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finelinevogue · 3 years

Text

he’s so vogue

Description - you are the journalist for the new Harry Styles December Vogue Issue

A/N - how is everyone doing? hope you enjoy! if you have any requests please feel free to ask. love you all and have a lovely rest of the week!

warnings: swearing

[masterlist]

Being a journalist for Vogue was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

After 3 years of studying English Literature at Surrey University, you never thought, only a year after, you'd be working as an apprentice at Vogue UK. If it weren't for your Aunty, who worked in the fashion design section at Vogue HQ, then you'd no doubt still be a broke-ass, single, lonely student. Ok, lonely you still were but your job was so full-on that you didn't have time for a relationship.

Two years into your apprenticeship you were promoted to an official member of the team, and then another two years later you got promoted to team leader in your department of journalism, and editing; The Media - or as you like to call it - "The Celeb Goss". You were beyond happy with your job and found such passion in every article your wrote. Whether it be about a new celebrity romance or the collapse of one, you found a way to story-tell in such a meditated way that everyone loved your pieces.

That's why the Harry Styles had requested you to be the one to interview him.

Of course you'd written about A-list celebrities in the past, producing articles on pregnancy rumours, or engagements, or breakups, but you'd never met them before authoring an article. You'd met plenty of D-list celebrities who thought they were mega famous, but if you mentioned their names people would turn around and ask "who?".

This is why interviewing Harry Styles was a massive thing for you.

Not very often did you get to do work out in the field, especially in these covid infested days, but nevertheless it was your favourite part of the job. Getting to meet the people you were writing about was completely refreshing, allowing you to obtain a clearer outlook on which direction to take on your journal piece.

You were asked to go to Stonehenge, where the photoshoot was being filmed, as your office of interview. Even though you'd lived in the UK all your life, you'd never actually been to Stonehenge. It wasn't really on your bucket-list, but it was a pleasure to get to see it all the same.

Being the prepared interviewer you were, you'd prepared an array of questions that you were set on asking Harry. You'd never met him before, but after much googling and youtubing of him prior to meeting him today you would already be confident in saying he's the most brilliant man to ever exist. You were really nervous that you were going to screw this interview up and make a terrible mess in front of Harry Styles.

"Lisa! What if I accidentally say something I shouldn't?" You ran your stressed hands through your hair.

This whole morning had been frantic. It had started off by you waking up late, no thanks to Lisa, your best-friend and co-worker, pressing snooze on the alarm. You wanted to look professional today so you'd put on your best shirt - only to spill coffee down it ten minutes later. So now, you smelt of coffee and were wearing what was left in your wardrobe - and it wasn't much. The only things left clean were a pair of pink corduroy flares and some, pastel coloured, graphic t-shirt to go with it.

"You won't. Stop being so negative." Lisa rolled her eyes, probably fed up with the amount of winging she'd heard from you this morning - and you'd only been awake an hour.

"My outfit is hardly professional either." You huffed, pouring the rest of your, second, coffee down the drain.

"Well I think you look gorgeous." Lisa stated, whilst putting her breakfast bar wrapper in the bin.

You and Lisa were back and forth about you stressing, and such, for about half an hour before you had to leave. You had a great panic about losing your glasses too. You could see without them up close, but for long distance viewing and reading you were practically blind. You were taking Lisa's car, since she didn't think you were emotionally stable enough to drive. Lisa was the creative director on the set, and thank goodness she was so you could at least ramble to someone.

After a two hour drive up from London, you arrived at Stonehenge and it was freezing. Although the sun was out, it did nothing to keep your body heated. The journey up had been nice because you sat in your nicely heated car, chatting away with Lisa and blasting some Harry Styles out of the speaker. You'd made it through the first album, and the second one up to Canyon Moon before reaching your destination.

Upon arriving you could just about, without glasses, make out about 15 other cars, arranged at the bottom of a hill. There was an array of Audis and BMWs, a few Range Rovers, which you placed your bets on one was Harrys, and a green, vintage, Jaguar which was most likely belonging to the fashion editor or something. There was also a modern barn, perched at the foot of the hill, which was where Harry would be getting changed in to his various different outfits.

It took you a moment to register that Lisa had parked and was already clambering out of the car, making you look a little idiotic still blankly staring at the beautiful scenes in front, and around, of you.

But it was still bloody freezing.

You jogged a little to the boot and whipped out your white cardigan. Originally you'd thought that this would've been enough to keep you warm, but now you were starting to think otherwise.

The atmosphere here was amazing. People were rushing around left, right and centre loading, and unloading, various pieces of equipment and clothes. You caught sight of brightly coloured fabrics being carried to and from various places. There were the camera crew, and presumably director, all chatting amongst themselves. The smell of the very fresh air was so lush that you'd forgotten what it smelt like - especially after years in London.

You grabbed your bag from the boot, which had your notes, recording kit and laptop stuffed inside, before locking the car and following Lisa in to the barn.

It was lovely and warm inside - a completely different climate to than the outside. It was as if it was Bali inside and Antarctica outside. Better Bali than Antarctica though.

"Ok. Let's put our stuff down over here and then go find people we need to meet and such." Lisa instructed, you still too in awe of the place to fully comprehend what was going on.

You followed Lisa and you two ended up dropping off your stuff next to some other bags. You took a liking to the purse next to your stuff. Next to your bag, it made yours seem ancient - like it was worth nothing more than a penny. It was luscious and a beautiful baby blue colour. You softly ran your hands over it, finding satisfaction in how smooth and subtle it was.

"Hope you're not planning on stealing that, love." A manly voice appeared from behind you. You whipped around to see who's bag you'd been messing with, and it was just your luck that it was to be Harry Styles'. Of all the people's it could've been it had to be his.

Perfect.

He looked dashing. He was in black flares and his iconic 'But daddy i love him', t-shirt, along with a huge green anorak. His hair was prettily clipped back with a pink clip, presumably placed there to gave his curls greater volume. In his hand he had a pink toothbrush and you guessed he'd come back over to put it away in his bag - only to find you caressing it instead.

"Oh - no, no. Not at all. I - uh - I just thought it was beautiful." You stammered over your words, choosing them carefully to try and make you look less like an active criminal.

"Mhm." Harry nodded whilst looking you up and down, most likely judging why a peasant like you, in comparison to him, was touching his expensive property. "Well, I love your flares darlin'." Harry looked down at your trousers, his compliment making you blush a little.

"Thank you. That wasn't professional, and neither is my outfit, I know, and I apologise." You added, because you knew that if your boss knew you turned up today the way you did she would give you a right bollocking - and potentially even fire you.

"Never apologise for flares. You look amazing." Gemma perked up, making you feel more self conscious surrounded by all these other beautiful women. Gemma was in a slouchy, knitted, jumper and basic jeans - no doubt all from shops beyond your budget - and yet she looked like a model fit for the runway for Vogue.

"Okay, sorry." You apologised again, to which you, creepily, got the exact same, stern, look from the Styles siblings at the same time.

"My stylist, Harry, introduced me to big pants. He offered whether I wanted to try a pair of flares, and I was like, 'Flares? That's fucking crazy'!" Harry laughed as he told his story, earning a laugh out of you too. "Now they're my favourite item of clothing. Have a whole wardrobe dedicated to them."

"I wish he was joking." Gemma laughed at her brother and his flare obsession.

"Well you do look handsome in them, so I understand why." Your words rolls off your tongue before you could even comprehend what you were saying. Only after you finished your sentence did you completely intake what you'd just said.

"Good start." Lisa giggled to you, before turning to walk over to the coffee station. It was a help-yourself coffee bar and you knew that you were going to bed at least five cups to get over the last five minutes alone. You'd probably drain the station before letting anyone else have any.

"Oh god." You awkwardly mumbled, not daring to see how weirdly Harry would be looking at you, before walking off outside.

You had spent less than 10 minutes here and yet you'd never felt like a bigger clown. Joining the circus had never been so easy.

The outside wind hit you like a powerful leaf blower, and your hair blew around like crazy - most likely compiling into a birds nest on the top of your head.

Today was supposed to be the start of something great. Your hopes were set on a promotion from your written masterpiece, whilst enjoying the company of one of the most handsome, most lovely, most talented men of this century. Those hopes seemed a little too distant now. They seemed to mock you, as if to laugh at how you ever thought you were going to be any more successful. You'd completely, in more ways than one, made a fool of yourself in front of your interviewee, you were so underdressed, you were caught fondling his Gucci purse and you were still bloody cold.

It all felt too unprofessional for a job where professional was practically the driving force of the company.

You leaned against the barn, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself. You were a master in over-thinking, but unfortunately that wasn't something you could add to your resumé. You let your eyes close and the other senses come alive for a few moments. The sounds of distant sheep and the smell of the cold wind were just two of the senses that allowed you to take a step back for a minute, and breathe.

"Thank you." A voice interrupted you from your attempt of quick meditation. You looked to your left and noticed Harry standing there, still in the same outfit as before.

"I'm sorry?" You asked confused, taking a step away from the barn to considerately pay more attention to him.

"Thank you - for saying I look handsome in flares." He repeated, smirking when he added the second part.

"Oh." Was all you could respond, feeling too embarrassed to take the conversation any further. "I should—" You pointed back to the barn, using it as an excuse to leave before yet screwed up anymore.

"Lisa told me you're the interviewer." Harry added, and it only occurred to you that you'd never actually introduced yourself. "So it's lovely to finally meet you Y/N." He stuck out his hand for your to shake, which you did willingly. His hands were a lot softer than you'd expected.

"Ho... You know my name?" You asked surprised.

"Of course. I also know you're the best writer in Vogue right now." He flattered you, which made you blush. You had a feeling he'd make you do that a lot today.

"Sure." You rolled your eyes as you spoke sarcastically.

"Well I chose you for a reason, didn't I?" He rhetorically asked.

"I mean.. I, well.. I don't know?" You stumbled over your words, making yourself look like a larger fool than you did already. Today was just turning out to be exactly what you didn't want it to be. "Sorry."

"Stop apologising. You do it too often." He told you, nearly making you apologise again but he gave you a jokingly stern look, as if he knew what you were going to say, and so you decided otherwise.

"Harry!" You both turned to see there was a man waving towards you both, but specifically to Harry. "Come get changed!" The same man shouted. Harry lifted his thumbs up, as if to signal he'd be there shortly.

Harry turned back to you and noticed you shiver a little.

"I'll start the interview after I come back from the dressing rooms, yeah?" Harry asked, taking off his, khaki green, trench-coat in the process. He handed it to you before you could oblige against it.

"Wait what?" You confusedly looked down at the coat and back up to Harry.

"Gives me a piece of mind knowing my interviewer isn't going to die of hypothermia before actually interviewing me." He smiled, obviously attempting to crack a joke and you have to admit you did laugh.

"Thank you." You say, before he runs off to where he's being called to.

••••

You'd been sat inside for a little while, waiting for Harry to come back. It gave you time to perfect your questions though.

Thinking up questions to ask Harry had been a challenging task, but one that you'd been fully invested in. You loved creating questions to ask him that were going to get to understand him on a deeper level. He was a very private man, and you completely respected that. If you crossed any boundaries, with the questions you'd ask, you would write them out of the interview. You liked to think you hadn't thought up a question that would make him feel uncomfortable though.

Pissing off Harry would be on another level of shame.

"Coat kept you warm?" Harrys voice disengaged you from your notebook.

"Hm?" You asked then replayed what he'd just asked in your mind. "Oh, yes. Thank you very much." You stood up, from where you'd been perched on the floor, picking up your nearly finished green tea as you did so.

Only when you stood up did it come to your realisation that Harry was now in costume. He was dressed in luxury. Each item looked like it cost more than your rent, and that was saddening. He looked rich and luxurious. To be quite honest, you were finding it rather difficult to take your eyes off him.

"You think the outfit is Vogue enough?" Harry asked, striking a few poses, which made you laugh. It was refreshing to see him act so relaxed and carefree, rather than a stuck-up-prick you knew some celebrities to be.

"Completely. I love it!" You exclaimed, appreciating the twirl he did for you.

He was wearing a kilt-like skirt and he looked beyond beautiful in it. Fuck toxic masculinity. Fuck being a manly man - like what does that even mean? Harry was embracing gender fluidity and experimenting the ways in which there was no definitive line between men and women's clothes anymore, and you thought it was marvellous. Revolutionary, for times as politically and socially troubled as these.

You started removing the coat in attempt to give it back to him, but he refrained you from doing so by holding on to your forearm.

"Keep it. I thought we could go outside to start the interview, so you'll be needing that." Harry told you, and you agreed - however reluctantly that was. You couldn't really complain though, because the coat did kept you warm and, what's better, it smelt divine - just like you'd imagine Harry to smell.

"Okay. Thank you. Do you want to go now?" You asked hesitantly, not knowing whether he was busy for someone else right now.

"Whenever you're ready, love." He answered, making you feel more relaxed. He was going at your pace and was making you feel settled - he was even more of a gentleman than people described him to be.

The two of you had walked around the backside of the barn in silence, enjoying the comfort of each other's presence. Well, at least you were. It was a blessing no one was back here. It was just you, Harry and the scenery that surrounded Stonehenge.

You approached a bench and you plopped yourself down on one end, whilst Harry sat on the other. He respected the fact that there was a pandemic going on, and didn't want to make you uncomfortable in any way. You still had your mask on, so Harry had taken that as you were very conscious about the virus - which he admired.

You pulled out your glasses, from the depths of one of the coat pockets, and placed them on your face, probably making yourself look even geekier than you already felt. Today was just one of those days you wished you had good eyes...

You opened your spent notebook, musty pages practically falling apart, and turned to the section of questions you needed for that interview. You were so nervous already and you hadn't even asked anything yet, all because of the previous interactions with Harry today. Your shaky hands shuffled through the pages and you cursed under your breath when you struggled to find what you needed.

"Shoot. Come on." You mumbled quietly under your breath, hoping it would make this terrible situation end faster. You mustn't have been as quiet as you thought though.

"Y/N." Harry's name broke through your clouded mind of self-disappointment.

You looked up at him to see him softly smiling at you, blowing all worries away from you away with the wind. "Yes?" You timidly asked, pushing your wind-swept hair out of glasses - where it'd gotten caught.

"You’re alright, love. You don't have to be professional around me, alright? We're just two strangers having a conversation, to get to know each other, okay?" If his words didn't calm you enough, the soothing sound of his husky voice certainly did.

"But that would mean you asking me stuff too?" You replied, confused at his implications of the phrasing 'getting to know each other'.

"Mhm." Harry nodded his head.

"Oh I don't know Mr Styles, i'm not a very interesting person." You answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, pushing your glasses back up the bridge of your nose from where they'd fallen.

"I refuse to believe that." Harry chuckled, making a quick smile appear on your face. "And please call me Harry. Just Harry." He begged, obviously finding it weird you calling him by his professional title. All you wanted, ever, was for your interviewee's to feel comfortable and safe, so if Harry wanted you to call him Harry then so be it.

"Ok, Harry," you sarcastically said, earning a shake of the head on his behalf, "you can ask me a few questions throughout the day." You told him, but you knew he'd struggle to find even two questions when he realises how bland you are.

"Does that mean you only get to ask me a few as well?" Harry smirked, already knowing the answer to that question. Unlike Harry, you had to write an article about today when you got home and so he knew that you'd have to dig as much dirt as possible from him.

"No, sorry. I don't particularly want to lose my job." You paused to look down at your notes, squinting a little as you did to see better. "Okay. Tell me your experience with corona virus."

"Sorry I didn't quite catch that, love." Harry apologised, leaning in slightly to see if he could hear you a second time around.

"Sorry." You looked down to fiddle with your fingers - a habit you'd undertaken when you're embarrassed. "Um..," you cleared your throat, "would you mind if I took off my mask?"

Your timid voice sent tingle down Harrys spine. He didn't think anyone could ever be this sweet. "Not at all, ‘course you can." He replied, again, wanting to make you feel as comfortable as possible.

You hesitantly took off your face mask, feeling like you were in some dramatic movie where they face revealed someone. You kind of liked having the mask on, because, for one, it kept you warm, and for two, you were a little self conscious with how you looked compared to all the other women here today. You shoved the mask in your pocket, with trembling fingers, before looking back down to your notes.

"Woah." You heard Harrys voice being mumbled under the wind. You eyes shot up to his and you noticed him staring right back at you.

"W-what? Is my acne playing up? I knew I should've—" You self-consciously run your hands over the areas you know you got acne. The masks really didn't help when it came to skin care.

"Hey, stop. No. You just... You look beautiful." Harry complimented you, and a roaring blush arose on to your cheeks. You'd never been called beautiful before, and so you were taking the compliment like such a 13-year old.

"Oh, uh, thank you." You awkwardly answered, not really having any other words come to mind in that moment. Harry chuckled under his breath, still keeping eyes on you for some reason.

"Would you mind repeating your last question, I didn't quite catch it?" Harry asked politely.

"Sure. Um, tell me how you've experienced corona virus." You repeated for him, gripping ahold of your pen to start copying what he says and pressing start on your recording device in case you needed it later.

"Well, it's been tedious that's for sure. However, I just want people to be safe and for life to return back to normal, so therefore i've been very MIA for a lot of the time. Keeping to myself mostly. I only went out for hikes or bike rides. All my meetings were online, so it's been very lonely." Harry kept eye contact with your figure the entire time, and if it weren't for you concentrating on writing what he was saying then you'd probably melt away under his gaze.

For such soft eyes he sure was intimidating.

"I presume the loneliness sent you crazy at times." You laughed, because you sure felt that way through lockdown. Curse being single.

"You have no idea." Harry laughed along with you, making you, slowly, feel more at ease.

"Actually, you'd be surprised." You looked at him unsure, before returning down to your notebook.

"Okay then, first question from me," Harrys words made your head shoot up, "How can someone as amazing as yourself be lonely?" He asked and you made a mental tally of how many questions he'd asked.

"Could ask you the very same question, Harry." You slyly replied, avoiding the question by answering with another question. It was a tactic you'd learnt, throughout your years of journalism, when you wanted to dismiss something .

"That's cheating." Harry pointed at you and raised his eyebrows, but you couldn't take your eyes off the big, cheeky, smile perched on his face. You shrugged you're shoulders in defence and returned to your questions. "But you did just call me amazing, so I think i'll let it slide this one time." You blushed, again, when you understood what he meant.

He was amazing though - that was the truth.

"You were in L.A. for the majority of quarantine, am I right to say?" You already knew the answer but your manager had just wanted confirmation.

"Yeah, but L.A. feels like holiday, whereas London feels like home." He answered, which you appreciated. He hasn't got lost in the way that Hollywood could let people. He'd stayed grounded.

"So what did you entertain yourself with during quarantine?" You asked curiously, slightly side-tracking from your pre-written questions - just because you were intrigued (nosey).

"Not much, not to be boring. I ate a lot of bread. I worked out pretty much every day. I wrote quite a bit actually." He used his fingers to pinch his bottom lip, something you'd noticed he did in interviews.

"Does that mean a new album on the way?" Your inner fangirl was screaming at the thought of HS3.

"Can neither confirm nor deny." Harry smirked to himself, like the cheeky bugger he is.

"That's a yes then." You joked, pretending to write it down in your notes.

"You're impossible, you." Harry laughed and shook his head. It made you feel all funny the way you could make him smile like that. You were the source of his happiness for just that moment, and that was enough to make you feel happy for a lifetime - not that he felt the same.

"Next question," you stated, moving swiftly on because you knew you had limited time, "How's your experience with Vogue been so far?"

"Wonderful. Everyone has been so welcoming and that makes it so much easier for me to have fun. It's daunting going at things alone, but i'm getting slowly used to it now." Harry sniffled a little, probably due to the freezing cold weather here.

"Must be strange, not having four best friends around you, all the time, anymore." You stated rather than asked him, sure that he was missing his bandmates. I mean, you were - so he definitely would be.

"Brothers." Harry replied, making you look up at him confused.

"I'm sorry?" You asked, giving him your full attention.

"You said four best friends. Well, actually they're my brothers." His words actually caused a rift in your heart. You could feel it being pulled apart and torn in to two. If you wrote this in to the magazine the fans would have a worldwide passing-away-party.

"Harry." You said softly, slightly tearing up at his words. "God, I swear i'm not normally this emotional." You chest your throat and try to establish your dignity - however there wasn't that much left anymore.

"Oh shut up." Harry looked away obviously trying to hide the fact that he was tearing up too. You laughed at him but didn't draw any more attention to it than you guessed he would've wanted.

"They mean a lot to you then?" You asked, hopefully not treading on any unwanted territories.

"Much more than a lot, yeah." Harry nodded his head, turning it back to face you. He could tell this conversation was now off-the-record because of your closed notebook, your undivided attention towards him and the fact you’d turned off the recording device. He liked being able to look at you, rather than the top of your head. He swore you were the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

"You still see them often?"

"Not as often as i'd like. Niall did come around the other week to drop off some old guitars he didn't want anymore, and then we ended up playing around with some music for a bit." He admitted, which stitched your heart back together.

"So does that mean a Narry collab?" You teased, biting your bottom lip in anticipation.

"Narry? You so are a directioner." He laughed along with you.

"And you just avoided my question, therefore there is a song out there written only by you and Niall." You concluded, which shut him up.

This conversation was going a lot better than expected. Certainly a lot better than earlier. You will be permanently scarred by the way you spoke to him and handled his belongings. It was going to haunt you forever - and yet he'd forget about it by tomorrow. Or maybe he wouldn't, which is why you felt the need to apologise.

"Harry?" You asked, clearly indicating this was still a conversation away from the interview.

"Yes Y/N?" He watched you intently, listening to your every word.

"I, um, just wanted to apologise for my behaviour earlier. I was just really nervous to meet you, and to be honest still am. I didn't mean to touch your stuff without your consent and I certainly didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with any of my comments. So, i'm sorry. I can only imagine the awful, yet true, things you must think of me." You rambled really quickly, that you were uncertain whether Harry even caught one word of what you'd says.

"Do you know why I asked for you to interview me Y/N?" Harry asked, which wasn't the first thing you expected him to say after your apology.

"No. I...well Lisa told me it was because I can write well or something." You suggested, not wanting to sound egotistical.

"I mean you do write perfectly, but no." You were intrigued now. "I asked for you because I, and this is not for your magazine, have a secret - but not-so-secret - crush on you." This time it was Harrys turn to blush.

"Harry... you don't have to say that to—"

"I'm not saying it for anything. I sincerely think you are the most delightful, most prettiest, most fucking sweetest person i've ever met." Harry exclaimed, which you were taken aback by. Never, ever, did you think that Harry Styles would proclaim his likeness towards you. Ever.

"Harry don't mess with me, please." You shyly spoke, tilting your head down in disbelief that the Harry Styles was smitten about you.

He shuffled along the bench, stopping a little way from you but close enough to reach out for you. Your heartbeat increased when you noticed his hand move closer towards you. It didn't stop till he reached your face. He took his time, courteously, pushing your hair behind your ear before removing you of your glasses. He held the right-eye frame and slowly pulled the glasses off your face.

Once he'd successfully taken them off he folded them up and placed them alongside your closed notebook.

"Can see those pretty eyes now." He whispered quietly, but loud enough for you to hear.

"Don't lie. They're so dull." You mumbled, lifting your head up slightly. His face was still away from you.

"Not to me they're not." He retaliated, looking deep into your eyes as you did his. "I hate this corona virus."

"Why?" His words were so out of the blue sometimes, it gave you whiplash.

"Because I can't be as near to you as I want to be." Harry told you. And yeah, you hated corona too. It was getting a little laborious now.

"Smooth, Styles." You chuckled. You wondered how many new and weird pick-up lines could be made from covid.

"I know." He winked, which honestly would have made you throw up if it were any other man on the planet. Somehow, though, Harry just made it seem attractive - along with every other thing that man ever did. "After this, would you like to come back to my house for a cuppa tea?" He asked sweetly, like a five year old asking whether you wanted to play together.

"Okay. Lisa was my ride though." You said more to yourself than anything else, debating on how you'd even get to Harrys. Uber? Taxi? Lisa? Walk?

"I'll drive us, it's fine. I have to drop Gem off, but i'd be more than happy to chauffeur you." Harry kindly offered, to which you were internally screaming about. You were literally, and metaphorically, having a field-day with all this Harry content and interview.

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a burden." You question politely, not wanting to overstep any boundaries - especially in these covid infested times.

"Of course. I wouldn't have offered otherwise." He protested, waving his hand at if to say it was no bother. You were already trying to work out, in your head, how much petrol money you were going to owe him.

"Then i'd be honoured to have a brew with you Harry." You giggled at how cringe you were being, even if this was just your normal self speaking.

"Great." Harry genuinely smiled, teeth and all. "My shoot should take a couple of hours, but feel free to continue to write and journal. I'm looking forward to reading this particular article." He winked at you before standing up.

"Wonder why?" You sarcastically asked, knowing full-well it was due to his exposure of his own feelings towards you. Even though you'd never says anything back you were quite in agreement on how you felt about him, like he did you. He would be a narcissist to say he knew you liked him the same, out loud, but he knew. And you knew that he knew.

"Wonder why indeed." He gave you one last smile before he'd disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, leaving you to digest and relive the past half an hour or so.

Being Harry Styles' crush was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

••••

After Harry had finished up his shoot he was quick to come find you again.

You'd watched parts of his shoot and he looked magnificent. There wasn't a good enough word to describe how amazing he looked. Harry, his stylist, was probably the best stylist out there. His fashion choices were unmatched and you wanted him to be yours. You were not rich enough nor fashionable enough, ironic for working in a a fashion company, to hire a stylist, but you would if you could.

You were so proud to see what he was achieving now as the person that he was. Harry was just being Harry, without the devilish control of shitty managements or ridiculous amounts of PR stunts. Harry was more free than ever, and it definitely showed just how much he was enjoying it.

You were certain that this Vogue magazine would break the internet - his fans were good at doing that. This could be a turning point for many people, with their outdated and ignorant views. There was no room for people with racist or homophobic or transphobic or xenophobic - and the list does go on - views anymore.

You were waiting by the front door of the barn, to catch Harry as he walked past. You caught sight of him in a white robe, presumably to get changed back into his everyday clothes. He looked really pretty in the robe - very domestic actually.

Today had been a good day.

Harry asked you to send over the more specific Vogue questions to him via email, so he could devote more time in to answering them in a lot more depth. You thought he meant you'd be sending them to some PA in his team, but you were shocked to understand he'd given you his personal email.

People were walking back to their cars and packing away the filming kit. You saw Lisa and the director talking to one another, no doubt discussing some in-work gossip.

"You ready?" Harrys voice reminded you that you'd been waiting for him. You looked to see he was back in the same clothes as this morning, only this time without his coat.

"Here?" You offered, having him over the coat once again but he declined.

"Looks better on you anyways." He winked at you, before walking through the car park and to his car. You were very surprised when you found out Harry was the one to own the green Jaguar. You assumed all celebrities drove the Range Rover, but no. The vintage car added to Harrys immaculate vibe and just made him that little bit more hot.

Harry properly introduced you to Gemma, who was equally as lovely as Harry. They were both amazing people and they were crazily alike. From the way they looked, down to the way they phrased their words, they were mistakingly twins. Gemma explained how Anne, their mum, didn't know they were doing this photoshoot and that it was going to be a surprise, which you thought was so cute.

Gemma spilt a lot of gossip on Harry, to which he got very embarrassed over. You learnt that Harrys first word was Cat. You learnt that Harry is godfather to multiple children, which you found heartwarming. You learnt Harry used to be a baker - which was something he elaborated on for a good half an hour. Harry was just a fountain of memories and Gemma was the one sharing them all with you.

The drive back to London was relaxed. You sat in the back, listening to Harry and Gemma pointlessly argue whilst an Arctic Monkeys album played in the background. You forgot that people like Harry drove, and listened to music, just like other regular people. You often misplaced celebrities in society, thinking they had everything done for them but in reality that (often) wasn't the case - at least not for Harry.

Gemma was dropped off quickly before Harry drove to his. It was no surprise that the Styles siblings didn't live too far away from each other. Harrys house was beautiful. Bigger than anything you could ever dream of buying. It was a palace compared to your cupboard-sized house. You were unbelievably jealous. He gave you the tour of the house, showing you where the toilets were, and even his panic room if necessary.

You migrated to the kitchen for a bit, talking about anything and everything. Getting to know the minuscule pieces of information that no-one else was trusted with, made you feel special. Harry made you feel special - even if he weren't meaning to.

Every moment held a spark. Every touch set off a firework. Every laugh was an electric burst. He made you feel so alive.

"We can go to the living room after this has boiled." Harry said, pointing towards the streaming kettle. He wanted to show off his fancy tea collection he had, and let you have a try if you wanted to. Harry was boring and chose the basic green tea, but, after much deliberation, you chose the cranberry green tea. It intrigued you and it sounded delicious.

"Why the extensive tea collection?" Not even you, a certified caffeine addict, had this much tea in your house. Coffee was a different story and one in which you didn't want to talk about.

"They help me with my meditation." He took the teabags and placed them in his glass mugs. They had a delicate Gucci stamp on them, and you just imagined that they probably worth the same amount as your daily salary.

"You meditate?" You were slightly surprised that he did.

"I try to yeah." Harry nodded, focusing on pouring in the boiling water into the mugs. "I've got very tight hamstrings and so it helps if I meditate twice a day."

Harry finished making the tea, in the light-filled kitchen, before showing you around to the open-lounge area. Everything was modern and chic. It was exactly how you imagined it, but better. The open, red-brick, wall was a beautiful feature and one that you were a whore for! It reminded you of New York and the memories you'd made there one summer.

The sofa was a beautiful velvet, green, sofa. It was soft and gentle, a lot like Harry when you thought about it. The whole house was an architectural masterpiece and you'd be lying if you said you weren't jealous. You sat on one end and Harry went to go and sit on the other end.

"I don't bite you know?" You joked, self-consciously wondering whether he didn't want to be sat near you.

"I know, I just don't want to step on any of your covid boundaries - which is perfectly fine by the way." He added, apprehensively taking the spot next to you.

"No, not at all." You ushered him to sit next to you, as you took a sip from your steaming hot cup of fruity tea. "If I smell though, do tell me!"

"Yeah, you smell bloody awful!" Harry sarcastically remarked, but laughing afterwards to assure you he was joking. The atmosphere went quiet for a minute, only the sounds of passing cars and deep breaths being heard.

"Y/N can I ask you something?" Harry turned the tone of the conversation. It sounded like he wanted to be more serious than you two were being beforehand.

"Anything." You encouraged him to continue. You placed the cup of tea down on the table, deciding it was too hot to drink right now, and gave him your full attention.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" Harry questioned. You didn't think you'd be having a conversation this intense - especially if you had different opinions - on your first day of knowing each other, but here you were.

"I believe you can love someone at first sight. I don't believe you can be in love with someone at first sight. Why?" You were curious as to how his brain had journeyed to this particular topic. You'd never really had this conversation with anyone before, mainly because you were unaware of the true power, and meaning, of love.

"It uh... It doesn't matter." Harry shook his head and you could tell by his body language that he was shutting you out. Maybe you'd made him uncomfortable.

"Sorry I didn't mean to—"

"No, no. Please don't apologise. It's just - I like you a lot more than you may think." Harry shyly told you, which made you all soft inside. He was being vulnerable and that was something you admired in a partner. You didn't just need love, affection and trust in a relationship. No. You needed vulnerability and heartbreak too, and Harry was revealing that part of him to you.

"I like you a lot more than you think too." You repeated, not because you felt bad for him but because you truly did like him a whole lot. Love was a weird yet wonderful thing, and if you were to hazard a guess you'd say you loved Harry.

You couldn't wait to be in love with him.

"Does that mean I get to crown you my girlfriend?" Harry excitedly asked. Harry happy was something that should be made a constant, and you were more than happy to be in control of that.

"At least take me out first." You bargained, wishing for nothing more than to go on a date with Harry. Where you'd go, you had no idea. Everything was closed right now and there was still the chance of becoming sick with corona, but no doubt Harry would think of something not only clever, but special.

Of course you'd love to be Harrys girlfriend. However, you wanted one more, official, opportunity to really get to know him - unprofessionally. You wanted to make sure that you knew, and he knew, that you wanted to be with him because he was the charming Harry you've come to love, not because he was Harry Styles.

"So you're allowing me to take you on a date?" Harry smirked like a little child, your heart fluttering at how excited he was to be able to treat you to dinner.

"Yes, Harry. Yes I am." You answered sweetly, offering him the cutest smile you could.

You can't believe what a turn of events today has been. You've gone from nearly writing yourself on Harrys enemy list to writing yourself on to his 'people he's dated' list. Who knows what the future would offer you. At the start of the day you had wished this whole day to end and for the ground to just swallow you up, now you never wanted it to end. It was too perfect to be true and yet it was.

Harry was the most wonderful human to exist and you were beyond surprised to be the one to catch his attention. You didn't understand why you were so special, but it was nice to feel like this for a change. It was nice to feel wanted.

••••

A few months later and you were officially Harrys girlfriend.

It had been such a crazy few months. Harry religiously took you out on dates every week. Whether it be to grab a hotdog at a local diner, a coffee from a quaint cafe, a walk in Hyde Park or a late-night drive around London - which normally ended up with you falling asleep before you could make it back to yours. On sleepless jet-lagged nights he'll still drive through London's quiet streets, seeing neighborhoods in a new way, just as an excuse to spend time with you.

Harry often stayed over at yours. Even though you looked like you lived in a shoebox compared to Harry, he liked it. He liked the subtly and normality of it all. He wanted your life to remain as normal as possible and, apart from the occasional paparazzi incident, it did. You never had anything to complain about. Of course the online bullying created emotional wounds, at the start of your relationship, but it was nothing that Harry couldn't repair with a bit of love.

Lisa has nominated herself to be maid-of-honour when the day comes - if the day comes. Harry has already pinky sworn that you are it for him. The one, as some may say. You were utterly flattered, but you certainly unsure of what the future help for you both.

You loved Harry, you do love Harry and you will forever always love Harry.

It was ridiculous to think that all this stemmed from you working at Vogue. From you studying English Literature in a city away from London. From you dedicating you extra hours gaining work experience and money to be able get in and afford university. So many moments in life have you stopped and said 'i wish i hadn't have done that', but now you were convinced that they were the best things to have happened to you - because they lead you, all, to Harry.

And, being Harry Styles girlfriend was probably the biggest flex you could ever make.

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band--psycho · 3 years

Text

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader-If Only You Didn’t Have To Forget

Written for the amazing @sweeterthanthis! Congratulations on hitting such a huge milestone! You totally deserve it!🥳 my prompt was ~You’re beautiful to me because you’re human. Your frailty. Your short years. Your heart. All that suddenly seems more precious than anything I’ve ever known~ (Find it in bold)

I also paired it with this request from @devilsbooksworld

I hope you all enjoy this!💛

TVD Masterlist / Klaus Mikaelson Masterlist

Warnings: Toxic relationship, mentions of death, hints of depression

“We’re done, Sean…” Y/n said, desperately trying to keep herself together as she walked away from the man she’d spent years loving.

“You can’t be serious!” Sean shouted, running after her. He grabbed her by the hand roughly, pulling her back to him.

“I can’t be serious? I walked into that party to see your tongue down some random girls throat!” She retorted back, her throat burning as the words left her mouth, her eyes lingering on the corner of his mouth where the red lipstick stain from the other girl was. The rage in Sean’s eyes was undeniable as he moved closer towards her, “I was drunk and if you’d come with me like I asked I would’ve been kissing you instead!” He seethed, his grip on her hand growing tighter.

“That’s such a fucked up thing to think let alone say! I’m your-” with a quivering breath Y/n corrected herself, “I was your girlfriend, that’s not something you do when you’re in a relationship with someone!”

Somehow she’d found the strength to pull out of his tight grip. As she pulled away she saw her ring fall from her hand but at that moment she didn’t care. There were too many emotions filling her head. She wanted to slap him, shout at him, make him feel how he’d made her feel. But as she looked at him, she realised everything her friends had told her about him was true. She’d stood up for him so many times but now she was done. He wasn’t worth it. She needed to get away from him, so with that thought in mind she made her way away from him.

“Where are you going?” Sean shouted after her.

“Home” Y/n replied bluntly, her pace increasing as she heard his footsteps following after her.

“Yknow, no one else is ever gonna want you after this! You’re not even that pretty” Sean hollered after her, “You were lucky to be with me Y/n/n. No ones ever gonna want you when I say what I’ve got to say,” he continued, storming after her as she ran down the road, trying to get away from him.

“I’m gonna make your life a-”

Y/n expected to hear an end to that sentence, but when she turned round, he was gone. Just like that he’d vanished. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she tried to work out where he’d gone but she couldn’t deny the relief that washed over her body knowing he wasn’t chasing after her anymore. She ran a hand through her y/e/c hair before turning round to continue her walk home but as she turned round she saw a figure on the dimly lit street . At first she thought it was Sean but as the figure moved closer towards her, she realised it wasn’t Sean.

“Hello, Y/n,” the man said, his British accent catching her off guard. Her eyebrows furrowed again as she tried to work out who he was and how he knew her name. She knew she wouldn’t forget someone as good looking as the man in front of her.

“Don’t worry, love, he won’t be bothering you again,” he soothed, his thumb wiping away a red mark from the side of his mouth. The way the nickname rolled off his tongue was enough to distract Y/n for a few seconds but then she realised that that mark on the corner of his mouth was blood. She mentally cursed herself as realisation dawned on her, this man was a vampire. A vampire who probably just killed her now ex boyfriend...

“Who are you?” Y/n asked, avoiding all eye contact with the man in front of her. Of course the one night she

“Oh yes, you haven’t seen me like this,” he paused for a second as a small smirk tugged at the side of his mouth, “I’m Klaus Mikaelson.”

Shit. That’s what Y/n thought when she heard the name fall from his lips. Her eyes darted to her hand before she remembered that she’d left her ring at the party. Typical. She thought to herself a small sigh falling from lips. She’d heard of Klaus. He was an original vampire...who wanted to kill Elena for some sort of weird sacrifice.

“You’re the original vampire that wants to kill my friends…” Y/n stated, Klaus’ eyes almost beamed with pride as she said those words, “Where’s Sean?”

His eyes widened slightly, surprised by the concern that was on her voice, “Your pathetic ex is perfectly fine, I just needed a snack,” he began, his tongue slipping out of his mouth to lick his lower lip. It was such a simple action yet Y/n couldn’t deny the way her core ached when he did it. She managed to keep her composure as he continued to talk,”And as for your first point...there’s a reason I want to kill the doppelgänger,”

“Oh I’m well aware of your reasons,” Y/n scoffed, trying to brush off her growing arousal for the man in front of her.

“So what are you gonna do to me?” She asked, her voice strong and unwavering.

“Pardon?” A confused look was visible in both of their eyes.

“Well considering who you are and who my friends are I assume you’re gonna do something to me,”

“So what’re you gonna do? Kill me, compel me to hurt or kill my friends, turn me into a vampire?” She asked, noticing the look of confusion that was growing in Klaus’ eyes as he stared at her, “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Because you’ve listed things that would terrify a normal human, yet you don’t seem scared at all,” Klaus replied, the confusion in his eyes turning into something else. A look of both adoration and worry. He couldn’t help but admire how brave she was. But it also saddened him slightly, she was so young and nothing that she listed seemed to scare her. He couldn’t help but wonder what her life had been like, had she always been this courageous or was it something that had happened recently.

“One of my best friends is dating a vampire, who also has a vampire brother, my other best friend is a vampire, the other is a witch and I’m human. Sooner or later something like this was bound to happen,” Y/n explained, snapping him out of his thoughts. He sent her a small smile, “I’m not going to hurt you, I think you’ve been through enough tonight,” he soothed, reaching out to put a strand of her y/c/h behind her ear.

Y/n shuffled quickly away from his touch but his fingertips managed to brush against her skin, making her blush slightly. She shook her head, snapping herself back to reality now.

“Like you even care, you’re a psychotic original vampire, why would you care about me and what I’ve been through?”

“Because despite what most people think, I have a heart,” he answered back and when Y/n looked into his eyes all she saw was honesty, of course that could all be apart of his facade, “I see the pain in your eyes...it’s almost like you want to die,”

“I don’t want to, I’m just not scared of dying. It’s gonna happen one day,” she answered candidly and although her answer took her by surprise, it was the truth. Y/n wasn’t stupid. She knew the risks of being friends with who she’s friends with. It put a target on her back and unlike the majority of people in the group she had no way to defend herself nor anyone to really protect her. She was one of the least important people in the group and she knew it, she’d accepted her fate a long time ago. It was just a matter of time.

“That is a dark outlook for someone as beautiful as you to have on life,”

“It’s a realistic outlook to have given the world I’m living in, and I’m not beautiful,” She snapped, pushing past him slightly in an attempt to hide the blush that was frowning on her cheeks.

“You are,” he cooed, grabbing her hand lightly unlike Sean had.

“You’re beautiful,” he repeated, moving closer towards her, his hand stroking soothing circles on her knuckles.

“How could a vampire who’s a thousand years old think that I’m beautiful? I’m a human-“ Y/n began, trying not to think about how his touch made the butterflies in her stomach swarm and made her heart do somersaults.

“You’re beautiful to me because you’re human. Your frailty. Your short years. Your heart,” Y/n hadn't noticed how close her and Klaus were until she felt his warm breath on her lips. That alone was enough to make all the words she’d planned on saying vanish from her mind. “All that suddenly seems more precious than anything I’ve ever known,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper as he glanced down momentarily at Y/ns lips. He could see the fight she was having with herself mentally but he couldn’t resist her any longer. Within seconds his hands were on her waist, pulling her closer to him as he connected their lips. The kiss was much more gentle than Y/n had expected but no less passionate and it set off an explosion in her heart that she’d never felt when she’d kissed someone. It was the type of kiss that she’d only ever read about in stories. Klaus’ lips moulded against hers perfectly, like they were made for her and only her. Although part of her mind was telling how wrong all of this was, she couldn’t help but melt into the kiss. She knew this was wrong. He was the enemy. He was planning on killing her friends. But she couldn’t deny the way her heart burst when he pushed her up against a nearby wall. instinctively she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, deepening the kiss. Being with him like this felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. It felt so...so right. She felt like she could stay in this moment forever, getting drunk off the taste of his lips.

Neither of them had any idea how long they’d been kissing for but it was long enough to leave both of them panting slightly for air as they pulled away from the kiss, both of their minds caught up with the situation. Klaus knew what was racing through Y/ns mind, it was obvious, but he was also plagued by his own demons. He didn’t want to stop kissing her, he could’ve done it all night long if she’d let him. A small sigh left his lips as he rested his forehead against hers, momentarily glancing into her y/e/c orbs, almost getting lost in them as he imagined all the things that could be between them. But as he closed his eyes, realisation dawned on him. He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t be selfish with her, he was a monster to some but there was something about her that he just wanted to protect and protecting her, meant doing the very thing that would crush his heart. A shaky breath left Klaus’ lips as he pulled away from Y/n slightly, one of his hands moving to her chin, his finger tilting her head up, forcing those y/e/c orbs that first caught his attention to look up at him.

“Now, you are going to go home, call your friends and tell them what happened between you and Sean. You won’t remember talking to me but I truly hope you start to see the beauty in life again, you’re too young to not enjoy everything life has to offer.” And just like that he vanished so Y/n wouldn’t see him. He watched her as she made her way home, a single tear running down his cheek as he watched her go further and further away from him.

Maybe in another universe, things could be different and he’d be able to show her how beautiful she truly was in his eyes. He’d be able to treat her the way she deserved to be treated. But alas, that was not this world and despite the way she made him feel, she had to forget everything that had happened. Klaus wasn’t stupid, he knew that her friends would use her to get to him and he couldn’t let her go through anymore pain.

Tagging:

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elise-jupiterstyle · 3 years

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this is a very cynical bomb that i’m about to drop with absolutely no context but they really did just fetishize rio to gain viewership without actually ever giving a shit about his value as a character, and i’ve gotten myself into a bit of a spiral stewing about it.

tw: my opinions again

like i didn’t want to think about my favorite show so negatively before it ended so i tried to steer clear of any posts that discussed it for the sake of my own enjoyment but after how short the finale season fell from my expectations, it’s hard not to be pissed off. because ever since they had beth shoot rio in season two i’ve been waiting for them to reconcile such a gruesome choice by developing the characters further, their relationships, their knowledge of themselves, but it just didn’t happen. beth never took accountability for the shooting, rio never took accountability for kidnapping and pressuring her, and dean never took accountability for his infidelity or faking cancer, which were the three main points of conflict that the writers should’ve focused on resolving before ever even thinking of introducing new conflicts.

i’m not saying i wanted rio to forgive beth, or that i wanted beth to forgive dean, or that i wanted any of these resolutions to happen immediately after their conflicts took place. and sure, you could say that beth’s character compartmentalizes and that beth and rio aren’t good communicators and didn’t have a strong bond of trust to begin with so it wouldn’t be in character for them to discuss what happened, but that’s where character growth is supposed to come in! you’re supposed to write characters with these flaws so that they have a better version of themselves to work towards that is slowly developed as they encounter each conflict. they’re not meant to make them into worse people until the show is entirely unbearable to watch because all of that old resentment and tension is just rotting away beneath the rug it’s been swept under.

it’s not a creative choice to have characters directly create conflict and then never address it again while they move onto the next big thing -- it’s lazy writing, and it makes it crystal clear that they were written in solely to shock the viewers and create tension between the characters, not to cultivate growth, and that is very frustrating when you have a group of characters whose inherent morality is constantly insisted upon.

what’s especially frustrating about this is that it not only means there is a lack of depth to all the characters, but there’s a lack of value to the ones that the writers did not favor. based on the season one storyline that culminated in rio shooting dean and letting beth live -- essentially getting even with her in a way that didn’t involve killing off the protagonist, even though that would’ve been the most likely course of action based on the consequences that other disposable characters suffered (i.e. eddie) -- it’s my belief that the writers didn’t expect to keep rio on the show past season one (honestly, it kind of feels like they didn’t even expect to get another season, based on how messy the storyline felt as the seasons progressed), and therefore didn’t value rio’s character the way the audience came to by season two.

when i say the writers didn’t (and honestly, i still think they don’t -- not in the same way they value the girls, dean, stan, or even fucking boomer) value him, i mean they didn’t see him as being worth the effort of giving a character arc, a background story, personal relationships, etc. they threw in marcus at the start of season two to be like “he’s a dad! that means he has depth!” and then never really touched on it again. there was like, one other scene with marcus that i can remember, and then he, too, was sidelined until they needed to humanize rio again after he got shot. all of the other kids -- the bolands, sarah, harry, and ben -- are regularly featured because they are a driving component of the women’s motivation to survive and succeed. with rio, his kid is only used to relate him back to the women, to make him seem human for a moment, but marcus’s real value as a character lies in how he makes beth feel as she grieves rio, not how he contributes to rio’s behavior, motivation, and overall character.

and yes, i know that rio is technically a side character, that the children of the protagonists are going to have more development, but if they actually wanted to add depth to rio’s character through the facet of parenthood, they would’ve shown more than one interaction with him after he spent supposed months away from him without a word. that kid would’ve been traumatized by that, and seeing rio’s reaction to his kid mourning his disappearance would’ve provided a much more real and interesting angle than them all smiling and happy, like we’ve seen in every other scene with him and marcus. it would’ve showed that the writers care about rio’s pain, about how his absence affected those he loves, but to be blunt, they don’t. they showed beth grieving him when she shot him, but we didn’t see him recovering from that traumatic event. they didn’t even care enough about him to give him fake scars, for christ’s sake.

everything that happened to rio throughout the show was either done to further the other women’s development or appease the viewers, and they made zero effort to hide that. they walked his characterization backwards so many times (him threatening beth’s family when it had been insinuated thus far that that was the only line he wouldn’t cross; him touching her and making suggestive advances on her in exchange for bail money when she was clearly uncomfortable; him returning all of her stuff and happily accepting her as his superior when there was no development in their relationship to suggest he’d forgiven her or would be receptive to her having power over him) and almost every single instance of them using him to promote the show exploited his outward appearance and the fact that so many viewers have fetishized him as this “exotic” bad boy without any regard for how minimizing and insulting that marketing tactic is.

looking through their instagram, i saw no other instance of an actor’s picture being posted next to a bunch of thirsty tweets or captioned as being “another reason to watch good girls.” it’s fetishization disguised as playful, well-intentioned endorsement, but if they were really referring to rio’s character rather than his appearance as a reason to watch the show, we wouldn’t be seeing his face on nearly every episode promo and highlight with him only occupying about five minutes of screen time every 50-minute episode.

there’s not really a neat bow-tie conclusion to this, but what i’m getting at is that the writers wanted it both ways. they wanted the viewership and fan engagement that manny’s character garnered, but they didn’t value him enough to give him the screen time and characterization that he deserved. this resulted in all of the revelations that were made about his character -- his son, rhea, his dynamic with turner, his backstory, his hobby, his grandma, nick -- feeling pretty underwhelming because they were never touched on again. they were there because they had to give us something, but they weren’t important enough to the writers to be expanded upon, to be used for personal growth or connecting with the other characters. i think that’s why it felt like such a hollow victory -- we got exactly what we wanted in theory, but there the foundation of it all was too weak for it to feel truly meaningful.

we wanted rio to be acknowledged and written as a permanent fixture on the show, but instead the rest of the characters were hell-bent on getting rid of him and his primary aspect of redemption was what he meant to beth, not what he meant to the show. even in the finale when she finally came to the realization that she won’t ever be able to give up crime, rio’s role in contributing to her self-actualization was passed over by a character who has been in seven episodes, and i think that really spoke for itself the loudest in terms of how much the writers truly valued him.

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haikyuu-appreciation-club · 4 years

Text

•When You Fall Asleep On Them w/ Oikawa, Kenma, Atsumu, Terushima, and Tendou•

warnings: a few curse words

genre: fluff

characters: oikawa, kenma, atsumu, terushima, + tendou

•Oikawa•

your exhaustion was clear on your face as you slumped down against the wall of the gym, settiling your tired body on the floor

you loved the seijoh boys to death but they really wore you out sometimes

to be fair, they weren’t so bad most days you guys had practice

but every so often they had you so drained by the end of the day you could barely keep your eyes open, like today for example

“Y/N-chan!”

you recognized the sweet voice meeting your ears but to acknowledge it would require energy you just didn’t have

oikawa slid down beside you, hair still damp after rinsing off his post practice sweat

he knew how exhausting everyone could be and honestly he was surprise that you hadn’t quit the position, but he was glad you decided to stick around for so long

an arm snaked its way around your shoulder before giving your arm a few gentle rubs,

“I think everyone worked really hard today, don’t you?”

to tired to respond, you opted for a simple nod before leaning your head on oikawa’s shoulder

he was suprised at first, not really used to this side of you, but a smile found it’s way onto his face as he felt your warmth slowly take over him

eventually, your breaths slow to a steady rhythm, signaling to oikawa that you finally stopped trying to fight the exhaustion that had plagued you

he maneuvered your figure so that you were lying in his lap, eyes fluttering ever so slightly as you subconsciously allowed yourself to adjust to the lighting change

affection was the only thing written on the boy’s face as he watched soft breaths flow in and out of your parted lips

a few moments later, the rest of the team started filing out of the gym, confusion quickly filling the air as oikawa smiled down at your sleeping form

iwaizumi seemed the most agitated with this development,

“What the hell did you do to them, shitty-kawa?”

“Hm? Me? I didn’t do anything at all. If you wanna put the blame on someone it should be on all of you, poor y/n-chan has to deal with so much.”

“Cut the crap, they have to deal with your sorry ass the most.”

a light laugh escaped his lips before he peered down at you once more, brushing stray hairs away from your forehead

“I guess you’re right, in that case i’ll lock up and walk them home when they wake up. I wanna let them rest a little while longer.”

iwaizumi sighed and reluctantly threw him the keys to the gym before leaving with the rest of the team

as soon as the door to the gym was shut, oikawa took a quick glance around to make sure there was no one remaining before leaning down to place a soft kiss on your forehead

he knew that tomorrow he would never hear the end of this, but in that moment he couldn’t care less, he was happy just being there with you

•Kenma•

you loved spending saturdays playing video games with kenma, it was your favorite activity to do after such a long and stressful week

even so, by the end of the week you were drained, and sometimes you got sleepy

especially when kenma began playing a more lowkey game and his sighs of frustration and mumbled strings of curses became absent

silence tended to fall over the room when that was the case, causing your brain to shut down faster then you wanted it to

you sat next to kenma and peered over at his switch, watching with lidded eyes as his character moved about the screen

the colors began to swirl together as you were dragged deeper into sleep

kenma was too focused on the task at hand to notice your sleepy state, let alone the way your head fell ever so gently on his shoulder

after a while he returned his character home and paused the game, handing the switch to you,

“Here Y/N, it’s your turn.”

still feeling the device heavy in his hands he peered down at your sleeping figure, just now realizing why the atmosphere seemed quieter then usual

he froze and a soft blush crept on his face before he set the switch aside

you had fallen asleep on these days before but never so close to him and now he had no idea what to do

he didnt want you to be uncomfortable but he also didnt want to risk waking you up and ruining your much needed sleep

eventually his body moved for him as he crossed one leg under the other and gently moved you so that you were lying down on his thigh

he scrolled through his phone while you slept, mindlessly running his fingers through your hair as his eyes danced along his screen

he knew when you woke there would be a string of apologize falling out of your mouth but he didn’t mind the soft snores that escaped your lips

besides, the two of you had the rest of your lives to play video games together

all he cared about in that moment was that you were taken care of

•Atsumu•

you and atsumu had ate lunch on the roof every friday since the two of you had become friends in middle school

it was a long standing tradition, one that the two of never missed no matter the circumstances

it was peacful, no one else but your friends ever knew so the two of you were never bothered

and it was always a nice way to relax and enjoy each other’s company without having to worry about the twin’s fighting, kita lecturing you about table manners, or suna just being a plain instigator

the two of you typically spent the period laughing and conversing but that particular friday, you lacked the energy to even keep your eyes open, let alone act so lively

your exhaustion was plain to see and definitely gave atsumu some room to poke fun at you,

“Sleepy, aren’t we Y/N? I mean, I can see your under eye bags from here.”

you angrily mumbled something under your breath at the statement before rubbing your eyes in attempt to wake yourself up more

atsumu ruffled your hair and laughed at your antics, throwing a few more snarky comments at you

he returned to his lunch soon enough, continuing the story he was previously retelling before you could throw a fit from your lack of sleep

as he was reaching the end of his tale, he felt his legs being tugged at, jumping a bit at first before he realized your hand was the one attached to his ankle

“Whatcha doin there Y/N?”

you ignored his question, choosing to pull his legs until they were lying straight and settling yourself down to lie in his lap instead

“Tsumu, wake me up before we have to get to class, please.”

as you began to slip out of consciousnesses, atsumu felt his eyes begin to water

if anyone else saw him, they would’ve made fun of him but he couldn’t help himself, he felt so happy that you trusted him enough to be this vulnerable around him

he knew he could be a pain in the ass sometimes but he never felt like a bother when he was around you, you loved him for who he was

it was a miracle you had remained friends with him for so long but as long as you did, he would do his best to make sure that pretty smile always returned to your face

before he could wake you up with his cries, he cleared his throat and began to softly rub your back and he stared out among the trees,

“No problem Y/N, you can count on me.”

•Terushima•

you had practically got on your hands and knees and begged terushima to help you study for your upcoming exam

he was one of the smartest people you knew and with how awful you were with the subject the test was on, it would’ve be a crime not to ask him for help

luckily for you, when you timidly asked for his help, he agreed to take some time out of his day to tutor you this week

which is why you felt awful once your thoughts beginning to haze and your eyes began to grow heavy

you couldn't even pay attention to the anxiety that had previously been gnawing away at you, let alone whatever the hell terushima was going on about

in your defense, school was absolutely exhausting today and you didn’t expect yourself to be this out of it by the time you arrived at terushima’s house

he noticed your fatigue right away, he way your head swayed back and forth as if you were in a daze was hard to miss

his first instinct was to laugh at how adorable you were but he chose to take a more gentle approach to the situation,

“You alright there, baby? We can take a break if you need one.”

you shook your head and gripped your pencil tighter, trying your best to copy down notes without falling face first into your text book

he smirked and playfully rolled his eyes before sliding more notes in your direction,

“Suit yourself.”

not even ten minutes after you expressed your determination to the boy, terushima felt a weight fall onto his shoulder

he let out a chuckle at your unconscious state, knowing that this was soon to come

he wrapping an arm around your shoulder and carefully pulled you down onto the bedroom floor with him, comfortably repositioning you

in this new position, your head was on his chest, one of his arms wrapped around your torso while the other sat comfortably behind his head

“If you were tired, you could have just told me.”

although he knew you could hear him, the words left his mouth in a whisper before pulling you close and closing his own eyes

in all honesty, he didn’t mind this series of events, just happy to have you here with him

and besides, this gave him an excuse to schedule another study date

•Tendou•

carnivals and fairs came to your town quite often and every time they did, tendou loved to bring you along

the two of you had loved to go ever since you were little kids so the memories it brought back was enough of a reason to blow your money on tickets and food

it was a chance of the two of you to forget about any worry or zees and just let yourself be kids again

and to tendou, it was always worth seeing the smile on your face as you glanced around at the scenery, eyes gleaming under the flashing lights

as much fun as they were, he knew how much they tired you out

every time the two of you ran off to one, he always ended up taking you inside at the end of the night and helping you through your nightly routine, but he didn’t mind this in the slightest

he was happy to help and besides, you were the clingiest when you were on the brink of sleep, which he found absolutely adorable

“Y/N, did you have fun tonight, hm?”

he took a glimpse of you in the passenger seat before returning his eyes to the rode ahead, one hand on the steering wheel and the other settled comfortably on your leg

mind clouded with sleep, you took the hand that sat on your knee and held it in yours, examining the polish you had painted on them earlier that week through blurry vision,

“Mhm.”

tendou took another glance at you before grinning at your tired state,

“I’m glad, i had lots of fun too! We’ll have to bring Ushiwaka next time, he’s never been to one of those-“

before he could finish his sentence, he felt his hand being hugged to your chest

turning his head to the side once more, he realized you had curled up on the passenger seat and were now fast asleep, cuddling his arm as if it was a stuffed animal

a laugh escaped his lips at how quick you were to drift off to your dream land

as his eyes focused on the dimly lit pavement, he admired how sweet your display of affection was, feeling your love spread throughout his entire body

he slowed his speed, careful not to hit any bumps or holes on the way home in fear of waking you

once the two of you got to his house, he gently carried picked you up and carried you inside, setting you on his bed as soon as he stepped though the door

before he could grab a blanket and head to the couch, your arms found their way around his torso as you buried your face into his chest before drifting back into your deep sleep

a smile spread across his face before placed a kiss on the top of your head and carefully lying down next to you, allowing himself to close his eyes and enjoy this moment with you

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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seyaryminamoto · 3 years

Note

As someone, who's favourite character is Zuko, let me just say that your analysis about the Southern Raiders is spot on. Something about that episode (especially the way Zuko acted) always felt a little... off to me. And I could never figure out what it was exactly and considering the fact that discussion about this episode centered around the Kataang vs Zutara, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. So, I guess thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

Oh, I really feel ya, anon. If you actually don't look at the episode from a shipping point of view, which seems to be the focus of most the fandom, a lot of unpleasant things really start sticking out. I'm personally neutral to the Kataang vs. Zutara debate, I see good points and drawbacks to both ships, and no one's going to convince me that this episode proved the superiority of either pairing, especially when the shipping interpretations have never been important to me when analyzing this episode. People can say Aang is right in the end, they can say Zuko understands Katara's plight better (which, considering Aang has lost even more people he loved than Zuko has, he certainly should have understood Katara's suffering quite well too), but focusing on whether Zuko or Aang are the angel or the devil on Katara's shoulders practically blinds everyone to the very glaring and mindboggling flaws in this episode's writing, imo.

In general, the concept of Zuko's life-changing field trips with the three Gaang members he'd wronged the most is fine and fun for most people, but from the first time I watched the show it felt like the production team knew they were pressed for time and needed some veeeery quick and effective solution for Zuko to gain acceptance in the Gaang ASAP despite all the bad blood there. I can imagine a lot of people love these episodes, but admittedly I wouldn't rank any of them among my favorites because, as interesting as some of their concepts could be, if executed right, my immersion certainly wasn't as strong as with the rest of the show due to the nagging feeling that this was all for the sake of redeeming Zuko in the eyes of each Gaang member... and not necessarily in the eyes of the audience.

They get away with it, of course, because by this point in time, the audience is 100% conditioned to love the Gaang and Zuko, and if you see them getting along, you should be rejoicing in their team-up... but if you put some emotional distance between yourself as a viewer and the events of these episodes, their writing leaves a lot to be desired, especially in the concept of giving Zuko a quick whitewashing in the eyes of Aang, Sokka and Katara, one after the other, so they can genuinely accept him as a teammate and friend. If we'd seen similar trips frequently or occasionally in the rest of the show, with two specific members of the team taking off on an adventure by themselves, it might not be so glaringly obvious (and even... artificial? I guess?) that they're trying to quick-redeem him for each of them here, but on top of it happening thrice, it's literally happening one after the other, too. There's no episodes in-between, it's just literally a four-parter arc of "let's help Zuko become friends with these three".

The plotlines to be dealt with in these episodes are basically catered to each Gaang member, tailor-made life-changing field trips based on whatever they'll value the most, all of it conveniently possible and doable in the span of time they have between Zuko's joining of their group and the show's finale. Aang needs to learn firebending, Sokka needs to save his dad, Katara is permanently grieving for her mother's death. And so, Zuko to the rescue! If he helps them with their personal character quests, he gets 50+ approval points! :'D Honestly, I'm absolutely not against the notion of Zuko befriending them, obviously not, but the methods through which they chose to make it happen simply might not be the finest...?

Zuko loses his ability to bend because he "lost his rage", but he's still angry pretty often, the show even spoofs its own writing by showing him losing his patience at Sokka... while at the same time trying to sell that Zuko "isn't angry" anymore? Zuko helps break out random prisoners from the Boiling Rock without taking a single moment to actually learn who they are, why they were locked up, and without pondering if they deserve to be helped or if perhaps they're genuinely dangerous? Zuko gives Katara every possible tool and information she needs to take revenge on Yon Rha, because, loosely quoting his own words, he "cares what she thinks of him"...?

How about if we'd seen Zuko trying to connect with Fire Nation people, to help his fellow Fire Nation citizens, especially the ones who were living in dreadful conditions, like the ones in the Jang Hui river village? How about if we'd seen Zuko saving lives rather than threatening to take them? How about if we'd seen Zuko actually reasoning with his anger, and either working his way out of it, or repurposing it consciously, or making legitimate, personal efforts to find a new source of strength for his firebending through self-reflection, above all else?

We didn't really need sudden one-on-one field trips to teach Aang, Katara and Sokka to trust Zuko: we needed Zuko to prove himself worthy of that trust, to show how much he has changed, to literally contrast his new behavior with the old, to actually see that the guy no longer jumps into violence-mode 24/7, that he's willing to listen to other people's opinions or wisdom, that he wants to learn better when he knows he's misguided or misunderstanding something or another. Would he have become BFFs with any of them in four episodes if this had happened? Well, it definitely would have happened with Aang, the other two would have been trickier, but they definitely would have been more willing to accept him if they actually got to SEE that the changes in Zuko weren't skin-deep. Katara can be as thick-headed and stubborn as she may want to be, but I have no doubts she wouldn't have been able to hate Zuko as much as she used to if she'd seen him helping people, much like she often wants their group to do. But instead, they don't get to see the actual changes and growth... they just get their biggest goals and wishes satisfied, and that's enough to decide Zuko's trustworthy, no matter whatever sketchy behavior he displays in later episodes.

I absolutely appreciate the worldbuilding context we gain for the raids on the Water Tribe through The Southern Raiders, but I don't think this was an organic way to tell the story of how Zuko became friends with the Gaang. If pressed, I'd even say that Zuko's overt desperation to be their friend is OOC, to a degree: if this guy actually knows how dangerous his father's plans are (and he's supposed to :'D), how isn't he focusing on that side of things, when he's always been such a go-getter? It's not like he grew out of this sort of ends-justify-the-means behavior, seeing as he's absolutely obsessed with stopping his father ASAP, by any means possible, in the finale, when there was no such urgency to be found ever since he joined the Gaang. How isn't he more worried about stopping Ozai than about becoming best friends with the Gaang? Immediately sharing everything he's learned about Ozai's intentions of destroying the whole world might not make them friends instantaneously, but it would certainly get someone like Sokka to take his information seriously and immediately begin strategizing how to counter Ozai's plans. Instead, Zuko spent all those weeks, over a month, even, teaching Aang firebending, going on field trips and hanging out with his new friends in Ember Island. Once you have all the cards on deck and you actually look at all of them at once, doesn't it feel like there were so many more ways to achieve what the show was going for, far more effective ways than through the "let's be friends with Zuko" arc?

Ultimately, there's very little display of growth, in my opinion, in this small arc, on Zuko's side, despite the most obvious and reasonable way to earn the trust of the Gaang would be by outright showing them how much he's grown. I won't deny I appreciate that the writers respected his personality and didn't just warp him into the perfect good softboi the way the fandom apparently interprets him, but even if Zuko was going to be cranky and speak one-liners like "I'm never happy", it wasn't impossible to write better situations for him to connect with the Gaang's members and gain their trust. Even if the writers were set on having these episodes happen exactly as they did, they absolutely could have been written in a much better way, to create an explicit and direct contrast between Zuko's early behavior and the new Zuko's behavior when it comes to things that matter (most the parallels I've seen the fandom drawing are things like "oh look he hated tea before but now he brews it for his friends! So much growth!"... would've been nice to see the growth when it came to a lot of other things, too, if the growth really was there? Am I rite...?).

I may just be influenced by other redemption arcs that focus mainly on characters having common goals and working together to achieve them, then becoming friends in the process... but I really don't see how Zuko's character benefited from these episodes. Yes, bridges were built... but they absolutely could have been built in a more organic way that didn't make people like myself (and a few others) question if Zuko had learned or grown at all, considering the way he behaves isn't all that distant from the Zuko we've seen and known throughout the rest of the show. And the fact that he really seems to have learned nothing in The Southern Raiders once you reach the show's finale... you're basically asked to take for granted Zuko did learn a lot of lessons because he says he did, to assume he's going to put them into practice sometime in the future despite he has chances to do it during the show itself but never does, simply because they drop the ball upon every opportunity to show how much he's changed.

I really don't blame his character at all, when it comes to these shortcomings... it's seriously, genuinely, a problem with the writing department. Take a look through the fandom and you'll see thousands of people who claim Zuko's character arc is the most touching, complex and beautiful writing they ever have seen... and why? Because we're in the face of tell-don't-show :'D most people's perception of Zuko's character are based not so much on HOW Zuko displays his growth, it's strongly based on him stating he made progress, even if there's too many instances where the growth simply seems to have fallen to the wayside or gone forgotten for the sake of a plotline or another. Zuko absolutely could have been written far better than this, he could absolutely have the redemption arc his fans are sure he does have, but for me... there's way too many gaps in logic, too many missed opportunities, to truly think his growth was as extraordinary as a lot of people are hung up on saying it was.

#anon #woops #I probably shouldn't have written this much here but what can I say #I've got beef with these storylines #and I unfortunately can't bbq it (?)#so instead I ramble and ramble and hope you guys forgive me for how long-winded I can be :'D

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slasherbastard · 3 years

Note

“I deserve to rot.” “It never mattered anyway.” And “You’re supposed to be yelling at me! And… and hitting me! Why aren’t you doing that?!” (Platonic) With a happy ending for a young-teen slasher reader? Billy and Stu plz 👉👈 love your storys

Warnings: Angst, a little bit of violence, Word count: 2950 Notes: Sorry this took forever to write also it’s the longest prompt i’ve written

You sat down beside Billy on Sidney's bed and tried to hand him a glass of water which he refused, you sighed and set the cup down. You were never close with Sidney Prescott despite her being in your "friend group" but you wanted to be there for your best friend Billy since his girlfriend was just murdered by a lunatic in a cheap Halloween costume. The two of you had been hiding in his ex-girlfriend's room since the two of you arrived at the wake, Billy spent almost the entire time silent while you sat beside him just trying to keep him company while he grieved.

You knew that he blamed himself for Sidney's death and you didn't know if being here would be good for him but he wanted to be here, to see her room one last time. You watched as he stood up and walked over to her desk and fumbled with something on it before muttering something you nearly didn't hear. "I deserve to rot."

Your expression softened as you looked up at him. "Billy, no you don't-"

"Yes I do." He raised his voice and turned to face you. "I'm the reason she died, I- I could've saved her." He stopped once he realised what he'd just said and covered his mouth as his eyes glossed over with tears and you quickly stood up and pulled him in for a hug, he cried into your shoulder as you rubbed his back and said nothing, just letting him let out his emotions before the door opened and Stu walked in.

"I thought I'd find you guys in here." Stu spoke quietly, he came over and sat on Billy's right side. "How're you holding up?"

"Well, my girlfriend is dead, and you couldn't have arrived any later." He scratched his eye and stepped away from you, looking at the two of you. "We should get going, I just want to get this over with." Billy grabbed his coat that was hanging over the chair at the desk and didn't wait for the two of you as he walked out to his car. Stu looked at you.

"What is it?" Stu asked, sitting down on the bed.

"He still blames himself for her death, you know?"

"Yeah, Sid really meant a lot to him but he'll be fine."

"I don't know, Stu. I'm just worried that he's going to do something regrettable."

Stu shook his head, you swore he tried to hide a smile. "He'll be fine, trust me."

You just nodded in response and the two of you exited the house, finding Billy leaning against his car smoking. When he saw you he chucked his cigarette on the floor and stomped on it before getting into the car. The ride to the church was silent except for the sound of the radio playing quietly and Stu humming along in the backseat, the car slowed to a stop outside the church next to multiple news vans and other cars. People dressed in black filed into the church, Billy didn’t move. “Billy? We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.”

“No I do it’s just that-” He ran a hand through his hair. “- I have to, I was her boyfriend. Uh, just, I’ll catch up with you guys, I’m just going to talk to daddy dearest.” He pointed at Mr. Loomis who was not so subtly eying the car, you and Stu stepped out of the car and began walking up to the church.

You turned your head to see Billy stepping out of the car and walking over to talk with his father before you and Stu entered the church and found a free row at the back and sat down, throwing your coat down in the space beside you for Billy. “I’ve never been to a funeral before.”

Stu looked at you. “Really? Well don't get too excited, someone just died." you rolled your eyes and scanned the room in the hopes you'd find someone who looked familiar but instead you just saw a bunch of your high school peers who you knew Sid never talked to, Stu caught onto this. "Yeah, I think about 10 people here actually knew Sid, the rest are just fans."

"Fans?"

"Yeah, a lot of these people are just here so they can say 'hey, I went to Sidney Prescott's funeral', and then there's mostly people who idolise the guy who killed her because they think he's a hunk underneath that costume. There are people out there who actually think the killer's hot. I mean, how messed up is that?" Stu laughed and a few seconds later Billy slid into the seat beside you and thanked you.

"What did your father want?"

"Oh he asked me if I had prepared that eulogy for the funeral. . .which I didn't." Billy ran a hand through his hair and looked around as Mr. Loomis walked in, making eye contact with him for a few seconds before finding his own seat. You turned to Billy and gently touched his arm, he looked down at you and you went to talk but the sound of feedback filled the room. You looked forward and saw a woman apologising and holding a microphone.

She introduced herself as Sidney's aunt and Neil's sister, she was the first of many people to give their speeches about Sidney. Finally, after what seemed like forever, a family member finished their eulogy about Sidney and stood in front of the podium. "Now I would like Billy Loomis - Sidney's boyfriend - to come up, Billy?" Billy stood up and awkwardly walked up to the front of the hall and got behind the podium, pulling out a folded piece of paper and unfolding it and looking at the crowd of people.

"Sidney. Sidney, Sidney, Sidney, where do I start with you?" Billy sighed. "Alright, I have to admit that this is just a blank piece of paper." Billy held the paper up and flipped both sides to the audience sitting below him as if he was a magician, an awkward silence filled the room. Billy awkwardly coughed and stuffed the paper into one of the pockets on his suit and apologised before continuing. "Sidney would've laughed. She was truly something, you know she didn't deserve this. I just wish I could go back to that night and save her. It just- it repeats in my head over and over and it haunts me. All I can see is her face and her voice- oh, her voice. I'd give so much just to hear her voice one more time or hold her. I just miss her so much." Billy bit his lip as his eyes began to water, he recomposed himself and continued his speech. "Sidney was such a beautiful person. I remember this one time when we were together. We were watching this horror movie together and there's this part where one of the characters gets possessed and he's just being thrown around the room, but she pauses it and turns to me and she starts talking about how she wants a future with me." Billy paused as scattered sobs filled the audience. "She didn't deserve any of this and I mean this with all due respect but whoever kill you, Sids, I'm going to fucking-"

“Okay that’s enough, Mr. Loomis.” The person who announced him pulled him away from the podium and Billy joined you and Stu again in the back of the church as one of Sidney’s relatives stood up to give her speech. Billy sat down looking surprisingly calm despite his short outburst, some people were still turning back to offer judging and amusing glances at him.

"You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" He looked forward for a few seconds then looked at you, speaking in a hushed voice. "Hey, wanna ditch this? Grab Stu and meet me outside." He didn't wait for a response before getting up and leaving. Stu looked really confused and was about to ask about what happened but you shut him up by grabbing his arm and pulling him up, practically dragging him out of the building.

You both caught up to Billy as he was getting into his car and you noticed that he was acting completely different from how his was this morning let alone just a few minutes ago, it was as if he'd forgotten what'd happened or maybe he didn't care. You and Stu got in and Billy turned the radio up as loud as he could and barely let you put on your seatbelt before driving.

To be honest you were worried and a bit too scared to ask him what was going on. You would've asked Stu but he was back to his old goofy self and encouraging Billy's reckless behaviour so you decided to keep quiet and let Billy take you guys to wherever pleased him. Eventually you guys just ended up at a 7/11 - you were expecting a cliff or maybe a ditch but you were glad that you were alive. The three of you got out and Billy threw his arms around yours and Stu's shoulders as the three of you walked in and got a few questioning looks from the other customers.

Stu broke apart from your little group and began hunting down snacks in the snack aisle while you and Billy went straight to the slushie machines. "Hey, Billy? What was all that before?"

"What'cha mean? Oh, Cola or Raspberry?"

"Raspberry. I mean, you were devastated and now we're here." he began filling up two plastic cups and waited until they were full before handing them both to you.

"Eh, it never mattered anyway. Hey, go hand this to Stu and make sure he's not being an idiot." you took them and went to find Stu who from over the shelves, looked like he was one wrong move away from dropping all the crap he was holding. Still you were very confused about Billy's reaction but you assumed he was just having a mood swing to cope with Sidney's death. You glanced back at him before walking into the snack aisle and laughing at how stupid Stu looked.

"A little help here?"

"Sorry, my hands are full." You held up the two slushies and Stu ended up dropping everything on the floor. "Jeez, let me put these on the counter then I'll come help you." You shook your head while biting back a smile and found the front counter and set the drinks down as Billy passed you holding another cup. "Stu's in trouble." You laughed as you followed him to see Stu trying to pick up all the stuff he dropped plus a few extra chocolate bars from the shelf.

"At least you didn't drop the soda. Fuck, the soda." Billy dumped all the stuff he was holding and went to grab a 24 pack of coca cola cans, Stu giving him an 'are you joking' look and rolling his eyes as he picked up the rest of the snacks.

You helped them clean up the mess and ended up only buying 3 bags of chips and 12 candy bars instead of 20 bags of chips and 17 candy bars like Stu had originally planned, paid for them all and left. You got into the car and threw all the bags of snacks into the back for Stu to 'guard' and took a sip of your drink as Stu and Billy stood outside and talked.

A few minutes later they both got into the car. "Y/N, do you want to stay over tonight"

"Yeah, sure." You nodded and noticed Billy and Stu grinning at each other through the rear view mirror, not thinking much of it as Billy started the car and pulled out of the gas station.

"Thanks for staying here tonight."

"Yeah it's good." You said as you caught a pillow Billy threw at you and dropped it on top of the spread out blankets on the couch. "Are you sure your dad's cool with me staying over?"

"Yeah, he's working late tonight anyways."

Stu dumped all the snacks on the coffee table and ran into the kitchen to grabbed 3 cans of cola and fell onto your makeshift bed. "Okay so what are we watching first? We got Day of the Dead, Re-animator, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, or The Funhouse." Billy threw you another pillow which you immediately whacked Stu with, causing him to fall off the couch, you dropped down onto the couch and grabbed a bag of chips but Stu grabbed it before you could open them. "These are for the movie marathon." He stuck a finger up at you to wave in your face but you just kicked in and grabbed the chips off him again and opened the bag.

Billy rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the movies off the table and stuck it into the tv and sat beside you as the movie loaded on screen while Stu pulled himself off the floor and grabbed one of the coca cola cans and popped it open, taking a sip.

About two movies into the marathon the three of you ended up passing out but you were the first to wake up. Checking the time it was only 10:31PM and you really needed to use the bathroom so you got up and jumped over Stu's body and walked upstairs and found the bathroom and did your business. You came out of the bathroom and was about to go back downstairs when you noticed that Billy's bedroom door was opened and your curiosity got the better of you as you peaked downstairs and saw that the two guys were still asleep and creeped into the bedroom.

Billy's room was exactly what you'd expected it to be, some band posters on the wall above his bed and a messy room. You don't know what you wanted to see, maybe a naughty magazine loosely hidden under his bed, maybe a bottle of alcohol. You shrugged and went to leave his room when you noticed something behind his door and opened it to see a small pile of black material.

You opened the door and stuck your head out again before closing it and picking up the material which you were certain was just a shirt he forgot to throw in with the rest of his dirty laundry, but instead a knife fell out. It made a semi-loud noise as it hit the hard wood floor and you covered your mouth and hoped that it didn't wake up Billy or Stu - Billy especially. You went to pick up the knife but then you felt something else hidden in the fabric and turned it over to see a white mask, this is a Father Death costume, the same one used in the Woodsboro murders.

This could mean one of two things, Billy was another one of those losers who terrorises random people for fun, or he actually killed Sidney, and you really hoped he was just a loser. You quickly dropped the costume on top of the knife and kicked it into the corner where you found it and exited the bedroom and you were about to go back downstairs but then you realised that you needed answers so you grabbed the costume and knife and hid it behind your back with one hand and headed downstairs.

Billy and Stu were still asleep. "Wake up." You half-yelled, Stu managed to wake up while Billy stayed still, lightly snoring. Stu rubbed his eyes and looked at you before realising that something was wrong. He tried to get up but you held your free hand up and he began hitting Billy's chest, waking him up after a few hits.

"What is time it?" The two of them were still trying to wake up when you bit your lip and held up the mess of black fabric and the knife and their faces both dropped and turned pale at the same time. You dropped the contents onto the floor and without skipping a beat you walked for the front door. You didn't get far before Billy grabbed you and forced you to look at him. "Y/N, I swear it's not what it looks like."

"You killed her." You said quietly, Billy let go of you but you didn't really react. He expected anything from screaming to attacking but you just stood there, confusing him.

"I don't understand, you’re supposed to be yelling at me! And… and hitting me! Why aren’t you doing that?”

"Well, I'm just trying to make this easy for you. If you want to kill me, then do it."

Now Stu had stood up and was watching the two of you, Billy bit the inside of his cheek. "We're not going to kill you, Y/N." He took a step closer to you and you took a step back. "Y/N, please. We have no reason to hurt you, think about that. I only killed Sid of her mother." He took another step towards you but this time you didn't move.

You didn't know what you wanted or if you could trust either of them. Billy got closer and gently pulled you in for a hug, slowly wrapping his arms around you and resting a hand in your hair and rubbing your back. "I don't know why but I trust you." You whispered just loud enough for him to hear and his grip on you slightly tightened - not in a claustrophobic way, but more comforting as you felt yourself melt into him. "Just don't kill me."

#slasher #writing #horror #scream #ghostface #billy loomis #stu macher #billy x stu x reader #angst

171 notes · View notes

cobaincreates · 4 years

Text

smart decisions

warnings: drinking, angst, smut, fingering, nsfw, 18+

count: 10k+

hiiiiiiiii so i’m a horndog & i can’t get enough of rafe cameron (or drew) or college rafe & i also wanna cry over them so here you go. let me know whatcha thinkin’. please i’m begging you.

also the photo isn’t mine i got it from here!

songs i imagined - this one & this one

— — —

transferring colleges had to have been your smartest decision to date. going from putting your strengths into a place that was not willing to acknowledge them to, now, receiving credit where credit was most deservingly due. your first choice for school had been some place close to home, you figured why not opt for the cheaper option to save yourself, and your parents, a little money. you spent a few months getting into the swing of things, heading to class each day with a fresh mind and hopeful thoughts. it wasn’t until six months in that you realized you deserved so much better, and at a better school.

it took time, figuring out your best bet and where to go and all the finances. you definitely grew impatient a year in, trying to stick it out at home to receive your credits. but once the moment arrived, you packed all your things and moved states away. you loved it; you loved the classes, you loved your friends, you loved your professors. you were completely happy with your choice to go. your parents might not have been, but the weekly calls home for your progress report were substitute enough.

wednesday, 5 p.m.

you scribbled a doodle you had been going over and over, darkening the lines so much you saw it behind your eyelids now. you snapped out of it and looked back at your textbook.

the library was so quiet, you heard pages being turned from every corner, the chewing of gum from a tense jaw, and the soft snores of someone passed out in one of the private cubicles across the way. none of those things distracted you really since you had come to the study session with a couple of your friends, all three of you making a pact to get shit done.

melly was able to listen to music while she studied and was more of a typer as her fingers moved fast along the keys of her laptop. she came dressed in her comfiest clothes, sporting a knit sweater and joggers. lina had snacks across the table to keep her sustained. she was a strong believer that she learned better while being fed. it made you laugh still. she was a writer like you, very organized in her notes with highlighters and different colored pens. she even drew headers for each page for the hell of it. you wondered where she got the drive. then there was you, black ink, the main topic underlined, things to remember written repeatedly. you learned better after writing things down, you couldn’t just read a book and have the information implanted in your brain. as much as you wished it were that easy.

you were studying for an upcoming psychology test, one that you were sure would be a piece of cake given how well you did in the class itself. it was one you didn’t plan on taking, but you needed another course to get enough credits for the year.

lina was munching on some almonds, turning a page in her notebook, and picking up a blue pen. you were in the middle of writing a definition down and filling up the last of the page, your hand starting to cramp with how much pressure you were using. you flexed it once you put your pen down and squeezed an imaginary ball.

both yours and lina’s eyes flicked up to melly across the table who let out a low moan. she was pulling her headphones off and looking in the completely opposite direction of her computer.

“why is he so fine?” she asked, low enough for the two of you to hear.

you looked over your shoulder at the same time lina did and searched in the general area melly was focused on. all you saw was a guy walking through the library, sporting a backpack and a lacrosse sweatshirt, the hood pulled over his head.

“he really knows what he’s doing, huh?” lina said dreamily.

you furrowed your eyebrows as you watched him turn into a row of books and you glanced at melly as you faced the other way, planning on getting back to your work. melly was dazed as she still looked in his direction.

“who is that?” you asked after a moment of both of them still ogling.

lina turned toward you as melly closed her laptop a little to lean over it. “what did you just say?”

you looked between the two identical shocked expressions and laughed helplessly. “who is that?”

“oh, i forgot. you’re still new.” melly nodded in semi-acceptance then became serious. “that’s rafe cameron. he’s on the lacrosse team and we’re kind of obsessed with him.”

“it’s alarming,” lina said. she gave a quick glance over her shoulder then looked back at her notebook. “i love making myself sad over him not noticing me, but it’s fine. what’s even more alarming is how he’s still single.”

“i cannot express to you, y/n, how good,” melly emphasized, squeezing her eyes shut, “he looks with a little sweat.”

“you guys sound like stalkers.” you pointed out, smiling a little at their explanations.

“i’m not denying it. i said it was alarming.” lina shrugged as she looked from her textbook to her writing. “we’ve talked to him a couple of times at some parties, he’s a super nice guy but we just find him attractive. i think if i were a freshman, i’d be pathetically pining after him.”

melly hummed in agreement, her chin now propped in her palm. she wore a doe-like look, gazing between yours and lina’s heads and into the bookshelves. “don’t they have a game tomorrow? we should go.”

“it’s away.” lina said, but you had already lost interest in the topic and started reading a new chapter. you picked your pen back up, the muscles in your hand now relaxed, and the boy in the bookshelves out of your mind.

monday, 9 a.m.

you were going to be late and you hated the thought. there was no way you could miss this test when you had done nothing but study every last page for it. you even lost track of how many pages of notes you wrote for the test alone. it would be such a waste to miss it and it wasn’t worth getting a negative grade.

being late was not at all your fault. you had set your alarm early, eaten breakfast and read a few more chapters to get ahead, and packed your bag up so you’d be ready after a quick shower. turned out that all the showers on your floor were broken, the yellow “do not cross” tape like a bad omen. you started muttering to yourself as you carried along your shower caddy, going down to the next floor and finding a line to wait in. you knew it was probably your best bet instead of racing to another floor to check if there were more lines, plus you didn’t know how much time you had. you probably annoyed some people with the fidgeting, but all you could think about was the test.

it was ridiculous how long the showers took and how you had to leave your hair damp as you ran back up physical stairs. you burst through your door, threw your bathroom things on your bed, grabbed your bag and the few books you couldn’t stuff in. while leaving, the door shutting behind you, you made do with damp hair, twisting it up and out of your face. as you checked the time, you figured out that you had eight minutes exactly to get across campus and in your seat with a writing utensil ready.

even though you were late, you still held doors open for people, and you dodged others walking the opposite direction instead of the other way around. you kept checking the time as if the minutes would stop moving.

just as you were looking into your bag, your legs moving fast and assuredly, you ran right into something hard. you dropped the textbooks that you had been clutching, even with a death grip on them, and your bag slipped from your shoulder. a notebook poked out along with a pen rolling away on the walkway.

“woah,” the hard surface said.

“i’m so sorry, i was not looking.” you said quickly and bent down to get your things. of course, this would happen while you were in a rush. you supposed you were lucky it didn’t involve cars. god, that would’ve been so much worse.

“nah, it’s alright.” they said easily and bent down beside you, retrieving your things.

you scrambled for everything and shoved the notebook back into your bag. you spotted your keychain near their foot, their fingers closing around it before you could reach for it. you finally looked up as they held the key out to you, the ring hanging from their finger.

rafe cameron.

he looked different now that you could see his face better. and also, because he was so close this time. it was odd to know now that he had blue eyes and a light ghosting of stubble along his jaw and cheeks. it felt too personal being this close to someone you only knew the name of.

you felt a little silly for bumping into him, but you didn’t let it show. “thank you,” you said as you took the key from him and stood quickly to walk away. lina and melly surely wouldn’t give this up when you told them.

rafe had watched after you for a moment before turning back to his friend topper, raising his eyebrows in reference to what happened, and continuing their conversation.

you made it to class about three minutes late and sat in your seat, finally taking a breath. you settled in, putting your things at your feet, and digging around for a pen. all thoughts of bumping into rafe cameron left your mind.

8 p.m.

“you what?” melly coughed violently as she composed herself. lina was clutching her stomach, nearly dying of hysterics when the drink came out of melly’s nose a second earlier.

you held your head in your hands and inwardly groaned at having to tell the story. you were out to dinner with the two girls, munching on french fries and milkshakes. it was typical for you three to hang out on mondays since melly usually had a bad case of them each week. you had innocently slipped in that you just so happened to run into rafe cameron this morning and well, you hadn’t expected that to be melly’s reaction.

“i ran into him. i was late this morning and i wasn’t looking.” you could feel the embarrassment settle in as you recounted the minor event, at least to you.

“did he say anything?” her eyes were blown wide as she leaned across the table.

“i didn’t try to have a conversation with him.” you shrugged and picked at the plate of fries at the center of the table. melly gave you a look of mild bewilderment, the shock of it wearing off.

“missed opportunity.” lina joked, taking a long sip of her shake. “i wouldn’t know what to say either if i ran into him.”

you felt your shoulders loosen as the topic was slowly changing. melly laughed at lina’s remark, teasing her that she would’ve frozen up from bumping into anybody. you smiled and were glad that both of them didn’t take the story too seriously.

minutes later you were laughing loudly, head thrown back as melly was telling a story about her family and a public mishap with a tire. it was interesting to you to hear about what it was like growing up in a completely different environment than the one you did. you supposed that’s something you loved about college; getting to meet people from so many other states and cities.

you were smiling to yourself as you dipped a fry into your shake. just as you put it into your mouth and looked across the table at melly, her composure changed.

“oh, fuck.” she whispered and noticeably tried to look away. “don’t look.”

both you and lina turned around to look toward the front door. a dense group of bodies was coming in through the door, the atmosphere’s volume increasing with their chatter. toward the back you recognized rafe cameron. you weren’t sure at all what it was that made your heart clench in your chest.

“i said don’t look!” melly whispered louder. “oh, god. okay. act normal.” melly straightened up, trying not to be obvious with looking in their direction. you laughed and sat back in the seat. lina practically sunk into hers.

you didn’t watch as they approached, but you did look up once rafe entered your peripheral vision. he was with the guy from this morning, even if you hadn’t noticed him before. you just remembered rafe crouched in front of you while someone just as tall stood behind him, waiting. both of them were sporting lacrosse sweatshirts, along with some others in the group.

“hey, rafe.” melly said easily like she hadn’t just been freaking out over him a second ago.

you watched rafe lift his chin, smiling genuinely at her. you didn’t think anything of it when he glanced at you, the recognition so obvious as his face changed. he continued to walk to his table though, eyes steady on you for what felt like too long.

melly turned around and sank over the table, her mouth open in shock. “oh my god,” she said above the surface.

“oh my god,” lina said, turning to you in bafflement. “i feel like i’m in an alternate universe. did that just happen?”

“he just recognized me.” you brushed it off.

“no, y/n, he knew you. that was longer than five seconds.”

“why are you guys so obsessed with him anyways?” you laughed, trying to take the attention off you.

lina shrugged, seeming taken aback with the question. “i don’t really know.”

“because he’s gorgeous, that’s why.” melly intervened, dipping a fry into her shake.

you looked over melly’s shoulder, wondering what it was exactly that was so intriguing about the lacrosse player. you had had your fair share of athletes and could agree on some being drop dead gorgeous. maybe rafe cameron was just a nice guy all around and melly and lina just had pleasant interactions with him. maybe he was the type of college boy that looked out for everyone’s wellbeing and that’s what made your friends obsess over him. it could be a number of things.

thursday, 8 p.m.

you rubbed your eyes, yawning in the middle of it, and lay back on your bed. you had just closed your computer after typing up a 10-page essay. it was nine when you started it this morning. you were just glad your one class of the day was canceled and that you had time to write the paper before next week. plus, there were no classes tomorrow, and you could have a whole day of doing nothing. you were stoked, to say the least.

feeling a vibration beside you, you reached for your phone and opened a text from lina. incoming in 5, it said, followed by a rattling of knocks on your door. you rolled off the bed and shuffled over, finding her and melly with wide smiles. it was infectious as you felt your own smile appearing on your face.

“what are you guys doing here?” you asked curiously, stepping aside to let them in. the door clicked softly shut as you followed melly to your bed where she went to sit. lina leaned against the wall across from you, careful of your roommate’s things.

“we were invited to a party and we were wondering if you wanted to come with.” lina said, sharing a quick look with melly.

you glanced between them, eyes narrowing. “what’s so special about this party?”

“god, how can you even tell that?” melly asked, slightly rolling her eyes.

“you guys have known each other longer than i've known either of you, but you’re easy to read.” you laughed.

“i don’t like that.” melly said quietly to herself.

you grinned at her, noting her curls springing around her face. melly usually had her hair pulled back out of the way and it was very rare to see her with a different hairstyle. there had been some days where she had braids and you enjoyed seeing the change of pace. lina on the other hand always let her hair down. tonight though, she had straightened it and thrown it into a high ponytail. you hadn’t really gone to a lot of parties with the girls, so seeing them all done-up was always fascinating.

“seriously, what’s the deal?” you asked again, looking to lina since she was the one who had proposed the idea.

she shared another look with melly again before finally coming out with it. “it’s at rafe cameron’s apartment.”

you felt that clenching again in your chest, in that same spot from last night. you swallowed, feeling how dry your mouth was in the span of three seconds.

“well, it’s his and topper’s apartment, so not technically just his.” lina said, waving her hand in enunciation. she crossed her arms. “i have this study group with topper and he invited me and mel and anyone else really.”

“come on, it’ll be fun.” melly said, nudging your arm.

you looked at the girl beside you, ready to say no mostly in panic of seeing rafe. you had nothing to worry about or freak out over, but it was a scary thought. so many things happened at parties. so many things could happen.

“okay,” you said easily.

the prior fears dissipated quickly as lina and melly gave a small cheer and encouraged you to get ready, and to take your time. you spent the next ten minutes asking them what you should wear, going through your side of the closet. all three of you agreed on a plaid skirt you had bought a few weeks before on a spontaneous shopping trip. you only wore it once since then and had been meaning to pull it out again. you paired it with a sweater, something easy to keep you warm through the night instead of bringing a jacket along. lina and melly agreed excitedly when you changed and raised your eyebrows, searching for approval.

9 p.m.

holding on tightly to lina’s hand, you laughed hysterically to the point of tears and a clear indicator in the nether region that you had to pee, badly. a connie bailey rae cover was playing from a speaker near you, your laughter probably not as loud as you thought it to be as you calmed down. melly stopped her ridiculous reenactment and pulled an exaggerated disgusted face as she dodged someone trying to dance with her. you shook with laughter and took a long sip of your drink, tilting your head back to finish it in one gulp.

the party had been way more fun than you thought it would be, especially when you walked the four blocks to get there. lucky for you, you had been smart and worn flat boots. the apartment was a good size for the event and had plenty of space to gather, enough left over for those that wanted a break from either dancing or just to relax. some people you didn’t recognize had the large tv on, a video game on the bright screen. there was plenty of shouting coming from their general direction, a wave of arms and pointing of rigid fingers.

you had seen rafe in passing, but never made the initial eye contact as if to let each other know that you were near. stepping into the apartment and being greeted with his friend topper, you felt like you were intruding or trespassing by being in rafe’s space. you didn’t know him, or topper for that matter, and it felt odd to you to be in their physical home.

“where’s the bathroom?” you asked lina as melly went to get more snacks.

lina stood up on her toes and pointed at a closed door. “i'm pretty positive it’s over there.”

you gave her a nod and walked in the direction she pointed you in, finding a couple people waiting against the wall. you took a place there and acted as a fly on the wall for a total of five minutes since the line went fast. once inside, you took a deep breath, feeling refreshed at the open window and the cool air coming in.

you dried your hands and placed the towel back where it was on the counter and opened the door. the next person waiting rushed in rather quickly, making you stumble against the doorway. you laughed to yourself and felt the rush of sudden wind as the door slammed.

excusing yourself past a small group, you headed toward the refreshments. you were already thirsty after having emptied your bladder seconds before, but you were aware it was just the addictive alcohol buzzing through your system. it was crowded closer to the drinks, rightfully so, and it only took one person to move for you to see rafe acting as a stand-in bartender.

part of you wanted to run right back out of the kitchen and find lina and melly, but the other part of you wanted to give a swift kick to your rear. you chose the latter and walked over to where he was at the counter. he was in the middle of pouring someone else’s drink and you stood on his other side, taking in his appearance while you still could. the blue hat on his head read “obx”, turned backwards. he wore an off-white t-shirt, the graphic design on the back drawing you in. you were too busy staring at his shoulders molded with the fabric to realize he had turned around and you were now staring at his chest. you blinked up at his face, smiling lightly.

“hi.” he said, a small lilt to his voice as he recognized you once again.

“hi.”

“can i get you something?” he asked, and you felt your shoulders falter a little, thinking that was all he was going to say to you. stick to his image of drink tender and have you go on your way. but his body told you differently as he turned fully to face you.

“um, i can get it.” you said, the instant flight taking effect at the very prospect of being shot down.

rafe nodded and stepped out of the way, moving further into the corner of the counter. you smiled at him and poured your own drink, mixing up your favorite. rafe still stood there and you could feel the strong vice his eyes had on you. it made you a little self-conscious, but you relaxed with a deep breath.

“i never got your name.” rafe said just as you took a sip and turned to leave the kitchen. “you know, from the other day.”

“that’s because i was too busy bumping into you.” you let out a small laugh and stepped closer to him, out of the way if someone wanted a drink. you turned your back to the fridge and tried to find a spot to lean on as rafe looked down at you, a smile playing at his lips. “i am sorry about that again. i was in a rush for a class.”

“it’s no problem. i’m just glad you’re okay, we hit pretty hard.”

“y/n.” you said and held out a hand respectfully.

“rafe,” he slipped his hand into yours, warm and strong, and smiled widely.

“i think i’ve heard your name only a million times in the past week.” you admitted, knowing that lina and melly would kill for brownie points. “my friends are a bit obsessed with you and fully willing to educate the newbie.”

“obsessed, huh? lina and mel, right?”

you nodded and took another sip. rafe reached on the counter and grabbed a handful of pretzels. he held some out to you. “they’re nice girls,” rafe said easily. “i’ve hung out with them a couple times, but i didn’t know they were obsessed.” he laughed to himself.

you munched on a pretzel and froze at an idea. “you’re not going to tell them i told you, are you?”

“not unless you want me to.”

you stared at him for a bit longer than you planned, then let out a breath and took another pretzel from his hand. it was odd to be sharing food with him when just the other day you felt like your heart was tearing in your chest. at the moment, you could only feel a dull ache.

“so, how do you like it?” rafe asked.

“like what?”

“campus, the college.”

you nodded and swallowed some of your drink to wash the pretzels down. “things have been really great. i enjoy it here. it’s an immense difference than my first college back home, so i’m happy.”

rafe smiled. “and the party?”

you followed his nod to the people around you, glancing to your original spot where you left lina. you didn’t see her anywhere until some people moved and you found her and melly sat on the couch. they were playing the video game with a whole mess of guys. you grinned.

“the party is great.” you commended, looking back at him. he had finished the rest of the pretzels in his hand.

“good.” he nodded. “i always get nervous when top and i invite people over. we’ve done it a bunch of times, but there’s always the possibility of something going wrong.”

“well, you’re doing great. both of you. hopefully, nothing horrible happens.”

11 p.m.

you would be lying if you said that your conversation with rafe from hours ago wasn’t still running through your head. it was difficult not to think about it when you kept seeing him more often throughout the party. most of the time you’d catch his eye, or vice versa, and instantly smile. you’d then recall the sound of his laugh and would even hear it from feet away. the clenching in your chest was now accompanied by a swirling in your stomach.

you were pacing yourself with your drinks, but by now you were on your fifth of the night. you were completely aware of everything around you and you were enjoying the ongoing buzz. lina and melly were a bit more inebriated than you were, which only added to the fun.

the two girls in front of you were swaying to a song together, not even close to being slow tempo. it was very upbeat, the bass pumping through the walls. the front door to the apartment was now open since it had begun to get warmer with the more and more people that were joining. a few windows were thrown open as well.

“you remember how in freshman year you fell down that flight of stairs and twisted your ankle and practically bashed your head in and then your mom yelled at you and then your sister called to tell you she was pregnant and then your dad! oh my god, and then your dad was like ‘hey i’m thinking of leaving your mom so uh, yeah’ and then your mom was so pissed but then she was fine because she found a total hunk of a man to replace your dad like that,” melly snapped her fingers as your body started to shake with laughter. lina was laughing too, not at all bothered with a quick recap of her, very shitty, first year.

“yes, thank you for reminding me mel. i love when we have tantalizing conversation like this.” lina leaned her head against the others’.

mel giggled, a few hiccups escaping. “i think i need to pee.”

“god, you’re like a peeing machine.” lina sighed and tightened her arm around melly.

“that’s what drinking will do to you.”

lina rolled her eyes and looked at you as she brought melly to the bathroom. you asked quickly if she needed help, but she shook her head and promised they’d be back soon. you watched them go then turned back to the party, turning too fast and not feeling the presence behind you in the moment. a cool liquid pooled over and down your chest, soaking the fabric of your sweater. you gasped at the contact, your mouth dropping open and looking down at the dark stain.

“i— “ you looked up to tell the person it was fine before an apology came out, finding that off-white t-shirt on a very familiar blue-eyed person. “we have to stop meeting like this.”

rafe looked horrified at having spilled his drink all over your sweater, his eyes wide as they stared at your chest.

“that’s the most cliché thing to say.” you said, laughing lightly to ease the tension so obvious in his features.

he let out a laugh too. “you can borrow something of mine. come on,” he held out his hand and you took it willingly, realizing some people were staring at the accident way too curiously. you let rafe lead you up the stairs, the complete darkness on the landing causing you to focus solely on his hand in yours.

rafe opened a door and flipped a light on, your eyes adjusting to the brightness. he led you further in and closed the door behind you before rushing to his dresser, a whole display of cologne bottles on top. as he rummaged through the drawers, you stood just in front of the door, a little timid to step further in. you were holding your sweater away from your chest, already feeling the stickiness of liquid on your skin.

“how’s this one?” he asked, holding out a simple white one.

“you don’t have to give me a shirt.”

“it’s the least i can do. the bathroom is right there.” he handed the shirt to you and nodded just behind your shoulder. you thanked him and went in, closing the door with a click. you pulled the sweater off and dampened a washcloth, wiping the dried drink from your skin. pulling the shirt on, you relished in how soft it was and styled the piece of fabric so it looked better with your skirt.

rafe was sitting on a couch next to his bed, more like a futon, his hands in his pockets and hat off his head. he looked up as you came out, straightening his posture and looking you up and down.

“i’m sorry.” he smiled guiltily.

you smiled and walked over, moving around the small circular coffee table and sitting next to him. “guess it was payback for the other day,” you teased as you folded your sweater and set it next to you.

rafe rolled his eyes with a knowing smile. you glanced at him as you leaned back, feeling the softness and rigidness of the futon. “you look good in my shirt.”

“i feel better in a less damp one.” you said, easing the fluttering in your stomach. your chest clenched again as you crossed your legs.

glancing around rafe’s room, you admired the movie posters on the walls and the multiple lacrosse paraphernalia. one of his jerseys lay crumpled at the end of his bed, the comforter pulled over the pillows to look made. it was better than you did with your bed, you were pretty sure yours was unmade and messy.

it was a decent sized room, plus the bathroom was nice to have. you’d kill for your own bathroom again. it would be nice not to wait in a line. you told yourself that you just had to figure out an earlier schedule so you could beat the crowd.

after a once-over of rafe’s room, you looked over at him to find him already looking at you. he was fully analyzing your face, you could see his eyes flickering to different parts.

you swallowed and licked your lips. “what?”

“nothing.” he said quickly and sighed, laying his head back on the couch.

you squinted at him, now tracing over his features. he looked nervous from what you could tell, his hands moving in his pockets. you stared at his chest moving up and down slowly, the intake of breath coming as it grew bigger. his adam’s apple protruded, bobbing slightly as he swallowed. your chest clenched once again as you looked at his face, watching him look up at the ceiling. he really was handsome. you shifted in your seat, switching your leg over the other.

“that look wasn’t nothing.” you commented, breathing in.

“what look?” he turned his head toward you, eyebrows slightly pushing together. you watched every change in his face, from his eyebrows to his eyes blinking then to his tongue peeking out to lick his lips.

“the look of ‘i want to eat you up’.”

he laughed, the couch shaking with him. “what does that entail?”

“major gazing and bedroom eyes.”

“bedroom eyes, huh?” he hummed and lifted his head. his lips tugged at a smirk.

“am i imagining things?” you asked seriously, slightly doubting if you made the right call. maybe he wasn’t thinking what you thought he had been. maybe you were imagining things.

rafe didn’t answer, instead looking down at the floor. the smirk alone told you that you had been right. his hands flexed in his pockets, hard for you to miss. a few silent minutes passed, the both of you listening to the party still going on downstairs.

“if you want to kiss me, all you have to do is ask.” you said quietly. after a moment you figured he hadn’t heard you, that he had lost himself in staring at the carpet.

“can i?”

“yes,” you nodded.

rafe sat up and met your eyes, moving closer until his thigh was touching yours. you shifted your upper half closer to him, feeling a wave of shivers run through you the second his hand touched your cheek. you instinctively pressed your legs tighter together as your heartbeat picked up and rafe lowered over you, licking his lips once more. they were soft and firm, just as they needed to be. he tilted your chin up, his thumb brushing just beside your mouth as you kissed.

seconds later, you brought your own hands to his face. you were eager to touch him, to feel the solidness of him against you. it was mostly a reassurance that this was in fact happening and that you weren’t dreaming. you pushed a hand into his hair just behind his ear and mirrored the last few pecks he was leaving you before he fully pulled away. you felt a pinch of disappointment, the small taste for him now growing bigger. you had to stop your hands from pulling him back.

he pulled away only a little and you opened your eyes to see him still so close and looking over your face. your breaths mingled together.

“what?” you huffed, letting your head fall back for a second in slight irritation. you just wanted to kiss him again. you let your hand slide down from his hair, resting near his shoulder. you wanted to squeeze the muscle under your hand.

“nothing.” he said again, eyes flickering down to your lips once more. he smiled, holding himself up on the back of the couch. his thumb brushed the same spot on your cheek. “don’t tell anyone, but i’ve been imagining this since you showed up tonight.”

you returned your hand to his hair, slightly scratching with a smile. “i knew you spilled your drink on purpose.”

rafe grinned widely and moved back into you. this kiss was deeper, your lips opening for him when you felt his tongue. his hand left your cheek and appeared on your hip, ever so slightly pushing your shirt up so he could touch your skin at your waist. you smiled against him as you felt his hand slowly creep up the shirt. you were reminded again that it was his and you pulled him closer by the back of the neck, hearing a soft moan leave his lips. your thighs squeezed, your excitement starting to rise.

“you just gave it to me and now you want to take it off?” you teased as rafe’s hand covered one of your breasts, the cool air of the room reaching your skin. rafe smiled and kissed you again.

his hand disappeared, apparently changing his mind, and reappeared on your thigh. you breathed in sharply at the warmth coming from his palm, resting just above your knee. your brain started to spaz for a moment and you imagined a bunch of smaller yous, running in circles like their heads were cut off.

rafe’s hand stayed steady as you uncrossed your legs, a silent invitation. he moved to kiss the corner of your mouth. “is this okay?”

the fact that he was pulling away multiple times to check in on you had to be evidence enough of why lina and melly liked him so much. you hadn’t met many guys that were so in tune with consent or caring about what you wanted. it turned you on seeing it coming from him.

“yes.” you nodded as you touched his forearm, not wanting to seem too eager.

you anticipated his hand moving and when it did, you held back the moan. you were much too eager for teasing and he was showing no signs of not giving you want you wanted. as he got closer to you, you placed your hand over his. he pulled you back for a kiss and you decided to focus on that for a moment to lessen your nerves.

his touch was soft once he met your underwear. his fingers pressed over you and you shivered from how wet you had become because of him. he hummed into your mouth, only adding to the pooling between your legs. his hand reached back and pushed your skirt further up so he could get to you more easily.

you let out a satisfied sigh against his lips as he ran a finger through your folds, collecting your wetness. your underwear had been pushed to the side, out of the way, finally feeling his touch.

“are you this wet for me?” he asked. you nodded against his forehead and pulled him back, letting out a moan as he brushed over your clit. it was only for a second, but you were about ready to burst.

you opened your legs wider for rafe, his fingers moving over you and exploring the new area. you gripped his hand to silently ask him for more along with an impatient moan. you wanted his fingers so badly in places you weren’t ready to admit yet. he wanted the opposite.

“talk to me.” he said, nudging the side of your face with his nose, planting a kiss to your jaw. you opened your eyes that had fallen shut, your breath getting heavier. your chest felt like it was going to cave in.

“please,” you said, adjusting your hips. “please, touch me.”

“i am.” he pulled away, a menacing smirk on his face just to gauge your reaction.

you huffed out and pulled his hand closer. “you know what i mean, rafe.”

“i like when you say my name.” he pressed a kiss to your lips sweetly.

“i might like when you touch me, so get on with it already.”

rafe laughed huskily, his breath blowing over your face. “you want my fingers?”

you wanted to roll your eyes at how badly he wanted you to beg, but you wanted his fingers more. “yes, please. i want your fingers. give me something.”

you let go of his hand as he finally pushed a finger into you. you adjusted around him for a moment and felt the need to close your legs to keep him there. he pulled your lips back to his, his tongue quick to lick into you. you held his face again as his finger started to move inside of you.

“you want another, pretty girl?” he asked after a few moments passed. you nodded again, breathing hoarsely, too intoxicated in him to speak. a second finger pushed into you then, stretching you ever so slightly. you sighed, letting your head fall back to the couch.

“you’re so wet.” he said as he moved his fingers, delighting in the sounds he was making with you in the palm of his hand. “you’re taking my fingers so well, y/n. do they feel good?”

you moaned as he said your name for the first time. it was something you didn’t think you’d like so much, but with the current situation, it was wonderful.

rafe’s lips appeared on your neck. you held the back of his head as he pressed a few kisses then closed his lips over a spot closer to your collarbone. if your breath had been short then, it was even shorter now as he worked to leave a mark on you. with all the attention you were getting, it only brought you closer to your release, and you started to move your hips. he freed your skin, startled at your movements, then amazed as he watched you chase his fingers. the spot he left throbbed now, all your blood rushing to two places at once.

“are you going to come?” he asked as you heard the start of song you had been replaying for the past few weeks. it was muffled and you could barely hear the words, but you knew it by heart.

“yes, fuck.” you looked up at him, taking in the sight. he was breathing over you, his eyes never straying too far from yours as your mouth opened in pleasure. “rafe, make me come.”

you squeezed your eyes shut as he kissed you hard, breathing deeply into your mouth. he reached his thumb to your clit and began to draw circles at a normal pace with his fingers. your stomach started to twist, the familiar feeling forming fast as he picked up the pace. he could tell you were close by the sheer dig of your fingertips on the back of his neck. it only edged him on more to bring you to your climax.

“come on my fingers.” he said, eyes half closed as he looked at you, lips brushing over yours as he spoke. you whimpered and felt your hips twitch before stilling completely, trapping rafe’s hand between your legs, as you came undone. his thumb continued to move to help you through it. your jaw went slack, eyes rolling under your eyelids, as you moaned loudly. you felt an overwhelming sense of content, the adrenaline rush coming and going quickly.

your blood pumped in your ears and it took you a few moments to register rafe giving you subtle kisses all over the underside of your jaw. you breathed in shakily and let your head fall back on the couch, your knees separating. rafe took his hand away and you winced as he did. you already missed the contact.

the moment was completely ruined as his name was called up the stairs. rafe’s lips disappeared from you as he looked toward the door. you didn’t know what came over you as you pulled your skirt down over your thighs, the footsteps heavy outside his door before a couple of his friends burst in.

“guys, come on. get the fuck out!” he shouted in annoyance, sitting up completely, his leg still touching yours.

“woah, sorry.” they said as they took in your presence. you shifted and knew that they could probably tell what you and rafe had been doing. they evidently didn’t care as they went into a whole spiel of something that had taken place downstairs. rafe tried to stop them and their alcohol-induced exuberance.

he looked at you over his shoulder, touching you lightly on the knee. “i'm sorry.” he said, his friends not hearing as they talked to one another. “i'll see you downstairs?”

part of you felt completely stupid when he said it, like everything that had happened moments ago was just an imagination. you felt your shoulders slump, but you nodded and got up anyways. the door was quick to close behind you and you were left in the dark landing, leaning against the wall to catch your breath. you smoothed your hair, took a deep breath, and fixed your underwear and skirt again.

your eyes adjusted gradually as you went down the stairs back into the swing of things. you swallowed, your mouth still dry post-climax. you went into the kitchen and filled up a cup with water, downing it slowly and stepping out of the way of some people. you couldn’t help but feel drained as you watched the people around you, laughing, dancing, and drinking. you had just spent the last 30 minutes in rafe cameron’s room and now you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

“y/n!” you looked up at melly coming toward you, her makeup slightly smudged, but that didn’t change how great she looked. “there you are!”

you gave her an assured smile and finished the water in your cup. “hey.” you tried not to let anything show.

“lina and i are ready to go if you want to come with. i think we’re going to get some food somewhere in town. i was thinking curly fries or a veggie burger. lina is dying for— wait, where did you go? we looked everywhere.” her expression suddenly changed to one of concern as she stepped closer to you.

“i— uh, well clearly not everywhere.” you said shamelessly, feeling your neck grow warm.

melly opened her mouth to say something then stopped. “oh my god, why are you so flushed? what happened to your sweater?” she looked at the shirt, her eyes catching on something near your collarbone. her eyes went wide as you tried to hide the mark. “oh my god!”

monday, 4 p.m.

“i was thinking that it could go more like this,” your friend said as she pressed a few buttons on her laptop. a new beat started from the computer, the screen following along with the track. you bobbed your head along with the beat.

the campus coffeeshop was somewhere you liked to go, mostly to meet your friends, but you also enjoyed the coffee. sometimes before class you’d make it just in time to get an extra scone before they were all gone. it was a cozy place too, filled with older antiques and an endless display of guitars on every wall. sometimes they’d have an open mic for students, letting anyone with any sort of musical or comical talent perform. most of the acts were later in the week though so no one had to worry about coursework.

after your classes today, you had met up with a friend you hadn’t seen in a while. she was eager to show you what she had been working on for her musical composition classes and you had expressed that you were willing to listen.

the past weekend had been spent mulling over a certain party and a certain someone you couldn’t seem to forget. not that you tried to, to be fair. you’d hadn’t seen him since, which was nothing new given the amount of times you had encountered the boy since that day on campus or seen him for the first time in the library. you didn’t find things weird, but things were left upspoken and it had been bothering you. you knew that melly or lina could’ve easily gotten his number for you, had you asked, but you couldn’t bring yourself to, nor did you know what you would say. all you could do was hope that he was doing well and maybe, perhaps, thinking of you too.

it was inevitable to escape having to talk about what happened in rafe’s room with melly and lina. you weren’t willing to share all of the details right down to what he smelled like, but you didn’t deny that nothing occurred. they seemed satisfied when you recounted having to change your sweater and rafe being kind enough to offer you one of his shirts.

speaking of the shirt, you had gone to your dorm that night and taken it off, seeing that “cameron” was written on the back, along with a large number. no doubt it was for lacrosse. the prospect of it made you shiver before folding it up to leave on your desk. you hadn’t touched it since.

“christ, i've got a meeting with my advisor soon.” your friend said, quickly exiting the program on her screen and closing her computer. “thank you again so much for listening. i can’t express how relieving it is to have someone do this.”

you waved her off with a sweet smile and packed up your own things. “i'm always around if you need a first-time listener.”

both of you stood and pushed the metal chairs in. you followed her to the exit, listening to her as she explained the reasoning for her upcoming meeting. both doors opened, the one from her pushing and the other from rafe coming in. you looked up as he met your eyes, and you couldn’t deny how good it was to see him.

“hey,” he smiled at you as all three of you paused.

before you could say anything, the words sticking to your tongue, you looked back to your friend. she was looking between the both of you, unsure of what was going on. you swallowed and acknowledged her. “i’ll see you later?”

a small smile came onto her face as she looked at rafe then back to you and nodded. the door closed softly behind her. you looked back at rafe as you felt his hand ghosting over your forearm.

“hi,” you said finally.

“it’s good to see you. come up with me?” he gestured to the register and you nodded, letting him take your hand. you didn’t think too much of it as you stood alongside him as he ordered. when the cashier asked if there would be anything else, rafe looked at you expectantly. you blanked for a second, remembering that you didn’t get a drink earlier when you first arrived. you had immediately gone for a sandwich, satisfied that that would be your dinner.

rafe pulled out his wallet and paid for the two drinks. he then led you toward the pick-up counter and faced you with a soft smile. “how have you been?”

“okay,” you breathed in deeply. you weren’t exactly sure how to answer. were you supposed to tell him how freaked out you had been? no, you decided, best not to. “the weekend was busy.”

“mine too. i've got practice tonight so i thought i’d stop by for some energy. i’m glad i ran into you.”

you refrained from asking him if he was serious. you could see on his face that he was with the way he looked at you. “rafe—”

before you could say much of anything else, rafe’s hands appeared on your cheeks and his lips pressed to yours. you kissed him back just as gently even though you wanted to do more now that you felt him again. he pulled away as his order was called, turning to thank the barista as he took the two cups.

“come to my place to study? after practice, i mean.” he said as he held your cup out to you. you looked at it then back up at his questioning eyes, a sliver of hope in them. you pushed down the question at the tip of your tongue and accepted the coffee.

“we’re just studying?”

rafe beamed and nodded. “i have a huge test tomorrow that i can’t fail, so yes.”

7 p.m.

before parting ways with rafe earlier he had finally taken your phone and put his number in it, but not before taking an odd photo of himself. it made you laugh watching it happen though. he promised that he would be done with practice around now and you left your dorm a little earlier than you planned to. it was out of pure thrill really.

knocking on the front door, you waited patiently for it to be answered. you shifted the books in your arms as you heard soft footsteps behind the door. rafe opened it, standing in loose-fitting clothes with damp hair. he smiled instantly and welcomed you in.

it was a drastic difference compared to the party. the house was eerily quiet, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. rafe turned to you from the door.

“how many books did you bring?” he asked seriously, glancing at them against your chest.

“just two,” you said defensively only until you saw the grin. you rolled your eyes and turned away from him to kick your shoes off.

he was chuckling to himself as he went into the kitchen and pulled out snacks to have. “do you want anything to drink?”

“water would be great.”

“smart choice. less sticky.” he said, his back to you, but you could hear the satisfied tone of his voice at his remark.

once he gathered drinks and a plate of snacks, he led you upstairs. it was brighter this time with his door already open and lights already on. you glanced at the other closed one down the short hall, finding the sliver underneath completely dark. maybe topper wasn’t home.

“how was practice?” you asked, setting your things down. he placed the plate on the coffee table and took a seat on the floor. you brushed your hair away from your face and sat down beside him.

“good. just ran some drills, normal practice stuff.” he shrugged, munching on a chip.

“is topper not home?” you set your books on the table and opened them up to where you had marked. rafe moved to grab his things from his bag sitting on the couch. he copied your actions and pulled out a pencil and a notebook.

“no, he went out with some of the guys for food.” he said easily, opening to a blank page. you watched curiously as he wrote down the topic he was studying for.

both of you fell into a silence as you started to read from your books. you were worried about it being a strange silence, knowing what happened the last time you were in this room. it was fairly difficult to push it out of your mind and to focus when rafe was right next to you, so close, along with the thoughts and memory of his touch. you pushed everything out of your head and concentrated back on the page you were reading from.

it wasn’t long when rafe’s hand appeared on your bent leg. they were crossed under you and he had placed his hand like it belonged over the side of your knee. you looked at him in your peripheral but didn’t see him look up once to acknowledge that he had in fact done that. instead you let it happen, ignoring the way it warmed up your skin. you swallowed in anticipation of him interrupting your studying session to turn it into a quick make out session, but the longer the minutes passed the longer his hand stayed where it was. after a while, you forgot about it.

if you had taken one look at rafe, with no prior knowledge of him or of the way his hands felt on you, you would have never guessed that he becomes so engrossed in studying. for the whole two hours that you both spent together with your noses in textbooks, he hadn’t once started a conversation. he kept at reading and writing, jotting things down in his notebook, while you held your head above your own book and soaked up every last word. it was comforting knowing that. the plate had even emptied, mostly due to rafe’s insatiable appetite after practice. you weren’t that hungry from your sandwich earlier.

“okay, that’s it.” rafe said abruptly, causing you to look up as his hand left your knee. “my eyes are going to bleed if i read anymore.”

you laughed lightly and looked back at your book. “are you sure you studied enough?”

“i wrote a whole ten pages worth of notes.” he flipped through them, the pages brushing together.

you hummed, still engrossed in your text. rafe shuffled next to you, dropping his notebook over the open pages along with his pencil. he let out a long sigh which turned into a yawn.

“are you done?” he asked innocently, his head appearing on your shoulder.

you glanced at him and shrugged him off with a smile. “maybe.”

“come on,” he groaned and reached for your textbook. you automatically smacked his hand away. he laughed and quickly flipped it closed and took ahold of your chin to face him.

“that was a dick move.” you said, punching him softly on the arm.

“pay attention to me.” he whined, letting go of your chin only to touch your cheek.

you eyed him as he came closer, finally kissing you when you didn’t punch him again or push him away. you kissed him back as best you could with the speculation seeping into your brain then. rafe seemed to be able to tell.

“what is it?” he asked when he pulled away, running his thumb lightly along your cheekbone. it was reassuring almost.

you looked at him, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. you also thought about how badly it could go given the answer you were dreading. “i'm just— it’s nothing.” you shook your head quickly and leaned in to distract him with another kiss.

he reciprocated for only a moment. “what is it? you can tell me.”

“i guess i'm just wondering what we’re doing.” you rolled your shoulder as if you had a knot, pulling away from rafe in case he didn’t want to touch you. his hand fell from your face and he leaned his side against the couch.

“what do you want to do?”

you gave him a serious glare. “don’t make this a game, rafe. i'm just…wondering what your intentions are.”

rafe adjusted his posture and sat up straighter, all his attention on you. his eyebrows creased and you bit the inside of your lip self-consciously, knowing this wasn’t going to go how you wanted it.

“well, i'm enjoying spending time with you.”

“studying?” you asked with a monotone.

rafe glanced away from you as if he were wondering if he said the wrong thing. “yeah. is that so hard to believe?”

you wanted to huff again, but you held the breath in. your shoulders started to tense as you became frustrated. not because of him, mostly because of yourself for not being able to communicate. you felt stupid for asking it, but you did. “do you like kissing me?”

“of course i do.”

“is that all you want to do?” you finally asked, quickly looking away from him. you reached toward your textbook, fiddling with the pages.

“no,” rafe said. “i want to get to know you.”

it was hard for you not to roll your eyes. rafe noticed and a second later his hand touched your shoulder, gently shaking it.

“i'm serious. hey, look at me.” he pleaded, and you did. “i want to get to know you, but only if you’ll let me. i know the other night was weird and i don’t know— spontaneous, but i enjoyed it and i enjoy being around you. you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about it.”

“i’ve probably been thinking about it more than you.” you chided in a quiet voice, trying to tease him. you were pleased by the answer he gave you and you felt a little silly for being so stubborn at first.

rafe smiled slightly, eyes soft. “let’s just keep doing what we’re doing and see where it goes, okay?”

you took a deep breath in, pushing your book away and nodding. “okay.”

rafe’s hand rubbed your shoulder comfortingly before he pulled you in for an awkwardly placed hug. the side of your body fell into his chest, but he hugged you, nonetheless, pressing a quick kiss to the crown of your head. you turned into him and smiled widely, your cheeks strained to hold it, and hugged him around the shoulders.

all the time spent worrying about whether he reciprocated your feelings or thoughts were so obviously wasted as you spent the rest of the night together. you took it slow, never straying from innocent kisses as you curled up together to watch a movie. you couldn’t help grinning multiple times throughout the night, knowing that things wouldn’t be difficult like you thought. it was easy when you expressed yourself and talked things over, even mentioning small things made a difference. maybe this would turn out to be another smart decision. you had a feeling there were plenty of possibilities with rafe cameron, but only time would tell.

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #college!rafe cameron x reader #college!rafe cameron #college!rafe #rafe cameron au #outer banks #rafe cameron obx #rafe cameron oneshot #rafe cameron angst #rafe cameron smut #college au #writing dirty talk kinda makes me cringe because im so bad at it but i think i did okay ???#rafe cameron x fem!reader

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smutandfluffohmy · 4 years

Text

His Sweater #2

From: Smutandfluffohmy Pairings: George Weasley X Slytherin!Reader A/N: The time-line of events is altered for story telling purposes, something that will be very obvious if people want me to continue on with the story. I think this is the closest to slow burn I’ve gotten to in my entire fanfic career. Hope y’all can understand because asgyv my brain would rot if I tried to line it up with canon completely.

Read Part 1 here

I have no wand, no socks and I’m wearing a Gryffindors sweater. This could go south terribly fast and I’m hoping for any other cardinal direction. If all else fails I could always throw a punch and run to my bed.For the second time that morning I almost crashed into someone. Seriously an entire hallway but we are still walking on the same side.

Draco stared at me from my face to the sweater, I wish he would notice my bunny slippers too. I also wished he would’ve seen me earlier in my utter Slytherin colors pride.

“Interesting sweater y/l/n” Draco said breaking the silence, scrunching his eyebrows at me. I could feel the Slytherin pride sermon bubbling inside of him.

“Interesting ingredients Malfoy” I answered back. Ingredients to make draught of peace, I’m surprised he had the ingredients, I’m surprised he was nervous and I’m surprised he was going to do it with unkempt hair.

“This didn’t happen and we didn't see each other.” He stiffened, straightening his back the glass containers clinking together.

“Brilliant as always.” I smiled, nodding at him and he doing the same. I’m sure if someone was looking at us right now we looked comical with our overly formal head nods. Starting to walk past each other, both of us going to our destination and trying not to think much about the other on our walk there.

Me, George’s sweater and my bunny slippers were home free, all we had to do is get back to the dorms without bumping into anyone else. But I don't know if it’s my seniority over the kid or perhaps as Snape’s potions assistant I felt responsible or even because I was just worried that made me turn around “Draco.” I called out to him.

He stopped, turning to face me “Y/n.”

Perhaps I should tell him that it’s 7 drops of hellebore not 8, or maybe that it’s supposed to be stirred both counter and clock wise or how it has to simmer for exactly 7 minutes. “If it’s not silver don't drink it.” Was all I could say and by far the best advice I could give him.

“Dully noted.” He said giving me a tight lipped smile, almost forced as if I was forcing him to give me a smile. “Thanks.” he muttered underneath his breath, his tightlipped smile softening at the edges.

The walk back to the dorms was no longer nor shorter than the walk from. Tho I was a bit warmer on both the inside and the outside all thanks to George. Climbing the stairs down to the common room I felt tired and heavy.

I want to sleep.I wish I could sleep but I’m afraid if I fall asleep, I must just wake up to having found out this was all but a fleeting dream. Nothing more but a hot chocolate induced fever dream.

Slipping off my slippers I walked to the edge of the carpet. Curling my toes I wondered if the shock of the coldness would wake me up, still I had to know. Stepping on the cold floor I didn’t wake up nor did I bolt up in bed.The cold floor lets me know that this was real, I was truly awake. But I don't think one knows the true lengths the mind would go to to make up a dream.

Tiptoeing into my dorm I changed into my clothes for the day, taking extra care to fold George’s sweater in a way that both said ‘I took care of it for you’ and ‘I didn’t spend half an hour overthinking this’. Perhaps I was putting too much pressure on folding techniques but I wasn’t about to be exposed by the way sleeves folded over. Getting my school bag ready I laid everything out on the bed.

“Potions.Herbology.Alchemy” I said touching each textbook, books I’ve carried around a hundred times.But I was afraid my lack of sleep would magically turn my Herbology book into a history of magic and I wouldn’t realize till I was standing in Professor Sprouts class.

I spent all of breakfast looking for George but there was absolutely no sign of him. Every time I thought I spotted his hair from across the dinning hall it was just Ron, twice it was just Ginny and once even an overly toasted plate of hash browns.

My first class was to help Snape. A couple of over brewed potions helped keep me on my toes and for that I was grateful.

Second was alchemy.Where nothing particularly interesting happened and had me periodically sticking my hand in my bag just to double,triple, quadruple check that George’s jumper didn’t grow legs and run away.

Third was Herbology. The class I was waiting for, finally a class with Gryffindors that the Weasley twins were in. Walking a bit too quickly and a bit too excitedly to class I wasn’t the first to get there.I blame it on the ever moving stairs. Professor Sprouts lesson dragged on too long for my liking or maybe it was the fact that I was drilling holes at the back that George’s head that made it all drag on.

“Mind the Mandrakes children.” Professor Sprout said with a wave of her hand leaving us to work. Perhaps it was age that made you think of anyone younger than you as children, but we were all very grown up thank you very much.

Leaning over the table I whispered “Psst George.”. No movement.

“George” I called out a bit louder but again no efforts to look back at me. Blimey perhaps it was just how tall he was that he couldn’t hear me from up there or maybe he was just that hard of hearing.

“Bloody hell Weasley I’m calling you.” I called out again poking him with my wand, surely he wasn't hard of hearing and touch desensitized enough to ignore me. Reaching closer in an attempt to tug at his robes my wand fell to the ground as a shrill screech filled the class.

“What?Sorry can’t hear anything over the Mandrake” George said turning to face me, shrugging his shoulders with the screaming Mandrake in his hands. Surely he wasn’t that much of an idiot to pull a Mandrake out of the pot and surely I wasn’t that much of an idiot to be smitten by the smile he flashed me when he did it.

Finally I ended my day just like it began. In Snape’s classroom, only now it was my class messing up potions not first years.

I wonder if it was something I said. Perhaps the carrot comment was too out of hand or maybe they bumped into Draco or maybe he was a bit crossed because he was in fact cold. Am I thinking too much into it? Did he see my sweater fold and thought it was too messy?

Before I knew it potions was dismissed and I still had George Weasleys sweater in my bag. Getting ready for the game my mind still wandered too far for me to get it back, putting on far too many Slytherin colors for it not to be comical. The Slytherin common room buzzed with anticipation and excitement with people laying one the floor writing banners for friends and people writing friends and crushes quidditch number on banners and faces and arms.

Sitting on the stands with the game dragging on, I put my cold hands inside the neatly folded sweater that was hidden inside my robes. I wonder if there was a time limit? A countdown? Were we even half way through?Admittedly I don't know a bloody thing about Quidditch just like I didn’t know a bloody thing about another sport.

Anticipation filled me, wondering when if at all out spirit section was going to mirror that of Gryffindor. Seconds felt eternal and I started to worry that they had been caught in the act.

Before I could continue tormenting myself the colors around me changed from green and silver to reds and golds.

Pansy Parkinson that was seated just behind me looked down to her robes horrified they’ve been turned. I almost felt bad for her and nearly reached over to tell her that red was unfortunately her color. The look on her face when her ‘Go Draco’ banner had been hexed to read ‘Go Harry’ was something you expected when someone tells you you’ve just stepped on hippogriff poo.

Snape looked crossed at the entire Gryffindor house and even Godric Gryffindor as if he himself planned this all out from beyond the grave to give Salazar Slytherin a last jab. I almost felt guilty looking at the face of my professor, a fleeting guilt but nonetheless guilt. Shouts around me cheering on Slytherin were abruptly replace with cheers for Gryffindor.

Smiling looking up at the players my eyes darted around for a glimpse of George or even Fred, but they all looked the same in their uniform.

“Go George!” I yelled over the loud burst of ‘Go Gryffindor’s that surrounded me.

“Go Fred!” I yelled out for good measure, adding it as to not make him feel left out tho I doubt they could hear me over all the commotion. But nevertheless I would know even if they didn’t.

The game came to an end as Harry reached up with the snitch grasped firmly in his hand. Grunts filled the Slytherin area, cursing at their changed clothes, cursed horns and now quidditch loss. I don’t know why everyone is upset this always happens at Gryffindor and Slytherin games, in fact at this point it seemed like a poorly written Quidditch plot. The fact that Harry always caught the snitch, if I didn't know any better I would have to say Harry and the golden snitch had a pact going on.

Around me people didn’t move instead they cursed and jabbed fingers at the Gryffindor tower. They must be really be crossed at Gryffindor to be standing around complaining under snow, or maybe their sheer hatred was keeping them warm. Getting up to leave because I wasn't neither cross nor warm to be standing around.

“Where are you going?” Christy asked me stopping her conversation over the horrid color combination Gryffindor had as if ours were any better.

“I need to go to the restroom. Besides I’m too cold to be standing here complaining.” I said walking away and she promptly went back to her conversation.

Walking down the Slytherin section, I made my way to the Gryffindor Quidditch player section. Somewhere I was highly banned from being in because I was neither a Gryffindor nor a quidditch player.

“I nearly fell off my broom hearing Slytherin chant for us.” Someone who I assumed was Harry said between laughter. A smile spread on my face thrilled I did in fact contribute to a great Weasley prank.

“Having them cheer for us was bloody brilliant! That had to be your best one yet!” Ron beamed at his brothers. Brilliant I got a stamp of approval not only from Harry Potter but from the small Weasley as well.

“Yea an awfully brilliant addition.” I said stepping into view.

The room felt silent and for I moment I wondered for what reason.They’ve just won shouldn't they be happy? So why do they have such long faces. Forgetting and simultaneously remembering that I in fact was that very reason, the walking Slytherin banner for the second time that day leaving people uncomfortable. Even without the silver and green perhaps something about me just reeked of Slytherin.

“You shouldn’t be in here Slytherin.” Ron said standing up to face me.The words held so much anger my mind wondered to see if I had ever caused any misfortune to the younger Weasley.

“I-I-I” My brain forgot all words or perhaps it had forgotten the ability to form any excuses. I didn’t expect a warm welcome but definitely not this much hostility.

“Going to tell Snape on us?” Harry said quirking his eyebrow at me, great I had the look of not only a Slytherin but a snitch as well. Perhaps it was the hair.

“Oi hold on that’s no way to talk to the lady of the hour.” George called out stepping from putting away his broom and jogging to stand next to me. A arm rested around my shoulder, I wonder how much of my red face I could blame on the snow.

Fred made his way to my other side, placing his hand on top of my head. “While it pains me to admit. Y/n was the one that came up with the horn bit.” He said ruffling my hair, George shifting the slightest bit closer to me. The amount of attention was too much for me and the bizarre looks on Harry and Rons face was enough to make me want to test my luck with the unforgiving blizzard forming outside. “Tho I do think I could've come up with it if I had some time.” Fred shrugged.

“Sure she did” Ron scoffed looking between his brothers to me.

“Cross my heart.” Fred said crossing his heart.

“Then I take back my compliment.” Ron said, the brotherly hatred he had for his brother far outweighing any sort of imaginary feud he had going on with me.

“Can't do that it’s already gone to my head.” Fred shrugged earning a laugh from Harry and comments on how they had to start out sourcing their pranks now from Ron.

George lead me just outside as the conversation inside kept building with Fred insisting that it was his genius that rubbed off on me, as if I would let him rub anything near me.

“Who was it in the hallway by the way?” George whispered leaning against the door frame. The hall was too cold and I had to inch forward towards George to step just out of the cold winds reach.

I shrugged “Oh it was just Draco.” I said having to look up to meet George’s eyes, I wish I was a bit taller or that he didn’t hover over me as much as he did.

His face turning into disgust just for a split second at the mention of his name “Just Draco?”

Was it Slytherin or Draco that had this effect on people? Somehow I know he would be a nuisance regardless of his house. “He’s not that bad.He could ease up on the hair dye but he’s actually pretty decent.” I said mindlessly but truthfully. “Don’t tell him I said that.” I shook my head looking up at George already visualizing just how much bigger Draco’s head would get if he knew I thought he was anything above horrid.

“Blimey I don’t think I could hold it in, it might slip out during our daily conversation” George said laughing. I wonder if I could bottle up that laugh or if I could make him laugh again just enough to commit it to memory.

“What? Draco not conversing with people outside of Slytherin? This is so unlike him I must check to see if he is feeling well.” I said faking worry for the sometimes socially awkward Slytherin.

“I came by to give you back your sweater.” I said holding it out towards him. Perhaps this was the end of our short lived friendship, perhaps after this we will go back to hardly speaking and perhaps I will go back to staring at him longingly during Herbology.

“You should come celebrate with us.” George said completely ignoring his sweater, the way he danced around it made me wonder if I actually offered him his sweater or if my mind was playing tricks on me.

“A Slytherin? At a Gryffindor party? Oh but George what would the neighbors think?” I laughed clutching the front of my robes.

George laughed “I’ll take care of them, I’ve been told I’m quite scary.” he said. I wondered who told him such a lie or if he was even capable of being even remotely scary.

Shaking my head I tried my best not to sound too disappointed “Thank you but I suspect I’m going to have to help mend an entire teams egos.” I said offering him his sweater once more.

“Keep it.” He said pushing it towards me, his voice too soft and too gentle that I wondered if a stray quidditch ball didn’t knock me out mid game and I was now living out one of those muggle romance movies.

“Bu-”

“My arms hurt from all the bludger tossing, don’t think I could carry it all the way back.” He shrugged, I wonder how tired ones arms had to be not to be able to carry a sweater back.Maybe if I played Quidditch I would’ve understood. “Just give it back to me later.”

“George hurry up we need to start celebrating!” Fred shouted sticking his head out the door looking at his brother, I wonder if his arms were equally as tired. “You coming?” Fred said looking down at me, shaking my head I wished I could accept.

“ ‘fraid not gotta go and hear my entire house moan about Gryffindors all night.” Shrugging, I could already heard Pansys moans and feel Dracos side eye of disapproval. I wonder if they were moping around the Slytherin common room in Gryffindor robes or they were so extremely crossed that they figured out a way to un hexed the robes.

“Should’ve gotten sorted into Gryffindor instead.” George said earnestly, I wondered how different this day would've played out if I was sorted into Gryffindor my first year. Perhaps Ron and Harry wouldn't be that cross with me or perhaps they would’ve gotten something else to not like about me.

“I’ll make sure to send my complains to the sorting hat.”

Fred pointed his finger at me “We got an end of year plan we’re going to need your opinion on.” he said smiling.

“See you later then?” George asked but I wish he would’ve stated, a promise sounded more hopeful than a question.

“I’ll keep an eye out.” I nodded seeing them walk away, deciding to wait a bit before I walked out. I suspect hateful tensions for Gryffindors from Slytherins are at an all time high right now and I truly don't want to get hexed in a weather like this.

“Bloody brilliant that one, wish I would've given her my sweater. Think she’ll take my jersey?” Fred said in a failed attempt at a whisper, something told me Fred Weasley was a terrible whisperer. “Oi Y/N you still cold?” He called out towards me with his arms raised, waving them around as if I couldn't see the only other people in the hall.

“Shut up!” George said clapping his hands forcing Fred to keep walking.

“What I can’t worry about a girl’s warmth levels?” Fred said playfully shoving George.

#fred weasley #fred weasley imagine #george weasley #george weasley x slytherin!reader #george weasley x reader #george weasley x y/n #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter imagine

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marshmallowprotection · 4 years

Text

Saeran’s Passport Package

I’ve been waiting since the 19th to get my hands on this baby and I’m glad that it got here today. It took me a little bit to sit down and go through everything cause I wanted to cry about it the entire time.

Spoilers Ahead, everyone. So, if you’re not interested in seeing what’s in the Passport set AFTER the events of Saeran’s After Ending, then do not click Read More, got it? I’ve made it clear to you. I will say that it’s worth the money if you’re debating buying it.

So, we can go over the contents in the box, first as an overview. You receive a letter stamped with a cute sticker as well as the passport itself which holds the notes that Saeran’s been taking and drawing since this all started. I just think that’s cute. My brain said don’t open that passport until we review the letter first so, why don’t we go over the letter first? The little details are really cute. There’s just so many stamps on this baby.

The little touches are what sell it. You’ve got this man putting his love all over it and there’s a CUTE NOTE of CATS. Sir, was that a touch to Saeyoung? I know you know that your brother is a dork. Homage to brother who is an idiot but too glaringly obvious. It got a chuckle out of me. I know this man, and it’s just getting to me.

The passport itself is also really cute. It has the art from the promo banner but instead of everyone hustling around together, there’s new poses and all of that jazz. Jaehee isn’t rushing around. Zen’s got a selfie stick, no surprise on that front. Jumin just chilling. Seven and Yoosung... doing what they do best and you know it. RUN, YOOSUNG, RUN.

Saeran and MC... being cute on the inside made me go, “Aw!” Ice cream. They can really just put ice cream and it’s going to make me cry, huh? Really? Is that how easy this is? Am I a joke to you, Cheritz? Is that what this is?

Now, if you want to talk about the contents in the letter, you get this sheet that is listed in three languages, surprised me, Korean, Spanish, and English, and it lets you tick off little things that you like to do. An itinerary sheet. I feel like this is purely Jumin crafting these. It asks about Cats. Literally. Cats. Wine? Yeah, this is on Jumin. You always come in flex, Jumin, but oh boy, I’m chuckling over here at these little touches.

You get 2 boarding passes. One with Saeran’s name and one with a blank to fill in your name. I thought that was cute. Tying in that with the CG of the passes in the game with this just makes it more real to me. I’m holding this in my hands and it just makes my immersion feel much more real than it did when I was holding my phone in my hand and playing this out.

I think merch like this just makes you feel more apart of the story then you do when you’re able to talk and chat, you know? If you really like feeling like you are involved with the game, this is how you do it. You wanna know how I know that Jumin is the one setting this up with Saeran? Flip over the fucking passport and you realize that Elizabeth is on the back.

I’m still laughing.

I’m trying to imagine this and now, like, I’m starting to see why Jaehee is so damn tired because Elizabeth really is on everything that he can get his hands on and she’s good too many files to sort through when it comes to whatever the photographers take of her. Jumin can’t take photos. He’s either got Jihyun to do this for him at some point, or he’s straight up hiring photographers for her cause he can’t do it.

I mean, we all know that Jumin will put Elizabeth everywhere but I just— It’s on the BOARDING PASSES? JUMIN!

There’s also a postcard within the letter that is once more, written in all three aforementioned languages. Saeran says that it feels like a dream when he is with you, like this is where he’s always meant to be. His promise of happiness is made truest when he’s with you. I teared up a little. I know that he means well when he does that but damn, does it take an arrow to the heart every single time he does it.

Saeran put a lot of thought into this in a very short amount of time. I know that he did this plan likely with the idea that he may not be able to go with us but he wanted us to be able to see the world for him. You know, how he implied that he wanted Saeyoung to see things for him? To live for him? Even if he was dead, he wanted Saeyoung and the player to be happy and free.

The blurred state on those... doesn’t have names. It doesn’t name Saeran in this photo.

The implication of his sacrifice with the boarding passes kind of hurts because this is a side note of the fact that Saeran Did Not Know If He Would Live To See This Through. He made it thinking maybe.. if things worked out, it would be an okay future, but this was... God. I just. I’m thinking about the weight of the AE and what that felt like. I almost glossed over the Boarding Pass because I was just so upset with him.

I’m the type to try to sacrifice myself for others, too. I have that in common with Saeyoung and Saeran.

I think that we’d argue over who should die for the others and while that’s macabre, it’s just the kind of people that we are. We love these people so much that we’re willing to die if they’re safe and sound. Knowing that, I understand what Saeran tried, and even what Saeyoung tries, but it’s hard cause I want to make sure they’re happy in comparison to myself.

This is where being selfless is a bad thing.

Does anyone know what a big deal it is for Saeran to have a passport? He’s never had an ID or paperwork in his entire life. If he did, he would’ve been killed, so would his brother. They’re both never had IDs. Unless you count the ones from the Agency and Mint Eye. They’ve got them in the Believer box with their names and faces, but that’s not official. That’s not paperwork that everyone else has. That’s just...

You know?

Seeing this tangible thing in my hands is a testament to Saeran Choi being alive and thriving. He’s not afraid of showing his face. He’s living. He’s a free man and nobody can kill him for existing. Does that not weigh on anyone here? It hit me and I wanted to cry. I might break down thinking about this later because I just take this too seriously. Look at him. Look at HIM. Okay? Did you look? Now, LOOK AGAIN.

Okay, I’m not going to share every single page inside of the passport but I will give you little snippets of the journey ahead and show you what he writes and draws. Yes, he’s drawing. I knew that he was talented because he is great at doodling and drawing, but he knows how to have such a cute style that I want to gush about and he probably has no clue about how cute it is because nobody’s ever told him!

Okay, so the trip is broken up over a few months and into segments. You know how I was surprised by the 3 languages? Yes, this passport is written in three languages and it stays that way. It implies that Saeran knows English and Spanish, or at the very least, he’s been studying them, I get that it’s kind of a neat tie in to make sure that all languages are included but I only English and I can only read Spanish, I suck at conversational Spanish, so I could only read the English and Spanish sections.

So, if anyone wants to throw in what the Korean segments say, please do. I have a rough idea, but it’d be nice to know. The first segment of the trip is spent traveling over Korea. You see the things that he packed in the bag!

I almost had a heart attack because I thought the vitamins were Caffeine Pills. I was about to beat my Husband and make him go to bed. Thin ice, Saeran. Thin ice, the Special Believer package implied you take more then ten and I want you to go the fuck to sleep at night.

He packed his hanbok! Look! You remember? From the title screen event? The blue shirt is the one that he matches with MC in. There’s so much I’m screaming about it.

It shows you things that you do. Like, biking, karaoke, gardens... is there a locket bridge in Korea? You know? If you put them together on a bridge, it’s said that your love lasts forever. I forget where that came from but I guess there must be one in South Korea, too. Oh, and food. Can you believe that he can eat whatever he wants now? I’m sobbing.

Please.

HE’S IN HANBOK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Okay, here’s the thing. I only have one gripe with the Passport Package and I’m going to say this again at the end, but I really wish that they had included big photos for this because the Passport itself it rather small and I wish that I could have bigger photos of this. It’s my only complaint. Literally, it’s the only thing I have to say about the box that will affect my rating. Look, we’re doing cheesy couple stuff!

HE’S DOING THE HEART THING WITH HIS HANDS.

A KISS.

KISS.

GUSHING.

DYING. HELP. ME.

God, I wish I wasn’t broke. I would commission someone to do this for my MC.

The second and third portion of the trip are spent in the U.S.A. and Mexico, I was so surprised by that! New York and Hawaii specifically are what they name and I was. Well, those are really far apart, huh. I mean, those are very popular spots. I’m not surprised. I’m chuckling because he’s got matching outfits.

Saeran Choi, you really want the embarrassing couple look, don’t you? Well, if it’s for you, I’d do it. Did... Saeyoung or Jumin set us up, are we fucking loaded? There’s mad bank here.

Saeran and MC basically are living per Jumin and Saeyoung, to be honest, because Saeran’s never had a job and MC is... your MC literally agrees to go and test a game in the woods, how good can our lives be? I’m broke, boy. I ain’t got nothing. So, I like to think that those two are offering to let Saeran be as happy and free as he wants. No expense. Like, kindness. The RFA is too damn much, I’m gonna cry. I’m starting to understand why the RFA didn’t hear from us for months.

The final Check-In with the RFA is set 6 Months after the events that take place when we save Saeran. The events of this Passport cover 3 months. So, we go back to Korea after this adventure and met up with Saeyoung, because we know that we’re hanging out with him in the conclusion. So, if they haven’t really heard from us, that means that we’ve been traveling more with him.

I kind of like that.

We’re spending time with Saeran alone and time with the brothers together, and that’s sweet! I love that. I need to write more about it.

I’m trying not to laugh about this Mexico portion but it looks like he passed out from an ice tea... lemonade...? It’s surely not alcohol. Maybe too much sugar, I know that crash can hurt. I’ve been there. I just know that you’re not implying the man with alcohol trauma is gonna drink. Nope. Neither he nor Saeyoung ever will do that. I stand by that statement and I’ll die by that statement. Bite me my tongue if I’m wrong, but I stand by that.

Saeran is at least mindful of the sun. He’s also made notes that the perfect time for sunset is 18:34. Cute. He notes that it’s time for the Day of the Dead as well, so that’s fun!

IS THAT A FUCKING V CACTUS—

TWO V CACTUS—

There’s actually a portion in here where he asks you certain questions and you have the space to fill in it. I like that it’s interactive.

Do you have favorites sweets? Are there things about yourself that you hide? Did you make sure to ask Santa what you wanted? I’m wheezing. The food doodles are one thing, and the Christmas photo is one thing, but he really drew himself as a butterfly and the MC as a bug catcher.

“CATCH ME, MC.”

Help me.

I’m laughing so hard.

Saeran, you fucking goofball.

And, the last page of the passport is us assumedly returning home with all kinds of trinkets and gifts. Flower crown, snow globe, cactus, hats, listen, there’s a lot of details in this photos that I really wish I could have it blown up.

That’s really my only complaint about the Passport Package. I really want to have bigger photos that are shared. I wouldn’t have minded if it was the photo of the final CG in the game, or the Christmas photo, I really would have enjoyed getting that to have for myself.

You know? The passport itself is roughly like 5 x 7 or so, so while it’s not big, it’s still like. I would love to see the details blown up. It’s smaller then the diary, that I know for sure. I think it’s the only thing stopping from giving Cheritz a 10/10 on this item.

I’m going to have to give them a 9.8/10 simply because it feels like we are lacking one big photo.

I guess I’ll print my favorite CGs and decorate my room like that. But, all and all, I really enjoyed reading this and it made it feel like I was there and I was able to reflect on Saeran’s vacation with the player. Like, he was doing this as we were going using his little doodles... I’m in love with this fucking sap. I’d say that this is worth the money.

For sure.

My only gripe aside. That’s a personal problem, not really a content problem. I love this bastard.

Look at him, he’s GOT A PLUSHIE. I have so many things that I want to write about now thanks to this. Saeran, darling, sweetie, my love, I am dying. Either way, I’m glad this arrived when it did. I needed this. I justified getting this for myself because I don’t expect to get anything for my birthday in early February but I’m happy I have him.

It’s been five years since I found this game in August 2016. I’m happy that it’s been here with me.

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 4 years

Text

Let’s talk about ‘Friends’ by BTS

by Admin 1

Friends is the subunit song by Jimin and Taehyung (co-written and co-produced by Jimin) from Map of the Soul : 7 which was released in February 2020. Interestingly enough, the Korean title is actually 친구, a word that is only used for friends of the same age, which is how ARMY figured out that it had to be their subunit prior to the release of the album.

On a very surface level, Friends is about the bond between Jimin and Taehyung recounting different little stories over the years, including the now famous dumpling incident which was first presented to us as a conflict that merely took up a few hours. Actually though it was a conflict that grew big enough that Jimin and Taehyung barely spoke to each other for two weeks and it culminated in Jimin getting drunk with Yoongi and then meeting Taehyung at a park at 4 am to make up. Yes, the same park at 4 am that Taehyung and Namjoon sing about in 4 O’Clock. That song, like many suspected, really was about Jimin and Taehyung as well.

But, while Friends might seem simple and fun on the outside, especially due to the upbeat melody and anthem like chorus, I think there is far more to it than meets the eye. Stella Jang, who co-wrote the lyrics, said in an interview with K-Pop Herald that BigHit sent her an email which contained the song as well as long stories about Jimin’s and Taehyung’s bond and based on that she was supposed to write short lyrics. She also had a friend, who is an ARMY, help her truly understand the depth of their bond. That alone to me shows that this goes far deeper than most might assume, and others wish for it.

Hello my alien We’re each other’s mystery Would it be why it’s more special

This verse for me is very interesting, especially since Jimin reclaims a nickname that people used to call Taehyung by which he hated. Instead Jimin turned it into something endearing, something that now belongs to them instead of others. It’s also noteworthy that that specific line is in English, not Korean, and he says my alien, so basically telling the listener that he takes some kind of claim over Taehyung, connects them in a way that anyone would understand, and unmistakably highlights that he’s the only one to call him like this because Taehyung is special to him, much the way you’d call someone dear to you/someone you love by an endearment such as ‘my darling’ or ‘my love’.

More below the cut:

The mystery part could refer to the early days of their friendship, the times when they were just getting to know each other and trying to figure out their dynamic and each other in a more general sense. We know they almost instantly became friends, stuck to each other and spent a lot of time together, despite constantly getting in little fights, but perhaps those struggles were what made the end result that much more special to them. Interesting to note is also how Jimin once said that when he saw Tae for the first time he experienced many different emotions (he didn’t specify which ones though), and how to this day he remembers Tae only wearing those red shorts and snapback and how even then he already looked like an idol/celebrity.

But the line could also refer to something more recent, or something more overarching, like a secret about themselves that only they know about, that they share and guard together.

Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey Stay with me by my side Forever, keep staying here, hey

and

Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey You are my soulmate Forever, keep staying here, hey You are my soulmate

These two might just be the most important parts of the song, and the ones that seem to be the hardest to swallow for some. This is basically Jimin and Taehyung asking each other to stay together forever, even when (or especially when) their careers will be over and BTS won’t be such a main and overarching reason for them to stay by each other anymore, so to speak. It implies that what they have is something they want to last forever, that it reaches far beyond them just being two best friends inside a group, but that they are rather two people who found ‘their person’ in each other. They know they’ve found something one of a kind, once in a lifetime, and want to hold on to it, to each other. It’s also them proclaiming and reminding everyone once again that they are soulmates, that this isn’t just something ARMY made up, some shipping agenda or anything like it, but that it is truly the title they see most fit for each other, that it basically feels like their bond was destiny and they were always meant to be together. You are my soulmate is also in English, something that every listener will understand, something so important they specifically made it this way so you wouldn’t need to look up translations from Korean to get it.

Sidenote--somehow soulmate has become a very debated term in connection to vmin so lets look at the definition for soulmate that wikipedia gives us: A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, platonic relationships, comfort, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, compatibility and trust. Most of these are rather connected to the most traditional way in which people imagine soulmates, as in two people destined for each other, lovers perfect for one another. Of course there are friendship type soulmates, but those are far more rare in peoples minds. The point I’m getting at is that Jimin and Taehyung never defined which type of soulmate they are, and until I saw non-vminies have a fight about how they’re definitely just platonic ones, I never even really saw the word soulmate in connection with ‘platonic’. In a way you could argue that both sides are right, that they are both friendship soulmates but also romantic ones as well, their bond encompassing both. But in the end, of course, that’s something only they can confirm yet I thought I’ll mention it anyway.

Like your pinky, we’re still the same I know your everything We must trust each other Don’t forget Instead of an obvious thank-you, you and I — let’s promise that we won’t fight tomorrow, for real

These lines may seem so simple, short and sweet, but I think there is a lot of meaning to them, a lot that’s written between the lines and potentially only something they understand the true extent of. I know your everything is another reminder that they are each others secret keepers, each others closest confidants, their person to go to and laugh or cry or celebrate with. Jimin and Taehyung have something that is rare, one of a kind, and it’s something beautiful that should be regarded with respect and wonder since it’s close to a miracle that they met and formed their bond in such a manner. After all Jimin is from Busan and Taehyung from Daegu, chances are, if BTS hadn’t happened, they might’ve never met, though looking at everything BTS have said about each other, they seem to believe they were all destined to meet regardless if as members of BTS or as normal people. The same most likely would’ve also have been the case for Jimin and Taehyung, and Friends is a beautiful piece of proof of that.

Many dismiss Friends as just a song about their friendship, but I think once you truly think about the lyrics and the thoughts that must’ve gone into it, you might change your mind. Even more so when you take into account what Namjoon said about Friends in his MOTS:7 vlive, how he wouldn’t even dare try writing any of the lyrics because he could never, ever do them justice, and how just thinking about the bond Taehyung and Jimin have, he gets goosebumps. That alone already says a lot, implies a lot of different things, very deep and (in my opinion) potentially more than just friends type things. There was also a moment during Bon Voyage 3 in Malta where Namjoon and Seokjin were at a restaurant together and somehow they brought up Taehyung and Jimin and both just shook their heads at how they are just--something, something apparently meaningful enough neither dared to voice it.

Friends might not be something you’d call a traditionally romantic or love song by any means, at least sound wise, but I’d argue the lyrics tell a completely different story, one of a bond that binds two souls, that combines friendship and love (both the love you have for a cherished friend, but also the one you feel for a romantic partner, I’d argue). The song, as well as 4 O’Clock are far more than meets the eye, you just have to be open and willing enough to see it.

After all Taehyung did say: “95z is love.” The biggest clue of them all.

(Lyric snippets taken from 친구 (Friends))

#bts #vmin #Vmin friends song #song analysis #song commentary #taehyung #jimin #kim taehyung #park jimin #BTS V #map of the soul 7 #4 o clock #bangtan seonyandan #bts jimin

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beautifulletdownfics · 4 years

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The Nearness of You - A Harry Styles One Shot

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

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

My masterlist Chat to me here

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

You love the cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Affirmative. Without a doubt. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A small, white lie.

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

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

Wash, rinse, repeat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fuck you," Harry grunts at him.

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry! What are you—

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

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

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

"Harry, give it back."

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

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

Your whole right side is on fire, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Golden, he thinks, As always,

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

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

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

"What happened?"

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

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

"Tim."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look over here, Harry thinks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Y/N?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Why … but you've… and I've…"

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

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

"Oh."

"Yeah."

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

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

That does it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Harry, are you sure you—

—I'm sure," he insists quickly.

"I just—

—I'm sure."

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

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

"Y/N"

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

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

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

"I've always?"

"I never thought …"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, no but—

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

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

"Yours," you say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Harry.

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

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

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

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

"I'm just—

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

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

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

"When … When did you write it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You'll win Scrabble."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I did."

"I've always loved that song."

“Well, it's been yours all along."

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

"I should hope not."

"Are you going to write another one?"

"Without a doubt."

Chat to me here

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

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reinerispretty · 4 years

Text

rotations. (zuko x f!reader) pt5

hi!! thank you so much for reading! again, i’m sorry for posting so much i just have a bunch of stuff pre-written and it’s fun to get it out there!

pt1

pt4

pt 6

“No one deserves to have their home destroyed, or have their family members ripped away from them! I saw what the Fire Nation did in my own city and countless others. The Fire Nation isn’t what I thought it was.” Her eyes welled with tears. “And neither are you.”

(Y/N) rested her chin on her hands as Appa flew over the land. It had been a few days since she had joined the Avatar and his friends, but already had she experienced way more than she ever would have in her life in the Fire Nation. Just the other day, they had saved an entire town from a volcano! She wasn’t a powerful enough bender to control lava, but she did help steer Appa so the sky bison could use his airbending to cool it down. She and the group decided that it was best if they saved her firebending for a rainy day. People in the towns that they were visiting weren’t too keen on having firebenders there.

From Appa, if she looked down, she could see dark spots across the green and yellow lands. Burned land. She had seen enough of it from her balcony of her mansion back in the Earth Kingdom. Her father had explained to her why their soldiers burned the peoples’ land. “Destroying what they need to survive keeps them in their place,” he had said. She remembered her stomach turning sour as soon as the words left his mouth.

“For the longest time, I believed that what the Fire Nation was doing was good and necessary. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“Yeah, people from the Fire Nation tend to be pretty dumb.” Sokka polished his boomerang. She turned around to glare at him.

“You don’t get it. They don’t teach us in our schools that we’re burning down villages for the fun of it. They tell us that we’re only trying to help. They brainwash the kids into thinking that all we’re--all they are trying to do is make a better life for everyone.”

“Just because you didn’t know what the Fire Nation was doing doesn’t excuse them for what they did,” Sokka shot back. She huffed, feeling her anger growing.

“I never said that!”

“Well you’re acting like it!”

“I literally saved you from Fire Nation soldiers!”

“Guys, can we please stop fighting?” Aang sighed. “It’s making Appa uncomfortable.”

“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want Appa to be uncomfortable, now would we?” Sokka scoffed. She chucked her pillow at him.

“You’re the rudest person I’ve ever met! The Fire Nation as a whole does not represent who I am!” Huffing, she turned away from Sokka and tilted her chin up to the sky.

It was nightfall before anyone talked again. Sokka was fast asleep toward the back of Appa’s saddle. Katara had crawled over to (Y/N), who sat sulking as far away from him as possible. “I’m sorry for what Sokka said earlier,” She said, her blue eyes kind and soft. “We know the Fire Nation doesn’t define who you are as a person. It’s just really hard for Sokka and I to get comfortable with you being around. You see, Fire Nation soldiers raided our villages and killed our mother.”

(Y/N) felt her anger slip away and be replaced with guilt. If she had known that, she wouldn’t have let herself become so quick to anger. Sokka was dealing with emotions that she couldn’t possibly understand.

“I’m sorry for getting angry,” she said quietly. “I had no idea the Fire Nation had done that to you, truly. And if I could apologize on behalf of the entire nation, I would.” She sighed, pulling her legs close to her chest. “I’ve been around a lot of people who have done some very bad things, sometimes to the people I care about. I really cannot express how sorry I am, Katara.”

The girl smiled, her blue eyes watery from holding back tears. “It’s okay. We’ll bring the Fire Nation to justice one day.” (Y/N) nodded in agreement. “Would you mind telling me how the Fire Nation has hurt you too? I think it might help me understand you a bit better.”

She inhaled a deep breath. “Well, when I still lived on the Fire Nation mainland, there was a boy I really...liked. He was only fourteen, still just a kid, but he spoke up when he wasn’t supposed to. He was challenged to an Agni Kai, which is a traditional firebending duel. He went up against a person who was ten times stronger than him.” (Y/N) swallowed the sob in her throat that always formed when she thought of that day. “The whole point of the duel is that you win when you burn another opponent. He was burned very badly that day and was banished from the Fire Nation. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“I’m really sorry,” Katara said, and (Y/N) shook her head.

“Goodness, no, don’t even apologize. It’s nothing compared to what happened to you and Sokka. How about we get some sleep? I can’t imagine what tomorrow is gonna be like.”

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The next day had proved to be very troublesome for (Y/N). Their group had divided, with Sokka and Katara choosing to follow Bato to their father since Aang had hidden his coordinates from them. She understood where the young boy had been coming from: when she had first joined the group, she had definitely felt like an outsider, but things had slowly gotten better. It was unfortunate that Sokka and Katara had left them, but (Y/N) knew it was now her duty to get him to the Northern Water Tribe so he could continue his waterbending training.

This plan went south as soon as the bounty hunter arrived. The beast she rode kicked up so much dust that it became hard for (Y/N) to see. She had lost sight of Aang and she knew he was in trouble, but the last thing she wanted was to blindly shoot fire and risk hurting someone. So instead, she stumbled through the dust until she could see properly.

“Look out!” Was all she heard Sokka shout before he knocked her to the ground. She groaned as she fell, opening her eyes to see Sokka’s blue ones staring down at her.

“What’d you do that for?” She grumbled, shoving him off of her.

“I saved you from a fire blast! A thank you would’ve been nice!”

“I’m a firebender! I can handle a fire blast, you can’t!” She jumped to her feet, ready to defend her friends from the source of the blasts.

What she expected to see through the dust was a bounty hunter or a Fire Nation soldier. Who she had not expected to see, however, was Prince Zuko. She felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her body. Seeing her old friend brought a flood of feelings back to her, but she tried her best to suppress them. She wanted to run into his arms and squeeze him into a hug. But then she pieced it all together. It was Zuko who had been hunting Aang. He was the one who raided Katara and Sokka’s village. A lot had changed since the two of them had last seen each other, that was obvious.

It took Zuko a few seconds to recognize her. She was still in her Earth Kingdom clothes, as the disguise helped her travel between cities without being recognized. But he would recognize her (color) eyes anywhere. He stopped in his tracks; his arms lifted for another attack.

“(Y/N)?” He asked. He glanced between her and the Avatar.

In her fifteen years of life, not once had she firebended against Zuko. But she had a duty to her new friends and to the rest of the world. She ran at him, flipped forward, and kicked fire into his face. Zuko’s arms cut through her fire. He grunted angrily.

“What are you doing?” He demanded. She didn’t answer. She shot fire at him again, but he dodged.

“I won’t let you hurt him!”

“Traitor!” Zuko roared, firing blasts back at her. She avoided them easily. She had always been praised for being light on her feet. Taking gymnastics with Ty Lee had allowed her to dance in between the flames. Zuko had only gotten better over the years. This would be a tough battle to beat. She kicked him in the stomach, knocking him off of his balance for a few moments.

“You guys get out of here!” She shouted to her friends. “I’ll hold him off!”

“We’re not leaving without you!” Katara shouted back. Zuko shot fire that missed her face by inches.

“Go!” She shouted to them. She shot fire blasts from her firsts, driving Zuko away from her. She heard Appa fly away and in her heart, she hoped they would come back for her. She realized a moment too late that the bounty hunter’s beast had reached its tongue toward her. Paralyzed, she fell to the ground, knocking herself unconscious from the fall.

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She sat in the hold of the Fire Nation ship with her hands cuffed behind her back, preventing her from bending her way out. She had woken up in that dark room, with the only light being from the torches on the outside of the cell. It amused her a bit that she had been captured by the nation she once called home, but really, she had spent most of her time wondering when her friends would come for her. It would be incredibly dangerous for them to infiltrate a Fire Nation ship, especially Aang. He was the prize that Zuko wanted, after all.

Speaking of Zuko, he had been sitting in front of the bars of her cell since she had woken up. They both had been silent. She wanted to speak to him, but she wasn’t sure what to say. It was obvious the Agni Kai had changed him for the worse. He had been absolutely ruthless when they were fighting in the village. It had taken everything in her to fight him off, but it obviously hadn’t been enough.

The heavy metal door swung open and she looked up to see Iroh, Zuko’s uncle. She had always liked Iroh. He told her funny stories whenever he visited the royal palace. He had played Pai Sho with her on more than a few occasions. He was a kind man, who didn’t really fit in with his family at all. She sat up immediately, a bright smile on her face.

“Iroh!” She said cheerfully. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

“Zuko,” Iroh scolded. “What is our dear friend doing in a cell?” Zuko glared at her.

“She’s with the Avatar now. She’s a traitor.”

“Traitor is a harsh word, in my opinion,” She replied. “I think I like the word rebel more.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me!” Zuko snapped.

“Is this true, (Y/N)?” Iroh asked. She looked away from him and refused to answer.

“Where did the Avatar go?” Zuko demanded. She scoffed.

“As if I’d tell you.”

“As your prince, I demand you to answer me!”

“So, am I a traitor, or are you still my prince? My head is killing me, Zuko, I can’t really keep up right now.” Humor was how she was choosing to deal with the pain of seeing the disappointment in Zuko’s eyes. She knew she was doing it for the right reasons, but she had let him down.

“You’re just as insufferable as you were when I left.” She felt the anger inside of her boiling.

“I’m insufferable? Says the boy who is still serving a country that banished him.”

“That’s why I need the Avatar, (Y/N)! So I can finally go home and restore my honor!”

“We both know it’s not going to be good enough for him, Zuko.”

He turned toward his uncle. “Leave us.” Silently, Iroh left, but not before flashing her a sad smile. “I can’t believe I thought that I would ask for your hand in marriage once I returned home.”

She scoffed. “Were you planning on filling me in of that plan in one of the letters you wrote to me?”

“Letters? I never--”

“Exactly. Even if I had stayed with the Fire Nation, I wouldn’t have agreed to your proposal. You might’ve been banished, Zuko, but it’s not hard to send a messenger hawk.”

“Is that why you became a traitor? Because I didn’t write to you?”

“Zuko, I promise that not everything is about you. Have you seen what the Fire Nation is doing to people? To innocent people?”

“It’s what they deserve!”

Zuko stormed out after she said that. (Y/N) lay back down on the ground and cried quietly as she mourned over the friend she once knew. The old Zuko was long gone.

---

Tag List!

@mdgrdians , @soft4kei , @bubblebars , @pleasantfankingdom , @vintageroses1014516 , @celamoon , @fangirlanotherjust , @gliderbudgie

Thanks so much for reading!! read part 6!!

#atla #avatar #zuko x reader #sokka x reader #aang x reader #katara #toph #zuko #sokka #aang #azula #iroh #writing #fanfiction

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seerofmike · 3 years

Text

The Writing In Apex Kinda Sucks And Also They Use Ship Bait As A Plot Device I Hate It Here

a stupid essay/rant encouraged by @zombiegloss that originally started as a youtube video script so if its like. weird at points. this was intended to be a verbal rant SNZISKSIA

basically i'm gonna talk abt the caustic-wattson-crypto relationship drama and how i think it was mishandled and how much the writers kind of Suck because i Can

you are free to disagree with me on any of my points and think that this aspect of the story was handled well, this is just my opinion, and i'd love to hear your thoughts and counterpoints !

first, addressing some things:

i know this is a battle royale and not necessarily a story-based game, so i can’t expect it to have masterful witcher-style writing.

but with the direction the game seems to be going; putting quests, evolving interactions, and comics in the game, plus coming out with a lore book and hinting at something bigger in the future, i think it’s fair to criticize it for lackluster writing, especially since what i’m criticizing has been something present since Apex’s story technically began.

secondly, i am not a professional writer. i’m a high schooler who writes as a hobby. i don’t have the decades of experience that some of the apex writers do, and i can’t claim to be a better writer than they are--but i also don’t have to be a five-star chef to realize that something tastes bad. when i critique something and give suggestions, i am not saying i could’ve done it better. i’m just bringing up what i think could have worked.

third, before i upset anyone , when i say a relationship is badly written, i’m not telling you that you can’t ship it or that your ship sucks. i’ll briefly touch on the shipping aspect of this and how it’s a detriment to the story but Ye

okay, so with that out of the way, let us Begin

relationships are often the emotional core of a story, and how strong your reaction is to conflict in these relationships depends on how the story sets them up. if you want the audience to care about these characters and what they go through, you need to develop them and establish the type of relationship they have well. it’s why so many people cried in the last episode of telltale’s the walking dead. you’ve spent roughly 12 hours bonding with clementine and protecting her, and your relationship with her is part of several story beats as well as character beats for lee.

when these two characters’ relationship reaches its peak at the end of the game, it’s powerful, and it’s emotional. you care. you feel something, and the fact that you have to choose what to do to lee only makes it more gut-wrenching.

now, the walking dead is entirely story-based and especially character-driven, so it may be unfair to compare it to apex, but i just wanted to lay the groundwork down for what i think is a strong relationship that makes you feel something when conflict arrives, in this case the conflict being lee getting bit and clementine having to decide his fate.

the broken ghost in general is kind of not-good sometimes, tom casiello previously wrote for soap operas and you can really, REALLY tell sometimes.

this story feels like it should’ve taken place a little later, and that we should’ve had a season to actually set up the characters and their relationships, but that’s a story for another day.

to put it bluntly, the set-up for the crypto, wattson, and caustic conflict is done poorly. for caustic and wattson's relationship it’s a little better, but not by much.

wattson and caustic having a relationship was hinted at in season 2, when her lore indicated that caustic was among one of the Legends who comforted her after her father died. In season four lore materials posted on Twitter, an email from Jacob Young states that Caustic is acting paternal towards Wattson. In season five, interactions get added to the Game, and this is the first time we actually see their relationship in action, as they have unique revive voice lines for each other. in the quests, when wattson is injured, caustic lashes out at loba and attacks her out of what seems to be anger at wattson’s current state.

Side Note this plot point was really stupid and done for cheap drama because she literally wakes up like two chapters later and they don’t even give her anything to say it’s just suddenly oh yeah crypto and wattson are working together. the same exact injury thing happens to octane later but nobody gIVES A SHIT because again, it’s just cheap soap opera drama.

their relationship might seem a little bit sudden for anyone who wasn’t on top of twitter lore drops, but like, it’s okay, i guess. i’ll give it the slightest credit for at least establishing something between the two in terms of voice lines and stuff, even if for some it might seem like it came out of nowhere.

what did come out of nowhere, though, was crypto and wattson’s friendship. in the quests, crypto and wattson are tasked with rebuilding the broken ghost because of their respective skills, and they’re seen talking in chapter six while they work on it. we’re not really given a clear timeline on how long the story in the broken ghost is, but i think it takes about a week, maybe.

unlike wattson and caustic, their relationship has been given absolutely zero material to work with before now, not even a passing glance in the trailers--which is a little weird considering crypto took down the repulsor tower and destroyed wattson’s home, but. Whatever.

tl dr of the chapter: crypto and wattson talk to each other while doing nerd shit, crypto laughs at wattson’s bad pun, and then suddenly they’re BESTIEEEES, until a couple dozen lines later in the same chapter. then they’re Not.

crypto’s drone gets hacked by revenant while everyone was kind of on edge after the reveal of a spy in their midst, he gets framed as the spy by caustic, anddddd wattson gets upset.

before i get into how dumb this storyline is, i’m gonna talk about the set-up to this conflict.

we have been given no reason to believe that these characters have ever talked to each other, and quite frankly, their friendship doesn’t really make sense.

ignoring the fact that crypto destroyed wattson’s home--which she probably doesn’t know about, so that’s forgiven for now--crypto is a paranoid guy. in the lore book he makes people stand on fucking footprints in his house so he can scan them for weapons and listening devices, and he apparently doesn’t stick around much after the games and nobody knows anything about him because he doesn’t talk to them.

a key part of crypto’s story is the fact that he is undercover and afraid of anyone finding out anything about him ever. him becoming friends with wattson kind of comes out of the blue, and we’re not even given a reason as to why they supposedly became close in the first place. i would kind of understand if like, maybe he draws parallels with her and mila in his mind and it makes him open up a little more, but that doesn’t happen. he just laughs at her joke and suddenly they’re friends.

maybe they’re trying to go for this ‘wattson can become friends with anybody’ angle, kind of hinted at with caustic but not really we’ll get into that, but that also? kind of doesn’t make sense since so many of her voice lines straight-up say she doesn’t understand people and electricity is more her thing, but honestly, she also does have those really friendly elements in her voice lines too, so its not as egregious as what they did with crypto.

their sudden out-of-the-blue friendship would’ve been fine if they spent a little more time fleshing it out, and giving us something to work with, but instead, the story immediately tries to rip it apart and frame it as this grand conflict where crypto is framed as the mole, crypto then accuses caustic, and wattson feels betrayed.

except it doesn’t really work, because we don’t give a shit. for several reasons.

one: crypto and wattson became friends and then ended their friendship in the same exact chapter. they did not speak to each other onscreen until this chapter began, you can read the entire quest on the wiki and see for yourself that their interactions up until that point were nonexistent aside from mentions in the narration that they were building something together.

the reason wattson feels betrayed is kind of stupid too. why does she really care that much if one of them betrayed loba? nobody else really cared about the fact that one of them was a spy, in fact, nobody even seems to like loba that much, and they just found out that loba’s been lying to them this whole time, and wattson was conscious for that conversation and had a speaking line, so she’s fully aware of the situation.

maybe it’s just like, the idea that one of them lied, but that’s still kind of a weak reason.

this entire betrayal thing is just dumb, and it gets even worse when you realize that there could have been an actual legitimate reason for wattson to feel betrayed by crypto--even if it still would’ve come across as weak conflict because of their newly established friendship, it would’ve made more sense than this.

Crypto destroyed Wattson’s home. He took down the tower and then all the flyers and stuff invaded Kings Canyon and made it their bitch. Not only that, but Wattson considers the Syndicate her family. The Syndicate are the very people who framed Crypto for murder and he’s trying to take them down.

They could’ve set up actual conflict with these things, and it almost seemed like they would, because Caustic briefly brings up that Crypto could be working with Revenant because he has something against the Syndicate but then that doesn’t really go anywhere and we’re just back to Wattson feeling betrayed because either Crypto or Caustic was a spy and she doesn’t know who.

Weak conflict could’ve been made better by a strong relationship and a weak relationship could’ve still been interesting with strong conflict, but both the relationship between Crypto and Wattson and the conflict that drives them splitting up as friends were really weak and didn’t make much sense.

It would’ve been ten times more interesting if Wattson found out Crypto ruined her home, the arena she grew up in, and was now participating in the Games to take out the people she regards as her family. That’s where her distrust could’ve manifested and conflict could’ve began, but instead it was the stupid betraying loba thing. why do you care. you just started talking to this guy like 2 hours ago.

also caustic’s whole reason for framing crypto feels stupid as fuck. he didn’t just frame crypto randomly, he framed him specifically because he doesn't want him to influence wattsob because he likes her Big Brain, but this is the FIRST time we have seen those two interact.

what influence is he talking about? wraith and wattson have been shown to be friendly with each other in the trailers, according to tom’s tweets, and in the story too so why doesn’t he frame her? at this point the audience had slightly more build-up for those two’s relationship than crypto and wattson and a betrayal storyline would’ve felt a little more deserved if still weak.

this is the point where i briefly want to touch upon shipping, and the fact that part of this conflict feels driven by shipbait.

aside from their relationship coming out of nowhere and the writers trying to make the stakes seem high and deeply emotional to the characters involved (despite this essentially being the first time they’ve ever interacted) tom casiello literally addresses shippers in a tweet regarding chapter seven, and as the story between these characters progresses, it becomes clear to me, at least that the crypto-wattson thing is just bait for shippers, and it’s lazy.

it’s easy to get away with giving your characters little to no relationship development if you’re just counting on shippers to do the heavy mental lifting for you

why should i put any effort into making this relationship seem believable? people are going to see a young guy and a young girl having bare minimum interaction and assume there’s romantic interest! then i don’t have to do any work, see look, it’s a ready-made relationship wrapped in a bow for me! all that’s left for me to do is give them conflict so i can keep teasing shippers with lines like ‘you never deserved her’!

i think it’s reasonable for me to suspect shipbait, since tom casiello likes doing darksparks shipbait on twitter, and i’m like, eighty percent sure mirage and bloodhound suddenly being childhood friends in the book is shipbait too, because these characters were the number one ship in apex for a long time despite little to no interaction, and then all of a sudden in the lore book they’re childhood friends despite this literally never being mentioned before?

like bloodhound is set up to be mysterious and nobody knows what they look like, or where they’re from, or who their family is--except for mirage Apparently, who played with them when he was a kid on their home planet, and has seen them with their mask off, because bloodhound did not wear a mask when their parents were still alive.

its weird.

i’m pretty sure they’ve said somewhere they were working on this book before apex even came out, so i could just be completely wrong and they always planned for mirage and bloodhound to know each other, but if that’s the case, why did they never mention it like they did octane and lifeline?

i refuse to believe MIRAGE never brought it up either like ‘heeeeyy bloodhound remember when we used to throw eggs at our parents lab haha wanna go do to that to bangalore’s room’

[silence]

‘good talk buddy’

ANYWAYS I GOT OFF TOPIC. POINT IS, shipping is a detriment to the story because the writers don’t feel like they actually have to put any work into establishing or developing the relationship between characters when they know the community’s just going to do it for them anyways, and that they can put in shipbait and it’s fine and it makes sense when it really doesn’t.

imagine watching captain america civil war after not seeing a single other marvel movie.

why would you care about the avengers splitting up or tony and steve butting heads or steve’s commitment to bucky? you wouldn’t care, at least not as much as someone who’s seen all the movies and knows the relationship between the characters and why the sokovia accords exist in the first place. you don’t have context and you don’t have any reason to be emotionally invested in these characters’ relationship.

this feels like that. the writers tried to squeeze this relationship and stuff into a single chapter and we don’t fucking care unless we were already invested in the idea of their relationship (shippers) because we barely spent any time with it.

so to summarize this little section, the set-up of this storyline Kinda Sucks! crypto and wattson barely seem to know each other, because we the audience barely saw them together and the writers are relying on shipbait in place of a relationship.

wattson and caustic are a little better but not great, but the conflict is stupid and it only gets stupider.

moving onto summarizing the rest of the broken ghost, gibraltar and caustic talk, caustic LITERALLY confesses to being the mole and says he framed crypto so he couldn’t corrupt wattson and to appear innocent because his identity was suspected, then that wraps up the season storyline.

season six begins with new voice lines, where wattson has had enough of crypto and caustic’s shit and is all passive-aggressive and going ‘this doesn’t change anything’. she has to decide who to trust, and how to figure out The Truth for herself because she’s not a little girl anymore. crypto and caustic are both trying to convince her they’re innocent and it creates some interesting conflict.

just kidding. it’s terrible conflict. you want to know why?

BECAUSE GIBRALTAR TRIED TO TELL HER THE TRUTH, RIGHT AFTER THE SEASON 5 QUEST HAPPENED, AND SHE LITERALLY REFUSED TO HEAR IT.

LIKE THERE’S A SEASON 6 LOADING SCREEN WHERE HE’S TELLING EVERYONE THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, AND WHEN HE GETS TO WATTSON AND IS LIKE HEY I KNOW WHO THE MOLE WAS AND WHY THEY DID IT, SHE JUST GOES i dont wanna hear it. i need to think

IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH WHY ARE YOU REFUSING TO HEAR IT

SHE SPENDS ALMOST TWO ENTIRE SEASONS MAD AT CRYPTO FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO BECAUSE SHE TOLD GIBRALTAR TO FUCK OFF WHEN HE TRIED TO TELL HER WHAT HAPPENED

ITS SO DUMB

i think it was towards the end of season 6 or the beginning of season 7 where apex posted this picture of wattson asleep at her desk where she has a letter from gibraltar on it that looks like it tells her the truth, so she knows now, she knows what happened, but NOW her issue is the fact that she doesn’t know anything about crypto.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT IS YOUR GODDAMN DAMAGE. YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BLOODHOUND EITHER ARE YOU THIS UPSET WITH BLOODHOUND TOO?? HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO PATHFINDER. DO YOU HATE PATHFINDER TOO

oh but she was friends with crypto and now she’s mad that he lied to her EXCEPT THEIR RELATIONSHIP WASN’T BUILT UP WELL SO IT JUST FEELS STUPID. THEY SPENT LONGER BEING NOT-FRIENDS THAN THEY SPENT BEING FRIENDS. THEY BECAME FRIENDS IN ONE CHAPTER AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AT THE END OF THAT CHAPTER THEIR FRIENDSHIP ENDED AND THEN WATTSON SPENT LIKE 2 SEASONS MAD AT HIM FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO .

AND THE WRITERS TRIED TO RECTIFY THIS BY SAYING OH SHE’S NOT MAD ABOUT THE TRAITOR THING SHE’S MAD BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM AND IT’S LIKE WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT MAKE THAT CLEAR WHY DOES SHE SAY ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DID’ IN HER VOICE LINES WHY DOES SHE CALL HIM A TRAITOR IF HER CONFLICT WAS HER NOT KNOWING MUCH ABOUT HIM . WHAT DID HE DO.

HE JUST STOOD THERE AND LAUGHED AT HER JOKE AND THEN HE GOT FRAMED AND THEN THAT WAS THE END OF THE CHAPTER AND NOW SHES SUDDENLY LIKE IM ACTUALLY MAD BECAUSE YOURE A LIAR AND I CANT TRUST YOU EVEN THOUGH I NOW KNOW YOU WERE FRAMED I STILL DO NOT LIKE YOU AND HES LIKE YEAH THATS MY FAULT

The Caustic voicelines are stupid too, again his reason for framing Crypto was stupid and a lot of his voicelines just seem to be that shipbait thing again but like from the angle of overprotective dad who doesn’t like the new boyfriend. it’s stupid but not as egeregious as this next part which is

crypto telling wattson his identity.

CRYPTO was framed for MURDER and is paranoid and can’t trust anyone and doesn’t talk to anyone and the last time he did talk to someone he got framed for Another thing and the person he was talking to turned her back on him and actively refused to know the truth for like 2 seasons and then he went This Is Fine I Can Tell Her My Identity

the stupidest update to this storyline was crypto telling wattson the truth

why did they do it on the dropship where there are presumably syndicate members and other legends around.

why didn’t he scan wattson for listening devices like he did for pathfinder in the book.

why is he telling her his identity when he knows she has very close ties to the people that FRAMED HIM for MURDER. Does he trust her that much? WHY? They spoke to each other in a chapter and then spent two seasons not talking to each other beyond passive-aggressive BS. why are you so fucking stupid taejoon

their relationship was so poorly set-up that even if the writers maybe intended for them to come across as close friends who had spent weeks bonding, it really feels like they became friends in a single conversation, had a falling out, and now crypto suddenly trusts her with his identity after an undetermined amount of time because he wants to be friends again.

that does not make SENSE this conflict feels contrived AS FUCK and the resolution feels even worse and unearned UGGGHHHH

it honestly comes across as crypto feeling desperate for friendship, and maybe this would’ve worked better if that’s the angle they played it as.

he’s been alone for roughly two years, and just wants a friend, and he’s honestly so lonely he just breaks down to the first person who’s really talked to him. it could’ve been an interesting little part of his character, and they could've gone into depth about how much this situation has affected him, but that’s not what they’re doing. he’s still paranoid and anxious and doesn’t trust anyone, except for wattson, because the plot needs him to or else there won’t be any stupid soap opera drama.

and to rub salt in the wound, wattson’s new voice lines with caustic have him telling her that she forgave crypto.

WHAT ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR. ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR BEING FRAMED? WHY DID HE HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO HEAR THE TRUTH?

did the conversation just go hey my real name is taejoon park and something bad happened to me and she went aight i forgive you WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

Caustic’s new voice lines to Crypto where he’s like ‘what did you tell her’--YOU TOLD GIBRALTAR STRAIGHT-UP YOUR EVIL MASTER PLAN LIKE A SUPERVILLAIN AND NOW YOU’RE SURPRISED WATTSON AND CRYPTO ARE ON GOOD TERMS NOW?!

THAT’S LIKE TELLING SOMEONE YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND THEN BEING SURPRISED WHEN YOU BECOME THE VICTIM OF IDENTITY FRAUD. YOU SET YOURSELF UP FOR THIS WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE CRYPTO DID SOMETHING SINISTER OR LIED OR WHATEVER. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DO YOU HAVE LIKE 3 BRAINCELLS

this is at like ten pages already so i’m going to just try and wrap this up quickly.

it’s frustrating seeing this storyline play out when there are actually good relationships and storylines written into apex. i’m kind of getting tired of the loba and revenant conflict, but we at least had set-up to it in the form of a few animated shorts and it doesn’t play out as stupidly as this story does. bangalore and loba’s friendship is actually developed well, even if the point between the end of season 5 and season 6 where they suddenly talk like each other feels like it could’ve used a little more.

where crypto and wattson having an established friendship in the broken ghost failed, lifeline and octane’s established friendship works because we’ve been told since octane’s release they were childhood friends and given lore materials that indicate they’ve known each other for a very long time.

apex wants this storyline between crypto and wattson and caustic to feel dramatic and tense and ultimately rewarding when crypto and wattson did become friends for real and stuff, but instead it just comes across as hollow and empty.

there’s nothing there. it’s a case of tell, don’t show, and it looks like this stupid conflict is gonna keep going for another couple of seasons at this rate.

side note: this entire script was written before the new twitter comics

please tell me ur thoughts and feel free to respond with ur own lil essay

also believe it or not this is not the "shipping is a detriment to apex's story" essay i was gonna write this is a completely different essay that has some overlap SKXISOSOW

#apex legends #apex critical #crypto #wattson

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