#way happier with my style and general life ....things than last year too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starsunfirelight · 11 months ago

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Ok so

I was too scared to post this before, but I think I'm going to do it now:

inspiration to finally post this:

youtube

a channel I watch all the time at the end of the year/when I remember/when it gets recommended to me lol

finally validated my opinions, when I thought I was alone

then someone in the comments mentioned a different channel so I thought i'd check it out:

youtube

and things started making a lot of sense. it's like this one person had the common sense that I could feel was missing from seemingly everyone I interacted with (watch videos) on the internet.

So I watch this:

youtube

after another video, and it's one I'd been meaning to watch a lot sooner, but it's been in my watch later for a long time and I guess it just got buried and I forgot about it lol

I never really check the watch later playlist unless I'm really bored and it's something I remember

(I am 100% a Spooky girl by the way (though for a different- I guess not directly but I have the vibes and those are things that I would do if it wasn't for the fact that I can't for some reason (yes I see the hypocrisy here but trust me on this)) and have been aware of it this whole time and it's also the exact type of person that I really hate and I think the word for it for the general public is "poser") (which is way more accurate to what I am imo)

(but like I get where they're all coming from and hope that they can all move on and get a more happier life where they can commit :> not sure what (face expression in the form of an emoticon/emoji) to put here but oh well )

but anyways, here we go!

(copy and pasted from my notes app) (wrote in the style of a YouTube video (at least at first) bc I am not original or creative but I just wanted to have fun lol) (more like have fun complaining and it was really bothering me and I just had to get it out there somehow) (I legit listened to this song for like 3 days straight until I had memorized all of the lyrics before the song would finally leave my head. :[ ) (again with the face thing, wanted to indicate mildly sad but frustrated not disappointed)

thoughts from today:

(the sentiment is totally taken straight from the comment section of the above videos and her performance with the cake being all messed up on SNL recently)

oliv (sic) is good and bad at the same time, but she’s getting better :)

I got target audience hit so hard like wow

olivia needs to learn to “kill” what she doesn’t like and go all in on being herself, :) it’s already happenin :)

still totally hate her producer by the way, if not specifically for these songs

like Blake put 90's(? idk I forget exactly it's been a while since I went obsessively looking for every single reaction video to her new song to see if anyone out there had the same opinion as me, but more as a way to see what opinon I "should" be having which sounds insane, I know, but I can't/ok couldn't help it and now I realize this is just high school glorified 😔 (ok real last edit so far (haha take that edits later) this was something I only begun to notice starting from Casually Explained's video (found via a hasanabi clip on my recommended who I clicked on bc of QT(he's a podcast host with her and his takes are so bad they're funny but I only know found out (have a better idea of now that I grew up more) they're bad because of other streamers but anyways-) https://youtu.be/MspHbnfEGno?si=KiiMRDYPIc9TK-TF) (here's a link to the original full video: https://youtu.be/l4Ioj4BA6N0?si=gUQ3ZeoyZ3DcGXLy) and then this one https://youtu.be/pII6mLdNawk?si=EWSF_g8Pl0fLOXHG and finally make the connection here myself lol)) but anyways put those drums on the track as a backing and it sounded SO MUCH BETTER than the original

so like yeah she definitely has the spirit, she just needs to talk to the right people, trust and learn from them, and have more people say "no" to her.

like seriously, and then she'll be really good!

like I mean it, her tracks are SO CLOSE to being really good, and I can see the idea behind them, that it makes me a little mad

all it needs is just a little creativity, or at least someone who really knows what they are doing and how to best implement it

like people think the production on the 1989 vault tracks left something to be desired and started making their own mixes, and I think that's what people should do with some of olivia rodrigo's music too! ok but like pretty isn't pretty was pretty much perfect so don't mess with that one lol

and also why I think the live performances sometimes sound so much better than the recorded version lol

y'know what? that could be a solution right there!

If you're bad at mixing, just do it live! Then it's all better anyways lol

haha ok time to let you guys see what I wrote when this song came out lol

like I really didn't want to be "that person" who complained about the thing that every teenager loves right now, but now I see that my complaints were valid because it's just a matter of opinion, and it's not the reason I was so mad lol (ok maybe like 0.01% but like I've been through this before and didn't hate the thing that was popular, maybe I was jealous? idk but still my complaints were mostly not for that reason, let's say lol (was looking for 😥 but couldn't find it lol - me from later, still editing this by only adding comments as I think the original should be preserved as much as possible bc it's interesting to look back at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) 😓😢😭💀👍🙂🐛✨ (man your recently used emojis really tell you a lot about your personality huh))

ok but anyways

here we go lol

the time is from when it was last edited on the notes app

August 3, 2023 at 18:10

hey guys! So, today we’re going to be talking about 4 time Grammy winning musician Olivia Rodrigo’s latest hit single, vampire. This song reached number #1 on the Billboard hot 100 last week, and that’s almost to be expected of an artist like her. It also took YouTube by storm, (since it was sponsored, in part, haha, though I doubt it wouldn’t have blown up anyways) and I’m pretty sure it’s really popular on TikTok as well. (though I wouldn’t know, because I spend all of my time on YouTube shorts instead, lol) Ok now, personally, I liked her last album Sour, so I was excited to see what new song she came up with next! So, curious to see what it was, I checked it out on the trending page and… suffice to say, I was a little disappointed. I mean, it had such good parts, and musically, it was nice and I could tell what she was trying to do, but I mean, lyrically, I just felt like it could be better. Like, I’ve heard Taylor Swift songs in the past, and even if you don’t like her style, you’ve gotta admit she’s really good at writing lyrics. Not only does she convey her thought with such vivid imagery and a poetic stricture, but the words sound really nice to listen to as well. I’m not an English major, so I can’t go into too much depth there, but I’m sure there’s a lot of videos out there that can explain what I mean here. And as a personal anecdote, my 7th grade class was given her lyrics to Red to analyze for an assignment lol. So I mean, there’s one frame of reference for you guys, haha. But getting back to Vampire, her lyrics on there just don’t feel the same. I know they aren’t supposed to, but in its place they should adopt her own style. But to me, it just feels a bit… idk childish? I know I’m not that much older than her, but still. (Turns out she was 19 when she wrote this, which makes so much sense now, and that’s basically still a kid lol.) Taylor and Demi Lovato have both written great lyrics when they were both around her age. But, Taylor is kind of a lyrical poet, and Demi probably had a lot of help, since I looked on the Genius page and it said the song I want to compare later was cowritten by Nikki Williams, who was 25 at the time. So it’s a bit unfair to compare, but we’ll see.

Musically, I maybe I just don’t get pop opera, but I think the transition from piano to full on pop song is cool, but feels a bit misplaced. Like, it sounds like a good idea in concept, but I don’t know if it translated well. (as maybe she or the producer might have hoped.) But aside from that, maybe it’s just me but I think she liked the bridge-like(? idk just guessing here based off of my own feeling) chorus a bit too much, that she ended up relying on it to make the song great. Don’t get me wrong— musically, it’s a great part, and she should definitely be proud of herself for coming up with it as she did, but do you really have to repeat it 3 times?? I can definitely say that that it’s the key defining highlight of the song, but when you repeat it so much, it sounds tiring and overused. Imo People don’t care if you repeat the chorus a lot, because the chorus is almost meant to be repeated, but I really think that it sounds a bit too same when it’s repeated in this context. The beginning too, now that I mention it. But hey, this part could just be my own personal preference, and that’s valid too, I guess, since it’s just my opinion lol.

And also, I heard someone say that the instrumental at the end left them wanting more, and I agree that it felt like it ended abruptly, and either it should have ended sooner, or maybe padded out a bit more? idk, but the ending just felt abrupt.

But I do have to say, I really liked the bridge part, and the rest of the song after. I just wish the whole song was good! I mean, imo they should have gone harder on the dramatic angle of it all, like maybe have her in black and white with red lipstick at the piano or something. Extend the craziness of her mind, even if she wasn’t? I don’t know haha, I don’t relate to the song, so this again this is probably just a personal preference. (lol Otto)

Especially the “girls your age know better” part was fire!!!! :)

Also, it sounds kind of like her previous songs, but that’s not really anything to worry about imo, because all artists are a bit privy to that, she said that’s what she was going for, in which case she nailed the “same but kinda different” kind of thing, and it’s not a bad thing imo.

But, I guess, now it’s time to look at the ;lyrics. (warning, I think some of it is childish and a bit cringe. if not, just hoping it could be better :(. )

Now, I know that writing good lyrics really doesn’t have to do with age, but more about your own maturity, and your maturity as a writer. I know it’s a bit unfair to compare as I made those comparisons before, but if you look into the lyrics a bit, hopefully you’ll start to see what I mean.

without further ado, here we go…

I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴛᴏ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴛɪsғᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ Asᴋɪɴɢ, “Hᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ’ʀᴇ ᴅᴏɪɴɢ ɴᴏᴡ?” “Hᴏᴡ’s ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀsᴛʟᴇ ʙᴜɪʟᴛ ᴏғғ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʀᴇᴛᴇɴᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ?” Jᴜsᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ Lᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴄᴏᴏʟ ɢᴜʏ, ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏᴛ ɪᴛ

Ok, so this isn’t too bad, (now after listening about 100 times I like the first 4 lines! :D) but “Lᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴄᴏᴏʟ ɢᴜʏ, ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏᴛ ɪᴛ” sounds a bit playful, if not childish. If she’s taking on a childish tone on purpose because she’s still very “naive” as she mentions later, then I have to commend her for her genius. But also, it might show up unintentionally, as she mentioned that this song just came out of her head one day after a bad experience, so as a child, this might be just how she thinks, and on the spot, this is what she thought of. It makes me kind of miffed, and it’s a bit hard to listen to, but you can’t really blame her at the end of the day. Plus it sounds kind of cool! :D lkokolololol <- me on no sleep

I sᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛɪᴇs ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅɪᴀᴍᴏɴᴅs sᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇs ᴡʜᴇɴ I ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴇʏᴇs Sɪx ᴍᴏɴᴛʜs ᴏғ ᴛᴏʀᴛᴜʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏʟᴅ ᴀs sᴏᴍᴇ ғᴏʀʙɪᴅᴅᴇɴ ᴘᴀʀᴀᴅɪsᴇ I ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʀᴜʟʏ Yᴏᴜ ɢᴏᴛᴛᴀ ʟᴀᴜɢʜ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴜᴘɪᴅɪᴛʏ

Yo, can we take some time to take in the scenery? No? Ok, I guess that’s ok, and I’lll be in my own corner doing that I guess, lol :D (also comes up later, but that point it’s slow and I think it’s— you’ll find out later :))

Again, it’s fine, maybe trying a bit too hard, but the one thing that makes me mad is “stupidity”. It sounds so childish compared to the rest of the lyrics there, and I can’t think of a better lyric off of the top of my head, but I just know I wouldn’t use that word there— it gives me the ick, if you know what I mean.

it has real “they ask you how you are, and you just have to say you're fine when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it, because they would never understand.” vibes lol.

here’s the chorus!! (though it feels like a bridge imo until the last two lines, but maybe that’s just the genre haha)

<3 love it sm omg !!! heart heart heart!!! :)

‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ I’ᴠᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟ ʙɪɢ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋᴇs Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ғɪɴᴇ I sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ’ᴠᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ Yᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛ

I ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ I ᴡᴀs sᴍᴀʀᴛ Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ sᴏ ɴᴀɪ̈ᴠᴇ Tʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴘᴀʀᴛs As ʏᴏᴜ sᴜɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴇᴇᴛʜ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ Oʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ, ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴄʀᴜsʜᴇʀ

Bʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴅʀʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ … ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ

mentions the theme at the end, yay! lol like it wasn’t present before haha

and here comes my theory that the management wanted this part to take off on TikTok all along, because it’s really good (musically imo) but didn’t really put as much attention on the rest? Like girl, I thought we were on the same page about hating songs only made for TikTok! really short, and only having one good part, like you can tell!

Like “If We Ever Broke Up” by Mae Stephens is the perfect _counter_ to this argument, because it got popular on TikTok and every part of that song is catchy and good, and I think the whole song is perfect. But then again, it’s also kind of short, but also I don’t think it needs to be longer, because then it’s overdone.

But maybe the way Vampire was written was just because it was difficult to come up with! Idk, but I think it could really be due to anything, and I can’t say for sure, I know that. But anyways, I think lyrically, it’s a bit weak. and the ending made me want to listen to it more, which is a TikTok move, but also just because the song has some really good parts in it, which is just because the song is nice and not a TikTok move I don’t think haha :)

Honestly, “‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ I’ᴠᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟ ʙɪɢ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋᴇs” has kind of the same energy as “For one day, one day / I was really, really, really, really sad” by One Whole Day by Dixie D’Amelio. And she didn’t even write that song!

and so every time I hear that lyric, I get kind of cringe, it’s a bit sad. :( lol

but now I don’t mind after listening to it for like the 100th time lol

Moving on…

“Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ғɪɴᴇ” this line is fine, and it would probably be fine among a sea of other lines that are better, but even still, it would be the weakest out of those lines, but satisfying nonetheless.

This song may be musically satisfying, but lyrically, it’s not. (edit, again, after listening to it about 100 times, I now don’t care about most of it but “dream crusher” still sounds cringe, but the go version probably isn’t.) I may not understand the pain, and I understand that in the middle of writing this song, she was probably thinking about her own emotional pain and not really caring about the lyrics, so I get why it’s like this, and I don’t mind one bit, because that’s her song. And, I mean, She probably wouldn’t have released it of she didn’t like it. haha, unless she was rushed? idk. probably not though!

But still, if you take that aspect away, it’s a bit hard to visualize, appearing weak at times, with a tell not show kind of approach, and at other times it feels like she’s trying too hard, giving the whole song an amateur kind of feel. But Sour wasn’t like this, and I just can’t get why. Like good 4 u had a lot of repetition too, but that was fine, because it felt like that part that was repeated was _meant_ to be repeated, and it was satisfying when it did. You knew what to expect, and it was a little predicable but that was fine. It was nice, even. But this song feels predictable in a kinda bad way, and I don’t really understand why. :(

Ok, back to looking at the lyrics, lol.

“I sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ’ᴠᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ Yᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛ”

These lines are fire, and I like them. :) Not trying too hard, but not too weak either. It’s great :)

“I ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ I ᴡᴀs sᴍᴀʀᴛ Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ sᴏ ɴᴀɪ̈ᴠᴇ”

These lines make it sound like she still is very much naive, even if she didn’t mean it to sound that way. It’s also very her, especially in the way that she phrased it while singing, so I have to give her credit for that. Maybe this one is just a personal preference, for me lol Like maybe it rings true for her because it was and it’s just something that I’ve never thought about lol :)

Listening back, it sounds more like a facepalm than anything.

More lyrics…

“Tʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴘᴀʀᴛs As ʏᴏᴜ sᴜɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴇᴇᴛʜ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ”

Ok, this part just sounds like she is trying too hard, which just makes me sad :(

Like I get imagery, for imagery’s sake, and like she really wanted to make this work, but still, I believe you’ll find the right balance someday as you mature as an artist and a person! :D I believe in you!!! <3

“Oʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ, ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴄʀᴜsʜᴇʀ”

“Bʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴅʀʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ … ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ”

I like this part, especially the rhythmic feel to it as the song speeds up later. I think the clean version is a bit silly though, and having the not clean version in the second line really delivers the impact. Though that same impact isn’t really felt for me in the first line, and “ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ” had more impact than when she used the bad word I think trying to have an impact (but that could also be just because I don’t know the context of that word, or it just sounds weird coming from a child like her, not really understanding the power that that word holds, but still wants people to take her seriously and think of her as a person who uses that word like “I’m not the kid that you think I am”). Haha, at this point I think she has more impact when she writes from the heart and isn’t trying lol. But that could be totally untrue, but it would be funny lol.

“Aɴᴅ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ɢɪʀʟ I ᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴛᴀʟᴋᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ Tᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ʙᴀᴅ, ʙᴀᴅ ɴᴇᴡs Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴄʀᴀᴢʏ Gᴏᴅ, I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ I ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴄʀᴀᴢʏ ᴛᴏᴏ Yᴏᴜ’ʀᴇ sᴏ ᴄᴏɴᴠɪɴᴄɪɴɢ”

This sounds like classic high school drama from one perspective, but like her friends really care about her, from another.

Musically, I wish it was more different than the opening, but I guess changing the beat kind of does that haha. It’s not bad, I guess. :0

“Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ғʟɪɴᴄʜɪɴɢ?”

What does this mean? Is this just there for the rhyme?

Like, if you’re only going for rhyme, I found this in the BuzzFeed article I was reading earlier of of curiosity “"Maybe then we could pretend / There's no gravity in the words we write / Maybe you didn't mean it / Maybe "blonde" was the only rhyme."” -Skin by Sabrina Carpenter

which I thought was way better lyrics than most of Olivia Rodrigo’s entire song Vampire. Just looking at the lyrics, and has nothing to do with their personal relationship, as I don’t really know about that.

But then again, maybe I was just too harsh, and this is just a reference to something that I don’t understand. Like I wouldn’t personally think about “flinching” when it comes to lying unless it was under a very specific context, but maybe that’s what Olivia Rodrigo is hinting at here, without explaining the whole story.

“(Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ? Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ? Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ?)”

Initially I thought Again, trying a bit too hard here, or maybe it didn’t really come across, but I like the idea that they were going for.

But after reanalyzing the line before this, it makes more sense in that context, and also explains why she would be really hurt here. Especially because she repeats the line a lot, maybe meaning that he lied multiple times and really hurt her to make her want to repeat that line that much.

“Oʜ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀ ᴍᴇsᴍᴇʀɪᴢɪɴɢ, ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʏᴢɪɴɢ, ᴛʀᴀɢɪᴄ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴛʜʀɪʟʟ Cᴀɴ’ᴛ ғɪɢᴜʀᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɪᴛ Aɴᴅ Gᴏᴅ ᴋɴᴏᴡs I ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴡɪʟʟ Wᴇɴᴛ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴇʀ ‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ɢɪʀʟs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀɢᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ”

This part is nice, “Oʜ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀ ᴍᴇsᴍᴇʀɪᴢɪɴɢ, ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʏᴢɪɴɢ, ᴛʀᴀɢɪᴄ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴛʜʀɪʟʟ” is kind of a lot to say at once, but I can respect it, it’s kind of like a emotion cake lol. “‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ɢɪʀʟs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀɢᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ” :) those two last lines remind of her last album, and she does it so well here. :)

The bridge and chorus again sound epic with the increased tension from the instrumental :)

“Yᴏᴜ sᴀɪᴅ, “Iᴛ ᴡᴀs ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ”, ʙᴜᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʙᴇ ʜᴀʀᴅ? Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ, ‘ᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ I ᴛʀɪᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴇʟᴘ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏᴜᴛ, ɴᴏᴡ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ I ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ ‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ’s ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏғ ᴛʜɪɴɢ I’ʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅ”

Now this really feels like her old album, and I really like this part :)

It’s really good, maintains her style lol, and no notes from me here :)

this part emotion makes up for aaall of the lyrics haha :)

or maybe that’s the lyrics? rhythm? idk, I just like this part, haha :)

“Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ, ‘ᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ” especially goes hard, and she’s finally writing in a way that’s not only really good poetry but sounds good to hear! I’m so glad! But she doesn’t have to do this if she doesn’t have to, I just think it’s cool that she did it here, haha

At first I was like did you really have to repeat the iconic part a third time? or is it the chorus at this point? Or was it all along? (yes) :thinking: emoji, but after a while, it’s not that bad. It rocks! And only listening to the last part of the song is epic!!!!!! :D the leadup, however it was executed, was worth it, haha :)

Overall, this song is not bad, great at times, even, but I just wish it was better because I get frustrated at its potential, especially because it reminds me of other songs that are really great at times like Heart Attack by Demi Lovato, and I really love that song, and it makes me frustrated that this song isn’t that one :(. After the “‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ’s ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏғ ᴛʜɪɴɢ I’ʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅ” I’d often go into the chorus from Heart Attack lol :).

But seriously, Like, I get your range is limited, and it’s all about holding in that tension and not letting it go until the line drops (you know the one), but would it kill mainstream music to not hover around the same three notes every time? I’ve noticed it was a problem since Halsey’s “Without Me”, where I really felt that, (editor me from now stepping in to say that I didn't think of this, I just held it in my brain from another youtube video that I had watched years ago but then thought I should "agree" with it without really knowing about what I really thought (based on actually listening to the music) myself lol but then again I did notice it a bit more after I had it pointed out to me, mostly in Halsey - Without Me and Katy Perry - Never Really Over but that last one kinda I had the thought myself a bit at first but then I watched another youtube video and they really pointed to it there as the "death of pop music" but maybe not necessarily with the repeating/range I think idk it was a long time ago and I also liked Paramore - Hard Times a lot at this time but anyways) but maybe it’s just a stylistic choice that I got frustrated by lol, and in general all music isn’t like that. idk about this to say any more.

alright, I think that’s all of my thoughts about this song. ok bye! have a good night/day! :)

Oh wait one more thing. I want to address stan culture, the thing that I wanted to make this video about the most. You see, if you’ve noticed, on the comment section of this song, in most places that I looked, it was hard to find a single comment that was even sightly negative. Now, this could just mean that it’s a good song, but given the complaints I just had that I talked about earlier, it was hard for me to believe that was the case. In fact, that was what kind of started this whole thing, lol. But then, as I looked a bit further on the reviews for the iTunes store, I saw that there were a few people that had the same complaints as I did. There were very few “nope”/“bad song”’s. You don’t like the song? Maybe you’re just not a fan of the genre as a whole, and that’s ok. It’s always (I think) ok to have an opinion. It’s too “copy and paste”? Not original, but still good? Yeah ok, but still, they didn’t comment on whether it was bad or good, and the others admitted it was still good. idk if it’s good to copy and paste or not, but it might e subconscious, and imo who cares (besides the record labels) (as long as you give credit) because it can end up with some really fun music out of it! :) The other comments said it was rushed and it sounded like an amateur. This is something that I kind of talked about in the section before, and if it’s true then I really hope she gets better! :) And a few people were like “meh”, essentially, and still though admitted it was good in some way. So, I guess most of the internet agrees it’s good, just some of us hoping for better.

Now, the really interesting part happened when I looked at another video by a different artist, for just another reason, not really related to this, just kind of happened to see it by chance. It was Taylor Swift’s Anti Hero lyric video, and in the comments, most of them were positive too. But, they were positive in a different way. Both positive, don’t worry :)

Taylor: I love the lyricism, even if you don’t like her you gotta admit it’s good, I relate heavily to this, and just generally pointing out a certain lyric that they like, with some fans just being a fan of the artist. But most people I think were there just () for the song.

Olivia: Kind of the same vibes, but more people liking “omg olivia you’re awesome I can’t believe you did this so proud of you!” which is great but also can lean towards stan behavior (:/), and also “I just love how she sings with emotion”. :) and occasionally “that one line hits really hard.” (hey, I said that too! glad we agree :)) (editor me here to say that I took those comments to heart and formed my own opinion after hearing theirs) But there were also people who were like “I really resonate with this song” “thank you for helping me get through a tough time” and feeling cathartic, which is really nice to see :’)

So, future fans, I advise you to be civil, and maybe not just blindly support your favorite artist because you like them as a person or like their past work. This is just a reminder, just because you like an artist, or even just one song by an artist, doesn’t mean you have to like every sing one of their songs, or go to great lengths to defend them of any wrong lol. You should personally not be responsible for the financial success of your favorite artist. Just tell your friends, but if they’re not into it, leave it alone, chill. If you like it, then you buy the song. If you like it, you listen to the song. that’s really it.

just be happy :)

just be you :)

it’s ok to have an opinion! even if it’s different from people that you love! (unless it’s a super serious important one that’s just mean or something, then hopefully you can try to respect others even if you don’t agree, and try to see other’s pov I hope again unless it’s really bad)

otherwise the world would be boring lol (I mean about having different opinions from one another)

also absolutely no hate to the teens and people that needed this song the most <3 hope you’re ok 😭👍

ohh maybe

(I feel a disconnect with this song) bc teens relate to this song and I’m not a teen anymore. ok, yeah, that explains a lot haha. :0 :)

I’ve always wanted to let the world “let teens be teens”, and give them a lot of love as they grow up, and it looks like it’s finally happening :)))

this song is addictive fs, at least it definitely is/was for me

also it’s funny how she was a fake celeb and now she’s a real internet celeb, and that’s funny lol

I don’t have to like this song, nor do I have to force other people to like it too.

teens like it. let em be.

(ok editor me here, this is the part where I was jotting down random thoughts as I had them, kind of like a notebook lol)

y’know I like this song but I feel like it’s missing something…

I just feel like if she used jazz chords instead of the normal boring generic ones she’s already used before, it could be a much cooler song! Like driver’s license was meant to be generic, and the chords work well there, but this feels like it could use something more!!!!

Oh, ok, I see the Queen inspo now. (editor me, this was in response much later to reading a comment that said so lol, bc I didn't hear it at first lol)

Also explains why everyone likes it, haha xD

it’s like her own style combined with their’s

Like songs

Heart Attack

Some piano ballad - Queen, Taylor Swift

Senorita

Paramore

Avril Lavigne

Gothic/Victorian

Emo - the last two lines of the chorus

Birthday - Katy Perry

ABBA, duh!

Miley Cyrus

BTR (I think, probably just the vibes of the genre)\

Lewis Capaldi

used to ba a sad boy with (idk just lyrics) are jepson era

Without Me - Halsey ^

Pink

Linkin Park

it needs more 💖aesthetic 💓💝💘!!!! ❣️💝❤️‍🩹(couldn’t find the sparkles lol)

Piano Ballad/Queen

(editor me, this is where I pasted the original lyrics and jotted down some of my thoughts there lol, so it's kind of like a "behind the scenes" of the YouTube video lol)

(editor me, but also more of in the notebooks vein where it's what I "cut out" from the video lol to stay on topic/not make it too long winded but here I am writing about it here lol (gosh I really hated part of this song, and I still kinda do, and I'm not going to deny it/hide it anymore because that is what I feel is the right thing to do) (but like not going to bring it up when nobody asked lol, except I guess this could be different lol since _I_ asked and I can post whatever I want as long as I think it's ok and hopefully not being unfair/mean 😥))

(editor me here, also this was me desperately trying to find what this reminded me of, and I was struggling really hard here lol (still am kinda miffed about that, but I chose to accept it and move on after I calmed down caring about this song lol, who knows maybe I'll start looking again by listening to more songs about (I mean in!) that era, haha (*insert indescribable emotion here*) (by me rn at least, :/)))

(editor me from a little later, also went back and saw that I was trying to improve it, so I guess that these were my initial frustrations with the song, or might have been from either before or after or both from when I wrote the whole YouTube video

ok I definitely remember coming back and adding to the list OFTEN as I thought of more, plus I looked up the lyrics in the process of writing the YouTube video, so I guess it was after, after all :) (me being happy I figured it out, NOt being happy about the song >:( ok I'm not that mean (or am I? 🤨 sounds fun actually lol) but didn't want it to be the sad emoticon :( <- ok now I'm a bit sad about the situation, again not the song lol (I don't think? maybe? I mean I suppose since I did say I was a bit sad earlier and I think I still feel that way about the song plus it's a "sad" song so...) (ok stop writing now the sleepiness is really kicking in right about now) )

)

(editor me again, I know you said stop but this is the last one I think, yeah I definitely found the lyrics again and pasted them here _after_ I was done writing my whole video up there, just so I could analyze them in the way that I mentioned before lol)

(still editor me here yeah and I would re paste certain parts and they reminded me of things, as I saw fit) (mmhm yes I am aware I sound like a derange obsessed lunatic and that's because I kind of was) (editor me still, don't worry now I have a love hate kinda thinking towards her lol, and have grown up a bit and try really hard not to be like the fans here, y'know fandom rememberings and what not sheesh the name-shall-npt-be-mentioned fandom is like REally bad and is like this one but like is just BAD on a lot of levels, I think it's worse (than this) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a4yt5h5rRg like the problem is their behavior, not the content or I'd argue even the fans themselves, necessarily, the problem is when it goes too far 🙁 bit a bit more ^, like 😕 one side for both (the aforementioned side could be either, depends on the mood but both are ok ), slight frown :/)

(editior me, ok this is last now, please, yeah it's just me basically trying my best to improve the song, I think, or at least that's how the latest draft of all this reads to me anyways lol)

(still editor me, like at the time I didn't know if I wanted it this way because it was what I stereotypically "expected to hear", or just because it sounded cool (anyways it was still what _I_ expected to hear/would do, given the opportunity, I was really thinking of what would make me happy here, looking for outside influences on top of that + seeing if they match what I hear/the vibe I'm going for in my head like yes! no, maybe and all that))

Same, bit of Taylor Swift, especially in the chords

but also her own style I guess

Definitely her own style, or I just can’t tell what it’s copying (opera!!! :))

I ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ I ᴡᴀs sᴍᴀʀᴛ Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ sᴏ ɴᴀɪ̈ᴠᴇ Tʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴘᴀʀᴛs As ʏᴏᴜ sᴜɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴇᴇᴛʜ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ

Paramore Oʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ, ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴄʀᴜsʜᴇʀ

Avril Lavigne

Bʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴅʀʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ … ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ

Her style, more tension rising buildup in the instrumental, pop ->

This is something but can’t figure out what it is

“(Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ? Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ? Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴇ?)”

More emo? idk leading up towards a genre change (makes sense from a theatre perspective) (editor me, I had just heard a comment/maybe it was a (reaction?) video or both say that this was inspired by theatre and was like ohhh, that makes a lot of sense actually)

“Oʜ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀ ᴍᴇsᴍᴇʀɪᴢɪɴɢ, ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʏᴢɪɴɢ, ᴛʀᴀɢɪᴄ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴛʜʀɪʟʟ Cᴀɴ’ᴛ ғɪɢᴜʀᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɪᴛ Aɴᴅ Gᴏᴅ ᴋɴᴏᴡs I ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴡɪʟʟ Wᴇɴᴛ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴇʀ ‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ɢɪʀʟs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀɢᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ” -add a sick drum line after this

Victorian/Gothic (imagine the background music and she’s running away) (or else if it’s positive it could pass as emo)

either way this part sounds cool, because of the way she sings it and builds the rising tension

‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ I’ᴠᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟ ʙɪɢ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋᴇs Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ғɪɴᴇ -> hit the minor key or the 2nd or the 5th or the 7th or sustained or whatever that chord is, like I said, makes the song cool! I sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ’ᴠᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ Yᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛ

Paramore Oʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ, ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴄʀᴜsʜᴇʀ

Avril Lavigne

Bʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴅʀʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ … ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ -> country? for some reason? :)?

This is classic her style, I would say Taylor Swift but this is her style that’s inspired

“Yᴏᴜ sᴀɪᴅ, “Iᴛ ᴡᴀs ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ”, ʙᴜᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʙᴇ ʜᴀʀᴅ? Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ, ‘ᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ <- expect a run here for some reason, but then it’s cool but not her style? I ᴛʀɪᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴇʟᴘ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏᴜᴛ, ɴᴏᴡ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ I ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ <- a darker sound? ‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ’s ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏғ ᴛʜɪɴɢ I’ʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅ”

Now this is more pop/emo/her style, which is cool because it’s like the final act of the play, ABBA! :)

‘Cᴀᴜsᴇ I’ᴠᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟ ʙɪɢ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋᴇs -> piano glissando, elton john, very dramatic Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ғɪɴᴇ -> twist a crystal ball that’s dark blue as the protagonist runs away in fear I sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ’ᴠᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ Yᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛ

I ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ I ᴡᴀs sᴍᴀʀᴛ Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ sᴏ ɴᴀɪ̈ᴠᴇ Tʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏʟᴅ ᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴘᴀʀᴛs -> sees shadow As ʏᴏᴜ sᴜɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴇᴇᴛʜ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ -> shadow

Paramore Oʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅsᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ, ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴄʀᴜsʜᴇʀ

Avril Lavigne

Bʟᴇᴇᴅɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴅʀʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ … ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ

end on cymbals + and a guitar

hmm “play”…. it sounds theatrical, I guess :)

Someone analyze this further please TT hands /\

https://youtu.be/PdTg-JT8FPM is pretty good :) but not complete, more could be said!!!

>hates song

>proceeds to listen to sing for 3 consecutive days

(now 4)

I appreciate the lyricism, it works wonderfully on the stage :) (red curtains emoji)

haha kool-aid is funny

“Lᴏᴏᴋ ᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴄᴏᴏʟ ɢᴜʏ, ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏᴛ ɪᴛ”

“I ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ I ᴡᴀs sᴍᴀʀᴛ Bᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ sᴏ ɴᴀɪ̈ᴠᴇ”

most of the song is just her being helpless(not really), sad, and most of all confused, but this really proves her innocence, and that she’s a good person, (editor me, clear projection here, if it just wasn't _me_ being naïve, if that wasn't already obvious lol) because maybe they would say the second lines, but they would never say the first line even as a joke if they were not a good person

mean TT

where’s the 2000’s drums at???

what on earth is rocky horror picture show

ok so the final genre is rock

it makes sense now, and is not in fact repetitive

paid(editor me, this was an autocorrect of p!atd though I don't think I saw the autocorrect until now ) vibes apparently -reaction video from a video with two people (editor me, I think it was one where they were old white dudes with a purple background who listened to mainly metal, but I could be wrong on this)

playlist is 2000’s indie (editor me, I was researching olivia's inspiration and she said her playlist was this lol or at least the comments did, lol)

its in minor

all of this could have been summed down to “I don’t like the new drummer”.

the parts that aren’t her sound like Selena Gomez :) Like, they could collaborate and it would be neat :)

I guess I don’t like the vocal technique because even if it wasn’t billie’s style I thought it sounded more mellow? idk

Lorde??? I guess, but don’t really see it much beyond the opening/structure of things (editor me, yeah, this was definitely a reaction to a comment and I see it now haha)

Songs that belong on a playlist

Vampire

Better Than Revenge

good 4 u

paid or something paramore???? idk just what was on the radio

oh, that one similar song, ok

enchanted to meet you

rolling in the deep? idk

mine tv

icona pop “i don’t care”

taylor swift look what you made me do (on spot/hits the spot/pinpoint accuracy)

tove lo

katy perry - teenage dream

needs more guitar

"the song was a tissue of threadbare clichés" -google for threadbare (editor me I think I miiiight have read this on a comment on apple iTunes reviews, because I definitely did not know that word before)

nice lol haha totally not this one amirite :) (ominous smile) (you should be concerned) (about me, not you) (thankfully) haha

ok I made a playlist on spotify ✨nuf said ✨💐🪷

this is tearing my soul away :D (never thought this was possible, so this is cool lol)

—the centrol theme is people sobbing in their songs—

also teenagers being teenagers, or at least music targeted towards them

why hate?

-emo

-billie eilith

-teenagers

-almost sampled but not quite

-the way words are pronounced

-straight up the production

-“cool” = cringe? (to adults? lol haha)

-maybe that last point is really it :)

-“look at me I’m important”

-fire this drummer

-also consider help for the producer

-overused, cliche, generic, boring <— this is it for sure, I think

-not enough out of the ordinary/expected

-make it stop pls

-imo the last part is better bc she has more confidence :)

-Olivia Rodrigo Vampire - Creativity Don't Pay Reaction I agree it’s trying too hard and going nowhere

-also on the fact that it appears that she’s trying to be edgy - “The swearing to me seems forced and unnecessary and trying to be edgy.” also see “I'm ancient so not the demographic it's aimed at.” “ I maintain that it's not particularly inspired songwriting or production in my opinion.”? “ it's an unfair comparison,” also true

no hate

-but she’s got a good spirit :)

#olivia rodrigo #vampire #Youtube

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doevademe · 2 years ago

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Hiii. I've read all your percico fanfictions, I love them all! But I have a special place in my heart for "How to defy fate". Even thought it's a deconstruction of the soulmate concept, I've never read something so romantic! Love is a choice and only devoted action can make it last the course of time.

In this story, I think I found my favorite of your characterisations of Percy. I love how it's focused so much on him, his past, how it shaped his view on soulmates and his approach to "love" and how it mirrors his arc as the child of the prophecy in the canon series. He wants to defy his fate and live the way he attends to, only for it to catch him nonetheless but still fights an emerges victorious because you can't drown a son of Poseidon haha! (I apologize for this pun��).

An other thing I greatly appreciated is how active he was in pursuing Nico. It's always so satisfying when (contrary to canon) it's Percy who does the pursuing, the pining, it's Percy who keeps being by Nico's side even if it means just being his friend because, like he told Will, he would gladly be anything for Nico as long as the boy wishes so, than being nothing at all to him, and that's just glorious.

Seeing Nico through Percy's lovesick pov, cooing at how adorable he is even (especially) when he nerds about his interests and making it his life mission to get him to blush, just always brings me so much joy because I love Nico and getting to love him through a character's pov makes me even happier. It's only justice at this point after his canon treatment. That boy deserves the world, and to see Percy treating him with such tenderness like he's the most precious thing in the universe and how he fights for their relashionship soothes that ache.

Another thing that gets me is how you portray everyday/casual settings, your style fits so good when writting Percy and Nico just being boyfriends (Like Nico tending to Percy during a hangover, them just watching the myhtomagic show and teasing each other, them discussing Percy's job perspective and their views on soulmates) makes me wish you would write about their whooooooooooole life together! I think you're the best at portraying their already established relationship. Please write the Percico bible🙏🙏🙏🙏 pretty please.

Media in general don't portray romance unless there's drama and reading about people just enjoying each other in mondain settings is a rare thing (in addition to anchoring them as THE couple we should root for, and not the "destined ones") and I'm a sucker for it. A lot struggle at portraying it but you bring it to life so easilyand and vividly while making their conversations interesting and fluid without feeling forced at all, blatantly obvious how these two love each other!

Also I appreciated that comment at Will's empty apartment as a jab for him being devoid of personality, had to hold my laughter to not wake up people 😁I could go on and on and on like that but I feel like I've took too much place already.

Please keep showing us how Percy falls in love with Nico and makes him blush like a school girl, that's the one piece lacking in canon. Thanks for being awesome 👌

I forgot to mention! Comparing Annabeth and Nico, a soulmate and a chosen, to a lullaby and an aria was a stroke of genius.

A lullaby is familiar, comfortable gets you all warm and fluffy inside but listening to it over an over gets boring and will lose it's charm with repetition. It's good from time to time like catching up with an old friend but in too much doses you'd just get tired of seeing their face xD.

Meanwhile, an aria, a complexe italian opera, would take you years of listening again and again to get to understand. Each time you hear it you discover something new, a new detail that wasn't there before. It's epic and full of range of emotions and gets your heart racing and head spinning with heat getting to it. (That's my actual experience when listening opera). You're attracted to it despite not speaking the language at first and then you learn it and it's better than what you could have imagined.

At least that's how I understood it when reading x)

If it ain't the most beautiful love declaration, I don't know what is! Can't believe I missed on telling you that in the last post!

Honestly, I've been speechless about this one. Thank you so much! How to Defy Fate was basically me trying to make a Soulmate AU have an interesting romantic plot with stakes and obstacles. I'm very proud of it, and I'm glad you liked it.

As for the "Percico bible" part I'm not sure if you mean like, an old school ship manifesto, or a fanfic that basically shapes the ship's fanon (like Nico's mismatched shoes from Kiss a Boy in Tokyo Town). If the former, that would take... a while to produce, and if it's the latter, it's more up to the fandom than me 😉

#anon love #long post #thank you so much #I literally blushed irl the first time I read these asks #ask #anonymous

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purplesurveys · 11 months ago

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1794

Has anyone ever told you that you were really pretty? Yes.

Do you relate to main characters in novels often? Not really, but this is also because I never read novels anymore. I'd prefer a story where I can hardly relate to characters, though. Anyone too similar to me I honestly might find distracting.

Do you listen to a wide variety of music? I try to but I usually end up falling back to K-pop or K-hiphop.

Does nature feel magical to you? Magical is not the right word for me – I see it as more realistic than anything. The way it doesn't choose its targets, how no one has any way of knowing just how strong an earthquake or tsunami or tornado can be...it doesn't remind me of anything else other than the concept of reality and that it's the single most powerful force we'll ever have to deal with.

What holiday are you looking forward to next? Counting my birthday, that. I otherwise don't really 'look forward' to holidays for the reason they're being celebrated.

Do you take a lot of pictures? Something I plan to do this year so that I can save more memories. I barely had photos in 2023.

Did you ever go through a phase when you didn’t want to take medicine? I mean yeah, as a child. I didn't like the taste of Tempra and always tried to get away from it whenever I got sick lol. Of course this kind of thing changes as you get older and realize medicines are made to help you, so as nasty as something tastes or how big a pill can possibly get I just suck it up and take them.

Do you love popsicles? They're very refreshing on a hot day but apart from that I wouldn't seek them out. I don't like ice cream in general.

Do you have to hem up a lot of your pants? Nah, too much work (even if I am short). I just roll them up.

Do you shop at Goodwill? We don't have that here.

What’s your natural hair color? Black.

Do you like your smile? I do! I usually like how it turns out in photos. There was a time where I felt awkward smiling with my teeth because my front ones used to be unaligned and it was super noticeable every time I pretty much opened my mouth, but now that I've got braces I feel a lot more confident.

Was the last book you read good? I'm currently reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and it's so right up my alley. A rare exception for me as far as devoting time for novels. It's written biography-style and tackles mental health and the reality of women's situation in Korea – and all these things have made reading this book a breeze for me.

Do you make grocery lists? I'm not the one who usually does the groceries, but when I do I tend to wing it. I'll maybe place in bullets the absolute do-not-leave-the-store-without-these items, but I wouldn't make an entirely detailed list.

Do you take walks often? Yes, as often as I can. I've come to enjoy walking over the last six months and plan on keeping it up.

Does sunlight make you feel happier? No, unless I'm at the beach.

Do you make wishes on the moon? Not make wishes per se, but looking at the moon kind of rouses the wanderlust in me in many ways. Like it gets me thinking how amazing it is that humans have landed on it, how many people are also possibly looking at it the same time I am...

What are you most looking forward to this spring? We don't have spring.

Are you fulfilling your passion in life? Maybe not right now. Currently I'm in a phase where I'm just...going through the motions, waiting for the perfect timing to be someplace else and new. I'd love to be able to get back on track soon.

Do you daydream a lot? Kind of, yeah.

What are your dreams? Mostly about things I already think about a lot when conscious.

Do you take medications? Nope.

When was the last time you went to the doctor? Apart from the dentist to get my braces readjusted, the last time I was in for an emergency was March last year when I had to rush to the hospital to get anti-rabies and tetanus shots.

What helps you fall asleep? YouTube background noise.

Do you love sushi? I love sushi. I've had it like 4 times in the last week alone lol.

What’s your favorite type of seafood? Oyster, mussels, and any kind of sashimi.

Do you have stomach problems? Just mild lactose intolerance.

Do you enjoy editing photos? Nope.

What was the last photo filter you used? My sister was playing around with the emoji filters on TikTok that can copy your expressions as you do them, and I joined in on the fun.

Do you live a simple life? I wouldn't say so. I'm pretty materialistic.

Do you own a pair of pajamas with foxes on them? Nope.

Peace signs or hearts? Like, for a photo? I tend to lean towards peace signs.

What kind of pie is your favorite? Just any pie with no fruits in them is fine haha.

Do you think you could go a whole year without eating dessert? Yes.

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tavarillasgalen · 2 years ago

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I feel like in my journey to rediscover myself, I'm rewatching all my old favorite shows from teens/childhood. Bunheads, Dollhouse, and now Redwall (the first fandom I was ever part of and wrote fanfic for!) The 3rd season is still my favorite because it is the darkest. It's been healing, in a way. I already have Dollhouse on DVD, but I want to see if I can get those ones too. I was also super into Supernatural, so will probably rewatch that next.

It's been, Idk. We moved my horse, so I've been able to see her every day. I'm drawing regularly. I have a 55 day French streak on duolingo. I'm into the month of April's work at my job. I've been moving my body on a regular basis and eating far more healthily than not. I've lost 6 lbs this year, and my clothes that aren't oversized are starting to fit again! Still have a ways to go to get to my pre-pandemic weight, but healthy changes are getting me there. I've been reading a bunch. Rewatching makeup and hair tutorials and started making myself look pretty just because.

Generally, since the breakup, I've just felt... So much lighter and happier in general. I'm slowly starting to feel like me again. And it's been lovely. Which isn't to say my ex is bad or the relationship was bad or anything - he is a wonderful, wonderful person and he showed me what it is to truly be loved by someone. I know what healthy relationships look like because of him. But you can be in a relationship with a wonderful person and still lose yourself and it can still not be right. Different priorities, needs, wants, and communication styles. I lost so much of myself in running away from my problems into his arms. I lost so much of myself trying to be there for him and constantly compromising for his needs that I lost sight of my own needs. We tried so hard to make it work - I stayed so long because if we were able to make it work, I could see a life partner in him. But staying together would mean constantly struggling with communication, and all this other stuff. And I put my life, my dreams, my needs on hold for year after year for him. For... God. 5 years. 5 years, I put my life on the backburner for him to be able to pursue his dreams and to try to support him. This year was going to be the year that changed, then he said no, but maybe next year. And I couldn't do it anymore. Someone can be a fantastic person, but not right for you, even if you both try. And ultimately, we just weren't right for each other.

And it's only been 2 weeks since I officially ended things. And in those 2 weeks, I just... I have this newfound love and appreciation for life and what I have. I can't remember the last time my relationship with my family was this good. I'm actually starting to chase after my own dreams again. I did work towards them here and there in the relationship, but I was always held back by his, one more year, one more year, one more year. Now that I'm free, it feels like the world has opened its arms to me and that the opportunities are endless.

I feel like I'm getting to know myself again. Like I can really make something of my life, if I try. And it's so beyond freeing and happy.

#personal

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theonewiththefanfics · 4 years ago

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Give You Hell (one-shot)

Synopsis: When you’re in a relationship with someone famous while being famous it can be difficult. But not for the Reader and Harry, yet when her past comes knocking, she’ll make sure to know where she stands.

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!Reader

Genre: fluff, some minor angst, like microscopic

Warnings: swearing, reference to past abusive relationship, but nothing explicit.

Word count: 3428

100% inspired by ‘All American Rejects’’ ‘Gives You Hell’

Dating someone famous while being famous yourself had pros and cons, much like everything in life. The cons mostly came from the outside, not from the inside. It was the opinions of others, thinking what they said mattered, the scrutiny of the press, hoping one of them would mess up, and they could run some bullshit article just so their numbers could go up, without a second thought of how the people involved felt, and it was some jealous fans who didn’t seem to comprehend the people they admired were actual human beings with feelings and thoughts and emotions and autonomy. But other than that, Y/N’s and Harry’s relationship was just like any other. Save for when their emotions bubbled over, millions of people heard them in songs. They’d met at the iconic yellow-suit-Harry Brit awards. She’d been right next to Hugh Jackman opening the show, a red glittering bodysuit with a black and gold ring-master jacket, a top hat adorning her head as she dominated the stage. If Harry had been sloshed at that point (much like he was later on, but who was Y/N to say, given how most of the night was a blur for her), he would’ve absolutely started drooling at the sight of her, and he was one of the thousands who stood up, hollering and clapping as she and Hugh ended their performance.

Much to his dismay though, Y/N wasn’t one of the people assigned to sit by his table, instead, she was a couple of rows behind, whispering something into Billie Eilish’s ear, the two erupting into uncontrollable laughter. He felt like a creep as he tried to catch every possible glimpse of Y/N, her smile making his heart race. She’d been on his radar for a while, had even thought about asking her to collaborate on a song for ‘Fine Line’, but at the end of the day, it was an album of personal discovery (and when one of his producers told him Y/N was halfway across the world in the middle of Norwegian woods for the next half-year working on her own music, he didn’t want to be a bother). But seeing her then, Harry wondered why he hadn’t reached out on his own, especially after at the after-party Lizzo had dragged Y/N to him and introduced the two. The following day, pictures of them dancing together, drinks in hands and drunken grins on their faces would sweep the web, sparking millions of rumours, but, at that moment, they didn’t care, nor did they care about what was written because as Harry twirled Y/N under his arm, as much as the connection was there, that night they went their separate ways. Even when they were drunk, they understood that about the other person, and wouldn’t accept anything else, but a sober and coherent ‘yes’. Sometime midday the next day, Harry reached out to Y/N through a DM on Instagram checking in on how she was doing, which then turned into a six-hour FaceTime call. “What do you mean you’ve never had a hangover?!” Y/N laughed at Harry’s almost offended expression. “I mean I’ve never had a hangover. I’ve never thrown up while drunk or after being drunk, my head’s never hurt – nothing. I mean I’m tired, but that’s because I’m still on New York time and got to bed at like five AM.” “You… are something else.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Is that something else something good?” Y/N didn’t know, but when Harry saw her eyes sparkle, his heart skipped a beat, and he immediately knew – she was it. “The best.” “Well…” she bit her lip. “If I’m the best, would it be too forward of me to ask you out for a coffee?” What Harry didn’t know was that when she saw him smile as if those were the best news in the world, her heart skipped as well, and she knew he was the one. “Only if it’s my treat.” “But I was the one who asked you out.” “Yes, but you can pay for the second date.” Holding in her squeals of joy was tough, but she raised her eyebrow, giving Harry a sly smirk. “Already so confident there’ll be a second date?” Harry scoffed. “And a wedding!” Seeing Y/N throw back her head as she laughed, made all sorts of butterflies fly through his stomach. “Okay, Styles. I’ll take your word for it.” Three months into the relationship, the two were booked to appear on The Graham Norton show together, which was also the first time they’d appear officially as a couple at a work/outing kind of a setting since the rumours started floating, and a picture of Harry kissing Y/N outside of a hotel room had sort of confirmed that. “So, you two.” Graham pointed between Y/N and Harry with his cards. “Have started to date? Not to say anything Harry, but Y/N… I didn’t think boy-bands were your type.” That made her lean over in laughter as Harry gave everyone a shocked face, before slumping back and pouting, nudging Y/N with his knee. “That’s not funny.” “I mean it kind of is.” “She was twelve when she swore off boy-bands.” Graham nodded, taking a sip of his wine. “Isn’t that what you said last time you were here?” “Hey, it’s been ten years since I said that!” Y/N laughed. “Cut me some slack. All the people I was crushing on are married anyway… with kids… and could probably be my dads… I have issues, don’t I?” Everyone exploded into giggles while Harry shook his head, chuckling. “Love you with all of your issues.” He nudged her shoulder, and she nudged right back, taking a sip of her drink. “Yeah, give it a couple of months. You’ll regret your words.” The thing was Y/N was so wrong, and she’d never been happier to be so wrong. Each morning they were together, Harry woke up to her showering him with kisses or vice versa. As private as Harry was, his Instagram stories were now filled with pictures and small videos of them, of Y/N’s face half-covered by a blanket, glasses crooked as she smushed her cheek to his chest and watched a movie, or her eating breakfast while re-watching old Bones and Castle episodes with captions like ‘dunno how she keeps the food down’ and ‘she swears it’s just for research’, while her feed was full of candid Harry photos or her rummaging through his closet and showing everyone his immaculate style, and giving tips how others can recreate it (also she may or may not just use that as a reason to steal his clothes). Generally, people loved it, and their love for one another. It was refreshing to see them enjoy each other’s company, and not be afraid to do so, especially now, given how it was a couple of days before Y/N ended her tour in New York in Madison Square Garden, to which Harry had specifically flown out for despite being in the middle of filming for ‘The Little Mermaid’. Three AM blinked on the clock, as the two finally drifted off to sleep after five hours of a passionate reunion when her phone dinged, indicating a message had arrived. “Turn it off,” Harry grumbled into the skin of Y/N’s back. “’S too early.” She hummed in agreement, furrowing her brows as her palm blindly searched for the offending device, and she squinted her eyes as the light burned her retinas before widening in shock at the message. Harry felt her body go rigid, and he pressed a kiss to her neck. “Everythin’ alright, lovie?” “Uh – “ she stuttered, trying to process the words on the screen. “Uh, yeah. Yes, everything’s fine. Just… some last-minute changes for the show. They want something really big for the ending, and some of the propositions are just…” She could feel a smile stretch across Harry’s mouth. “Extravagant?” “You could say that, yeah.” “Sounds like it’s gonna be one hell of a show. Not that the others weren’t.” Y/N switched the phone off wiping away the message first and then turned to cuddle into Harry’s chest. “It most certainly will.” For the next two days, she was an anxious ball of mess, as her crew got everything ready, and her and her band rehearsed relentlessly before she asked all of them to gather at the studio to add a song to the setlist. “It’s gonna be a couple more hours, Hazza,” Y/N murmured into the phone as Harry had called in to check on her. “ ‘M sorry. You don’t have to wait up for me. I know you’re still adjusting to New York time.” “ ‘S alright,” he slurred, clearly already falling asleep but determined not to. “Can’t sleep without you anyway.” At those words, Y/N’s heart did that stupid flipping thing it’d been doing ever since Harry entered her life to stay, and a shy grin blossomed on her lips. “You’re exhausted, sweetheart. But I’ll tell you what - if you do go to bed, I’ll be sure to wake you up with a kiss when I get back.” “You promise?” She could hear the smile on his face. “Swear it.” “Alright, lovie. I’ll be waiting to cash in on that kiss.” “I’ll run to give it to you as soon as I can. G’night.” “See ya’ in a bit.” Y/N let out a shudder as she heard the call disconnect. She entered back inside the studio and clapped her hands, drawing the attention of her producers and band members. “Where were we?”

***

The hour before a show was always nerve-wracking for Y/N. It’s when the adrenaline truly started to rush, when her feet and palms got all tingly, and her ears and cheeks heated up. It was when their warm-up band exploded on stage, and the crowd got pumped up. But the best moment that night by far was right when she was about to run out, Harry had pulled her back by the wrist and kissed the living daylights out of her. “You’re gonna kill it tonight,” he muttered against her lips, words skimming her mouth and making her smile as bright as the sun. She seemed to do that a lot around him. It’s why he now dedicated Golden to her every time he sang it. “Thank you. For being here.” Harry flicked her nose. “Always. Now go. People are waiting.” When Y/N finally appeared on stage, pretty much glowing as brightly as the stage lights, her fans went wild, and even more so when she jumped, starting off the show. The whole time, her gaze flitted to backstage just to get a glimpse of Harry, and whenever she did, she saw him dancing, singing along, filming her having fun and some clips of himself as well, going absolutely ham to her songs. As the night was moving towards the end, usually, she’d feel euphoria from giving a great performance, after hearing thousands of people sing her songs in unison, now Y/N felt closer to throwing up and fainting. “So uh…” She pushed back strands of sweaty hair, hollers of people echoing in her head. “This is a very special show tonight. Umm… this is the first concert my boyfriend’s come t - .” She didn’t even get to finish the sentence before the cheers of the people interrupted her, deafening the girl even with the earplugs. “But umm… it’s also a special show because two days ago someone reached out to me, and uh… he… well, he was as important of a person once the same way Harry is right now, and he wrote this.” Y/N went over to where the piano chair was, lifted it and fished out her phone from it, revealing the message that’d been basically haunting her nights and days since receiving it. “Breaking up with you was the biggest mistake I ever made.” To her own surprise, her voice was steady and sure, unlike her hands which were trembling like leaves in a storm. “I know you look happy and in love, but I know it’s not true. I’ve known you for five years, I know how to see through the mask you put on every day just to make sure others are happy while you yourself suffer an inauthentic life. But you do deserve to be happy. And I’ll be waiting for you if you decide to give us a chance again. I’ll be at your concert in Madison Square.” She looked out into the crowd. “You wrote a song once for me. If you sing it, that’s how I’ll know you feel the same.” By the time she got to the end, there were no more shouts or screams, but confused murmurs. Y/N let out a shuddering breath, hoping that she could manage to do what she wanted, and everything didn’t fall apart. “The thing is, I’d like for Harry to come on stage, please.” She could see the fear in his eyes as he jogged to stand next to her, but he disguised it with an overenthusiastic smile as he waved over towards the raging sea of people. He’d seen the message, had seen her reread it more than fifty times by that point, and as sure as he was in their relationship, when someone who held such importance, no matter if good or not, in someone’s life came knocking again, you could never be too sure what would happen. Harry didn’t want to say anything, believing if it was important enough, she’d tell him. Guess that was it. “So, uh…” Y/N pulled Harry’s arms over her shoulders and grasped onto them, grounding them both. “This is for you.” Y/N looked over into the crowd before glancing over her shoulder, Y/E/C eyes meeting Harry’s wavering green ones. “And you,” she whispered so that only he could hear. “Hope you know I mean everything.” As the cords started playing, she felt Harry unwarp his arms from where she’d been holding them over her shoulders and a smile erupted on her face. “I wake up every evening,” Y/N sang, “with a big smile on my face, and it never feels out of place.” “And you’re still probably workin’,” Harry’s voice joined in, grin as wide as the Cheshire cat’s, as he now had a microphone in hand, the other placing earplugs in his own ears, “at a nine-to-five pace… I wonder how bad that tastes.” “When you see my face hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell,” the two harmonized, Y/N’s eyes locked onto the masses, imagining the face of her ex-boyfriend who had the audacity to send that message. “When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell.” Harry was looking at the crowd as well, now fully understanding the message and the person behind it, and although he lived by ‘treat people with kindness’, he couldn’t help but gloat at the fact he got to sing with the love of his life on stage, and basically serenade a break-up song to a person who didn’t know how to appreciate what he’d had. Y/N cocked her head to the side. “Now, where’s your picket fence, love, and where’s that shiny car? It didn’t ever get you far. You’ve never seemed so tense, love. I’ve never seen you fall so hard. Do you know where you are?” It was hard not to smile, knowing where she was and who she was with. Harry threw an arm over Y/N’s shoulders as she sang, giving a mock sad look, while Harry pouted. “And truth be told, I miss you… And truth be told, I’m lying!” “When you see my face hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell! When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell! When you find a gal that’s worth a damn and treats you well.” Y/N pointed towards where she imagined her ex was standing. “Then she’s the fool, you’re just as well, hope it gives you hell! Hope it gives you hell!” For a split second, the music slowed down, guitar strumming in the air, as Harry pulled Y/N by the palm and towards his chest. When the next lyrics came out of his mouth, he knew them to be true as he sang them to the man, he’d heard Y/N talk about, to the man who thought everything he’d done to her, every horrible word and deed was justified, to the man who thought breaking someone else down was the only way to bring themselves up. “Now tomorrow you’ll be thinking to yourself, where did it all go wrong, but the list goes on and on.” “And truth be told, she misses you,” Harry hummed, Y/N letting out a large laugh, holding onto his bicep, as he slightly changed the lyrics. “And truth be told, she’s lying! When you see her face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell! When you walk her way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell! When you find a gal that’s worth a damn and treats you well.” Harry sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “Then she’s the fool you’re just as well hope it gives you hell.” “Now you’ll never see,” Y/N took over the song. “What you’ve done to me.” She placed a hand over her heart. “You can take back your memories, they’re no good to me. And here’s all your lies, you can look me in the eyes, with that sad, sad look that you wear so well.” She dragged her finger down her cheek, giving a pout while Harry mimicked her stance before turning the mic to the audience. “When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell,” the crowd sang back with such vigour, Y/N was sure the whole ground was shaking just from their voices, and the clapping and stomping to the drum rhythm would bring the whole world down. “When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell! When you find a gal that’s worth a damn and treats you well, then she’s the fool you’re just as well, hope it gives you hell!” The two were jumping around the stage like madmen, adrenaline filling their veins. “When you see my face hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell!” “Hope it gives you hell!” Everyone else repeated. “When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell!” “Hope it gives you hell!” “When you sing this song and sing along, well you’ll never tell. Then you’re the fool, I’m just as well, hope it gives you hell!” Y/N grinned once more, placing her hand over her heart, meaning every word – she was just as well. She had amazing friends, a career that’d flourished, and a person who loved her more than words could describe. “When you hear this song, I hope that it will give you hell!” Harry crooned down the mic, knowing their happiness would, Y/N’s happiness would give him hell. And he enjoyed it, knowing how good her life was. “You can sing along I hope that it puts you through hell!” Her voice became the only sound as the last word echoed around everyone, her chest heaving up and down from the exertion, from all of the emotions running through her body as well as the overwhelming feeling of not only having Harry watch her perform but to end up performing with him. When his hands wrapped around her body, it startled her out from the daze, and the popping confetti startled her even more, as the rest of her band joined the two to take their bows, grins on all of their faces while they did so. “Not the song you thought I’d sing, is it?” Y/N laughed into the mic, Harry’s arms tightening around her waist. “There’s a reason I blocked your number, let alone you from my life. Don’t think I won’t do it again.” “But I would like to say thank you, to the asshole in question,” Harry said, making Y/N’s forehead scrunched up. “You let go of the best person ever; you had the honour of calling yourself her boyfriend, but instead, you chose to walk away. So, thank you for that. Because now I’ll have that honour and pleasure for the rest of our lives.” Yeah. It was one hell of a show.

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue @im-squished

Harry Styles tags: @sarcasticallywitty15 @breezykpop @girlboss99 @harrystylesdoesntknowiexist @alliyjane @sirtommyholland

A/N: I love ‘All American Rejects’ and have been listening to ‘Gives You Hell’ non stop. It’s the best break-up song ever, and you won’t convince me otherwise.

P.S. my tags are always open :)

P.S.S. please don’t repost my work on other platforms without my explicit written permission. reblogs are fine :)

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beautifulletdownfics · 4 years ago

Text

Nothing To Him - A Harry Styles One Shot

Harry Styles is a liar.

He lied your whole relationship.

He promised to love you forever and then he walked away.

A lovers to nothing break up fic feat. blisters, heartache & two sides to one story.

Word count: 15k (Sorry! You’re going to want to open this little pal in a browser window probably. Eek)

Story Playlist:

The First Lie: Damn This Love - Thirsty Merc The Second Lie: Do You Remember - Jarryd James The Third Lie: Nebraska - Oh Wonder The Fourth Lie: I Saw You - Jon Bryant The Fifth Lie: Here We Go - Emily Hearn The Sixth Lie: Crying Dancing - Nina Nesbitt , NOTD

MY MASTERLIST.

The first lie was that you were different.

Harry felt different with you.

You just slipped into his routine and his life. You didn't buy into the spectacle of it all. You told him on your first date that you didn't play games, and that it wasn't often you connected with someone on an intellectual or emotional level. Harry sat there and listened to the woman across from him say she didn't expect to finish the date still attracted to him.

And he fucking loved it.

The next morning he called you at quarter past eight, because he figured you either started work at eight-thirty or nine o'clock, so he'd catch you on your commute or just before you walked into the office. You answered your phone like you would a business call. He teased you for it, but really he was just glad you answered at all. It felt like getting test results telling Harry he was in the clear.

The truth was when Harry first met you at the birthday party the night before he'd been angling towards you being a hookup. He saw you across the bar as soon as he arrived, gaze zeroing in on your legs in That Dress, his ears leaning to the sound of your laugh pulling eyes from around the room. Harry wanted you, and he'd been through a bit of a dry spell. You radiated the kind of energy Harry could get drunk on, the sort of body he wanted to lose himself in for a night.

It was almost an hour before he managed to edge into the same circle of bodies as you. You knew the birthday girl the same way he did; through work. Harry caught early on that you didn't still work for his record label, but did a few years before and stayed in touch with everyone. You seemed like the kind of person who collected people, who everyone wanted to keep in touch with. Harry just wanted to touch you.

Two tequilas in he got you to himself.

You were good at flirting, which excited Harry initially. You had a quip for everything or an interesting addition to each story he told. You were well-read and well-travelled, and you weren't hesitant in showing Harry that you had opinions and ideas of your own. Over the years he'd become good at getting people to talk, good at asking questions that make someone share themselves because the alternative—Harry sharing himself—wasn't something he could do. But something about you and the way you framed questions made Harry feel like it was safe to share a little more, you'd disarmed him quietly, and by the time he noticed Harry didn't feel the need to protect himself anymore.

"That's bullshit," you'd told him when he said he wasn't all that into contemporary fiction. You hated the artsy elites who listed off the Hemingway's and the Kerouac's and the Vonnegut's as though the only literature worth mentioning came from lifetimes ago. Your hair swished back and forth at your cheeks as you shook your head emphatically, "You're being lazy. Imagine saying the same about modern music."

Harry's lips ticked up into a smile, and he raised his eyebrow in concession, "That would be bullshit," he agreed, thinking of the album he'd just released and how he wanted to know if you'd listened to any of his stuff. (Very quickly he decided he probably didn't want to know because it stuck Harry the answer would be no.) His eyes couldn't pull away from watching your lips as you spoke, admiring the shade of lipstick you wore.

"Right," you continued, "Modern fiction teaches me about myself, about my life. It gives words to what my friends and I are experiencing. The classics are amazing—don't get me wrong—but I don't see myself in them."

"Seems like your criteria stem from narcissism," Harry was sure he had you there. He grinned at you happily.

"Exactly," you agreed without hesitation, "Maybe 'Hills Like White Elephants' is genius, and as a woman, I should be grateful to Hemmingway for horrifying his audience in 1927 with a normalised view of abortion but … I don't think he wrote that for me. He was challenging ideas then. I feel more connection and loyalty to an Instagram poet who's painting the world that actually matters to me, the world I'm trying to survive now."

Harry hums into his drink and says nothing. He expects you to back away a little, or ask him some question that watered-down your view and opened up the table to his. But you don't. You let your view sit on the slice of the bar between you and don't apologise for it.

"There's a reason artists burst out of every generation," you add, sitting forward on your stool. "If the classics were the perfect form, the perfect commentary of humanity, then there'd be no need for anyone after them to bother trying to put the world and life into words, or pictures, or music. You can't just dismiss a generation of voices because some smelly, old, white, university hasn't decided to name a building after them yet. I don't think being published as a little orange Penguin Classic is the singular hallmark to good literature."

He didn't entirely agree with you, (he thought it was vital to learn from the past, thought those great authors you reeled off and dismissed set the benchmark artists today should aspire to) but Harry liked hearing your thoughts and seeing the passion burst out of you. He liked seeing how you didn't second guess yourself or try to soften your opinion by asking for his. You just said what you thought, and that was always one of his favourite characteristics in a person.

That night you met him, you were the designated driver for a few of your friends. He should have noticed the way you switched to pineapple juice after you finished your first drink, but he was too busy trying not to look at the curve of your thigh when you crossed one leg over the other. Trying to ignore the smell of your perfume or how you kept licking your lips and he wanted to taste them, desperately. Harry didn't like to say anything when he offered to buy you another gin and dry. Still, when it eventually came out in conversation—that you were strictly only having one tonight—he felt his excitement deflate. His warm buzz suddenly felt pervy and presumptuous.

"Well, that's bloody annoying, isn't it?"

His response surprised you, "Me getting my friends home alive?"

With his hand comfortably resting over your knee, Harry shook his head, "I was hoping to go home with you."

"Oh."

You blinked at him, not having expected him to be so bold. You didn't hate it though, you felt the twinge of realising you were going to miss something that could have been good. Could have been great, probably. The last time you had sex had been … sad. And disappointing. Still, you hadn't come out to meet anyone tonight, why the sudden rush of despondency? These were old work colleagues you rarely saw, and you figured it would be a night of catching up before six months of not seeing each other because life got in the way.

Then Harry asked for your number. Asked if you'd go out with him the next night. He didn't beat around the bush with it, he wanted to see you again and told you so. The way you said you would filled him with relief but also fear. Harry knew he'd need to really deliver with you, he couldn't half-arse it. He was terrified he'd overshoot it and lose the change to be someone who impressed you.

He settled on a Sunday evening picnic where the two of you ate takeaway on a beach towel at the top of a park halfway between your houses. Something told Harry you would be happier with him underplaying the date than you would be getting taken to an expensive, showy restaurant. You wore jean shorts and a long sleeve jumper which churned his body more deeply than the dress with the split from the night before. He was hooked.

"Do you not like olives?" Harry asked, sucking the oil off his fingers after just depositing one into his mouth. You instantly loved the way the inflection of his words rose at the end of his sentences, and you'd mock him for it your whole relationship.

You looked at the plastic container sitting between you, you'd been picking at the cheese and crackers, the antipasto was not your thing, "They don't seem like something humans should eat … Salty and rubbery with a tiny stone on the inside? No, thanks."

A laugh burst out of Harry's mouth as he picked up another green olive, "More for me then."

"I'm happy about the rosemary in these though," you held up a cracker before digging it into the hummus, a plastic-stemmed wine glass with a dry rose in your free hand, "You got the fancy ones."

"Only the best," Harry returned with a smile and then went on trying to playfully wedge more information from you about the secret poetry Instagram he was convinced you had. He was already feeling buzzed from the wine, but more from the way you kept looking at him and he couldn't catch a hint of you being anything other than yourself.

You didn't go home together that night either, despite The Kiss at the end next to his car. Despite Harry's hands on the back of your thighs as things got heated. The way the tips of his fingers feathered against the elastic of your knickers, just slipping under before pulling away. Your chests heaving together in a rhythm you'd never found with anyone else.

He felt like he had just auditioned for a part he wasn't sure yet that you were going to give him. Wine always heightened his anxiety, so Harry also wanted to appear controlled and measured. He wanted to be as thoughtful as you were. As connected to himself as you were to all your wonderful opinions and facts. There was some part of him that feared taking you home too soon might risk that being the only night Harry got. So he pulled away, kissed your cheek and promised to call you later on.

Somewhere along the line, Harry decided he wanted more than a little bit. He was greedy. Harry wanted the whole pie all to himself.

That was a theme, him wanting more. Even now, months since you've seen or heard from him. Harry always knew how to get you to take that one step out of your comfort zone, take that little bit extra risk. Letting go of him in one way felt like small release valve finally letting go. A tiny bit of your safety net tucking closer around you. A little quiet moment to take stock and check every part of you was still connected, still there. A deep breath in. A short pause of calming silence. Like getting your heart back … But then finding it didn't fit in your chest the same way anymore.

So you found it particularly cruel to have received a follow-up email from his assistant this week, checking to see if you were able to attend his show tonight.

The show that six months ago Harry drew you a mock ticket for and hand-delivered to you sitting outside in his garden with a tea and a biscuit. Even then, even as his girlfriend, you'd feigned not knowing if you could say whether you would attend. Now it felt foreboding, the way you'd pulled your features together thoughtfully and told Harry you'd have to see closer to the date. You waited just long enough for him to switch over into thinking you were serious before you laughed and told him of course and where else would I be?

Where else would I be, was right, in a sense. Because this is still your city, and you're here tonight. It's not his anymore. He moved soon after you broke up … Relocated to one of his—what was it you used to mockingly call them?—" location" homes. Houses you never saw in person. Places he never took you. Either Italy or France. Somewhere he could hide, be creative, recenter himself. All three of those things filled you with dread for different reasons.

Were you really going to go tonight though? Walk in through the front door of the venue with a ticket and barcode on your phone, sit in a crowd and listen to Harry for two hours? Look at him from across the room and just take it on the chin?

It certainly seemed you were dressed for it. And you were out of the house with time to get there. Would you get off the train at the stop though? Would you walk down the street with the bright sign his name lit up? Would Harry even know if you didn't go?

Part of you wonders if his assistant didn't mean to email you. Maybe she forgot you were no longer in Harry's life? Perhaps it was a scheduled email she forgot to stop? Probably it was Harry just being fucking nice, and polite, and worrying about how you'd feel if you were uninvited. Or if he didn't check in on you while he was here.

You accepted the reminder too easily and scolded yourself for it. His team was expecting you. Harry was expecting you. And now, sitting on the train and counting down the stops you felt caught. Felt like he had you again, even if it was just winning whatever tonight was.

Harry did always enjoy the chase. Admitted it himself, admitted to loving the beginning of meeting someone. Loving the audition process, the figuring each other out, the get. The Catch.

You wonder now if it was the chase he liked back then. Was it a thrill having you make him feel as though he had something to prove? Or was it Harry experiencing for the first time not having the upper hand, not having even the tiniest amount of weight around who he was count for anything. Now it felt like Harry was nothing but upper hand.

Whatever it was—the Chase, or your endless facts, pancakes on a Sunday morning—the part of Harry's lie about you being different that hurts the most is the way you bought into it so proudly. Wore it later as his girlfriend like a badge of honour. As though it signalled to others you'd been hard-won, and Harry was lucky to have you.

Different turned out to be such a dirty word.

Different turned out to mean nothing. To get you nowhere.

All different got you was Nothing To Him.

The second lie was that he saw a future with you.

Harry didn't shy away from talking about it. He made plans for you both.

Sometimes it was in the moments right before you both fell asleep at night, or in the final seconds before the kettle finished boiling. Always in some small window where his mind drifted and sat comfortably stagnant when all there was to think about was the next holiday you'd take together. Or what breed of dog you might have one day. Whether you wanted your kids to be close together in age or have larger age gaps between them. What you thought about silent retreats in Thailand.

He stored your answers away in the file full of you in his head or added them to the note on his phone with ideas for gifts for people or things going on in their lives he wanted to remember.

"My family have always had cats," he told you one night, fingers drawing circles around your bare kneecap, your naked thigh resting across his stomach, "When I'm settled I'd want to get a few of my own."

It was one of those hot summer nights no position felt comfortable for sleep, you raised your arms up over your head and stretched out further on the mattress, fingers dangling off the edge of the bed to feel the cold stream from the air conditioning unit above, "I don't trust cats. Isn't there something about them being evolutionarily build to hunt their owner?"

Harry turned his head to face you, "A fact for everything," he recited fondly, his common quip for your always having an answer for everything, "I'll let the cats hunt me, you'll be spared."

"As long as I can name them," you murmured, your eyes finally closing.

Close to three months later, an hour into unsuccessfully putting together a flat-pack shelving unit in Harry's garage, you heavily plopped yourself down on the concrete floor and hailed defeat. You tossed the small, silver Allen key onto the floor in Harry's direction and rested your chin in your palm.

A few minutes of watching his embittered attempts passed before he spoke.

"Hey Sulky, I can feel you looking at me," Harry was frowning at the short piece of timber in his hand, he was holding it next to what was supposed to be the base of the structure. This was your second attempt at pulling apart the shelves and starting again while you cursed the entire Swedish furniture empire. You were enjoying seeing Harry's stubborn frustration immensely.

He could be such a man sometimes.

"Yeah, 'cause you're hot," you said, mocking him dreamily.

"Ha ha," he drawled, rolling his shoulders back to try to regain his focus.

When he paused a moment later and looked up at you, his arms dropped as his brow softened and he let out a breath.

You grinned at him, "I'm pretty cute too, right?"

"All this shit is going to end up living on the ground because you're sabotaged the assembly!" He gestured wildly at the tools and spare paint colours for the house lying around you. His bike parts and the weird assortment of garden tools Harry collected were leaning against the wall waiting to be put on their new home as well, the shelf neither you nor Harry were skilled enough to put together.

"Baby," you began, but Harry waved you off, and you saw genuine frustration start to emerge on his face, "Okay! Okay, I'm sorry," you stressed, "Are you sure we're looking at this thing from the right way around? Maybe the designer meant for it to be wonky?"

He rolled his eyes at you. As if the mere thought anyone would design anything to look like the mess currently on the floor was purely preposterous—his temper for small frustrations on full display.

"Don't be rude!" You admonished, "It's a fucking shelf, we can do this, Harry."

It took you another hour and a half, but when it was done, Harry draped his arm around your shoulders, kissed you on the head and told you that you were the person he wanted by his side of all his future crisis. Someone to say to him, whatever the challenge was, it wasn't beyond him, wasn't something he couldn't handle or wasn't capable of.

You felt like you were floating that night.

It was one of those few times you could see your imprint on his life. See some evidence of it. There were shelves in his garage only there because you told him he needed storage there, and then you pushed him to keep trying assembling them. It was some proof you'd been in his life. An impression of your influence. A memory that would hover in his garage forever.

Two days after putting the shelves together, you and Harry had an argument about the plastic tubs he went off on his own to buy for all the loose bits and pieces he wanted to go on the shelves. You were annoyed he didn't purchase wooden ones, and he couldn't understand why it mattered that they were white plastic which would apparently be impossible to keep clean.

It's a garage, he thought, who's cleaning their garage?

And because arguments always dredge up things that they aren't supposed to, you made a jab about your relationship being secret.

You said something like, If I'd been able to come with you, we wouldn't be having this row!

Harry knew what you really meant straight away. You'd been together for more than nine months at that point, and nobody knew about it: nobody but your families and very very closest friends. There were no photos of Harry having lunch with you at a cafe, or of you walking a few steps behind him at the shops. Nobody had snuck a picture of you backstage at a show of his. He'd never appeared on your social media, even by suggestion, and Harry had never taken the risk including you on any private Instagram Stories.

Those photographs didn't exist, because those circumstances never had. There wasn't even a celebrity paper trail linking you to knowing Harry, let alone dating him. Harry didn't dedicate performances to you, or even to an unnamed significant other. You never got a song or an album dedication. Harry was so adamant on nobody getting wind of the relationship that sometimes it felt like … Like he enjoyed the sneaking around. The having a secret. (Later on, when you reflected on the relationship once it was over, you really weren't sure how there'd never been even one instance of you being seen coming or going from Harry's house. Hindsight made that feel suss to you.)

Most of the time you liked it, though, liked not having any fuss or interruption to your life but sometimes—a lot of the time—it felt like something silently eroding you from the inside—a silent acid eating your spirit.

But you'd never tell Harry that. Then anyway. Now … You're not sure what you'd tell him now.

The truth was a lot of the time you weren't sure how you'd managed to keep it going so long. Part of it was obvious, maybe, like not being in public together. But still, surely after being together months and having arguments about shelves you could afford a platonic appearing coffee trip or going for a run at the same time, together?

Instead, you'd gear up and run in opposite directions down his street. Or Harry would stay in the car while you went in for the coffee. You'd sit in a nosebleed seat if you went to a show, sneaking through some fire exit and into the main hallways of a venue with the public to get to it. You looked like a sad woman attending a gig on your own, not the girlfriend of the star.

Nobody would know you even knew the man up on stage. That you had something in the slow cooker at home for you both to eat when you got home, or that he'd stolen a tube of your favourite lip balm and had it in his blazer pocket for his set. Nobody would guess you made him late for the soundcheck with just a smile and the undoing of a zip.

Seeing him tonight would be just like it always was, you and Harry from across the room. But then not like always, because Harry wouldn't see you tonight. You wouldn't have the taste of a good luck kiss on your lips. Or the sound of Harry's warm-up in your ears. Yours was always an invisible connection that was kept invisible by design, and now being broken up, it looked no different than together. Not really.

Tonight though it would only be you seeing Harry. Like you see him on late-night talk show promotions and billboards. Like the times you get into an Uber, and his song is playing. How strange it feels, to have your heart crack in your chest again while also lifting somehow. Singing along with a song about you. Or hearing his laugh or even just Harry speaking, and being able to picture the exact expression that would go along with it.

Every raised inflection. Ever breathy giggle. Every brow crease at a thought that Harry was chasing or somehow unable to articulate. All of those turning into you picturing what he looked like every time he knew he was disappointing you. Every whined sorry and all the instances of him loving on you to move your mind away from his deficiencies.

"What's the plan for Y/N?"

If your relationship with Harry was a t-shirt, that would be the slogan across the chest. Those would be the words under the cartoon impression of you banging your head against a wall Harry's standing on the other side of.

How will Y/N get in? Who's staying behind with Y/N? Where will I meet up with Y/N?

There was always a question. Always a plan for you and it was decidedly separate to the plan for Harry. His team organised a second car or an earlier flight for you. A back entrance or some other smokescreen to keep you concealed. In the beginning, it felt like a kindness, but in the end, you were embarrassed by it. The bother, the way what started as a careful consideration for your wellbeing turned into something rotten that painted you a different colour to Harry and his public inner circle, the circle you were never invited or initiated into.

It was exhausting. But Harry assured you it was for the best.

You wonder what the future he saw for you really was though. How much further did Harry see a life like that going? A life with you perpetually operating under cover of darkness. A life of you decidedly not existing. Not really.

So when he said he saw a future with you, you're really not sure what Harry meant.

Did he mean one day he saw himself lifting the veil and telling the world he had a Someone? Or did he mean that he saw himself forever hiding you, forever living that lie?

Maybe he actually saw nothing.

Sometimes you could be convinced the fact Harry hid you was an action pointing to a more profound truth.

That the future he saw was an imagined indulgence; a convenience, and a comfortable lie. Comforting on a temporary level, like bowling alley bumper rails or the plastic covering on a new watch face. The fake sense of security—of protection, of immaculacy—was just that, artificial and temporary. It ceased to exist the minute you plucked the corner and pulled back the protective layer. Crashed as soon as the bumpers were flipped down.

You were a secret only Harry had any power over. He led from the front because you didn't know there was any other option. And in letting yourself be that, you made yourself easily dispensable.

Disposable. Replaceable. Erasable.

Which is precisely what happened when he left.

Harry left, and the You of the two of you ended. But more than any other relationship ever could, the silence that followed felt deadly. It wasn't just a relationship that once was, it was a relationship that never was. A year of your life made no imprint on his. Nobody looking at him could know there was anything—anybody—missing, and maybe that was the whole point.

Maybe that was the design of it.

The third lie was that you could tell him anything.

Harry's golden rule always was honest communication.

There's no such thing as an overshare, he'd say when you naturally hesitated.

He was all about that. All about hearing what was worrying you, or the mundane things that were going on in your world. Sometimes you felt like maybe it was an act because nobody had ever found your family, or your friends, or your life in general as interesting as Harry seemed to. He was always telling you he loved hearing the funny text conversations going on, or who was having a row and why, or what each of your friends was stressed about in their jobs or relationships or themselves. And Harry always said he loved hearing it from you the most.

(Now, that struck you as a strange thing to say. Where else would he hear anything about you? Harry was the only line connecting you back to him. You didn't have mutual friends or people who'd known you both before you dated each other. There was nobody for Harry to hear anything from. It's not like your friends were going to reach out to him with gossip about you. Not like how you could sneak a look at update accounts or read about his performance online while he was away.)

Still, you loved the stories he told from the road, ate them up. The missing coffee mugs where everyone got their caffeine fix served in wine glasses and lemonade tumblers for almost two whole weeks. And then the tour t-shirts accidentally ordered in bulk in children's sizes that Harry hand-delivered them to a local children's charity. The crumbs of gossip Harry picked up about who in his team was sweet on who (he loved a setup, loved watching crushes silently and awkwardly orbit around each other).

Your secrets were safe with him, he promised. He wouldn't ever judge you. Wouldn't dismiss your feelings or what kept you awake at night next to him. So you did it. You believed him. And you slowly drained everything inside of you into him. Harry got all your stories, even the ones you vowed to leave exactly where they sat in your past. Even the ones you felt like might kill you to dredge back up. The ones that made you look like a shitty friend or sister or daughter. He got them all.

And even now, he's still got them.

"What's the biggest lie you ever told?" He asked you one night in his kitchen, both of you elbow deep in making dinner. Harry rolled out the lines of gnocchi and cut the inch long pieces while you pressed them over a fork to decoratively indent them. (Although Harry likes to tell you how when he was in Italy he learned in patterns weren't just aesthetic—it was all about soaking up more of the sauce, For the sauce, of course! He'd sing out in an Italian accent, proud of himself.) "Like, a proper lie," he clarified, "Not like how you told my mum you didn't take sugar in your tea when you first met her."

You hinged your knee out to attack his calf for the teasing comment but then rolled your lips together in thought, "I lied to my parents a lot growing up," you told him honestly. "I think about eighty per cent of the time I wasn't where I told them I was. Definitely wasn't with who I said I was with."

Harry shook his head as he rolled out the next lump of dough, "No, I mean like … Like a lie."

A moment passed as you thought more deeply about the question, travelled around your memories until you landed somewhere suitable, "I lied to my boyfriend at university," you begin. "A pretty bad one, I guess."

"And the lie was …" Harry prompts.

"I told him I was a virgin before him."

Harry eyes raised, and then he nodded, accepting it, "I think that's probably a common one, really."

"I thought he'd like me more if I said it," I admitted quietly, pausing the work with your hands. "Wasn't too proud of losing my virginity in a tent in the sixth form … And I mean, at that age you just so desperately want to be the version of you that you think the people around you will like the most. A whole group of us went camping at someone's grandparent's farm during the summer holidays. Not sure how our parents let us, to be honest. Anyway, I had awful, painful, embarrassing sex in a tent with a guy named … Dylan Fraiser."

You were surprised by how long the name took to come to you. Years ago, that was such a defining event in your life. Now it hardly mattered at all anymore.

Progress, you thought.

"A tent," Harry winced.

"Really came back to bite me in the arse when my uni boyfriend went on to tell a group of his mates he was my first and—

��Tent Guy was one of them?" Harry guessed. Correctly.

"Yep. Small towns are a curse."

"I promise never to have sex with you in a tent," Harry teased, grinning at you over his wine glass and then leaning over to kiss your temple. He looked down at the line of gnocchi pieces you'd made together proudly, "We're alright at this."

"Hmmm," you hummed, now lost in the past, "I told that uni boyfriend him I loved him … I didn't though," you say without thinking, shrugging as the words came out, "I thought he was boring. But it was cool to have a boyfriend, so I didn't break up with him … Guess I've told more whoppers than I thought."

Harry gives you an understanding look, "I've said I love you to protect someone's feelings too. Thought it might come a little later, that I was just not feeling it as quickly as them."

It should have made you question whether Harry meant I love you with you. But it didn't. He was speaking in the past tense, and you were imaging that version of him being younger than the almost thirty-year-old you were dating. Now though … You wonder what love meant to Harry when you were together. Whether your wires were crossed by different definitions. Even now, you couldn't vilify him. Not completely. He was too thoughtful in general, there'd be a reason for it. There always was with Harry.

"What's your biggest lie?" You turned the exercise back on him, smiling as he refilled your wine glass and skipped a few songs on the playlist. These were your favourite moments with Harry. The end of the day, where you were the only thing on his to-do list. There wasn't a lingering work call, or a meeting to prepare for, an email to reply to. Harry was just finishing his day with dinner and some time at home. With you.

Harry gave you a withering look, "I think you know already."

"I don't," you said because you really didn't, "What was it?"

"There's no way I'll ever do anything else with The Band," he said tonelessly as he turned to rinse his hands in the sink, unable to look at you while he said it. And even then, Harry didn't admit to the lie. Didn't name it. He just said what the truth was instead.

"Why wouldn't you?" You asked, instead of what you were sure Harry thought you'd ask.

You weren't interested in why he told that particular lie though, the answer to that was pretty apparent to you: he cared about his fans—they all did—and didn't want to disappoint them. And they probably hadn't been able to deal with thinking about the ripples ending it completely, right off the bat, would have caused. Saying you were taking a break was a much nicer way to let a world of fans down. An easier pill to swallow than 'We're done' straight off the bat.

You gave Harry time to respond. He fiddled with the gnocchi pieces in front of him, waiting for the water to boil in the pot behind you both, "Not sure, really."

He was lying now, and you could tell. He was ashamed of the truth.

"You're not sure?"

"I just wouldn't, there's no one reason. No big thing. It's not like I hate them all or anything, I just …"

There was one big thing, though. And it was typical Harry to not be able to name it. He was always so in denial about his own arrogance, about what it was that drove him. Harry thought he was above them. His success since The Band far outweighed anything any of the others had done. Going back to that would be diminishing for Harry's career. Wouldn't help him any. He was stronger on his own, more successful. More widely appreciated. That chapter of his life was done, it had been a stepping stone—yes, a life-defining one—but Harry had moved to bigger and brighter stages on his own.

"It's not what you think," he told you lowly when you didn't ask anything further.

It was so typical of Harry to not see the forest for the trees. To not see how he, yet again, was blurring and confusing the lines between a business decision and an emotional, personal one. He was speaking about The Band emotionally, but his reason for distancing himself from it was all to do with business.

"It's not?" You asked plainly.

"I don't think I'm better than them or some shit," Harry said, "I just … That part of me is done. I'm not who I was back then, and I don't want to go back to that person."

"You also wouldn't get anything out of it," you prod, knowing that you shouldn't have. But it was true. So much of Harry's life was a business decision. Everything was so carefully done, so deliberately set into place by him and his team that results and his successes were almost guaranteed.

At the time, you didn't understand how he couldn't see it. Or you couldn't believe that he didn't. He was so calculating, and he hated you telling him so. But he was. He liked to say he wasn't defined by his job, but Harry's whole life was defined by his career, by the who he was.

He loved to spout off his public shit about staying grounded and having a life away from being Harry Styles ™, but he didn't let anyone see even a skerrick that life. The only thing Harry ever let be projected about him was his job, that was all was ever on the table for discussion. And so it was hardly surprising that became who he was away from the cameras and lights as well.

Hiding you was a business decision, you figured out in the aftermath of The End. It was his way of keeping the narrative about his music and career on track. As soon as there was a You, Harry's private life would distract from his real focus and goal, his career. And you mean, it's not like it didn't work for him. Because here you were, standing outside in the chilly night looking at his name up in lights.

Harry's name always looked so good up on billboards and the fronts of stadiums. You always used to tell him even the letters of his name were visually pleasing, they looked good together, like they fit. So you stand on the street across the road from tonight's venue and take it in—HARRY STYLES, SOLD OUT—for several minutes.

You don't know that you're ready for this. Seeing him. You've so perfectly avoided it until now. Until you felt like there was a promise you made lifetimes ago you now can't break. Even if you felt like he'd broken a thousand promises between the two points in time.

Where else would I be? you'd said when he first drew that stupid mock ticket.

Where else, indeed.

You scuttle across the street and sneak between people to get yourself in through the doors. Dodging lenders selling merchandise and ticket holders excitedly covering their painstakingly planned outfits with t-shirts Harry—aided by his perfectionism, you were sure— probably spent months deciding on.

The barcode won't scan though. And the usher at the door doesn't appreciate you pulling your phone back and trying to adjust the backlight, as though that will help the loud, angry sound his scanner is making each time he aims it at the email on your screen. He eventually reads part of your email and then tells you that you need to stand off to the side, barks something gruffly into his walkie talkie and dismisses you in favour of getting through the backlog of people behind you. You're filled with a white-hot embarrassment as you shuffle over and stand under a neon EXIT sign. A moment later you step forward and ask him to try again, but that doesn't get you anywhere different, and you think you're going to get in some kind of trouble when he insists Just stand back over there for a moment.

Your feet have already started hurting in your too-tight boots when finally the wall behind you opens up, and you very quickly come face to face with Harry's assistant.

"Y/N," she smiles, "I thought I said in the email to call me when you got here?"

You're dumbstruck, you didn't read the email, not properly. "I … I …"

"It's good to see you again," her smile hasn't moved, and it's genuine. She reaches one hand out towards you and deposits a VIP lanyard around your neck, "Follow me."

You get halfway down the emergency exit, and she sidesteps a security guard through a doorway, leading you into the veins of the backstage area where there's a familiar buzz of busy people you'd not realised you missed being around until now. Your heart is racing because you weren't prepared for this. You'd been deliberately dragging your feet getting here, and you've arrived barely fifteen minutes before Harry's due to go on stage. She's walked you right to the side of the stage where there's a curtain just to your left and scaffolding all around. You can hear the audience, and you know that one step through that curtain will take you to the pit side of the stage, where you'd seen Harry's family stand during shows before.

"He wanted to say hi beforehand but," his assistant looks at her watch, "But it's a touch too close now so are you okay if I leave you here for just a second? I'll be back in …" her eyes go back to her wrist, "Probably about twenty-five?"

"That's fine," you nod dumbly. "Are you sure this okay?"

You're looking around wondering if this is where Harry meant you to be. Really, you're sure this isn't where he intended you to watch his show at all. A few people are milling around but nobody you recognise, and you figure the majority of them are probably venue employees. Harry and his band would only walk through here at the very last second. He didn't like standing around beforehand with anyone who wouldn't be on stage with him. Harry got in his zone and needed to stay there.

When you look back at his assistant she's giving you a look you don't want to read too deeply, but it almost looks like pity, "Of course," she tells you, "I'll be back by the end of the first song."

"I might go stand through here now," you point to the curtain, preferring the thought of standing in the dark by yourself than waiting for Harry to walk straight past you during his thirty-second countdown. "Is that okay?"

You get a nod, and she tells you to grab a drink off the table behind you. Leaving you with your heart rattling and the heaviest lanyard you've ever worn burning through your shirt to your chest.

Finding a spot to watch the show was easy. You picked the furthest side of the pit, under the concrete overhand of the seats above, and stand in the shadows, only half the stage in your line of sight. It felt like a little cave almost, and you lean your back against the cold concrete and tap your boots together on the ground below you.

The area starts filling around you as members of Harry's team finish their part in preparing him for the show. There are a few women wearing belts with makeup brushes and combs peaking out of them, and two familiar faces from Harry's executive team. They don't see you, though, and you're glad. You watch the roadies' torches flash on the dark stage as they neaten up leads and manoeuvre over amp boxes double-checking the guitars are in the right order for the sets.

There's a movement in your periphery that draws your attention back, the group of people who joined you in the pit all gravitating towards something back at the curtain. And it's not until one of them steps to the side that you see the floating head that's poking through the dark material.

Harry.

He's staring right at you: no expression on his face, just his searching, green eyes that stop when they see you standing in the dark as far from him as you can possibly be. He takes half a step forward, and the shoulder of an expensive suit peeks out. You hear in your head echos of a moment in Harry's living room unpacking a delivery from Gucci, the way you nearly choked on your tea at the cost of a tailored trouser and his half frustrated dismissal, 'It's nothing, that's standard for me.' You felt small at that moment, thinking about how one of Harry's suits could pay for your education for a year, and that would be nothing for him.

You feel small now too. This isn't the space you're supposed to occupy.

The shadow of a frown barely cross his features, but then Harry tries to pull his dimples up to give you a small smile. But it's testing, it's not a confident smile or one he looks sure he's giving. Like he's smiling at someone he's not sure will smile back.

There's no way I'll ever do anything else with the band, he'd said.

But that wasn't the biggest lie he'd told, just the most public, the widest.

His deepest, biggest lie was you.

The fourth lie was that he loved you.

Harry was the one to say it first.

It came out like a compliment. A response to a fact of yours he'd particularly liked. A sort of well done, that was a good one.

It was nearly two months since you'd met, and what started as three or four dates a week morphed into you staying at Harry's house most nights. You spending your weekends off work trailing around after him on his errands or to work things, or hanging out alone at his place until he returned from them. A couple of times, you went to the same exercise class, which involved the two of you going separately and not interacting at all. Still, you'd peek at him from across the room and have to hold your giggles for later when Harry spent the hour concentrating beyond anything you'd ever seen just to stay in the seat of the spin bike.

Saturdays and Sundays he started taking off too though, around a month into dating you. No more 6am weekend PT sessions or midday conference calls with creative teams. The only work Harry allowed himself to do on weekends was housework. Laundry. Food prep. Touching base with his mum.

"Did you know blueberries are actually false berries?"

"No, I did not know blueberries are actually false berries," Harry parroted back to you. You catch the half rolling of his eyes at you where you're sitting up in your favourite spot on the bench next to the hob, peering at him keeping careful watch over breakfast: blueberry pancakes. He was wearing just his pants, chest bare and cool in the autumn morning air. You were rugged up in leggings and a sweater, unsure how he could stand being in such a state of undress.

"It's true," you reaffirmed your tidbit, popping a false berry into your mouth while Harry—with far too much concentration for the job at hand—dropped the small round berries on top of the batter sizzling in the pan. "Berries by definition are fleshy, pulpy ovary fruits that have their seeds embedded on the outside. Blueberry seeds are on the inside. So they aren't really berries."

"Ovary fruits?" He questioned, with a look of mild distaste.

Your shoulders dropped as you realised Harry knew less than you thought he did, "All fruit are ovaries, Harry. Think about it."

He does for a moment, and you can practically see the cogs turning. Harry thinking about how fruit grows on their plants and bushes and shrubs. The fact of what an ovary is when it comes to basic anatomy. And when he comes to the full circle of it, he groans, "That is so weird."

"I think it's cool," you grinned. "Like a little bit cannibalistic in a way."

He barked out a laugh at that, "I don't think that's what it is."

"Well, maybe not technically," you conceded, "But it's something … Really makes you rethink eating eggs."

"Oh my god," Harry was truly laughing then, "Stop, please."

"Sorry," you peeped with a cringed look, tossing back half a handful of the small, round fruit in front of you.

He was shaking his head at you, laughter bubbling out between his perfectly straight teeth, and then it just slipped out, "Fuck, I love you."

The words didn't bump over any hesitation. I love you, Harry said.

Your stomach dropped instantly, but the fond happiness dancing across Harry's face didn't go anywhere. He didn't look back at the pancakes or to where your hands were wringing together on your lap. Harry held your gaze and didn't dodge away from what he said at all. Like he knew you'd need a moment with it, that you weren't expecting him to just come out with that.

"I love you," he repeated after a moment, smiling when he saw your lips start to turn up, "I mean it."

Hearing him yell the same words through the microphone from stage sizzles your heart a little, like the pancakes that day crackled in the pan as Harry pushed himself into you on the kitchen floor. You remember the feeling of his hands under your clothes, your leggings barely halfway down your thighs before he was claiming you in a wave of lust, pushed by the new, invisible force in your relationship—love.

The floor under you now vibrates as everyone gets to their feet to join Harry dancing through his first song. You stare at him, daring him to look over at you but knowing he won't. The longer you stand there, the more you thaw out to it, the more you find yourself with a smile on your face and a slight sway to your hips. His music is fun and familiar and feels like clicking into place.

It's mesmerising. He's mesmerising.

You don't like admitting you'd forgotten how good at this he was. He has the whole crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Even his crew around you are grinning ear to ear and singing along. Sharing private jokes between them and cutting dance moves in small groups as they watch the show. It's fun. And it reminds you that so much of your relationship with Harry was like that. That there were countless nights spent dancing in the living room or screaming at laptop screens doing board game nights with his family.

You'd forgotten that you could laugh so hard your belly hurt and that Harry was one of the few people who'd ever been able to get you to that point of joy. Watching him throw joy off the stage now at thousands of people was reminding you how very good Harry was—used to be—at making you feel like the only person in the world to him.

"Babe," his giggles filtered down the hallway and into the bathroom where you were plucking your eyebrows, "Babe! Come … Come see this."

You rolled your eyes as you put the tweezers down and padded into his living room, not at all surprised to see Harry pretzeled on his yoga mat in a fit of laughter. He did this a lot, called you away from a task or from work for something hilarious that ninety-nine per cent of the time wasn't hilarious at all. You'd end up snorting out laughter of your own though, at him.

Now, Harry had one of his feet hooked behind his neck while the other was prostrate on the floor behind him.

"You're doing great, baby," you condescended lightly, tilting your head to the side and frowning at his position. It looked awful and not at all calming, let alone comfortable. He wasn't a very good advertisement for yoga at all.

"They say this one's great for—great for," he giggled too much to get the words out, his arms holding his torso back so his legs would do what he wanted them to, he took a deep breath, "It's meant to be the yoga colonic."

Harry was heaving with laughter as he finally got it out, his position faltered, and you watched as his limbs all fell back to the mat as he leant forward cackling. You were grinning too, amused by how amused he was.

"Been feeling backed up, have you?" You asked him, crossing your arms as you hitch one hip out.

He rolled over on his back and wheezed out the final string of laughter, one hand holding his lower tummy as if it ached from the whole spectacle, as his other hand reached out for your ankle, "Come down here with me."

"Hmm," you hummed, pretending to be unhappy to be dragged down on top of him, your hips resting on his thighs as your chin propped up on your hands at his chest, "It's very entertaining how entertaining you find yourself," you mused.

Harry rubbed the tears from his eyes and then settled his hands on your back, breathing in the pleasant weight of you there, "I just—I was thinking about what they think the yoga colonic is going to do." His giggles started again, "Imagine being in a class and it literally working? Everyone just—everyone just shits themselves!"

You can feel his laugher, his bones pushing yours up as his whole body fills with his happiness. The stream of tears coming from the corners of his eyes start again as he squeezed his eyes shut while the sound of Harry's deep, uninhibited laughter filled the whole house again.

The memory brings back a smile, like so many with Harry do.

But there's still the Too Fresh Sting of your final moments with him, your last moments with him. You've not seen him since that evening months ago where you both yapped at each other things that couldn't be unsaid, unhappinesses that couldn't be reverted or unadmitted. It wasn't like the fights you had about Harry's casualised view of money and how he'd drop thousands of pounds on seemingly nothing without thinking how small it could make you feel. Or the times you'd snap in frustration when Harry tuned out of you complaining about an issue with your friends he deemed as superfluous or rooted in something silly or not as essential as the Important Thing He Was Planning. He could be so dismissive when he didn't think something mattered highly enough on his scale of measuring things.

The Harry dancing around on stage in front of you wasn't the man who said you were independent like it was a dirty word. Yelled across the kitchen that it was too easy for the two of you to be apart, you didn't miss him enough. The man who told you he didn't feel like you needed him, thought you were always standing with one foot out the door the whole time you were together. And you can remember being flabbergasted (still are, really) by what he was saying because it just wasn't true at all. You? Too independent? You spent every night at his house, and were at Harry's beck and call the whole relationship. And you can hear all the times you said 'what would I do without you?' when he talked you off a ledge or had answers to questions you believed to be unanswerable.

You can see how it was another classic example of Harry telling a non-truth to cover up what was really there. To distract from his own shortcomings. He accused you of what he was feeling, of his flaws. Making them your problem meant he didn't have to be vulnerable. Didn't have to take a risk his business manager hadn't guaranteed. Didn't have to gamble on your future together.

In the relationship, he always had the upper hand. And maybe you did have one foot out the door emotionally, but that was only because you had to. Harry never invited you in with him completely. You were always on the outer. After nearly a year of dating you were still The Girlfriend He Didn't Have.

But I fucking love you, he'd said when he sensed where that night was going. Like Harry had a list of grievances, and it wasn't until he got to the end of reading them out to you that he realised where it landed him. He told you he loved you as though it would erase all the things about you he seemed to dislike so much. Things about yourself you apparently couldn't see.

Hindsight has taught you that if anyone was too independent, or hesitant to commit fully in that relationship, it was Harry.

Halfway through his set, Harry's assistant comes over to check on you, and you end up chatting for a few minutes about how you've been. She speaks to you like there was some club you were a member of and she missed your meetings. Although neither of you references the breakup, or acknowledge in another life you had a lot more to do with each other, the unspoken things weigh on your chest. You find yourself wiping away a quiet tear when she walks back over to the main group watching Harry.

Of course, that's when he teeters over to your side of the stage and looks straight at you. His expression falls instantly, and you're sure that he only meant to glance at you in passing, but what he sees has him doing a double-take and fixing his gaze on you for two lines of the song he's midway through. He tugs on the collar of his shirt and Harry's eyes are desperately trying to read what you're thinking, just like that day he told you he loved you at the end of the breakup, as though you'd forget everything that came before it.

You stick your thumb out to him and give him your best fake smile. Like he might be led to believe you were crying about something else. As if you hadn't just pulled his attention from a room full of people who'd paid for his attention tonight. At that moment you think the fact there's a secret love and life between you must be too obvious to everyone else. There's a connection, something whirls around the room between you and it feels threatening and perilous to how you've been trained to think things have to be.

You wait until Harry turns and goes the other way across the stage before you push off from the wall and walk out.

At first, love was an encouragement between you. It was approval, a showing of appreciation. Love was a promise that was just for the two of you. A declaration that validated everything you were doing together. Love was a feeling that proved what every action meant.

Then, love was a bandaid, was a line used in desperation to fix something unfixable, and you walk the world with skun knees now because of it. Love was never just love. It was used to fix the wrong things.

And in the end, nothing healed at all.

The fifth lie was that he'd always fight for you.

Harry promised you that the two of you would make it work.

You'd make up after every argument, big or small. The little ones that were those tiny bickerings in the car which somehow roared into yelling matches. Or when one person's grumpiness from the day leaked into your evening together. You always expected his call or the long sigh that would precede his apology. You never got halfway home to your house if you left his after a row. He'd call and beg for you to come back, that nothing was worth you physically leaving being near him. You left knowing before the night was done the two of you would reconcile.

Until it was That Fight you were leaving after. The one that began The End.

It started because Harry was overseas for a few weeks. While he was away, you suggested the two of you going on a holiday together during the summer. An anniversary trip. From the other side of the world, it was easy enough for Harry to worm his way of out of it. He went off on a tangent about there being no holidays (rest) for the wicked and then got you talking about something else until you forgot how you'd been sold on the idea of lying on a beach with him for a week.

When Harry got home, you had it stored in an unhappy little pocket in your mind. Top of the agenda for when he returned.

"Can we talk about the holiday thing again?" You asked his first night home.

He sighed against you, his body gearing up for a reunion that didn't involve speaking, lips attached to your neck while his hands danced around the band of your bra, "Do we have to right now?"

"Well," your instinct was to back away from the tension rising between you, "I'd like to."

Harry pushed his hair up off his face and briefly looked at the ceiling, "I don't see how we can, babe. It's too hard, logistically. Just take a week off work and stay with me here."

"I already stay here," you counter, "I'm talking about a holiday somewhere. A beach. Or a ski resort. Something fun and different."

"Those places are all busy," Harry complained, his hands off you. He started to pack the dishwasher from dinner.

"I just want to go away with you, do something normal, you know?"

He clipped the side of the sink with a dinner plate and swore angrily under his breath, "Fuck."

"Don't get angry."

"I'm not fucking angry," he growled, tossing your forks into the plastic crate, "I just fucking got home, and you're straight into this. No 'I missed you so much' or 'It's so great to see you'… Just straight into going on a holiday as if I have endless time to mess about."

"What do you mean? We've just eaten dinner together, you told me all about your trip. I said I was happy to have you home!"

"Yeah, well, feels like you just don't give a fuck that I'm back."

You frowned at him starting to get annoyed yourself, "I cried on our FaceTime call on the weekend because I missed you! You have a lobotomy since then?"

"Don't yell," Harry instructed quietly like he was chastising a child for not controlling themselves.

"What's this about, Harry?" You asked. "Why is it such a crime for me to want to go away with my boyfriend?"

He sighed again, "It's not."

"Right," you crossed your arms over your chest and wondered how many times he could wipe down the chopping board.

Probably one more time.

"So …"

"So what?" Harry repeated, "What do you want from me?"

His words and their harshness shocked you, and that was the exact moment you started worrying this was going to turn into Something Else. Not just a Normal Fight.

"I want you to tell me why you're so annoyed by this?"

It would have been so easy for you to break down and scream about how insane it was that you were talking about celebrating your first anniversary with him and the relationship was still a secret. How badly you wanted to throw that out there, but there was a wise fear in you which said that would be a death wish. (That fact haunts you today, how you knew he'd never step out with you. There wasn't any hope in you or promise from him it wouldn't always be that way. You knew your place and where the boundary line was, don't push past this point. And you always behaved. Never peeped out of your box.)

"It's like you don't even need me," Harry said bitterly, "You're so fucking independent. What's the point?"

"What are you talking about?" You gushed, nearly swallowing your tongue when he turned back to look at you for the first time.

"You don't need me," he accused, "You've always got one foot out the door."

"I don't," came your defence, but you both knew it was the truth. You were halfway out the door because you hadn't been invited all the way in yet.

"You don't want this life with me," Harry shook his head, "You've never been happy where we are. Relationships don't work that way, you can't just keep demanding the same thing hoping you'll wear me down. That's not fair."

Tears shake out of your eyes slowly as your body catches up with what he's saying, "Harry."

"It's not fair!" He repeated loudly. "You can't keep on about it."

About what? You want to ask him because you hadn't mentioned a holiday until the week before. That's not what he was really angry about. He was talking about The Secret. And his guilt was showing. His anger was misdirected, aimed at the wrong thing. He muttered something to himself you didn't hear.

"I didn't hear that."

"I said," Harry looked up at you, and when your eyes clicked together you saw surprise rise and then quickly disappear as if he hadn't expected to see you there. "I said, I don't think we can keep doing this."

"You don't think we can keep doing this?" You repeated it because the words hardly sounded like English the first time you heard them.

I don't think we can keep doing this.

Harry stood across from you with no expression on his face. And it took a few moments for him to own up to what he said, but he does. He nods his head once, awkwardly, and then nods again.

"We can't keep doing this," he tells you, sounding defeated, and then his voice rises again—in pitch, not in volume—"But I fucking love you!"

But I fucking love you.

As if that was enough.

It was days of you expecting a call, and a make up that never came. Expecting the fight for your relationship Harry promised you he'd always put up. You wanted him to prove that you were someone he couldn't do without. You hated the thought of him walking around his house and not feeling the absence of you as some impossible weight he couldn't bear.

"Y/N!" Your name sounds out behind you, but you keep walking, an instantaneous decision that pretending not to hear her might work.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn't.

Harry's assistant keeps chasing you down the hall she initially led you through, calling your name and eventually getting you to stop and turn around because, well, you can't keep pretending she's not there forever.

"I'm just finding a loo," you lie.

"There's one this way," she points over her shoulder, in the direction you both came from, "Harry said if you tried to leave I had to go with you, which, for my own dignity I'd really prefer not to have to do."

You find yourself scoffing, "Who said he's in charge of how long I stay?"

Her expression softens somewhat, "He just wants to see you after."

How dare he think he can control this still, you think.

You know she's not the person to be frustrated with. You should be frustrated with yourself first, for coming, and then with Harry for deciding he could orchestrate this … This whatever it was. Still, you find yourself biting out your reply, "He saw me from stage," you tell her bitterly.

"And he'll have seen that you're not there anymore," she replies patiently,, "It'll throw off his focus if he's worried you've gone home halfway through."

You fall into step beside her but can't give him the win, "Quite frankly, it's not my concern or responsibility anymore if his focus is thrown or not."

She wordlessly points out where the bathrooms are just in front of you. You're trying not to make eye contact with anyone who's in these backstage hallways. They feel like ghosts from a life that's not yours anymore.

The first time you met any of Harry's People you'd felt absolutely mortified. The whole thing felt awkward to you, meeting assistants and managers and creative directors. Putting faces and humans to jobs done for Harry. He was a lot of people's boss, and it made you uncomfortable because you'd not seen that side to him before. You knew things like how hot he liked his showers and what yogurt he liked on his muesli in the morning.

That first—and only—step into his professional world, was in a venue just like this one where Harry was filming a music video for a few days. The stage was set up like it was for live a show, and you overheard someone saying setting up for a shoot was more involved than for an actual performance. Harry wanted you to see what this part of his world looked like and despite them not fitting in either of the Friends or Family categories you'd laid out for People Allowed To Know About You, his "Team" were people Harry felt safe introducing to you. (NDAs were a powerful thing) He led you through the hallways by the hand and stuck his head into every room with a cheery, 'Hullo, just bringing Y/N around to meet everyone.'

You remember one person declaring they were happy to be meeting you. Harry was too young to be married to his job, they said with a relieved tone, That it was good he'd found his Someone. Harry beamed at that, looking down at you as if thinking, Yeah, I have found my Someone.

Now you stand back in the pit side of stage, and Harry looks down at you with a hesitation that makes you more uncomfortable than when you were watching him film that music video. His assistant has brought you back to where his team are standing, and you feel more than one set of eyes take stock of you returning, a shared glance between a manager and the girl shadowing you. A wide-eyed exchange that says, That was the last thing we needed. When Harry comes to the side of stage between songs, he's hunting for a bottle of water, but you can see he's come to that side because his eyes are focused on hunting for you.

When he sees you've returned, he slowly takes a sip of water, eyes not leaving yours. You feel like he's admonishing you in his head, seeing how weak you were, that you ran away after a little eye contact. There's a distaste there, you think, and as he's putting the cap back on the bottle, Harry opens his mouth like he's going to try to say something to you, but he stops. He frowns at his hands as he puts the bottle down and then turns away, bringing the microphone back up to his lips and slipping back into entertainer mode.

"In a lot of ways, I hate this next song," he starts slowly, speaking over the band as they begin to slow down the tempo of the night. A smoke machine whirls to life and pumps out a few big clouds, shrouding the stage behind Harry. "I really hate it."

He pauses. And your insides freeze in your chest. You're hanging off his every word, just like every other body in the room. Harry stands right on the front of the stage, toes almost touching the drop off. He's looking out at the audience and lets the microphone hang at his side. Makes no move to keep talking. Was he looking for someone out there, or was he running over what he was about to say in his head? Rehearsing it, making sure it was exactly what needed to be said.

Where you used to see thoughtfulness you now see calculation.

Give nothing away. Sell only the product. Push the song. Let people come to their own conclusions.

"This is a song about," he says carefully, a crack to his voice that sends adrenaline shooting straight down your legs, "About regretting that you've hurt someone. And about the helplessness of wishing you could make them forget what you said, but … Knowing you can't take it back."

You watched Harry trail around to the upright piano on stage and sit himself down on the stool. He stares at his hands hovering over the keys for a moment too long, but you're sure Harry's audience would let him take a hundred more. You see what perhaps they don't—the hesitation. You'd witnessed it enough to spot it, even across the stage in the dark from thirty feet away.

He's not sure about playing the song.

You think about contacting him by telepathy. Saying, I'll leave so you can go back to your show. You don't have to pretend I'm not here, I'll just go. Like I wanted to. Like I tried to.

But he plays it.

You've not heard it before, but the rest of the room has, and they sing along with him. You hear a couple of thousand people sing with your ex-boyfriend about him regretting the way he treated you. And you're almost able to talk yourself out of believing it's about you, you can nearly reason with yourself that it's kind of vague. Other than naming the cafe he'd sat in the car park of a hundred times waiting for you to return with a takeaway, it could be about anyone, really.

But he sings out a line and looks straight at you, and his eyes say it's yours. The song. The apology that's not been said yet.

I get the feeling that you'll never need me again.

His voice cracks again as he sings it. And the hurt part of you says it's just a vocal technique Harry's trained to call on at any time. It doesn't speak to anything other than a creative choice on his part. But the vulnerability is hard to ignore, the low hanging, remorseful unease in the room. He fumbles a string of notes on the piano as he sings and you're hit by the overwhelming need to make him stop.

Witnessing whatever he's currently feeling with this song is more uncomfortable than you've ever been, and a switch in you to protect him flicks on. You look around at his assistant, his manager, trying to see if there's even a hint of anyone else feeling like this moment needs an intervention, needs to be stopped.

The song ends. And you're glad.

Harry takes a few moments on stage to get ready with a guitar for the next song. He doesn't come over to your side of the stage for a drink, or to ask the roadies for anything. Instead, he flies straight into the next section of the set. Seemingly recovered from the heavy moment you felt as though you nearly drowned in. He'd never sung about you before.

Nothing remotely personal about your relationship ever left Harry's house.

And you find yourself wishing it would all just go back there.

The sixth lie was that he wouldn't break your heart.

Harry did though.

He broke your whole life.

So when he comes off stage at the end of his gig, there's little in you that wants to hang around. As soon as the lights go down and you see Harry's silhouette cross the back of the stage and hop down the stairs to the floor, your gut churns, and you wish you were one of the people in the rest of the venue. The ones now turning and slowly filing out of the building. Going back to their lives peacefully.

Instead, you're ushered behind the curtain again, into the small area that's immediately buzzing with life. You watch Harry as if he's moving in slow motion though. As soon as his boots hit the concrete floor somebody is tugging the suit jacket from his shoulders and swapping it for a grey hand towel that he uses to wipe down his face. His hand pushes his hair up over his head as he smiles at a handful of people, and then his eyes find yours. The smile drops, and he takes a steadying breath in.

"Y/N," he says loudly. Straight. Without expression. It's a statement, but also you sense a question there too. As if you might not turn out to be the person who was standing there. He holds your gaze over and through the people walking around and in front of him. He's handed a bottle of water and offered a second one which he takes, "Y/N," he says again, pulling his head back to beckon you over.

You roll your lips together when you've made it to the vacant space in front of him. Harry passes you the extra water bottle and cracks the lid off the one he keeps for himself. You grip yours with both hands but don't make any move to open it. Standing in front of him didn’t feel like you thought it would. It’s less of a kick I in the gut, and more a reinforcing of things that you’d figured out since being without him.

"Hi," he says hesitantly, briefly looking at someone behind your left shoulder. Then, you feel his eyes back on your face.

You speak to his forehead, not ready to have things inside you unlocked by eye contact, "Hello."

"This way," Harry says after a moment, running the towel down his sweaty face again.

He leads you down a hallway, wiping his face on the towel two more times as he walks. Harry continuously looks over his shoulder at you to make sure you're still following him, as if there was somewhere for you to hide in the concrete hallway. When he gets to his dressing room door, he kicks it open and holds his arm out to let you in first. The room smells like his cologne, a whiff of his final moments before going out on stage and a time portal back to mornings you'd spritz it on yourself before leaving the house, it was your scent then too. There was a small sofa and table, a long mirrored table with his laptop open next to a stack of papers, his screen saver bouncing back and white photos across the locked screen. His overnight bag and its contents were sprawled out over the floor in the corner next to where you can see his phone charging.

"You look good," is the first thing he says to you. Trying to pull your attention probably. Maybe hoping to get on the front foot charming you. You could tell him he looked good as well, particularly in the cream suit they had him in tonight, but you were sure there were no shortage of people who already had.

"Your show was good," you deflect away from the personal, eyes tracing the bottles in the corner of the table, "Great setlist."

"Needs a shakeup, if we're honest. Getting stale," Harry shrugs, and you see it in the mirrored wall. He's still standing by the closed door, watching you walk into the centre of the room and take stock of what's around you. "How have you been?"

"Fine."

Harry coughs uncomfortably, "Thanks for coming, wasn't sure you would."

"I wasn't sure either."

You sense Harry realising this conversation was going to be exactly as difficult as feared it might be, he nods his head and moves over to the sofa but doesn't sit down, "Did you want a seat?"

"I'll sit here," you perch yourself on the chair in front of his laptop, crossing one leg over the other and hitching your elbow at the back so you're facing Harry. Keeping the room between you.

Harry sits on the arm of the small, burgundy sofa, and tosses the towel onto the seat next to him, "Looked like you were a little upset there for a moment."

"My boots are new," you quip, kicking your top foot out towards him, "Blisters."

He sighs again, and you start to feel chastised, but there's a more substantial part of you that stubbornly bunkers on down to playing this role, taking power when you'd never had it with Harry before. He knew it wasn’t blisters that had emotion welling up in you during his set. But just the same it wasn’t his place anymore to be privy to your feelings. And you weren’t going to let him gallantly try to take it. You weren’t old friends who could pick up where you left off. You were broken lovers.

"I just thought we could do with talking," Harry says finally.

"You could have uninvited me, you know, I assumed—Well, it's not like I've been expecting to still attend any of your shows the last six months. This one didn't have to be different."

He almost looks hurt, "You live here."

"How was Italy, Harry?” you turn the conversation around abruptly because you didn't like where it was going, and he was starting to frustrate you. You didn’t need him pointing out you lived in this city alone now since he left. As if you didn’t know.

Where watching him on stage hit you with longing and heartbreak, memories you found yourself irrevocably attached to, being in the same room as him now is only making you see the real Harry. The one who's so good at rearranging the energy in the room to make you feel you need to give more of yourself. The one who's an expert at asking a leading question and relying on the other person to be vulnerable first, lead the charge out the gates.

The man who lied to hide you every day for nearly a year, even when it was hurting you more than protecting you. The hurt from him was worse than the invasion of your privacy would have be. The distrust you felt didn't counteract the security you were still afforded by anonymity. The way you felt you still had something to prove—something to earn from him—and that you just needed to earn the right to your place in Harry's life.

"I've missed you," he said finally, "Just …"

"You've been lonely?" You raise your eyebrows at him.

"What?" Harry's defences click into place, "No, it's not that—obviously yes, I've been lonely—but also I just—I miss you."

You start nodding, and your gaze drifts around the room, "Yeah, I … What exactly do you miss, Harry? Because—I mean, it was kind of shit, don't you think?"

"Shit?" he looks horrified, "What was shit?"

"Harry," you say simply, telling him to cut the bullshit with your expression. "Come on."

"I loved you," he declares loudly, proudly, “We had a great time together. I don't think it was kind of shit at all."

That's when you feel tears come to your eyes. Of course he didn't think it was shit. He still didn't see where the problem was. Couldn't see it. He would go right back to That Fight and keep going the way you had been if he could. Harry would keep living that life with you, he would have kept on going the same way. You'd still be the secret. A fight about a holiday would have resolved itself with compromise and make-up sex, and you would have gone right back to sneaking out of venues and pretending not to know him in crowded rooms.

Your lips turn up in a smile of sorts as your tears beg to fall but don't, "You haven't changed," you state with a small, incredulous laugh, "You've not figured it out. Nothing's changed," you repeat, shaking your head.

Harry's confusion is plain, and if he thought your tears were because you miss him there's something like a flicker of doubt, as if he's reading what's in front of him again and maybe getting a different story.

"You can't have a life with someone who doesn't want anyone to know you're in their life," you state simply.

And that was it, really. That was the nuts and bolts of it.

The secrecy eroded any meaning your relationship with Harry had. The doubt that cast. The burden on you to continually prove yourself, to audition for the role every day only to never graduate from understudy.

You watch Harry's throat constrict tightly as he thinks about the words that come from his mouth, "I loved you," he repeats, "I didn't want anything outside of us to fuck us up."

"You can't control the world that way, Harry," you're observing him carefully, "You definitely can't control people that way. I get why we started that way, but a year in, Harry? A year."

He looks at his feet, and it's the first bit of remorse you've ever seen him show over it.

"I know you loved me," you keep going, "But you can't use that as some bandaid for the lying, for the hurt that was. You can't erase the consequences because you thought you were protecting me or us or yourself. The truth doesn't cancel out the hurt of the lie."

Harry's still starring at his boots, "You could have said something."

You blink once.

"Fuck you," bursts out before you can stop it, and Harry's eyes snap up to yours, you laugh at his nerve and rise to your feet, "Fuck you, Harry. I couldn't have. I felt like I had to earn it. Like maybe I was one gold star away from getting there. And then when I did push it, you ended it."

"That's not—

"—It is," you insist, shaking your head at him, "You put all your insecurities and shortcomings on me and then had the nerve to tell me you loved me as if I was the defective cog in the wheel. As if you saying you loved me put all the onus on me spoiling it."

"I'm a private person—

You put your hand up to silence him, turning on your heel to face Harry as your pacing halts, "Stop. I don't … I don't care," you breathe out simply, "I really don't. Our relationship wasn't The One. It's one we'll both learn from for the ones that are coming. I hope you learn from it," you add quietly, "Because I have."

"Y/N," Harry says your name like it's an idea he's unsure of.

"That song wasn't about me, was it?" You ask because on stage he said it was about regretting hurting someone and there's been no hint of a 'sorry' from Harry since.

His brow creased, "It is. I am. I wanted you to hear me play it tonight. It's for you."

You smile, the idea that you've grown beyond this situation blooming inside you, "You've not said it."

"What?"

"You haven't said you're sorry," your head shakes again, a fresh wave of your new perfume—the one that's just yours—filling your nose, "You've said you missed me. And that I look good, but you've not said you're sorry. You can put an apology into the song on stage, but you can't admit you were wrong to the person you wrote the song about."

His shoulders sink, just the slightest amount, and you know that you've seen enough. You've said enough. He's not going to have an epiphany on this, not in this conversation with you. You've gone as far as you can with this. As far as you're willing to.

"I'm going to go," you take a step forward, "Thanks for the song, your voice sounded really nice on it."

And you walk passed him with just a final wave and the slightest touch to his shoulder. He doesn't move from his seated position, but his neck cranes and he watches you leave. Eyes hunting your back for answers, like the manuscript for what just happened might show up there. But it doesn't, and you slip out the door, the clip from your shoes fading from his hearing quicker than he wanted it to.

Your insides are shaking by the time you make it out onto the street. No part of you wants to turn back and look up at his name in lights again. You're done with seeing the best of everything in him. Harry's one of the shitty boyfriends you'll tell someone about one day in the future, and they'll call him a dickhead with anger dripping from their tongue, promising to never treat you the same way.

And they won't.

You'll both have bumped and bruised your way into each other's lives, and there'll be a satisfying click with them there wasn't with anyone else. You'll have journeyed through all the maybes and not-quites, and you'll land in that forever place with the person who wears the badge of Yours with a fervour nobody before them has.

And Harry … You'll go and be Nothing to Him.

My inbox is here

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wrenhyperfixates · 4 years ago

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: It’s the Christmas season and Loki still has much to learn. Thankfully, he has his favorite little mortal to teach him all about it. Warnings: just straight fluff A/N: Alright, it’s December, and you know what that means: time for Christmas fics! Hope you enjoy my first installment for the holiday season. Happy reading folks :)

Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @thelokiimaginechroniclesficrecs

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

It was bizarre, thought Loki, how seemingly overnight the world was lit up with red and green everything. Lights, wreaths, trees, inflatable decorations; you name it, and Loki could spot it from any corner in NYC. Everyone he passed seemed to be filled with joy, ready to start singing at any second. It was disconcerting, to say the least. Normally, people would give him the side-eye, but lately they passed by with a quick nod or wave. Loki doubted it had little to do with him and much more to do with the Christmas spirit floating in the air.

Ah, Christmas. He knew a decent amount about it, but had never paid too much mind to it. After all, it wasn’t like he ever really planned on living on Midgard. It was just the way things worked out. Now he wished he’d taken a bit more of an interest, for this fat, bearded, old man in a red suit made very little sense to him. And yet, he was everywhere this time of year. Though he could have asked any one of the Avengers about it, he refused to risk being teased. It should be easy enough to learn about if he truly desired to.

Loki marveled at the world in a sort of confused awe as he walked back to the Tower. This time of the year on Midgard, while so disagreeable to many, was perfectly fine with him. The bitter cold of the city at wintertime barely even felt like a summer breeze to him. One of the perks of being a perpetually cold frost giant, he supposed, was that you didn’t notice the freezing temperatures. As for those who did, well, he didn’t get why those silly little mortals didn’t just go somewhere warmer. You’d explained to him, once, that not everyone could afford to just pack up and move as they could on Asgard. A terrible shame, he thought, and he wished that he could do something to help, not that he would ever admit it. Feeling particularly generous, he dropped a one hundred-dollar bill in one of those collection bins that always popped up this time of year. It was guarded by yet another one of those strange, bearded men ringing a bell.

Hugging his so dark-green-it-was-almost-black peacoat to him, he rounded the final corner to get back home. Much like his gloves, it was more for style than anything else. Besides, no need to draw more attention to himself by dressing too lightly in the winter weather. Taking one last glance at the world around him, Loki pushed through the doors of the Avengers Tower.

“What in the Nine?” he sputtered as he was hit with a mouthful of glitter.

“Sorry, Mr. Loki,” Peter apologized. “We’re just decorating for Christmas.”

“By throwing glitter around?”

“Yeah. Why not? It’s Christmas, everything is glittery,” he said with a shrug.

“That, I can tell you,” Loki replied, patting Peter’s shoulder as he passed, “is absolutely true.”

All his other teammates seemed to be as excited about decorating as Peter was, though no one else was just haphazardly throwing that infernal sparkly dust. No, they were all using their special talents to hang garlands up from high balconies and banisters. Large ornaments and snowflakes were hanging from the ceiling. Every floor that Loki walked to was filled with merriment and yet more Christmas adornments. How they were put up so fast, the trickster god had no idea.

The common room was, much to his surprise, the least decorated place in the Tower so far. The team must have been saving this room for last, perhaps to do all together. Loki would have been upset that he wasn’t invited, but he was sure it was mentioned in one of those email blasts he always ignored. Now that he thought of it, he did remember seeing it in something that he skimmed. Regardless, this was a nice break from the hubbub in the rest of his home at the moment. In this room, there was only a tree put up and his angel working on prepping it. You.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” you sang to the music you had blasting through the room, unaware of Loki’s presence. “Everywhere you go.”

He watched in wonder as you twirled about the floor, taking out ornaments and other assorted trimmings for the tree. You grabbed a silver and gold garland and began the tedious process of wrapping it around the artificial branches, still belting your heart out. Though Loki was unfamiliar with the words, he caught on to the tune and began humming along, startling you ever so slightly. He walked up to you and grabbed your hand, joining in your spinning and dancing. Prancing around the room with you, Loki was filled with unbridled joy, and he thought he might be beginning to understand the reason for all the joy the season brings.

As you sang the final notes, you and the God of Mischief collapsed onto the couch amidst the boxes of Christmas knick-knacks, laughing your heads off. When you tried to get up, Loki pulled you back down to him, starting another fit of giggles.

“And how is my little mortal today?” he asked, playfully ticking you a little.

“I’d be a lot better if you let me finish decorating,” you teased, poking his chest.

He sighed and relinquished you back to your duties, watching you walk back toward the tree. If only he had the courage to tell you how he feels, rather than just admiring you from afar. You were best friends, sure, but he longed for more. Much more.

“Loki,” you called in a sing-song voice, batting your eyes. “Can you help me, please?”

“Of course, little one.”

He helped you string the garland the rest of the way around the tree, using his magic to get even the highest boughs. You squealed in delight as you admired your work so far, throwing your arms around Loki to thank him for his help.

Soon, the rest of the team joined you and began to hang the ornaments. No one particularly cared about where they were put, just that everyone was having fun. Loki tried to stay on the outskirts of the activity, but everyone kept pulling him back in. It made him happier than he cared to admit that they all concerned themselves with him participating. That they wanted him to participate.

“What do you think, Mr. Loki? Here?” Peter questioned as he held up an ornament in a prospective spot. “Or here?”

“The first spot, I suppose.”

“No,” Thor chimed in, making Peter worried he was going to start one of their infamous sibling battles. “The second spot, for certain.”

“I guess. I still do not understand most of this ‘Christmas’ stuff, to be quite honest.”

“Well, why did you not say so, brother?”

“Yeah, we can teach you all about it,” you added, showing up beside them. Then you snapped your fingers, getting an idea. “The tree lighting is tonight! At Rockefeller Center. We should go to that!”

“That’s a perfect idea,” Peter agreed. “So it’s set then. A crash course, then a field trip to see the tree lighting!”

Loki smiled at his friends as they bustled around him, planning the rest of the day. He couldn’t wait for later, and it made the rest of the time spent decorating even more enjoyable. Between the constant singing and cracking of jokes, there was not a dull moment to be found. While it would have usually drained Loki, he felt as lively as ever. Maybe there truly was something special about the season, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later, Loki stood with his teammates as incognito as possible in Rockefeller Center. It had been agreed that they just wanted to be normal people for one, not celebrities. To keep your group warm, Loki had cast a heating enchantment that they were all more than grateful for as they waited for the tree to light. In the last minutes before it was set to shine through the night, you summarized your lessons on the holiday.

“So,” you began, “I guess it’s basically a time for love, showing others how much they mean to you. And sure, there’s all the commercial stuff about candy canes and elves and trees and Santa Claus, which is nice and all, but that’s not the real meaning. It’s about being with those you care about and spreading goodwill to all.”

Loki thought back to all the times he’d needed a little charity or a helping hand, or really just to be shown he was loved. There were certainly a plethora of scenarios to pick from in his life. A whole season to spread cheer and show everyone things are not as hopeless as they seem sounded like a splendid idea indeed.

“I quite like the sound of that,” he said with a smile. As you looked back at him, an equally warm glow adorning your features, Loki realized there was one person he loved more than anyone else. With a sudden burst of confidence, he went to tell you exactly how he felt. “I must say this now, I-”

He was cut off as the crowd began the countdown. You gave him an apologetic smile as the both of you joined in. Upon reaching the last number, the tree lit up, filling Loki with a warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest. That was only accentuated when you grabbed his hand, bursting with excitement and awe. Once the cheering went down, and your group began to depart, you remembered Loki had been about to say something to you.

“What was it that you wanted to tell me before?” you asked. “Before the countdown.”

“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat. He’d already lost his nerve. “It was nothing urgent. I hardly even remember now. Another time, perhaps.”

“Well, that’s ok,” you replied, though you sounded a little disappointed. “Whenever you remember is fine.”

Back at the Tower, everyone said goodnight and parted ways to go to bed, exhausted from the busy day. In the hall between your rooms, you and Loki stopped to say goodnight one final time. You paused mid-sentence, spying something green hanging from the ceiling above you. Loki followed your gaze upward and immediately went a shade of red that put Rudolph’s nose to shame. Even before all your lessons from the day, he knew mistletoe when he saw it. And, of course, the tradition that went with it.

He heard snickering from around the corner and spotted Peter and Thor waiting for one of you to make your move. Undoubtedly, they'd fabricated the situation to try to get you together faster than you were going by yourselves. To be fair, at said pace, you’d never be together.

“Just kiss already!” Thor shouted before ducking away to give you some privacy.

“Pardon my brother,” Loki said self-consciously. “If you do not wish to, there is no law saying-”

He was cut off for the second time that night. This time, however, it was by something much more pleasurable. You had stood up on your tip toes and placed a kiss to his cheek, too sheepish to do much else.

“Night, Loki,” you said to the still stunned god. “Talk tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow indeed, my little mortal,” he said, pulling you in for another kiss, this time on the lips.

Oh yes, it was decided. This season was magical.

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merakiclosed · 4 years ago

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Taehyung - Bunny love

》Pairing: Hybrid!Reader x Single Parent!Taehyung

》Summary: Moving around and trying to find your home that your animal side craved for, you find your love of teaching kids art. Being a rare, albino bunny hybrid, you have to hid your appearance with baggy clothes and hats. What happens when a certain little girl takes a liking to you and what happens when that little girls very single, very hot dad also takes a liking to you?

》Genre: Fluff, a little bit of angst (tiny)

》Word count: 5k

》Notes/Warnings: Fem reader, choking (not sexual), slight harassment for a very short period.

Ah this took me a long time, I couldn't think of a proper ending but I quite like the ending and how it ties it together. Enjoy ! <3

Masterlist | All messages and requests are open <3

Moving around to new cities wasn’t new to you but moving to an entirely different country is. You never felt like you was home, even when you was living with your parents, it never felt right. It never felt like you belonged in your little town, you never felt that warmth of finally finding comfort. Your parents said that it was because of your genetics, that when you find that warmth feeling, don’t let go because that will be your home. It will be the place where you belong.

You are now living in Seoul and you were slowly but surely getting more comfortable. The language wasn’t hard to learn, you are a fast learner after all. You found the perfect job as an art teacher for a primary school and found that your classroom was where your heart and soul was. The walls were covered in splatters of paint, the children’s artwork splayed across the three walls that didn’t occupy the interactive whiteboard. Cut outs and spiral hung across the ceiling like Christmas decorations. Luckily for you, you were only small, so you didn’t get tangled with the hanging artwork. However, trying to get them on the ceiling was hard as you were scared of heights and being at the very top of a ladder was scary.

Being an art teacher meant that you could be quite laid back as you didn’t have to worry about students not understanding nor worry about teaching them about certain words. It also didn’t require the kids to fully think as you often promoted that they should create whatever their hearts desire. Because of this, you found that the kids were a lot more happier and open to you than the other teachers causing you to get side eyed sometimes by other teachers. You just shrugged at them, kids didn’t like to learn and listen all the time, they wanted to be free for a while. You were also good with smelling emotions that the kids felt, causing you to be good with kids in general. If they were sad? Juice box and fruit. If they were angry? Give them some paint and a blank canvas, let them express what they are feeling.

The headmaster liked your teaching style and the way that you were ‘talented with children’ - their words not yours. You also really liked the headmaster for allowing you to wear whatever clothes you wanted, which was good because of your situation. The situation was the big, white, fluffy flops on top of your head and the white fuzzball that was at your lower back.

Yes, you were an albino rabbit hybrid.

Hybrids are extremely rare. Hybrids came about when some crazy scientists thought that they could create a superior race where they were stronger and smarter than humans but were more obedient. The government and animal control was involved with taking it down and not much was said on the news about the whole situation. The government made up an organisation called The Hybrid Move. They basically take care of anything to do with hybrids and make sure to keep track of them so that none of them get taken and get experimented on by other crazy scientists. They were a lovely bunch of people; you knew quite a lot of the employees as you have to keep in contact with them.

Your parents were a part of the experiment, they never talked about it much and you can’t imagine how awful the conditions were. Once they were free, they ended up having you and moved to a small town, outside of the city. Seeing as they were both hybrids, it was inevitable that you were too.

From a young age, they told you that you always had to hide your tail and ears so that nothing bad happens to you. This meant that you had to wear baggy clothes and hats in every public setting and because of this, you had very little friends as they didn’t understand why you wore hats in summer, or why you couldn’t go swimming or go to sleepovers. Many people talked about you behind your back, name-calling was common. It seemed that even if you did hide your animal features, you were still a freak. A group of boys once took it so far, that they cornered you and tried to take your hat off. This then resulted in parents coming in and you being supervised by at least one teacher at every single hour of the day.

At first, you was confused at why there wasn’t anyone else that had ears or tails. You were also confused because, “Why do I have to hide something that I can’t help, it’s my nature?”

This, in turn, led to a conversation about the hybrid experiments that your parents went through and how they are in contact with The Hybrid Move organisation.

It hurt to bend your ears into a beanie at first, but after a while you got used to it, but now, from the years of fitting your ears into your beanie, they both bent outwards permanently at the top. Your tail hurt when you snatched it on somethings, and it killed when it snagged on your clothes. You always wear flowy, long skirts and baggy pants, making sure to cut a hole in your pants and that your top was always long enough to hide the cut. You have a very, artsy aesthetic, neutral and earth colours are your thing.

You live in a little bungalow, the large backyard was filled with flowers, plants, and vegetables. At the very back of your garden, you had a small selection of overgrown trees so that if you do shift, you have your own little hideout where you can properly connect with nature without being chased by a predator. You have a little cut in the middle of your right ear because of a fox. You had to shift at least once every month, otherwise, you get extremely uncomfortable and can cause you to shift in places where you really shouldn’t.

The only downside to your job, other than the snarky teachers was that you couldn’t go to any events that they held. You couldn’t exactly go to a posh event because you would end up wearing a beanie, very classy. And, you couldn’t wear fitted clothing.

You did have two teacher friends, first being Namjoon. He teaches English and has an incredibly beautiful husband, Jin who teaches history. How lovely the both of them are, they are so in love. Jin is so nice, he likes to look after both you and Joon. He often brings in food, of course they were vegan friendly for you. As much as you love Namjoon, he is clumsy and because of this clumsiness, they found out about you being a hybrid shifter.

What happened was, after school one day, you were on the ladders, hanging up some artwork when a loud crash came behind you as Namjoon dropped his mug of coffee. You are scared of loud noises because of your sensitive ears and the mug dropping caused you to shift. They had no words when one minute you were climbing the ladder and the next there’s a white bunny on the floor. Jin went to scream but Namjoon shoved his hand over his lovers’ mouth, causing the scream to be muffled. Joon is as clumsy as he is smart, so he connected the dots fairly fast and quickly went to shut the classroom door and pick the shaking bunny up in his arms. It only took 5 minutes of Joon and Jin stroking and whispering sweet words for you to shift back- Luckily with clothes. After that fiasco and explaining everything, they were very understanding and you three became very close friends, with you often feeling like you were third wheeling.

It was coming up to the end of summer, which meant that you could no longer just sit in the sunny spots of your living room and stay up to watch the sunset. You were excited nonetheless as you got to meet a new set of students that were coming up to their last years of primary. The whole process went smoothly and after a few months, they were well on their way with their current projects.

A little girl named Sujin became particularly close to you, sometimes choosing to stay in your classroom for lunch if she noticed that you wasn’t busy. Sujin had chubby cheeks and short, black hair with a wide, boxy smile. She was incredibly talented and was always excited about coming to art class, always skipping, singing, and dancing. Sujin was also a very curious child, always asking questions. You don’t mind answering them and you don’t even mind answering the ones about your personal life because, who on earth is she going to tell that your favourite snack is strawberries? One day after school she even asked if you had found your ‘prince or princess’. It took you a while to register what she was talking about, but you answered with a big, fat nope, ‘I haven’t found my prince’. After you answered, she just ran off and giggled, a cheeky smile painting her face. You shrugged, not minding her curiosity.

December comes and it’s time for parents evening. You have talked to multiple parents, a few have you scowling as they say how you ‘don’t dress like a teacher’ or that you ‘look too unprofessional’. Whilst you’re waiting for your last appointment with Sujin, you go around the classroom and pick up the swirl cut-outs that parents hadn’t notice where hanging from ceiling, causing them to waft their arms around and destroy some of them.

You stand in the frame of the door once you are done when you hear a very distinct laugh. Sujin comes bounding in, dragging a very, very tall and very, very handsome man down the hall. You can tell straight away that this is her father, his boxy smile unmistakably the same as Sujin’s.

Your mind buffers looking at him and your animal inside goes feral, ‘He could easily protect you; he looks strong and he’s so tall, he could defend you without much energy’. You blink rapidly, trying to stop yourself from jumping on top of him asking him to be your buck. Stupid animal instincts.

You look down when you notice that the man has stopped smiling and is now starring at your feet, to find that your right foot is slightly thumbing the ground. You try to stop yourself but you’re leg ends up twitching and shaking. Ignoring it the best you can, you smile awkwardly but in Taehyungs mind, you look annoyed; you’re leg stomping with a very forced smile. He looks sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with the hand that isn’t holding Sujin’s

“I’m sorry I’m late, the traffic was worse than I thought”

Once again, your mind malfunctions at the deepness of his voice, ‘please, earth swallow me now’ you thought. You shake your head and mumble to him that it’s fine and you wasn’t waiting that long.

You lead them into the classroom and turn around when you hear Sujin giggle as the man almost runs straight into one of the swirls from the ceiling. You really should have asked Joon if he could have taken them down beforehand. You cover your mouth when you chuckle, his sharp, dark eyes finding yours when he hears you and coughs, his cheeks blushing slightly. You stop laughing and sit down at your desk, gesturing them to do the same.

Throughout the meeting, you say various praises for Sujin as she is a literal angel and is extremely talented. You question the man, that you now know as Taehyung, if there has been artistic people in the family.

“Um, no not really, I mean, I do. I only do art as a hobby though. One day she came home and asked if she could get some art supplies because she really enjoyed your lessons and loved how she could express herself” Your heart hammers in your chest at the thought of inspiring someone, even if it is a child, it’s a massive compliment for a teacher.

The meeting doesn’t last long but you do notice that the entire time, you had a very warm feeling in your heart. You felt comfort. You ignored your thoughts, deeming it to be from the warm classroom.

Just as you’re about to turn back into your classroom, his voice echoes in the, now empty, hallway, “Are you going to Parent-child Christmas dance?”

You pause in your tracks and stare wide-eyed at hm, “Uh-I-Uh”

‘Omg WORDS Y/N’ you thought

Quickly gathering your thoughts, you reply “I don’t usually go”

You see his shoulders sag as his smile falters and quickly add “I might go this time though”

You inwardly freak at your words, what were you thinking??

His boxy smile once again makes an appearance “I’ll see you there than, Ms L/N” His voice showing his excitement

Without a second thought you run to Joon’s room to get help. Oh gosh, what have you gotten yourself into?

On the night of the dance, you’re wearing an A-line dress so that it doesn’t catch your tail and your ears are free as you stand next to Namjoon and Jin who have fake bunny ear headbands on their heads. When you freaked out about going to the dance wearing a hat, they proposed that you just went without a hat. Immediately, you shot the idea down, but they suggested that if you went without a hat, they went with a headband so that you wasn’t alone.

You’re a bunch of nerves as you’re dart across the many parents and children that fill the decorated gym hall. You have to restrain your ears from moving towards every sound that they hear, not used to being uncovered. Lucky for you, many teachers were dressed up in a Christmas themes as you see many antler headbands and Santa costumes.

“Hey, you good?” Namjoon’s voice breaks you out of your trance as you look up at him with your wide eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Totally fine” You nod your head so many times, Jin thinks that your head might pop off.

“Your ears are twitching, darling” Jin says, going to rub your ears to soothe them, your body visibly relaxing at the administration.

Your eyes briefly flutter at the calming motion but soon shoot open when you hear the gym door opening. He walks in, once again, being tugged by Sujin who ditches him as soon as she sees her friends on the dance floor.

He makes eye contact with you and you can feel your face heat up. You see him take big steps towards you, not seeming to notice Jin or Namjoon who look at the both of you curiously. They step away when Taehyung gets close enough, wanting to watch the interaction from the side-lines.

You both stand side by side in silence until it’s broken by Taehyung, “I’m going to get a drink, do you want anything?”

You shake your head, too nervous to speak, your ears almost twitching.

He walks off as you stare at his broad back. He looked amazing tonight as he wore a flowery coat with a black tuxedo underneath it, his hair fluffy and curly, you want to run your hands through it. His jawline is sharp, and his eyes are a deep shade of brown, you could get lost in them.

Your lost in your head by the time he comes back to you, jumping when he appears in front of you, bending his back to look into your eyes because of the height difference. Even in heels, you only just reach his shoulders.

“I bought you some strawberries, Sujin says that they are your favourite”

Your big eyes stare into his, he remembered? You told Sujin that like 2 months ago. You don’t dwell on it too long as you look at the plastic plate in his hand that is full of strawberries and snatch one so quick that Taehyung didn’t think he’s seen anyone move so fast.

His chuckle causes you to strain your head upwards to look at him with your cheeks full of strawberries. With your cheeks still full you smile shyly, some strawberry juice escaping but Taehyung just grabs a napkin and softly grabs your chin with his other hand and gently wipes it away. All you can do is look at his face, noticing that he has one monolid and one double lid, as well as having a little mole on the tip of his nose.

He doesn’t move when he is finished and just looks you in the eye, his eyes filled with curiosity of wanting to know you more and adoration because he thinks, that he might have just fallen, even if you don’t know each other fully.

Throughout the rest of the night, it’s filled with random questions and you learn a lot about this man. When your both looking at the kids dancing, you see him look at the kids with adoration and care, a smile always present on his face, you wonder why he isn’t a teacher.

However, when you think that everything is going well, it goes downhill, fast.

The music seems to be getting louder and your ears twitch slightly, you feel a whimper wanting to leave your throat at the discomfort. You turn to face Taehyung when you find that he is already looking at you, specifically, your ears.

“I’m going to get some space” you whisper to him, your voice small. You see Taehyung nod at you, still fascinated by your ears.

You walk into the hallway outside of the gym and lean against the wall, breathing heavily. You closed your eyes to try and focus on relaxing your ears from all of the sounds that surrounded you, the music booming, the sound of the AC, footsteps. Footsteps.

You looked up frantically, looking at the man that was staring at you intently, the disgusting smell he gave off showed his intentions. Frozen in place, he came up to you and slammed his hands next to your head. His lips contorted into a smirk as he dragged his hands down to your face and stroked your cheek, “I’ve been looking for you, I knew I would find you eventually”

Your throat hurt felt tight as you gulped. His hand that wasn’t on your cheek slowly caressed your figure, going down to your waist, his grip tight. You let out a whimper when he pulled your right bunny ear, your eyes filling with tears. Your animal instincts of submitting made you shake, both of your ears dropping to the back of your head.

“Aren’t you a sight, little bunny” he stated, his breath smelled like smoke, making you want to gag. Your breathing became heavier as he started to pull you closer to his taller and more muscular frame.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing” a voice growled, surrounding the empty hallway.

The man that held you turned you around to face Taehyung, one of his arms going towards your neck and the other wrapping around your waist. Your arms go up to his arm around your neck as your nails dig into his skin.

“Aw, the boyfriend has come to rescue the doe” the man snarled at Taehyung, anger radiating off him.

Taehyung’s eyes are sharp, his jaw clenched as he looked at the arms around your neck and waist but softening as he saw the tears running down your face. Taehyung saw red when the man tightens his grip on your throat, he lunges towards the both of you when the man holding you speaks.

“Did you know these pretty things are real?”

Taehyung stops, his face void of showing emotion. The man that held you pulled your ear once again as you whimpered in pain, tears finally making their way down your face. You start to cough when the lack of oxygen gets too much.

The noises and the stress of situation was getting too much for you and it was like Taehyung knew as he made eye contact with you as your ears started to twitch on their own, your tail feeling fuzzy.

The arms around you slip as you shift into your bunny form, the man stumbling slightly which gives Taehyung the perfect advantage as he runs to the man, punching him square in the face. The man hits the floor with all of his weight, his eyes shutting. You don’t have much time to think about how strong Taehyung must be to knock him out with one punch as you sprint down the hall, your small legs jumping as fast as they can to find somewhere to hide.

“Y/N wait” You hear Taehyung cry out as he runs after you.

You’re fast, but Taehyung is faster with his longer legs as he scoops you up in his arms. You kick him with your back feet, trying to get out of his grip but not with all of your force so that you don’t injure him.

“Shh, shh, it’s fine, it’s just me. You’re fine” He shushes and coes at you, calming you down, one of his hands rubs against your fur.

Taehyung slowly slumps down against the wall of the hallway, not too far away from the gym but not close enough that someone will walk down. He is still holding you as you calm down, whispering soothing words into your ears and rubbing your back. You look up at him and all you see is love in his eyes. You sit up a bit more on your back feet, your front paws going onto his chest for stability as you nudge his nose with yours. His laugh rings out down the hallway as you start to lick his cheek.

Taehyung feels a significantly heavier weight on his lap as you shift back into your human form, your legs over his sideways, your right side leaning into his chest and your hands resting near his collarbone. There are still tear tracks on your face as you look up to him with your big eyes.

“I knew these bunny ears looked scarily realistic” he chuckles, no disgust in his voice.

You stay seated in Tae’s lap when you call the hybrid organisation, as he occasionally kisses you head when you choke on your words, encouraging and supporting you. You both sat there for a while afterwards, with his left hand wrapped around your waist and his right brushing your bunny ears. Your teeth clicking together in contentment as no words where said, none were needed.

Taehyung is nearly tackled to the floor when you both walk into the gym hall as Sujin jumps on him and wraps her arms around his neck. She babbles at how she had such a good time dancing and that one of the other girls, Yuna, showed her some dance moves. You and Taehyung laugh as she talk animatedly about it. You move your hands to brush your hands through her hair, gathering it all so that you can redo her ponytail, whilst Taehyung looks at both of you with fond eyes.

“you know, there’s a job opening for another art teacher, the other one left” your voice was soft as you glanced at Tae. His eyes looking straight at you, excitement evident. Sujin joins in, encouraging her dad to start working here. You knew that he would love the job, he is great with kids, and for your own selfish reasons, you really want him to teach by your side. When Taehyung says that he will apply, you feel warmth start to spread in your chest, a wide smile making its way onto your face.

“Daddy, look it’s a slow song, go dance with Ms. L/N” Sujin whispers into Taehyungs ear. She noticed that her daddy was looking at you when you was talking to Namjoon and Jin about something across the hall. Your ears pick up the words she spoke as you weren't fully paying attention to what Joon or Jin was talking about. You didn’t mean to, but with Tae stood there, you couldn’t help but savour every moment that you were near each other.

Taehyung puts Sujin down and walks over to you in wide strides, confidence oozing out of him. A sly smirk makes its way onto your face when you make eye contact with each other, making Tae falter in his steps.

“May I have this dance?” His voice cuts through the convocation Jin and Joon was having, both of them looking at Tae with their mouths open.

“You may” You say shyly, taking his hand.

The both of you make it to the dance floor as other parents fill up the space. You put your arms around his shoulders as he puts his on your waist, the warmth once again coming back and filling up your chest.

“I’m sorry about what happened earlier” you said in a low voice, not making eye contact with him.

Taehyungs heart cracks a little at how small you sounded, “It’s completely fine, I should have gone out with you” his voice equally as low.

You look up at him and your heart beats a little bit faster. You shake your head side to side to disagree with him, neither of you could have predicted what happened.

“Ever since I met you at parents evening, I thought about you ever day. Every time I see you my heart beats erratically and there’s a warmth in my chest that I can’t explain” Tae mumbled, only for you to hear.

You place your head on his chest as you both sway to the music and whisper “I’m the same. But I have, um, something to tell you”

“My parents said that whenever I find warmth, this warmth, it’s where my home will be” you pause, “Tae, I think you’re my home”

Taehyung stops dancing, causing you both to be stood in the middle of the gym, the parents around you still swaying past both of you. You don’t separate from him nor look at him, scared of what he may say. The palpitations in your heart, the closeness and the heat in your chest have your feelings soaring, so much so, that a tear escapes your eye at the thought of him being disgusted by the words you spoke.

He raises his hand to life your chin up to meet his eyes, he briefly looks down at your lips, then back to your eyes, looking for permission. You nod slowly, standing on your tip toes as he leans down, his hand now cupping your cheek. The dim lights casted shadows onto his face, though you could see him perfectly. You can feel the hand that lays on your cheek softly, contrasting with the strong grip around your waist. Leaning closer, your lips met in a sweet kiss, all of your emotions coming to the surface. You clutches his shirt into your hands, tears now fully coating your cheeks. He pulled away slightly, his breath danced across my lips as he whispered, “I don’t think you’re my home, I know you are my home”.

You smile to brightly that it hurts your cheeks, he brings a hand up to wipe away your tears. Even with mascara smudging at the bottom of your eyes, tear stains on your cheeks and bloodshot eyes, Taehyung hasn’t something more beautiful.

3 years later

Explaining what you were to Taehyung was easy, but explaining it to a young girl, was interesting to say the least. It sent her imagination wild when she asked you to shift, she loved to give you kisses and hug you close to her.

You now lived in Taehyung’s house with Sujin, who has recently started to call you mummy. She first said it when you tucked her in bed when one day, your ears stood up to attention, eyes stinging to avoid from crying with happiness. As soon as you got to your shared bedroom with Tae, you flopped onto your side in front of him, instantly shifting to your bunny form. Tae laughed at you as he rubbed your fur and asked, once you shifted back, what caused that reaction. When you told him, he seemed to be as happy as you were.

Both of you are art teachers at the primary school. When you first properly introduced him to Namjoon and Jin, they interrogated him for a least an hour. But nonetheless, the four of you created an amazing friendship group, you could finally be yourself, your tail and all.

You smile at the thought of the four of you having a sleepover this Saturday as you pack your Taehyungs bag. You’re so happy that you get up and run to Taehyung, only to run away from him, giggling like a mad woman, “be careful love” he calls. You turn around and come back towards him at full speed and once you’re a few centimetres away from him, you start to circle his standing figure, your socks slipping on the hardwood floor. His laugh is deep as he catches you around the waist and flops you both backwards on to the sofa, cradling you in his lap. His eyes soften as you start to rub your chin on his shoulder. You relax against his body as you now start to nibble his shoulder. After being together for 3 years, Taehyung is used to this display of affection as he knows what it means – you’re happy and in love.

Taehyung kisses the top of your head once you’ve finished scenting him and pulls you closer together when Sujin bounces on top of the sofa next to you, joining in on the hug.

Your little family was perfect, and you loved it.

494 notes · View notes

spartanguard · 4 years ago

Text

partners

summary: SVU detective Emma Swan's new partner is not what she expected. Thankfully, that's a good thing.

A/n: So I've been watching a LOT of Law & Order: SVU lately and when I got to the episodes where Stabler was partnered with Dani Beck, it just smacked with CS feels. This is just a bit of exploration of that, in honor of @optomisticgirl ‘s birthday!!

B—HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Thank you for being the most amazing friend, and the best person to bounce crazy fic ideas off of (like this). I hope you have the most amazing day and I love you!!!!

Note: While there isn't any actual sexual violence in this story, it is an SVU AU, so it's mentioned.

rated T | 2.3k words | AO3

She met him while he was trying to arrest a perp who’d just walked.

“Are you Detective Swan?” he’d asked, and she immediately noticed his accent—the way it wrapped around her last name in a way that sent a shiver down her spine, but it was hard to tell if it was in a good way or not.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she tossed back.

“I’m your new partner. Killian Jones.”

She shook his offered hand (only later noticing he only had the one) and wondered—just what the hell were they about to get into?

[He was her second new partner in as many weeks. Graham, who she’d worked with since she joined the unit, had enough with special victims—with Boston in general—and had taken up some smalltown sheriff gig in Maine. Emma knew he’d be happier there, but it kind of left her in the lurch. They’d sent someone new over the week before, but her style didn’t gel with Mulan’s quite well enough—the woman was a damn fine detective but just...too different.]

Jones was new to special victims, transferring in on the recommendation of the captain at his previous precinct, where he’d worked in homicide. The dead victims, he was used to; the live ones—not so much.

It was pretty obvious on their first case together, when they were interviewing the young girl in the hospital. Emma—she’d seen enough of the world’s shitty side that little phazed her any more; growing up in the foster system made her uniquely suited to this line of work.

But Killian? He was visibly upset; she had to physically restrain him from running out of the hospital to start tracking down the culprit, holding him back by the sleeve of his leather jacket. They hardly had a lead on this. Something could be said for enthusiasm, but that didn’t excuse jumping ahead of themselves. That’s how you got into trouble—that was how criminals got away with murder (literally); she’d done that enough for the both of them, and had a feeling he had, too.

She felt they had a lot in common, actually; there was an obvious affinity for leather coats, but past that, there was something familiar in his eyes. Not that she’d met him before, or anything—just something in the determined set of his gaze when interviewing a suspect, in the empathetic way he handled the victim.

She still wasn’t sure if that was good or not, especially when he almost forgot protocol—almost lost them evidence—by rushing in too soon.

And she was half ready to walk into Captain Mills’ office to request a new partner (again) when she found him asleep at his desk with what could only be described as a murderboard spread out behind him. He looked younger and softer in his sleep, impossibly gorgeous with the way his long lashes rested on his cheekbones and gentle breaths from his full lips—and none of that was really pertinent, because the man had just researched his way to a solved case.

“Just who are you, Killian Jones?” she asked when she later woke him up with coffee and a bear claw (biting back a comment on the rumpled state of his usually pristine waistcoat-and-dress shirt combo).

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he drawled, holding her gaze intently before taking a long pull from his cup.

She knew she shouldn’t, but damn, did she.

It wasn’t until a couple cases later that she began to put together the pieces of him. It had been a doozy of a kidnapping, and he’d been on edge the whole time—right until they finally tracked down the little boy who’d been abducted. Emma slapped the cuffs on the miserable excuse for a father who’d taken him and Killian pulled the boy into his arms, visibly deflating once he knew he was safe.

She dragged him to their unit’s favorite bar that night and slid a glass of rum in front of him, along with the directive to “Talk.”

He downed it in one shot, then worried his bottom lip (much to Emma’s distraction) before saying, “Have I mentioned I have a daughter?”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise, but she let him explain without interruption. Her name was Alice; she was 8. He had sole custody, and with good reason: her mother, his ex-girlfriend, had kidnapped her from his apartment when she was only a few years old. “It’s the most scared I’ve ever been,” he confessed. “And today...it’s like I was right back in that moment.”

“I don’t blame you,” she replied, then finished her own whiskey. This was probably where she should drop some of her own tragic backstory, right? Like the scumbag who left her pregnant at 17, and the baby boy she put up for adoption? “Props to you for doing it on your own. I obviously couldn't.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, love; you gave him his best chance.” He gently set his hand over hers on the bar and she froze; not because he was cold—quite the opposite, actually—but between that tiny gesture of support and the understanding in those too-blue eyes, she felt more seen than she had by anyone in ages, even Graham.

It was suddenly too much, too intimate, and she yanked her hand away and ordered another drink. “Is your ex the name on your tattoo?” she asked, trying to put some space in between them (physically and emotionally).

It worked. He sat back up and tugged his right sleeve down with his prosthesis, hiding the ink, and she could almost see the walls go back up between them. “No. That’s...another story. For another time.” He stood and tossed some cash on the counter. “Alice is with my neighbor; I better go get her. See you ‘round.” And he left hastily.

It was what she wanted to happen. He’d suddenly gotten too close. So why did she feel like such an ass about it?

She was going to apologize at their next shift, but they got thrown into another case. And then another after it. It was a different kind of intense—a different kind of intimate—than that moment in the bar; very quickly, she had to trust him, and vice versa. That was something neither were predisposed to, but were managing to do...honestly, better than she had with anyone.

After putting another rapist behind bars, Killian said with a smirk, “I don’t mean to upset you, Swan, but I think we make quite the team.” And he winked (well, tried to), and she just blushed back, like she was a teenager in love all over again. That fact that would normally send her running but, for the first time in years, she wasn’t opposed to it—except for, y’know, the fact that he was her partner and they were coworkers and HR generally looked down on that kind of thing.

She doubted he was interested, anyway. They hadn’t really done anything outside of work since that night; he was always quick to get home to Alice, and she didn’t fault him that—especially when she finally met the kid, who was clearly her father’s daughter in all the best ways.

They got a call for a case late one weeknight; Emma easily beat him to the scene, since he had to make sure his neighbor could watch Alice at such an ungodly hour. She handed him a coffee when he got there and they made their way to the ME, to get the rundown on the vic.

Emma had been paying attention, but it shifted from the examiner to Killian pretty quickly; he stiffened at the description of what had been done to the victim, then when white as the sheet covering her when it was pulled back.

“Eloise,” he whispered, like he’d seen a ghost.

“Wait—as in…?”

He nodded. “Aye. Alice’s mum.”

“Shit.”

They got what little information they could from the scene and then started to head for the precinct, but he was shaking so much, she insisted on driving.

“Are you gonna be alright?” she asked.

He let out a hollow chuckle. “No, probably not.” Then, one long breath later, “It was Gold.”

She nearly missed their turn at that. “Gold? As in, the mysterious Mr. Gold, owner of the pawn store chain?”

“One and the same,” Killian said, scrubbing a hand down his face. “It’s the same as with Milah.”

She would have asked who that was, but he was resting his prosthesis over the spot on his arm where she knew the tattoo was. And she got a sinking feeling in her stomach that this was going to be a rough case.

Once they got to the office (and she got some more coffee in him), Killian explained: Milah was his ex, his first love—but also Gold’s wife. And while Gold was well-known for being a shady individual, no one had ever been able to pin anything on him.

But Gold did find out about their affair, and Killian came home one day to find Milah—dead, attacked and killed in the same way Eloise had been hours ago. He wasn’t sure what their connection was—and he didn’t think Gold knew about his to Eloise, especially since she’d only been released from jail last week—“But I know it’s him. And I’m going to prove it this time.”

(Apparently, last time had ended with him getting into an altercation with one of Gold’s lackeys. He escaped with his life, but not with his left hand.)

Milah’s case had gone cold, but given the similarities, they were able to pull the files. It took a few weeks—several late nights, more than a few breakdowns, many tears (mostly Killian’s, but Emma’s and Alice’s as well) before they finally—finally—had the evidence to pin both murders on Gold.

Tracking him down was another thing altogether, but they finally caught up with him in his penthouse apartment. To no one’s surprise, he didn’t go willingly; a fistfight broke out between he and Killian.

She was scared she’d have to intervene, knowing how personal it was. By the end of it, Killian had a black eye and a bloody lip, but Gold was in handcuffs, tossed unceremoniously in the back of a squad car.

Killian watched the vehicle pull away, then turned to Emma, and wrapped his arms around her in a bruising hug.

In any other situation, she would have gone stiff with shock, but she didn’t hesitate to lean right into him. Her desire to comfort him after that was just as strong as his need for comfort.

But then he pulled back, cupped her cheek, and pressed his lips to hers.

That did take her by surprise.

But she was equally quick to reciprocate.

Just as fast, it was over and he was walking away, leaving her utterly confused. Logically, she knew it was probably just an emotional reaction—a one-time thing.

However: he kissed her like he meant it. She was familiar with empty kisses and single-night flings—and that...was a whole lot more.

And she couldn’t deny it any longer: she wanted that more.

She arrived at the precinct early the next morning, hoping to beat him there so they could talk about whatever that had been. She’d even gotten up an hour before she usually did so she could get them good coffee. But he was already there, filling out forms at his desk.

“Hey,” she said, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward as she put the cup on his desk. “You taking care of the reports?”

“Um, yeah,” he stammered, pointedly focusing on the paperwork and not her.

She glanced down at the desk, and that wasn’t a report—that was a transfer form. “You want to leave?” she whispered, the familiar pain of betrayal washing over her. He didn’t want to be her partner anymore?

“Emma, I can’t stay here,” he said, only somewhat apologetic. (Also, though she didn’t realize it at the moment, it was the first time he’d used her given name.) “After this last case...it just wouldn’t be good form.”

“Fuck your good form, Jones!” she cried. “How can you say that, after everything these past few months? After last night?”

Calmly, he stood up and moved into her space. “I can’t be your partner any more, Emma,” he said, reaching up to brush her hair behind her ear. “Because I want to be more than that. And last I checked, Captain Mills frowned upon inter-unit relations.”

That was true; she really did, more than most. But then the reality of what Killian was saying hit: “You...you’d give up your position for me?”

“Aye,” he answered, simply, like it wasn’t the heaviest thing anyone had ever told her.

What else was she supposed to do after a confession like that but kiss him? She rose up on her toes, gripped the lapels of his waistcoat, and found his lips with hers. He didn’t hesitate to pull her close and she was exceedingly glad no one else was in the squad room, because she’d never quite been kissed so closely to within an inch of her life as she’d been then.

(Also, it was a good thing no one was around when he pushed her onto his desk to deepen it further. If Captain Mills later noticed the forms were a bit crumpled, she didn’t say anything.)

Killian ended up transferring back to his old precinct, old job. It turned out they missed him. Emma knew exactly why; her next partner, David, was great, but no match.

Good thing she got to go home to Killian—and Alice—every night.

----------------------------------------

thanks for reading, and send B all the birthday love! tagging some others:

@kat2609 @thesschesthair @xpumpkindumplingx t @cocohook38 @annytecture @shireness-says @ohmightydevviepuu @profdanglaisstuff @wingedlioness @word-bug @thisonesatellite @distant-rose @wellhellotragic @welllpthisishappening @let-it-raines @pirateherokillian @its-imperator-furiosa @fergus80 @thejollyroger-writer @ineffablecolors @laschatzi @ive-always-been-a-pirate @stubblesandwich @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @kmomof4 @ilovemesomekillianjones @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @idristardis @scientificapricot @searchingwardrobes @donteattheappleshook

#cs ff #cs modern au #cs detective au #happy birthday #optomisticgirl #my ff

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hazbbyhaz · 4 years ago

Text

sleepless || harry styles

fourteen

pairing: Harry Styles x OC

synopsis: a last minute trip

disclaimer: cameras, small talk of family

Sometimes, I think you get the worst of me

“Can I take a photo of you?”

Avery turns her head to look at Harry. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the green sofa with Oliver in his lap. His camera clutched in his hands.

“I always look so sick in photos.” Her head falls back on the cushion as she closes her eyes, momentarily resting them. She thinks back to the dream she had a couple of nights ago, the scenes playing in her head like her own personal movie. The scenes playing before her closed eyes were better ones, happier things were happening. She was glad that she got a small break from what they usually entailed.

Soon, the sound of a camera shutter breaks her peaceful daze. The streetlamps illuminated the ceiling, giving it a soft, yellow glow. Avery wasn’t sure that she had ever really looked at the pattern on her ceiling until now, though countless nights were spent exactly like this. “We should go to the beach.”

The ceiling is divided into squares with thick edges, and with the glow from the streetlamps, it almost looked like a cloudy night sky. “We can’t just go to the beach.”

“Why not?” Harry questions, the shutter click echoing through the apartment again. “Me and my mom used to drive down to East Sussex.” Third click. “Camber Sands is down there. If we left now, we would be there by the time the sun rises.”

“I'm tired Harry, and that's got to be at least a two and a half-hour drive.”

“Everything is different by the sea, Ave. Have you ever been?”

“No…”

“Then it's settled. Let’s go.” The fourth time the camera goes off makes her turn around, but Harry is already quick on his feet, scaring Oliver in the process. He makes a quick escape through the open balcony window.

“I don't know…”

“I'll buy you ice cream. Three scoops.”

“Four.”

“Deal.” He puts on his boots and retrieves his keys from the counter while Avery watches him from her spot on the sofa.

“Are you serious?” She giggles as Harry puts his camera around his neck, waiting for her to follow him.

“Life is to be lived, Ave.”

‘So she grabs another hoodie, a blanket, and a bottle of water before making her way towards him. As they descended down the stairs, for the first time she could see the different colors around her. She had always been able to see them, but this time it was different. Everything seems so much more vibrant

She saw different shades of yellow and green, even a little bit of red. It wasn’t just blue, blue, blue. Avery runs after Harry, after the colors because the further away he is, the darker it gets. She picks up her pace, trying to catch up with him.

“Thought I’d leave without you?” He grins, holding the passenger door of the car open for her.

“No.” She lies with a smile, trying to just enjoy this moment. This moment is now, and she doesn’t want to be stuck in the past any longer.

“My sister used to take this car a lot, so there's got to be a hair tie somewhere,” Harry says, his eyes moving back and forth between the dark street in front of them and the interior of the car. “Take a look in the glove compartment.”

He’s right. Under numerous papers that had been shoved inside the small space was a leopard print scrunchie. “Found one!” Avery cheers, putting her hair in a low ponytail. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Yeah, her name is Gemma, she lives abroad.” He explains. “In a way, her job reminds me a lot of Chandler Bing, because I’ve honestly no clue what she really does, but she travels a lot for it.”

“That must be difficult, I don't know if I could do that. Pack up my life every six months.”

“It's quite perfect for her, I think she would go crazy if she had to stay in a single place for longer than a year or two. What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“No,” She says quietly. “And, if I’m honest, I didn't want any.”

“Isn’t a sibling something everyone wants?”

“I guess I just… they don’t deserve that… no one does…”

He stays quiet for a while after that. Did I say too much? The air suddenly felt colder, so many unanswered questions flying about. Harry couldn't find the right one to ask, so he just went with the basics. “What's your favorite color?”

“Green.”

“Ha! That's the color of my eyes, does that mean you fancy me?” a childish grin plastered onto his face.

“What? Your eyes are not green. Look at me!” She knew they were green, it was hard not to notice. But, she wanted to feed into his antics for a bit. It seemed to be lifting the tension.

“I’m driving, Ave. That's not gonna work.” He laughs, focusing his gaze back on the road as more cars started to make their way onto the once quiet street.

“Harry?’’

“Hm?”

“Who is your roommate? At your party I had accidentally stumbled into a bedroom, thinking it was the bathroom. There was a guy in there by himself.” She had never told him about the strange encounter she had that night, thinking that Harry would have asked her about it at some point. After not being brought up for some time, she figured he wasn’t going to and left it at that.

“Oh, you mean Francis… you met? He didn't mention anything.”

“He had told me that several other people had walked into his room instead of the bathroom, that's probably why… so, he’s your friend?”

“Yeah… we’ve known each other for ages, since about grade one I believe.” There is something in his voice that doesn't seem right. He seemed saddened by the sudden mention of his friend, almost like he hadn't fully prepared for the topic to be brought up.

“Francis is probably the kindest, most generous person I know. He is much better than me, and I honestly don't know why he has stuck with me for this long. You should meet him. He's not fond of meeting new people, but nevertheless, he would be nothing but nice to you.”

“I'd love that.” Avery smiles. The smile doesn’t leave her face while Harry continues on about Francis.

“We should have taken him with us.”

“He is with his parents at the moment.”

“Oh, well maybe next time.”

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs. “Next time.”

✨ next

✨ previous

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✨ wattpad

Taglist: if you would like to be added, please let me know!

@serenametanoia @magicalmongerherringfan

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karahalloway · 3 years ago

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6, 10, 12, 31, 42, 49 for writer's asks

Hi Anon!

Thanks so much for the asks! I'm always happy to talk about my writing 😊

I presume you are also a writer (based on the questions you picked, you seem interested more in my writing process), so I tried to answer in a way that hopefully helps you as a fellow scribbler!

So, in response to your questions:

6. how did writing change you?

I'm not sure that writing has changed me per se... But I know I am much happier and more balanced on a personal level since I've started writing again (I did a lot of writing in my last year or two of high school, but then I went off to uni, got a job, got married, had a child, etc. and I didn't have time / interest / headspace to do any writing for over 10 years). Apparently there are words inside me that want to escape 😋

10. how do you do your researches?

On the fly! 😅 I am 100% a seat-of-my-pants writer (i.e. I do little to no planning before I get down to it). If an idea pops into my head, or my characters pull me in a certain direction, then I just go with the flow. That said, I try to make every conversation and situation as realistic as possible, so if something comes up in the process of writing a conversation or a scene that requires some research, then I quickly hop onto Google (e.g. to determine flight times btwn locations, fact-check some bit of info that I want to include, etc.).

There have also been a few situations where I've asked people I know (99% of the time my husband 😅) for help / clarification on topics that are just way out of my area of expertise (i.e. cars, weapons, self-defence, that 'male' kind of stuff).

12. favorite place to write

Depends what mood I'm in, but either at my desk, or on the sofa (we have an AMAZING sofa in our upstairs lounge that provides a perfect view of the river and the valley outside of the city where we live, and I love looking at that when I'm musing about a scene).

Our animals like this window too 😁:

31. easiest part of writing

Dialogue. Which is funny, because I originally started writing fanfiction in an effort to practice writing dialogue (as I used to really suck at it). But practice makes perfect, eh?

42. do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?

A little bit of both. Like I said above, I'm a pantster, so at most, I'll have a general idea of what I want to include in a chapter. I am very much led by my characters (Harper and Drake totally write themselves when they're together!). But it has happened (more than a few times actually!) that a scene popped almost fully formed into my head and would not leave me alone until I wrote it down (I still ended up tweaking it, but ultimately, very little planning).

49. writing advice

Read. A LOT! I was a voracious bookworm throughout middle school, high school and university. I don't have as much to read now as I would like (too busy writing! 😅) but the more you read, the more of a vocabulary bank you build up in your sub-conscious, and the more styles of writing you are exposed to (my writing is very much influenced by the authors I've read) the more you can play around with your own writing style.

Apart from that, WRITE! As I said above, I've been dabbling with writing since high school. I started off in the romance / fantasy genre (as at the time I was very into those two genres), and looking back at my writing then in comparison to how I write now, there is a world of difference. Part of this is down to writing experience (it's definitely one of those things that improves with practice), and part of it is down to real life experience - I certainly look at the world differently than I did 10 years ago, and I think that shows in my writing as well.

Oh and I should probably add that I re-read my stuff A LOT. Not necessarily because I’m vain (though I do have a few favour chapters that I like to revisit 😅) but to make sure that everything is consistent from a plot, characterisation and flow perspective, as well as to catch little typos. And when I read, I don’t read as the writer, I read as a reader, letting the story carry me to put myself in the shoes of someone reading for the first time so I can ask myself ‘Does this name sense?’ ‘Is this realistic?’ ‘Was that actually funny?’

I hope that answered your questions!

If anyone else is dying to know more about me as a writer, feel free to ask away! List of writer asks available here.

#writer asks #kara halloway #whaddaya wanna know #this is me

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vs-redemption · 4 years ago

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hi there! could i request an aizawa x female reader oneshot? if you're willing to do angst, could it be him getting jealous when they go out for drinks with a group of friends :o

Ok, so I’m hoping this is angsty enough. I’m still getting used to writing in that style. Also, thank you so much for the request. I wasn’t sure about writing for Aizawa at first, but it was easier to get into his mindset than I thought it would be!

My requests are still open for anyone who is interested. Please check out my rules and masterlist!

A Big Deal:Part One (Jealous!Aizawa x Fem!Reader)

You can find Part Two of this story Here!

Today was kind of a big deal for you. After months of grueling effort and countless hours of overtime, you’d finally been acknowledged by your boss and given a huge promotion in your company. You’d been awarded a new title along with a generous pay raise, effective immediately. In addition to those perks, your new job responsibilities would allow you to finally use the degree you’d put yourself through college to obtain. It was really great news, and you were over the moon with excitement. A few of your colleagues suggested a night out to celebrate the career advancement. You were quick to agree. It was a Friday evening and you saw no reason not to make the most of this incredible day. You sent out a quick text message to invite your boyfriend and a few of your close friends to join in the festivities.

Today was kind of a big deal for Shota Aizawa too. He had always been a bit wary of relationships, both romantic and otherwise. He was a bit of an introvert and socializing often wore him down. He had a couple close friends that had forced their way into his life during high school and that had honestly been enough for him. He had been content to be mostly on his own until he met you and his outlook changed. You were hardworking, which he admired, and he’d noticed right away that you always gave him his space even though you were more outgoing than he was. You never forced him to attend big group outings or gave him a hard time when he was just too tired from work to do anything else besides get take out and have a quiet night in for date night. He appreciated the comfort and peacefulness you brought to his life, which is why he was actually quite excited that today was your one year anniversary together.

Aizawa wasn’t much for big extravagant gestures, but thought it might be nice to invite you over for a nice dinner when you finished work. He managed to get out of his teaching duties a little early so that he could pick up what he needed from the grocery store and get the cooking started. He had a nice evening with just the two of you in mind, so it came as a bit of a shock when he got your text message. He sighs and looks around his kitchen at all the half prepared food. Normally he would decline such an invitation, though he always appreciated you thinking to include him, but this was not a usual circumstance. He knew how hard you worked and was happy to hear that you were finally being recognized for everything you did. He takes out some containers and starts packing up the food, knowing he could always finish cooking it tomorrow.

The Izakaya restaurant where you were having your celebration was already packed with people since it was a Friday, but you’d somehow managed to book a decent sized table. The first round of drinks had been brought out and everyone was calling for you to make a speech. It wasn’t until they started bringing out the food that Aizawa finally arrived.

“Hey! Eraserhead!” Present Mic calls him over from the far end of the table. “You actually showed up! Come over here! I’ll order you a drink!” Aizawa glanced over at you but you were deep in conversation with two of your coworkers. He would have preferred to sit with you, but could settle for attaching himself to Mic since he didn’t know anyone else that well.

“Let’s have another round on me!” one of your coworkers calls to the wait staff. You laugh and nudge his arm with your shoulder.

“Idiot. We paid for ‘all-you-can-drink’!” You give him a teasing grin, “No matter what, we’re all going to be paying the same amount!”

“Aw, come on!” Another one of your male coworkers leans across the table, “You know we’re not letting you anywhere near tonight’s bill! You’ve been working so hard for this day, so let us treat you!”

“You make a good point,” You nod while lifting your glass. “And I’m not one to turn down free drinks!” They all laugh as the waiter disappears to go prepare another round for the table. Aizawa’s eyes linger on the two male coworkers for a moment before turning back to Present Mic.

“I guess she has a pretty good relationship with her coworkers,” he says flatly.

“Yeah! Definitely!” Present Mic declares with a wide grin, “I’ve met them a few times before. They’re fun dudes!”

“Hmm,” Aizawa found himself wondering if those guys knew you had a boyfriend. He trusted that there wasn’t anything deceitful going on, but it was weird for him to see you so open and relaxed around people who were strangers to him. He’d never really thought about what exactly happened when you were out at work parties. Perhaps this was normal. Still, he kept an eye on the people around you as the food and drinks continued to come.

“Shota,” you shuffle over to your boyfriend once last orders had been taken and the rambunctious group was kindly asked to leave the restaurant. “Thank you for coming! You usually don’t.” The words, though said with a lazy smile, struck Aizawa with a pang of guilt. You’d never forced him to go out, but perhaps you’d always wished he would.

“This was a special occasion,” he says while you both head out into the cool night air with everyone else. They were all mingling outside the restaurant, waiting to see what happened next. “You deserved that promotion, and I’m very proud of you.” He wanted to tell you that he’d also come to this party to spend time with you since it was your anniversary, but decided not to ruin your good mood by mentioning it. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to celebrate the milestone in your relationship anyway if letting you go out to these little get-togethers without him made him a bad boyfriend.

“Who’s up for Karaoke?” Present Mic throws his hands into the air, attracting the attention of other drunk groups meandering the streets nearby. A few people declined the offer, saying they needed to catch a taxi home, but a handful of others seemed enthusiastic about continuing the festivities of the night.

“Well we know you’re coming!” One of the coworkers from before slides up next to you and throws an arm around your shoulders. “This party is for you after all!”

“Of course!” You agree before turning to Aizawa. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I know it’s not your thing.”

Aizawa stared blankly at the arm around you that was not his own. He was tired from work, he hated parties, and a night of karaoke was literally his worst nightmare. Were the things he hated the same things that made you happy? It made him wonder why you were even dating him in the first place. Maybe there was a reason why you hadn’t mentioned your one year anniversary, and perhaps this relationship meant something different to each of you. Even if that was true, could he really let you go off to spend the rest of your one year anniversary with a bunch of other guys?

“Hey, come on!” another one of your coworkers comes over and playfully shoves you in the direction of the karaoke bar. “You’re burning moonlight! Don’t think you’re getting out of doing a duet with me like the last time!” You can’t help but giggle at his antics.

Aizawa glared at the men who could not seem to keep their hands to themselves. Part of him wanted to whip out his scarf and knock them on their asses, but another part of him envied their closeness with you. They got to see you all day, every day. Did they know you better than he did? It made him feel ashamed somehow.

“OK! Ok!” You swat your coworkers away so you could focus on your boyfriend. “No pressure, babe!” You tell him, “I won’t be mad if you want to get home and get to bed.” Aizawa was second guessing everything now. Normally he took your words as kindness and understanding, but now he was wondering if it was a dismissal. It made sense if you didn’t want him to come. There was no way he’d join in the singing so he’d just be dragging the mood down by coming and lurking in the corner. It was better for you if he stayed behind.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “I guess I’m going to call it a night.” He watches your face for signs that he’d made the right choice. Would you be happy that you were finally rid of him for the evening, or disappointed that he wasn’t as fun and outgoing as your coworkers? It was hard to judge your reaction.

“All right,” you tell him. “Go ahead and get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” You lean forward to give him a peck on the cheek before finally heading off towards your next stop of the night. Aizawa was left to watch you go off with a group of people he knew could make you happier than he ever could.

#aizawa x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #writing requests #bnha #mha #shouta aizawa #shouta aizawa x reader #Cindy's Writing

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hebescus · 4 years ago

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remember this ship ask? yeah, i wanna do them all with lawlight bcs they control my brain. but it's a happy no death note au bcs it's me. oh and this shit is long plus it's 3 am rn so my words are very messy. but enjoy.

(i skip some numbers that i answered and the ones that i can't think of btw)

pre relationship :

How did they first meet?

L's investigation hq. he was a suspect of L, still, but this time he told soichiro to bring this 18 yo boy to the hq to test him, asking light to work with all of them. he ends up not guilty ofc, but L still wants to keep him…around.

What was their first impression of each other?

ah, the good old 'what the fuck dude???' from light and the 'oooh he got a big brain' from L. it's hard to get out of canon in this one.

Who felt romantic feelings first?

L. But it's more like thoughts, rather than feelings. It's just these random thoughts that pop out in his head like 'i don't mind kissing this guy, if he asks' but not like 'i want to kiss him' yknow what i mean? idk this is just something i experience a lot lmao. it develops to feelings once light falls for him and L can see that. So in terms of ideas, it's L, but in terms of feelings, it's Light.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Oh our favorite light denial yagami. Of course he's cursing himself for having feelings like this but once L calls it out he's over.

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Light would laugh it off, and be like "i don't like him that way you know". L would shrugs be like "well yes that's possible, i don't think i mind".

What would their lives be like if they had never met?

boring, lonely, empty, you name it

(more under the cut)

general :

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

hmm, they both initiated the relationship? ykwim? They both notices they had feelings for each other and just...go from there. they never have like a relationship talk, they just go with the flow until at some point they starts to get comfortable to refer the other as partners. They basically can read each other's mind, after all.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Yes, sort of. A tennis game! And a coffee sesh after, just like canon. They plan this to be just "let's just relax, this case has been really exhausting, take a one day break, L" but when Light got home, sayu asked "how's the date going?!" He immediately said "it's not a date, you watch too many dramas it's rotting your brain" And sachiko gave him a smile while shaking her head at this statement and when he's back to his room he immediately calls L and was like "hey does that count as a date?" and L answers with "depends, do you want it to be?" with a smirk that light can hear.

What was their first kiss like?

it was late at night, light was helping L with the case when everybody went home. they were sharing their view about this certain criminal when light notices L staring at his lips, first he ignored it but it happens again and again to a point where their face just got real close and then...kiss, somehow. idk lmao.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

First person who can understand each other and are equals, the only ones who can tear the other's wall down, and just practically soulmates in any form that even their sun & moon signs mirroring each other's? YES.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

i hc L as just a little bit taller than light, but it's not like you can see it through the hunch anyway. ofc we all know the 6 years and 4 months age gap

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Sayu likes L, Sachiko is kinda surprise Light doesn't date a typical pretty person, but it only makes her heart fonder. L doesn't mind them, he thinks they're nice, light grew up in a good place. Soichiro? Well, he might me a bit reluctant but he loosen up slowly, his son is happier than he ever was, after all.

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Light, obviously. Because he's a charmer and if L takes control, the person they speak to would run immediately the first 2 minutes.

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

it is a universal knowledge that L does this. like, come on, count the fics, you can't, there's just so many. he loves to break that perfect wall and make light feel 🥴😳. it's entertaining. But he knows when to stop. too much of that will be embarrassing in light's part, and he respects his boy's dignity.

love :

Who said “I love you” first?

Light!! The thing is it was said over the phone. He gets more and more comfortable talking with L through calls, since every now and then L travel frok countries to countries. One time he just like "yeah, safe flight. love you, bye" he expected L to say goodnight to him as a response as usual but L was silent and he realised what he just said and realised that he fucking mean it. L seems to still be able to read his mind even thousands miles away so he replies with "i love you too, goodnight". they never missed seeing each other more than that night.

What are their primary love languages?

we had a discussion for this! but as we see in canon, they're both very acts of service with a little hint of physical touch here and there. quality time is also important. words and gift aren't really needed for them.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

L. Only to annoy light. It's terrible that he almost cringed to himself, but it does bring a good laugh for light.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

PDA is a not their preference, they just love being in private more. They might hold hands sometimes, butmost times they won't. Altho they always stand or sit reaaaaally glued to each other even though there are so many space.

Who initiates kisses?

both. they want it, they got it. but light gives light kisses (ha) more, not necessarily on the lips, usually when L was really busy working, keeping his feet on the ground.

Who’s the big and little spoon?

They don't spoon a lot, they prefer not touching at all or cufdling face to face, but when they do, Light is the little spoon because being a big spoon makes his sleeping position kinda uncomfy, he feels awkward with his legs, it's just not. thankfully L thinks cuddling light this way is very calming.

What are their favorite things to do together?

Tennis and solving cases, duh. Or sometimes they play video games fighting each other. Anything competitive and/or challenging that make their brain grow 10 times bigger. But sometimes, a comfortingly peaceful and quiet dinner with hushed words thrown here and there about random things feels like the best thing ever.

Who’s more protective?

L. For identity reasons, ofc.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Physical. They can read each other's mind, they knew it by gesture, touches, and glances.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

IT'S MY TIME TO SHINE. venus by sleeping at last fits them so well, that song is in the background of multiple cozy couch smooches sessions or even when they're slow dancing (please listen to this tho song it's so good). also i think they would like persephone by the tragic thrills too, L would be like "this song reminds me of you" and Light answers with "i'm persephone?" "Yeah" "i'm a fucking badass then" "yes you are". oh and first day of my life? lover of mine? pink in the night? sweet creature? the lakes? oh god i have too much answers

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

they don't do nicknames, really. although, L sometimes called light with some snarky tony stark styled nicknames when he feels particularly playful but annoyed at the same time.

Who remembers the little things?

They both do. Big brained assholes they are.

domestic life :

If they get married, who proposes?

It's not really a proposal, they didn't even remember who said it first. But one sleepy night after a hard case, someone said "hey you wanna get married" and the other was like "sure, why not" "really?" "yeah, i think i'm ready, you?" "me too" "great" and then they go to sleep. at breakfast the next morning L called watari from across the room and said "wammy i need you to prepare [enter marriage stuff here], and light, you must call your family after this". poor old watari chokes on his tea.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

The wedding is in a secluded little place near the wammy's house, L used to go there a lot as a kid. With just light's parents, sayu, and watari. Well, not until Light caught Mello, Matt, Near, and Linda peeping from the bushes

Do they have any pets?

A chunky cat the wammy's kids feed daily but never try to keep them in, because no animals are allowed inside the orphanage. L saw it and was like "light let's bring this bitch home" she is, indeed a little bitch, but light and L loves her dearly. her fur has light brown and black colors, like both of their hairs, so she becomes their daughter, L gave him a weird ass name but i can't think about it rn.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

Light because he's the one who's actually bothers to. They ofc annoyed L but he cpuldnt care less to actually get rid of them.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

L. He rarely sleeps and once he did, he wakes up very fucking late and will pull light back to the bed if he's woken up by the empty space beside him.

Who’s the better cook?

Light. L is a spoiled brat. But Light can't bale for shit, that's Watari's job. Light grow up learning and helping his mom making meals for the family. He's not the best, but it's good enough to make L craves them in between his sweets.

Who likes to dance?

None of them. But they would slow dance on rare, sentimental occasions. And it's like so fucking romantic bcs all the lights are off except for a candle or a table lamp or a cabinet lamp whatever that has yellow-y dim light. And they don't speak, they just casually move against each other, but heart ready to combust like i do when i the mental image came into my head.

#lawlight #death note #very fucking self indulgent whoa #brainrot hours #anyway i love them so much #scenarios and shits

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atths--twice · 3 years ago

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Chapter Seven

Fox was up at dawn the next morning, packing the last of his items, staring out the window and out to the Nile. No more would they have the luxury of beds, fancy dinners, cool places to seek out for a reprieve.

And he could not have been happier at the prospect of living rough.

A knock sounded at his door, surprising him, believing himself to be the only person who could possibly be awake at that early hour. When he opened it, he found Dana, looking happy, but slightly nervous.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile.

“Hello. I know it’s early, but…” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Would you like to have breakfast? Just you and I, before the others wake to join us?” She smiled and, as always seemed to happen, it caused his stomach to flip.

“I would love to have breakfast with you,” he answered and she nodded. “Let me get my jacket and we can go downstairs.”

It was slightly cooler in the mornings, and he also had something for Dana tucked inside the inner pocket. He had wanted to give it to her on Christmas, but mistakes being made, he was unable to do so. As they would now be alone, possibly for the last time in a while, he knew the timing was perfect.

Closing his door and locking it, he fell in step beside her. She was quiet but seemed to be giving off the same excited energy he himself was feeling. He looked at her appreciatively, the simple yet attractive style in which she dressed always pleasing to behold.

She did not have overly fashionable clothes, but she did not seem to care or desire them. And yet for he, who had grown up with women of all ages dressed in the latest fashions and the best jewels, her simple dress drew him to her even more. Her beauty was held in the simplicity of dress, her manners, and her intelligence.

And her eyes, which spoke to him, even when her mouth did not.

“Have you everything ready?” he asked and she nodded.

“Yes. I packed and repacked last night. Kept thinking I’d forgotten something. Or could rearrange things and find room to add one more thing.”

“Are you needing something?”

“Not at all. I have everything I need,” she assured him with a smile. “It was simply in case I needed or, more accurately, wanted it.” He laughed softly and nodded in understanding.

The dining room was nearly empty, most of the patrons still sleeping. Suggesting a table on the veranda, she accepted and they sat down. She smiled and he smiled back before the waiter walked up to ask them what they wanted to eat.

After he had walked away, he began to reach into his jacket pocket when she let out a deep breath and turned those blue eyes onto him. They were serious and he drew his hand back, folding them in his lap.

“I want to talk about… to tell you why I came here. You’ve never asked and I’ve never volunteered the information, but I want you to know.” She drew in a breath, licked her lips, and closed her eyes briefly. Opening them, she smiled softly and he waited, not wanting to hurry her.

Coffees and sweet biscuits were set on the table and for a few minutes their attention was diverted. When she had taken a few sips of coffee, she nodded and exhaled.

“I… my family is from Maryland, as I told you, and two houses down from us was a family with three children. We all grew up together, though they were slightly older than me. The youngest boy, Matthew…” At this, she trailed off as her hand went to her throat and he knew what she was going to say. He wanted to stop her, tell her it was not necessary, but she had said she wanted him to know, so he would listen.

“Matthew was two years older than me and I…” She laughed bitterly, shaking her head and wiping at her eyes. He swallowed, hating to see her hurting, but knowing there was nothing he could do to help her. “I tagged along with all of them, equally hating and loving him. He treated me like an annoying little sister, but then brought me flowers or held my hand when I had fallen and scraped my knee. He had a way about him. I was in love with him for most of my life.” She smiled at him with tears in her eyes and she sniffled, dabbing her eyes with a napkin.

“He… he never encouraged it, or expected it, showing attention to other girls which broke my heart. But one summer, I stayed with my grandparents and came home in September before school started. I had changed and he noticed, his attention no longer given to other girls, only me. I was fourteen, he was sixteen, and a far off war had recently been declared. Our lives, though not yet consumed by it, soon would be.” She took a second, drinking more of her coffee, not meeting his eyes.

“We were still the same, but different. I had our lives planned in my mind: engaged once I was eighteen, married by nineteen or twenty, a family not far off. I was so happy.” She let out such a shuddering breath, Fox reached for her hand, not caring what others thought or if she would object. She clung to his hand, still not meeting his eyes, tears on her cheeks.

“Though America had not officially entered the war, we all knew it was imminent. It weighed upon everyone. The Lusitania…” She shook her head and closed her eyes. He knew what she was thinking and it made his stomach turn. Opening her eyes, she exhaled quietly. “When Matthew turned eighteen, in August of 1916, he enlisted in the military. He was so proud, ready to fight the Germans and stomp them out. I was terrified.”

“Dana,” Fox said, as she began to cry quietly, but she shook her head, determined to see her story through.

“When… when war was declared… he was so happy. Oh, that makes him sound… I didn’t mean-”

“I understand,” he whispered and she nodded, her head down.

“He left not long after for training and then to England. He asked me to promise to wait for him. It was the easiest promise I ever made.” She blew her nose in the napkin and wiped her eyes. “He arrived in England in June of 1917 and was killed in October of the same year.” She covered her face and cried and he swallowed down the large lump in his throat, turning his head to give them both a chance to compose themselves.

When he had, he looked at her, seeing her tears were subsiding as she took deep calming breaths. Uncovering her face, she looked at him, tears clinging to her lashes.

“My life was planned. I only wanted a husband and a family. And I lost it all. My life ended when his did. My heart was broken.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was… I can’t describe it. I…” She wiped her eyes and shook her head. “I was devastated. Then angry. Then devastated again. My brother came home, wounded but alive, and I hated him for it. My sister’s husband had not fought, a childhood illness of scarlet fever keeping him from doing so. I hated him too. I hated all of them, until I found an old book of mine, one Matthew and used to read together, about the gods and goddesses of Egypt, planning one day to see them together. That’s when I read about Kha’ari. When my heart was broken, I found her.”

He took a drink and tried to dislodge the lump which once again sat there, as she cried softly for a second.

“My path was clear, I needed to come here, to find her temple. My parents didn’t want me to leave, my father was adamant that I stay, wanting to keep an eye on me, but I was still angry, still hurting. I had to leave. I came here with my aunt and uncle, two people who knew to keep quiet about subjects and let me grieve. They helped set me up at my flat and get me the job at the museum in a training program. They left me and for the first time I felt like I could breathe. When I discovered there was not a temple dedicated to Kha’ari, I was broken again. I did my work, but felt empty for quite a while. But when King Tutankhamun was discovered, I once again felt hopeful. Felt that spark within me ignite, just as it did for you.”

She smiled and he stared at her, once again amazed by her, and by women in general. Women who suffer and hurt, yet carry on every day without giving any indication of their pain.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again and she frowned. “I had no idea.”

“I hadn’t told you, how could you have known?” she asked softly.

“I kissed you. I… should not have done that, not when you…”

“Fox…”

“I took liberties and you’re… grieving… you’re hurting.”

“No, Fox,” she said, softly still. “No. Well, not exactly. I did grieve. I suppose I always will, but it’s… mellowed. It’s evened out. I’m not hurting anymore. Not the way I was. I have a new path now. It’s this… and after this… I don’t know. But, my grief and pain are no longer the same.”

“That’s why you want to find it. To thank her,” he stated, as it all finally made sense and she smiled.

“When I first arrived and did not find it here, when all I had wanted was to offer up my pain to her and have it taken from me, I wanted it for different reasons. But now, five years have passed since the worst day of my life, and yes, I want to thank her.”

He stared at her and felt a new desire grow within him. If it took years, he would work to find that temple for her, to present to her the opportunity to give her proper thanks.

If she asked him for the moon, he would attempt to try, wanting nothing more than to see her happy.

____________________

They were quiet after her story, but a comfortable quiet that did not feel strained. He kept feeling he should reciprocate with his own story, but it did not feel like the right moment. That had not been what drove her to speak, so he remained silent.

“The dress your mother sent two years ago,” he said, her eyes raising to his in question, as the puzzle pieces he knew of her life began to fall into place.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “She sent it with a note hoping it would be something I would wear ‘out with a young man.’ I never found an occasion worthy of it, until recently anyway.” She smiled and he nodded.

“Or the young man, I suppose,” he joked and she held his gaze, saying nothing as she then looked away.

Clearing his throat, finding double meaning in her answer, or lack thereof, he once again reached toward his jacket pocket and took out the gift he had purchased for her a few days past, placing it onto the table. Pushing it toward her, he watched her looking at it.

“I noticed that your journal was nearly full as you wrote in it recently. I knew you needed a new one, and I had planned on making it a Christmas gift, but…” He pulled his hands back and she smiled as she looked at the dark, rich brown of the leather.

“Thank you. I was in need of a new journal… oh, Fox…” she breathed and then gasped as she opened the journal and saw what he had added to it.

Every night before he had gone to sleep, he sketched copies of his sketches from his own journal into hers. The first three pages were dedicated to the sketches of what they had seen and what had caught his eye.

“This is beautiful. Oh, the details of this one… Fox. This is from Karnak. I remember turning around and you weren’t there. I came back and you were sketching this one.” She looked up at him and he smiled with a nod. “Thank you, this is an amazing gift. One I will treasure always.”

He nodded, saying nothing, her story weighing heavily on his mind as they finished their meal. He was thoughtful as they left the veranda and for the first time, her words did not reach his ears as they walked and she spoke to him. His mind was full and he needed time to think of all he had learned.

The arrival of the men was a welcome distraction, their excitement driving away the heaviness of the morning. They were all laughing and talking, Pierre both writing and signing.

Their trunks were brought down and added to the wagons, a third one procured for all of the extra bits they had not accounted for, the others too full to hold any more.

They had to ferry across the river one wagon at a time, the weight of all too heavy to sustain them if they did not. Once they were all together, they set off. Akl drove one wagon, his boys the others, with everyone else on horseback, using borrowed horses which would be brought back when they were settled.

It would take nearly three full days to reach their final destination, needing to stop and camp for two nights. The weather was perfect, the sky cloudless, the company easy. No one could have asked for a better start.

By the time they stopped for the day, they were sore and tired. Akl’s sons began to prepare a fire as he set about making them dinner.

The three men insisted they had bedrolls and were not in need of a tent for two nights, so long as the fire was warm, they would be quite fine.

Fox insisted they put up the smaller tent for Dana, and though she refused, not wanting to be of any trouble, with the help of Sobek and Atum it was quickly erected and her bed made up. As she stepped inside to have a look at it, she brushed Fox’s arm, her eyes thanking him.

They ate and sat around the fire talking, getting to know one another better.

John, 28, was from Kansas, the middle of six boys, and the son of a very tough man to please. He was cruel at times, enticing his sons to squabble and fight one another, believing it made them stronger. No weak sons for him, thank you.

“Although it doesn’t excuse me,” John said, as he looked at Dana. “It’s part of why I was willing to leave when we first met. My father’s voice in my ear telling me a man should never be led by a woman. That I was weak if I allowed it.”

“I understand. I do,” Dana said softly, but she shook her head. “It doesn’t mean that it’s right, however. To be diminished because of my sex… to be thought as less than another, it is unfair.”

Pierre clapped his hands at this, nodding vigorously and tapping his chest. He signed something to John, who nodded and signed back with a rueful smile.

“Yes, it is unfair and I apologize again, to you both. For my thoughts were somewhat similar when I met Pierre, though it was wrong of me.” He nodded at his friend again. “It’s hard. To get that voice out of your head, even after all this time. I haven’t seen my father in nearly ten years. I left home when I was eighteen, moving from place to place doing odd jobs and never went back. I got into a lot of scraps and some of them… I’m surprised I survived. Surprised I survived that, more than I survived the war. But I did and I learned from them, though not enough it seems. I apologize to you once again, Miss Scully.” He bowed his head to her and she smiled kindly at him.

“For the last time,” she stated softly and he grinned as he met her eyes, his forgiveness granted.

Charles, 30, was from London, very near Fox’s family, though they had never met. He had two younger sisters, both now married and in the country somewhere.

“I’ve been away from home for a long time myself. After the war, I couldn’t go back. I was different and the thought of home did not hold the same appeal. My mother had passed while I was in Belgium, the letter from my sister reaching me nearly a month after it happened. I… I read it and put it in my pocket, took one breath, and was back to the fight. I had no time to think about it, to dwell and remember her. I felt nothing because I would not allow myself to do so. I was twenty three, in the middle of a bloody war, and it was I, not my mother who survived.” He shook his head and wiped at his eyes quickly. Pierre clapped him on the back gently and Charles nodded.

“When the war was over, I couldn’t go home. Not even for my sisters. I had to leave, to go anywhere. Anywhere hot. I’d spent nights freezing without a fire and I could not abide a cold London winter. I had to go somewhere warm. I traveled through Africa, visiting many of its countries. I like it here, this continent suits me.” Dana smiled at him and he nodded. Pierre rubbed his back again and looked at Dana and then John.

“Right,” John said. “Charles and I know Pierre’s story, having heard it before, but Charles is not as fluent in sign language as I am, so I’ll be translating for him.” Pierre smiled at Dana again and she smiled back. He began to speak with his hands and John spoke his words quietly.

“I am twenty five, from Bordeaux. My parents have a vineyard there and I have two brothers. An older and a younger. I don’t remember ever being able to speak, though my parents said I did. I fell when I was two and was in the hospital for a long time, though I have no memory of it. I was brought to Paris by train and had surgeries done as my brain was swollen. I survived them, though it was a long time in the hospital, again something I do not remember much of, but from it, I was left unable to speak. I eventually attended schools for the deaf and the mute where I learned sign language. My parents thankfully did not lose their vineyard, as my injuries and costs thereafter were expensive, but it thrived. I will never be in charge of it, my…” Here Pierre paused his hands and took a deep breath. “My younger brother will, my older brother having died in the war.”

It was now Charles’s turn to offer support, his hand on Pierre’s shoulder. Pierre nodded and then shook his head, his hands once again moving quickly.

“I came to Italy four years ago, a doctor there claiming he could treat and cure muteness. I…” Again he paused, his hands lying in his lap. The fire crackled and they all jumped, laughing in embarrassment. Pierre smiled and began again. “I was in love with a young woman and I wanted to be able to speak to her. To speak the words I love you and not just write them. But the treatment was not what I believed it would be. It was…” He swallowed and wiped at his eyes. “Terrible. Just… terrible. I won’t go into more detail.”

“And you never went back to her?” Dana asked softly. Fox looked at her and saw tears on her cheeks as she stared at Pierre. “You didn’t go home?” He shook his head and looked down at his lap, his hands moving, but his gaze not meeting hers.

“No,” John said for him, his voice very quiet. “I was and still am ashamed. Of my imperfections and my cowardice to face her with them.”

“Oh…” Dana breathed and she began to cry softly. Pierre looked up at her and then stood to his feet, walking close to her. He handed her a handkerchief and she took it, grasping his hand. “I’m so sorry. If she loved you, she saw past what you consider imperfections. I know she did.” He shook his head and shrugged, sitting back down as the rest of them were silent.

Dana, after her tears subsided, told them about herself and Matthew. Fox was thankful to her for telling him privately that morning, the shock and pain at hearing her pain would have been hard to hear in front of strangers. He would have been unable to hide his feelings and desire to comfort her.

When she had finished, Pierre was sitting beside her, holding her hand. Their stories were somewhat similar, thus they seemed to find comfort with one another.

All eyes turned to Fox and he cleared his throat. He had never told Dana his whole story and as he relayed it now, of being stabbed and shot, his multiple illnesses both during and after the war, she rose from her seat and sat close to him, taking his large hand in her small one. She would squeeze it when he paused, needing a second to compose himself, the panic rising within him. When he was done, she remained next to him, now holding his hand in both of hers.

“Bloody hell,” Charles said, shaking his head. “We’re all quite a broken bloody mess, aren’t we?” They all laughed, Dana wiping her eyes as she did, still holding onto Fox’s hand with the other.

“I’d say so,” John said almost bitterly. “And with that, I think I’m going to call it a night.”

They all agreed and stood to make their beds ready. Fox walked Dana to her tent and she stopped at the door before going inside. She searched his face and he smiled, not wanting her to worry. She took his hand and squeezed gently.

“Goodnight, Fox,” she whispered.

“And to you, Dana.”

One more squeeze and she let go of his hand, stepping inside the tent. He waited for a second and then rejoined the men around the fire.

He lay on his back looking up at the stars, the sand cool beneath his fingers, and he thought of what Charles said; they were all a broken mess, each in their own way. He turned onto his side and stared at Dana’s tent, hoping she was asleep or at least near to it.

A snore from Akl, around his own smaller fire with his sons, came from his left. The other men seemed to be asleep already also. He closed his eyes, his thoughts once again on Dana, hoping she was able to find peace as she slept.

#The X-Files #XF Fanfic #Alternate Universe #Historical AU #Egypt #On The Road To Discovery #Nearly There

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