs into his own pancakes.

“What will me wearing it do, exactly?”

“Alright, so basically, we’ve got this stuff all around the house that makes it so we can’t be tracked. I can’t really explain it, it’s outside my expertise. You may notice we all smoke a lot of cigarettes?” She nods at him. “They’re not normal cigarettes, they have the same stuff in them. It would kill you if you tried in inhale one, so we give normal people pieces of ourselves and it has the same effect. You’ll need to wear it all the time.”

“It won’t just decompose?”

“No, he has something to put on it so it won’t. It’ll sort of look like a shark tooth or something to the untrained eye.”

Harry and Louis come downstairs. Harry’s face is flushed, and he comes around behind Y/N to clasp the chain with his claw on it.

“I panted it black.” He mutters.

“Are you alright?” She asks as he sits down next to her.

“Yeah, it already grew back, see?” He holds his hand up for her.

“We’ve been given the greenlight from Anne, Harry’s mum.” Louis says as he pops a blueberry into his mouth. “But you need to be sworn to secrecy. You can’t say anything, Y/N.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Because we’re trying to live normal lives, and-“

“She’s not going to say anything!” Harry slams his hands down on the island. “We literally just spoke with my mother about this for a bloody hour! I trust her, there’s nothing more to it than that!” His fangs peak out, and Louis growls at him.

“Do I need to remind you that male healers are extremely gullible? Or did your mother not drive that point home enough for you up there?”

“I-“

“H-Harry…” She puts her hand on his back and he looks at her. Her heart was racing.

“Oh, baby, we’re scaring you.” His fangs retract and he takes her hand in his. “I’m sorry, we’ll cool it.”

“You’ll need to stay here the rest of the weekend.” Louis says. “It may not be safe for you at your flat.”

“What about roommates.”

“I’m gonna go check on them.” Niall says. “I have a class with Georgie, shouldn’t be too weird.”

“Y/N, have you ever taken any self-defense classes or anything?” Louis asks her.

“No.” The boys all share a look. “Should I?”

“Harry will take you to the boxing gym that he goes to and show you some ways to defend yourself. You should be safe, but you can never be too careful.”

She looks at Harry and smirks at him.

“Wanna get into the ring with me?” She giggles and he giggles too. Louis sighs heavily rolls his eyes.

“I’m gonna take my breakfast to my room.” He grumbles and leaves.

//

Harry started going to the bookstore twice as often, setting up shop there for most of Y/N’s shift. If he could have curled up in her lap and sat on top of her in calculus he would have. Whenever he’d go over to Y/N’s place, he was always laying on top of her. Her hands were in his hair, and sometimes his foot would start shaking if she scratched him just right. He was in heaven. Her roommates, however, saw an extremely clingy and possessive guy taking up all of her time. So, they decide to talk to her about it.

“Guys, I can’t talk long. Harry’s gonna be here soon.” Y/N says as she packs her overnight bag.

“We know, it’s just…we’re a little concerned.” Talia says.

“With what?”

“He literally lives up your asshole.” Georgie says.

“He’s…clingy, but it’s not a bad thing. He gives me my space when I need it.”

“You told him to go home one night and I swear to god I heard him whimper, Y/N, whimper!” Talia says. “Also….he likes to call you ‘bunny’, and I I’m pretty sure that’s a weird BDSM nickname. Like, does he make you wear a collar or some shit, or-“

“Okay.” Y/N laughs. “You are so far off. He calls me bunny because I was dressed like one for Halloween, and sometimes I wear the ears when we have sex, but that’s the extent of it.”

It wasn’t the extent of it, but her friends didn’t need to know when they were feeling especially naughty, they would play a game of big bad wolf. Y/N had hot glues the bunny tail from her costume to a pair of lace panties, and she’d wear a lace bra, and Harry would hide somewhere in his room, and he pop out with his glowing red eyes, his fangs, and his claws. He wouldn’t scare her, it turned her on to see him so forceful. And then…once he “caught” her, she was in charge. She’d ride his dick, and tell him to be good for her while she squeezed and tugged at his curls.

“So, you’re both just a little kinky, but he’s not making you do anything you don’t wanna do, right?” Georgie says.

“Exactly.” Y/N smiles. “Look, I love you guys. I appreciate you looking out for me, I really do. I promise, if anything felt wrong with him I would tell you. We’re in a perfectly healthy relationship.” There’s a knock downstairs, and she slings her bag over her shoulder after getting her jacket on. “That’s him, I have to go.”

She goes downstairs, and opens the front door. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him before he takes his bag for her. He laces his fingers through her hand.

“How’s my little angel baby?” He asks her and it makes her giggle.

“Good, how are you?”

“Good.” He nods. “Sorry I couldn’t be there during your shift today, I was a little busy with the boys.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. I don’t expect you to be there all the time.”

He gets her into his place, and he can’t stop grinning. She gasps when she sees a folding table set up in the living room, a nice tablecloth on it, and delicious food piled high.

“What is all this?” She says as she walks over to the table. Niall and Louis come out of the kitchen with biscuits and wine.

“You celebrate Thanksgiving right? Not like you can easily go home for that, so we cooked.” Harry says. “We looked up what all the best stuff is.”

“You…you did all of this for me?” They look at each other like they’re the only two people in the room.

“Well…yeah.” He takes her hands in his. “I…I love you, Y/N.”

“Oh, Harry, I love you too!” She throws her arms around him and slots her mouth over his. He groans into his kiss and pulls her closer.

“Ahem.” Niall says. “We’ve got hot food here…so…”

“Right.” Harry clears his throat and steps back from Y/N. “Let’s eat, yeah?”

Everyone enjoys the meal. Y/N giggles as they boys tear into the turkey and pretty much obliterate it. Usually they all had manners, but she thinks seeing the turkey ignited something primal in them. She eats until she’s the happy kind of full, and then she helps clean up. After cuddling on the couch (and making sure to go to the bathroom), Harry and Y/N go up to his room.

“I can’t believe you did all of that for me.” She pouts at him as she sits on his bed. He kneels in front of her and rubs his hands up and down on her thighs.

“Do you wanna do something for me?”

“Anything.”

He grins and pecks her lips as he stands up. He goes into his dresser and grabs a few things, keeping them behind his back.

“I’ve been sort of preparing myself all week for this, and I feel really close to you. These last couple of months have been incredible, and we love each other so…I was wondering how you’d feel about topping me.”

“Harry, I top you all the time.” She giggles.

“No, I mean, like…” He takes a strap and a bottle of lube out from behind his back.

“Oh!” She gasps. “Oh my god…you’ve been putting that up your ass all week?”

“No, I used a butt plug, and I got all cleaned out. Wanna give it a try, bunny?”

“Will you fuck me first?”

“Yes.”

She smiles and nods at him. He eagerly gets his clothes off, and he helps her get out of is.

“I just…l don’t wanna lick you down there like you’ve done to me, is that okay? I’ll use my fingers, but I don’t wanna stick my tongue up your ass.” She says as he kisses on her neck.

“Yeah, that’s fine. It’s why I got so much lube.” He smirks at her. “But you have no problem with me doing it to you, that’s cute.”

“That’s because your tongue works all kinds of magic.”

He growls at her and kisses down her body, getting between her legs. He sucks on her clit while he fingers her, knuckle deep. He throws her legs over his shoulders and relentlessly fucks her with his fingers. She was a heaving mess underneath him. She comes around him, squeezing tightly around his fingers. He takes them out of her and sucks them into his mouth. He takes her hand and sucks two of her fingers into his mouth. She groans watching him.

“Okay, I wanna fuck you now.” She says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She bites her bottom lip. “I’m really into it now. I wanna make you feel good.”

He kisses her quickly before grabbing the strap and the lube. He helps her into it, and she gets the lube on her fingers. He lays on his back with his legs spread for her. He had trimmed everything for her, which she greatly appreciated. Harry didn’t always manscape, not that she minded, but he clearly wanted to make things as comfortable as possible for her. She swirls her fingers around his hole and he spreads further apart for her.

“Wish I could have seen you with the butt plug in.” She grunts as she fingers him easily.

“I’ll happily wear it for you any time you want.”

“What made you wanna do this with me?” She asks as he gets the dildo attached to the strap lubed up.

“I’ve always wanted to try it, but I’ve never trusted someone enough.”

“God.” She breathes. “That is so sweet. Okay, I’m gonna start. Make sure to tell me if it hurts or something.”

“I will, go ahead.” He holds his legs back for her and she slowly pushes inside him. He tries to keep his breathing steady as she keeps going. Once she’s all the way in she waits for his signal. “You can move.” He grunts.

She slowly moves out, and then back in. She puts more lube on the dildo to add to his comfort, and then continues. Eventually she’s able to get a pace going, and she wraps her hand around his twitching, hard cock. His head falls back into his pillows and his mouth hangs open.

“Oh! Shit, do that again.” He groans. “Think you hit my g-spot.”

“Here?” She thrusts into him again and his eyes roll back into his head. She bites her bottom lip and she hits the spot over and over while pumping him silly with her hand.

“Feels so fucking good, Y/N.” He was starting to pant. “Will you sit on my face when we’re done? I wanna fuck you with my tongue.”

“Y-yeah, we can do whatever you want.” Her legs were shaking. She was extremely turned on seeing him like this.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come, babe!”

She gives him one last good push while he comes into her hand. Some of his gets onto his lower tummy, but he doesn’t seem to care. She licks her palm clean of him, and he moans at the sight. She carefully pulls out of him and gets the strap off.

“Are you sure you wanna-“

“Get up here, now.” He growls at her, and his eyes flash red for a moment.

She didn’t dare fuck with him, so she crawls up his body, and he grips her hips harshly as he licks into her. She gasps, especially from the way he nibbles at her clit. She tugs at his hair as she starts riding his face. He moans against her, loving the way she tastes. She was dripping for him. No one had ever made her this wet before.

“H-Harry.” She moans and he presses her harder against him. “Fuck, oh my god, shit!” She comes on his tongue and he laps her up. He nips at her inner thigh before she gets off him. “W-wow, that was-“

“Wanna take a bath?” He asks, already getting up.

“Sure.” She shrugs. “How are you feeling?”

“Incredible, baby, you did such a good job. What about me? Was I good for you?”

“Yeah, Harry, you were really good.”

If his tail had been out he’d be wagging it. He grabs a couple of towels, and they head to the bathroom. Once the tub is full of bubbles and calming scents, they both get in. Harry sits in front of Y/N so he can rest his head on her shoulder, and so she can play with his hair.

“Are you going home for the holidays?” He asks her, turning slightly to make eye contact.

“Nope, can’t afford it. I just video chatted with my family last year, it was fine, why?”

“Well, how would you like to come to my house for Christmas? My family really wants to meet you, I want you to meet them too, of course.”

“I…I’d love to.”

“And you won’t be the only regular person there either, some of them choose not to be turned.”

“It’s nice everyone’s so cool about it.”

“Love is love.” He shrugs. “So, you really wanna come home with me?” He pouts up at her.

“Of course I do.” She squishes her nose to his. “Sounds like fun.”

“And we can travel a bit too, if you want.”

“I don’t care what we do, I’m just happy to spend time with you, Harry.”

He smiles and pecks her lips. After they get out they towel off, and go back into his room. They get cozy in his bed with his head laying on her chest.

“Do your parents know about me?” He asks as he fondles one of her breasts.

“Yes.” She giggles. “I told them I started seeing a very nice boy in my calculus class, and since my grades have been good they haven’t seemed to mind. They may come try to visit over winter break since it’s so long.”

“Would you let me meet them?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’d really wanna make a good impression.”

“I wanna make a good impression with your family too.” She whines slightly. “Your mom is this powerful matriarch.”

“Yeah, but she’s also like any other mum.” He kisses on her breast. “God, you are always as sweet as honey. I always wanna kiss you all over.”

“Mm, I like it when you kiss me all over.” She runs a hand through his hair.

“Your body is so perfect.”

“Harry.” She giggles. “No it’s not.”

“Sure it is. I love every little thing about it.”

“Thank you.” She leans forward to kiss his forehead. He yawns out and shakes his head. “Sleepy?”

“Yeah.”

She nods and reaches to turn the light off as he goes further under the covers to rest his head on her hip. It wasn’t the most conventional way to sleep, but he always made her feel safe, and he told her it made him feel safe to sleep like that. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant to be in a relationship with a werewolf. It wasn’t too different from being in a relationship with a regular person, they just took more precautions than most. Sometimes being with Harry was like having a pet. He needed a lot of attention, and a lot of love, but it was okay, she had plenty of it to give him.  

[beautifulletdownfics]

The Nearness of You - A Harry Styles One Shot

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

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

My masterlist Chat to me here

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

++

You love the cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Affirmative. Without a doubt. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A small, white lie.

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

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

Wash, rinse, repeat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fuck you," Harry grunts at him.

++

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry?"

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

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

++

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry! What are you—

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

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

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

"Harry, give it back."

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

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

Your whole right side is on fire, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Golden, he thinks, As always,

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

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

++

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

"What happened?"

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

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

"Tim."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look over here, Harry thinks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Y/N?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Why … but you've… and I've…"

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

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

"Oh."

"Yeah."

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

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

That does it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry, are you sure you—

—I'm sure," he insists quickly.

"I just—

—I'm sure."

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

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

"Y/N"

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

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

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

"I've always?"

"I never thought …"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, no but—

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

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

"Yours," you say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Harry.

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

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

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

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

"I'm just—

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

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

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

"When … When did you write it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You'll win Scrabble."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I did."

"I've always loved that song."

“Well, it's been yours all along."

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

"I should hope not."

"Are you going to write another one?"

"Without a doubt."

++

Chat to me here

[annepikachu]

MORSE CODE AND CHICKEN DRUMSTICKS (EXO Xiumin × Reader)

(FANFIC)

- Anne (Pikachu)

Note: Reader= Yn (Your name) (female)

13 chapters. Fluff. Lots of beautiful smiles.

(Also, there’s a small reference to Taylor Swift's lyrics because I love her.)

Happy reading!

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

I

Yn sighed and plopped down on the seat in her favorite corner of the library. She has a painful assignment to complete. Yes painful because she has been procrastinating until the day before she has to hand over the assignment.

“Humm, lately this library has been bustling with so many visitors”, she observed. “What’s up? Are they giving out chicken drumsticks for free?” Her eyes wandered around trying to figure out the reason. “Aah, that must be it" as her gaze stopped and hovered over the librarian’s desk. There’s this unrealistically cute guy who joined the post of the librarian a few days back. His predecessor had retired. And since then the library is mostly housefull. “Okay Yn stop staring at him as if you’re looking at a pizza. You look like a creep right now. Do your homework”, she mentally slapped herself and put on her headphones, opened her favorite Playlist and focused on her assignment.

Kim Minseok was surprised at the drastic change in the number of visitors in the library since the third day of his joining. He had heard from his predecessor about the library being usually empty. He was actually relieved by this fact. He was happy to see that a puppy eyed guy and a Yoda eared guy who seem to be a couple, a guy who always wears a bear hoodie and sometimes accompanied by two toddlers, a pair of cute granny and grandpa, and a clumsy handsome young lady are the only daily visitors. But it seems that his relief was short-lived.

The library has turned into Dalian Beach these days. The girls come with the pretext of reading books here but end up gushing about how handsome he is. One of them didn’t even realize that she was ‘reading’ her book upside down and yet another straightaway came up and put a can of coke on his desk. But these don’t bother him much because he is used to the flood of compliments coming from people irrespective of gender and age. Thankfully the library gets quite empty an hour before closing.

“Oh that handsome girl is still writing. She must have a huge assignment. She usually reads some interesting books at this time of day”, he kept looking at her. “Later on I should suggest her some of my favorites as well". He resumed his work but was soon distracted by the sound of a continuous tapping. His eyes narrowed.

Yn was frustrated by the last portion of her assignment and soon found herself tapping her fingers to the beat of the music playing in her headphones. “Screw it, I give up.” She paused. “Oh well I’ll just do the rest after having my supper. Don’t wanna upset Professor Junmyeon.” She slammed shut her notebook and was startled to find the cute librarian standing right in front of her.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

II

“Umm sorry for startling you, but I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?” Yn was confused. What could this cute guy possibly want to know?

“Did you miss your lunch? Or are you craving for chicken drumsticks just for the sake of chicken drumsticks?”

“Huh?”

“I mean I heard you saying ‘chicken drumsticks’ over and over just now, tapping, to be precise”

“I did not. Well I had thought about it a few hours ago but not now. What makes you think so?”

“Those tapping sounds you made just now. They kinda translated into ‘chicken drumsticks’ though.”

“Really? Are you talking about Morse code?” Yn replayed that portion of the song and tapped consciously, noting down the codes while Minseok looked at her with amusement. “Holy Guacamole!” She sprang up. “You are right. Wow this is amazing!”

“So you were just tapping to the beat that turned out to be saying chicken drumsticks?”

The next moment they collapsed on the floor laughing at this curious conversation.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

III

Yn couldn’t spare time to go to the library for a week but finally she was back on her usual routine. She waved back at Minseok and broke into a giggle as she remembered the conversation about ‘chicken drumsticks’. After sometime she got up to search for another book and almost bumped into Minseok, shrieked and fell on her butt. She got back on her feet, “Whoa, you really do have a knack for scaring off people”.

“My bad. It was you who bolted in here though.” His pout made Yn's heart go UwU. “Anyway which book are you searching for?...This? Okay. Here you go"

Just as she turned and started walking back to her desk, Minseok suddenly asked “By the way Yn, you didn’t ask me my name yet".

“Oh right.” She proceeded towards him. “What is your name Mr Minseok Kim a.k.a Xiumin?”

“H-How did you know my name? Even Xiumin?” He stuttered.

“Doesn’t everyone in the college? You’re probably the only librarian who has a fan-page dedicated to him.” She chuckled in amusement.

“Wow, I had no idea", he whispered.

“They post your pictures from shooting range so I guess those are already pretty much on public domain. But you can check if they have posted any private picture of yours and maybe hit report", she suggested. “Anyway I’ll borrow this book for a week.”

“Huh? Oh right. I’ll issue it right away.” He was dazed from the information overload.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

IV

“Earth to Minseok. What are you thinking about? And what’s with the occasional smile too? Did you inhale Nitrous Oxide?” Sehun asked puckering his brows.

“Uh just two weird conversations I had with a girl. By the way, do you know I apparently have a fan-page dedicated to me?”

“Really?” It was evident that Sehun was feeling nervous for some reason.

“It seems you know something about this. C’mon spill.” Minseok insisted.

“Err well it was I who created the fan-page. Because you’re undeniably the coolest one here in the range. I even added the tagline ‘that’s right, my type’!"

“You little rascal!” He flicked Sehun's forehead. “I had the shock of my life when I came to know about this!”

“But Xiu, who’s the girl you were talking about?” Sehun had a mischievous glint in his eye. “Is that why you were smiling just now? Tell me more about it!”

“Dude it’s not what you think! She is a regular visitor in the library and we had just two conversations. I was surprised that she knew my arcade name Xiumin. And it was she who told me about the fan-page.”

“You have a crush oh her, don’t you? How is she like? Did you ask her out?”

“Relax Hun. We just talked about Morse code.”

“Ugh that’s such a turn off.”

“But she’s quite interesting. She’s handsome yes. And cute too.”

“I knew it! You’re whipped for her! Ask her out.”

“Calm down Hun. I’m not sure about how I feel and I don’t even know if she has a lover. Or if she is at all interested in me.”

“Don’t you underestimate your charm Xiu. And she isn’t interested in you? You get so many love letters, did you forget that? She might be charmed by your smile but probably doesn’t show it. She has a set boundary maybe?”

“I don’t want to draw inferences” Minseok sighed. “But yes I’d love to keep talking to her.”

“Use Morse code.” Sehun chuckled.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

V

Finally it’s FriYay night and Yn couldn’t be happier staying in her pajamas and being lazy for the next two days. But what the hell! She can’t find her headphones anywhere. And she doesn’t remember where she had last placed them. They were a gift from her cousin. Chanyeol would be upset. She will ask his boyfriend Baekhyun to calm him down and herself buy a new one in the meantime.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing.

“Hey Yn, Minseok here. I got your number from the library register. Sorry to call your number without your permission but I just found your headphones in the library and thought I should inform you right then.” He sounded sheepish.

“Phew, I’m so relieved! I was searching for them everywhere and almost decided to buy a new one. Thank you Minseok! I’m glad that you found them.”

“Uh it’s okay. I’m relieved too. So do you need these urgently? Then I can wait in front of the library and hand them over to-"

“No no, I don’t need them right at this moment, but… Umm can you please keep them with you until Monday? I visit the library everyday anyway. I’m too lazy to step out now.”

“Hahaha, okay okay. Don’t worry about that. See you on Monday”

Yn rolled back on her bed smiling. “I’ll have to treat him to chicken drumsticks for real.”

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

VI

“Thanks a lot Minseok." Yn took back her headphones and smiled with her heart eyes now making Minseok's heart go UwU. “Even if it’s not a big deal for you, I am really grateful to you and so I got something for you as a token.” She then started tapping on the desk. Minseok looked at her inquiringly but soon started interpreting the codes as she tapped away. “Got a box of chicken drumsticks for you. Hope you like them.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Who does not like drumsticks? You did not really have to do this though. Thank you for this.”

“Bon Appétit”, she said as she gave him the box. “Well, I need to hurry now. See you later.”

“Why is she so adorable?” He wondered while staring at the box in his hands.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

VII

Yn was having several bad days at a stretch now. She spent weeks without sleeping at night and watched FIFA world cup instead. Her favorite team was eliminated in the semifinals. And now the lack of sleep was taking a toll on her. She barely managed to complete all her pending assignments on time. Professor Junmyeon was still upset with her because she omitted a portion of her assignment carelessly. Her neighborhood cat disappeared without a trace. She avoided a freak accident but witnessed several persons getting severely injured. She has grown tired of her menstrual cramps which were being very cruel to her this time. And the last nail in the coffin: she had a quarrel with her bestfriend Jongdae today. Physically and mentally exhausted she placed her hand on her stomach and sat on a bench behind the canteen of the college and started sobbing silently.

Minseok was leaving early today because the library was practically empty today. Even Yn didn’t come. He suddenly spotted someone sitting hunched on a bench at a distance. It seemed that the person was hurt in the stomach. He rushed over there.

“Yn? What happened to you? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Are you hurt somewhere? Tell me what’s wrong.” Minseok sat beside her worriedly, held her shoulders and turned her towards him. She buried her face in his chest and burst into loud sobs. He instantly engulfed her in his hug and patted her head. “It’s okay Yn. Let it out.” Over the months he grew close to her. They both had a lot of friendly banters and of course some crazy conversations through Morse code. Seeing her cry now tugged at his heartstrings. “Breathe Yn. Take deep breaths. Yes. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I hate crying. I-I don’t want to be like this.” Yn said between her sobs. “I had way too many bad days to handle and-" she paused abruptly. The cramps were back again. She curled up in pain.

“And you are having cramps?” He finished her sentence. “You’ll be fine. Yn. Just endure a bit, okay?” Still holding her tight in his hug he reached out for his bag and took out a heating pad. “Here, Yn. Take this.” He kept on stroking her head and occasionally rubbing her back while she tended to her cramps.

_

“You okay now?”

Yn pulled back from the hug when the cramps subsided. “Thank you Minseok. Yes, I feel better now.”

“I’m glad.” He handed her some tissue paper. “Now wipe your tears and come with me” He led her to the canteen.

“Here, have a cup of hot chocolate. You’ll get relief… That’s right yes. Drink slowly.” He sat beside her and stroked her head. “Done?... Okay"

Yn started sniffling. “Yn, is everything okay?” Minseok panicked.

She nodded her head. “I’m just touched by your gesture. Thanks for making me feel better.”

Minseok smiled. “That’s what friends do. Well, it’s pretty late now. Let me drop you off at your house. Let’s go.”

_

“I have an extra helmet and I drive pretty well and my bike is well maintained.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Yn giggled.

“Well I just made a declaration so you don’t feel threatened. Just don’t fall asleep that’s all.” He was relieved to hear her laugh again.

“Aye aye Master Xiu.”

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

VIII

Yn saw that Jongdae wasn’t present in the classroom. She decided she’d visit his house later today and sort out the misunderstanding. She walked out of the classroom during recess hour. Suddenly someone hugged her tight. She smiled and hugged him back. She knew it was Jongdae. “I’m sorry Yn. There was a misunderstanding. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s okay Dae, I realized that. And I would have anyway barged into your house had you not come to college.”

“So, are we good now?”

“Of course!”

“Okay then pretty please! Help me pick out a pendant for my girlfriend. I’ve selected some of them but couldn’t finally decide among them. Come with me to the shop later today.”

Yn scowled. “This is why you rushed to patch it up with me huh?”

“Gosh! No no no that’s not it! I’ll treat you to ice cream. Okay?”

“Okay. Deal"

Jongdae sighed. “The way you react to food, I’m pretty sure you’ll drop me in a heartbeat if someone offers you food.”

Suddenly Ji-eun appeared out of nowhere and fake punched Jongdae's face. “How dare you make my Yn baby upset? Yes Yn drop him right away. I’ll treat you to a truckload of ice cream.”

“Guys!!” Jongin appeared and walked towards them making the corridor his runway.

Yn couldn’t deny once she had a tiny crush on him.

“Guess what? Kyungsoo cooked Spaghetti for us!” Jongin screamed. And the four of them dashed to the canteen.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

IX

Yixing was already there with Kyungsoo when they reached the canteen. “Dig in guys", Kyungsoo said as they huddled around the table.

“Okay guys! I’ve some tea to spill", Ji-eun announced while looking at Yn intently.

“Spill! Spill! Spill!” They chanted in unison.

“Apparently Yn has gotten herself a boyfriend and decided to conceal the fact".

Yn almost choked. “Wha- when? Even I don’t know I have a boyfriend?”

“Oh yeah? I saw that cute librarian dropping you off at your house yesterday night. You turned to hug him but you seemed shy.” Ji-eun added with a glee “And friends don’t feel shy Yn.”

Yn protested. “I had my reasons. He’s not what you guys think.” She remembered that she hugged Minseok out of gratitude towards him for taking care of her. She had hesitated initially thinking whether it would be appropriate. But she hugged him anyway.

Suddenly someone put their chin on Yn’s left shoulder and yet another put their chin on her right shoulder and both said in unison, “Well well Yn, you never told us anything about this!”

Yn almost fell from her seat. She turned around to see Chanyeol and Baekhyun smiling mischievously at her.

“So is he or is he not-” Chanyeol said while taking a seat. “Your crush?”, added Baekhyun.

Yn shrugged. “I am not sure. I’ve way too many crushes at this point and you guys know that.”

“The most recent crush is our senior Jessi, right", Yixing asked.

“Well yes but I can only admire her from afar”, Yn replied dreamily.

“Anyway get to the point guys.” Chanyeol took the reins. “So apparently it seems he has a soft corner for Yn. I’ve noticed that. And now we must root for Yn and make sure they end up together. So whats our plan?”

“How about kidnapping him and threatening him to date Yn"? Kyungsoo asked excitedly.

“No way!” Jongin protested.

“You’re going to get all of us in trouble, Soo", Baekhyun chuckled.

“Isn’t that the easiest way out?”, Kyungsoo pouted.

“That’s not how things work, Kyungsoo-ah", Jongin said while poking at Kyungsoo's cheek.

Yn could sense that everyone noticed something was brewing between Jongin and Kyungsoo but unsurprisingly they chose to focus on Yn today.

“Well even I agree that’s the easiest way out but we don’t want to get in trouble.” Jongdae said seriously, “so Yn you better speed up and ask him out. And don’t deny that you don’t feel anything for him.”

Yn was again reminded about how she felt fuzzy while being engulfed in Minseok’s hug. He’s definitely a good friend. But she didn’t want to rush things up.

“And Yn if you want to daydream instead of eating that last spoonful of Spaghetti”, Yixing got up and snatched her spoon and finished off the remaining Spaghetti. “Let me have it.”

“I swear to God Yixing!” Yn sprang up. “I’m gonna train Inzaghi to chase you!”

“Now who’s Inzaghi?” Jongin asked suspiciously.

“It’s the Vincenzo effect.” Baekhyun explained. “It’s a neighborhood pigeon and the naming courtesy goes to Yn", Ji-eun added.

“Don’t you guys dare to give out spoilers, some of us are lagging behind an episode or two”, the rest of them warned.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

X

Minseok was standing in the balcony of the library replaying in his head the events of yesterday. He didn’t expect Yn to hug him again and make his heart beat erratically. Sehun was right. He is falling for Yn gradually.

“Hey Minseok are you alright?” Minseok heard Yn’s voice and realized he had zoned out thinking of her. “You seem to have caught a cold.” Yn was worried.

“Oh yes it was raining in my area yesterday and I got drenched".

“Uh oh I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t have gotten drenched had you not accompanied me to drop me off.”

“Well it was raining for quite a long time and I’d have anyway gotten drenched even if I had reached my place earlier. So blame the clouds Yn.” Minseok chuckled making Yn giggle at his explanation.

“But seriously though, you don’t look good. I think you have a fever too.” Yn put her palm on his forehead. Minseok was flustered looking down at her worried face. Yn didn’t realize she was standing at almost zero distance from him. Before he could utter anything Yn grabbed his wrist. “You need to visit the doctor right now", Yn said dragging him downstairs towards the doctor’s room.

_

“He’s running a high fever. I’m giving some medicine.” The doctor took out a file of capsules. “And I think it’s better if you lie down and take rest in the sick room until your fever goes down.”

“But the libr-" Minseok tried to protest but was cut off by Yn’s stern glare.

“Library can wait. Health first Minseok". Yn crossed her arms.

“Tell your assistant about your situation. He can handle the library for sometime.” The doctor suggested.

_

“You should head back to library Yn. You went there to read, right? I’ll stay here until my fever goes down. Don’t worry I won’t run away from here.”

“I can read later. Now you close your eyes and take rest.” Yn said sitting on the chair beside the bed while stroking Minseok’s head absent-mindedly.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

XI

Yn could sense that Minseok was staring at her for a long time. The library was crowded as usual. She mouthed “what happened?” but he just smiled and shook his head and resumed his work. He seemed tensed for some reason.

She heard him tapping on his desk when the crowd thinned. Her eyes grew wide. He- did he tap “will you go on a date with me?” She saw him walk towards her.

Minseok spoke hesitantly, “I know I asked you all of a sudden, but I like you. I’ve been debating whether I should tell you this for weeks but I couldn’t hold back any further. You don’t need to tell me right now about how you feel. Take your time. And it’s absolutely fine if you don’t feel the same way. But can we maybe go on a friend date atleast?”

Yn thought for a while. “Sure. Let’s have a friend date.” She smiled. “Where are we going then?”

“I was thinking of taking you to my shooting range. We can play some rounds and have snacks later on there. How about this Sunday afternoon?”

“Sounds great!” Her eyes lit up. “But! On one condition.”

“And what’s that?” He asked cautiously.

“Bring me a bouquet of chicken drumsticks that day.” Yn replied with a wide grin.

“As you wish.” He smiled widely as he touched her nose-tip with his forefinger.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

XII

“This is such a cool place!” Yn ran around inside the shooting range, looking at everything in awe. Minseok watched her with an amused smile. Yn picked up a gun and aimed at the target.

“Wait.” Minseok came up behind her and held her arms. She felt her back against his chest. Her heart started thumping. “Focus Yn. Keep your arm straight while holding the gun. You don’t wanna hurt yourself when the gun recoils.” He adjusted her arms. “Now fire.” She hit the target.

Yn was ecstatic. “Minseok let’s play a round then. I’ll go first.”

He kept on smiling and hyped her up every time she aimed with the gun. She was just unbelievably adorable. And a sharpshooter too. She missed the target only once. He fell for her deeper every time she flashed an adorable smile at him after hitting the target.

“It’s my turn now. And I’m going to beat you in this round.” He winked at her.

Yn gaped at him while he shot the targets one by one. He looked darn sexy in that pose. He got ready for the last target and was just about to press the trigger. “I like you too, Minseok!” She blurted out. Minseok was shocked and turned his face towards Yn. The trigger went off and he missed the target.

“It’s a draw! It’s a draw! You didn’t beat me!” Yn jumped and danced gleefully around him.

“So, you- you said that just to make me miss my target? And nothing more?” Minseok looked at her sadly and turned his back to her.

“No! Oh no no you got the wrong idea.” She tugged at his sleeve. “I really meant it when I said I like you.” Minseok turned towards Yn in surprise. She went on, “I have been thinking about it ever since you told me about your feelings. I had already decided I’d tell you about my feelings today. But I couldn’t just suppress the urge to fool around a bit when I got the opportunity to.”

“You’re such a cheeky girl!” Minseok exclaimed and chased her.

“You won’t catch me that easily! I run fast.” Yn shouted while running ahead of him.

“Well not faster than I!” Minseok wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her off the ground and spun round, making her blush.

_

“It’s getting late, Yn, let’s go now.” Minseok said tugging at her.

“I’m not able to handle this gun properly.” Yn pouted.

“It’s okay, I’ll show you how to. But later, okay? It’s getting really late now.” Minseok couldn’t stop chuckling at her antics.

_

Minseok and Yn bumped into Sehun outside the shooting range. “Yn, this is Sehun, one of my teammates in the shooting range. And a TMI, he’s the one who created that fan-page.” Minseok gave Sehun a fake glare. “And Sehun, this is Yn, my date.”

“Nice to meet you, Yn.” Sehun gave her a warm handshake. “Do you like this place and my bro here?”

“I love it here! I’m gonna come here often now.” Yn replied. “And yes I like him too.” She said looking at Minseok shyly.

Minseok blushed. “I’m dropping her off at her house. I’ll see you tomorrow Hun.”

Sehun smirked and managed to whisper into Minseok’s ear, “you are lucky that she’s into Morse code. So did you confess to her using Morse code?”

“Don’t give me that look you cheesy little brat.” Minseok whisper-yelled at him.

_

Yn stopped by her gate. “I really had a great time with you. Thank you for today Minseok.”

“I’m also glad to spend some time with you. See you tomorrow.” Minseok stopped before turning back to his bike. “So are we dating officially now Yn?”

“Yes. A thousand times yes.” Yn smiled.

He walked closer to her, leaned close to her lips and locked his eyes with hers seeking permission. She nodded nervously while standing on her tiptoes and placed her hands on his shoulders. Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her in and she was a little more brave. It’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, really something. It’s fearless. Yn didn’t care now if Ji-eun was sitting by her window and keeping an eye on her. Yn would tell her group of friends everything tomorrow.

But the thing is, Ji-eun really saw Yn with Minseok. She had a triumphant smile on her lips.

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

XIII

Yn saw that everyone in her squad was giving her a cheeky smile while swarming towards her. “Guys, I can explain. I wanted to tell everything face to face. That’s why I didn’t text anyone.”

“And I saw them kissing too!” Ji-eun said excitedly and made a kissing gesture towards Yn.

Yn had a flashback of yesterday. He was very gentle with her. She absolutely melted in his kiss.

“I bet Yn is having flashbacks of that moment.” Jongdae smirked. “Look at her. Her face is a beetroot now.”

“You guys!” Yn stomped her feet.

“Okay, okay calm down Yn. Let’s have a lunch together today, shall we? Tell Minseok to join us.” Chanyeol spoke.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, call him.” Everyone shouted in unison.

“Okay. Okay. Chill.” Yn giggled while dialing Minseok’s number.

_

Minseok blended well with Yn’s noisy and cheeky friends. Yn was glad how things turned out.

“So, Yn and Minseok. Tell us how did you two end up together. What was the catalyst? The squad wants to know.” Yixing said holding up a spoon as if it were a mic.

The couple turned to each other and smiled. They both knew what they were about to say. Minseok and Yn turned again towards the squad and said, “not just one. There were two catalysts. Morse code and Chicken drumsticks.”

-----(The end)-----

_____________________________________________________________

P.S. Those who are wondering how did Minseok know Yn’s name (in chapter III), I leave it to your imagination. ;-)

He might have seen the library register, or might have noticed the name on her notebook when she shut it, or maybe her headphones were customised to bear her name on them and he noticed that. The choice is yours. And why did Yn not get surprised? Well she’s quick-witted too.

I hope this wasn’t too boring. This is my first time writing a story. Thank you for reading :-)

If you wish you can take a look at my fanart account on Instagram. Here's the link.

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Thank you Ayushee for hyping me up. She has written a fanfic too. Check it out.

[selfmadesuperhero]

i’m very much not okay 

and i’ll probably take very long for me to explain why

i don’t know how to write this. i don’t know where to even start. i’m here because i just don’t have anywhere else to go. i can’t afford therapy. i no longer have any close friends other than Mabu (gf).

it’s getting pretty bad inside my head

i know most people’s lives are hell this year and i’m not special. i know that. to me, this year is feeling like the last nail in my coffin because 2019 had already chewed me up and spit me out. 

i kept my last job for eight years. after my first year there, another developer came in, and we became friends. we worked side by side less than 4 feet apart for six years. our hours were flexible but we always agreed upon our schedule just so work would be more bearable, because we both hated it and often had to team up against our boss’ downright abuse. it was a very small company (at its biggest we were only 7 employees). we were also going to graduate at the same time from the same school (different majors), so we had a bit of a pact to leave our shitty boss once we’d graduated and start developing our own, way less shitty games.

at the start of 2019, he got an excellent job offer. i was thrilled for him and told him to of course get out of that hellhole we hated so much, we were only there because the pay was decent and the hours were flexible so we could get our degree, you know? it stung, but i was happy for him. on the last day i gave him a ride home (which is also something i did almost daily), he surprised me by hugging me and telling me i was like a brother to him and our plans weren’t going to change. 

i believed him, and went back to work. he was soon replaced, obviously, by a junior developer because that’s how capitalism works. but suddenly, i no longer had someone to take a stand with me against my boss - there was no one left that i knew, everyone had resigned or been fired and i was the oldest employee. you’d think that’d earn me something, after eight years being dedicated to the same company, right? 

(shortly after, my grandma passed, after years and years of agonizing in a wheelchair. we lived together)

fuck that

the first months were fine. i was being the senior developer and teaching the junior constantly, so my boss stayed out of my way. but see, this is where he started to get ansty. the more the junior stopped being a junior and was actually useful for something, the more that piece of gigantic ass just started thinking only about our salaries. i started in that company in 2012 making little more than 3 bucks/hour (remember i live in a third world country, but it was still specialized work), but by 2019, my salary was pretty much double of what the junior was making, and every penny extra i got during those years was a CONQUEST. i also worked six hours while he worked eight, so.

my boss basically started treating me even more like shit. he wasn’t nice to be around before, but he was bearable in small amounts. suddenly it was obvious to everyone that he was really fixating on me and my performance, and to me it was obvious he just wanted me to walk away too so he could replace me with TWO junior developers instead of just one measly charlie. 

then, the nationals elections began. oh boy.

this probably wouldn’t read as news to anyone, but i’m a huge leftie, obviously. if you’re at all interested in politics, read about what socialist policies have done for uruguay during the past 15 years and how they turned us into AT LEAST a developing country, but i digress. 

the people that sat in my office even shared my political views or whatever, but my boss is actually part of the conservative party and started actively campaigning. every time something involving politics happened, he made a point to come barging in the office and telling me and specifically me about it like i was personally running against his party. i actually recorded him once to have proof of him at least screaming at me, so i could check if i was crazy for thinking he had something against me. he frequently called me communist and just mocked my views. if you’re wondering, yes, this is illegal, but nothing happened. 

then, two big things happened at once: we lost the election, and my recently adopted puppy was diagnosed with distemper. yes, it happened on the same that and it’s a day i’ll never forget. 

my girlfriend and i had talked about getting a puppy once we moved in together. we’d named him like two years before it actually happened. we moved in together on may 2019 and on september i found the most precious boy for adoption on facebook and i was innocently all like “oh i’ve had to put rescue dogs for adoption before, let’s give back!”. 

on october 27th, he had a seizure and the vet told us it was likely we’d have to put him down because only 20% of dogs survived, and it was even less for puppies. 

when i went to work, i had to put up with my boss laughing and mocking me for winning the election “against me”. i guess i missed my running for anything?

this post is already too long for me to get into details about my dog’s disease. for months, every day we looked after him constantly. i read everything there was to BE READ about distemper online, spent thousands of pesos on medicine and treatments just in case he had a chance. good news is he did! this is the only positive note in this post. 

it still wasn’t easy. he made us cry at least three times a day. we really thought he was dying, and we’d made the mistake of naming him 2 years before he was even born. we’d taken PERFECT care of him while he was unvaccinated, but the vet told us it was most likely he was already infected before he came home to us. i’d never seen such a small puppy so sick. he hallucinated constantly. if you don’t know, distemper is a neuro/digestive/skin/bone/HELL disease that’s really nasty. he’d have seizures almost daily and poop and pee himself. he stopped being able to control his body other than his two front legs, which he didn’t even have full control of. when he stopped being able to walk, he started crying constantly, it really tore the heart out of my chest

we called another vet, a dog physical therapist, so she’d tell us how we could help him. she told us to make him stand as long as possible, so every time he had a meal, i’d bend down with him and hold his hips - so he’d be able to stand, and slowly gain back some muscle mobility. every day we massaged his legs and flexed his joints, even his tiny toes, so he’d avoid atrophy. and we did it!! as i’m writing this, he’s one year old now, he’s no longer sick even if he’ll carry with him plenty of lifelong sequels, and he walks and runs and barks like the best of them ♥ i wasn’t going to plug anything but if you wanna see his progress, it’s on instagram @hamiltonthefighter

okay, i guess i ended up talking at length about his disease in the end, sorry. his walking again had a price to pay for me: my own back. for two or three months i was bent over this dog, you know? i still can’t get out of bed without help sometimes lol around december it got really bad but i just kept popping pills because joy oh joy, i was doing my thesis and i didn’t really have time or money for anything else. my job was basically paying for our rent, my university classes including the thesis course which was ridiculously expensive, and our dog had given me credit card debt out of desperation (we even had to buy those rubber things used for yoga to place on our floors so he’d have something to use his nails against instead of constantly slipping on the floor, we tried every medication that might help, we gave him CBD oils, all kinds of vitamins, constant vet visits where during the first two weeks he got like three different shots every day, etc)

i’m rambling, and i’m sorry, but i don’t really think anyone will read this. i started this post crying my eyes out and writing about my dog at least has been calming, because even if he’s a drooling mess now, he’s still the same he ever was and i love him very much and he’s sleeping soundly next to me and he’s finally close to fine. 

remember the friend i talked about like half an hour ago? the one that worked with me for six years? nothing changed between us during the first months. for my thesis, i was going to develop a videogame with Mabu, but we were allowed to have external coding help because it was about GameDev, not the actual coding. i knew how to code, obviously, but Nico (the friend, guess we’ll give him a name) was also part of our project so he was gonna help us code so i had more time to focus on art and 3D modelling. the idea was kill two birds with one stone, make something we all liked, mabu and I were going to graduate with it and then we’d keep working on it during 2020 as we’d always always talked about.

by december, even if nico and i still talked regularly, i could tell he had just moved on with his life. he’d said he’d help us, but he was doing his own thesis, so i told him not to worry at that time, our final due date was in february. he asked us to forgive him during december and promised us he’d come back in january to DEVOTE himself to the project. i started coding the project besides working on the art and i was thankfully able to meet all the deadlines, so it was really fine, of course i understood where he was coming from. 

then, on january 7th, Mabu’s grandma passed away. she was scheduled for a heart surgery that supposedly only had 1% risk, and she passed on the table because of a doctor’s mistake. the surgery was here in the capital, but Mabu’s family lives five hours away. she comes from a very big, very loving family, and her grandma (being the mother of five children) was very much the center of it. i also loved her. she’d replaced my grandma the second she passed and every time i saw her she hugged me like i was a lost grandson. 

when my girlfriend called me during her surgery, i immediately left work because i just knew she would be crying if things were okay. this was a nightmare come alive for a family of 20+ people, and most of them were 5 hours away from their own house. my mother in law was (and still is) devastated by the lost of her mother because she was the one to encourage the surgery and she still thinks she killed her. i drove my her, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend on my mother’s in law van for five hours while they all cried or slept and i had to really, really pinch myself because i was EXHAUSTED but what else could i do? 

logically i missed work the next day. LOGICALLY. i had the service to attend and i was 5 hours away from the office and i didn’t even have my own car with me. i told my boss to discount the day, since i wasn’t entitled to the mourning day by law because it wasn’t my grandma. he didn’t even reply - he almost never talked to me by this point unless it was to berate me for something. i went back to work the day after the service.

now, remember we were doing our thesis and it was due in february? it really wasn’t great timing for anyone to die, but i was trusting Nico’s promise that he’d have more free time and he’d make up for not helping us code sooner. i told him the news about Mabu’s grandma, and then basically had to tell him to say something to her for her loss because he was supposed to be her friend, what the fuck, why aren’t you at least sending her a text.

let’s just say, january wasn’t a great month for Mabu and myself. two weeks after the passing, we still hadn’t had news from Nico. Mabu didn’t even have time to properly mourn because we had to turn our thesis in like, little over a month. i wrote to nico just downright ASKING if he was gonna be able to help us or WHAT, to which he said to me...

he’d never promised anything because he was really busy with his own stuff and he didn’t want to bring it up sooner because he knew Mabu was mourning and things were hard for us at the moment? 

like that’s great pal, thanks for telling me at the last POSSIBLE second you were just dropping out altogether, what the actual fuck? it still baffles me that someone can be so thick headed, but he kept saying he had made no promises and both Mabu and I knew that was a lie and i honestly just couldn’t deal with someone so selfish he couldn’t at least give a heads up sooner

the icing on the cake during the beginning of this year is someone i haven’t even mentined: MY PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER. talking about him may deserve another post, because this is already so long and convoluted and i haven’t even talked about his involvement in my misery during 2019-2020. i’ll try to make the story short if anyone’s still reading this far: 

a lot of years ago, our maternal grandmother moved to uruguay from russia and bought a tiny shitty house here next to my mother’s. my mother still hasn’t talked to me since 2013 because i’m trans, but that’s neither here nor there. i tried to keep in touch with my brother (we don’t share dads so he was no relation with my side of the family), and around 2017 i finally succeeded in making friends with him. or so i thought, clearly. 

that grandmother passed... sometime. i don’t really know because they cut me off. she didn’t speak to me either, she was literally a crazy old nasty woman and i didn’t even care when i heard she’d died, to be honest. she was such a nasty woman, she’d put her tiny shitty house to my and my brother’s name just to keep her own daughter out of the inheritance when she bought it. 

that also meant i was inheriting something for the first time ever, even if it was shitty. BUT my brother had his own fake grandma (the woman who looked after him his whole life instead of our mother) who was very old and frail and asked me if he could house her there. i said yes because again, i didn’t give a shit about the inheritance or the house or anything regarding my mother’s side of the family (other than him obviously), so for years this woman occupied the house. my brother basically took all existing furniture and appliances because he was moving in with a girlfriend and i even loaded up my shitty car with his stuff. all i wanted to inherit was the couch set, which had come all the way from russia and everyone had promised me since i was a wee lad, but he started whining about his fake-grandma not having a living room set and nowhere to sit and i didn’t even live by myself yet so i let them have the fucking couches, too. 

oh boy this is already too long but now i’m too lazy to make a separate post

anyway, sometime during 2019, the woman moved out to an old folks home because she could no longer take care of herself. i immediately asked about the couch set with hope in my heart that it could finally be mine, but my brother told me our mother didn’t want me to have it. 

he wanted to rent the house to make a profit, which sounded good to me because of that dog related credit card debt i talked about. and here’s where you might think i’m not that there in the head, but all my life i didn’t want anything to do with that house until my mother was in the ground - not out of hate but because i thought it was a shitty thing her own mother had done to her, and the inheritance should have been hers. she doesn’t have a degree or a stable job because she’s a russian translator so hey, whatever, they needed it more than i did. but then my brother starting getting ideas about improving the house so we’d make more money, and how we should do it together, and... i think i might have mentioned already why i didn’t exactly have time to redo a house? i was doing my thesis? about to graduate? my boss was constantly on my case? my dog was about to die? 

i helped as much as i could at first, but then december came, and then january, and my brother just kept nagging me about the house like i was purposefuly sitting on my ass doing nothing, because oh every day it’s not rented it’s money lost. no amount of explaining how stretched thin i was seemed to suffice, not even when mabu’s grandma died and nico left us hanging with the thesis and i had less than a month left to code the whole project by myself while ALSO taking care of the art. 

by the end of january, i was so stressed, i called a doctor after a panic attack. he gave me a weeks rest because of my back, because i wasn’t even able to get up without help at that time. it wasn’t much of a rest because i still used that time to sit at the computer and code 15 hours a day at LEAST, but hey. 

it was the first time in 8 years i’d taken medical leave of ANY kind. i didn’t even get medical leave when i got my chest surgery. it happened on a friday and i was back to work the next monday. i’d never skipped more than 2 days of work at best when i had a bad case of the flu or something, but that was it. 

when i went back to work, my boss immediatelly called me to his office. he started berating me about my performance again, bringing graphs comparing the amount of lines of code i’d written next to my coworkers. i didn’t mention this, but the graphic designer had also quit during 2019, so i was also covering that workload and no, that didn’t exactly translate to lines of code. i also had to spend HOURS every day tutoring the junior because he was too much of a cheap shit (didn’t use those words) to hire an experienced developer. i’d even WORKED AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FOR MEDIA CONTENT FOR HIS POLITICAL CAREER, EVEN IF IT WAS AGAINST MY BELIEFS AND NOT AT ALL RELATED TO MY JOB. he denied everything. EVERYTHING. he stuck to the narrative that i was just lazy and the proof was i’d just taken AN ENTIRE WEEK because “my back just hurt a little” and i had the audacity to skip work for someone else’s grandmother dying

i’m not exaggerating, i swear to anyone who might be reading this. that day was brutal and i’m still not over it half a year later, i don’t care if that makes me sound like a wuss. i worked eight years of my life in this fucking place. 

this argument lasted for hours, but i kept my head down because i couldn’t afford to lose the job, specially not then. i even apologized for any loss in performance and tried to explain my point of view and what i was going through (which i’d already done to another superior weeks ago anyway). but just when i thought i’d MAYBE be able to keep my head above water, he told me he was denying my the request i’d made to take two weeks of holiday days before the thesis final due date. 

i had already explained everything to him. everything, even nico dropping the team and my having to do everything by myself. i broke down and i told him he was forcing me to leave my job, i’d just have been certified by a doctor and i was asking for leave for SCHOOL (all things that are protected by law here), but he just kept repeating i could either walk away from my job or show up during those two weeks. he just wanted me gone, but he couldn’t fire me right away without having to pay me THOUSANDS because of my seniority (by law). he knew what he was doing to me and he didn’t care about it. he didn’t even let me TOUCH MY COMPUTER, he told me he wasn’t the one pushing me away, that i was doing this to myself, and he’d ask for a lawyer to check my computer for any “inconsistencies in my activity”, even. i really have a hard time just thinking about that day and how utterly humilliating it was. i lost a lot of personal files, because i sat at that desk for eight years and of course i had personal files because sometimes i stayed after hours before going to class. 

imagine for a second a sixty year old man, rich as shit, political candidate, standing in front of a computer, disconnecting the mouse and keyboard so i couldn’t touch it, yelling at me i was doing this to myself and i was losing my job because i had the audacity to ask for two weeks leave to finish my fucking school thesis. 

and yeah, i lawyered up. i didn’t have actual money to AFFORD a lawyer, but mabu’s cousin’s girlfriend was a lawyer and lived one block away and i immediatelly told her everything there was to tell. she brought me to the firm she worked in and they guaranteed me i had a pretty strong case and i was at least gonna be able to walk away with something.

that put things in hold for a while because the “trial” or whatever wasn’t gonna be held until after the thesis, so i tried to forget about it. my boss even owed me my untaken paid vacation days, which i told the lawyers because i was pretty sure he’d just forgot, but i wanted to know if it made a better case against him. they agreed, and i left it at that. 

but you know who was still making my life miserable even when february began and i had less than three weeks to finish our project right? MY SWEET BABY BRO. he was constantly nagging me about having to do all the work himself, like I’D ASKED ANYTHING FROM THAT HOUSE TO BEGIN WITH. but see, the nastier he started getting, the more apparent his lies began to appear. he got nasty to the level where ON THE DAY I WAS TURNING THE PROJECT IN he kept calling me demanding MONEY for stuff he’d paid for the house without checking in with me. i was honestly baffled by his level of selfishness, i was already sleeping three hours a day tops and he expected me to what, paint walls? he was FIERCELY against having to wait for my project to be done even if it was two weeks away and he was asking and asking for money when i’d just told him i’d lost my job without a penny to show for it. nice guy, really. 

suddenly, the following lies became clear: 

 my mother didn’t care if i took the couch set, he told me that because he was moving again and he was planning on taking the couches himself. (he ended up doing just so, too). he lied to me with the thing that hurts me most in the world: my mother hating me. he had even made a joke about it, because my mother had bought a new couch not long ago, and he didn’t “get” why she “didn’t want me to have anything”

 years ago he’d told me he had refinanced a tax debt the house had, and i gave him money for it. now that the house was about to be put up for rent, he pretended that had never happened and suddenly started talking about how we needed to take care of that

 he wasn’t planning on splitting the rent three ways between him, our mother and i. he was gonna keep two thirds, and i later even found out my own mother had given him the idea. 

 then poor mabu confessed to me once, two years ago, she’d wore a skirt one time visiting my brother and his then girlfriend, and he had told her nasty stuff to her year upon saying goodbye and she had never said anything because didn’t want to hurt our sibling relationship 

talk about final nail huh? 

i confronted him and he denied everything, obviously, he instantly played the victim card, how dare i think that way about him, how dare i break his dreams of reuniting the family again. he said things to me i’ll also never forget like, apparently, it shows that i’m a shit person because i have no friends and no one wants me around, unlike him that has so many. he told me i thought the world owed me when i was shit and i believed anything anyone told me before believing him. no one told me any of his lies, i caught them all by myself, but whatever. he cursed me and told me he never wanted anything to do with me because i was rotten and i only cared about money and i was so so selfish. this must have been around march and i still don’t know anything from him, or care.

what do i have to do for that side of the family to leave me alone, i wonder? all i ever wanted to do was be his friend

the “trial” against my boss came and suddenly every lawyer that worked at that firm was taking a fucking holiday except for the one that was supposedly leading my case - except suddenly, i didn’t have much of a case at all. i walked away with less than 2 thousand dollars and that was WITH the vacation days i hadn’t taken. the agreement was the lawyers were gonna keep 25% of however much i made but THAT vacation money wasn’t supposed to count because it didn’t come out of the “trial” thing, you know? 

well, it did. the lawyer screwed me over too. but hey, at least he’d gotten me unemployment for a couple of months (you only apply for unemployment if you’re fired, not if you walk away from a job, and my having been fired or not was what was being contested), i still tried to be optimistic, i had a few months to figure things out while i looked for another job, and at least i was able to finish paying for school with that money.

yeah, this was late february, beginning of march. joke’s on me for being optimistic at all

my own brother plotting with my own mother against me has done a number for my mental health. i already had baggage aplenty, like every trans dude or girl whose parents would rather see them dead than be a dyke/fag (my mother’s own words, ladies and gents)

my boss of eight years kicking me to the curve at the worst moment in my life in the most humilliating of ways while blaming me for it has left me feeling so worthless to people in general. i’m getting better with time, i think, but i’m still all not there. i have a really hard time thinking my work is worth anything at all.

i keep thinking my brother was right, and i’m a shitty friend, and i don’t deserve anyone around. my only real friend at the moment is my girlfriend, which makes it really hard to have any arguments because i start feeling like my life is ending because she’s pretty much all i have left and she’s the most important thing in the world to me because i wouldn’t have survived all this shit i’m writing without her by my side. i would walk to hell and back for her. but nico also left me behind without a second thought, after telling me i was like a brother to him, no matter how many times i invited him to hang out or anything to keep in touch. i’ve been a shitty friend to a lot of people, but not him, and he still didn’t care about me at all, so i just stopped trying. 

but now social distancing has got me all fucked up. i can’t trust people. i can’t go outside. everything is scary to me, i have at least two or three panic attacks per WEEK and they get nastier and longer every time. i know i need help, but i can’t even afford rent, let alone therapy. Uruguay has the worst unemployment rates since 2006 now thanks to our baby-Trump right now. i look for jobs daily even if the notion of having a job even SIMILAR to the one i had before gives me the shakes. programming isn’t as hard as some people may think, but the workplaces are usually VERY toxic because you’re valued by the amount of lines of code you write, and i’m so so tired. i’m still looking because I NEED. TO. PAY. RENT. but not because it’s something i want in life, at all. i’d much rather be poor and just do freelance work instead, but i’m failing.

i thank the people that have helped me or commissioned me these past few months from the bottom of my heart. i’m sorry i’m not more active, i’m sorry i’m still rusty and can’t draw faster, i’m sorry i sometimes spend half a day crying my eyes out because i just don’t know how to move forward. i have a week left, i still haven’t made enough for rent, let alone the bills or food. mabu used to get plenty of art commissions on etsy, but she hasn’t sold anything since march either and she’s younger than me so our financial struggles have an even deeper impact on her

i’m just so, so tired. i’m lucky to have mabu, and that is about it. i honestly don’t think i could have survived this year without her. for months the future has looked like a black screen to me. i can’t even trust the vegetable market in front of my fucking house because some piece of shit spread the rumor that i’m trans and now i can’t even open the door to my front house without getting stares sometimes, it’s ridiculous. i wish i could trust more than one person in the world so that everything wasn’t on her shoulders.

i’m not okay. we’re not okay.

that’s about it. i’m sorry i can’t end this on a more positive note. at least we graduated with an excellent score. not that we had a graduation, obviously. thanks corona.

thank you for reading if you read this far ♥

[uwua3]

that taichi headcannon for jealousy broke my heart :( could you do one where he finds another person? one that makes him laugh, ruffles his hair, games with him etc~ a happier one!

oh no!!! i’m so sorry here u go *offers u a new, super cool heart that is angst–proof* ♡ yes, i definitely want taichi to find ~ love ~ like he deserves because he’s such a puppy 🥺 i adore him endlessly so him having a happy alternative is Required Immediately!

summary: love came in many forms—including platonic best friends

warnings: heartbreak, unrequited love

author’s note: i actually went a bit more different route with this! i know this prompt typically means a romantic love, but i didn’t really feel like it would fit. this is a best friend! reader x taichi, and i am so happy with the message in this! go best friends!!!

love is love and you shouldn’t have to rush into a relationship to find it. your friends love you, and although it’s not the same, it’s more than enough ♡ love isn’t just what you do for others, so don’t try so hard to be loved. people will love you for you, not whatever romantic movie–based idea you have of them. i hope you know you are loved. i love you ♡

word count: 2,106

music: ily (i love you baby) – surf mesa ft. emilee

a skater gets back up.

🍁🛹 nanao taichi

taichi missed being in love

he missed writing all those heart–shaped love letters made of pink construction paper and his exaggerated, overwhelming feelings with red pen. he’d write their name in pretty cursive that took so many tries, he dotted the i’s with hearts, he color–coded it so well that it was just an explosion of valentine’s day

he missed dedicating his favorite songs to them, hearing it randomly in his shuffled mix and immediately thinking of them. he missed explaining what the songs meant, feeling all types of love when he repeated them over and over again

he missed creating playlists with them in his mind, forming it so it flowed perfectly and it was like he handcrafted the album himself. he missed sending the link and listening to it on repeat like a lovesick fool

he missed sending good morning/night texts, putting all his time aside just to fall head over heels again like he was on his skateboard. taichi knew he was a good boyfriend, that he loved with all of his heart and his feelings were real. but, he missed all of it, he missed love so much. taichi needed love

(it was so fucked up, but taichi sometimes listened to all the music he dedicated to them at night and stared up at his dark bedroom ceiling, crying just wishing he didn’t break it off. that he kept the toxic relationship going for just a bit more, just for the attention. he missed them)

so, taichi knew what he had to do. he actively started looking for love, not caring if he was going to get hurt again or if his heart was weak and broken from his last situation

(taichi’s reliance on love was so unhealthy, that even his friends got tired of his whining and eventually stopped communicating back when he went on a rant again)

(taichi didn’t mind, his dependency and need to be someone’s and be their one & only was too strong for him to even consider any other rational solution)

but you, you came out of no where

taichi was busy scrolling through his instagram following list, trying to find out if anyone cute was single. he could slide into their DMs with a fun message, be as enthusiastic as possible to avoid being left on seen. he was considering if he should start a digital conversation as he rode home from school

(he wasn’t the best multitasker. taichi was skating to the dorms, texting on his phone without looking up. he was casually skating before bam! he hit a curb, tumbling to the pavement as his phone flew a few feet away)

taichi groaned, knowing he was going to get scolded and laughed at by autumn troupe the moment he showed up to the dorms like he lost in a fight. as he moved to lay on his back, taichi rubbed his eyes as the sunlight was suddenly blocked from his vision

taichi opened his eyes and looked up, you were looking over him with wide, concerned eyes as you were saying something about first aid and asking if he was okay. taichi just blinked, not hearing you over the ringing in his ears as he stared at your face

you were cute! this could work, taichi just had to say some clever pick–up line you’d like. you would maybe find it so witty that you’d give him your number, you two would walk, form a momentary bond where he’d fall in love, and then you’d leave. taichi couldn’t believe fate finally recognized he needed a partner so it made him fall for them instead (literally)

taichi was about to open his mouth before you took his hand and pulled him up, helping him stand and he stared at your face, trying to process the situation. why were you helping? were you interested? did you want to go on a date? taichi blushed, never having someone ever be this direct to him

in reality, taichi’s sense of perception and reading between the lines was so warped. taichi romanticized his entire life, the way you touched his arm and made sure a completely random stranger was okay. this had to be the universe’s calling! but really, he just fell in love with everyone he met and pretended like his soulmate was out there

(maybe, this was all just an elaborate game to prove to himself that someone could love him. maybe, taichi just wanted to be worthy of someone’s love)

last time, he purposely fell off his skateboard to get a person’s attention. but this time, you were the one who came over to help. maybe, this could be different

“hey, hey! are you okay?!”

when the ringing subsided and he could pick up on your voice, taichi kicked his board up and swung it in his open backpack, putting his free hand out as he grinned like he didn’t just embarrass himself in front of you

“nanao taichi, great to meet you!” he exclaimed, smiling like his elbows weren’t scraped or his uniform was in desperate need of an ironing. he had a dull headache and he needed an ice pack for that bruise on his hip, but he looked so happy

you carefully took his hand, shaking it as you warily wondered how could someone be this happy after crashing like that (it was honestly a wreck, he looked like he could’ve died from the way he landed)

you said your name and the rest was history as he picked up his phone, wincing at the cracked screen, as he asked for your number

from there on, it was the start of a healthy friendship. at first, taichi tried to force this image he had onto you, convinced the timeline was basically telling him he had to do everything in his power to fall in love. but you shut him down quickly, emphasizing you guys were only friends and you weren’t about to risk this great friendship for some fling taichi wanted

honestly, it was for the best. taichi respected your boundaries and backed down (especially after you were adamant on not entering a fake relationship for the attention). when taichi took off his rose–tinted glasses and realized not every relationship he had meant pursuing some fantasy of love only he could imagine, your friendship with him became even better

taichi wrote you letters when he genuinely meant them, not because he felt like he was obligated to. sometimes, when he was so appreciative of how much you were there for him, he wrote pages of what you meant to him. they weren’t heart–shaped, but it had even more meaning because you actually read them and ruffled his hair, saying he was the bestest friend ever

you loved it! even though, he didn’t try as hard as he always did. he wrote your name normally, but you still smiled when you read it. he didn’t dot his i’s with hearts, but you still joked about how messy his handwriting was, and it didn’t bother him! it wasn’t perfect nor a representation of his lovey–dovey heart, but you loved it more than anyone else he ever did it for in his past

(his heart swelled with pride, not because he did something romantic, but because it made you happy. taichi was happy you felt loved, and were loved. was that the true purpose of letters? taichi didn’t think he could’ve wrote letters that were just plain without all the love clichés in the world, but you enjoyed them just the same without the flowery language)

taichi even sent you songs he knew you would love. you always listened to them, even sent back feedback about what you liked. but, taichi didn’t think it was romantic in any way. you appreciated that he took his time to send you something he associated with you. you always sent one back, but it wasn’t random, he always had on repeat whatever you chose because it fit him so well

he even remembered the first time he created a playlist for you on your birthday, selecting the same amount of songs as your age with thoughtful consideration. but this time, he didn’t go overboard and nitpicked at every single beat and rhythm. he just picked songs that made him think of you in a random order, and you still loved it. you even sent a video of you listening to it and shooting a thumbs up to the camera

(taichi’s heart doubled in size. you knew him so well! you knew what he liked and always paid attention to his likes & dislikes just like he did with you! you put in just as much effort with him, you really tried in this friendship and it wasn’t for the gifts he’d shower his future significant other with)

taichi always said good morning/night to you, but you didn’t yell at him when he forgot sometimes. you always said it back and even texted him first on occassion

(his heart was truly overwhelmed with all the subtle love you showed him. for once in his life, taichi felt like this was love. but he didn’t have to follow every romance movie’s rules or imitate every protagonist ever to get that love, all he did was be his true, authentic self)

taichi stopped himself from forcing love onto everyone he met. on nights when he felt like texting his ex again, or rekindling old relationships that didn’t work out for a reason, you stayed up with him, reminding him how much pain he went through and he couldn’t just put himself through hell again

taichi had to accept not everyone was his soulmate–to–be, that maybe this wasn’t his time to be in love. it took so much time to know that he’d rather be in love for a very long time than in short bursts

(not because it was more romantic, but he deserved a long–term, stable relationship that wasn’t just him begging for validation)

you taught him he was more than the people who played him in the past. he couldn’t sink to their level and start messing around just for the satisfaction, he would fall in love with someone right and it would be all worth it

(you two even once got into an argument. when taichi was going on and on about wanting a partner, you cut him off angrily, frustrated he wasn’t listening to your pleas for him to stop. you were so confused why he kept doing this to himself on purpose and if he was going to turn into some player. he kept ignoring you, whining about some partner before you gave up, telling him you couldn’t handle it today)

(that’s what it took for him to snap back to reality, taichi apologized immediately and tried his best to avoid ranting so much. at the end, you were always right and wanted the best for him. taichi had to accept that)

you provided taichi with real love that wasn’t because because he did all these romantic things, it was because you liked him for him. he stopped trying to see you as a potential lover and loved you as a friend, and that was more than enough

taichi had skateboarded to your house, rapidly knocking on your door as you came outside to see him with a boquet of flowers and your favorite candy. your heart dropped, oh no, was he about to confess when you made it clear—

“i love you.” taichi said, passing you the gifts as you stood shocked. you couldn’t believe it, you told him numerous times you two would never be in a relationship like this... you were about to object, reprimand him before he burst out laughing, holding his stomach as he hopped off his board

“oh my god! your face!!!” taichi hollered, trying to contain himself as you smacked his head with your boquet. you were genuinely so freaked out but breathed a sigh of relief once you saw he looked at you the same as before. taichi wasn’t in love with you, but—

“i just came to say i love you, as my best friend. i love you, and you taught me real love. i love you.”

your best friend, taichi, smiled just like that day he fell off his skateboard and scraped up his entire body. you hoped he never changed and stayed the same romantic nutcase as before, but for the right person

as you hugged him, taichi realized he didn’t need a relationship. he needed love, and his best friend was more than enough

[astroi]

From Black to Blue

Steven watched Steven 2 check something off on a sheet of paper, everything was written in some sort of code, he couldn't dream of reading it. His future counterpart counted on his fingers in Spanish, Steven didn't know enough Spanish to really follow it.

"Uno: Salva la aguja del mar." He tapped his pen to the paper, scribbling an X.

"Dos: Protégelos del musgo." He placed a check in the box. He hummed, partially content.

"Tres: Interceptar las mentiras de papá." He smiled and put a ✓ in that box.

"Cuatro: Exponer las Gemas a los robonoides de Peridot." Steven 2 checked that box with a stiff nod.

"Cinco: Capturar Spinel." He folded the paper back up into his pocket.

"What 'cha doing, 2?" The pen he was holding became dented in his grip.

"Wh-what, Steven?" He was never a good liar, "What- how long have you been watching me?"

"Just a little bit, can you tell me what language you were writing in, it looks cool." Steven 2 chuckled at that, lightly shaking his head. It was nice to see him smile.

"If I tell you, you-," he trailed off staring at the puppy dog eyes of his younger self. He couldn't resist their power!

"It's modern gem gliph." He confessed with a sigh.

"Gem gliph?" The boy tilted his head.

"It's what Era thr- tw- Gems use on- on- their networks nowadays."

'Nice save, Universe,' he chastised himself.

"Ooh, cool! Can you teach me?"

"I could-," he definitely could, there were slight discrepancies between Gem and English, mostly in phrases and vocabulary. Understandably, they do not have a word for taco or any food, as of yet.

"Can we start now?!" Stars gleamed in the kid's eyes. Diamonds briefly flashed in his, "Okay, but when I get back."

"Where are you going?"

His knuckles rapped on the empty plastic, "Just a Gem mission."

"Can I come?"

"No," Steven 1 deflated, "it's a little too dangerous for you. If you came along I have no idea how that could impact the future."

"Why did you come to the past anyway, 2?"

His teeth gritted together as he spoke, "The same reason anyone would: to fix things before they can break."

"So what broke?" Steven 2 didn't reply, only standing up from the couch and pulling out a water bottle from the fridge.

"What broke? Some cool Gem artefact?" Steven 1 pressed. Steven 2 avoided conversation by chugging the water bottle and grabbing a second one.

"Why are you drinking water?"

"There isn't any where I'm going."

"Maybe I can come and carry the waters for you?"

'Please', he just wanted to be useful.

"Why do you want to come so badly? Don't you have a video game to play or a movie to watch?" He snapped.

Steven 1 snapped right back, "It's so boring here! And you're always going on those cool secret missions in the middle of the night!"

He stammered, "I-I-I, how do you know about that?"

"Sometimes I wake up early and you're not there."

"Uh, w-well, it's a job in itself preventing sh-st-stuff from happening."

"Can't I come with you?"

"I, not this time, little guy, but if they're tame, I guess you can come."

Steven 1 cheered, "Oh, thank you, thank you!"

"I'm sure there's something you can help me do." He thinks of Nephrite's crew, "Yeah, yeah, you and I can go on a mission soon, maybe tomorrow-ish."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it won't be too hard, if you do good on it I'll consider taking you to more complicated missions."

"I won't let you down, I know the Sea Spire thing was my fault, but I won't mess up again, 2." Steven 2 tossled the lad's curls fondly.

"See you tomorrow, then."

"Wait, you'll be safe, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry, I'm as tough as nails!" He grinned at the kid, hoping to cheer him up. There was a slight chance he might never return, at least as who he is now.

He went outside to use that warp, 'as he always does,' Steven 1 mulled.

He jogged in the desert's cold for however long it took for him to find his mother's old leg ship. Activating it, he launched himself out of the Earth's orbit. The coordinates were set for The Garden, it was only a matter of time before he had to bubble that Gem. Spinel probably didn't deserve this, but he had to protect the Earth and himself, so he steeled himself as he neared the abandoned planetoid.

It almost hurt him to see Spinel all hopeful like that.

"Pink?" He heard from the top of the legs, "Pink, is that you?"

He floated down gently, he knew what happened the first time; he didn't have to fight her.

"No, I'm sorry. Pink has been dead for fourteen years."

"But-but,"

"She was never planning on coming back for you, Spinel, I'm sorry."

Spinel was sobbing, yanking at her heart-shaped buns "She left me here for thousands of years, and," the pink Gem hiccoughed, "then she dies!" Spinel crumpled in a heap on the ground, letting out a broken sob before poofing. Steven 2 bubbled the Gem and left it there; he couldn't bring himself to take it back with him. He felt his memories changing. He felt lighter: he got his happily ever after. Sure, Aquamarine and Eyeball were a pain to deal with, but they were relatively harmless. Everything was good, even if he spends most of his time on Homeworld these days. He'd do anything to stop them from moving in with him on Earth; if that meant visiting at least four times a week, so be it.

He left the legs in the desert, curled up against the wall of the weird trash collection his mom had amassed. He made his way back in a series of happy hops.

Steven 1 ran up to him, when he opened the door, "How'd it go?"

"Went good, the hard part was just getting there, honestly." He opened the refrigerator to get more water, tearing the paper and stepping into the bathroom.

Steven 1 noticed 2 had changed, his shirt was different (after turning on the light that became very apparent) he seemed happier though. The Steven 2 he knew was never in this good of a mood. What happened? Where did he go, what did he change?

He knew he should be happy for 2, but he's acting like a different person now. Humming, singing, dancing and still adding things to that ever-growing check-list of his. He missed his friend, he could make friends again with this new Steven 2, but how long will that last before he changes again?

Amethyst, Pearl and Garnet didn't seem to remember the Steven 2 he met a couple of weeks ago a-top the sea spire with the moon goddess statue in his hands. It was weird to see them acting like this.

"Hey, bud, what's wrong?" The cyan-shirted 2 asked.

"I miss the old you."

"That's valid, kid. You got to know the guy, I don't remember being him anymore."

"You don't?"

"Nah, it's okay for you to miss him, all I know is that his life was worse than mine. For me, going back in time has been like a vacation for me: I get to speed things along and get to enjoy the sights one more time." He smirked, "It's actually kind of refreshing to see things changing."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, everything's always the same in the future. Go the work, make a couple calls, check-in around town, look for any leftover corrupted gems; it's the same day in and day out. I get plenty of days off though, it's nice to split the load for once. Back when I was sav- fifteen, it was just me for the most part. It was exhausting having to do all I had alone. It's nice to just lounge around, I barely got to do that before. I always have to sit upright an' stuff." He laughed, "I wish I could get into the details more, but that could break 'all of time and space as we know it.'" He made an impression of a nasally voice.

"Psh, as if, Pink Lasagna," he winked, "has got it covered."

"Who's-,"

"Man, I wanna tell you everything, but," he huffed crossing his arms, "I'm supposed to wait."

"What? Why can't you tell me now?"

"Something about saying it messes up the future. I only really came here to enjoy myself and lessen the suffering of a few Gems while I'm at it. I can do that, it's not like any time is passing in the future while I'm here."

"So, are you still gonna teach me Gem Gliph or let me go on super secret missions with you?"

"Oh, sure, I can teach you some Gem Gliph. No biggie. As for missions,"

"Oh, here it comes,"

"I'll need to gauge how strong and in control of your powers you are, I can train you if you want, it's not really going to change much if I do."

"You'll train me?"

"Why not? No one knows how to use our powers more than I do."

This Steven 2 was nice, cocky and reminded him a little bit of his dad. The old 2 was sad, grumpy and protective, the only things these two Stevens have in common is how little they sleep.

He remembered what the other Steven 2 said to him when they met.

It was 12:01 A.M., Mr. Squeezy wasn't an adequate replacement for the moon goddess statue. He was shouting in frustration, "Are you serious?! The timing was off?" The bright pink of his flesh contrasted with the pitch black of his tee-shirt.

"Um, hi?"

"Oh, hi. Listen, we gotta bounce."

"Who are you?" Pearl inquired with a raised tone.

"Yeah, why do you look like an older version of Steven?"

"Because I am an older version of Steven?"

Stars gleamed in his eyes, "Another me?! Can we keep him?"

The other Steven frowned at him, "We don't have time, this place is coming down."

"We kept Amethyst." Pearl cackled at Garnet's comment.

"Stop it!" A dome of pink rhombuses encased us, protecting us from the debris.

After a moment, he let it drop when Steven's yellow raft surfaced. He let out a dry exhale, "Do any of us have a paddle?"

"No."

"Of course," he was very resigned into his fate.

He offered the stranger some food, food always cheered him up, "Does anyone want a wet bagel?"

"Sure, whatever." He had an expression on his face that read, 'what else do I have to lose?' To Steven, he just looked tired from using that power.

"It was really cool what you did back there."

"It's new."

"Can you teach me how to make myself all pink like you?" His eye twitched when he heard him.

He placed his hands on his shoulders, "You don't really want to discover that power in you, Steven, it's dangerous."

"But if I learn how to control it now, it won't be a problem later."

He raised an eyebrow, "Can you even summon your gem weapon yet?"

"N-no." He was working on it, he just didn't know how yet.

"When you can do that on command, I'll think about it." He was so cool, like a cranky Garnet.

Now he was gone, replaced with someone clearly more put together than he was, but still. He couldn't help himself from missing the guy. Tears fell down his cheeks.

"Hey, hey, kiddo? You alright?" He hugged the new 2, crying into his jacket. 2's jacket.

--------------

@sutimetravelau Check this out.

@space-is-the-place2

[rainsonata]

Doppelgänger 11/15

Chapter 11: Echoes 

Fandom/Pairing: Elsword; none Rating: T Word Count: 7,958

Summary: It was like looking into a mirror. What happens when one’s reflection talks back and throws uncomfortable questions? El Search Party struggles to find entrance into the Demon Realm, but Dominator has a plan.   

Alternative Title: Dominator fucked up and now everyone meets their alternative selves   

AO3 Link / FF.NET Link

— [Chapter 01] [Chapter 02] [Chapter 03] [Chapter 04] [Chapter 05] [Chapter 06] [Chapter 07] [Chapter 08] [Chapter 09] [Chapter 10] [Chapter 11] [Chapter 12] [Chapter 13] [Chapter 14] [Chapter 15] —  

----------------------------

Class Notes: 

Canon Path: Knight Emperor, Aether Sage, Daybreaker, Rage Hearts, Code: Esencia, Comet Crusader, Apsara, Empire Sword, Doom Bringer, Ishtar and Chevalier (Innocent), Bluhen   

Alternative Path: Rune Slayer, Oz Sorcerer, Anemos, Furious Blade, Code: Ultimate, Fatal Phantom, Devi, Flame Lord, Dominator, Timoria and Abysser (Catastrophe), Richter

----------------------------

Oz Sorcerer

Dusk bordered at the horizon when Oz returned to camp. Dozens of tents rose in a mass of colors and arranged into smaller circles with a smaller campfire for each group. Oz saw tents of the close-ranged fighters placed closer to the edge of their resting site, the ones ready for combat to the sound of intruders. Those that relied more on magic or needed more time to prepare like Rune and Dominator placed their tents more inward from the edge of the area they resided in.

“Hey, ‘cuse me,” a male voice grunted. “Sorry, come through.” 

The smell of blood and dirt filled the air. Knight was hauling a wild boar that was easily twice his size. Blood was dripping down the carcass and onto Knight’s armor. His great sword was tucked into a scabbard strapped to his back, grating against the gravel as he dragged the ridiculous sized animal over his shoulder. A quiet gasp escaped from a lower tree branch whipping into his vicinity and swapped the young man. 

“Need help?” Oz leaned forward, “I can barely see your face from here.” 

“Yes,” Knight groaned under the weight of the boar. How could someone so short carry a monster of that size? She was impressed. 

With the help of Angkor (“I’m not here to do grunt work!” He huffed.), she helped him carry the dead animal across camp. It took all of Oz’s effort now to lower the boar over a pile of dried leaves. They placed the boar next to a campfire. She watched its beady eyes staring back at her, dead and fish-eyed in death. 

She didn’t know the Demon Realm had animals.

Then again, Angkor didn’t really tell her much about the realm that demons called home. Oz looked up to see the moons nestled among the clouds. Angkor and Timoria spoke of their old allies and enemies, but their narrative of the Demon Realm varied. She guessed that it was as big and diverse as Elrios was. It took her weeks to journey from Sander all the way to Ruben in search of the Ring of Mimir, so maybe it would take weeks to reach the other end of the Demon Realm?

“What are you doing?” Oz observed Knight taking out a dagger from his belt. Angkor scurried off in bat form when Knight started skinning the animal with precision.  

“Prepping for dinner,” Knight said. He let out a nervous chuckle. “Do you want to help?”

“Sure,” Oz placed her staff on her belt to make her hands free. “What do we do first?”

“Uh, right.” Knight looked happy? He moved aside to patted the ground to gesture at her into joining him, nodding his head, “I want you to grab a bucket or any containers you have. We’ll be draining its blood to make pig blood curd for soups and congee in the morning. Once we finish, we’ll be carving the meat and use half of it to make dried jerky for battle rations. I already cleaned it out before I started skinning it.”

“These? Do you make everyone you talk to do this?” Oz asked. Placing the bowls aside, she sat on the floor next to Knight. “What happened to your friends?”

“Most of them are still resting after the fights,” Knight chuckled. “And you looked like you weren’t busy. What’s so funny?” 

He stopped to give her a strange look. What? Was Knight already detecting her sad attempt to keep a poker face during his long lecture? He glanced over Oz before making note of Angkor, who was back to his bat form. Angkor settled on her lap as a bat and giggled when Oz tried to move it. Did Angkor gain weight? Oz placed her hand over her chest and pretended to blush. 

“See something you like?” She teased. 

“I’m surprised you’re helping me after some of my friends tried to hurt you,” Knight was not fazed. 

“This wouldn’t be the first time our enemies became our allies,” Oz mused. “Rune asked me to do the same when we first met.” 

“Oh… sorry about that.” He was embarrassed. 

“What are you apologizing for? It’s always good to have a refresher!” Oz exclaimed, “Your hands were full and you looked like you needed help.”  

Knight looked relieved and nodded to himself. It was subtle, but a distinct smile. The kind Rune had when he learned a new technique to manipulate his runes. He was taller than Rune, towering over her with sleeves rolled back while working. His hair was a short neat cut, matching his eyes and the rest of his armor.   

After they extracted blood from the boar, they let it sit in one of the metal bowls to solidify. They would then slide the curd into smaller pieces to be salted and heated in a pot. Knight handed her a dagger and they began dividing the meat into sections. Oz let the man take the lead and insert the sharp edge towards the spine, cleaning the meat off the bone in one swipe. Knight expertly placed the meat into a separate container for later use and hummed as he worked. For a moment, she caught serenity in his silence, taking pride in his hard work.  

“Is it always you who does this?” Oz asked. 

“Sometimes it’s Elesis or Raven,” Knight said. “The others have offered to help, but I’m doing it today. Are you okay with that?”

“You’re asking me now?” Oz let out a mellow laugh, “It’s gross, but you look so sad doing it by yourself.”

“I look sad?” Knight chuckled, “I’m used to doing it by myself. I had to do it when ‘sis was out of the picture.” 

Stupid, Aisha! She scolded herself. Now she made him remember a lonely part of his life. Oz took deep breaths and counted backwards from ten. He didn’t even look upset about it and laughed. 

“But thank you for offering to help,” Knight said. “Food will be ready sooner and we can focus on everyone recovering.” 

“When was the last time you visited Ruben?” Oz asked.  

“It’s been years,” he admitted. “Haven’t had much time to return with everything that’s been happening.” 

“Do you miss home?” 

“Sometimes,” Knight said. “But when I’m with my friends, it’s like I have a second home. You know what I mean? Don’t laugh, but I hope I can one day show them Ruben when things are peaceful again.” 

“No, that sounds like a wonderful dream,” Oz softened her expression and thought about the people she grew up with. She wondered if her teammates felt the same. 

Oz started setting the seasoned meats onto a dry metal tablet to be smoked when she heard Angkor squeak. She looked up to Aether stomping over to her. Dressed in a white skirt accented by purple, Aether wielded a staff and looked short out of breath. Did all of Knight’s friends wear white?  

“Aisha?” Knight didn’t notice the dark aura radiating from the sulking mage. 

“Elsword,” Aether stopped to catch her breath. The twin cowlicks sprouting from her roots drooped as she rested her hands over her knees before bringing her head up. Her face was flustered, “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Helping Ciel prep for dinner. Oz is helping me.” Knight said and looked at her with pleading eyes. Did he just give Aether puppy eyes? He and Rune were cut from the same cloth. “Did Bluhen heal your arm?”     

“No one else can heal besides him, my arm is fine.” Aether huffed. “Did you just kill that boar by yourself? You should be resting. You’ve gone missing for two days!” 

“I’m not hurt!” Knight stood up for Aether to see. “Not a single cut! Ain healed most of my injuries!”  

“You can’t rely on him all the time for heals,” Aether glared. “I just talked to him and he said you should be resting. I bet you didn’t tell Ciel that, did you?” 

“I… no.” He said in a small voice. 

If looks could kill, Knight would have died twice fold from the intense looks the mage was sending to him. Oz held back her laughter as Aether scrutinized the red-haired man. Aether threw a side-eyed look to Oz as if debating if it was the dark mage’s fault for letting Knight do things by himself. 

“I helped him before no one else was,” Oz said before Aether could open her mouth. “We were almost done before you came here.”   

Glancing at the smoked meats and the pork blood curd finished steaming in the heated pot, Aether didn’t argue. She turned pink, embarrassed and offered an apology to both of them. Oz overheard Angkor chattering to her and hushed him to be quiet. 

“Do I look that awful?” Knight asked. 

“You look like a zombie,” Aether said. 

“Really? I was thinking more like a sad phoru.” Oz pointed to the bags under Knight’s eyes. Knight tilted his head to the side in confusion. 

“Go wash your hands and rest until dinner is ready,” Aether groaned before gesturing to Oz. “I’ll help her finish up the rest of what you already started.” 

“All right,” Knight walked past Aether. “Sorry for making you worry.” 

Oz wished he would stop taking blame for things in a feeble attempt to soothe anger from either side. It was grating on her nerves and didn’t suit him at all. It made her miss the slight flare of arrogance Rune had when thinking he found the perfect ratio of hot pepper flakes to apply to pork jerky, or when he set the entire demon army on fire. 

“Hey, worrying is our job.” Aether stopped him, “That’s what we’re here for.” 

Knight laughed.

There was silence between the two women when he left. Aether finished slicing the meat into thin pieces. Her slices were sloppier than Knight’s but cut close to the bone of the boar and marinated the meat in a metal bowl. Oz rotated the smoked meat for the other side to be cooked and checked on the pork blood curd. Their campsite smelled of smoked and seasoned meats.     

“So you do have a demon,” Aether looked at Angkor with the same fascination as one would with deadly forest fungi.

“Have?” Oz rolled her eyes, “He’s not a pet. More like a contract.” 

It was hard to believe Angkor was a demon god for the number of times he wouldn’t stop chattering demon gossip to her or demanding for more cookies. Oz wondered if looking like a child brought in the childish tendencies in the demon bat. His powers on the other hand were worth discussing and helped her in battles countless times. 

“How did that happen?” Aether asked. 

“Well, I was practicing dark magic when Angkor approached me.” Oz said, “He saw talent in me and offered a deal to me.” 

“And the clothes?” 

“That’s what you’re worried about the most?” Oz said, “I don’t mind. Maybe more ruffles than I wanted, but the gain in power was what mattered.” 

“You didn’t find the Ring of Mimir either?” 

“No,” Oz shook her head. The blood curd was done. She drained water from the pot and transferred them over to a container for storage. “Are you still looking for it?” 

“Yes,” Aether closed her eyes. “We were so close to catching the culprit. He ran off before I had the chance to get it back.”

“Do you think it will return your powers?” 

“I don’t know, maybe? I relearned the fundamentals of elemental magic, but there’s still more to be learned.” Aether said, “Hennon doesn’t have rights over that ring grandfather worked hard to uncover.” 

Oz tried to remember a time when she believed in having the ring restore her powers. After no leads to it, she turned to dark magic because she didn’t want to relearn something she had already lost. The Hennon of her world also had the Ring of Mimir, but that was the least of their concerns when there was an urgent matter of restoring the El. 

“So what’s with you and Elsword?” Aether asked. “I saw you two talking.”      

“Still obsessing over that boy?” Oz teased. 

“What?” Aether paused, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You keep looking at him.” Oz teased. “It’s like I’m not even here.” 

Aether sat still, frozen in time, and forgot that she had a knife in her hand. The knife remained suspended in a fist hold grip, losing its use in her hands. Her eyes widened, shocked by the statement and Oz’s impatience. Talking to Aether was coming into contact with a reflection of herself when she was eighteen years old, infatuated and hopeful in catching the attention of a red-haired boy. 

“It looked like you two were having fun,” Aether turned pink. “You two share nothing in common, but you made it look easy to talk to him about anything.” 

“I just let him talk about things he’s interested in,” Oz shrugged. “Didn’t you travel with him for five years?”  

“Yes, but I’m not sure if I know him as well as I thought I did.” She confessed, “When he went missing, I mistook Rune for him. It was so obvious. I feel like an idiot.”

“They’re pretty similar,” Oz said. “Both of them act like idiots, won’t stop talking about meat, insist they’re used to doing things alone...”

“That’s the thing!” Aether threw her arms in the air, “He always does all these things by himself, acting like everything is his fault. It’s so frustrating! How many times do we need to tell him we don’t mind?” 

“I think that’s why Knight hides things,” Oz leaned back. “He probably didn’t want to make you all worry, even if it’s a stupid idea and you all care about him either way.”  

Oz collected the remnants of the skinned and deboned animal. The bones were saved to be used as a base for soups and broths. She was impressed by Knight’s work ethic that expanded even outside of his training. Left to live by himself at a young age, Knight must have learned to never let food be wasted. He and Rune were masters in hunting and finishing chores, but worked twice as hard in training.     

“I wonder if I scared him away, yelling at him like that.” Aether thought aloud. “I can’t stand seeing him get hurt again.” 

“You still like him,” Oz commented. 

“Don’t you?” Aether asked.     

“Maybe not in the same sense as you do,” Oz said. “We tried to connect a few times but decided it wasn’t working for us. He’s now with Chung.” 

“What?” 

Aether dropped the metal container with the blood curd. Luckily, it was sealed shut. Oz retrieved the container from the mage with a kind expression. 

“Elsword and Chung are dating,” Oz said. “Or Rune and Phantom if you’re keeping track of nicknames.” 

“No wonder they kept looking at each other,” she overheard Aether mutter to herself. “Does that mean our Elsword and Chung are…” 

“I don’t know,” Oz said. “Not everything is set in stone. Your timeline is already different than ours, so I wouldn’t give up yet. Knight might like Crusader, you, a random village girl, or even Add.” 

“Ha!” Aether snorted. “Unlikely.” 

Oz grinned. She liked her. 

“Let’s deliver these to Ciel and Abysser.” Aether started collecting the containers, one under each arm. “They said they were going to cook something tonight.” 

Would this be enough to feed all of them? After washing her hands, Oz joined in helping her, taking the containers that were left to bring over to their teammates. She couldn’t imagine how Knight could have completed this task on his own. The next time she saw Rune attempting to do the same, she’ll have to make sure she or someone else would help him. 

“It’s always a pleasure talking to myself,” Oz tipped her hat and feigned a formal bow. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Aether rolled her eyes but softened his expression. “I think it’ll be easier to talk to Elsword now that I understand him a little better.” 

“I think you already do,” Oz said. “You’re already thinking like him and helping people.” 

“Is that a compliment I hear?” Aether’s grin mirrored hers, “Don’t expect less from the great Aisha!” 

“Do you talk like that to everyone?” 

“...shut up.”

Oz snickered.  

----------------------------

Apsara

“And then Elesis set the pole on fire,” Anemos said. 

“A pole?” Apsara repeated. 

“She got her tongue stuck on one and tried to free himself by setting it on fire,” the elf explained. “The city wasn’t happy and we had to pay for the damage. Luckily, we had enough from the major mission in Hamel.” 

W-wait, that didn’t sound good! Apsara panicked as Anemos let out a noble woman’s laugh. It was good that they had enough money to pay for the damage cost, but was it okay to cause a fire in the middle of a city? 

“B-but, Flame was okay, right?” Apsara stuttered. 

“Oh, she was perfectly fine,” Anemos added. “Can’t say the same about the rest of the city. That was rough.” 

“There’s more?” Apsara squeaked. 

“Trouble always seems to follow your team, it seems.” Daybreaker chuckled. “It sounds like your friends ran into a lot of strange adventures and close calls.” 

Apsara nodded in agreement. She gripped her cup, running her thumbs over the edge and watching the tea steam rise and fall. It was her own personal tea set from what was left over of her ruined home in Fluone's Northern Empire. Bamboo and cranes were painted in dark green onto the cups. The tea kettle was decorated in a similar theme with a giant crane spreading its wings in bamboo bedding. It was a gift from her late mother before she passed away.  

Anemos was just as she imagined the other Rena to be. Kind, funny, always ready to share stories of her travels and offering great advice, although Anemos had a more playful side. A smirk grew at the edge of Anemos’ lips, sipping from her cup of tea. 

“I can say the same to your team,” Anemos said. “Unconventionally breaking into the Demon Realm and angering Dark Elves sounds like a rough trip.” 

“We were lucky that Rena was here to talk it out and help us work together,” Apsara beamed. “Without her, we might still be enemies!”

“It’s a good thing we understood each other,” Daybreaker said. “I didn’t think we would meet Dark Elves so soon.” 

“What are they like?” Anemos asked.     

Both of them are correct, Eun yawned. Luck has saved you and your friends many times. How much longer will it carry you until it runs out?  

Apsara shivered at the meaning behind Eun’s words. The nine-tailed fox was not one for talk and preferred being a spectator from the safety of her mind, but occasionally left a piece of wisdom for her to think on.   

Eun was right. They were lucky that she accidentally fell into the labyrinth of ruin that connected Elrios to the Demon Realm. According to Daybreaker, the language the Dark Elves spoke was closer to the Ancient Elven tongue, a skill not many elves possessed. After struggling to rescue Knight from the El, things were beginning to line up for them.  However, as lucky as they were, there were just as many misfortunes that fell on them and stalled time for the enemy to get away. It was something Apsara couldn’t forgive. They had to do more than fall on lady luck to seek justice for the lives of those impacted by the enemy.   

“Apsara?” Anemos broke through the martial artist’s train of thought. She had a gentle expression, “Was the medicine too strong? You look out of it.” 

“I’m fine,” Apsara rubbed her forehead. It still hurt where she fell on her face.  She was going to let it heal naturally.  It was barely a scratch worth using healing magic. “Hey, Anemos? How do you plan to return back to Elrianode?” 

“Tired of us already?” Anemos teased, placing her finger over her lips. “With the teleportation device broken, we won’t be going home until it gets repaired. Why do you ask? Was your trip a one-way trip?”

“I’m afraid it was,” Daybreaker said. “We were planning to find an alternate way to get back once we found the Dark El.” 

“Your team didn’t look good when we fought you,” Anemos commented. “Was a demon giving you trouble?”

“Nephilim Lord,” Apsara said. “It looked like the one in Velder, but bigger. You saw one before, right? It warned us about a fiery aura.”  

The one they fought was several times the size, asbestos white and covered in bright rainbow-colored armor-like scales. It had horns protruding from its body and had no need to move to efficiently burn through their defense. The most powerful of all Nephilim, it was sentient and lost control of itself until it was taken down by the El Search Party.         

Anemos frowned and bit her lip in deep thought, mumbling to herself in Elven. At the mention of Nephilim Lord, the gears in the elf’s mind began to turn. Her eyes were calculating and darted up to where the sky was. Apsara looked up to see where the older woman was looking. 

Cloud swirled collectively around the portals appearing and closing, deviating from one another. Apsara became dizzy looking at them and returned her eyes to Anemos, whose complexion remained serious.

“Was Nehphilim Lord the cause of this?” Anemos asked. 

“I don’t think so,” Daybreaker shook her head. “It’s been like this since Paradox fought with us. He seems to have control over those portals.”

“Maybe we can use those portals to go back to Elrianode!” Apsara exclaimed. 

“Assuming we can control them ourselves,” Anemos sighed. “Unless you know anything about time and space.”  

Apsara felt her cheeks turn warm and pouted. Was it unrealistic in trying to secure a way back to Elrios? She already felt guilty leaving behind the world she and her friends worked hard to protect. On the other hand, the Dark Elves were relying on them to sort out the unstable spike of energy coming from the shadows of Varnimyr, a place where even Eun was uncertain about their safety. Ever since they have arrived at the Demon Realm, they have dug their feet into the dark with little guidance of where to go. It was worrying not knowing if there was a way back.  

“I’m not even sure if one of those portals even works,” Daybreaker said. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. What if we end up in another world like you and your friends did?” 

Apsara stared into the dense forest surrounding the cavern area. She didn’t even think about the possibility of coming out on one end of a portal into a world that bore little resemblance to Elrios or the Demon Realm. They would have to start all over again from scratch and adjust to a world with new laws and boundaries like they did when they first arrived in the Demon Realm.   

It would be difficult to find a way back to Elrionode, Eun said. There is little else that can be done without taking a risk.  

“We haven’t had the best luck in making things go according to plan,” Anemos added. “We still need to find the Dark El first before returning. Those portals will still be here when we find it.” 

“Finding the Dark El won’t be easy, but I believe we’ll find it soon.” Apsara finally said. “We have even more people now to make it work. We’ll all be coming home soon.”

“How touching,” a new voice drawled. Devi emerged from the shadows, letting the flame light flicker across her amber eyes. She looked down at Apsara’s smaller form. “I never thought of myself as a wide-eyed optimist.”  

Apsara turned around to see a round face covered by dark black locks. The long ripples from the ends of her dress made Devi appear taller and thinner. Next to Apsara, she was covered in black and orange, resembling a dark butterfly spreading its wings in her dress billowing in the gentle breeze. Devi smiled, but her eyes held an unsteady gaze.           

Careful, Ara. Urgency rose in Eun’s voice, She’s dangerous. 

“A-ara! I mean me! Devi, I mean, uh, what do you prefer being called?” Apsara cried and lowered her head in a ninety-degree bow, “I didn’t see you there, did you need something? Of course, you did, that’s why you’re here. Are you mad at us for hurting your friends? I’m so sorry. You must be furious with us, please forgive us. I-”

“You talk too much,” Devi silenced Apsara with a single motion of a raised hand. “I barely caught any of that. Are you a mouse? I hear a lot of squeaking.” 

“A mouse?” Apsara felt dizzy. She lifted her head, moving her hands behind her head in a daze. “You mean the animal?” 

“You’re scaring her,” Anemos chided. 

“I’m not scared!” Apsara protested. “She caught me by surprise, that’s all! ”

“Am I not allowed to join tea with you ladies?” Devi poured a cup for herself and nestled herself between Devi and Anemos. Like Apsara, she drank her tea from a cup carefully held between her delicate fingers. She ignored the milk and sugar provided for Anemos and Daybreaker, who were less accustomed to drinking tea without them.

“Careful, it’s still hot-” Apsara stopped when Devi chugged the rest of the tea and blew hot air from her mouth. How scary, she thought.  

“Your tea is all right,” Devi said. “Needs more herbs.” 

Apsara stopped breathing. Her head was still spinning from processing that they were the same person. The way Devi carried herself was something only Apsara could dream of when she let Eun take over. She couldn’t sense Eun’s presence being the dominant one from her alternate, so the confidence was all Devi. 

Devi and the rest of the alternate El Search Party reminded her of the old folk tales she had read as a child. Doppelgangers from another world that bore resemblance to the people she knew. The doppelgangers in the stories were often demons or evil spirits in disguise, but Devi and the others were neither of them.    

“We’re running low on tea,” Apsara said.  

“You were talking about the Dark El,” Devi narrowed her eyes. She glanced over her shoulder to scan their surroundings before lowering her voice, “I don’t think I need to explain what it is or why it’s important. Where is it?” 

“We don’t know,” Daybreaker said. “We’re still searching for it like you. We’re only a few weeks ahead of you.” 

Devi cursed. 

“But since you’re here, we can look for it together!” Apsara said. “Nephilim Lord said it would offer us information about it if we search for the source of aura that’s been unstabilizing its home.” 

“It’s our best shot at the moment,” Anemos agreed. “With this many people, we’ll find the source of the aura in no time.”   

“You don’t think you’re being used to take care of someone else’s problem?” Devi looked at Apsara with skepticism. “Your girlfriend told me it tried to kill you.” 

It was true that Nephillim Lord tried to kill the El Search Party, but it wasn’t the first time an enemy was restrained under mind control or agitation. How much did Empire tell Devi about their circumstances?  

“We’re doing this because we want to punish those that tried to take advantage of the people living here,” Apsara said. “I won’t stand for that.”  

“Nephillim Lord was influenced by the aura,” Daybreaker explained. “We made a promise to help it out. The Dark Elves revere it as a god and protector. We’re not leaving until everything is back to normal.” 

“They have a better lead than we do,” Anemos placed her hands over her lap. She kept her voice low. “This may be our only chance.” 

Devi folded her arms back and grasped the handle of her spear. Still smiling, it was unnerving to see red flash through Devi’s eyes before returning back to amber. It took Apsara a moment to remember that Devi must have Eun too. Those two must be close for Devi to maintain the same facial expression even when Eun had its brief moment of existence. 

“For the monster’s sake, I hope it understands the consequences if it doesn’t follow through with its promise.” Devi mused.  

“Elesis told me you used different martial arts,” Aspara ignored the dark comment. “What are they?” 

“Is that what’s on your mind?” Devi rose a brow. “They’re secret arts from a book that specializes in dark energy. I’m curious about you as well. We’ll have to find out in a spar.” 

“Another time,” Anemos said. “There might be more fighting if we’re going to find the source of the aura.” 

“We thought the source of the aura was you and your friends,” Daybreaker admitted to Anemos. “But that wasn’t it. The aura is not from you, but somewhere else. We might be struggling to find it because it’s still dormant.” 

That meant they had more time to prepare for another battle, right? Apsara pulled the kettle to pour herself another cup of tea. Blowing the fumes away, she sipped as she gripped on her spear with her free hand. It was unclear what the source of the aura was, but she could feel its presence hovering over the region, a dull uncomfortable weight over her shoulders. It was going to get worse if it awakened. Their friends were still recovering from the last battle and they needed to regroup with a new plan.   

“Elesis mentioned your name when I talked to her,” Apsara looked at Devi, who was already on her third cup of tea. “What did you do to her?” 

Empire gave her a wide-eyed look when Apsara asked about her alternate. Her complexion was the same color as her hair before Apsara took her girlfriend’s hand and offered to change the topic.   

“Hm?” Devi giggled when Apsara gave her a questioning look, “Oh, I may have provoked her into fighting me, called her princess, and now she’s angry at me.”

“You need to go back and apologize to her!” Apsara shook Devi by the shoulders and cried when the other woman cackled. “Devi! That’s not funny!” 

“They’re so lively,” Anemos commented. 

“With two of them, I’m sure they were going to be.” Daybreaker chuckled. 

“Are you happy with your progress?” 

Huh? Devi’s question was one that haunted Apsara, an anxious voice whispering into her ear in the darkest of nights, taunting her with doubt that fed off of her uncertainty.  Apsara felt Eun tense, rising from her subconscious and voicing its opinion of her counterpart, none of them were kind or generous. She ignored the fox spirit and had a thoughtful expression. 

Devi was terse, asking biting questions and offering brisk answers in return. Despite being squished in between Apsara and the two Renas, she never relaxed. Legs crossed with one hand kept close to her spear, Devi’s smile failed to reach the rest of her face.   

“You keep following these people, nowhere close to your goal and walking in circles,” Devi said. “Are you satisfied?” 

“I am,” Apsara examined the woman with sadness. She reached for Devi and placed one hand over her alternate’s forearm. “Why are you always sad?” 

“I’m not sad,” Devi forced a laugh. 

She was lying. 

“It doesn’t bother me that we keep getting sidetracked,” Apsara said with earnest. “I’m not even sure if we’re doing the right thing, but I want to help my friends stabilize the El because I know they would do the same if I needed help. Do you ever feel like that?”   

“I do,” Devi said. For the first time, she relaxed and looked at Apsara with a pensive expression. “We’re lucky to have people like them.” 

“I think they would be happy if we let them know that,” Apsara smiled. “Tell me about your friends.” 

And Devi did.   

---------------------------- 

Timoria

Smoke filled the campsite as Timoria hopped over to put out the fire with a pan lid. Hot air hissed from the top and she jolted back. Her tail curled up and her eyes grew wide, panicking and rushing to put the lid back on. Puffing air into her palms, Timoria shrieked when she bumped into Abysser from behind.  

“Sorry!” Abysser put up her two hands. “Didn’t mean to scare you like that. I’m not sure what has gotten into you today, but I can take over now.” 

“You said you felt light-headed,” Timoria accused him. 

“I feel better, I promise!” Abysser laughed. “Not sure what the fuss is about.” 

“You passed out from an explosion,” Timoria said. 

“But I’m still alive and kicking,” he grinned. “You don’t need to sacrifice your time to cook for everyone.” 

An overreaction? Perhaps, especially when her partner in crime was no longer human but now a fully fledged demon, but Abysser wasn’t replaceable. He was more than that, a chimera between a butler and a close friend. People have mistaken them to be related and it didn’t bother Timoria as much as she would have expected. Their bonds were no longer linked as a single unit, but she could tell when the dummy showed his teeth and cocked his head to the side in an attempt to reassure her that he was fine. 

What was Abysser thinking getting up close to shield her from Bluhen? Humans called it heroic, but she called it foolish and impulsive. The man who called himself a priest was suppressing his energy to create an explosion that could have wiped out a demon army. There was nothing heroic about a nearly dying face planted into the dirt. 

“You said someone taught you how to bake and cook,” Timoria said. “Why don't you teach me too? I’m ready to graduate from, ‘Lu, go pick some herbs.’, ‘Lu, can you set up the table?’, and ‘Lu, where’s the spoon?’.”

She made faces and lowered her pitch when she did her Abysser impersonation, pacing around the campsite. 

“Do I really talk like that?” Abysser scratched his head but softened his expression. “I didn’t know you wanted to learn.” 

“You make it sound like I never help,” Timoria pouted and tucked her arms under her long sleeves, feeling the pain crisscrossing into her bandaged fingers like pin needles. “Did I do a good job of cutting the vegetables?” 

Who knew humans consumed so much of them. She didn’t realize how picky Abysser was in how he wanted things to be cut and presented. One would think he was about to serve a meal to the king of Velder.    

“Never said you didn’t.” Abysser said, “I think it’s great you want to help. You did good for a first-timer.”

There he goes again, Timoria placed her hand over her hip. Making that face again, borderlining on smug in catching her showing consideration for others, brimming with the kind of pride she associated with parents to their children. Any outsider would have mistaken them to be related, but she never protested because she saw how happy it made Abysser. People still mistook her as a child, but she was getting taller, she was sure of it!

“Now we wait until it boils, right?” Timoria asked. 

Abysser hummed and nodded his head for an affirmation. 

Timoria hovered over with her wings out for a better view of the stew. She knew there was a lot of stirring involved, but she would leave that to Abysser. The last time she attempted, the campsite was nearly burned down and she didn’t trust herself to know when their meal would be ready.    

She went back to the stream flowing at the edge of camp to wash her hands, carefully cleaning the dirt under her claws. The demon lord felt the cold water run between her claws and relished the familiarity of it. It wasn’t the dark quarters of her old realm, but she recognized the moons passing by when she returned to see a figure waiting for her.  

Sitting at the edge of a fallen log was a demon adorned in white and royal blue. Pale locks cascaded past her thighs and touched the back of her heels. Cyan colored horns similar to Timoria's protruded from the side of Ishtar’s head. Bright eyes the color of starlight gazed past the horizon to meet Timoria’s.    

“Do you always talk to him like that?” Ishtar asked. 

“Who?” Timoria tried not to stare. It was blinding to look at her other self, ethereal under the moonlight and projecting the very image Timoria once wished to reclaim. “Ciel?” 

“You look like you two were having fun,” she looked sad. Was Ishtar envious of them?  

“I don’t expect him to do everything when he needs time to recover from a fight,” Timoria said. “Does he not let you help out?” 

“He does, but insists he can do everything.” Ishtar rolled her eyes, “I don’t think Ciel knows what I can do.”  

“I find that hard to believe,” Timoria said.  

Chevalier was a quiet man. Exchanging a polite smile to Timoria, he waited for Ishtar to talk first before replying back with an equally amicable response. He maintained an air of dignity, but Timoria sensed a difference in his dynamic with Ishtar than her’s and Abysser’s. His hair was a light shade of blue, but it was clear that he was still partially human. 

Ishtar and Chevalier’s relationship wasn’t one of malevolence if she was to believe Richter’s account and from her own observations. Timoria recalled how he and Ishtar fought back at the edge of the forest, perfectly synchronized on the same wavelength of El resonance. Bounded together by powerful magic that turned their souls into one, Ishtar relied on Chevalier as much as the butler did to her. It was not unlike the bond Timoria used to share with Abysser before they parted to become equals. 

“I suppose you’re right,” Ishtar mumbled. “I sometimes wonder if it bothers him doing everything for me.” 

“I think you would be the first to know.” Timoria thought about the time Abysser was depressed after being rejected by a phoru. She bit her lips, “but I think he would appreciate it if you showed him your thanks.”  

Her counterpart rose, parting her lips and rounding them at the realization. Nodding her head, she accepted Timoria’s explanation and scrunched up her brows in deep thought. Much to her annoyance, Ishtar towered over her by almost a head. To outsiders, Timoria was a child while Ishtar had the appearance of an older teen or a young adult.  

“What would make him happy?” Ishtar wondered out loud. “He likes phorus, but I’m not very good with them. I tried baking cookies for him once, but he choked on it and I guess humans don’t like too much red pepper paste-” 

“You put what in cookies?” Timoria interrupted. She tried to imagine what those cookies looked like when they were finished and presented to the butler. Poor Chevalier...  

“I wanted to make them red because he once said he liked that color,” Ishtar protested. 

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to rescue them and make them edible,” Timoria said. 

“He did,” she said. “I’m not sure how he did it, but it was delicious. Humans are more adaptive than we demons give them credit for.” 

It suddenly made sense why Chevalier didn’t let Ishtar take up on cooking duty. 

“Is this why he still treats me like a child?” Ishtar sighed. “I made him do extra work he didn’t have to do.”

“My Ciel treats me like a kid too,” Timoria said. “It’s annoying, but he once told me it was because I reminded him of someone he knew. Did yours ever tell you that?”

Ishtar shook her head.  

“Aren’t you the one bounded to him?” Timoria asked. 

“That doesn’t mean I make him share everything. He doesn’t like talking about the past,” Ishtar said. “It isn’t fair for me to ask Ciel to tell me everything about himself if I’m not ready to talk about myself. There are many things I regretted doing as Luciela. I’m afraid of what he would think of me if he knew half of it.” 

A sad smile appeared on Ishtar’s features, her eyes wandered over to Chevalier, who was standing at the opposite side of the campsite and talking to his counterpart. Abysser laughed at something Chevalier said, occasionally stopping to skim bubbles from the stew.   

“Does yours know what you did?” Ishtar asked, “What we did.”

Timoria felt her limbs growing limp, unable to even lift them up to do something with them. Her silence answered Ishtar’s question, unsurprised by the revelation. Ishtar sat beside Timoria and kept her legs tightly together, contemplating on how much to ask. Demons were aware of multiple dimensions existing, but to meet oneself was something not many experienced. 

“Then both of us are cowards,” Ishtar laughed quietly to herself. 

“How is that funny?” Timoria asked. 

“You’re a little small to be a demon ruler,” Ishtar smirked. “I was wary about whether or not you and your friends were a trick set up by Henir cultists.” 

“How rude!” Timoria exclaimed, “I want nothing to do with those boorish deviants! I don’t think it’s necessary for him to know about my past, but I do want to tell him eventually when we aren’t being chased by Henir cultists.” 

“You have them too?” Ishtar asked. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Timoria said. “They made a fuss about the Dark El and now we have to go fetch it before they do.”

It has been days since Timoria last saw the creeps in black hoods, but that could be a bad sign if the cultists found more allies in demons that may see the El Search Party as a threat. To demon residents, they were foreign invaders from another world and Timoria was a traitor. It wouldn’t be the first time the Demon Realm witnessed a powerful leader backstabbing them. She didn’t like to think about what that meant if word started spreading around about the former demon ruler returning to the Demon Realm.      

“How does it feel to be back home?” Ishtar asked. 

“This is hardly home,” Timoria laid down on her back. “Haven’t had one since the attempted assassination. I don’t think Ciel and I can rest until we find a way to take back power over the realm that was stolen from me.” 

“Your bonds feel different,” Ishtar noted. “What made you separate?” 

“Ciel and I had an understanding,” Timoria said. “I didn’t want Ciel to feel like he was forced to follow me. We don’t need a contract to stay together and I saw him as my equal. It was his idea to abandon his human side.” 

“As equals, huh?” Ishtar repeated her words. “I think I get it. When you were gone, Abysser wouldn’t stop talking about you. He kept saying your name, which is infuriating because it’s my name too!” 

Timoria snorted, “That sounds like him.” 

“But I can see you mean a lot to him,” Ishtar said. “You better be grateful you have him!” 

“You’re one to talk!” 

She couldn’t believe she was being lectured by herself. Timoria sat up to stretch her arms, going on her tiptoes and reaching for the skies. Dinner should be ready soon. She could smell the inviting aroma from the stew she helped Abysser with earlier. She overheard Abysser talking to Chevalier.  

“Oh, so that’s how you do it.” Abysser rubbed his chin, “Why didn’t I think of that?” 

The demon lord showed his teeth, slapping one arm over Chevalier’s shoulder and twirling about to reach over for the ladle to try the stew. His hand was slapped away by his counterpart and whined. Chevalier tasted the stew, glaring at the bubbling water before tossing in a garnish of green onion and a pinch of salt. 

“I didn’t even know you existed until yesterday,” Chevalier said. 

“Ouch, that’s cold.” Abysser feigned a hurt expression. “You don’t even have questions about me or Lu?”

“I do, but isn’t it rude to ask these types of questions when we just met?” Chevalier said, “I think it’s more appropriate to ask how it’s even possible for you to be here.” 

“Blunt and to the point, I get it.” Abysser waved his hands, “I thought your Add would explain all of this to you.” 

“He would, but ours passed out.” Chevalier said. 

Fair enough. 

It was hard to have an impression of someone they fought once and only stopped long enough to deliver provoking taunts and snarky comments. Staggering over with his back hunched and a crazed look; if it wasn’t for the mechanical eye and flying plates (“They’re called Dynamo!” Dominator protested.), Timoria would have mistaken Bringer as someone else.    

“We jumped over here to find the Dark El by opening a portal with a device Add made,” Abysser explained. “You already know the rest.”  

“You’re not an illusion or a manifestation of the El.” Chevalier said. There was a sharpness in Chevalier’s expression when he examined Abysser with a critical eye.  

“From the Hall of El?” Abysser had a sly smile. “Yes, I was wondering the same about you and your friends too, but you are a chattier bunch and more fun to talk to.”

“Fun?” One could hear the blood vein threatening to burst from the side of Chevalier’s head. 

“For one thing, you and your friends weren’t threatening to kill us or attempting to absorb us into the El.” Abysser didn’t seem to notice the irked brows from his counterpart and chuckled, “Isn’t that right, Lu?”

Timoria tried not to laugh when Chevalier was taken back when looking ahead, only to lower his gaze to finally notice her. His eyes averted over to Ishtar pulling out a set of silverware and utensils to set up the table, then back to Timoria, who was patiently waiting for the half-demon to talk. She could see the gears turning as Chevalier processed that there were two Lus. 

Placing her hands over her hips and puffing out her chest, Timoria wore a grin identical to Abysser. This was going to be fun.     

“I’m not sure what I should be more insulted by,” Timoria cackled. “Being compared to Henir cultists by Ishtar or being mistaken as a false illusion.”

“Our enemies are always a few steps ahead of us. This isn’t the first time we had to fight people with the same abilities as us,” Chevalier was defensive. “You’re the first to join our side.” 

“Sounds a little like us, don’t you think?” Abysser asked.  

“They are us,” Timoria pointed out. 

“Not everything is the same,” Chevalier disagreed. 

“It’s the hair, right?” Abysser asked eagerly as if he had been waiting for Chevalier to ask. He beamed, “Doesn’t it make me look cool?” 

“No, you’re stupider.” Chevalier deadpanned.

Abysser dropped his smile and cried crocodile tears, “How could you say something so cruel to yourself? You hear that Ishtar? He doesn’t like himself!”

Timoria covered her face. Abysser really said that in front of Ishtar and Chevalier with no irony in his words. Placing the last bowl down, Ishtar turned to giggle when Abysser continued going on about how cold his alternate was. Chevalier ignored the rambling demon as he silently walked over to the side to chop more green onion for garnish. 

“I like him,” Ishtar said. “He’s funny.” 

Chevalier stared at Abysser and mumbled, “How are we the same person?”

----------------------------

Author Notes: There was a lot I wanted to get in, but cut out in the end because it wasn’t relevant to what I wanted to address in this chapter. It was challenging to write certain characters I never wrote before, but rewarding because I discovered them as a person in the process. Everyone’s comments were encouraging to read and helped me see that every character will be someone’s favorite. We still have a few characters left in terms of having them talk to their counterpart.

[bubbleteatae]

Puppy Love - Part 3

Read previous parts here

pairing: idol!Taehyung x female reader 

warnings: none.

*Buzz*

I ran over to my apartment intercom, pressing the speaker.

“Y/N! Are you ready for dinner?” Taehyung announced through the machine.

“Hi Taehyung! I’ll let you up.” 

I felt nervous around Taehyung before because he was a cute guy showing me affection, but now that I knew what a big name he was, my nerves skyrocketed as he approached my apartment. I just hoped he told me soon, because I hated the thought of keeping it from him that I knew.

He had messaged me a few days earlier to say the restaurant we were going to was quite prestigious, and suggested I should wear my best dress (it was a polite way of warning me that I wouldn’t want to show up in the wrong dress code!) After many outfit crises, I went for a laced lilac bodycon dress, with a square shoe-string strap top. I also went to the extra effort to loosely curl my hair. I sat down to put on my sensible, but classy, heels and waited for Taehyung to arrive. 

Even the knock at my door matched his cool demeanour. As I opened it, I was amazed by how many times this guy could wow me with his fashion. He wore black pants and black slip-on dress shoes with gold trimming. Tucked into his belt was a subtle floral button up shirt, and I didn’t miss that the top button was undone.

“You look.. stunning” he exclaimed, as I noticed his eyes grazed up and down my figure, before quickly darting to my eyes as he smiled.

“Is it okay to wear?” I asked nervously trying to adjust the dress, unsure sure how to react.

“Definitely” he confidently smirked, heat rushing to my face. “Shall we head off then?”

I nodded happily, grabbing my coat from the couch and locking the door behind us.

                                                           ***

We made our way into the notably fancy restaurant, my arm linked around his. A smartly-dressed man bowed as we entered, as Taehyung announced reservations under his name. The man led us past an array of diners until I noticed we were near the back of the restaurant. He stopped us at a table located at a full length corner window showing a stunning view of Seoul’s lights at night, and trees strung with warm fairy lights. The table was lined with a few candles, highlighting a place card reading VIP Only. 

After thanking the employee, Taehyung walked over to one of the chairs, pulling it out and gesturing me to sit. Before I did, he placed his hands on my shoulders and gently removed my coat. I couldn’t help but notice his warm hands slightly brushing against my bare shoulders.

He smiled brightly as he sat down opposite me “are you comfortable?” 

“Yes, thank you! It’s a beautiful spot” I said, looking out over the city.

A waiter appeared at our table, handing us each a menu and pouring us each a glass of wine. Taehyung prompted me to have a read of the menu. I must not have hidden my worried face after looking at the prices of each dish, because he was quick to comment. “My shout, Y/N.”

“I don’t expect you..” I argued, but he cut me off by shaking his head.

“It’s fine, I want to” he smiled. “Although, I guess you are wondering how I can afford a place like this..” he began tracing around the bottom of his wine glass. 

“Well..”

Taehyung looked up at me. I smiled guiltily, causing him to chuckle. “I thought you might figure it out.”

“I was curious about your music..” I said, laughing in defence.

“It’s fine” Taehyung laughed “So? Do you like it?”

I nodded frantically “you’re incredibly talented! All of you.”

“Thank you” his boxy grin spreading across his face “you probably know the story of BTS now?”

“I’d much rather hear it from you than a bunch of internet articles” I smiled, taking a sip of wine.

                                                          ***

“Can I ask you a question?” I said quietly, after hearing how Taehyung became such a successful idol. He simply nodded. “Why me?” I asked.

Taehyung looked at me, ever so slightly tilting his head to the side, unsure of what I meant.

“I mean, why did you talk to me that day? And choose to take me out to a place like this?”

He shrugged his shoulders, but smiled sweetly “I don’t know?”

Not really the answer I was wanting to hear..

“Sorry! I don’t mean that in a bad way! It’s just.. there was something about you. The way you showed love to your dog, I could see how caring you are. And that’s something I’ll always look for in a friend.”

I felt my heart drop into my stomach as that last word left Taehyung’s lips. I wanted to sink down into my chair and disappear, cursing myself for thinking he was actually interested in anything more. My eyes met Taehyung’s and he smiled, clearly unaware I was expecting him to say anything else. 

“Plus it was refreshing meeting someone who didn’t know who I was” he said lightly, before looking down at his food “sometimes it’s hard to know who is your friend because of you or because of your fame.”

I could see the sadness behind his eyes.

“That is.. if you still want to be friends?” He continued. “I understand if this world is all a bit much.” 

I was quick to shake my head “of course I do Taehyung, you’re a good friend and I’m glad I met you” I smiled, trying to hide my disappointment. “Plus, I don’t think Tannie and Kanna would be very happy!” I laughed, Taehyung agreeing as he laughed too.

“So.. what about Taehyung away from BTS? How do you enjoy to spend your free time?” I asked, still wanting to know more about Taehyung the person, not the idol.

“I like photography. And art” he smiled fondly. “I also like to learn the occasional instrument.”

“Wow, you certainly keep yourself busy. What sort of photos do you take?”

“Anything really. I like to capture things I love. Whether that’s scenery or people. I just really like having a snapshot of something beautiful.” He spoke so passionately, I could listen to him speak all day.

A main course, dessert and a whole bottle of wine later we decided it was time to call it a night.

“Thank you for dinner, Taehyung. I had a wonderful time” I said as we got out of his car at the front of my apartment building.

“Thank you for spending time with me tonight” he smiled softly, pulling me in for hug. “Let’s catch up again soon.”

“I’d love that” I agreed, slightly disappointed to know that this hug was only one shared between friends. 

But a friend I was happy to have. 

[avengerscompound]

The Facts

The Facts: A Clintasha Fanfic

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word Count:  2531

Warnings:  Smut (Bi MFF threesome, oral sex, vaginal sex, face sitting), Superpowered reader)

Synopsis:   There has been a lot of terrible things that Natasha, Bucky, and Clint have had to endure, but they’ve all lead here.

The Facts

It was a fact that you were a super.  Even if they didn’t believe it.  Even if really you were kind of useless on combat missions and your spy work was substandard, you still were.  In fact, the gift you had was actually pretty cool, even though everyone thought you were lying and just had studied a lot or something.  The thing was; you could understand any language.  It only took you hearing each word used once and you could speak it fluently too.  By any language, it meant any too.  From obscure dialects only spoken by a handful of people to computer code, you even understood every single ‘I am Groot’ that Groot uttered.

So when Clint Barton tried to catch you out by signing to Natasha Romanoff all the things he wanted to do to you.  You watched him glowering until you understood enough ASL to sign back ‘Are you planning to talk about it or do it?’

It was also a fact that Clint Barton was a massive dork.  Completely incorrigible.  Just full of puns and quick comebacks.  Teasing you constantly.  Putting you into headlocks and ruffling your hair.  A surly dork at times.  But a dork nonetheless.  You kind of might be falling for him pretty hard.  Which sucked.  Despite how much you liked the giant idiot.  Maybe because of how much you liked him.  He had huge commitment issues, and that was just for a start.

It was a fact that in contrast, Natasha Romanoff was the coolest person you knew.  She just knew how to act in every situation.  Nothing ruffled her.  She was quick to come back with a smart ass reply to Clint and Tony.  She knew to be quiet and kind with Bucky and Bruce.  She had advice to give Steve.  And with you… well with you she was as best friend to gossip with and a complete goddess. You kind of might be falling for her pretty hard too.  Which also sucked.  She couldn’t be tied down by one person, and that was just for a start.

Because it was also a fact that Clint and Natasha had something going on with each other.  Everyone knew it.  The only people who didn’t seem to know it was Clint and Natasha.  They thought they were so smooth too.  Always leaving to go to bed ten minutes apart.  Never standing too close in public.  They were ridiculous.  Which was really the main reason why falling for either of them was a mistake.

It was also a fact that whatever was going on with Clint and Natasha was open.  They sometimes came home with other people.  So that time you and Clint got drunk and ended up fucking in the armory after he tried to prove to you that he was still a crack shot even completely smashed didn’t make you feel particularly guilty.  Nor did it the several time since then when Natasha was away on a mission and he’d come into your room and ask you if you were doing anything and you answered ‘You.’

You also didn’t feel guilty about that time when you and Natasha were in her room watching terrible soap operas and she complained about missing eating vagina and you’d looked down at your lap and back at her and then spent the next couple of hours taking turns going down on each other.   Nor did you feel guilty that it became a weekly occurrence.

Of course, continuing to hook up with them when you were falling for them wasn’t what most people would consider smart.  You were very good at lying to yourself that you could handle it though.

So when there is a knock on your bedroom door and they come in holding hands it is also a fact that it feels like your heart just tried to leap out of your chest through your throat and started suffocating you.

“Hey, can we talk to you?”  Natasha asks, coming in and sitting on the end of the bed.

You nod and pull your knees up to your chest.  “What’s up, guys?”

Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud.  That’s the sound you hear as Clint comes and sits down next to you.  Along with the ‘wah, wah, wah’ sound that the adults make in Charlie Brown movies.

It takes a little longer for your brain to catch up to the fact they are actually speaking words and not doing that thing where they start spewing gibberish to see if they can catch you up on the whole ‘superpower’ thing.

“So Clint and I have been seeing each other,”  Natasha says, rubbing her hand on Clint’s thigh.

“Really?  I had no idea.  You’re such amazing secret agents you’d covered it up seamlessly.”  You snark.

Clint puts his palms on his cheeks and drops his jaw.  “Nat!  I think she knew!”  He says matching sarcasm with sarcasm.

Natasha rolls her eyes.  “Well, anyway…”  She says, ignoring the two of you.  “As you know, Clint and I have issues.  You know… with intimacy.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Russian assassin school.  Raised by carnies.  I’m up to speed.”  You reply, giving them the finger guns.

Clint sighs like he was blissfully happy.  “Mmm… nothing I like more than having my childhood trauma reduced to ‘raised by carnies’.”

You pounce on him and start tickling his sides.  “Yeah, you hate it so much.  You only do it all the time.”

He laughs and squirms, eventually throwing you off and pinning you down.  “I’m allowed to.  You have to be sympathetic.”  He says, looking down at you.  “And don’t tickle me.”

You look up at him and frown.  “Sorry, Clint.”

He laughs and starts tickling you in return and even as you try and get away from him you keep thinking how fucked you are now that he and Natasha are about to tell you they’re going to be exclusive with each other.

When he finally lets you back up, you resume your position of legs tucked up.  “So why are you talking to me?  If you want advice about how to be in a committed relationship, I hate to tell you guys.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve slept with both of you on more than one occasion at overlapping times.”  You whisper the last bit of the sentence loudly like it was some kind of conspiratorial secret.

Natasha gives you a half smile.  “See, that’s the thing.  You say that, but besides Clint and I who have you been sleeping with?”

You chew on your bottom lip and don’t answer them.

“So it would be factual to say that you have been having a committed relationship to Clint and I, and we just didn’t know about it?”  Natasha asks.

You look away from her.  It feels like they’ve just come to rub it in.  That can’t be right so you try and search for another reason.  “Tash, if you’re just here to check I’m okay with you two not fucking me anymore.  It’s fine.  I was never under the delusion that either of you would end up with me.”

Clint laughs.  “That’s not what we came in here for, you dumb ass.”

You elbow him in the chest.  “Then what?  It’s great you’re dating.  Why are you here?”

“Clint and I don’t want our relationship to be open anymore.  You’re right.”  Natasha says.

You go to say something and Natasha raises her eyebrow at you.  That look alone silences you more quickly than anything else.

“I said no longer open.  I didn’t say monogamous.”  She says.

Your jaw actually drops open and Clint reaches forward and pushes is closed.  “I always wanted to do that to someone.  Thanks.”  He teases.

“So what do you say, babe?  Want to be our girlfriend?”  Natasha asks.

You look from Clint to Natasha.  Clint looks a little excitable puppy that’s really close to getting a treat.  Natasha just looks as cool as she always does.

“But if you have commitment problems aren’t you doubling your workload if there’s two of us?”  You ask both of them.

“Or are we halving it?” Clint asks.

You shake your head.  “No.  Definitely doubling.”

Natasha punches him in the leg.  “Look, we just thought maybe we’d try this out.  Neither of us has been with anyone else for months and months now.  No one except you.  It doesn’t work, well we can just dial it back to pretending we’re not in a relationship when we obviously are.  You in or out?”

You stop and think, chewing your bottom lip.  On the pros list, there’s the fact you’ve been falling deeper and deeper down the Clint and Natasha well for a year now and you’re about the have your cake and eat it.  On the cons is…  literally nothing you can think of.  All those things people would normally worry about when doing something like this, how people will treat you, public image, jealousy, family.  Those you’d already come to terms with when you agreed to the whole regular casual sex with each of them.

“In.”  You say.

Clint pulls you back into his arms and kisses you hard.  It takes you by surprise and you push back and gasp for breath.  “Clint, calm down.”

“I can’t calm down.  I get to have a threesome.”  He says, excitedly.

You laugh and shove him.  “If you’d asked before you could have had one.”

“Yeah but, we were trying to pretend we weren’t messing around with each other.”  He says gesturing to Natasha.

Natasha grabs Clint by the collar and pulls him towards her. “I’m seriously rethinking the whole arrangement.”  She says and kisses him.  You watch them as Clint completely submits to Natasha, opening his mouth just a little as she tugs on his bottom lip with her teeth.

She pulls back and turns to you smirking.  “Come here.”  She says and pulls you into a kiss over Clint’s lap.  You close your eyes and sigh as your lips caress against each other.  You feel Clint’s hand on your hip.

“Oh man, I’m like the luckiest guy in the universe.”  He says, bouncing a little in his seat.

Natasha shoves Clint and he falls backward onto the mattress and starts laughing.  You both turn on him.

“You do realize who you’re dating now though, Clint?  You are going to be exhausted all the time.”  You say, pulling his shirt up over your head.

“Yes, Clint.  You are going to have to work very, very hard to keep us happy.”  Natasha agrees as she unfastens his pants.

“Oh shit. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”   Clint says as he looks up at you both.

You and Natasha strip him of his clothes and then turn on each other.  You take turns removing each piece of clothing one by one.  Taking your time.  When Natasha pulls your shirt up off, she kisses you.  When you take hers off you nip at her earlobe.  Each piece of clothing is accompanied by a kiss or a touch.  By the time you’re both naked, you’re buzzing and Clint looks like he’s about pass out.  His cock throbs and leaks precome down his shaft.

You look down at him, eyes darkened and bend down licking up a trail of his precome as you keep your eyes on his as the salty flavor of it coats your tongue.

“Jesus Christ, woman!”  He yelps, and sits up.  You pull back and a sticky tendril forms between your tongue and his cock.  It snaps off and Clint leans in.  You part your lips ready to kiss him, but Natasha is there first.  She kisses you hungrily, pushing you back onto the mattress.  Her fingers go to your pussy, sliding up and down your folds and teasing at your clit.  She dips two of them inside of you stroking over your internal walls once before removing them.

She sucks one.  Her eyes closed making a contented humming sound and then offers her other digit to Clint.  “Would you like a taste?”

Clint makes a squeaking sound and takes Natasha’s finger in his mouth, sucking it clean.  He moans and when he lets her finger go he moves so he’s positioned between your legs.  He nuzzles at your pussy for just a second before his tongue swipes up.  You moan and arch up.  “Oh fuck.”  You groan.  “Nat.  Let me taste you.”

Natasha straddles your face.  You kiss her thighs.  Sucking hard on her muscle.  You even bite down.  Natasha chuckles.  “You’re such a bad girl.”  She says.  “If that’s how you’re going to play, you might need to be punished later.”

You whimper and you hear Clint chuckle against your pussy.  He sucks on your clit and you gasp as a jolt runs through you.  You start running your tongue up Natasha’s pussy.  The salty sweet taste of her assaults your senses.

Everything becomes overwhelming.  All your senses are getting hit in dramatic ways and you start to lose control.  Clint holds you down as he starts fucking you with his fingers.  You somehow manage to keep your focus on Natasha though.  She rolls her hips against your face.  You add your fingers to her too and it’s not long until the sound of her pleasure fills the room.

Natasha’s legs start to tremble and you put all your energy into her.  You suck her clit between your lips and flick your tongue over it as your fingers strokes over her g-spot.  She leans forward, resting on Clint’s shoulders and comes.  “Oh god.” She moans, her legs shaking.

She climbs off you and Clint sits up too.  They kiss each other and each of them makes this low hungry growl as they suck and lick each other’s lips.

“Time to multi-task, Barton,”  Natasha says and pushes him onto his back.

You straddle Clint’s hips and slowly guide his cock deep into your cunt.  You both groan and his hands go to your hips.  Natasha straddles his face and leans forward and kisses you.  You can faintly taste yourself on Natasha’s lips and it mixes with the flavor of her.  You bounce on his cock, rocking your hips.  Natasha brings her fingers to your clit and starts drawing tight circles over it with her index finger.

Everything feels fuzzy and you moan into her mouth.  Electricity runs up and down your spine.  Your orgasm crests and when it breaks you throw your head back and cry out.  Even as our orgasm still shudders through you, you continue rocking your hips.  You’re not quite sure what happens but Natasha and Clint seem to come in unison.  Clint’s hips snap up into you as he comes, his cock pulsing.  Filling you.  Natasha moans loudly and falls forward into you, her arms wrapping around your waist.

You all collapse down on your bed and just lie side by side panting.  You don’t even touch you just lie there.

“Holy shit.”  You say after a while.

Both Natasha and Clint laugh.  “Accurate,”  Natasha adds.

A smile creeps over Clint’s face.  “I can not wait to tell Stark.  His brain is going to short-circuit.”

“That is a true fact.”  You laugh.

[kpophours]

Movie Night

➵ EXO: Chanyeol x fem. reader / one shot / fluff

➵ warnings: none

➵ word count: 2k

You turned up the volume of the music before finally getting into the hot shower. You sighed, feeling your stiff muscles relaxing. The day (or rather the whole week) had been tiring — university was stressful at the moment, a lot of papers had to be turned in as well as research projects to be finished. And then there was your part-time job: being an English teacher at SM entertainment. You enjoyed it, of course you did, but to prepare the lessons always took a lot of time, something you had way too little of at the moment. But at least you made good money, which was the reason you had been able to pay for your small studio apartment on your own. To be living alone was a lot more relaxed than living in a dorm together with many other people, so you didn’t even think about giving up this luxury, even if it meant pulling a few all-nighters to finish all of your projects and lessons. 

You tried emptying your mind while shampooing your hair and sang along to the music, getting some of the lyrics wrong and smiling to yourself, laughing slightly. 15 minutes later, you were freshly shaved, showered, conditioned and felt way more relaxed than before. „Now some ramen and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the evening’s perfect.“, you said to yourself, sighing while drying your frizzy hair with a towel. After putting on your underwear and the fluffy white robe you loved so much, you left the steaming bathroom. When you entered the shared kitchen and living area though, you issued an ear-splitting scream. 

„Are you sure she won’t mind?“, Chanyeol asked for the millionth time. Baekhyun huffed and threw him another dirty look. „Of course not! Y/N loves me and I’m sure she’ll be happy to finally meet you. I’m always telling funny stories of you!“ 

„Oh God. That does not sound good.“ 

The tall man looked really worried and his friend just rolled his eyes. 

„Don’t worry — she can be as clumsy as you, so she actually relates to a lot of the things happening to you.“ 

„Well, are you sure we should meet, then? I mean… it could get really dangerous with me and her being in the same room.“ 

Baekhyun snorted, punching the code to your front door into the lock pad.

„Why do you have her code?!“ Chanyeol sounded more than surprised. 

„Y/N gave it to me, for the not so unlikely situation that I should need a place to crash. You know, should I be bugged out by you guys or be stalked by some so-called fans.“ His statement sounded proud, as if he was a bit amazed by having earned your complete trust. 

„But she does know that we’re coming, right?“ 

„Yes, I texted her earlier.“ 

„Did she answer?“ 

„… well, no. But I’m sure she’s seen my message.“ 

But Baekhyun didn’t sound so confident anymore, making Chanyeol worry even more. „She doesn’t have any weapons in her apartment, right? I don’t want to be killed because she thinks we’re burglars or something!“ 

The smaller man huffed. „Don’t be ridiculous.“ With that, he finally pushed the door open, entering the apartment and pulling Chanyeol with him. The first thing both heard was muffled music coming from the bathroom as well as the sound of the shower rushing. „Ah, she is home. Perfect! Let’s wait for her in the living room.“, Baekhyun proposed good-humoredly, slipping out of his jacket and boots and leaving Chanyeol to close the front door. „Yah! Don’t leave me alone! What if she comes out now and sees me?! She doesn’t even know me!“, the tall man hissed in a panicked voice, following his friend quickly. Your studio apartment was small but very stylish — everything was either white, black or grey. A comfy sofa took up most of the space, standing besides a tall and overly filled bookcase that separated the living area from your bedroom. Loads of different plants filled the windowsills as well as some corners of the room. 

„Huh. It’s really nice.“ 

„Why do you sound surprised? Y/N has good taste! That’s why she choose me to become one of her closest friend.“ Baekhyun grinned cheekily, making Chanyeol roll his eyes. At that moment, the bathroom door opened, releasing steam and music as well as a young, flushed woman. The first thing Chanyeol noticed was you being nearly half naked, only clad in a fluffy, not completely tied dressing gown that didn’t even reach completely over your knees. The second thing was your loud scream — apparently, you had not read Baekhyun’s message. 

„WHAT THE HELL?!“ One hand over your heart, you stumbled back, „Baek?! Are you kidding me?! What are you doing here — without notifying me beforehand, might I add?!“ 

Said man looked pretty sheepishly by now, while you hurried to wrap your dressing gown tighter around herself. „Uhh... Hi? I’m Y/N.“, you said, gazing towards Chanyeol, while your face flushed even more. 

„Chanyeol. It’s nice to meet you…?“ He sounded embarrassed as well, but shot you a soft smile nevertheless. Your eyes light up at his name. „Oh, it’s so great to finally meet you! Baek told me a lot about you.“ At this, your face darkened. „But it would have been nice to have been informed of this meeting beforehand. I would have worn something more formal.“ You cracked a grin at that, striding through your living room. „I’m just going to change real quick and then we can... reintroduce ourselves.“

That’s how you and Chanyeol met for the first time — and a lot of times followed. Often, you, Baekhyun and Chanyeol hang out together: going bowling or to the cinema, trying to cook or sometimes just taking a midnight stroll along Han River. Sometimes, you hang out with only one of them, as their busy schedules didn’t allow it any other way; but in general, you mostly tried to find time together. 

It was a Saturday in late November, when your relaxed evening was interrupted by loud knocking on your front door. You groaned, placing your wine glass on the coffee table and getting up from the comfy sofa and throws. „Who is it?“, you asked before reaching the door. „It’s me.“, a deep voice answered and you immediately began to smile, opening the door. „Yeollie!“ You pulled the tall man inside, closing the door behind him and hugging him tightly. „It’s been way too long!“, you complained muffled, pressing your face into the man’s broad chest. He chuckled. „Sorry, but we have our comeback soon and need to practice.“ 

„I know, I know. Why didn’t Baek come, too?“ 

„He’s still busy recording — but he said I should give you a long hug from him.“ 

„Then give it to me.“ 

Chanyeol laughed again, pressing you even closer to himself. „There you go.“ 

„Thanks.“ You looked at him again and gasped, finally taking in his new hair color. „You’re blond!“ 

„I am indeed.“ 

„Can I call you White Chick now?“ 

„Yah! I’m still your elder, so mind your manners.“ 

You laughed and hit him playfully. „Well, come in. Do you want some wine? Or beer?“ 

„Beer, please. You know what I think of wine.“ 

„That it’s disgusting — which it’s not, by the way. You simply haven’t tried the right one yet!“ 

„And I probably never will.“ 

He grinned at you, falling down onto the sofa and stretching out his long legs. You huffed. 

„Not even for me?“ 

„Nope.“ 

„Not even if I try my puppy eyes?“ 

„Which puppy eyes?“ 

You laughed again and took a seat beside him. „I’m talking about these!“ With that, you got nose to nose with him, widening your eyes. Chanyeol’s widened as well, shocked at the sudden close proximity to you. „I… I see them, yes. Still, no wine for me.“ He quickly leaned back, trying to ignore his fast beating heart. You sighed. „Well, I tried my best. Beer it is, then.“ You finally gave him the bottle, toasting him with your wine glass. „So, how’s the comeback coming along?“, you asked, tilting your head and sweeping his whole body with a calculating look, „You look tired.“ He shrugged. „Nah, it’s okay, I’m used to it by now.“ 

„That doesn’t make it right!“ 

He gave you a cheeky smile. „Ohh, are you worried about me?“ 

„Of course I am! I care about you.“ 

He raised an eyebrow. 

„Well, about you and Baek, I mean. We’re friends, after all.“ 

You felt your cheeks warming under Chanyeol’s amused gaze. Why did he have to be that good-looking? And now with those blonde curls… Dear lord, you just wanted to touch them and see if they were as soft as they looked. 

„So, your comeback…?“ 

„Ah, yes. It’s coming along fine. We’re still trying to remember all of the choreography — okay, I am at least — but we’ll film the music video real soon. After that, it’s going to be really stressful for us, with all the stages and shows and what not.“ 

„If I can help you guys with anything, just tell me.“, you offered, smiling softly and taking another sip of your wine. Chanyeol smiled back. „Thank you, but you’ve got your own stuff to do — don’t you have exams real soon?“ 

You sighed deeply, rolling your eyes. „Don’t remind me!“ 

He laughed. „I could always help you with testing you.“ 

„Thanks, but no thanks. I already have enough sunbaes at university who want to torture me under the pretense of trying to help me with my studies.“ 

„Well, they surely don’t have my methods.“ 

Now it was your turn to raise your eyebrows. „Which are…?“ 

The blond man grinned. „I have an amazing reward system.“ 

„I’m intrigued.“ 

„Good, but you’ll only know what the rewards are going to be if I am allowed to test you.“ 

You sighed. „Okay, okay — but not today… I’m just way too exhausted.“ 

„Thank God, me too. Want to watch a movie?“ 

„Always.“

Half an hour later, both of you had drunk some more wine (or in Chanyeol’s case, beer) and were snuggled under some soft covers, watching a pretty boring movie. 

„We should have just watched School of Rock again.“, Chanyeol complained, finishing his third bottle of beer. 

„But we always watch that together!“ 

„Well, it is an amazing movie.“ 

„True.“ 

„So…?“ 

„Let’s put it on.“ 

Chanyeol whooped, making you laugh and shake your head. “Don’t laugh at me, I just love that movie so much.“, he defended himself playfully.

„Oh, I know — and me too. It always manages to make me feel good, no matter what.“ 

„Yes! But I do hope you don’t need it now to feel good?“, the tall man asked teasingly and you shook your head again. 

„I always feel good when I’m with you, Yeol.“ 

Immediately, a huge smile appeared on his face and he hid his face shyly behind his large hands. You laughed. „Aww, you’re so cute!“ You poked one of his dimples teasingly, winking at him and bending forward to grab your wine glass, which was standing on the small coffee table. Chanyeol saw his chance and wrapped both arms around you from behind, pulling you against his chest and hugging you close. You yelped and giggled, wiggling around until you could turn around to face him. „What are you doing?“, you asked playfully, your eyes shining brightly. Chanyeol took in a deep breath before gathering all his wits, beginning to lean towards you — giving you the chance to stop him. Which you did not, instead you ignored your galloping heart and leaned towards him as well, your eyes fluttering shut.

Soft, warm, careful and toe-curling— that was your first kiss. 

The first of many more to come.

[masterlist] | [requests] 

[haloud]

it’s a postcard, i’m settled (rated e)

@lsobelevans put in a request for more mylex, so here’s a new entry in my ongoing series! ft. domestic bliss and multiple blow jobs ;). hope you enjoy!

The cabin becomes, without really any of them meaning to make it this way, more or less a home for all three of them. It’s an isolated little world all their own, even if it’s way too small for three grown men—something Michael keeps talking about starting to change. But for a half-forgotten hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere, it’s taken on a whole new life. It’s where Michael bops around to music only he can hear trying to figure out how to flip pancakes. It’s where Kyle can walk in the door and find Alex reading on the couch in front of the fire. It’s where Kyle can get space from the pressure of being a doctor in a town this size and find a little sliver of peace.

There is a drawback besides the size of the space, though, and Kyle’s job is a part of it. Michael’s as well, but as odd as his hours can sometimes be, he doesn’t have the demand of being on call that Kyle has. Out of sheer necessity, Kyle spends most nights at his home closer to the hospital and as their relationship develops, Alex and Michael find themselves welcome there more and more on the nights Kyle can’t make it out to the cabin, and somewhere along the line Alex takes over the tiny second bedroom office. Kyle gladly lets him and even happily endures the irritated muttering about Kyle’s lack of commitment to cybersecurity.

Whether they’re at home or at Kyle’s, though, there’s no getting past the fact that, well, they’ve gone domestic. Michael continues his culinary adventures to a pretty satisfying level of success, and Kyle pays him back by washing up, even though Michael hangs around the whole time flicking suds at him and cackling when he tries to bat them out of the air.

Once the dishes are done, Kyle takes the plate they left to warm in the oven, and the two of them head up to the office to bring dinner to Alex, who never came down to eat with them.

“Did you miss the dinner bell?” Kyle asks, knocking softly on the open door.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just in the middle.” Alex only glances up briefly from his computer screen, sparing a smile for his boyfriends but returning his attention immediately back.

“I understand time-sensitive projects,” Kyle says, “But I think you can spare fifteen minutes to eat before we have to reheat your dinner a second time.”

Michael rounds the desk and settles his hands on Alex’s shoulders, squeezing tenderly. He says, “If the surgeon says you’re working too hard, you’re working too hard,” and he slides his arms over Alex’s shoulders and down, clasping his hands down at Alex’s navel and nuzzling a kiss to the back of his head. “Maybe…you could take the rest of the night off…and let us pamper you.”

Slowly, oh so slowly, he starts to untuck Alex’s shirt so he can creep his fingers under the hem and stroke his stomach. Alex grabs his wrist but doesn’t do anything else to deter him; he even leans his head back onto Michael’s shoulder, and his eyes drift shut when Michael nudges forward to kiss down his neck.

“You deserve a break…and you have this nice, sturdy desk…” Michael purrs against the slight day’s-end stubble high on Alex’s neck, inching his shirt a couple centimeters higher, revealing more of his flat stomach, lightly teasing every bit of skin he uncovers.

Kyle laughs. “Not exactly what I meant when I said ‘pamper.’”

“Mm, no, but it’s what I meant. Alex…”

“There probably is room for you under this desk,” Alex says, amusement in his voice, “But I don’t know why we’d ever need to know that information. Can you think of any reasons?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he sits back up and puts his hands back on the keyboard. Michael is pulled in with him by his arms still locked around Alex’s neck and he makes a complaining little noise as he’s left trying to get at the sensitive skin of Alex’s neck again.

Alex’s voice is capable of so may magical things, chief among them the uncanny ability he seems to have to code new fantasies directly into Kyle’s brain. He’s had this desk since he started med school and never once had a sexual thought involving it, but now that Alex says a single sentence in that smoky, promise-heavy voice, all he can think about is getting up on top of it and spreading his legs and getting that leverage to kiss Alex from above, feeling him push up against him…a little shiver dances down his spine.

“What do you think, Kyle?” he asks, “Is there any reason we should test if someone can fit underneath this desk?”

“Uh…” he swallows, “I do feel like there might be some…applications…”

“Mm. I agree. Too bad I’m just too busy to experiment right now. Have to get this project done, after all.”

He goes back to typing, even though he has a devilish grin on his face and Michael still hanging around his neck, tugging on his clothes, nibbling his ear. Ignoring him has always been a surefire way to rile Michael up, and it’s clearly working now, as he changes tactics from trying to pull Alex’s attention to giving Kyle a puppy-eyed, beseeching request for help.

Grinning to match Alex, Kyle pushes off from the door and makes his slow, sauntering way to Michael’s side. He sets the plate of food—gone cold again, probably, but that’s what ovens are for—down on the desk, well away from the computer, and comes right up to him. Bumping his hip, he says “Let go for a sec,” and even though it involves an awful lot of pouting, Michael complies, making sure to drag his hands all up Alex’s chest as he does it. As soon as Michael’s not in the way, Kyle grabs Alex’s chair and pulls him back, making enough space between his legs and the footwell of the desk for Michael to slip between them.

Alex locks his arms against the desk to make it a little tougher for Kyle to move him, but from his new vantage point Kyle can see that he’s just been typing into an empty document.

Ganging up on me? That’s cute, he types as Michael gets himself situated, and Kyle swallows the excess saliva in his mouth.

“Call it an intervention,” he says, letting go of the chair now that Michael is on his knees between Alex’s legs, looking up at them both with an eager spark in those honey-colored eyes.

Finally relenting, Alex gently strokes Michael’s hair off his forehead, the curls springing back into place as his fingers pass through. He looks down at him with hooded, heated eyes, and Kyle swallows again, drinking in the sight himself from over Alex’s shoulder. God, Michael always looks so good on his knees, with a dirty little smirk on his mouth and his hands curved around Alex thighs. He flutters his long eyelashes and pushes himself forward until his chest brushes the seat of the chair.

“Looks like I fit,” he says, drawing his nose in a line along Alex’s inseam until he reaches the juncture of his thighs.

“Somehow I just knew you’d be able to make room,” Alex replies with a little chuckle, running his fingers through Michael’s hair again.

“I’m talented like that.”

“I think it’s a different talent you’re looking to exercise at the moment.”

“Mm, guilty as charged.” Michael runs his hands in long sweeps up and down the outside of Alex’s legs, massaging as he goes, showing his teeth when Alex responds by tucking one leg over his shoulder, caging him in completely.

Itching to get his hands on Alex too, Kyle settles his hands on his shoulders, digging his thumbs into the muscle gone all tense from the hours he’s spent at the computer today, grinning and humming at the happy moan Alex makes, tipping his head forward to give Kyle more space to work.

“You two are the worst,” Alex says on another moan as Kyle digs deep into a particularly stubborn knot.

“You think national security can’t wait for you to get your dick sucked?” Michael laughs.

“I don’t think they have quite the same priorities as you do.”

“Well maybe they should work on changing that.”

Alex laughs and shakes his head. Ever since Michael inserted himself between his legs, Alex’s hand has been in constant motion, petting him, rubbing his thumb in little circles at his temple, scraping his fingers against the stubble on his jaw. He brings his other hand up, reverent, to cup both sides of his face.

“Well, if I’m taking some personal time,” Alex says, “Let’s not waste it. Shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

“Mm, I thought you’d never ask.”

Without hesitating any longer, Michael unbuttons Alex’s pants and shimmies them down his hips, Alex doing less than the bare minimum to help, barely lifting his ass off the chair let himself be undressed. Michael puts just the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he concentrates, and Kyle wants to get down there to kiss that fucking cute expression off his face. He settles for moving his massage down Alex’s back, searching for more spots to make him moan open-mouthed and full-throated.

“I dated a girl studying massage therapy for a little while,” Kyle comments, “And she taught me a little bit. Could get some oils or lotion and make a real spa day of it. I did say you deserve to be pampered.”

“Are you trying to distract me from the fact that Guerin is clearly cheating right now?”

Michael flutters his eyelashes innocently, but yeah, Alex is floating an inch or so in the air now, his pants around his knees.

“Not on purpose; you’re kind of just a mess back here.” He rolls his knuckles into the stubborn tension between Alex’s shoulder blades. “And it’d be hot as hell to get you to lay down on a real massage table and get to take my time better than I can right now. Help you relax.”

“I volunteer to be in charge of the happy ending,” Michael says.

“You’re getting your chance right now, no cutting in line for seconds.”

“I might be able to find some time in my schedule for a massage,” Alex says. The only indication he gives that he even heard Michael mouthing off is his hand sliding around to the back of his head and jerking him forward. At the show of force, Michael muffles a groan into Alex’s inner thigh, sucking that warm and fragile skin into his mouth.

“Wouldn’t want you to be in anything less than top shape. As a physician…”

“Oh, are we playing doctor now? I think Valenti should be the sexy nurse instead.”

“You were so eager to get down there; are you satisfied now? Because you’re being so chatty I start to think that you’re ready to come out.”

“Oh no, I’m good,” Michael says immediately, hugging on to Alex’s thighs like someone might try to pull him away.

“Then why don’t you do something about it?”

“Aye aye, Captain,” he purrs and, leaning farther forward, fixes his teeth on the waistband of Alex’s underwear and tugs and tugs it down, until Alex’s half-hard cock is free, and Michael moves in to lick and nuzzle at the base, hand moving slowly, humming happily.

Sighing with pleasure, Alex leans back into Kyle’s hands; Kyle got distracted somewhere along the line, his hands stalled to pet his sides. Michael really is so distracting, with the way his berry-red lips look open just enough to let the head of Alex’s cock pass through, the easy, eager way he bobs forward until his nose is buried in the trimmed hair at the base, the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and swallows as much as he can until he has to pull back up to breathe—

Alex and Kyle are equally mesmerized. Guerin watches up through his lashes, eyes damp and glittering with triumph every time the hand on the back of his head grips tighter, until that hand lets go, slides around to rest against his throat, not squeezing, just leaving it there to feel. And the sight of it, there’s something intoxicating there, enough to have Kyle throbbing inside his jeans. Almost absentmindedly, he flicks open the button to relieve a little pressure, rubbing the heel of his hand against the rigid line of his cock as he watches Alex grind the pad of his thumb against the slick corner of Michael’s mouth.

“You love this, don’t you,” Alex croons, “love that feeling, that taste. You’d get on your knees anytime I wanted you to and love every second, wouldn’t you.”

Michael’s eyes fall shut, and he hums around Alex’s cock, a happy, agreeable little sound that has Alex hissing and clutching him closer again, forcing his cock all the way down his throat.

Keeping his voice level, Alex continues, “Don’t you think so, Kyle? That this is what Michael is made for?”

“He loves it,” Kyle agrees, considerably more hoarsely, “Just look at him. Still begging for more.”

“You’re right. He can’t be satisfied with just this much. Michael,” he strokes his cheek, grips his jaw, without moving his head forcing him to meet their eyes, “hurry up and make me come. You’re not done until you’ve used your mouth to get Kyle off as well. Maybe you’ll be satisfied then, hm?”

The noise Michael makes next is no teasing hum but a loud, hungry moan, and he redoubles his efforts, bobbing his head so that his curls bounce back and forth with the movement, working his hand roughly everywhere his mouth doesn’t touch, working his tongue as eagerly as he can, until Alex comes with a shout, holding him in place while he fills his mouth up, and Michael swallows, not letting go of a single drop.

Alex pulls out of his mouth while he’s still swallowing and misty-eyed and rolls the chair back. He goes to push himself up, saying, “your turn, Kyle,” but before he can get up, Kyle pushes him back down.

He says, “I think I’d rather, uh…” and rather than finish the sentence, he hops up on the desk and spreads his legs like he’s been wanting to since Alex first got that glint of promise in his eye.

Alex laughs and leans the chair back. “I like the way you think. Get out here, Michael.”

Michael needs a little help to unfurl himself from the footwell, using Kyle’s hand to stand up, and he stretches out each leg individually, then stretches his whole body with languid grace and a satisfied groan as joints pop back into place. Alex tugs him in by his belt loops, and he goes willingly, arching into it as Alex digs his fingers into the dimples right above his ass, reaching up to ruffle his hair as Alex kisses his sternum.

“Hmm.” Alex grinds the heel of his hand against Michael’s still-clothed cock. “Think you’ll be able to make it through another? I have my doubts.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

Kyle shudders at the rasp sucking Alex has put into Michael’s voice, and he absentmindedly starts palming himself as he watches his boyfriends together.

“You could say that,” Alex says, interrupting himself to trail his mouth to the side and nip at Michael’s nipple, pinching the other cruelly, making Michael squirm, “Or I could say that if you come, no hands, while sucking Kyle, I’ll find some way to make you very happy later.”

“Fuck,” Kyle and Michael groan simultaneously, their eyes flicking up to meet each other’s, lust snapping so tight between them that Michael pulls away from Alex to stumble over and fall on his knees in front of Kyle’s spread legs. Kyle grabs him by the hair just on instinct, holding him tight as he licks his lips, looks fiercely up at Kyle through his lashes, and waits for the word go.

“Guerin,” Kyle moans, and that must be enough, because Michael dives in, swallows Kyle down in one long gulp, gags for just a second before fixing his angle and starting up a quick, brutal rhythm that has Kyle’s hips twitching up to meet him. Kyle holds on to  the desk so hard he can feel his nails biting into the underside, and it’s all, it’s all got an extra edge of filthiness underneath it, feeling the wood, hard and smooth and cool beneath him, the feeling of exposure from being up there, all adding an edge to the hottightwet sensation of Michael’s throat around his cock.

And then Alex’s hand is there, pushing Kyle’s out of the way so he can guide the motion of Michael’s head more firmly, pushing and pulling him exactly where he wants him and at what pace and Michael just melts, leaning on his hands to keep from falling over and losing Kyle’s cock from his mouth as he curls up around himself in pleasure. The vibration of Michael’s moan around him has Kyle’s hips jerking forward as he tips his head back and cries out and comes, every muscle of his lower body clenching all at once, his thighs around Michael’s head, his heels digging into his back, and before Kyle is done shaking or Michael is done swallowing, Alex yanks him off to kiss him and taste Kyle in his mouth. He lets go and lets Michael sprawl out on all fours, panting for breath and grinning all smug and messy and beautiful. Kyle would ask who won their little wager, but from the way Michael laughs, he already knows.

“You better get to thinking about that reward,” Michael says, as good as purring as he presses up into the hand still gripping him by the hair.

Later, though, after Alex has finally eaten and the three of them pile into Kyle’s king-sized bed (bought as a luxury when he bought the house, and even though he couldn’t have known the future, nothing feels as luxurious as Alex and Michael sleeping beside him), he thinks that just being able to be together like this is reward enough.

[blueoswin]

Let’s make him jealous!

Summary : Eliott went back to Lucille. However Lucas can't forget him. For now he just has to try to get over him, even if the boys want to push them back together. They all come up with an awesome plan ( their words) in order to do so. Well Emma does : making Eliott jealous. How ? By hiting on  Lucas obnoxiously. Too much for his taste. And for Eliott's as well.

Or : Eliott is sad raccoon pining from afar. Lucas is grumpy, Emma is a snake and the boys are elu stans #1.

______________

    Chapter 5

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Lucas's mind has been running in circles lately, the thin thread of his thoughts only getting more tangled the longer he overthinks, creating intricate knots.  Being alone, finding a bit of peace and quiet is the best option to sort all of this out.  Since Emma came up with this plan, he hasn't got much time for himself, not enough at least. He loves his friends with his whole heart, would go to the end of the world for them, hell, even the end of the whole universe but lately he hasn't even had one second to simply be, making it hard  to think about  what he would say to Eliott if they were to bump into each other. Or how to forget him if they never cross paths again.

That's why when his friends called it a day and decided it's time they got out of the common room, Lucas hasn't followed them. He's watched people leaving one by one as the sun set. Once he's the only person remaining, he sends a text to Daphne telling her he'll be the one closing the common room tonight when he'll be ready to leave. The both of them have quickly developped a coded language over the past few months.

There were days when Daphne was feeling down, not wanting to talk, sometimes simply wanting to cry and have someone to comfort her. On days like these they both would meet in the common room and lay down on the uncomfortable matress, eating sweets in silence until one of them fall asleep, simply appreciating the other's company. The days where Lucas wants to be left alone,like tonight, he tells her he'll close the common room.  Strange how the common room has become his safe place by now. The room holds so many memories, notably with his friends whom he considers his family at this point. This place is more a home in his eyes than the house he's always lived in. The one he's supposed to live in actually.

Not wanting to be bothered by curious residents, he closes the door. He then procedes to turn a dim light on in the farthest corner of the room so as not to betray his presence. Lucas isn't a big fan of darkness, but he dislikes even more being interrupted in quiet moments like this one. He untangles his earbuds, putting his playlist on random. He only stops pacing once he's in front of the big windows, looking outside. The sun is setting slowly, casting a golden hue around him, specks of purple, pink and blue thrown in the mix of colors. Everything is so peaceful, contrasting greatly with the storm raging inside him. He closes his eyes, getting lost in the music.

Love is hard I know

When your lights are red

But I'm green to go

Lucas restrains himself from laughing sadly. The irony. The song fits his mood so well it's uncanny. Alone in the darkness, he closes his eyes once again, letting himself do something he hasn't allowed himself to do in weeks for fear of breaking down in tears. He thinks about Eliott. The first picture to come to his mind when he thinks about the boy is one of him laughing, head thrown back in abandon, sunshine smile stretching his pretty lips so beautifully Lucas longs to kiss him senseless, his eyes reduced to half-moon slits, the corners crinkling with mirth, an undecipherable spark in his eyes. He remembers their first kiss under the rain, how soaked they had been at the end but none of them cared enough to move, too happy to finally be together. He remembers that fateful day when Eliott had walked away from him, not even kissing him goodbye. Lucas had known back then he said something that made Eliott pull away, made him run back to Lucille. He would like at the very least yo have the beginning of an explanation, to know what he did wrong so he could try to fix this mess.

I want you to color me blue

Anything it takes to make you stay

Only seeing myself when I'm looking up at you

He misses Eliott, more than anything. But his heart is still cut open,the wound too raw. He couldn't forget that easily how the other boy played him. Because even if he knows deep down he did something for their relationship to go downhill so soon, he also knows that Eliott chose willingly to go back to Lucille. He could have said something to Lucas along the lines of “ hey I changed my mind, I can't be with you”, well in retrospective he kind of did, right before that damn party, but it was no excuse to go running back to his ex. He broke the dating 101 first rule.  Against all odds however, the longing takes over his anger in his solitude.

I can't say no

Though the lights are on

There's nobody home

Lucas shifts his legs a bit, adjusting his position, he doesn't know why but he half opens his eyes on instinct, catching a glimpse of a tall silhouette in the window. A silhouette he knows too well. A silhouette he's only hoped to see again, maybe not so soon, maybe after giving himself a pep talk. His heart races unvoluntarily.

Swore I'd never lose control

Then I fell in love with a heart that beats so slow

Eliott.

In all his beautiful glory, although he looks more tired than Lucas remembered, more fidgety too. Lucas tenses up, waiting. He closes his eyes, not willing to give any clue to Eliott that he's seen him. He isn't ready, far from it actually. He has to compose himself, quickly.

I want you

Discreetly, he lowers the volume of the music to better hear what's Eliott doing in his back. He wants to see what his next move will be, what could come out of this impromptu meeting.

I'll color me blue

Anything it takes to make you stay

He senses Eliott slowing coming over, closer and closer. They were only centimeters apart now but Lucas swears he would have felt the exact same thing if his back was glued to the other boy's chest. All of his senses are on high alert, anticipation making the hair on his arm rise up.The knot in his stomach grows impossibly bigger, weighing him down. Imperceptibly, he inhales, clenches then unclenches his hand to keep his anxiety at bay, putting up a calm facade.  “I like raccoon, they wear masks” Well, time for him to borrow Eliott's spirit animal. The hedgehog won't do the trick this time.

Only seeing myself

When I'm looking up at you

Slowly, he opens his eyes, blinking rapidly to let his eyes adjust to the luminosity.

I know you're seeing black and white

He doesn't turn over though, he's paralyzed, literally glued to the ground.

So I'll paint you a clear blue sky

Not being able to move, he looks at their reflections in the window. A shiver runs down his spine, they look good together.

Without you I'm color blind

The first thing he sees is a brown jacket he knows too well, one he has even worn sometimes. One so big it practically engulfs him.  Snippets of conversation rush back to him

“Eliott I'm not wearing your jacket to school it's so big I feel like a toddler trying on his parent's clothes” “ I swear you look cute in it. Pretty please, wear it for me?” “ Fiiiiine, You know I can't resist you when you do the puppy eyes, it's truly unfair.”

It's raining every time I open my eyes

His eyes go up, up and up again, tracing the outlines of the person behind him only stopping when he comes in contact with his eyes.

I want you to color me blue

They stare at each other in silence for a few more minutes, Lucas turns his music off, putting his earbuds in his pocket deliberatly slow, hands shaking slightly. His legs feel like jelly. He scowls, wanting to hide how nervous he truly is. The silence goes on, none of them wanting to be the first to speak up, not knowing where to start either. Lucas is the first one to look away, his limbs coming back to life, he pulls himself together, taking a deep breath as he turns around to confront Eliott.

Note: Okay so I wanted to say sorry for the late upload and thank you to all of you who read this fic you don’t know how much it means to me. Also I’d gladly take constructive criticism/ feedback because I wrote and rewrote this chapter but I still feel meh about it. Anyway I don’t know if you’ll read this note lol but if you’re still here, thanks again. I love you <3

[artificialqueens]

Beneath the Amber Moon, Part 10 (Galactica AU Group Fic) – TheDane & Veronica

Heyyy!! Welcome to Part 10 of “Beneath the Amber Moon,” a group fic set in the Galactica Universe. Click here for previous chapters.

We hope you’re enjoying it! Let us know what you think!

Summary: Find out what happens after Violet ran off from lunch! ...And join the fam for a nightclub shit show.

/////

Violet made it onto the deck, walking to the railing and grasping it, her mind a mantra of don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up...

“Are you okay, darling?”

Violet looked up to see Sutan. “I’m sorry.” She choked up, the words getting caught in her throat, tears pressing and threatening to drop.

“Why are you sorry?” Sutan looked so concerned, his voice so soft as he took a step, and then another towards her, the familiar scent of the cigarettes Sutan still refused to give up for once not repulsing her, but calming her instead.

The tears fell, and Violet couldn’t stop them. “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can.” Sutan touched Violet’s shoulders, his palms pressing down, grounding her. “What’s going on darling? I know eating with my friends isn’t always your favorite activity but-”

“It’s not that- I can’t” Violet wiped her tears, her mascara without a doubt smudging everywhere. “It’s not.. I’m sorry, I just… I don’t feel good…”

“Mata Indah.” Sutan touched her chin, gently lifting her head. “Listen to me.”

Violet nodded.

“You promised me you weren’t dying, is that still true?”

“I’m not dying.” Violet said the words with more conviction than she felt. They were true, the fact that was pregnant not able to kill her, at least not yet.

“Good.” Sutan released her chin, his hand gently touching her neck instead.. “Then, I promise you that you’ll be okay.” Sutan smiled. “Now breathe.”

Violet nodded, her breathing slowly getting under control.

/

“What’s wrong with Violet?” Julia asked, after she rushed away from the table, Sutan close behind her.

“Oh, she’s okay! She’s just been feeling a little sick,” Courtney said, trying to lighten the mood, although concern for Violet was pretty high on her list of anxieties at the moment. “Are you okay, Gracie?” she asked, looking across the table at the bewildered 3-year-old.

Grace nodded, but her lower lip trembled.

“Do you wanna come sit over here?” Courtney asked, opening her arm.

After another nod, she smiled and pulled Grace’s chair close to her.

“There we go! Now it’s a party.”

“Party!” Owen enthused.

“That’s my boy,” Adore laughed, and then suddenly her face went pale. “Oh shit…”

“Ooooh, you said the S word!”

Courtney turned in the direction Adore was looking to see Jinkx strolling in, taking a glass of fresh-squeezed guava juice from a tray.

“Adios, muchachos,” Adore whispered, and then ducked under the table, scampering to the other exit before her girlfriend would have the chance to spot her.

Courtney opened her mouth to protest, but by then she was gone. She groaned softly.

“They’re dropping like flies,” Julia commented.

“Tell me about it,” said Courtney, realizing that she was now the only adult looking after the kids, and that Jinkx was walking towards them with a tray and a big smile.

“Hi, guys!”

“Hey Jinkx.”

“I figured you’d be with Adore.”

“Oh, uh…”

“I hope she’s okay.”

“She’s okay!” Owen said. “She just ran out that way!”

“Did she.” Jinkx’ voice was flat.

“Well,” Courtney tried to backpedal. “I don’t know if ‘ran’ is the right-”

“Yeah, she ran! Super fast!” Owen added cheerfully.

Jinkx let out a huge sigh, and Courtney felt her stomach drop. All of this drama, and she’d still yet to see Bianca. She was exhausted.

“I get why she’d be avoiding Alaska right now, but...why is she avoiding me?” Jinkx asked.

“Uhh…” Courtney faltered, unsure how to answer. She wasn’t even sure that she fully understood what Adore was feeling, and she certainly didn’t want to betray her trust. She figured she better keep her mouth shut.

“Look, I know you’re her friend, but I need to tell you...I’m on her side, here. I was a little annoyed at her for avoiding us, but now...I get how she feels, and I’m only trying to make Alaska understand.”

Courtney nodded, wishing she was anywhere but this table, getting deeper and deeper into her friend’s relationship drama. Especially when Fame walked in, immediately shooting her a look that sent shivers down her spine.

/////

“Do you want this in an 8 or a 10?”

“A 10?! Who do you think I am?”

“Someone who hasn’t dropped their baby weight, yes.”

“I’m a size 6, so fuck you.”

“If Raja told you that, you need to take her to court for lying.”

Raven whirled around, hands on her hips, and Karl backed up, laughing.

“Don’t shoot the messenger!”

“Tell me what’s going on!”

“Uh...we’re shopping?” Karl smiled sweetly, pulling another dress off the rack.

“What’s going on with you and Raja? What are you plotting?”

“Well…” Karl bit his lip, shifting nervously. “I really didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but…”

“Yes?”

“...Raja and I are…”

“Spill it!”

“...We’re in love and we’re planning to run off and elope and move to Morocco together. I’m sorry!” Karl hid his face in his hands, fake-crying.

Raven glared at him, a huff of annoyance leaving her.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry, Raven, please don’t hate me!” Karl clutched his chest, reaching out an arm dramatically as Raven pulled the dressing room curtain shut, then dissolving into giggles and wiping his eyes.

/////

Courtney leaned on the railing of the boat, sighing. Between Violet’s pregnancy panic and Adore’s relationship drama, it seemed like she hadn’t had a moment to herself all day to process the situation with Bianca. The memory of Bianca’s body against hers was still so fresh, she could almost taste her, and yet, she’d never felt farther away.

She turned her face to the sky, watching the storm clouds rolling in once again, rain trickling down, the brief and sunny respite apparently over. Her skin felt tight and itchy, and suddenly Courtney couldn’t take it anymore. Without thinking about it, she pulled off her cover-up and dove off the side of the boat. Once safely submerged in the cold, clear water, she let out a primal scream.

When she surfaced again, one of the stewards was already running towards her with a life preserver. Damn. Say what you will about Fame, but the woman sure knew how to staff a yacht.

“I’m fine!” Courtney called him to him weakly, treading water. She took ahold of the life preserver and followed his directions to the ladder, climbing up onto the lower deck a bit sheepishly, dripping wet.

Luckily, it appeared that no one else had seen her dramatic little display. Or so she thought, until she saw Raja strolling on the deck with squirming Isolde in her arms, laughing.

"I'd give it a 6 out of 10 for the jump, but it would have been much more impressive with an audience,” she said, and off Courtney’s embarrassed grimace, added, “Rough day?”

Courtney sighed, accepting the towel from the steward and nodding.

“I guess you could say that.”

"So the great Courtney Act is having trouble in Paradise, huh?" Raja smiled. "If you promise not to cry on her, you can have some baby cuddles. She's not as fat as Grace was, but she does give good hugs."

Courtney happily took Isolde into her arms and began cooing at her.

“She’s really beautiful.”

“I know,” Raja said. “And thank god for that. Her life will be much easier.”

“Maybe…”

“Come on. You have to admit, it's a good thing to be in this world. Opens a lot of doors, and hearts...and checkbooks."

“Right…” Courtney said, taking in their luxurious surroundings, a little ashamed at how ungrateful she’d been. “It really could be a lot worse, couldn’t it?”

Raja leaned in, placing a firm hand on Courtney’s shoulder as she said, “You bet your ass it could.”

/////

The atmosphere was perfect, the music was excellent, the cocktails mixed exactly right and everyone had made at least a decent effort in getting dressed, Fame sending a strong worded email to everyone about proper dress code when she had planned the trip after Juju had dared to show up in jeans to a cocktail party.

The club was what Fame had looked forward to the most. It had been Patrick’s suggestion, her husband knowing her so very well. Fame liked going out, but as she had gotten older, she had started to detest having strangers around more and more, unless she and Patrick where hunting for someone to share their bed, or playing a game of finding a lover for their lover, and even then, she preferred it in a setting where she was in control of everything. She had reserved the club’s entire balcony area, the dance floor just steps away if anyone desired it, but as her friends all arrived, Fame was just looking forward to celebrating with her nearest and dearest. (And Courtney, but nothing was ever perfect.)

Fame had used her annoyance to make sure she overshadowed everyone, her white Valentino dress with a sharp collar making her look fearless and fierce, her eye makeup done with shades of green, her golden jewelry all carefully picked out so she looked spectacular.

Patrick slipped an arm around her waist, handing her a glass of champagne.

“Happy birthday, darling.”

“Thank you,” Fame said, kissing him gently, pointedly ignoring Bianca’s puppy eyes from the sofa, adding decisively, “It’s gonna be a great night.”

“Who are you trying to convince?”

Unprepared to answer, Fame just took a gulp of champagne and leaned a head on his shoulder.

/////

Raven perched on one of the velvet sofas, eyes scanning the group for someone to share a bit of gossip. She spotted Juju, snuggled under Detox’s arm, giggling girlishly, and rolled her eyes, her annoyance at Raja changing to a brief stab of loneliness, which Raven wasn’t going to stand for at all.

“Juju! Bitch I know you can hear me! Over here!”

Juju gave Detox a tender kiss on the cheek, the man laughing before Juju walked over to Raven on the sofa.

“Hey Rave.”

“What’s with you two?” Raven asked, sipping her champagne.

“Oh, you know...sometimes I remember that we kinda like each other.” Juju smiled, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. “We were just fighting and then we were all wet.. One thing kinda led to the other and.. You know.” Juju smirked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Gross.” Raven snorted. “I don’t want to think of De’s dick.”

“So don’t,” Juju said, tonguing her straw with a sassy wink. “Though I will, and with pleasure I might add.” At Raven’s disgusted face, Juju laughed and added, “So what’s up?”

“I’m just so glad to have grown-up time,” Raven sighed, clearly sarcastic as she picked up her drink, taking a sip. “It’s great to have a break!” Raven smiled.

“You have two nannies,” Juju reminded her, and Raven stuck out her tongue.

She then turned her attention to the group, scanning everyone with a critical eye, mouth pursed in judgment.

“Uh oh…” Juju braced herself for the onslaught of gossip she knew would be coming next.

“Does Violet look strange to you?” Raven asked, lowering her voice. Violet was wearing a simple green dress in a structured satin, her hair styled in soft curls around her head. She was drinking something clear, her fingers wrapped around a tall glass as she was standing at Sutan’s side, Sutan vibarently discussing something with Karl.

“More strange that usual?”

“Yes! She’s acting like a cat, all skittish and scared. I mean, I know she’s been sick but it seems more...I don’t know, she feels distant?”

“She’s been nice to me.” Juju leaned back on the couch. “Maybe she just doesn’t like you anymore.”

“You bitch!” Raven gasped, unable to hide her delight. Raven snuggled in, lowering her voice as she whispered to Juju. “Raja told me that Courtney had a total breakdown earlier. Like, lost her shit and jumped off the boat.”

“No! Really?!”

“Yes, really. What do you think that was all about?”

“Hmmm...well, I don’t know, but Bianca is in a mood too. It’s probably related.”

“Ugh, I certainly hope not. You’d think they’d have both learned their lesson by now. No reason to retread that tired relationship.”

“True,” Juju said, stirring her drink. “And where’s your lovely wife?”

“She’s probably off with Karl again,” Raven scoffed. Off Juju’s confused expression, she explained, “They’re up to something, and Raja won’t tell me what.” Raven huffed. “If she thinks that I’m putting out while she’s being a shady bitch, then she’s got another think coming.”

“Well, alright then,” Juju said.

“You wanna know the real timebomb tonight?” Raven gestured to Alaska, double fisting her cocktails, guzzling them down at an alarming rate while Jinkx looked on tiredly. “Just wait. That shit’s gonna blow.”

“Oh wow. She better not knock Jinkxy off the wagon.”

“It might be entertaining,” Raven cackled.

“No dude. You weren’t there. Brazil is not ready for that horror show.”

“I mean, all that was before my time, so...I wouldn’t be mad about it.”

“You’re so evil,” Juju laughed, shaking her head.

“And what about our darling birthday girl? What could be bothering her on this festive night?”

Fame sipped a champagne slowly, expression a bit blank, almost glum.

“Well...I don’t know. Everything’s been great; she should be thrilled.”

“I know!”

“Maybe too much perfection is tiresome?” Juju offered.

“Fame! Come here, my love!”

/

“I made some calls.” Karl nudged Raja with his shoulder, cutting off the woman who had been talking to Patrick. Raja turned, looking at Karl, an eyebrow raised.

“Seriously? You’ve ‘made calls’ already?”

“You said to bring you an offer. I’m bringing it.” Karl smiled, clearly beyond pleased with himself. “Estee Lauder is looking for a more elegant face for their latest skinline.”

“You want me to go commercial, Westerberg?” Raja smirked. “You think I’m interested in that?”

“Lauder today, my dear Raja.” Karl said. “Dior tomorrow.”

/

Armed with some Dutch courage from the Mojito in her hand, Courtney tentatively made her way towards Bianca. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to her all day, and ever since that encounter with Fame at breakfast, the unsettled feeling about their whole situation was getting worse and worse.

“Karl! You fucking dickhole!” Bianca shrieked, punching him on the thigh. Karl looked down at her, surprised.

“What’s your problem, cunt?”

“You fucking spilled on me, cunt.” Bianca gestured to a tiny drop of white wine on her blouse.

“Okay...sorry? I’ll pay for your dry cleaning. Take it down a notch.” Karl rolled his eyes and resumed his conversation with Raja.

Bianca huffed, crossing her arms and glowering, and Courtney hesitated, hanging back. She was very obviously in a wretched mood, and trying to talk to her now could be disastrous. Quickly losing her nerve, Courtney turned back to the dance floor, bounding over to Adore.

She threw her arms around her friend from behind, squeezing her tightly.

“Let’s get fucked up,” she murmured into Adore’s ear, and was answered by a delighted squeal.

/////

Tonight was turning into a real shit show, Bianca realized with a slight groan. Fame was still ignoring her, and it seemed that so was Courtney - or at least, avoiding any contact. And Bianca wasn’t the only miserable one, from the look of Jinkx’ face as she tried to prevent Alaska from falling over, or from Raven’s pout, or Violet’s even-more-blank-than-usual daze. This party was going downhill fast, and someone needed to do something.

A round of shots seemed like a good idea. She supposed that it wouldn’t help Jinkx, but Fame would appreciate it, at least. Except when she went to hand one to Fame, the blonde turned away, spine ramrod straight and shoulders tense, refusing to even look her in the eye.

Bianca sighed, knocking back another shot of her own, anything to dull the nagging insecurity bubbling up. She turned to Violet.

“Here, take this,” she said. It was more of a command than an offer.

“No thanks.” Violet looked down at the shot like it was poison, her lips twisted. “I’d rather not.”

“Come on, it won’t hurt you...” Bianca wheedled, attempting to put the glass into her hands, flashing her a smile. “I’m trying to be nice here.”

“Thank you, but no thanks.”

“Ugh, come on!” Bianca was growing frustrated. Why didn’t anyone understand when she was being charming and generous? Even as she spoke, she cringed a bit, knowing that she was starting to sound like an after-school special but unable to stop herself. “You know, it would help you loosen the fuck up...and maybe you wouldn’t be so fucking boring.”

“You’re drunk, Bianca.” Violet was clutching her glass, clearly beyond uncomfortable with the entire situation.

Bianca looked Violet up and down, eyes landing on her glass, and realised that it was water.

“Why won’t you just drink it?! What are you, pregnant?”

Violet dropped her glass, her entire body freezing in place, her face going completely pale.

“Oh, you are?” Bianca snorted. Of course she was, the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae that was this entire shitty night. “Nevermind, I guess. Sorry.” Bianca shrugged, walking towards Detox and handing the shot to him instead.

Violet was standing completely alone, the shards of the glass between her feet, when Raven jumped on her.

“Violet! Are you really pregnant?!” Raven shrieked, jumping up and down. “Oh my god!”

“I-”

“Our babies are going to be best friends!”

“Ugh!” came an indignant noise from the corner, Alaska whining, “Why does she get a baby?”

“Shh!”

Bianca shook her head and turned back to the action, just in time to see Violet pushing Raven away, the woman running down the steps. If Bianca she wasn’t so wrapped up in drowning her own sorrows, she probably would have felt bad, Violet clearly not wanting to share her news with the class.

“I hope it’s true!” Raven clapped her hands. “This is so exciting!”

“Is she okay?” Juju asked, frowning. “Should we go after her?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine. Probably just needs to puke.” Raven replied. “This explains so much,”

Juju bit her lip. “Maybe someone should check on her?” She scanned the club, seeing Sutan who had just returned from the bathroom. “TanTan!” Juju yelled, waving her arms.

Sutan looked up from the bar, his brow furrowed in confusion, until he found Juju. He grabbed his beer and strolled over to the group, a happy, drunken smile on his face.

“Heyy, what’s up, ladies?” Sutan draped his arms over Juju’s shoulder, pulling her against his side as he took a long swing of his beer.

“Not much,” Bianca said. “Why didn’t you tell us your girl is knocked up?”

Sutan stared at her, the woman acting nothing like the person he sometimes called friend.

“I...what?” Sutan’s mouth hung open.

“Ohh, you didn’t know,” Bianca realized. She shrugged and handed him a shot. “Shit. Well. Congrats, Papa.”

“Bianca!” Fame exclaimed, horrified. “I can’t believe you!”

“What, how was I supposed to know that he didn’t know?! And anyway, he was gonna find out. I mean Raven’s here.”

“Don’t blame me!” Raven threw her hands up. “You’re the big mouth this time, Bibi!”

“Oops,” Bianca snorted, then continued to tease Sutan, oblivious to the shocked, distressed look on his face. “Seems like Violet will have to share her Daddy now, huh?”

“Wow, Bianca, pot/kettle much?” Raven laughed.

“So?” she replied, also laughing. “It’s still true…”

“I...need to…” Sutan’s eyes darted around the club like crazy, his face ashy.

“Violet went that way,” Juju advised, a hand on his shoulder.

Sutan stood for another moment, blinking, slowly turning in the direction Juju pointed. Then, he took off, practically sprinting down the steps and through the crowd.

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interview #11

Hello folks and happy Friday! We’re back, and this time @likingthistoomuch interviews @ohaine (aka, me) so I’m jumping straight into the interview because it’s awkward af to introduce yourself.

Trigger warnings: here be brief discussions of grief and mourning, and because it’s me, there’s also some bad language. Sorry.

OhAine: She arts, she fics, now you can add witty limericks to her repertoire for she is truly an accomplished young lady; because when the question of how to introduce me for this interview came up likingthistoomuch chose to write a poem.

It goes like this:

 She is smart

She has sass

Thinks her writing isn’t good

Someone get her head outta her ass.

 Charming. And as that isn’t massively helpful to anyone reading, I’ll flesh it out a bit for you. My name is Áine (yes, my pseud is that imaginative), I’m Irish, married to a tall, curly haired Brit (no, not *that* tall, curly haired Brit). I’m a professional doer of double entry (that means I’m an accountant not a p0rn star, get your dirty minds out of the gutter), an amateur writer who is obsessed with Sherlock and Sherlolly to a point that isn’t dignified. I’m the mod of this interview project, and also of the MaybeItsJustMyType Collection on AO3, a double SAMFA winner (yay me!) and I also won a Community Games gold medal when I was eight ( @hobbitsdoitbetter will know what that is, but she’s literally the only one of you who will) for a picture I drew in crayon of a cat jumping over a skipping rope (although if I’m honest I think everyone who entered the competition got a prize so I really don’t know if I should brag too much about it.) Currently I’m in the market for someone who’ll do a better job of my eulogy than I’ve done with this intro, so maybe it’s best if I stop talking now and we just move along with the questions… Ahem… Gee it’s back to you.

 likingthistoomuch: I’m going to start with Kat (aka satin_doll, aka @ashockinglackofsatin) who’s submitted a few reader questions if you’re ready.

 OhAine: Sure. Shoot.

 satin_doll: The Fate of Glass is one of the most beautiful and touching stories I’ve ever read dealing with grief and the aftermath of the death of a character. It also illustrates perfectly Molly’s relationship with Sherlock from her side. We know you were dealing with your own loss when this was written. How much of your writing springs from your own real life emotional experiences?

 OhAine: Well first, thank you dear heart. It’s a tricky question to answer because The Fate of Glass is unique for me. I wrote it and ‘Where the Lost Things Go’ in the same two week period, at a time when I was really struggling to accept what had happened to Kieren. Funnily enough, Gee (likingthistoomuch) and I were talking only a few weeks ago, and I told her this: for the only time I can ever remember doing, I put my words into Sherlock’s mouth. The bit where they’re sitting on the floor, smoking and talking about Mrs H, where Sherlock finally says what’s on his mind – that he’d failed her – was exactly what I felt at that moment about Kiki’s death. I drew on something deeply personal in a way I hadn’t done since ‘Take me and erase me’ and the death of Molly and Sherlock’s son. Initially that story was me working through my feelings and grief, but after the first draft I had to abandon that agenda and remember that this was about Sherlock and Molly now. The real life experience of survivor’s guilt, of losing someone you love was there, but oddly Molly’s rebuttal to Sherlock’s assertions about blame were very much me too, they came from my father’s loss, and that reconciling a terrible end with a life well lived and full of love. Of all my stories, it’s the closest to describing my actual experience in a given context.

 I suppose in the first instance, what you write has be honest, authentic. That doesn’t mean that it has to come from your experience directly, but if you have the framework there for something that you want to say, then you use it. There are small bits of me in all of my stories, but I can’t rely on my own emotional experiences too heavily because then I’m limiting the characters. What I’ve found you can do is take the essence of an emotion, distil it down to its component parts and feelings, and then apply them to a different situation. Your job when writing a story is to tell someone else’s story, so you have to be able to extrapolate beyond your own experiences. But if you can ground that in something real, it somehow gives it a ring of truth that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

 satin_doll: Amor Vincit Omnia is quite simply devastatingly beautiful, despite the pain that runs through it from beginning to end. You’re so adept at writing Molly’s steadfastness and loyalty despite Sherlock’s rough treatment of her over the years and it seems to be a recurrent theme in your stories. Can you talk a little about where this picture of Molly comes from, how she developed as a character in your head?

 OhAine: We get so little of Molly on screen, and in a way that’s a blessing: we have so much room for interpretation, so many directions we can take her in, you know? But something Mofftiss have gone to pains to point out is that not only is Molly loyal to the bone, but that Sherlock trusts her loyalty in a way that he doesn’t trust anyone else’s.

 You have to be careful how you allow her to give that loyalty, it can’t be done in a way that demeans her, or would make her bitter. In order for that not to happen you have to imagine why someone would give so much in the face of – what you termed – rough treatment. I’ve come to the conclusion that although she’s sometimes hurt by it, impatient with it, she views his actions not as intentional, but rather as him simply not knowing how to do things any differently. He’s ever so gentle with her in TEH, when no one else is around to see, and that episode informs so much of what I imagine their between-the-scenes life to be like: he shows respect for her, love, affection, he respects her mind, her opinions, he is eternally grateful for all that she has done for him, and grateful that despite everything he’s done she still allows him to call her friend.

 Sherlock asks in TRF, ‘If I wasn’t everything you think I am, everything that I think I am, would you still want to help me?’ and Molly doesn’t hesitate, she’s straight in with ‘What do you need?’ She has zero doubts about the man that he is.

 Earlier in that episode she says, ‘You’re a bit like my dad,’ going on to tell Sherlock about how her dad behaved when he was dying, and I think that’s a very under rated line. I think it shows that to Molly he’s more than – what other’s call him – the great detective, machine, freak. It shows she sees the man beneath. She sees that he is more than the sum of his parts. She’s telling him that she sees his humanity.

 She doesn’t want to change him into someone he’s not. She sees deeper, she sees the bits of him that he guards, the parts of him that are just like you and me. Molly’s not blinded by his brilliance. To her he’s just a man, albeit one who has a very special gift.

 Even when she says ‘Why do you always say such horrible things?’ she’s not treating him like a bold puppy and smacking him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper like the others do, she’s attempting to understand him, perhaps even asking him to try to understand himself.

 He’s a very vulnerable man, and she treats him with care because of that. His actions weigh on her I think, they have a cost, but it’s one she chooses to accept and she doesn’t punish him for her choice.

 It can be argued that Molly is the only one who loves him just for him. Lestrade wants his brain; Mycroft sees him as an asset; John is a junkie, Sherlock his dealer; Mary takes his help; Hudders once took help from him. But amongst those who take, there’s only one person who takes nothing. Molly.

 I suppose the other large part of her development in my mind is the ethical code that she’s had instilled into her from an early stage of her education. Medical ethics, and the application of deontological and utilitarian principles in her everyday decision making, must have influenced the person she became by the time we meet her. There are four major principles at play for her: do good, avoid doing harm, be fair, and respect individual autonomy. And I think it’s those principles of fairness and respect that she applies to her relationship with Sherlock. I think she respects his mind, his abilities, even his education (because they have components of their formal education in common), but I think it’s fairness that she applies most liberally: he is unique, different, and he lacks certain skills when it comes to interacting with others, Molly takes his treatment of her in that context.

 satin_doll: In Take Me and Erase Me, one of your earliest stories, you mention Lorca (the Spanish poet) and you’ve made numerous references to poetry since you started posting fics. What else besides poetry and fanfic do you read these days? What do you see as the biggest influences on your writing?

 OhAine: Biggest influences. Honestly?  Stephen (both of the King and Moffat varieties) have said that the best advice they could give aspiring writers was to read as much as you can of the kind of thing you want to write, and I’ve found that to be so true. The Sustain Stories are probably the single biggest influence on my interpretation of Sherlock and Molly. I remember saying it to someone once (I think it was actually you Kat) that I’ve been writing Sustain fanfiction rather than Sherlock fanfiction all these years. It was that big a deal for me.

 As for what I’m reading now… I always have a few books on the go, currently open are Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing (Jesus, the raw intensity of his imagery), Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (the absurdity of it appeals to me) and James Joyce’s Dubliners (The Dead is my favourite short story ever, so I finally decided to read the rest of the book).

 Thank you Kat for your lovely questions x

 likingthistoomuch: Going all the way back to the beginning, what prompted you to start writing fanfic in the first place? Where did that first impulse come from?

 OhAine: I’d never heard of fanfic until I became obsessed by Sherlock, but once I found it, it was like falling down a rabbit hole. I read. And I read and I read and I read. When I first found Sherlolly in mid-2014 there were about 3,000 stories in the tag on AO3 and I went about systematically reading them all in descending order from the largest hit. It took me about six months or so to get through them and then I hit a wall, there was nothing left to read. But by then I started seeing Sherlolly everywhere: in every song I heard, every poem I read… and at the time I was living away from home while doing a master’s degree, and I remember so clearly driving back to my little flat outside Galway one night after a late lecture and Lana del Rey’s Young and Beautiful came on the radio, and it was like, BANG!, this fully formed story of an insecure Sherlock hit me. It was so clear, so well defined and complete, and it wouldn’t leave me alone. The end result was Saving for a rainy day, and the other two stories in The Dance series.  

 Honourable mention too at this point to @sundance201 and her beautiful fic Hello My Old Heart. That story was the beginning of my love affair with music in fanfiction, I started my Sherlolly playlist with the song it references and I don’t know if I would have ever made the connection between music and writing without it. So blame Sundance201 :P

 Likingthistoomuch: When you wrote your first fic how did that process go? Did you have someone review the work? Also, when did you share the fact that you had attempted fanfiction with someone around you?

 OhAine: As above. No, it was a type and go thing. Literally. I have no idea what madness overtook me to actually post it on the internet where other real live people would see it. It was (still is) full of mistakes, and reads like an outline rather than an actual story, but I knew no better at the time. It was the first piece of fiction I’d ever written, and I had zero expectations that anyone would read it. I bawled like a baby when the first comment came in.

 Anyway, it was a Sunday morning, and I was staying at Uni that weekend because I had exams the following week, hubby was coming that day to see me and make sure I hadn’t died under a pile of textbooks and fast-food containers. When he arrived I showed him the post on AO3, and he was so sweet. He still reads all of my fics, gives me feedback and suggestions. He’s even got an AO3 account now so that he can leave kudos. Bless him. He’s still the only one I share with.

 Likingthistoomuch: You are amongst the few who seem to write comic themed, angsty, fluff as well as explicit with ease. At least that’s how it comes across. Which genre is the easiest for you and which one would you prefer to write as, say an outlet for real life pressures?

 OhAine: I’m shocked that it comes across that way, because writing doesn’t come easily for me at all. I’m not a writer, I’m an auditor who writes when she has time. Every single word is like squeezing that last bit of toothpaste from the tube, and although I’m a very verbal person words are not my strong point. My vocabulary is technical and that’s fine when I’m writing reports and letters for work, but I don’t have an emotional vocabulary so I have to work really hard at finding the words to describe the feelings I want to write. And I’m not a fluffy person so writing anything sweet is like pulling teeth for me. None of it’s easy, but Molly and Sherlock are in my bones now so I keep doing it.

 I suppose comedy and angst are slightly less of a struggle. But comedy is a tricky one, because you’re either in the right frame of mind to write it or you’re not. It can’t be forced, you can’t make something funny if it’s not.

I don’t have a favourite genre, and none of them come naturally, but if it’s a question of what’s an outlet, then I’d say all of them serve an equal purpose, although the most satisfying to get right is definitely angst, even if it’s a rare jewel. I think I’ve only ever managed to get it almost right twice, maybe three times: Amor Vincit Omnia, The Fate of Glass and possibly A Sunset Bird in Winter. I kind of hold those three up as times when I was happy with the finished product.

 Likingthistoomuch: How do you plan out your work? Do you plan the end, the beginning and what’s in the middle before you start posting?

 OhAine: Bold of you to assume I plan!!!!

 The beauty of writing (mostly) one-shots is that you’re presenting a finished piece. I’ve written just one multi, Take me and erase me, and that was done completely on the fly. I was so traumatised by the whole thing that I’ve been put off for life.

 When it comes to the one-shots, I usually have a pretty good idea what the beginning, middle and end are before I begin – even if the end result turns out to be something else entirely. I do a first draft, then revise, revise, revise until the flow feels good and I think I’m saying what it is I set out to say.

 Likingthistoomuch: You work with a beta - do you share the entire plot of your fic and discuss before you start the writing process? How does that work?

 OhAine: It works differently with different people. When Kiki and I worked together, every detail was shared and there were masses of emails over and back discussing plot and structure. A three thousand word doc could come back with fifteen hundred extra words of notes. She had an opinion about everything. It worked because we were each other’s beta, and we’d built up a rapport and trust. She was never afraid to offend me and I loved that about her. She was also very verbal, so feedback was always detailed, she’d be very clear about the whys of it. We were both new, both learning, so that extra communication was great to get. And I genuinely miss being a beta for her.

 Kat on the other hand has a light touch approach, she gives me a far longer leash and lets me express myself – just myself and my ideas. If I have a specific concern I’ll share that with her, and she’ll give me advice and her opinion. What I tend to share with Kat is what I’m hoping to achieve, and she’ll let me know if, in her opinion, I’ve done what I set out to do. She trusts me more as a writer, if you know what I mean.

 likingthistoomuch: I am heavily influenced by Bollywood songs and get one shot ideas by the ton. Kat mentioned your love of poetry, and I wondered has there been a poem that literally made you wanna rush home and write down stuff as soon as possible?

 OhAine: Oh that was Where The Lost Things Go, by Anne Casey. She wrote an entire book of poetry about loss (in particular losing her mother) and it makes for a devastating read. When I heard her recite that poem:

“We sat upon a golden bow, my little bird and I, indivisibly apart, we dived into the sky. And to the purple-hearted dark, an ocean we did cry, for all the lost things gathered there, in rooms beyond the eye.”

I could see Sherlock and his little bird crying for the things they’ve lost, things hidden in secret places. I’d had the image for ages and ages of a little girl coming to Sherlock with a case, but the story that went with it never presented itself. Stories are like that sometimes, bits of them linger until the right structure comes to you. The fic came out in one draft, I did minor revisions later, but it was just this one thing all of its own from the start. And it was sort of the poem coming to me at a time when I was grieving too, and it fitted so well with this image I had of Watson in her big boots and pink hair. Everything coalesced into a coherent story. The end result was my own ‘Where the lost things go.’

 Generally that isn’t how it works for me. I usually take away just an image or a phrase, sometimes just a feeling, and I try to structure something around it. But like you, I get a lot from music (Elbow’s music could be the official soundtrack of Sherlolly) and movies as well as poems

 Likingthistoomuch: Let’s be honest here, you get tons of reviews. I know, I read most of them (turn down that stalker alarm!!!). Has your story ever been influenced by a comment given on the initial chapters of a multi fic? Not the plot per say, but maybe a small scene or interaction?

 OhAine: No, I really don’t think so. But then there’s really only ever been one multi of any real significance, Take me and erase me, and the initial chapters of that got very few comments, or even hits for that matter (chapter one got 17 hits on its first day, but I stuck with it and it did okay in the end). What does happen with comments is they encourage me to keep going, to keep writing, especially when I feel like I’m just rubbish at this. I’ve been blessed with people who are generous and kind when it comes to egging me on and making me feel okay about what I’ve written. I tend to be very sure about where I want to go when I write something, and I think that if you allow things to intrude on the picture you have in your mind you run the risk of ending up with something that’s a bit all over the place. The reader you write for is you, and you either live or die by it.

 Likingthistoomuch: In your fic “The Pinch Hitter” (I absolutely love the Simple Chemistry series) there is dialogue that has the potential to turn the fic any way you want:

“I don’t want you because I’m lonely, you little moron.” He shouts, full to breaking point with impotent frustration and clawing at his own hair. "I'm lonely because I want you!" 

Funny and yet heart wrenchingly raw. Did you work specifically on introducing something like that, which can be a palate changer for a moment?

 OhAine: Oh boy, tough question. Short answer is no, I wasn’t looking specifically for that line. The prompt for this fic came to me by way of a pinch hitter assignment in the 2017 Sherlolly Fic exchange, and I had about four days to come up with a story that fitted the brief. I work at a snail’s pace under normal circumstances, and I was under so much pressure to get something done. I’d pissed away three of the four days on a fic that I couldn’t make work (still can’t, *sigh*) and in desperation I turned to the next prompt on the list of four. In the end this one just came out, and I’m lucky it’s as okay as it is given the rush it was written in. That line: if I recall, it came out of some wanky meta that was doing the rounds at the time, the mirror theory, and I guess that line is my response to it. He wasn’t running to her because she was a surrogate, she, Molly, was the reason he ran to Molly.

 On the other hand, that line is very much part of my overall head canon for Sherlock in the series. He’s the cause of his own isolation and I remember either Moffat or Gatiss saying that he was like a child pressed up against a sweet shop, window, longing. I see him very much that way. He doesn’t make friends because he’s lonely – the loneliness is part of the choices he’s made – but he acutely feels loneliness now because he finally understands friendship and love. Does that make sense??

 I don’t seem to be able to do straight comedy, there’s always a little angst with my absurdity, a little absurdity with my angst. Some of that is to do with wanting to introduce contrast, some of it is because I think the show does that too and when I’m writing, to some extent, I’m trying to emulate that style.

 Likingthistoomuch: On the topic of light works or ones with a comedic thread, you seem to have mastered the tough-as-nails art of writing genuinely funny work which is not slapstick by a mile. Is the writing process for that different than your other works?

 OhAine: It is. Totally. I can’t decide to write something funny. It either is or it isn’t, and I don’t have much control over that. No amount of revisions will make something that’s not funny work as a comedy piece. I tried that once with The Truth Will Set You Free, and I think it was 20+ drafts before it started to get giggles from my beta. That was when I realised that trying to be funny wouldn’t work. Kiki said to me after that one was posted that she thought I was rubbish at comedy, which was strange given how often I made her laugh in my emails. It dawned on me then to just be myself, write in a more naturalistic tone and focus on being absurd instead of laugh out loud slapstick.

 The next one I tried my hand at was The Adventure of the Berenstein Baby. I took a different approach and wrote it as though I was telling a friend about something hubs and I did, using the exact same style I’d use in conversations (like the side bar thing, my emails are famous for them, I go off on so many tangents) and the result was one draft with minor revisions to get the finished product. When that fic won the 2017 SAMFA for humour, I almost died of pride.

 Likingthistoomuch: The Fate of Glass, that letter, that fabulous, fabulous, piece of work. How long did you take you write that?

 OhAine: The first draft contained all the bones of the story, it was 1,700 words long and it came out in one afternoon. The letter was there right from the start, always at the end. The rest needed much more work, I think I added another 2,000 words during revisions. I have a memory of it being an easy one to write, but I had a week off work that January, and I know I spent at least another 40 hours picking at it during my leave. It had the story right off the bat, but none of the detail. My vocabulary isn’t what I’d like it to be, so when I feel I don’t have the words to tell a story I read. I had an anthology of Pablo Neruda’s poetry on the arm of my Queen Anne, and every night I’d read for an hour or so, and the next day I’d have the words I needed. Reading, for me, is sort of an ignition tool, it sort of opens that part of my brain that isn’t bogged down with technical language, it opens up my creative side. I sometimes forget just how many revisions even the easy stories take. I forget sometimes that I have to work hard at it, but I do.

 Likingthistoomuch: When it comes to naming you work, how do you plan that out?

 OhAine: More bold assumptions about planning!!!!

 Sometimes a story has an obvious title, like The Science of Seduction (because it was about the application of mathematical theories to love and relationships, so it just seemed obvious). Others, like Better, or The last person you’d think of, they were obvious because the whole story is geared toward making the point that these phrases represent. When I find a name I want to use I do an AO3 search of the Sherlock/Molly tag just to be sure no one else is using it (or has used it for a very long time).

 Names are something I struggle with, and at the beginning I went almost exclusively with lines from songs, but I’ve stopped doing that now because it felt, I don’t know, a little forced? These days I try to make a stronger connection between the story and the title without making it too wordy or over explaining what’s going on in the story. I often have a placeholder title while I’m working on it, but keep trying out new ones as I go to see how they fit.

 Don’t ever underestimate the power of a good title: along with the summary they’re your elevator pitch to the reader. A brilliant story can be sunk by a bland title or bland summary.

 Likingthistoomuch: How do you gauge the success of your work?

 OhAine: Oh jeepers. I’m a numbers girl, so the stats page on my AO3 account is my enemy LOL. I’ve tried to find my own metrics, because it’s easy to fall into the trap of judging success on hits and kudos when there are so many things that can influence those little numbers. Like, Trial by Existence was a failure if you go by the stats, but I still feel in my gut that it’s a strong fic, and I learned so much about writing from it. Anyway. There’s a bunch of things I ask myself during the inevitable post-mortem: first and foremost, did I say what I wanted to say? Did I convey the message that I was attempting to put out there? But then I also consider was the quality up to standard, did I build on my learning from the last thing that I wrote? If it’s a gift work, did I please the person it was gifted to? In terms of grammar and punctuation, phrasing (none of which are my strong suit) have I improved? And though I never set out meaning to, I start to fret about the stats…

 But I also think that if someone has said in the comments that they’d love to see more of this particular story, then you’ve succeeded in making something that someone else connected with. That’s always a really important metric for me.

 Likingthistoomuch: Coming to the topic of Social Media, what effect does that have on your work? Have you ever faced rude reviews or comments or called out for offending people? Because we know, if you log in, someone somewhere is offended.

 OhAine: And I specialise in offending people LOL it’s why I stay off social media for the most part.

 Everyone gets the odd rude comment, I think. It’s the risk you sign on for when you put something out into a public space. I try hard not to take those personally.

 It seems to me people are looking for a fight and they don’t care what it’s about. I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how convinced I am of my position or opinion, if there’s even a hint of aggression I walk away because to engage with them is just giving them what they want. Don’t add fuel to the fire, you know? And it’s not my job to educate. It just isn’t. So I do what’s healthy for me, and I avoid the nonsense even when I know I’m right and they’re not. I don’t need to explain myself to strangers.

 Having those things said, I wouldn’t trade away the positives of social media just to be rid of the negatives. I’ve found fantastic friends on sites like AO3 and tumblr, I get so much from our little community and the lovely people in it. I suppose the Sherlolly community is lucky: we’re small, able to self-regulate, and the people here are genuine and kind. I’ve learned so much, gotten so much joy from writing, so much from reading, the beautiful artwork that’s posted here, and my fellow shippers… I’m grateful for that, so that’s where I keep my focus.

 Likingthistoomuch: As per the new guideline, the blue hellsite will not allow explicit work to be posted. Does that make you want to write more E rated stuff, in a virtual Up Yours to Staff?

 OhAine: I gave up on writing E-rated fics two years ago, and I suppose I am kind of sad that I don’t anymore because I would dearly love to say to anyone who tries to censor others to go fuck themselves.

 On the one hand, the ban doesn’t really affect me because I don’t create that kind of content anymore, so I could just be tempted to shrug my shoulders and move on. But. It affects others who do create that kind of content, and I’ll support them all the way, not only because they should be allowed freedom of expression, but also because the purge is part of a bigger problem: the suppression of freedoms, under the guise of protecting the innocent, and is driven by a puritanical streak that’s becoming pervasive in our culture, one that is more about control and suppression of free ideas than protection. Tumblr is lying to us, pure and simple. They could deal with the p0rn problem but they don’t, and therefore you have to assume this isn’t about p0rnbots: this is about commercial considerations, and the suppression of creativity that they can’t commercialise. It’s also very telling that the ban is overly focused on the female body (and I can’t help but feel that because a good percentage of content creators are women, that the purge conveniently silences women’s voices) and the ideal of womanhood held by a very narrow band of its user base.

 Historically, censorship (and that is what this is) doesn’t lead us anywhere good. It’s a slippery slope, folks. We’ve got to be careful, or next thing you know we’ll be in red capes and white hats remembering the good old days when women were allowed to read.

 likingthistoomuch: Last question: If you could change just one thing about BBC’s version of Sherlock, what would it be?

 OhAine: Oh dear. Just one??? Okay, let me discount a few contenders first:

 I would ask that there be more Molly. Lots more Molly. That the kiss had been real. That Sherlock be naked at all times. That the shirts were tighter and the curls longer. That Mary had lived. That Holmes got the Watson he deserved. That Moriarty had lived. That Eurus hadn’t. That Paul McGuigan had stuck around. Ditto Stephen Thompson. That they had kept production values at primetime and not Saturday tea-time CBBC levels. That the production staff hadn’t stirred the shit just because they liked the attention. That Mofftiss had had a beta, or at least someone who challenged their ideas…

 But if I could choose just one thing, one thing that would be possible for them to do and not go off at a tangent, then I would have them stick to the cases. Tell the story they were telling at the start: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, as told by his Boswell. I’ll be forever sad that they chose not to do that.

Next week, Friday 10th of May, part two of this interview turns the tables and @ohaine interviews @likingthistoomuch.