#this has been so stress free for once! i even cut my pieces on the fold which i damn near never do

[arsenicflame]

little wrap up of day one of the ofmd bird skirt!

i went into this one with a clear plan for once, even having a cutting plan and an order of operations written in my journal (wow look so prepared. expect to never see this again)

i have faith that this one will actually be a quick project, ive basically achieved all i can do for the moment- which isn't a lot, but its all the prep work at least! ive got to hang my skirt panels for several days now so they can stretch (which is more important than ever because its the /seams/ that are on the bias, rather than the center of the panel)

all my cutting out is done (a MINOR deviation from the cutting plan was made- i wanted to use my mega pocket pattern and i couldnt fit it in the top piece of waste fabric, i needed the extra smidge from the curve of the skirt) ive overlocked my pocket pieces, and stay stitched my waist line on the skirt (though i didn't cut it out as im not sure the pattern fits me absolutely perfectly, and i thought itd stabilise it more!)

i also started on the waistband! i had to re-teach myself how i like to do a petersham waistband, but its still my favourite way to do one! the petersham essentially acts as an interfacing, but itll never fold over on itself!) ive basically followed that as far through as i can too- given that the fabric is velvet i cant press it down so ive topstitched the inside edge but im not sure i want it visible on the outside, so im leaving that one for now

see you all next week when the bias has (hopefully) finished stretching for pockets, invisible zip and the rest of the waistband!

[m00neroni]

prompt: patronus. @wolfstarmicrofic word count: 739 september 8th ao3 post

“This is impossible” Sirius huffs and sits back in one of the few scattered chairs around the DADA classroom, clearly defeated. “What’s that shit about happy memories? Fucking idiotic, it’s not even working.”

“Have we finally found a spell that not even the great Sirius Black can perform? Should we call the Prophet? Inform the Ministry?” James jokes from his seat at Remus’ right, and he only receives a glare in return, when any other person would have been hexed into the next year just before they finished the sentence.

Remus considers it a bit hypocritical, seeing as James is also struggling with it, only having managed to conjure a faint silvery mist, the same as Peter. Remus, for his part, hasn’t even tried yet, scared of its possible corporal form.

Still, he knows the drill and can help his friend.

“You’re thinking too much and too loud, Sirius.” He says, kindly, because the other boy’s frustration is too evident and it seems like the best approach. “Which memory are you using?”

“When the Hat sent me to Gryffindor.” Sirius replies, almost in a whisper, genuinely pouting like a baby.

“See? That’s the problem.” Remus says. “That memory isn’t good enough.”

“Why not?” His friend frowns, clearly confused but he doesn’t look hurt or offended. “It’s the happiest memory I can think of.”

“But it’s tainted, Pads.” He presses, not unkindly, and leans forward to touch Sirius’ forearm. “You were stressed and worried and your family were horrible just about twenty minutes later it happened. You need something without negative connotations.”

“Excellent piece of advice, Mr Lupin!” Professor Musgrove’s voice hollers from behind them. “Our chosen memories must be as pure as possible, free of bad feelings. Even if we think happiness is overruling them, sometimes the hurt is too sharp to be defeated. Please, my boy and resident assistant teacher, will you demonstrate the spell to the class?”

“Sir, I don’t–”

“I insist!” The man ignores him. “Your theoretical knowledge should be enough, and you clearly are in control of your feelings.”

Yeah, I wish I was, you twat.

Remus grimaces towards his friends, trying not to notice how Sirius is staring right into his eyes, and stands up. He should have shut up, but Sirius needed his help and he just… Whatever now, too late. 

The werewolf closes his eyes and tries to find a good memory, quickly falling for the morning of the first Full Moon after his three mates knew what happened to him once a month, about the monster. After the moment they accepted him completely, and without asking anything in return. It might go against the idea of it not being tainted by bad sensations (the transformation is horrible on its own, obviously) but the happiness he felt when he woke up and saw Sirius sleeping in that uncomfortable chair right next to his bed. 

The others have joined here and there, but Sirius has always been the constant feature. It is he who Remus thinks about for this.

“Expecto Patronum.”

He would have known it had worked even without the collective gasp of his classmates, just by how the air moves around him and the tip of his fingers tickle. It is a wonderful sensation, so, even if he is scared shitless of facing the reality and whatever comes next, Remus opens his eyes slowly. 

The silvery figure is clearly and evidently canine and massive, but that is where the similarities with Moony end. The snout is different, the ears bigger and the paws less menacing. Even the doggy grin is an exact replica of Padfoot’s.

Remus’ hearts stop for a second there, but he can’t look anywhere else, too entranced and shocked by the implications. 

“Amazing! Look at that���!”

“Expecto Patronum.”

Sirius’ deep voice cuts the air and the teacher’s praising, conjuring a mist that quickly takes form almost as big as the one in front of Remus, a shape that he hasn’t seen in front of him ever in his life but has been described enough to him that Remus could recognise anywhere. The eyes, though, are the exact same ones he sees in the mirror every day, and he has almost a full minute to be shocked before the impressive spirit of Moony joins Padfoot in a tackle game.

“Well, who could have expected this?” James chuckles, and Remus finally looks at Sirius.

Who could have expected this, indeed. 

[beholdthebangs]

Stress Reliever

Kent x F!Reader / Sam x F!Reader

~ 18+ ~

Synopsis: Smut - Sam invites himself and Kent over to your house for dinner one night, seemingly an opportunity to get to know your boyfriend’s father better after his recent arrival to town. Things take a turn when you try to give Kent some ideas to relax, Sam having his own thoughts on the subject when he offers you up as a solution. Only under his supervision, of course.

Warnings: Drinking, brief references to PTSD, affair, indirect(?) incest, creampie, unprotected sex, rough sex, free use, daddy kink, dirty talk, praise, vaginal sex, oral sex, light choking

A/N: There’s not enough Kent smut to go around so this is my contribution.

—————————————————————————

Sam

2:43 AM: My dad and I are gonna come over tmrw nite for dinner

2:44 AM: Wear something I like 😜💦

2:51 AM: and make sumthing good plz 🥺

—————————————————————————

Kent had returned to Pelican Town only a few months ago and you’d had few interactions with him since, limited to a brief introduction and exchanging of pleasantries when you stopped by 1 Willow Lane to see Sam. The older man had always been standoffish, understandably so given everything he’d gone through in his time away. Still, it was difficult to find some way to relate with him, something you desperately wanted given your relationship with his son. It was discouraging to have such a poor relationship with the man who may one day be your father-in-law. Sam had assured you that he was always quiet, even with his family.

Sam rarely talked about him before he came back, and Jodi seemed just as stressed out as she was when she was acting as a single mother. The family didn’t seem to change dynamics at all with Kent’s return; it didn’t adjust to make room for him. It’s like all the gaps had been filled when he left and there was no space now that he was back. You hadn’t been around before Kent had been deployed. Sometimes you’d ask Sam what things were like back then, but he would shrug it off, telling you he didn’t remember that far back. Sure, his brain was crowded with hyperactive tendencies, but you knew he also didn’t want to open up. You tried not to jump to conclusions but it was hard having nothing else to draw from but the blond’s abnormally clouded demeanor.

You stir a pot of pasta sauce absentmindedly as it simmers, the pasta waiting in a colander in the sink to be added. Three chicken breasts are sizzling in the cast iron pan in your oven, nearing temperature. It seems like the end a recipe always feels the most chaotic, everything timed to finish at once. You have to pull yourself out of your head to focus on not burning anything. You brush a piece of hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear. 5:45 pm on the clock in the living room; perfect.

You pull the chicken out, allowing it to rest while you combine the pasta and toss together the salad comprised of veggies you’d picked this morning. You set out the blueberry tarts along with a bowl of roasted hazelnuts, your most overt plea for friendship with Kent as he’d mentioned once how much he enjoyed them.

Once the pasta is dished out, chicken cut into strips and placed neatly on top, you set everything at your dining table and take a step back, leaning in to fix silverware placements and adjust the flower pot in the center of the table. You also grab the boxy bottle of fancy whiskey Pam had gifted you last winter and pour a small amount in each short glass set at the table, leaving it in the middle as you’d surely need seconds to calm your nerves. In fact—

You take a quick sip from the bottle before replacing it on the table, smoothing your sweaty palms over your thin skirt, hem resting above your kneecaps. The alcohol content will clean any germs you leave behind, right? The way your body begins to buzz only a minute later feels like assurance of that.

As you finish cleaning up your kitchen, you hear the door close and look over. Sam has his hands stuffed in his jean jacket, hair pushed up as if he’s been running his fingers through it. Kent is behind him in a light brown corduroy jacket and dark jeans. “Hey!” you greet, hurrying over. “I can grab your jackets.”

“Hey,” Sam smiles, shrugging his off and handing it over while leaning in to give you a quick kiss on the cheek. “Smells good, huh Dad?”

Kent grunts. As you look over at him, he gives one nod as he pulls his own jacket past his broad shoulders and holds it in his hand. You take it from him, turning and standing on your toes, reaching up to hang both on the coat rack by your door. “Thanks for having us.” As you turn, both men’s eyes snap upward to yours, a twisted expression on Kent’s face and a nervous one on Sam’s.

“Of course! Come sit, everything is ready.” You press your lips together, rubbing in the pink gloss placed on them. Your fingers toy with the end of your shirt, glancing down at yourself as you try to pinpoint what they were looking at. Maybe you’d gotten a bit more messy than you thought while cooking.

You allow the men to walk ahead of you and take their places at the rounded table before filling in the empty spot between them. They dig in without hesitation, talking more to one another than to you. Once in a while, Sam will say something to bring you into the conversation like, “Y/n is great at that. Tell him.” It allows you to talk about yourself for a moment, often getting nothing but a nod in response. To be fair, Sam carries the conversation between the two of them as he babbles on, so you try not to take it too personally. The way he speaks without leaving enough pauses between sentences to truly converse reminds you of the way he acted before you started dating. He’d let his racing brain take full control of his mouth and he never shut up until you kissed him. He never shut up until he got comfortable and lost his nerves… It makes you wonder what he might be hiding now. Maybe it’s just the pressure of the night, and he wants it to go well as much as you do.

As you’re finishing up the last of your pasta, you hear Kent say, “Roasted hazelnuts?” Your attention snaps up to him and you nod.

“Yeah! I thought you might enjoy them.”

“I love them.” He grabs a couple and pops them in his mouth, teeth crunching down on them. After he swallows, he says a quiet, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. There’s more where those came from.”

Sam grins, leaning back in his chair. “I told you how caring she is.”

Kent stiffens a bit. “Yeah, you did.” He grabs another handful.

With your last bite of food in your mouth, you stand and clear the plates from the table, setting them in the sink. Sam pours himself and his dad another glass of whiskey while Kent excuses himself to the bathroom. As you scrub at the dishes, Sam stands behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder.

“Thanks for making dinner, baby. So good.”

“Thanks Sammy.” You lean your head against his for a moment.

“I like your skirt,” he comments as his hands begin to slide down the fabric covering your thighs. You clench them together, his tone mixed with wandering hands all too familiar.

“We can’t do this right now,” you whisper, barely audible over the sound of running water as you scrub the dish.

“Just a little, baby.” You don’t move. “Please?”

He waits for protests, but receives none. His hands slide back up your thighs, this time pulling your skirt with them. His fingers loop themselves around your panties and pull them down your legs, letting go of you to lean down and grab them as you step out of them. He stays on his knees, spreading your feet apart and coaxing you into a wider stance. You lean over the sink just slightly, your hole exposed and positioned toward your boyfriend. His tongue licks a strip from your clit back to your pussy and you shiver at the contact, the metal of his tongue piercing providing extra sensation you had grown especially fond of.

You try desperately to focus on the dishes, sudsing up the sponge as you press it against each plate and lather it up while Sam rubs his tongue expertly along your clit, a finger snaking into you and curling at your sensitive spot. With great focus, you manage to finish cleaning and washing off each dish while he works on your wet pussy. You throw the sponge in the sink, excited to be able to just grip the counter and enjoy him. Just as you start to give in, the bathroom door opens from the other side of the room and Sam quickly pulls back, fixing your skirt for you before Kent walks out. You turn in time to see Sam tuck your panties in his pocket, unable to protest as his dad sits on your couch only feet away. Sam winks, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm and walking over to join him, whiskey glasses in hand.

You take a breath, reaching over to grab a dishrag and dry off the plates, setting them back in the cupboard one by one. You manage to regain your composure rather quickly; the times you’d spend at Sam’s had trained you to get your fix in where you could but stay on edge with the threat of his mother walking in always looming over the two of you. The dynamic had yielded a… unique sexual relationship between you and Sam. Him having such a high sex drive had you bending to his will, metaphorically and often physically, any time he wanted it without so much as word.

After you put away the dishes, you join the two men on the couch. They’re holding their glasses, yours already refilled and set on the coffee table in front of you. You take it, sitting carefully in the spot between the two of them. Your back is twisted slightly toward Sam and you’re almost positive he saw your ass in the process, still naked from his assault on your clit minutes ago. Stealing a glance, his bottom lip is tucked between his teeth, eyes lingering at the edge of your skirt.

“We’re just talking about how my dad’s been since coming home,” Sam explains, reaching forward to put his palm on your thigh, rubbing his thumb along your skin casually.

“I imagine it’s hard getting back into a routine,” you say as you turn your attention to the gruff man in front of you. You’d noticed Kent’s inconsistent patterns, often coming across him staring out at the river in front of his home in the morning or in the saloon at night.

He nods, eyes trained on the brown liquid in his hands. “You’d be right. I don’t remember having a free moment before I left. Now, I got far too many.”

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be. Now would be a good time to pick up some hobbies,” you offer, though the advice feels a bit shallow considering the magnitude of emotions he must be going through.

“I’ve tried fishing, jogging, drinking… none of it eases my mind like it used to.”

Sam squeezes your leg. “Why don’t you tell him what we do to destress.”

You look back, shooting him a confused glance. Sam twists in his spot, positioning himself to lean against the armrest of the couch, his chest parallel to your back. He places his hands on either side of your waist, pulling you toward him. “Sam,” you snap quietly behind you, but he doesn’t stop until you’re sat on his lap, your legs stretched along the couch toward Kent. As much as you want to tuck yourself in, you fear doing so would expose too much skin to your boyfriend’s father.

“Tell him how you deal with stress,” Sam repeats in your ear.

Your mind spins with Sam’s affection in front of his father; you’d never dream of sitting on his lap as you share a couch with his parent. Still, you wrack your brain for answers. “Visiting the beach, walking in Cindersap forest or the mountains… the spa is always nice after a long day.”

Sam chuckles lowly. “Remember what we did last time we went there?”

You laugh nervously, patting his knee. “Yep. What else…”

Sam presses a kiss to your neck, lips still curled into a smile as he reminisces in your late night escapade in the steamy pool last winter. You’re frozen, unable to pull your gaze from Kent, his eyes intently looking over you. Your face is surely bright red now, unsure how to process anything going on at the moment.

“That night is more along the lines of what I was thinking, baby,” Sam admits, hot breath on your neck. “My dad and I were talking about how I manage stress, and… well, I told him.”

“You told him?” you repeat in a quiet voice, quirking an eyebrow upward.

He nods. “I told him about our arrangement.”

“What arrangement?” Your tone is harsher now; surely he isn’t saying what you think he’s saying.

Sam moves his hand from your waist down to your inner thigh, pressing it hard enough to part your legs despite your physical resistance. His fingertips glide over your clit, still wet from your previous encounter, the obscene sound filling the room much to your embarrassment. Kent has a straight view to his son’s hand working you.

“The one where I have free will with your body… any time, any place, any way I want it…”

“Sam,” you hiss, squeezing your thighs together around his hand.

“Y/n,” he replies, matching your tone mockingly. He hastily pushes your thighs back apart as if annoyed at the inconvenience you’d caused by closing your legs. “I’ve been talking you up to my dad for weeks. I told him how much it’s helped me. I think it could help him too.”

Your mind is swirling. You can’t get the fact that Kent can see straight up your skirt as his son touches you out of your head. The way his eyes won’t leave you makes your skin burn. The knowledge that your boyfriend has fully divulged your sex life to his dad over the course of the month is too much to process in the moment. “What are you suggesting?”

He breathes in deep, nose pressed to your hair. “I’m suggesting… my dad can make the same arrangement with you… the only stipulation being my approval.”

You look between Sam, trying to appear confident and powerful with his nerves seeping through the cracks of his facade, to Kent who can hardly bear to make eye contact. “You have a wife!”

Sam scoffs. “You think she has enough time left in her day to let him free use her like you let me?”

“But you love her.” You’re trying to appeal to Kent’s soft spot, if he has one.

“I do,” he agrees, finally speaking up. “But this isn’t a problem she’s equipped to fix. Because I love her, she can’t help me.” You shake your head, beckoning him for clarification. “I can’t…”

“Use her,” Sam finishes his thought, finger flicking at your clit as the words leave his mouth.

“Can’t use her,” Kent confirms. “Sam says that’s your area of expertise.”

He hums. “And you can keep a secret, can’t ya?” Sam reaches around, pulling the neck of your shirt down along with your bra as he exposes one of your breasts. He toys with your nipple as the pad of his finger strokes your slit, messy sounds emanating from it despite your conflicted feelings. “Baby,” Sam coos gently against your ear. “You need to turn your brain off. It’s not doing you any good.”

A part of you wants to fight him. This is a weird situation and you’d be right to kick them both out right now. At the same time, a more submissive version of yourself is clouding your judgment. Sam tends to flip a switch in your brain; it’s like your body is physically attuned to what he needs, and it’s your mission to deliver it to him no matter what. You’d spent a large portion of your relationship doing anything he could ask, so much so that it had become the expectation that you would let him take you in whatever way he needed and you would allow it with a smile. And every time before this, you had done that.

He begins to leave kisses down your neck, nipping at your ear. His hands sneak around your ass, managing to unbutton his jeans and pull them down his thighs just enough to retrieve his hard cock. He strokes it, the feel of the soft, hot skin meeting your back with every thrust against his palm. Sam finally lifts you up, setting your hole just above his entrance. Slowly, he lets you down until your ass is back in his lap, cock now nestled deep inside you. Your head rolls back, falling onto his shoulder as you moan, your walls stretching to take in his cock. His tip almost immediately finds the spongy spot inside you that seems to short-circuit you. That special part of your brain reserved for Sam is taking over. You watch Kent through droopy lids as Sam manages small thrusts into you, him studying your body intently.

“Look at her,” the blond chuckles. “She just melts around a good dick.” He presses his cheek against your hair once more. “So what do you say, baby? I just need one little ‘yes.’”

You study the man before you. Kent looks so much like Sam but more mature, chiseled. If that’s what waits for you in your future with his son, you would happily accept it. His broad shoulders on display as he leans back against the couch, arm stretched over the top, fingers twitching like he’s fighting himself from touching you. His legs spread open, you can’t help but look at his groin and view the tented fabric there, your legs squirming as you do, heels dragging across the cushion separating you from him as you bring your knees toward yourself.

Your voice feels like it will surely get caught in your throat, but you squeak out the word anyway. “Yes.”

You can practically feel Sam’s lips twist up into a smirk and he looks over at Kent whose eyebrow is quirked upward, a small smile on his face too. He slowly lifts his arm, reaching forward to place his palm on your shin and rub it soothingly.

“Good girl,” Sam purrs. He pats the side of your ass, helping you off him. His cock slides out with a quiet pop as you lean forward, pulling your legs back toward you to fold them beneath you as you move off Sam’s lap and wait for further instruction. “She’s all yours,” Sam says to his father.

Kent reaches over, running his fingers over your side as he takes on his role. “On your knees.” His voice is quiet but strong, though the intonation of his words is less confident than you’d expect. You do as he says, never one to make a man wait.

You look up at him through your eyelashes, hands on his knees as your legs fold below you on the floor. His expression is stoic as always, and you can’t read him no matter how hard you try. Sam is easy— his lip is always between his teeth when you’re in this position with him, hand roaming through your hair as he waits for your hot mouth to please him. Kent hasn’t moved an inch.

You glance nervously between father and son, and Sam is the one to give you an encouraging nod. “Help him get his cock out, baby.”

You slowly reach forward, toying with the metallic button on his jeans. You take your time, giving him the opportunity to stop you but of course he doesn’t, only focusing intently on you. You pull the zipper down and he finally moves, helping you tug his jeans down his legs and discarding them on the ground off to the side of the couch. All that’s left is the thin fabric of the tight black boxer briefs he sports.

His jeans, made of thick denim, had given you a hint as to how he may have been feeling, but with less fabric, it’s evident. You can see the shape of his twitchy cock so clearly now that you could trace the outline of him from his pelvis down to his upper thigh; and you do. He breathes in sharply at first contact, fingertips once again shaking at his sides like he wants to grab you and take control. Sam has never shown restraint like that, always handsy.

The younger man snaps his fingers from the other side of the couch and you pull yourself out of your thoughts, running your hand down Kent’s toned stomach and underneath his boxers. You hold the thick length in your hand, hardly able to get your fingers all the way around it. Admittedly eager, you free it from the constraints of his underwear and sit back on your heels to admire the way it throbs and bounces against the brown hair sprinkling his stomach.

Kent questions, voice low, “Too big?” You shake your head hesitantly. “Good. Show me you can take it.”

Kent grabs his length and holds it toward your mouth, seemingly having found some confidence. You lean forward, sucking on the tip, only able to put as much of him in your mouth as he allows with his hand blocking access to much of his length. Your tongue swirls around the big head, greedily swallowing the precum that rested there moments ago. It’s salty but subtle, only a teaser of what he has to offer if you can satisfy him. Gradually, he moves his hand further down his length and you take more and more in, lips smacking against the side of his palm with each head bob. “You’re teasing,” Sam tsks, directed at Kent. “She’s used to having dick down her throat.”

“‘Cause you can’t last long ‘nough to do this?” he replies, not even gracing Sam with a glance over.

You look at him in your peripheral, propped up on the couch with one leg bent, his hand stroking slowly at his own cock pulled out from the waistband of his boxers as he watches you. His eyes roll in silent response to his father.

Kent asks you, “That true? Just want it down your throat?”

You nod around him, humming in agreement and sending a wave of pleasure through his cock. He concedes, removing his hand and tangling it into the hair on the back of your head. Without warning, he shoves you down and helps you meet the skin of his pelvis with a sharp thrust of his hips. You gag at the sudden intrusion, but you can also feel your slick begin to drip down to your inner thighs.

“She can take it,” Sam reassures him. “Do it again.”

Kent does. Once, then another, until he’s throat fucking you and all you can do is keep your mouth open and let him abuse it. Your drool is spilling down his thick cock, and by the time he finally pulls out, a long strand of spit keeps you connected to his tip. You’re still slack jawed from the force of it, drool running from your mouth to your chin as you catch your breath. “No complains?” Kent questions, leaning forward to run his thumb over your wet face and gather more lubrication.

“No,” you manage to get out.

“Good girl.” He motions for you to get back on the couch, helping you kneel in the spot between him and Sam. “Been too long since I got to use a sweet li’l mouth.” Kent rests a hand on the nape of your neck, bringing you back to his groin. You lick along the underside of it as it rests against his stomach while he reaches back, running his middle finger along your spread slit. A low groan comes from between his barely-parted lips. “You really fuckin’ like this, huh?”

You take him in your mouth, in no rush as you bring his tip to the back of your throat while using your tongue to tease over the throbbing vein running along the underside of his length . As he continues to run his digits over your core, you set an even pace on his dick.

You can’t help the moans and whimpers escaping your throat as Kent’s fingers glide effortlessly around your clit, and you can tell by the way his muscles constrict that he can feel it reverberate around his cock. A thick finger slips into your cunt and despite the quick fuck Sam had provided you just a few minutes ago, Kent grunts at how your walls suck his digit in and collapse around it. “She ever taken a cock this big before?” he asks Sam.

“She’s taken mine.”

Kent uses his free hand to brush your hair over your shoulder, exposing the side of your face to him as you suck on his cock. “Nev’r had such a thick cock before, huh, doll?”

You know you’ll upset one of the men no matter how you answer, so you just look up at Kent the best you can and give him a good view of his dick sliding up and down your tongue. Your foot, pressed against Sam’s leg, wiggles just enough to let him know you haven’t forgotten him. He grabs it and gives it a quick squeeze. You can feel the wet of his precum mixed with the slick of your pussy left behind on his member coating his hand as he does so.

“Her cunt takes it better if you make her cum first,” Sam says.

“She’ll take it fine long as she’s horny,” Kent argues. “‘Nd she is.”

“Which one of us has fucked her?”

“Fine,” Kent says with a roll of his eyes. “We’ll do it your way. But next time, I’m doing it mine.”

Next time.

Before you can ruminate too much on the statement, Kent adds another finger to your slick cunt and begins fucking in and out of you faster. His thumb reaches around to continue attacking your clit with harsh circles. Sam’s hands join in, groping at your thighs and hips, squeezing and stretching your delicate skin.

You find yourself getting distracted with all the sensations, mouth hanging open. Kent’s cock twitches and it falls from between your lips, slapping his stomach before bouncing back up to idle in the air, pumping blood keeping it at attention. His free hand grips at your jaw, forcing your mouth open and he shoves himself back inside, holding you to the base of his length. “I know you got better manners ‘n that.”

Sam’s palm makes sharp contact with your ass. “Apologize.” As soon as Kent releases you from his cock, you choke out an apology, trying to catch your breath and soothe your gag reflex all at once. He strokes your cheek with his thumb, directing you back to his cock with a gentler touch.

Kent’s fingers, thicker and rougher than Sam’s, stretch at your tight walls. His thumb, though a secondary concern to the digits pumping in and out of you, is still quite skilled. He catches the right spots of the sensitive nub, applying enough pressure to have you rolling your hips in time. As your moans grow louder around his cock, he picks up his intensity.

“You have to ask before you cum?” Kent inquires.

You pull off his cock to answer, holding it to your lips as you stroke the hot, thick flesh in your hand. “If Daddy says so.”

“‘Daddy,’” he repeats. You don’t need to look up at him to know he’s smirking over at Sam. Your cheeks flush red, mouth returning to work.

“She calls me that sometimes,” Sam says. You wonder if he looks as embarrassed as you imagine him to be. He clearly didn’t think that part important enough to divulge earlier.

“You already like fuckin’ daddies, huh, darlin’?” You nod hesitantly, still refusing eye contact. “Let’s see how ya like the real thing. Gotta cum first.”

You prepare for the finger fucking to speed up, but instead, Kent pulls out. Your eyes quickly snap up to his while his hands grab your sides, helping you to your knees to straddle his lap. Kent bunches the fabric of your skirt up around your stomach before pulling your shirt over your head. He makes quick work of your bra, unhooking it with ease and tossing it away. His eyes are locked on your breasts in front of his face, nipples hardened as they’re exposed to the cool air.

“Isn’t she pretty,” Sam coos. You look over at him still palming his cock at the other end of the couch. “Lips all red and puffy and used.” He’s turning himself on as he takes in the sight of you and your instinct is to reach over and help him, but Kent seems intent on having you to himself right now. His cock has nestled its way between your swollen pussy lips, dripping in your spit and the wet leaking from your cunt. He humps against you, his shaft running along your pussy and his tip snagging your hole just enough to make you jump, the threat of his length entering you present each time he repeats the motion.

“Gotta ask before you cum on Daddy’s dick,” he instructs over your whimpers. Kents lips wrap around your nipple, teeth giving it little nips as he sucks it into his mouth. If not for his forearms on your back, hands curled over your shoulders to keep you down on his throbbing length, you’d have collapsed as the knot in your stomach grows unbearably tight, head foggy with lust. You can’t believe you’re grinding on your boyfriend’s dad’s cock in front of him, but even more, you can’t believe how much you’re enjoying it.

“Gonna cum,” you cry out, head rolling as your back arches, tits pushed further into Kent’s face. He gives your nipple a quick bite.

“Ask.”

“Please!”

He scoffs, not letting up on his thrusts against you. “Try again.”

“Please let me cum,” you whimper, fingernails digging into Kent’s thighs below you, eyelids sealed tight as you try to hold back your orgasm.

“Haven’t taught her any manners?” Kent directs at Sam.

The younger blond narrows his eyes at you, and you meet his gaze through hooded lids. Your lips are parted, sucking in shallow breaths as your hips buck involuntarily with the stimulation to your core. “Don’t fucking embarrass me,” he hisses. “Ask Daddy if you can cum.” Your brows furrow. He nods pointedly to Kent, as if to clarify which of your daddies he’s talking about. “Look at ‘im.”

Your eyes latch onto the older man’s beneath you. His hips snap to yours a little harsher now. “Daddy,” you breathe, and a smirk tugs at the corner of his lip, spurring you on. “Please, Daddy, let me cum. Feels so good! Please!”

The way Kent pushes down on your shoulders has your pussy pressed down on his dick moving between your sweet lips, and with a little upward movement from the man’s hips, his fat leaky tip fits snugly into your hole, plugging you and teasing you just enough that you feel the knot in your stomach tighten one final time before promptly beginning to undo itself. You look frantically at the rugged blond, and thank Yoba he gives you permission as a moan fights its way from your throat. “C’mon, baby girl. Let go.”

His hands move to your hair cascading down your back, tugging on it and lifting your chin upward. He continues to thrust, maintaining the angle to keep his tip inside your spasming hole without entering any further. You feel the duality of being empty whilst having the sting of his fat head stretching your opening and all you want is for him to shove inside you and fuck you through your orgasm. Kent clearly knows it from the look on your face and the way your hips move on top of him, but he doesn’t allow you to take what you need from him. His tongue flicks your other nipple as you ride it out, your fingers finding their way into the hair at the back of his head and tugging gently at the dirty blond strands.

You finally drop down, burrowing your face in his neck. He smells like expensive cologne and whiskey, a hint of smokiness you can’t place marrying the two distinctive scents. Before you can relax, Kent finally angles his hips further down, just enough to push his heavy dick inside you. His hips meet yours as he bottoms out. Despite your orgasm and the abundance of wet between your thighs and coating Kent’s dick, the stretch still shocks a gasp out from between your lips. He holds you there for a moment, allowing just a second to adjust before pulling most of his length out and bullying it back in.

Each rough thrust earns a breathy moan until he sets a lazy pace, rolling his hips with every meet of your hips. The motion directs the head of his cock into your g-spot and you feel so full, so good. Kent wraps his hand lightly around your neck, squeezing just enough to increase your lightheadedness and pull you closer to him. Your eyes meet, faces only inches away. He licks his lips hungrily before leaning forward and pressing them to your swollen ones. It’s slow at first, trying to pick up one another’s rhythm. Your tongue grazes his bottom lip and he quickly opens his mouth to you, shoving his own past your lips. His hands grow grabby, fingers burying into the fat of your ass to help you meet his deep thrusts.

Kent has managed to maintain a rather stoic, dominant appearance thus far, but the mask begins to slip. He groans into your mouth, chest heaving under your palms, maneuvering your body to get himself off. As he pulls back to catch his breath, you whine, “Feels so good, Daddy.”

“Yeah, baby girl,” he agrees, stroking your cheek with his thumb. Glancing over, you notice Sam’s hard expression, clearly not having enjoyed watching the two of you make out the way you’d enjoyed doing it. Kent follows your gaze. “Think your boyfriend is jealous.”

“I think so too.” You stick your bottom lip out, looking at the younger blond through your lashes as his dad fucks your slick cunt. “What’s wrong, Sammy?” The look on his face tells you that you’ll have a punishment to face after this is over. Being patronized in front of others never sits well with him, and his father is far from an exception in any scenario.

Kent pats your hip. “How ‘bout you kneel down and give him some attention.”

You slowly climb off his length, the void of his cock from your pussy almost paining you as you’d been well on your way to your next orgasm. Kent directs you to the middle cushion of the couch, your face at Sam’s crotch. At some point, he’d stopped playing with his cock and when you pull it back out from his boxers, it’s only half erect. With Sam, it never takes much to get the blood flowing to his dick and you love running your fingers over the silky length, watching it begin to throb and grow with minimal contact. Precum begins to pool in the tip again, leaking out onto his stomach as he gets hard and creating little strings of fluid connecting his cock head to his abdomen as his cock throbs in front of you. You feel the couch dip behind you, Kent kneeling as he positions his cock at your hole and reenters, filling you so good.

You take Sam’s cock in your hand, swirling his red tip around your tongue. You love to run it along the ridge of the underside of his head, Sam always so sensitive and responsive there. He lets out a deep breath, hand resting instinctively on the back of your head. You take your que, opening your mouth and letting his dick enter as Kent begins toying with your clit.

You’re not sure if it’s on purpose, but Sam and Kent set near identical paces on each hole. You feel so stuffed with Kent’s fat cock filling all the space in your pussy, walls clenching desperately around him each time he forces his way in, while Sam’s long dick reaches the back of your throat and forces drool to spill from your lips and down his shaft as he pushes your head down. His free hand grips at your neck; he loves to feel the head of his dick through your skin as he fights to get himself all the way into your mouth. The constant push and pull has you taking the full length of both cocks, no other option left with the men on either side of you both looking to bottom out inside you with each thrust. Fully used for their pleasure, and you love it as much as they seem to.

Deepthroating Sam for so long has his cock twitching wildly, raspy moans coming out with no control. “Gonna make your Daddy cum, baby,” he whines. He secures you by your hair, thrusts growing deeper and slower until he’s holding himself in your mouth with shallow little bucks of his hips. Your tongue licks the underside of his cock as you wait for the thick white strands to shoot down your throat. As he releases, he whimpers your name. It’s a sound that always brings you to the edge and tonight is no exception, cunt clenching around the cock inside it as you swallow up Sam’s cum, pulling off with a smile and a lick of your lips.

“So good, baby. C’mere.” Sam tilts your head upward as you lift yourself onto your palms, accepting his kisses while his father continues to fuck you. One hand rubs at your clit still while the other gropes at your waist, pulling you back onto him with each thrust. “Getting close?” Sam knows you so well, he can pick up on these things just by the sounds you make. You nod fervently. Kent grabs your tit, pushing your torso up quickly so your back hits his chest. He continues to pound you as his fingers toy with your clit and one of your nipples, fully on display for Sam. He climbs to his knees, running a thumb over your cheek so sweet while he studies your face twisting in pleasure, so close to your peak. The way Kent gropes you, you think he may be getting close too. “Don’t finish in her,” Sam says, receiving an irritated grunt from Kent.

“That’s her call.”

Sam gives you a pointed look. You know you should agree with him, but you’re not one to say no, especially when you’re this close to cumming and the last thing you want is to clench around nothing as you hit your peak. You skirt around giving a straight answer. “Whatever Daddy wants.”

Sam glares over your shoulder and you’re sure Kent is returning the gesture as he begins to fuck meanly into your cunt. He leans his chin on your shoulder, whispering, “Cum for Daddy.” It only takes moments before you can follow his order, your hands clinging to Sam as you bury your face against his neck, unable to hold back loud, high-pitched moans. Sam holds you, running fingers through your hair as you’re fucked through your second orgasm. As you begin to come down, Kent delivers a few quick thrusts, hands tight on your hips as he bottoms out in you. A spurt of cum coats your cervix and you think he’s ignored Sam’s ask until he suddenly pulls out and sprays the rest of his load over your puffy wet lips. Sam seems to think he’s won, still not happy with the location of Kent’s cum but willing to accept it over a creampie. You stay quiet, sneaking a glance back at Kent as he strokes the last of his cum out of his cock, who gives you a subtle wink as he acknowledges his secret slight to Sam. The sound of his hand rubbing over his sticky cock fills the room, growing quiet as he finishes and collapses back to the couch. Sam dismisses you to the bathroom to get cleaned up.

When you return, still feeling the squish of Kent’s cum threatening to spill out of your pussy, the men are fully clothed. You grab your shirt from the floor, throwing it on without your bra. Sam begrudgingly hands over your panties he’d taken earlier and you slide those on, readjusting your skirt and joining the two on the couch. “So…” you say, “do you feel better?”

Kent chuckles, placing his hand on your bare knee. “I do. Sam was right about you.”

The younger man slings his arm over your shoulders, pulling you close and pressing a wet kiss to your cheek. “Don’t get used to it. I have first dibs.”

“You don’t mind sharing,” Kent says.

Sam grunts. “Actually, I think that’s the last time I do anything nice.”

“Really? I liked being nice,” you smile innocently.

“You won’t like it later tonight,” he assures, confirming your theory of an impending punishment. “I’m going to clean up. You should probably get going, Dad. It’s getting late and Yoba knows Mom will freak out if you’re not home after Vincent goes to bed.”

Sam heads off to the bathroom, leaving you two alone as Kent pulls on his jacket near the front door. “That was… really nice,” he reiterates as you walk toward him to see him off. “Thank you. I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did,” you blush.

“I mean what I said earlier.” You rack your brain, the recent events all blurring together right now. He leans in closer, voice dropping to that familiar tone that stirs something in your stomach. “Next time, you’re not cumming until my cock is in you. I don’t care if you take it better. It’s a waste to be doing that when I’m not inside you to fuck you dumb.” You bite your lip, looking up at him as you fidget with your fingers. “And next time, I’m not pulling out.” The sink in the bathroom begins to run, alerting the two of you to the closing gap of time you have alone. Kent leans in, stealing a long kiss that has you moving closer, not wanting to break away. He grins down at you, clearly satisfied with the way he’s able to lure you in now. “Thanks again, darlin’. See you soon.”

[skoetiepoetie]

Whb fandom rant under the cut

Note: this isn't about anyone in particular, just a (big) thought that I've been having about the whb fandom for a while (and its just been relighted again bcs of this recent shitstorm). I'm not looking for discussions with other people about this, so please don't start any with me.

If a game having paywalled content (even in the quantities that whb has) makes you so extremely upset, maybe uninstalling the game is the right choice for you

Not just to show that you don't agree with it, but also for your own wellbeing, especially for your own wellbeing

Wanting to be able to have every single part of a game and freaking out when you can't, does not seem healthy to me. Trust me, I've been there, done that (it was not a great time)

But at some point you need to accept that you can't have every single thing, and that's fine, you don't need to have everything

Something that I've noticed a lot in this fandom is that people kinda seem to be riling eachother up, telling others to do this and don't do that, simply because they cannot have every single piece of the game

And its okay to show your concerns, some things truly don't make sense and you should let PB know that, but Jesus it sometimes feels like its some sort of echo chamber in here

There's still content that you can get for free, and (in my opinion) fandom is also a very important part of enjoying the media that you're a fan of

Sometimes its important to take a step back and think to yourself: should I really be this worked up about a game?

I've had moments where I've been so stressed about getting everything in a game, to the point of spending hundreds of euros just so I wouldn't feel left out (looking at you Love Nikki), but once I realized that I can also enjoy stuff without having everything, and by engaging in a nice fandom, it gave me so much peace of mind

So please for the love of god: show PB your complaints, but once you realize that you're getting extremely worked up about a game, maybe take a step back, uninstall, maybe take a walk or something because shit like that isn't healthy

Note: this isn't about anyone in particular, just a (big) thought that I've been having about the whb fandom for a while (and its just been relighted again bcs of this recent shitstorm). I'm not looking for discussions with other people about this, so please don't start any with me.

[copperbadge]

Current Events Reading Reccs

I had a couple of people asking me about my “current events” reading in general (news aggregators, podcasts, etc) so I figured I’d just list them off here. 

I don’t read any tumblrs that are specifically focused on current events, I just kinda get news from various people I’ve followed, but I’ve found in general it helps to find people for whom the news is a hobby, not a consuming habit. I have communists and anarchists and prison abolitionists on my dash, but they aren’t people who have made that their identity, which removes the “You are insufferable” factor. So I guess find fandom weirdos with strong political views and follow ‘em. 

Also I want to state at the top that part of why I’m on top of shit that I get through Tumblr is that I have a policy of never reblogging or reacting to anything until I have 1. read the article being linked and 2. done my own research. This has saved me a vast deal of embarrassment, because sometimes I’ll save something outrageous to research and before I can even research it, it’s been rebutted. I cannot stress how important the process of reading and research is -- you can’t get your news from headlines and particularly not clickbait you see on Tumblr. 

As far as I know there’s no single tumblr clearinghouse for good high-level current events reporting and analysis (the analysis I think is a vital part) but if folks have resources they use, drop ‘em in the comments or reblogs.  

Anyway, some mailing lists I belong to are:

Quartz Daily Brief: finance and tech, mainly. Back when they were for-pay I paid for them, this newsletter was that entertaining. I believe they’ve now gone fee-free but they sometimes link to paywalls. I get it as an email newsletter, that’s just a link to the web version. 

Breakfast with ARTNews: Obviously a bit niche but I really like keeping up with the art world and they cover art crime too. The link is to the all-newsletters signup page, I only belong to Breakfast. 

The Futurist: This is the most insufferable nonsense masquerading as news ever. The ads are indistinguishable from the content. But it does help me keep a finger hard on the pulse of what irritating tech bros are into. Watch scams unfold in real time! 

I also follow a number of local interests -- community centers and neighborhood organizations primarily -- in Chicago, so those are always good to hunt up. Most major cities have a “citycast” podcast (just search “citycast [your city]” in your podcatcher) that is also good for local news.  

Some websites:

Longreads: Since longform.org went under, the best place to find the current longform pieces that everyone’s talking about.  

Brand Eating: Extremely niche, but I really love reading about “brand” food trends. It covers new food releases and sales and such in the areas of packaged food (potato chips, candy, etc), fast food, and casual dining. It’s also great as a resource for cheap eats. 

I stopped reading Bon Appetit recently (they ran this appallingly sympathetic story about a dickhead hiring manager) but like, honestly, if you want to track food trends, the BA email newsletter is kinda the way to go. If you’d like good food news in podcast form, I recommend The Sporkful (it’s in the podcast list). 

I used to read the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Fortune Magazine (which mostly scraped the not-awful stuff from Forbes) but I’ve cut it down to just the Trib; I don’t really need Fortune to keep me current and the NYT has morphed into a creepy proto-fash nightmare. The Trib has pretty good national/international coverage so if you don’t have a decent local paper it’s not bad, but I don’t know how much access you get as a nonpaying reader (I subscribe). 

Podcasts:

Quartz has a podcast, Quartz Obsession, which is off-and-on in terms of when episodes come out but very interesting when they do. 

Planet Money is a once-weekly podcast about economics, and has a daily show called “The Indicator” which is daily “small bites” current events coverage. 

The Late Show and the Daily Show both have an “ears edition” podcast that’s just the show audio; I’ve stopped listening for the most part but if you want good cultural commentary, that’s the place to go. 

The Journal by the Wall Street Journal is a weekly podcast focusing on one or two news stories, generally pretty relevant. 

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is a panel show but it’s a fun way to get bite-sized news you can look up later in more detail if you want. And it’s taped in Chicago! If you listen you can hear me in the audience laughing. :D (I’m going to another taping in a few weeks!) 

Behind The Bastards is actually a history podcast but if you’re listening current he does a bit of current-events commentary, and also I just really like it as a podcast.

Stuff You Should Know is a trivia podcast but they occasionally do current-events stuff.

The Sporkful is pretty good about current food news, although I run hot and cold on it.

I used to listen to a really good “professional” medical podcast, but it went full paywall when it started to offer certain forms of professional credit, so I found The House Of Pod as a very good free replacement. It’s not really for non-doctors, but as a non-doctor I still find it accessible and informative. (For medical history and curiosity, I do highly recommend Bedside Rounds, but I wouldn’t call it a current events cast.) 

So that’s how I get my news -- it’s not what I would call fully comprehensive but it’s reasonably informative! 

[that-one-gay-aew-enthusiast]

𝙾𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 - 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚜 𝚁𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜𝚘𝚗

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Warnings: blowjob, sex work, vaginal sex, riding, groping, maybe slightly non-con for thomas since he's a bit drunk?, mention of scars, unprotected sex, creampie, mention of reader being called a whore Word Count: 1.5k Genre: Angst? Smut Summary: Thomas appears in your brothel but turns down all your girls, so decide to give him a service on the house Pairings: Owner/sexworker!reader x thomas A/n: Thank you to @vigilante-daredevil for suggesting i watch apostle

A/n #2: *rounds of applause* SHES FINALLY BACK WRITING AGAIN WOOHOO (btw send me a dm or just ask in the comments of this if you want to be added to my taglist, frank fic will be my next piece)

＿＿＿＿＿＿｡o*★*o｡＿＿＿＿＿＿

He had come in quite early on in the evening. From the moment he walked in, you could see something was up with this man. He ordered a whiskey on the rocks and sat in a secluded booth in the shadowy corner of your brothel's bar. As the evening progressed you watched as he turned away at least 5 of your best girls, something you had never seen before. Normally only 1 or 2 of your girls got turned away before the same guy before he settled on a girl which happened to be his type. But this man, he turned every vareity of girl you had away.

Later on, the brothel started to die down, your usual customers started paying for their drinks and leaving, yet there he still sat in the corner. Even from across the room, you could see his eyes had glossed over slightly, as he swirled the orange liquid in his glass. He already had 5 empty glasses scattered out infront of him on the table. You wiped up the bar surface with the rag from your shoulder, before nodding to one the girls who had finished for the night to tend bar for a bit.

You made your way over and sat down next to the mystery man. In a soft voice you got him to look at you. "Hi there my sweetheart, are you alright, you've turned down practically every girl here?" He didn't reply, simply looked away from you and down at his glass, before throwing the remaining liquid down his throat, hissing at the slight sting. His gravelly yet soft voice spoke up suddenly. "I don't have the money for the girls, i was only intrested in the drinks and a quiet spot to drown my sorrows." You gave him a sympathetic look and gently placed your hand on his. "You wanna tell me what has caused you these sorrows that need to be drowned in whiskey?" He looked into your eyes, his were glossy and empty. "I over worked myself, and my wife left me for my brother."

You nodded as he told you before speaking up. "Well how about i give you a sevice to take your mind off of all that." He shook his head. "I told you already madam, i don't have the money for a serv-" You cut him off. "It's on the house." He looked at you slightly shocked, from the few times he had been to a brothel, before being married, they had never so much as lowered their prices, nevermind offer a free service. "Are you sure madam?" You gave him a sweet smile and nodded. "And you can call me y/n." He nodded. "Alright, thank you madam y/n." You stood up and took his hand, leading him to one of the unoccupied bedrooms above the bar.

Once the door was locked, you turned and smiled at the man. "So you got a name mister?" He hung his coat on a peg and undid his shirt. "Thomas, Thomas Richardson." You closed the curtains and sauntered over to him. "Well thomas how about you just lay back and let me take all that stress away for you?" He gave a slight smirk and did so, his shirt now unbuttoned and slightly open, showing a flash of his chest. You unclipped the black and red corest around you midsection letting it fall to the ground. You licked your lips as you crawled onto the bed between Thomas' legs.

You kept eye contact with him as you started planting slow and sensual kisses up his torso, all whilst you fingers unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them down to his knees. You could hear small relaxed noises come from thomas as you pusheded his shirt open further. You continued to plant kisses along his torso before shuffling down and tugging at the waist band of his boxers. As you freed his cock form his boxers which sprang up and hit his lower stomach, precum glazing the tip, Thomas sat up slightly, resting on his elbows and looking down at you. Looking up him ,you pushed your hair back and let some spit drip onto his cock before you took his tip between your pretty pink lips.

Thomas let out a groan as his head tipped back and his hands found their way to the back of your head. You hollowed out your cheeks and took more of him into your mouth. You had to say, he certainly had an impressive size, a good 7 or 8 inches and quite thick aswell. Your hands rested on Thomas' thighs as you slowly began to move your head up and down on his length. He seemed to be quite impaitent however, gathering your hair into a pony tail and pushing your head down slightly further. "Please sweetheart, i need more than that." You smirked and took as much of him as your throat allowed. Thomas held your head in place began bucking his hips ,fucking your mouth and throat. You gagged a few times as spit dripped from the corners of your lips.

Thomas let out a small grunt and occasional whimper with every thrust of hips, and by god did he let you know how heavenly your mouth felt. Soon his thrust became sloppy, his orgasm drawing evidently closer. By now, you were a mess, hair tangled between his fingers, your lips pink and puffy, tears brimming your eyes and spit dripping down your chin. Suddenly Thomas held your head still and let out a loud moan. His cum shot down your throat as you sat back panting. You swallowed the salty liquid and smiled up at Thomas. He helped you up onto the bed and and gently wiped the tears and mix of cum and spit off your face. You smiled and reached under your dress, removing your panties and climbing onto thomas' lap.

You slowly sunk down, letting out a soft moan as he stretched you. Thomas cursed under his breath and bit his lip. You began to swirl and bounce your hips on him as you tipped your head back, moaning in his ear. Thomas' hands snaked their way round your hips and clutched them tightly, digging his fingers into your plump hips. You moaned out his name as your hands slid over his torso, feeling small raised and faded scars underneath your fingertips. Thomas pressed his soft lips where your neck met your chest, as his arms wrapped round you and pulled you closer to him. You tipped your head back as your arms rested on his shoulders ,your fingers tangling in his hair.

You felt him look up at you and met your eyes with his. You see his eyes were filled with lust. "Madam y/n you make me feel so heavenly, i could have you on top of me for all eternity, just feeling you squeeze round me like that." His praising words went straight to your head, making you feel more worthy and beautiful than the "common whore leader" everyone else seemed to see you as. You felt the warm tightness in your stomach grow stronger as thomas starting thrusting up to match your bounces. "So close thomassss" His pretty blue eyes looked up from between your breasts. "Yeah?" You nodded whimering and digging your nails into his back, leaving small cresent shaped indents. Thomas gripped your waist tighter and bit down on your breast as he thrusted harder. Your mind went slightly fuzzy as you felt your orgasm wash through you, followed by the warm feeling of thomas' seed filling you up.

You both slowly came down form your highs and laid on the bed next to each other, the smell of sex and sweat lingering in the air. After a few minutes of silence your turned onto your side and smiled at thomas as you ran a hand over his chest. "Feeling better now mr richardson?" He turned his head to the side to look at you with a smll smile on his face. "Most definetly madam." His arm snaked round your waist and pulled you against him, kissing your forehead and rubbing your back. You were slightly stunned as he did. No other customers did this after their show, normal customers would maybe crack a joke or briefly check on the girls before leaving, but never this. Yet as strange as was, it was still nice, nice to know that someone appriciated you.

You and Thomas stayed like that for about 20 minutes before getting up and helping each other get dressed. You both headed back down to the bar area where only a few drunks and your later girls reamained. You walked thomas to the door before he turned to you. "I'll make sure to come back once i've got the money and i'll pay for your second best service alright?" You looked at him puzzled as you held his hands. "Second best?" A small grin crept onto his lips as he stepped towards you. "Well i've already had the best service madam." With that he planted a soft kiss on the back of your hands and walked off into the night, leaving you stood on the steps of your brothel, stunned, flustered and maybe a bit lovestruck?

[a-linearis]

to my fellow humans struggling with bfrbs (body focused repetitive behaviours):

you are not a monster, you are not disgusting or shameful, you are a person worthy of love and care and respect :)

About a week ago, I had one of the worst episodes of skin biting in months, I'm doing better now but I wanted to put some tips and reminders here!

I didn't know that there was terms for my behaviours until like a few months ago (even though this has been a thing since I was really young), since shame and stigma got in the way of anyone in my family actually doing any research/getting me help (i.e. i had to deal with it on my own :<)

[note: a lot of these are for dermatophagia/onychophagia since I can talk from personal experience, feel free to add your own advice!]

Water is a big thing that can be triggering, since it can reveal flaps of skin (when your skin absorbs the water and your skin goes wrinkly), so a lot of these revolve around water.

If the skin around your fingers is affected, go wash your hands immediately after an episode of the repetitive behaviour! Rinsing my mouth also helps sometimes.

go get yourself some (cheap) hand cream from your local drugstore. I always keep moisturiser on me to use after I was my hands/do the dishes/have a shower/anytime my hands feel dry

Wash the dishes with gloves/use a dishmatic/if you have a dishwasher and it doesn't cost too much to use you can use that

Try turning off the water in your shower whilst applying soap to your body. If showers are completely too triggering, flannels and deodorant (but at least try to shower if you've exercised/once every few days). Equally, washing your hands should be fine, but if not, then hand sanitiser (be careful of cuts though!)

I exfoliate around my fingers with brown sugar like once every two days if my fingers don't hurt, I'm not sure of the proven efficacy of it removing dead skin from the surface but it makes me feel good (it's a good replacement activity)

nail oils! jojoba oil is known to be good, but i used to use virgin olive oil because it's also good (and it was something I had at home). Right now I just use shea butter! just moisturise in any way possible!

There are some things that people say such as bitter nail solutions and gum, but I used to just chew right through those, so remember that there is no one solution that works for everyone (some of these won't help you, and that's fine)

Plasters tend to stop air from getting to small cuts on your fingers so try not to use those (they weren't very helpful for me, at least)

When your hands start healing, gloves can help, but the fabric tends to catch onto skin/nails so be careful with that (and when you're putting on clothes in general)

Nail polish/rings if you like them! You shouldn't feel like you have to wait until your fingers are better before you can look nice :)

Knitting/fiddling with rings/making sure your doing something with your hands can be useful sometimes, but it's totally understandable if you just start with one little piece of skin and you end up like completely wrecking your fingers (when you start, you often can't stop)

Be aware of possible triggers. it's very hard to do this since sometimes episodes come out of nowhere, but I know i'm more likely to start biting my skin after stressful events or during task paralysis/when my brain is "stuck" (the logic is that my brain can be "stuck" on something else instead of all these impending things i have to do but can't get myself to start doing)

Remind yourself how much your hands help you to experience the world around you - You write, read, use technology, make and eat food, play your favourite games, hug your friends and create with your hands! You owe it to yourself to keep them safe and healthy where possible. Be compassionate with yourself (it will often be in spite of the way others treat you - but we are all here for you!)

talking about it can always help too with removing guilt/shame (I am always down to talk) and reading other posts on the tags here can feel v validating (@bfrb-culture-is has been so so helpful in making me feel less alone!)

I do hope this is helpful, this post is as much for me as it is for anyone else that comes across it <3

Have a good day~

[2dmenenthusiast]

Last Night on Earth Pt. 9

(Ethan Winters x Gn!Reader)

Woweewowwowwow Im so sorry it's been a million years since I posted! But I am back and I hope you like this chapter! Only one more after this and then I'm gonna start on the sequel!

Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

Warnings/other info: Gore, character death (don't worry), description of bones breaking and a lot of other gross stuff

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5 Pt. 6 Pt. 7 Pt. 8 Pt. 9 Final

In all the years you’ve been alive, you think you’ve imagined your death about six dozen times. From the days you’ve been in foster care, enlisted in the army, and then up until now, it’s always been a topic that lingered in the back of your brain. Whether it be by your own hand, or some freak accident. You think you’ve doubled those thoughts in the past twenty-four hours alone.

“Chris.”

“Would you just let me check?”

“I’m fine!”

One hand was placed on your shoulder while the other turned your head from side to side, examining the large gash along your cheek from when your mask shattered.

“We almost got blown up, and you're worried about a cut on my face?”

“Your head slammed into a pile of rocks. I’m making sure you’re responsive.”

He held up his finger and moved it in and out of your vision, and you slapped his hand away.

“I’m fine. If I start throwing up then you’ll know something’s wrong.”

You heard Chris sigh behind you as you continued forward, muttering “stubborn” under his breath. Back in the central area of the cavern, you searched through the many pockets on your vest to search for a key you picked up somewhere along the way. You were made aware that there was a room behind the tunneling shield, and it was extremely likely that was the place Lucas was. You couldn’t imagine he had anywhere else to go since you’ve scoured almost every nook and cranny of this cave. And he didn’t leave, either. No, he had no intention of running away when the both of you were still alive. He was waiting for you, and you were ready.

“Where the fuck—”

“Did you lose it?”

“No!” 

There was a prolonged silence, the only sound being velcro loudly separating as you frantically searched for the key. Chris sighed loudly, and you let out an “Aha!” whilst you pulled out the small piece of metal and shoved it in his face.

“I do not lose things,” you said, placing the key above the glowing red nose of the clown.

“Uh huh.”

“I put things down in places which later elude me.”

“Oh, jesus christ.”

As soon as you turned the key, the shield began moving forward at a snail's pace, rocks crumbling around it. You briefly wondered if the cave was going to collapse around you. As soon as it stopped, you turned to Chris, and with a dramatic roll of your wrist, you gestured to the stairs leading up to the contraption.

“Age before beauty.”  

You imagined he rolled his eyes at you before moving on ahead without any complaints. You followed him up the rusted, yellow steps, the metal clanging under your footfalls. With Every step, your heart sank deeper into your stomach. You were anxious for all of this to be over, the concept hardly imaginable. Evie was dead, the root of all your problems, but once Lucas was gone, you’d finally be done. There would be no more of the endless torment you had to suffer, no more of your brother’s sick smile beaming down at you as he hurt and tortured you. God, a life without him in it. How fucking peaceful would that be?

The only problem was, you had absolutely no idea of where you would go or what you would do after this was all said and done for. Most of your life has been spent fighting, and the idea of living a peaceful, stress free life almost made you cringe. It was a nice thought; working a nine to five job, coming home to silence, and curling up on the couch with a good book and a drink. It wasn’t you, though. You think you’d go insane if it was.

Would you enlist again? Shit, you don’t even know if they’d let you. You don’t think you could pass a psych eval if you tried. You could always put your mechanic skills to use, your dad certainly taught you plenty. Thinking about it all now, it was giving you a headache.

When you stepped into the tunneling shield, it was completely dark, and you wish your headgear hadn’t been ruined since night vision would certainly come in handy right about now. You’d have to trust Chris to be your eyes for the time being. 

“Oh!” The sound of Lucas’s sudden voice almost made you jump. “You’re both still with us, I see. Very impressive, my friends! Let’s just see how impressive y’all really are.”

The light suddenly flickered on, and you were met with molded creatures coming at you from every direction. You covered Chris’s six while he covered yours, backs pressed together as you frantically shot at the monsters charging at you. Every time you killed one, another would appear in its place. But, they went down surprisingly easy, almost as if they were getting weaker as time went on. Maybe it was because it was Lucas creating them, rather than Eveline.

“Y’all are slowing down. Almost had you that time.” You refrained from rolling your eyes. “Just how much more of this do you think you can take?”

As soon as he was finished speaking, a couple bigger guys came stumbling through the area, smashing objects in their path, and you quickly recognized them as the same type that you and Ethan fought in the barn.

“Be careful, they spit!” you warned.

Right when you said that, a spew of vomit came at you, and you rolled out of its path. This stuff burned like acid, and you weren’t intending on reliving the painful experience. But then you remembered how you killed the one you faced last time, and quickly felt in your pants pocket.

“Chris! Get out of there!”

He watched you pull the pin with your teeth, and threw his body behind cover as you chucked the grenade between the two large monsters. Their bodies exploded like gore filled balloons, and you swallowed back the bile in your throat.

“You okay?”

Chris stood up, seemingly all right, and nodded. That was a relief.

The lights turned off, and you heard Lucas in your ear piece.

“Okay, okay! No more, alright? I don’t have nothing left.”

“That’s too bad. Now tell us where you are so we can fucking end this!” you seethed.

“Listen! I know I’ve done terrible things. Horrible things. I killed your men. I tortured them. Tortured my siblings too. And you know what? I enjoyed every second! Just like I’m gonna enjoy watching you burn!”

Red lights began pulsing and an alarm sounded, a robotic female voice informing you of the time before detonation.

“Oh, I’m really scared now!” you muttered sarcastically.

“You should be! Sounds like time’s running out! Tick tock, y’all. Tick. Tock.”

You spotted a grate in the floor, and used as much strength as you could to pull it up. It wouldn’t even budge an inch

“If you’re gonna kill us, just kill us. But for the love of god, shut the fuck up!” Chris grieved.

You chuckled to yourself and went to the next grate, wrapping your fingers firmly around the bars and pulling. When you heard the metal scrape a bit, you tugged harder.

“Come on.”

As the room began falling apart and flames licked at your feet, you finally pulled the grate up with a grunt and threw it to the side, jumping down after you urged Chris to go first. As soon as the cool cave floor met your hands and knees, a loud explosion sounded behind you, reflecting off the wet stone and heating your back like the sun. The Captain was by your side in seconds, helping you stand straight and checking you for injuries.

“You alright?”

You nodded, brushing him off. “Yeah. Let’s go before he gets away.”

Moving to step past him, you were immediately stopped in your tracks and pulled back by a firm hand on your arm. You sighed, twisting around to look at Chris.

“What?!”

Fingers gripped your jaw and turned your head to the side, the reflective shield of his helmet inching closer as he inspected you.

“Something on my face?” you asked. You were getting more frustrated by the second.

“More like lack of something.”

You shoved his hand away. “The hell are you talking about?”

You felt around your cheek, searching for what he meant, and your eyes widened. Shit. The cut on your face. It was gone.

“Chris, I—”

“How long has this been happening?”

You certainly felt on the spot now. “Uh, right before we fought Evie, I think. I, um… Well—”

“Spit it out.”

You sighed. “I technically died.”

He didn’t speak. You took that as your cue to explain.

“Well, from what Ethan told me, at least. I had this… dream. Or vision, or something. And the next thing I know, I’m waking up and all of my injuries are healed. I had a broken arm that I had reset earlier that night, and when I woke up, it was like nothing had happened to it. I know it’s strange but… I can’t explain it.”

He continued to remain silent, and it was making you nervous. You really wished you could see his face.

“Chris—”

“You need to get out of here.”

“... What?”

“Go. Go back the way we came and get the team to evac you.”

He turned away, and your lips parted in surprise. What the hell was he on about?! You followed him, not satisfied with the lack of explanation.

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“You hid crucial information from me and revealed yourself to be a possible threat. You’re done with the mission.”

“A threat?!”

You stopped in your tracks, but he just kept moving forward, as if his words didn’t have any kind of effect on you. Like you were just gonna lay down and listen like an obedient dog.

“Hey! I’m fuckin’ talking to you, asshole!”

He paused, but still didn’t face you.

“The only threat I am to anyone is my shitstain brother! You think I’d hurt you? Hurt your team?”

When he spun around and got in your space with only a few long strides, it made you take a step back, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“I think you don’t know what’s happening to you, and I think it’s a hazard to not only my safety, but your own. What if you turn into one of those things, huh? What if you mutate into a monster and I have to fucking kill you? Did you think about that?!”

God, you felt like you were being scolded by a teacher. Yeah, maybe you intentionally hid this from him because you knew he wouldn’t let you come. And you couldn’t risk that. You realized it was incredibly selfish, but in the moment, all semblance of safety went out the window when you realized you’d have the opportunity to hunt down Lucas. And Chris was doing a hell of a good job of making you feel guilty about it.

But, among all his ranting, a lightbulb went off above your head.

“Chris, shut up!”

He tilted his head. “Excuse me?”

Your hands came up to grip his shoulders, and you grinned.

“I got the vaccine. Remember? If the infection was that far along, I would’ve died as soon as I got it!”

You were happy about the news, but your emotions didn’t seem to be reciprocated. If anything, the information only seemed to make Chris more confused.

“Then how the hell is this possible? You must have some trace of the mutamycete in you. That’s the only way you could be regenerating so fast.”

You shook your head. “I don’t know. And we’re not gonna know without me being poked and prodded in a lab, which isn’t gonna happen until after we apprehend Lucas. So could we please get this show on the road?”

Chris sighed, pointing a finger at you in a manner of finality.

“No more secrets. Understood?”

You gave him a mock salute. “Loud and clear, Captain.”

“Call me Redfield, for christ’s sake.”

“Could just call you Christopher.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

You smiled, glad to see the man wasn’t always all seriousness. Clearly, under the hard exterior, he was a decent, normal guy.

Who could punch the head off a molded with barely any effort.

As you moved forward and through another door, the setting quickly changed from jagged cave walls to smooth brick. Your coms buzzed with the voice of Veronica, (Chris finally mentioned her name after you referred to her as “the lady with the pretty voice” too many times for his liking.) letting you know that Lucas sent out an email stating your deaths and the end of whatever deal he was involved in. You all surmised it was The Connections, but nothing was certain yet. What you were sure of, though, was that Lucas was a fucking idiot for thinking after all this time, he could kill you in such a shitty way.

Fire? Really? A beheading would’ve been way cooler.

It didn’t take long before the brick transitioned into smooth, painted stone, the cold atmosphere of the hallway you stepped into sending a shiver up your spine. Questions about what this place was and how it was built swirled in your mind. It was like an underground research facility, and the more you searched, you knew that’s exactly what it was. It was so clean it almost made you uncomfortable, and you could feel that something truly awful happened down here. You wouldn’t have such an eerie feeling in the pit of your stomach if something didn’t.

Wandering down the pristine hallway, you stepped into a lab with your gun raised and quickly noticed a couple high regen molded through the glass pane on the other side of the room. You carefully examined an abandoned piece of paper next to a bright computer, and noted that this was where Lucas did his research for The Connections. Searching through the device, you found a note he had written for himself, talking about how he killed all the researchers with the molded and had to hold in his laughs while he watched them die. The sick fuck. He also mentioned potential buyers of the E Series, and you pointed it out to Chris. He talked quietly into his earpiece while you took a shuddered breath.

Shit. How long has he been up to this?

When Chris led you into the contained room, you both swiftly took out the creatures, and noticed the trails and splatters of blood on the otherwise pristine padded walls. You didn’t know what kind of experiments they were doing here, and you didn’t want to know. The possibilities made you sick.

“He’s not in here. Let’s move.”

You held up a hand, wordlessly telling Chris to just wait a second, and picked up a photo next to a set of dolls. It was Mia holding Eveline’s hand. You felt your heart plummet.

“She’s been working with them…”

“Who?”

You spun around and thrusted the photo towards him.

“Mia! She— Fuck, I wanted to give her the bennefit of the doubt, but this? This is fucking sick!”

You dropped the photo and took a closer look at the dolls. They must’ve represented the two. You felt your skin crawl.

“They conditioned Evie to see Mia as a mother figure so she wouldn’t act out as long as she was with her. If Mia kept up with the charade, Eveline’s emotions would remain stable. Shit, and Ethan doesn’t even know! He doesn’t know his wife is a goddamn liar and working with terrorists!”

“Hey,” Chris placed a hand on your arm, trying to get you to come down from your quickly rising anger. “I know it’s a lot to take in right now, but we have to focus. I need you to keep your head on straight for me, alright?”

You gulped and nodded, taking a deep breath to do as he wanted you to. It was crazy to think that earlier you felt some semblance of empathy for the woman, when she was involved in all of this from the beginning. Maybe you didn’t have all of the information, but the current evidence was certainly painting a clear picture for you. And it wasn’t a very pretty one.

You brushed past the man without another word, jaw clenched and lips set in a frown. It was nice to have clarity about certain things, but if you were honest, you were fucking tired of discovering the new atrocities your brother and whoever these “Connection” assholes were committed. It seemed never-ending, like one or ten awful acts weren’t enough. You had stared evil in the face, taken the lives of dangerous terrorists. But nothing compared to the evil that resided in your brother. And you often wondered how he ended up this way. Because your parents were nothing but loving, and you couldn’t remember anything particularly bad happening to Lucas when you started living with them. So, the only conclusion you could make was that he was just born that way. And your parents, as loving and attentive as they were, never saw it. Or, they just pretended not to.

Moving down the corridor, your breath hitched when you spotted the back of Lucas’s grey hoodie on the other side of a glass window. He was hunched over a laptop, furiously typing as he didn’t seem to notice you yet. You experimentally pushed against the mechanical door to the room and met resistance.

“The power must be out. Try to find a switch or something, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Chris nodded and stepped into the next room branching off the hallway while you watched Lucas intently. You could safely make the assumption that he was emailing his business partners and wanting to part ways. You imagined that was easier said than done.

The power suddenly flickered, and Lucas’s head shot up when the lights in the room turned on. When he finally turned, it was like he saw a ghost. He stumbled back into the desk just as Chris came back into the hall, and with a smile, you pressed your middle finger to the glass.

“I got you now, fucker!”

He took off running in a split second, and you didn’t hesitate to go after him, slamming your shoulder into the door as Chris yelled your name. Your boots squeaked against the waxed floor, and Lucas wheeled a gurney in your path amidst his frantic escape. Using your momentum, your hand balanced on the gurney to help you clear the jump over it, maintaining your speed.

“Shit, shit!”

“You got nowhere to run, Lucas!”

He burst through the door at the end of the hallway, but as quickly as you followed him through it, he had disappeared. You raised your rifle, searching the vast room when Chris caught up to you.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I lost him somehow.”

It was then that his voice spoke through your ear piece.

“How the hell are y’all still alive? You should be dead!”

“We got your emails. We know you’re funneling info to someone.”

Lucas growled. “That’s none of your god-damned business, Chris! A lot of people wanna know about our little Evie. A lot of people.”

“She was a little girl, asshole,” you seethed.

“Do your friends, The Connections know about this? They don’t seem like the forgiving type.”

“That’s my business. You let me worry about them.”

“Won’t have to worry much when you’re dead, then.”

With a scream, Lucas appeared from the shadows like a bat out of hell, swinging a knife at Chris and tackling him to the ground. You ran up to his side and kicked your boot against his shoulder to knock him off, and as he went to raise himself up, Chris put a bullet in his leg while you put one right in his chest.

Of course, it was wishful thinking that that would be enough to kill him.

He writhed on the ground, muttering to himself. “I can’t— I don’t… No, I don’t believe it.”

You firmly placed your boot on his chest and aimed your gun in his face. “It’s over, Lucas. You’re finished.”

He struggled out a laugh. “Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you.” You shouldn’t have been surprised, but you couldn’t help the gasp that left you when his features began morphing and his body started melting into black mold. Veronica mentioned something about the infection, but you were too distracted by the current horror show to pay attention.

“Oooh boy! So this is what it feels like.” His voice was deep. Distorted. “I’ve got somethin’ for you, now. You’re fuckin’ screwed!”

There was a firm hand on your arm pulling you back, and you watched as your brother’s body turned into a puddle of black ooze and began creeping up the wall.

“What in the seven shades of fuck…”

The goo settled on the ceiling before it began to produce yellow spores, forming a sac-like structure that began to pulse and leak a viscous, yellowish liquid. From the way you’ve seen your other family members transform, you quickly learned that no evolution from this virus was the same. And Lucas’s definitely seemed to be the most evolved out of all of them.

“So uh… any advice on how we should handle this?” you asked.

Chris reloaded his rifle, making sure the magazine was firmly locked into the gun. “Yeah. Fight like hell.”

Well, you could’ve guessed that.

The sac pulsed violently before splitting right down the middle as Lucas fell out of it. But, he wasn’t Lucas anymore. No, this thing was three times Chris’s size and had sharp points jutting out of its body. It had three morphed faces and pointed teeth. It was a fucking monster. So, yeah. Maybe it was the real Lucas.

“You had to come in here and mess everything up, didn’t you?!” he said.

He swung a long, deformed arm your way and you narrowly dodged it, the heavy mass on the end of it forming a crater where you once stood. His eyes were red and full of fury. But, they weren’t focused on Chris. They were focused on you.

Shitshitshitshitshit!

Chris yelled at you to run, but as soon as you turned to do so, Lucas leapt from his spot and landed right in your path, the ground shaking from the force. You had to strain your neck to look up at his face(s), and god, was it a gruesome sight. You took a slow step back, trying to distance yourself, but you were afraid any sudden movement would make him lash out.

As if you weren’t already trying to kill each other.

“You! Always gettin’ in the damn way of everything!” His claws pierced the cement floor digging up a hunk of rock and holding it over his head. “Folks should’ve sent you back where you came from!”

The rock was sent flying down at you, but another hard force rammed into your side and pushed you to the ground out of harm’s way. Still, Chris’s body slamming into yours nearly knocked the breath out of you.

“Fuck!”

“You okay?”

You nodded, pushing yourself off the ground as he stood up. You were more than okay, because now you were fucking pissed. Over ten years living with this asshole and his only motivation for hating you was petty jealousy? What a fucking crybaby.

Aiming your rifle, a stream of bullets pierced his thick head, and he turned to you with a scream.

“Come on, fucker! You wanna kill me so bad? Then fucking do it!”

He roared, the sound guttural and rough, and moved to swipe a large, clawed hand at you. As quickly as he lashed out, though, he brought his hand back up to his face before it could touch you, shielding it from Chris’s assault. You used the momentary distraction to aim at the glowing, orange mass on his chest, and noted how it caused him more pain. But then he was jumping away from you and screaming about his head, and his ribs and chest opened with a sickening crack to release spores, filling the room with contaminated air.

When he looked down at you, there was a deranged expression on his face. But, when he saw your maskless face and noticed you had no reaction to the spores, his expression dropped.

“What?! Impossible!”

You grinned, and just for kicks, took a deep breath of the air. You then beat your fist against your chest and held out your arms.

“Come on! Hurt me! You wanna see what happens?!”

Your taunting clearly had some effect, because he was charging at you in the next moment, hand closing around your middle and dangling you above the ground. Chris called out for you, and judging by the tremor in his voice, you knew he was scared for you. Maybe even more scared than yourself. But, you’ve stared death in the face, faced more terrifying foes that Lucas wished he was half as brilliant and despicable as. So what reason was there to be afraid?

When he slammed your body into the concrete, the air forced itself out of your lungs as your skull slammed back into the floor and rattled your brain. His grip was so tight he began to crush your ribs whilst blood gurgled in your throat, and Chris’s cries fell on deaf ears as Lucas flung you to the side.

You rolled across the ground and didn’t stop until you hit the wall. The sound of the captain’s rushing footsteps became louder as he came to your side and shielded you with his body, keeping his gun trained on Lucas. Your brother snarled and said something, but you couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in your ears. 

It fucking hurt like hell, searing pain shooting throughout your body as you lifted yourself onto your hands and knees. But as quick as the pain came, it began fading, leaving your insides warm and tingling. Your ribs cracked back into place, the pressure lessening on your lungs and allowing you to take a breath. Despite a mild headache, you felt perfectly fine. Like all you got was a small bump on the head. The ridiculousness of it all made you giggle.

The sound of gradually rising laughter caught their attention, taking a brief pause from killing each other to look at you. When you raised up on your feet, Chris took a step back as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. You should be dead. He watched Lucas crush you like you were a fucking beer can. Yet, here you were, standing on your feet with blood dripping down your face and laughing.

You licked the blood off your teeth and spat it on the floor.

“Is that the best you can do?”

You were rushing forward in an instant, faster than Chris could stop you, and slipped your knife out of its sheath. Lucas went to take another swing at you, but you dropped to your knees and slid between his legs, slicing your knife at his ankle. He cried out and collapsed onto one knee, and you quickly shot up on your feet to jump up on his shoulders.

“Chris!”

The man was alert, waiting for your instruction whilst you shoved your blade into one of Lucas’s eyes over and over again. He screamed, hand coming up to claw at your thigh, but you grit your teeth through the pain and didn’t let up, locking your legs around his neck.

“His chest! Shoot it!”

He didn’t waste any time, sending a barrage of bullets into Lucas’s glowing chest, the orange pustules spurting disgusting liquid onto the ground.

“No! NO!”

With a cry, you lodged your knife deep into his skull, the blade sinking in with a sickening squelch, before untangling your legs from his neck and kicking off his shoulders. You landed— albeit ungracefully— on your feet, and watched as Lucas writhed before collapsing on his back. His skin undulated and whatever disgusting substance he had flowing inside him bubbled to the surface. His ragged breaths were loud, and he almost sounded like he was in pain.

Good.

Your boots stomped against the ground and paused beside him, rifle aimed at his head with a snarl on your lips. His eyes shifted back and forth, and you saw no semblance of the boy you used to know behind them. All you saw was a fucking monster.

“Game over, asshole.”

The single shot that rang out was loud and echoed off the barren walls, his head exploding to viscera at your feet.

He was dead.

And you felt nothing.

You pictured this moment over a thousand times. You imagined there would be this massive weight lifted off your shoulders, and you could live your life knowing you and Zoe were finally safe. But you felt absolutely nothing.

Your gun clattered to the ground, and a rough cry clawed its way out of your lungs. You felt like you were suffocating, desperately clawing at the straps of your vest because god dammit get this fucking thing off of me!

Chris made his presence known, quietly reassuring you and helping you with your vest. The second it was loose, you tore it off your body and took a deep breath, back hunched with your hands on your knees.

“Fuck! Fuck.”

“Hey. He’s dead. You’re okay.”

Your breathing began to slow after a while, and you slowly straightened up to look at the man next to you. He had taken his mask off at some point, and you swore you almost forgot what he looked like. It was refreshing to see a friendly face, rather than the black reflective glass you had been forced to look at for the past however long.

But now, he looked less intimidating than when you first met him. His features were still well weathered and stern, but his eyes were… softer. The crease between his brows lessened just a small bit.

“I’m okay.”

He nodded, lips quirked up in a small smile. “You’re okay.”

“Chris!” Veronica yelled, and you swore you jumped at least three feet in the air.

“Jesus fucking christ!”

“The data transfer’s almost complete!”

You both rushed over to the computer, the progress bar on the monitor almost full.

“How do I stop it?”

“You need to find a way to shut down the server. There may be some transformer relays you can—”

Anything else she wanted to say was cut off when Chris shot at the transformers right next to the monitor, effectively stopping the email from sending.

“Well, that was effective,” you said.

“Yeah. Gonna be some pissed off computer techs here, but—”

“Whatever. What’s the Sitrep?”

“The facility is clear. Even the newer breeds have been neutralized.”

Chris smiled, and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Then we’re getting outta here.”

You returned the gesture, but gasped when you remembered something.

“My sister! Veronica, is she—?”

“She got life flighted to a secure facility where she’s being taken care of, along with Ethan and Mia. Your uncle is with her.”

A puzzled expression took over your features. “Uncle Joe? Damn, can’t remember the last time I saw him.”

“Well then, let’s go. Have a big family reunion.”

You chuckled, following Chris out of the facility. “You gonna join us?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it.”

[nijikawa-satoki]

Alrighty, imma just do a thing.

Decided to redo my pinned post. So here we go:

序章 (Introduction)

Hiya! We're the Niji system! We have this blog for general usage and is generally SFW (for the most part). That said we do reblog occasional NSFW stuffs, so maybe check your blacklisted tags (← good to just do this in general anyways).

System introduction

As we stated before, we are a system (TL;DR multiple people in a single body. WE ARE NOT MERE PERSONALITIES, WE ARE PEOPLE JUST LIKE THE REST OF YOU! Sorry, just had to stress that...) And we are a (mostly) happy bunch of 3:

Satoki Nijikawa (that's me! >w< ): 26 y/o, trans girl, she/her, oni furry with a fennec sona. Host of our system.

Wamo: 27 y/o, fem-leaning enby, she/they, half-kitsune half-tanuki. They're an alright one to be around.

Kiyoi: 15 y/o, enby, she/they, tengu. You won't ever see them interacting on here. This is just our way of keeping her safe from the less savoury folks...

↓ Specific info about our askbox and stuffs under the cut! ↓

美術について (Art)

I'm gonna make an art tag for our art from now on, just so it's easier to find our art again and to make it easier for people who want to see our art to find it! That's gonna be the #art:niji tag.

I will try to go back and retroactively put this tag on our previous art, but all of new art will have this tag, so no worries there!

As for what types of art we do.. we do primarily pixel art, but will do digital art as well.

In regards to the pixel art, we tend to impose a limit of 4096 colours (12BPP) but only up to 16 colours can be shown on screen at any given time.

If those limitations sound familiar, that's because the PC-98 uses those limitations!

My other art tags: #ref sheet:niji (for all my ref sheets), #niji:pride moon (for my pride moons)

アスクの箱について (Askbox)

We generally only have a few rules for our askbox (importing these from here)

No soliciting details that would result in me even accidentally doxxing myself. Cannot stress this enough.

No asking me to promote anything, please!! This is to avoid accidentally spreading potential scams.

All art requests must be SFW (And by SFW, that unfortunately means the requested piece has to abide by Twitch TOS)! I do occasionally work on art during streams.

Until I get around to doing so, if you have any questions about my OC's (discussed later), please start your ask with "OCnt" (shortened from Japanese 「オリキャラについて」 Ori kyara ni tsuite, "About Original Characters (OC's)")

All answers I give to asks will be tagged with #ask:niji.

オリキャラについて (My OC's)

A bit of backstory here. Once upon a time, when I was still a dumbass high schooler, I had a project now called "Ten'en" (天園). It was a game project that I was working on in RPG Maker, and I made some OC's for it. Or rather, I made descriptions of said OC's, since I sucked immensely at art back then (still suck at it now tbf).

What does that have to do with this? Well, because I still want to use those old OC's of mine, now that I suck less at art. Dunno, might revive that old project. But yeah, any OC related stuffs, I will tag using #oc:niji. Feel free to ask about them in my askbox (just follow the simple rules for that).

他のタグ (Other tags)

#niji:minecraft builds <-- Anything we build in Minecraft

#niji:terraria idiocy <-- Our Terraria tag

#niji:irl <-- All our irl pics

結論 (Conclusion)

Yeah, decided to redo this. Been meaning to for a long time, but alas, the audhd brain somehow wins >.>

I don't expect everyone to actually read all of this, but you did, thanksies. Anyway, I'm out of here.

---- Satoki

[morlock-holmes]

In re: your recent threads about organizations caring about you as an individual, I’d like to propose that the actual phenomenon might be bilateral vs multilateral relations. An employer is free to fire you whenever your cost to them exceeds your expected benefit because no one else feels entitled to comment on your relationship. In a church, other churchgoers care about the way the church treats you, which constrains leadership. But the difference seems very much in the part of those bystanders rather the organization and its leadership

2/2

N "Same anon who asked about multilateral/vs bilateral relations. Realized that in editing for length lost the acknowledgment that this is only part of the solution. There do exist inalienable relationships, your exampl of the king e.g. or a mother perhaps. Even when a childs relationship with their mother breaks down, or another woman fills most of that role, the original mother is widely viewed to still have some rights in the relationship. But this needs a multilateral relationship to have others to recognize and enforce these rights even if the kid doesn’t want to"

Thanks for the response, I think you're getting at something.

But I want to go up even a level of abstraction beyond that.

Mother is actually a really good example, because even though your relationship to your mother can change, it is still *comprehensible as a relationship to your mother*.

Like, maybe your mother shouldn't have any rights because she's abusive; maybe you say something like, "My mother was a real piece of work, she stopped talking to me after I came out."

But it would be fairly rare, and fairly extreme to say, "That woman used to be my mother but now she isn't".

There is, in other words, still a distinction between "bad mother" and "not mother" even in cases where you don't have any real contact anymore.

Contrast with the situation of the company going belly-up:

While the company existed, you had a comprehensible relationship with, say, Betty in HR. She's the one who does those anti-discrimination presentations and once talked through a dispute with a co-worker.

Then the company disappears and both of you are laid off.

What's your relationship with Betty?

Well... I mean... Nothing I guess. We weren't friends so I guess we aren't anything to each other at all now.

In other words, you went from having a comprehensible, verbalizable relationship to one which can't be understood as a relationship of any sort, good or bad.

This can be confused because I'm using a slightly odd definition of the word "relationship".

You might easily say "I don't really have a relationship with my mother anymore" and we understand that to mean, "I've cut contact with my mother".

But that's a slightly different definition than what I mean. Even though you've cut contact, that she is your mother and you are her child still remains as a comprehensible statement.

Once Betty and I have both been laid off the concepts and structures that allowed us to verbalize some kind of connection or relationship are just gone. We can talk about what our relationship *used to be* but not what it *is.*

I think that this is psychologically distressing on its own terms, not just because it involves being exploited or ignored or treated as a means to an end or because something you valued has been destroyed; All of those things *are* distressing but I think that particular form of disintegration of relationships is itself stressful in ways that cannot just be reduced down to those other problems.

[faceless-conspiracy-buff]

A Bit of an Update

[ Hi everyone! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Since I haven’t posted anything new in the past... four months? Ish? I thought I’d take a moment to let you all know where things currently stand with regard to my life, this blog and its future.

Fair warning, though: I’ve got a lot to say. ]

[ Let’s start with the obvious: I haven’t posted anything new since December, and even then, I wasn’t posting very regularly.

There are reasons for that. Four big ones, to be precise.

The first (and biggest) of those is my job. I might have mentioned it before, but I started my first full time job last summer. It’s not a fun or fulfilling position and I plan on leaving it as soon as I possibly can, but right now, it’s the only source of income I’ve got. 

It also takes up most of my free time. Back when I was in university, I was able to answer multiple asks each day. Now, I’m lucky if I draft a new post once a week. 

Secondly, this blog has gotten a lot more attention than I ever expected it would.

As I’ve said many times before, I started faceless-conspiracy-buff as a passion project. I just wanted to try my hand at writing Q and maybe respond to a few questions from my friends. I had no idea that I’d end up with nearly three hundred followers. 

And I’m grateful for the attention! It’s really, really flattering to know that so many people are interested in my art and writing. 

But it’s also a little intimidating, which brings me to my third point: I’m trying to prioritize my mental health. 

I’m an anxious person by nature and the past year has been quite rough on me. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is challenging under the best of circumstances and since my circumstances aren’t the best... I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Things have been slowly improving. I’ve been practicing self-care, spending more time with friends and family, and generally trying to deal with my issues in a healthy way. 

I’ve also been trying to cut out sources of unnecessary stress and, unfortunately, writing for this blog can be quite stressful. 

I want to learn to manage that stress before I dive back into my inbox, y’know?

Finally, I’m working on a couple other projects right now. My dad’s a writer, and his number one piece of advice has always been “make your own stuff”. He understands the appeal of fan fiction, but he has always stressed the importance of having full creative control of your work. 

And while I’d like to think that this version of Vic is uniquely mine, in the same way that Gail Simone’s Barbara Gordon is uniquely hers, I don’t own him. I can’t put any of my asks in my portfolio, or submit my flash fiction for publication. 

I like writing Q, but I think it’s important for me to create original stuff too.

All of this is a long way of saying that there were legitimate reasons for my absence this time around.

I don’t want to abandon this blog. I don’t intend to abandon this blog.

I may eventually decide to throw in the towel, but I don’t plan on leaving without giving my boy a proper send off. 

Q is still a major source of inspiration for me and a huge comfort character to boot. He is, for lack of a better term, blorbo from my shows. I love him.

And I love you. All of you. The mutuals, the strangers. The long-time followers, the newbies. The AIs, and the Riddlers, and the Dannyzens, and the vampire hunters, and all the people who send me in-character messages and delightful fan art.

I love you all.

Working on this blog has been hard, but you guys make it worthwhile.

Expect some kind of... something, in the near future. The issues I mentioned will probably keep me from settling into a schedule, but I’m going to try to put something together for all you kind, patient people. It’s the least I can do. ]

[babyspacebatclone]

Ok, here’s what I do.

I’m going to put the description of my visualization meditation under a cut, because I’m fully aware it may disturb people with fairly reasonable triggers.

I don’t know if it will work for anyone who’s not me.

But I’ve been doing this for over two decades to relax my own body, even before my own heading-towards chronic arthritis-induced pain.

There’s a tl;dr at the end, if anyone needs it but still cares.

So, I’m going to give two versions of this, because again I’m sure the one I actually use would squick a lot of people out.

First, get comfortable - whatever that means for you.

For me, that’s raising the head of my adjustable bed, putting a body pillow under my thighs to keep my legs at a good bend, have pillows on either side of my torso to rest my arms, and my weighted blanket arranged so it doesn’t stress my feet/ankles.

Completely by accident, I am recreating a zero gravity chair. Anyway…

image source

Get comfy. If it helps, get some relaxing music or nature sounds.

Now, imagine you’re a robot.

I’m serious, because the visualization is going to be disassembling yourself piece by piece, servicing each, then putting them away in a box.

I start with my feet.

I take off my toes, one by one. Carefully undoing the wiring and screws holding on the metal, gently testing the joints of each toe.

Oil what’s needed, maybe give a light polish, check that there’s nothing gritty clogging anything.

After each toe has been serviced, it goes into a foam box with holes perfectly sized for each.

Now, I service each foot. Then each ankle.

Long muscles tend to go faster, with more care on imagining opening up and servicing each mechanical joint, because as said above arthritis.

The spine is gently popping out each vertebrae, tailbone up, just free and unconstrained from the neighbors.

And, importantly, after each part is services it goes in its prepared box.

It’s not connected to me anymore.

Each mechanical part is all cared for and resting, away from me, turned off.

For me, this visualization leaves each serviced body part - deliciously numb. A faint, heavy white noise static, completely removed as I continue the body scan through my body.

Except, well, when I’m doing it I don’t bother with the entire “robot” distancing.

I’m imagining using fine metal skewers to literally stretch out the muscles laterally, teasing at the nerves until they go limp, popping the bones cleanly and safely apart.

It’s as bloodless and fantastical as the robot version, completely divorced from any biological reality.

And after servicing each loosened body part still goes into a box, away from the still functioning nervous system, away from the core of me.

If it’s my head or brain that needs loosening up, well, more skewers, literally opening up the unrealistic butter slime brain, letting air circulate.

If that fails, well, it’s time to start chopping up into fine cubes. Puree them down, make dough, knead it up like a pizza crust until everything feels homogeneous and diffused.

I’d do it to parts of my body, too, except none of them ever need the escalation like my brain.

Except the neck, that gets the rack treatment sometimes…

Anyway.

No clue if this could be helpful for anyone else.

But TL;DR:

Starting from your toes, pop off each body part in whatever fantasy works for you - robot, ball jointed doll, anatomically correct rag doll - and visualize “servicing” each part. Oil the joints, tighten the elastic, remove and replace the stuffing.

Once each part has been renewed, put it in a box to rest while you continue through the body scan.

Just focus on each body part in turn, imagining analogues to the complaint of each specific part, being completely mindful and present at however small or large a part of your body as you need to.

Then, move on. Each part has been dealt with, and requires no more focus.

Body awareness is absolute shit for chronic illness. “Become aware of your body. Pay attention to how your body feels” great now I’m noticing the bone aching soreness that is permeating my entire body, thanks for that. My mind was automatically filtering that out for my but I sure am aware of it now!

I need like the opposite. I need “leave your body entirely and forget it exists” meditation.

[laurenele]

last year

ok it has been forever since i posted in this space. almost a year i think? last time i was determined to post consistently and it just did not happen. social media is usually the first thing to go when things get busy, and boy have things been busy since last fall. last year was one of the toughest (if not the toughest) year of my life. my mental health was at its lowest point it has ever been. i am grateful to say that i am doing so much better now being (mostly) out of the toxic environment i was trapped in. ya know, it's funny becuase i always thought of myself as a highly resilient person (which i still think i am) and that i wouldn't be too bothered by any high pressure situation i was placed in since i've been under so many high pressure/stress situations in the past and handled them well. but last year, for whatever reason, nearly broke me. and i never want to find myself in that space ever again. it was a year of significant growth - i think i learned a lot about myself and i think the year forced me to become more confident in who i am/what i stand for. it's funny how your own beliefs and values become amplified when they are juxtaposed to people with the opposite. but i also discovered that you can learn a lot from others who you disagree with, and even others who you don't necessarily respect. a few life lessons off the top of my head:

values that were amplified this year: integrity, humility, compassion

to get what you want, you need to ask for it. and sometimes you need to push for it. self-advocating is important.

never assume you know everything. always lead with curiosity and not judgment.

whenever interacting with someone else (especially someone earlier in training), ALWAYS put yourself in their shoes. how would they feel? how can you support them? how can you make them feel included and valued?

you cannot do everything well all at once. when you are juggling 100000 balls, some will drop and that is okay.

listening to constructive criticism is important for growth. you don't need to take criticism from someone you don't respect on a topic you fundamentally disagree about. let it roll off your shoulders.

the people who most look like they have it together from the outside are usually crumbling behind closed doors.

belly laughing about how ridiculous your life is with someone who is going through the same thing is one of the most therapeutic feelings in the world.

ego is a powerful, dangerous driving force that can lead to significant harm. avoid people who are driven by ego at all costs (+ ego can be disguised and difficult to discern from the outside)

running is 100% my safe space, my respite, my release. i truly believe it is the main thing that got me through this year in one piece

i am so so so relieved and grateful that the year is over. i never have to repeat that ever again and i learned a lot about what i want in my future career. i got what i needed out of the year and i'm moving forward onto the next chapter, wherever that will take me. as i look forward at what remains of my last year of med school, i will savor every moment of joy, every pocket of free time, every opportunity to spend with family and friends unshackled from the burdens of the last year. dramatic, i know. but at least it gives me perspective. i have lots more to update on other than the last year - a month in CA, and now a month in CO. grateful doesn't begin to cut it. but we'll save that for another day.

[obxone]

Fractured Images

Not sure I like this one, may delete it.

Edited-ish -- ~2k word count

Warnings: domestic violence

JJ pushed the mower across the lawn of his third house today. He needed cash and it was the only reason he even offered to help take some of the work off one the others across the cut. He squinted as the sun beat down on him. He wished he was with his group surfing and enjoying a lazy summer day. 

He paused his work to drag his dark blue bandana across his forehead to mop up the sweat and that’s when he heard it. The yelling and the sound of something shattering. The back door jerked open and he saw Nathaniel Buckley stalk off towards the dock. 

The sound of sobbing followed. JJ frowned. Mrs. Buckley had died a few months ago so that meant it was Rosemary Buckley. The dark-haired, brown-eyed, quiet but kind girl that he caught glimpses of more often than not as of late. She had never been cruel like the other kooks, she had always treated everyone equally and even convinced her father to let her attend school across the cut the past year. He left the mower and glanced over his shoulder to see Mr. Buckley pulling his boat off of the dock and heading north. 

“Miss!” One of the maids yelled pulling JJ’s attention back to the house. He jogged to it, slipping into the doors and finding where the commotion had come from.

That’s when he saw you on your hands and knees trying to pick up a shattered art piece. Open cuts on your fingers where the pieces were too heavy for you causing the sharp edges to cut into your skin from the weight. 

“Let me!” The housekeeper was urging you to stop. 

“Rosie?” JJ spoke and you look at him, tears flowing down your cheeks. His jaw tightened at the jagged cut on your cheek and the fingerprint bruises already forming on your jaw and chin. JJ stepped around the scattered broken pieces to you. Normally kook business was kook business, but you were different. He never let himself admit it, but you were different from any kook he knew. “Come on,” he says hooking an arm around your back before lifting you and swinging your legs over his other arm. Your bare feet were cut up as well. 

“There is a first aid kit in her bathroom,” the housekeeper spoke. Her gaze is gentle as she stared back at him. He nodded once, the stress clear on his face. 

“Thank you, Alice.”

“Take care of her JJ,” she says returning to clean up the smaller and lighter pieces of what he now realized was a sculpture. He glances at the wall it had been smashed against, the drywall splintering with a massive cave-in. He turns heading up the stairs with you in his arms. Nothing else is being said. You squeeze his shoulder as you hold on. 

“Thank you,” you whisper once he gets to your room after some directions. He deposits you on the sink before bending down. “I can do it JJ. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I got it,” JJ’s gruff voice comes back. You pause waiting for him to look back up. When he does you notice the shine in his eyes. He was angry and on the brink of tears. 

“I’m fine,” you reassure him. He glares at you then. 

“No, you aren’t.”

You frown, before looking at your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes widen. “Okay, fair.”

A crack of a smile hints around his lips. He opens the first aid kit before starting to work on your face. You watch him being meticulous about how he treats each wound until he is satisfied. 

“He gets angry now,” you hear yourself start to say while he attends to your hands. “Ever since my mom died... I think even before if I'm being honest... he has had these uncontrollable fits of rage. I was protected from them before and now I’m not.”

JJ pauses his actions and looks at you. You shrug trying to mask how upset and hurt by this incident you really are. 

“He could’ve killed you, Rosie.”

“I know,” you whisper, looking away as the tears break free and begin to fall down your cheeks. He tosses the gauze away before pulling you into his chest. His arms are strong as they hold you against him. You cry into his chest, soaking his shirt. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Can you leave?”

“I only have him and my Aunt Phe and Uncle Ben now.”

“Where are they?” JJ questions, returning to your injuries once you withdraw from him, but you notice the storm in those blue eyes of his. 

“Charleston half the year and here the rest. Ben owns a couple of businesses so he floats around and she goes with him.”

“Must be nice," he mutters, his gaze not meeting yours now.

You frown then and touch his face pulling his attention to you. “Thank you.”

“Anytime Rosie, I mean it.” He says. “I know I’m probably not your first choice, but if you ever need to get away for the day or a night call me.”

“I will,” you respond as he cleans up the mess now that he’s done. “And JJ,” you say catching his hand, fingers lacing with his, making him pause and turn back to you. “You will never be not my first choice now.”

He smiles, a blush coloring his cheeks. “We should get ice for those bruises.”

You shake your head. “It'll fade in a few days.”

His smile fades to an immediate frown. The confidence in your reply made it very clear this wasn’t the first bruise Buckley had left on you. 

“Are Phe and Ben here?” He asks. “In OBX?”

You nod. 

“Pack a bag. I’m not leaving you here.” He didn't tell you where his thoughts went and they went somewhere dark. He puts the kit away before helping you down to the floor. You let him and stare up at him now that you were on solid ground. 

“Thank you, JJ,” you murmur before kissing his cheek. He ducks his head before stepping out of the bathroom. 

“Let me finish the lawn and we can go.”

“Okay,” you agree and watch him go before you start to a bag. You knew shit was about to hit the fan.

— — — —

Aunt Phe was angry by the time you had explained everything. JJ stayed to make sure you told the truth and didn’t dismiss the action. He knew all too well what that was like and how easy it was to do. 

She touched your face, her fingertips analyzing the bruise he had left today. “Are there any more?”

You frown but give her a nod. You couldn’t lie to her now. She lifts an eyebrow as Ben is busy talking to his lawyer in the next room. 

“Show me, Rosie.”

You glance at JJ who leans against the wall beside you. You shift pulling your cardigan off and removing your hair from your neck and back. She inhales sharply. Bruises marked where each rise in your spine was. A nasty bruise on your upper arm and fingerprints right below it on your bicep. 

“Jesus,” she gasps, pressing her hand to her mouth. The room is silent other than a swear word coming from JJ. You look back at him and it is only pure rage on his face now. “Why didn’t you tell us, Rosie?” She asks, her voice breaking as tears slide down her face. 

“He made me swear not to or it would be worse,” you confess, tears now sliding down your own face.

“Oh honey,” she groans pulling you into her arms. She cradles you against her as Ben walks back in. He pauses at the sight of you two sobbing in the middle of the room and JJ clenching his fists nearby and looking at the floor like he could pound it to dust. It doesn’t take him long to find the old bruises. 

“Jackson is requesting an ex parte order.”

“When will we know?” Phe asks as she holds you tightly. 

“Tonight. Jackson is on it right now.”

She nods, smoothing her hand down your hair before turning her attention to JJ. “We don’t know how to thank you.”

He ducks his head then before his gaze locks with yours. “Just doing what is right.”

“We appreciate it,” Ben says clasping him on the shoulder. “Stay for dinner okay? We can go over everything and document it if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” JJ responds quickly stuffing his hands into his pockets. “That yard was my last one today.”

Phe nods with finality before she releases you and goes with Ben wiping her eyes. You watch them go drying your own eyes before looking back at JJ. 

“That’s where you get it huh?” He asks. You lift an eyebrow in question. “Treating people like people and not a kook or a pogue.”

You smile softly. “My mom was the same way.”

He grins then moves forward looking around Ben’s study. You watch him. 

“Want a tour?” You ask, nudging him with your elbow. 

“Absolutely.”

You grab his hand and start going room by room until you end up in what is your room when you stay here. 

He sits on the bed, watching you as you sit on the bench jutting out from one set of windows. 

“If they get custody does that mean you go to Charleston for half the year?”

You turn to him, surprised a little at the question. He was looking anywhere but at you and you could feel the disappointment. 

“I don’t know. I think that would be hard with the school.”

He looks at you then. A small smile on his face and you see a dimple peeking out at you. You shift to swing your legs out in front of you and your toes press against the wall across from you. You stare at the bandages, he had done a good job. 

“JJ?”

“Yeah?”

“Come sit with me.” You beg a little.

He does and moves to sit with you on the bench. You lean into his side. His arm loops around you as your head rests on his shoulder.

“Are the others going to be okay with you and a kook hanging out tonight?”

He laughs looking down at you. “Yes. Kie actually kinda likes you she just won’t admit it.”

You laugh then and glance at the knock on your door. Phe sticks her head in. 

“Dinner is ready.”

“Coming,” you respond. JJ stands first before you follow and grab his hand leading him down to the informal dining room. He sits next to you awkwardly watching as Phe plates the food. You nudge him with your foot under the table. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “This is a first for me.”

“What?” Phe asks placing the plate in front of him. Ben clears his throat seeing the awkwardness set into JJ’s shoulders and face. You reach over and squeeze his hand. 

“It’s okay, we didn’t really do it either,” you say quickly. “Mom and I did, but Dad never did.”

The conversation shifts to other topics and they talk to JJ about surfing as you listen and interject as you can. You had only surfed a handful of times with a couple of kooks last summer. It had been an attempt to drown out the worry over your fading mother. 

After dinner and going over the day's events, you walked JJ to the door. His dirt bike waiting on the driveway. Phe and Ben had made him promise to come back and thanked him multiple times until you were able to break him free. 

“Thanks for saving me today and sticking around to appease them,” you say softly as you walk with him to the bike. JJ leans against it watching you. That storm was still in those ocean-blue eyes. “I mean it JJ. You didn’t have to help me. You could’ve just said screw these kooks and went about your day.”

He shakes his head. “You aren’t a true kook.”

You smile at him before wrapping your arms around him in a hug. He wraps his arm around you resting his head on yours. You press yourself closer and he laughs a little. His shoulders drop as you hold each other.

“I’m glad you are safe now.” He lets you go and you step back as he swings his leg over his bike and starts it. 

“Text me when you get home?”

He smiles giving you a wink. “I’m not leaving you in the dust that easy Rosie Posie.”

You laugh at the nickname before turning and going back into the house as he leaves heading back across the bridge to the cut.

TBC

[talsgarthewanderer]

I played skyrim first, then oblivion, rhen morrowind, so i have some complex feelings about fast travel as a whole, made even more complex by the fast travel dynamics in ESO. Explanation under the cut:

On the one hand, I enjoy being able to fast travel to the major cities right away because it massively decreases the stress of being low level. The first time I travelled from Helgen to Riverwood, and then from Riverwood to Whiterun, I was low-key terrified and high-key confused. There were wolves and a random thief that gave me a piece of gear, and then a hunter asking if I'd seen a thief because the thief took his gear. It was a bit overwhelming, so when i realized I could fast travel to places i had discovered, i was relieved. And then i realized that you can literally just jump in the river and let it carry you the entire distance with zero issue.

So of course, I didnt REALIZE i could immediately fast travel to cities when i first played Oblivion because i had just been playing skyrim, so I hoofed it on foot from the sewer exit to weynon priory, and fought a ton of enemies (tbh mostly mudcrabs). When i realized that i could just straight-up fast travel places without even having visited them, i was both confused and overjoyyed.

But then by my 4th playthrough, I was back to hoofing it almost everywhere because I build my fortune with alchemy and collect welkynd and varla stones, and you cant come across plants and ayleid ruins unless you are wandering the map lol

So on the OTHER hand, theres something so much more immersive about being forced to either walk or take transit. It really seats you IN the setting when the easiest and most convenient way to get somewhere is via carriage, boat, silt strider, or mages guild portal. For example, I ignored the guy in Seyda Neen telling me to take the silt strider to Balmora, tried to walk the distance, and died repeatedly (mostly to cliffracers). Then i realized the silt strider was literally Right There and would safely take me to balmora with no issue, and yeah, i felt like a bit of an idiot because the guy Literally Told Me To Take The Strider and i was like, "nah, im gonna run and explore," like a chump.

But then if we throw ESO into the mix, you can only fast travel between wayshrines, which is akin to the morrowind mages guild portals. If you travel from shrine to shrine, its free and costs 0 gold, but if you travel from some random place to a shrine, it costs money. The nice part abour the wayshrines is that you can travel from inside locations, which is something skyrim and oblivion dont let you do, but is a nice homage to the morrowind intervention spells. The number of times i got overencumbered in ruins and divine intervention-ed my way to a fort so i could sell the gear I'd looted from all the enemies, just so i could go back to the ruin and load back up again lmaoo

So with just these 4 games, we can see an interesting evolution of travel mechanics over time, going from ONLY boats, striders, portals, and recall spells -> being able to fast travel to some places immediately and everywhere else once initially discovered, but only if you're standing outside -> boats and carriages, and traveling to anywhere you've already discovered but only if you're standing outside -> boats, carriages, and striders, and fast traveling to wayshrines in the starting city of each zone, plus wayshrines youve already discovered, regardless of if youre inside or outside

AND ESO has houses to which you can travel both inside and outside, so if you have a house in an area where you have not yet discovered the wayshrines, or if there are no wayshrines nearby the house but the house is near a location you want to visit, you just fast travel to your house and its always free

The number of times, while playing ESO, that i have been in some dangerous location and neded to leave but didnt want to fight my way out, so i just pull up the map, pick a house, and fast travel away. Truly luxurious.

Anyway, thats my explanation of the travel mechanics of some of these main games. Why walk when you can silt stride, to be sure

Do you prefer the major cities all being available as fast travel options from the start of the game, like in Oblivion, or do you prefer having to visit the cities first, like in Skyrim?

[angelisverba]

thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number) 

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter. 

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat. 

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society. 

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’  his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room. 

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck. 

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin. 

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit. 

 Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips. 

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had. 

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango. 

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion).  The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere. 

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it. 

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’ 

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough. 

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did. 

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother. 

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat. 

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door. 

 Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be. 

And he wasn’t lonely anymore. 

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company. 

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants,  and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.  

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel. 

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already. 

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.” 

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like. 

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy. 

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation. 

Right? 

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy. 

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table. 

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon. 

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants. 

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny. 

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could. 

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again. 

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared  trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin. 

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class. 

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go. 

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.  

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’. 

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence. 

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said. 

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement. 

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.” 

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. 

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked. 

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited. 

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible. 

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another. 

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart. 

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent. 

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.” 

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy. 

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.” 

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully. 

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”  

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be. 

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her. 

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest  as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer. 

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning. 

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him. 

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked. 

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home. 

His home. 

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture). 

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too. 

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did. 

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number. 

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room. 

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise. 

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her. 

“Oh my god!” She said,  “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with.  She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’. 

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’. 

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm.  The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow. 

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up. 

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf. 

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.” 

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.” 

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.” 

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three. 

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said. 

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n. 

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her. 

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.” 

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck.  Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements. 

Like dropping her card when she piped up again. 

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm. 

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous. 

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.” 

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing. 

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”  

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram. 

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added. 

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?” 

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.” 

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma. 

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time. 

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates. 

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat. 

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store. 

***

Harry was having a shitty morning. 

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should. 

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage. 

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead. 

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance. 

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way. 

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day. 

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that. 

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning. 

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart. 

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down. 

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content. 

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.    

It’s no use. 

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true. 

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be. 

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him. 

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier. 

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin. 

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible. 

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy. 

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips. 

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay. 

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day? 

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look. 

“Back again so soon, H?” 

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop. 

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.” 

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said. 

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal. 

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and- 

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart. 

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?” 

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off. 

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove. 

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.” 

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.” 

 It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence? 

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.” 

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.” 

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out. 

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle. 

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly. 

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice. 

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like. 

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.” 

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.  

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance. 

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought. 

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.” 

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).    

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling. 

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.” 

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!” 

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles. 

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!” 

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all. 

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else. 

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time, 

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-” 

Harry and y/n giggle at each other, 

“You go first.” 

“Y’speak first.” 

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.” 

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s  side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands. 

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm? 

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.” 

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose. 

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick. 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.” 

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her. 

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.” 

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum. 

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face. 

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body. 

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything. 

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers. 

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes. 

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning. 

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole. 

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum. 

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.  

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?” 

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.” 

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-” 

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists. 

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?” 

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.” 

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning. 

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching. 

“Will you text me?” She asked him. 

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?” 

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center. 

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?” 

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.” 

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent. 

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling. 

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.  

********

Harry can’t stop thinking. 

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning. 

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom. 

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.  

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds. 

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface. 

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button. 

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like. 

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut. 

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock. 

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her. 

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself. 

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm. 

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge. 

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base. 

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum. 

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum. 

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out. 

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again. 

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body. 

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads: 

y/n <3 : so… dinner? 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name. 

He couldn’t be happier. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333