#we will make it through. and we will keep fighting for a better world.

[starkeyslibrary]

FALLING OUT OF FRAME | Part 4

pairing: you x drew starkey

authors note: first off, I want to apologize for the delay in getting Part 4 to you. the flu hit me hard, and while I’m feeling better now, I’m still not 100%. Today’s been one of the better days, so I’m happy to finally share this with you! also, for all the new readers joining this series (welcome!), a quick note about the taglist: If you’d like to be added, please send me a message instead of commenting under posts. my notifications can get a little wild sometimes, and I don’t want to miss anyone’s request. Enjoy!

It had been a couple of days since the paparazzi had caught you. The pictures of you crying alone in the street made their rounds through the tabloids. Headlines blared across every news outlet: “Y/N Heartbroken: Tears on the Streets After Split with Drew Starkey”. You couldn’t escape them – everywhere you went, there were reminders of how vulnerable you had been, how much you were hurting. You had tried to fight it, tried to keep up a front. But the pictures, the emotional rawness, had taken a toll.

Your phone buzzed incessantly with notifications, and Drew’s name popped up more than you cared to count. The text messages, the calls, the voicemails – he was reaching out, desperate to fix what he had broken. You could feel the weight of his messages pressing down on you, each one pulling at the strings of your broken heart.

Drew’s text:

“I’m so sorry, Y/N. Please let me see you.”

“I didn’t mean this to happen. I miss you so much.”

“Can we please talk? I hate seeing you like this.”

You stared at the screen, your fingers hovering over the keys, but you couldn't bring yourself to reply. Every time you thought about responding, all you could see was that night – his absence, his lies, the way he had been with Odessa, and the emotional toll it was taking on you. The tears had fallen freely and now, in the cold light of day, they felt like a public spectacle. And that hurt.

Your friends were your saving grace during this time. Madelyn had taken you in the moment she found out about the photos. You spent long nights at her apartment, binge-watching shows and talking about everything and nothing. It was a distraction you needed, but even then, your thoughts kept circling back to Drew.

Madelyn was a good friend, she knew how to give space when you needed it but also to push you when you were being too hard on yourself. “Y/N, you can’t keep torturing yourself like this,” she told you one evening, as you both sat together on her couch, a glass of wine in hand. “I know it’s hard, but you have to stop looking at those pictures and thinking that’s all there is to your story. You deserve so much more than to be defined by what happened with Drew.”

“I know,” you sighed, resting your head against the back of the couch. “But it’s hard, Madelyn. It’s not just about the photos or the press. It’s everything. I thought we were more than that. I thought… I thought it was real.”

Madelyn’s expression softened, and she leaned in, taking your hand. “I know you did. And I think, deep down, Drew did too. But right now, you need to figure out what you want. Not what he wants. Not what the press wants. You need to decide what’s best for you.”

But even as your friends gave their support, you couldn’t escape the pull of Drew’s attempts to contact you. His phone calls became a constant. Every time your phone buzzed, your stomach twisted in knots. You hated that he was the one making you feel like this, that he still had the ability to drag you back into his world with just a message.

Finally, on one particularly sleepless night, the phone rang again. Drew’s name flashed across the screen.

You didn’t answer it.

Minutes later, another text from him:

“Please I can’t stand this. I’ve seen the pictures. I know you’re hurt. But I need you to know, I never wanted to hurt you. Us. I’m sorry for everything. Can we please meet and talk? I love you please don’t forget that.”

You stared at the message, feeling that familiar ache in your chest. Part of you wanted to believe him, wanted to give him the chance to fix this, to explain himself. But another part of you – the stronger, more resilient part – was terrified of falling for the same lies, the same empty promises.

You knew what you had to do. You couldn’t keep letting him pull you back into this mess.

__

The next day, you went to work, keeping your head down, avoiding any attention. But it was impossible to escape the ever-present eyes of the public. Every glance at your phone, every time you stepped outside, you could feel the weight of the scrutiny. The paparazzi had followed you more than once, snapping pictures of you walking alone, trying to find solace in your routine.

But no matter where you went, there was always someone watching. Always someone commenting. The paparazzi caught it all – the lonely moments and the sadness in your eyes. It felt like you were trapped in a never ending cycle of being seen,  but not truly known.

It wasn’t long before Madelyn called you again. Her voice was gentle, but you could hear the concern behind it. “Y/N, Drew wants to meet. He’s asking if you can at least hear him out. He says he’s messed up. He is not asking for forgiveness, just a chance to explain.”

You stood by the window, staring out at the city, the weight of her words sinking in. You had to make a choice. You couldn’t keep going back and forth between holding on and letting go.

But could you trust him again?

The uncertainty gnawed at you, and all you could do was take a deep breath and say “Tell him… I’m not ready. Not yet.”

Madelyn didn’t argue. She knew this was something you had to figure out on your own.

You spent the next few days doing everything you could to put distance between yourself and the mess that had become your relationship with Drew. You kept working, you spent time with friends, and you tried – really tried not to think about him. But you couldn’t escape the feeling that something was missing, that your world felt incomplete without him in it.

But then you realized: You had to be okay without him first. You couldn’t keep trying to piece yourself together with someone who had already shown they weren’t ready to treat you the way you deserved.

And so, you decided that you needed to move on. You deserved better than being stuck in a limbo. You deserved love that was real, not based on a public imagine, not tainted by lies and half-truths.

This was your time to find yourself again. And maybe, just maybe, Drew wasn’t a part of that future.

TAGLIST: @princesspeach124 @idiotussupremus @eitaababe @13tter @drewsephrry @drewstarkeyzwhore @cooper8224 @maybankslover @elyseesarchive @ietss @esquivelbianca @josephandrewstarkey @willowpains @wtfdudesblog @purplerose291 @rafegf-real @matthewswifeyy @fangirl-magic @snowtargaryen @slut-era

[rottenfyre]

⸻ ᴡ ᴏ ʟ ᴠ ᴇ ʀ ɪ ɴ ᴇ ⸻

Pairing: James Howlett x Fem Reader

Headcanon: how would he be when he's obsessed?

Note: English is not my first language. Requested by lovely @fexi626. Hope you enjoy!

Logan first notices you when you move into the same small town he’s been hiding out in. It’s supposed to be a temporary stop for him—stay low, avoid attention, move on. But then there’s you, sweet and quiet, with a kindness that catches him completely off guard. It’s the way you smile when you pass him at the local diner or the soft “Good morning” you murmur when you see him on the street. It sparks something primal inside him.

Logan’s the kind of guy who tries to convince himself to stay out of it. "Don’t need to drag her into my mess," he tells himself, nursing a beer at the bar while you laugh with your friends a few tables over. But he keeps looking your way, and when some jackass sidles up to you and tries getting handsy, Logan’s out of his chair before he’s even thought it through.

The guy gets the message fast—hard not to when Logan slams him into the nearest wall. "You touch her again, you’re leavin’ here in pieces. Got it?" The look in his eyes isn’t one anyone would argue with, not if they wanted to keep breathing.

After that, Logan decides he’s gonna keep an eye on you. For your own good, he tells himself. You’re too damn sweet, too damn trusting, and the world’s full of people who’d take advantage of that. He’s doing you a favor, really. "You don’t even know how much trouble’s out there, darlin’," he mutters, walking a few steps behind you on your way home, just close enough to make sure nothing happens.

Logan’s not subtle, though he thinks he is. You start noticing him everywhere—leaning against the counter at the diner where you work, walking past your building more times than coincidence could explain. When you ask him about it, he just shrugs. "Town ain’t that big. Guess we keep runnin’ into each other." But there’s something in his tone, in the way his eyes linger on you, that makes it feel like more.

He starts inserting himself into your life. Fixing your car when it won’t start. Showing up at the bar when you’re out with friends. "Just lookin’ out for you," he says gruffly when you question it. "Not like anyone else around here’s got the balls to."

Logan’s protectiveness is… intense. If someone so much as looks at you wrong, he’s ready to start a fight. And if someone flirts with you? Forget it. You don’t even hear about half the times he’s dealt with someone behind the scenes. He doesn’t see it as a problem—it’s just him taking care of things. "Don’t need you worryin’ about shit like that. That’s my job."

Despite the rough edges, there’s a softness to him when it comes to you. When you’re upset, he doesn’t say much—just pulls you close, lets you bury your face in his chest while he rubs your back. "I got you," he murmurs, his voice low and steady. "Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurt you while I’m around."

But make no mistake—his love comes with a possessive streak a mile wide. If you ever tried to pull away, Logan wouldn’t take it well. He wouldn’t yell or plead; he’d just… make sure you understood. "You don’t get it, do you? You’re mine, darlin’. Always gonna be. Doesn’t matter where you go—I’ll find you. And I’ll bring you back."

Logan doesn’t think of himself as a good man, but when it comes to you, he’s downright delusional. "You deserve better, I know that. But better ain’t what you got. You got me. And I ain’t lettin’ go."

His jealousy burns hot, but his devotion runs even deeper. You’re the one thing in his life that makes him feel… human. And he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if it means crossing every line he swore he wouldn’t. "The world’s a shitshow, sweetheart. But you? You’re the only good thing in it. Don’t expect me to let that go."

Logan’s a rough-around-the-edges—possessive, protective, and dangerously loyal. He doesn’t sugarcoat things, doesn’t try to hide who he is. His love is raw, fierce, and unrelenting, just like the man himself.

@ʀᴏᴛᴛᴇɴꜰʏʀᴇ 2024. ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ, ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛᴇ ᴏʀ ᴜꜱᴇ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴡᴇʙꜱɪᴛᴇꜱ.

[literaticat]

It took me a while to stop crying and resolve to help people who will be targeted (starting 1/20/25). I am also trying to reconnect to even a scrap of joy, by tiptoeing back into writing. But...I keep analyzing my WIPs through the lens of how That Guy will be making half the country feel, wondering, "Is X funny enough? Is Y topic too serious?" Help?! Is it worth writing/querying anything that's not totally escapist? Are there genres that should just stay in a drawer right now?

No need to wait until January to help people! :-)

As to the writing piece: I think you are overthinking it. And hey, I get that! Half the country is still somewhat in "reeling mode", it hasn't even been a month, no need to make any huge decisions or change the course of your writing life or fret about queries that you aren't ready to send anyway right this second. Give yourself some grace. Do some deep breathing.

Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Hey, maybe people will want to read more than they ever have and publishing will thrive across all genres. Maybe there will be an unforeseen trend of books about cowboys in space or something that will make a genre flourish that we haven't ever even thought of before!

Or, maybe the tarriffs will eff publishing up so badly we won't need to worry about ANY genres anymore. Maybe he'll sell us all to Daddy Vladdy for a nickel or start Civil War II and we'll all have to become resistance fighters. (Or, maybe we'll get lucky and the meteor will come; that might be better, because I don't have much to offer in the way of actual resistance fighting unless the troops need children's books or cookies!)

But since none of those lines of thinking are particularly helpful or healthy, maybe let's not focus on speculating about all the random possible scenarios. It's too much! Your brain will break!

Here's what is within your purview: YOUR LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD. That includes your work, yes, but also your home, your family, your personal behavior and habits, your physical and mental health, and the well-being of your communities (both literal, like, the people who live near you, and figurative, the people near you or even across the country or the globe with whom you have shared values, etc)

I'm not an expert obvs, but I do feel like, when I stop "reeling" and thinking about whatever bizzaro outrage some politician is perpetrating and start thinking about what tangible things I can do to help support MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD, I feel a lot better. More useful.

(Like, how about instead of doomscrolling, I actually take that time and put my impotent rage to use pulling out the dying tomato plants and getting the yard ready for winter? How about instead of crying into my pillow, I gather a bunch of stuff to donate to a local charity? OH LOOK, I FORGOT ABOUT THE NEWS FOR A WHILE AND GOT THINGS DONE AND MADE MY CORNER OF THE WORLD BETTER! And now I'm tired and can take a nice shower and watch something silly on TV and go to sleep! Yay!)

What I'm saying is, AFTER you do the deep breathing and give yourself grace and all that stuff -- maybe DON'T think about your WIPS through the lens of "OMG what horror show is that freak in the white house doing" or "what will random terrible people think about what I'm doing" -- but rather, think, how do *I* feel about what I'm doing?

We have limited time on this earth -- do you WANT to spend your time on this? Will working on this bring you joy? Does the idea of writing it excite you? Will it reading it bring other people in your communities joy, or hope, or escapism, or important information, or inspiration, or *something else positive*? Those are the kinds of projects you should focus on, imo.

Obviously I have no clue what "Trends" will be coming up in the future, or what the publishing landscape or the world will look like at all -- but I DO SUSPECT that what we will need the most is books that bring something positive to the table. Whether that means a book full of pure delight/escapist entertainment, or reminders about what is beautiful in the world and special about humanity, or tools to help people enact change, or fuel for the next generation of rebels and resistance fighters, or whatever it is.

And, I think that "something positive" could come in the form of fiction, nonfiction, and pretty much ANY genre or category.

(Probably not a great time for extremely bleak / hopeless books, and certainly not a great time for books that you yourself are not passionate about. Writing and publishing is hard enough - don't do the projects that are a misery on top of all that!)

[worldisahouseonfire]

This really helps to read. There's a lot of pressure in institutions and congregate living situations to make friends with the other people there. But I don't do well with this sort of nonconsensual setup, where I can't actually get away from the would-be friends if I need a break from them to evaluate how I'm feeling about an interaction or connection.

Reminds me of something from a RealSocialSkills post called 'Autism awareness for aides,' something like "honest loneliness is better than being surrounded by people who everyone says are nice but don't treat you well or think you are real."

And something Terry Pratchett wrote in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' about how sometimes two people are both outcasts but come to find out, painfully, that they're not outcasts in the same/compatible ways.

In my experience Autistics can be way more different to each other than non-Autistics are to each other. All of us being outcasts, or treated as 'weird' by normative society, does not necessarily mean that we have anything in common other than our exclusion. And that by itself can be a very painful thing to bond over. Especially in the absence of any independent enjoyment of spending time with one another.

But it still hurts and feels extra-isolating to be in congregate settings with other socially rejected people, and see that they are able to make friends and connections with one another. Especially with the overwhelming (sometimes unspoken) narrative that the whole reason we're isolated and stuck in these places is some lack of arbitrary and universal 'social skills,' so failure to get along with people who have been arbitrarily thrown together with me feels like a sort of universal social death sentence. Like I will always be surrounded by people I don't want as friends, and this social failure will be All My Fault.

This is why, though, I am so glad that most of my life I have had a computer and reached out online for social connection. My closest friends are sometimes two or three timezones away, or even on the other side of the world, but they remind me that with the right people, I'm not a total social failure. And that spending time with other people doesn't have to feel like being in a car wreck -- uncertain what happened, afraid it was somehow my fault, wondering what lengthy consequences I might be facing, not even sure if I'm hurt or how badly.

My friends far away show me how it feels to be myself with people, to let the soft animal of my body rest in the (virtual) presence of others. And we do more for each other than anyone I know in meatspace, not because we feel obliged to, but because it makes sense.

Without my laptop, I would not survive congregate and institutional living situations. I would not keep fighting and striving to get out and stay out, and support my friends in all their efforts to break free and stay free from coercive shared living situations.

It makes sense to not always be able to make friends in settings and places not of our choosing. Where the only thing we may have in common with others there is our inability to leave, to make different choices who we spend our days with. In school, in employment, in families, in neighborhoods and sometimes housing, we often have limited pools of people with whom we interact. The chances of them being My/Your/Our People are ludicrously small.

I think it's okay for it to be harder to find friends. Especially as an adult, and especially when going through rough times. It's okay to not make friends with people you have to spend a lot of time around.

(I hope so, anyway. 'Cause where I'm living, and who I'm living with right now, is *not at all* where I want to be.)

“Because I could see that all these kids were weird and even they didn’t accept me, I knew I was the strangest one of all.”

—

Sean Barron, There’s A Boy In Here

Describing what happened to him in institutions.  I once attempted to describe this phenomenon in a book review of someone autistic who’d managed to make a lot of friends in institutions.  I was trying to just say our experiences had been different, but he somehow managed to take it as an insult, and to get his blog followers to write about how wonderful he was for being able to do something I hadn’t been able to do.  Which, of course, made me feel even worse: Other autistic people were able to make friends in institutions, so why were such experiences so few and far between for me? Was I defective somehow, even for an autistic person?  Was I showing how i wasn’t the right kind of autistic person, the kind who in their teens could somehow manage to make friends because they were so sweet and nice? 

I wasn’t sweet and nice, I was weird and strange and sticking out in all the wrong directions.  And many times, I would come to a mental institution and within seconds everyone would judge me to be the ward outcast.  I’ve talked to lots of autistic people who had this experience.  It turns out it’s not rare after all, and it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us, it just means we’re not among the rare autistic people who do manage to make lots of friends in such places.  And they aren’t better than us, and we aren’t better than them, we’re just different.  But it took me a long time to be able to see this, especially with grown parents of autistic children, who should’ve known better, harping on a very young adult autistic person for saying hir experiences were different than someone else’s.

(via autiequotes)

[yaoiadderall]

by god we are going to survive. despite despite despite. we will do whatever we can to help each other through the next four years and beyond. we are dandelions sprouting through cracks in the concrete, as long as the sun rises tomorrow morning there is hope.

[snekdood]

ppl who larp about the Revolution™ almost seem to expect someone *else* to take the leading role in it all so they can sit inside on their asses and do jack shit, they know they have no meaningful skills to offer and would only slow people down, but expect to *somehow* magically radicalize most americans into doing all the work for them because awww dey're just such a weak wittle babu that needs to be pwotected and defwended awlways uwu

like. come on. get a grip. if everything went your way and someone actually stronger than you came along to take the lead, you're likely not being invited, and you'll likely be left behind... which means left to the alt right, who will no doubt come to your house to see if you're perpetuating anything "woke", and you gotta know they wont just ask, they'll barge in and look through everything even your computer.

though, you should really focus on your plan. your first step: get along with people enough to even actually convince them its a good idea, and we all know you'll never dare to try that shit. you cant even be on here w/o blocking someone like me for even suggesting you are approaching this like a child playing war and you have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

you think you want a second holocaust (which is essentially letting trump win, i mean hitler got the majority vote in germany. thats how he rose to power. didn't just materialize out of thin air), but you dont seem to grasp the gravity of what that entails, or even that you'd be thrown in the camps with everyone else, all to stick it to jewish ppl and "the libs", even if it means you and all the ones you love die along with them. you are a net negative to humanity and quite frankly should be on a fucking watch list.

[hexastitchimera]

Genuine observation, no sass and no disrespect, but being someone who is chronically OFFline & an active volunteer/activist for over a decade, and seeing what people say is "crucial discourse" online is... Quite the trip, honestly.

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[mira0000000-blog]

[writingsbychlo]

BUY ME PRESENTS | draco malfoy

summary; draco loves you, and you love him. he just needs a little push to make things official. OR, draco malfoy fighting for his life when he realises just how much everyone wants his girl.

word count; 8928

notes; this is based on christmas eve, but I'm posted a couple days later! this fic puts us half way through our slytherin boy holidays! I'm not sure how the one I expected to be the shortest became the longest one so far. like, seriously, I know I keep saying this but wtf? why can't I write a short fic?

Dinner had already been served by the time you made it to the Grand Hall, the smells of roasted meats and seasoned potatoes filling the air, your mouth watering as you navigated between the throngs of people. Your seat had been saved, of course. A spot on the bench between Draco and Daphne, and as you neared, your friends noticed, smiles rising and waves in your direction. 

Sinking into your seat, you pressed a kiss to the cheek of the blond boy beside you, his face tipping up to receive it and lips twisting into a smile, attention moving to you as you sat. 

“Good day?”

“Better now that it’s over.” You smiled, a chuckle falling from him, and his hand came to rest upon your thigh, squeezing comfortingly while you helped yourself to a plate of whatever food was left. “What are we talking about, what did I miss?”

“Not much. Just Theo telling us all about Christmas in Italy.” Mattheo rolled his eyes, as though you all hadn't heard this exact same speech since that very first Christmas you’d become friends. Most of the group seemed to have simply tuned it out, laughing and nodding at the correct times as they whispered their own conversations. 

A swipe of a thumb over your thigh as you finished filling your plate with food, and you shifted your attention to Draco. “So, what are your Christmas plans, Dray?”

Shuffling a little bit closer now that your plate was full, his arm moved to lay across your shoulders instead, letting you snuggle up into his side. “Oh, you know, the usual.” 

He smiled, and your world seemed to get a little bit brighter, his lips brushing your hairline as he left a barely-present kiss there. 

“Typical Malfoy-family Christmas. I get to do the tour with my parents, visiting every other rich-arsehole couple they know. Christmas Eve party. The pleasure of my father’s annual ‘you’re growing up now, son, it’s time to get serious about the world’ over the dinner table on Christmas Day. Open some presents I don’t want, on a schedule I don’t like.” He sighed, clearly used to it by now, but it didn’t make it sound any less awful.

“Well,” You smile, nudging him playfully with your elbow. “Maybe we could write to one another, or even get a little visit in?” 

The hope in your voice was evident, and Pansy gave you an encouraging smile across the table. You’d been meaning to ask Draco this question for weeks now, and your last chance had been fast approaching. Since the summer, you and Draco had been hooking up. It was no secret among your friends, or even the students; your affections for one another were hardly contained, but it wasn't official. 

You wanted the labels, the security, and the safety of knowing that he was yours and you were his, and nobody else could come between you. You wanted to be introduced to his parents, be his date at events, to have him be proud to call you his girl. But Draco had been hesitant, avoiding every conversation that might inch into the ‘so, what are we?’ territory, keeping a safe distance from any kind of real commitment. 

It wasn’t enough for you anymore, not by a long shot, but trying to talk to Draco about it only ended up with him shutting it down, or skilfully diverting the conversation and you were growing tired of his games. 

Draco only made a vague noise, neither an agreement nor disagreement, and looked away from you as he picked up his drink to take a sip. “I don’t know… maybe. I can get pretty busy over the holidays, I’d hate to let you down.”

Another skill of his, making it seem like cancelling or delaying or not doing something at all was your idea. He was clearly hoping you’d brush it off, and tell him not to worry about it, but instead, you kept quiet. Not giving him the satisfaction of any easy win, this time. 

Pansy caught your eye across the table, shaking her head disapprovingly, and shooting a glare at an oblivious Draco. She had been your confidant these last few months, every update and development in your situationship, she’d been informed of. Every decision, she’d been a part of. She was practically as invested as you were, at this point, and she certainly did not approve of his nonchalant behaviour either. 

“Speaking of parties,” Mattheo cut Theo off, clearly having had enough of the annual rehashing of ‘that one Christmas when Theo was eight’ for today, and changing the subject, “Who’s got their dates sorted for the Malfoy Christmas Eve Ball, and who’s daring to go solo and have Narcissa set them up like a matchmaker all night long?”

Chuckles rang out among the group, and Pansy smiled, leaning into Blaise’s side with a love-struck grin. “I think we’re safe this year.”

“I’m going solo, but, I did tell Aunty Cissa that I have my eye on a girl in one of my classes, and I’m seeing how it plays out. So, she’s not setting me up anytime soon, since she believes I’m already onto someone.” Enzo smirked, and Blaise congratulated him for his clever tactics. 

You smirked through your mouthful of food, listening to Mattheo explain his complex excuse, to Reggie mournfully spill the story of how he’s already been set up by his parents witha ‘potential bride to meet’, and how he hopes she doesn’t show up. You laugh with the others as Tom simply raises an eyebrow, knowing that even Narcissa doesn’t attempt to set him up anymore, lest he scare away any more of her friends’ daughters. Theo, ever the player he is, is looking forward to dancing with every single lady he can find, and taking his pick at the end of the night.

“I suppose nobody needs to ask Draco who his date will be.” Mattheo grins, wiggling his brows at the pair of you as you smile, leaning a little further into the man at your side. 

“Hey, who knows?” He chortles, and your eyes narrow a little, “I’ve had plenty of offers. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Oooh.” Enzo’s eyes went wide, the other boys joining in, and Pansy fixed him with a glare. Daphne leaned around you with her jaw dropped at his statement, and you sat up from his embrace, lips pressed flat and a brow raised. 

The boys snickered, ‘he’s in shit’ and ‘someone’s in the doghouse’, but he lived for the spotlight, a drama queen at heart, and he smirked down at you. 

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t look at me like that, babe.” The playful nickname was one he only ever used when joking around. When he was sincere, he was much more romantic; darling, sweetheart, beautiful. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi mum, hello father, meet the girl I’m skipping class to shag! Thanks for paying my tuition!’, I don’t think so.”

The boys all laughed, Daphne scoffed in sync with her sister behind you, and Pansy looked like she’d lunge across the table at any moment, if it wasn’t for her chastising Blaise for laughing, instead. ‘You and Draco can share that couch you’ll both be sleeping on tonight’, she’d said. ‘See how funny you think it is then’.

The words stung as he spoke them, dismantling your relationship down to the bare minimum; to sex and physical connection and nothing else. Like the nights spent talking until the sun came up were nothing, the times you’d held him while he cried, or washed him in the bath when he was so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. Like he didn’t rub your stomach for hours every month when you got cramps, or had a stash of your favourite snacks in his bedside table for whenever you came over. 

You knew that Draco Malfoy lived you, just as much as you loved him. It was evident in everything he did, every kiss and every word. But, he needed a little push.

“I suppose you’re right,” You sigh lightly, giggling along with the laughing boys around the table. “I’m not so sure Lucius wouldn't burst a blood vessel then and there.”

“Exactly.” Draco hummed, and you glanced back to Pansy. She was shocked, only for a second, before taking in the subtle signs of mischief on your face. Her own smirk stretched out in return, and her gaze flickered once to Draco, before back to you. 

A new game was afoot, and Draco wasn’t going to stand a chance.

Slipping your coat from your shoulders, the annual Malfoy Christmas Eve Ball was well underway. Your parents had disappeared into the crowds before you’d even stepped out of the carriage, uncaring of where you were as long as you weren’t causing trouble. They were here to mingle with the other importants, and you were just here to learn the ropes of proper socialising.

The garment was taken from you, your small bag clutched in hand as a ticket was given to you for it, and you brushed down the front of your dress delicately. Pearls moved under your touch, beading along the bodice flat and perfected, and you felt your confidence rise as you looked at yourself once more in the reflection of a dark window. Adjusting the small lace gloves on each hand, you took a step towards the dining room. 

Elegant music was playing from a live band up on a stage, the room was decorated this year to look like a winter escape. Pale and frosty, like a palace of ice, twinkling lights and glittering decor, crisp white tablecloths and ice sculptures. A layer of goosebumps travelled along your skin at the sight of it all, despite the warming charms that took place for the guests. 

Scanning the room, you quickly found your table. The designated kids table, despite you all being legal adults and far beyond such status. You’d all be the babies of the ball until the new generation emerged, no doubt. Moving through the bodies and crowds of people politely, Theo was the first to glance up and spot you, his mouth falling open, and a rush of confidence took over as he raised two fingers to his lips and whistled. 

The sound caught the attention of the others’ chatter fading to quiet as they all turned to look for the object of his cat-calling, Enzo’s eyes widened, Pansy cheered loudly, and even Mattheo looked momentarily speechless. You’d had the same reaction when you’d seen yourself in the dress too, your stylist had truly outdone herself for this one. 

You looked flawless, and you looked expensive, and utterly elegant. Doing a little spin as you approached, a smile broke free on your lips as you stopped before the chair with your name card before it. 

“Merlin, babe,” Pansy started, drawing your attention straight her her, “You’ve got every eye on you tonight. If I was single, I’d be all over you.” 

She winked when you laughed, and Blaise rolled his eyes but smiled, leaning in to kiss her cheek affectionately. 

“Pretty necklace,” She commented, and your fingers rose to the pretty string of pearls and diamonds that you had. 

“It was a gift,” You simply hummed, tugging at your gloves. Glancing at the others, you gave each a polite smile, eyes lingering on Draco as he stared. In any other style, this dress would be scandalous for an event like this. A low neckline, spaghetti straps, no sleeves. Tight and fitted to every curve of your body, and yet the classic designs and vintage nature elevated it to the kind of class Audrey Hepburn would be proud of. 

He looked just as good, a dark suit, a fresh white shirt, a champagne-coloured tie that made the colour of his eyes and his hair stand out and your mouth dried out a little. Silver rings adorned his fingers, the Malfoy signet standing out, clenched so tightly around his whiskey glass that his knuckles were almost white. 

You’d worn soft, golden makeup effects today, a dusting of glitter along your cheekbones and eyelids, a shade of pink on your cheeks and lips that you knew was his weakness. 

“Someone really wanted your attention with that, huh?” Your best friend teased, and your eyes snapped away from Draco, back to her. 

“I suppose so,” You muse, hand coming up to touch one of the beads on your ear, “Since they also got me this lovely pair of matching earrings.”

Pansy made a dramatic show of admiring them, and Blaise gave a funny look, glancing at the jewellery, and then back at Draco, who was frowning. Before you could reach for your chair after placing your clutch down, Enzo was shooting to his feet from beside you, tugging out the chair for you. 

Draco scoffed as you gave him a thank you, settling into your seat, and he glared at the man beside you. Enzo didn’t flinch, however, smirking at Draco as he spoke;

“What? It’s called being a gentleman, cousin.”

Crossing your leg delicately, you’d hardly even removed your gloves, before a tray was coming down by your side, and a young waiter with a dazzling smile was looking right at you. 

“Champagne, ma’am?” Not a planned pawn in your game, but a welcome addition, you smiled sweetly in return. 

“Oh, I’d love some. Thank you.” Taking the single glass by the stem, you lifted it from the tray and the man’s smile stretched wider as you sipped the bubbly, holding his eye. 

“Of course, miss. If you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be at the bar, happy to serve.” His flirting was heavy enough that normally you’d want to roll your eyes, but tonight, you suppressed that urge, playing into it as you bat your lashes. 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Thank you.”

He took the dismissal, staring appreciatively as he walked away, another look over his shoulder to you as you watched him go. 

“Stop eye-fucking the help.” Draco snapped, and your focus moved to him slowly, just to find his icy glare on you. He didn’t scare you, though, all that mean bravado, but you knew what was underneath. 

“I was doing no such thing.” You tut, placing down your drink. “Don’t be jealous, Dray. You look even better in that suit. If you want compliments, just ask. No need to be mean.”

He seemed rather placated by this, his ego settling down, even if the others did laugh at him.

The conversation seemed to continue around you as you settled in, avoiding Draco’s heated stare and sipping at your champagne. The rush of warming alcohol through your veins settled every dancing nerve, and gave you the calm confidence to do what you had planned. Sitting forwards, just enough, you angled your body so that Draco might have the perfect view over your cleavage as you feigned interest in the chatter around you. 

He took the bait, his gaze falling right where you wanted it, the gems of your necklace dangling just over the swell of your breasts, and he licked his lower lip, pulling it between his teeth.

Raising your hands and catching the swinging gem, you toyed with it carefully, letting it run over your fingers. Time melted away as Draco’s gaze flicked between your nimble touch, your lips, and your chest, shuffling in his seat every so often, and gulping at the bubbly in his glass. 

He was on his third refill by the time food started to be taken around, and you took pity on him momentarily, sitting back in your chair and angling away from him, ready to receive your first course. 

As the starters came around, you turned to thank your waiter, surprised to see it was the same man from the bar who had brought you your champagne. You’d given him little thought since he’d walked away, and you’d never spotted him again, but perhaps that was exactly why he was delivering your food now, as he beamed at you and set down the plate. 

Men did love a little attention, after all. 

Reaching for the bottle of champagne cooling in the centre of the table, the waiter never looked away from you as he refilled your glass without being asked. Draco finally seemed to notice as he finished adjusting his napkin, gaze narrowing on the man serving you. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” He muttered.

You pretended to take no notice, smiling at the man and waving your fingers flirtily as he walked away.

“I’m going to get another drink at the bar,” He announced, leaving without his glass and without asking if anyone else wanted one. You knew where he was truly going, if the lock of his jaw and the stamp in his step were any indication. You doubted you’d be seeing that waiter again.

As you poked at your food, Pansy excused herself too, only a few bites into her meal before she disappeared with a wicked grin and no explanation to anyone. Enzo just chuckled beside you, glancing around the room like he was watching all the cogs of a machine in motion, before turning his gaze on you. “You do look lovely tonight, do you know that?”

“Of course I do. I spent days on end trying on dress after dress to find this.” You sighed, admiring the gorgeous piece of art on your body as you set your cutlery down. 

“And is it serving the purpose you need it to?” He teased, voice knowing, and you nodded. Flicking your gaze over the patrons and guests in the room, you searched for Draco, finding him talking politely to one of his mother’s friends at the bar. 

“It is, I think.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.” He whispered, your focus still on the man who truly held your heart, who was making his polite excuse and walking way, back towards you all. His gaze locked on yours, only for a second, before Pansy was calling your name and drawing your focus elsewhere. 

When you looked up to her, she was grinning, a man by her side. “This is Elliot, he’s been wanting to meet you for some time. I promised him I’d introduce you both tonight.”

You offered the best smile you could as his cheeks reddened, and Pansy merely patted him on the shoulder, slinking away as you offered your hand to him. “Lovely to meet you, Elliot.”

“You too. As embarrassing as that introduction was, it’s true. I have wanted to meet you for some time.” He had a kind smile and pretty eyes, and he seemed far too nice to be dragged into your game tonight, but he seemed almost like a willing participant, and you weren’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. As Draco took his seat, Elliot continued, “Pansy has told me so much about you. You know, if you’re free one day before you go back to that fancy boarding school of yours, I’d love to take you out.”

“Yeah? What have you got in mind?” You smile, twisting a little more to face him, and your encouragement only brightens his expression as Draco’s darkens in your peripheral.

“A night in London, perhaps. We could get dinner, and see the opera?”

“She doesn’t like the opera.” Draco sneered, openly staring at Elliot with enough contempt to scare away lesser men. Elliot tugged at his collar, glancing at Draco, and then back to you as you tried to hide your shock at his behaviour.

“The theatre, then?”

Draco looked ready to snap again, and before he could, you nodded, sparing your unwilling partner. “That sounds wonderful, I’ll see what my schedule says. I’ll get in touch with you through Pansy if I can find the time, is that okay?”

“Perfect.” He smiled, sneaking another wary glance at Draco who was not backing down from glaring at him unflinchingly, but Elliot shook it off, bravely. “It was a pleasure to meet you, truly.”

“And you, Elliot.”

Soon after he left, the plates were being cleared. You tried not to smirk as a different waiter, and one who very pointedly did not so much as even catch your gaze, cleared your dishes away at record speed. 

You knew that Draco had something, everything, to do with that. He was jealous by nature, a spoilt single child who did not like to share his favourite toys, and that is exactly what you were betting on tonight.

You stood, taking a lap around the room with Pansy to settle your food before the next course, and to get another drink. She took the opportunity to fill you in on how her first Christmas event with Blaise’s family had gone, and when you returned, you made sure to surreptitiously place yourself behind Draco’s chair. 

You placed a hand on his shoulder, a friendly gesture, squeezing and rubbing enough that your thumb swept over his collar and across his neck. His pulse jumped under your touch, and he tipped his head closer, into your touch. 

As he did so, your heart leapt in your chest. To others, it might look like a friendly gesture but to you, it meant so much more. You were tempted to cave then and there, to live with this being enough, to settle, but you couldn't. You didn’t want this to be it, you wanted to follow this by leaning down to kiss him, to have him smile against your lips in public the way he did when you were alone. 

To arrive at these events together, arms linked, and to stumble out tiredly together too. To sit by him, his hand on your thigh, to rest your head on his shoulder, to kiss him on the dance floor. The thought was enough to push you through. 

He twisted his head, to kiss your hand like he often did when you did this. Carefully, you slipped your hand away just in time, knuckles brushing across the nape of his neck as you stepped away, and back to your seat. 

His sights moved to you, but like a saving grace, the servers began to appear with more dishes, and dinner soon distracted you all. A delicious serving of salmon and potatoes, and the hall fell quiet enough for you to hear the beautiful music playing when chatter fell low. 

Low conversation, drinks refilled, and that perfect mood set across the room, as people took to the tables and quieted down. Your favourite part of the night, usually. Good food, your friends, and a chance to catch up without the usual weight of it all sitting on you. Regulus was talking, telling the rare story that had him caught up in a long conversation where he usually just observed quietly, but your attention was fixed on your lover. 

Until, Theo spoke up. 

“Oh, merda,” He muttered across Reggie’s’ story, his gaze cutting to you alarmingly quickly. “I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Your heart skipped a beat, a flash of panic.

“My cousin flew in last minute for the party, and he wants to speak to you.” Theo’s words soothed your panic, and you offered him a flat look for the dramatic way he’d put it. Taking a sip from your glass, you raised a brow.

“When?”

“Now.” He confirmed, sights lifting to sit just behind you, and before you could even turn, a chair was being pulled up beside your own from another table. Turning your head to the owner, a smile burst across your face at the man sitting before you. 

“Dario!” Your arms were around his neck before you could stop yourself, and he was chuckling as he bundled you into an equally enthusiastic hug. He chuckled lightly, pulling back only far enough to press a friendly kiss to your cheek, and you cupped his face as you parted from him. “You’re growing a beard!”

“My mother hates it.” He chuckled, rubbing a hand over it. As you twisted a little more towards him, he reached down, practically manhandling you as he reached for the edge of your seat by your legs, tugging it sideways to face him. You squealed as the chair jolted, screeching on the floor, tugging you closer as he leaned in. “Sei incantevole.”

“Are you charming me in Italian?” You smirk, a boyish smile on his face as he lounged back in his seat. “What are you doing here, anyway? Theo said none of you were flying in this year! I thought you couldn't make it.”

“I couldn't,” He sighed, shrugging, “But, then I heard that you would be here, without a date, and I knew I just had to make it. So, here I am, la mia bella donna. You think a short flight from Italy would stop me rushing over here to you?”

Your giggle was against your control. Even if he was more like family than a romantic interest, the way his accent twisted around coyly spoken words, was enough to bring a blush to even the most unreceptive woman’s face. “Cut it out, you flirt.”

“You’ll save me a dance later, right?”

“We’ll see.” He rose his brow, and you lifted your glass, taking a sip of bubbly to hide your smile, leaving him hanging. “Depends on how much more of your cheesy flirting I can endure.”

“You mean my wonderful Italian charm?” He teased, pinching one of your cheeks, and deepening the flush he had already created. “Don’t think I don’t see the way I make you blush.

You could only scoff, mouth dry as you tried to think of a retort, and you didn’t miss Theo muttering in Italian behind you, curse words you’d picked up on tumbling from his mouth. 

“Perhaps this can convince you,” Dario reaches for his inner pocket, producing a small, slim box. An excited squeak breaks from you as he hands it over, your fingers brushing the elegant leather, an Italian name embossed across the front. “Open it later, alright?”

You could only nod, admiring it happily, before slipping the box safely inside of your clutch. He took your hand, kissing your knuckles as he stood. A final wink as he offered you hid charming goodbyes, and a farewell to the rest of the table, before returning his borrowed chair to where he had taken it from. 

You watched as your friend left, disappearing into the crowd, no doubt to mingle and socialise as he had always been so good at, before you swung back around in your chair. 

“He taught you everything you know, huh, Nott?”

Theo only shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face. “What can I say, tesoro? We Nott men just have charm. We’ll woo your panties right off.” He winked, the cockiness not lasting long as Draco swung at him, a fist landing roughly on his arm as the Malfoy heir scowled, glaring at his best friend. 

“Cut it out.” He growled the words through gritted teeth, and your hand shot up, rubbing at your lip to hide your grin as Draco made no effort to hide his own emotions. Theo only laughed, rubbing at the patch on his arm he’d taken the hit.

Dessert was served, a beautiful display of ice cream and winter berries that almost looked too good to eat. The key word being almost. You hadn't been able to resist, however, and the first small groan you’d let out as the sugar hit your tongue had Draco’s gaze snapping straight to you. I did not leave, once, after. 

Instead, he watched, through a dark gaze, every curl of your lips around the spoon, every swipe of your tongue to catch the juice of burst berries. If you’d put on a little extra show, just for him, nobody else had to know. 

It was like he was staring right into your soul, so intense, even after the meal was long since finished. Finally, you indulged him once again, turning to look at him and raising a brow. “Yes, Draco?”

“You look beautiful tonight, I am simply admiring.” He let his gaze move across you slowly, making his admiration apparent, and his gaze lingered a fraction of a second longer on your neck. He stared at you with open adoration, the kind of look that told you exactly how he felt, even if he was fighting it, but he was close to breaking. He was close to losing this game he didn’t know he was playing. Then, his gaze flickered over your shoulder, sweet observation morphing. His brows drew together, his open hand slamming down on the table hard enough to make the glass rattle. “Oh, fucking hell…”

Mattheo erupted with sudden laughter, loud and brash, and there was a tap on your shoulder before you could even ask him what had him in such hysterics. A young man you did not know, perhaps a few years younger than you, and glanced around the table to see which of your friends had put this one together. Each seemed to have caught on in their own time, and had a hand in adding to the fun, to watch Draco suffer more, but none of them were laying any claim to this one. 

“I’ve been watching you all evening, and you are beautiful.” He smiled, stuttering over his words slightly, and Draco made no shy show of his disdain, rolling his eyes and making a disapproving sound. “I was wondering if you might grant me the pleasure of a dance?”

“She would dance with you,” Enzo interrupted, before you could speak at all, leaning forward toward the edge of your chair from his own, and you could have kissed him in gratitude for saving you. “But, she promised me her first dance. Isn’t that right, love? And I think now is the perfect time. Let’s go.”

Offering you his hand, you took it, letting him sweep you away without a second’s delay, navigating you both to the dance floor and twirling you expertly into his arms. One hand clasped your own, the other sitting at a respectable place on your waist, your own on his shoulder, and he fell into the well-rehearsed steps of a classical ballroom dance he’d been doing since he could walk. 

You let out a shaky sigh, relief flooding your veins as you looked back to your seat, noticing that the boy had taken Enzo’s rejection well and disappeared, not hanging around and waiting for your return. 

“You’re killing him slowly, like a predator playing with its prey,” Enzo smirked, neither of you needing to clarify who you were talking about, as he brought up his cousin. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” He chuckled, spinning you out before pulling you back in, sharp actions that made you dizzy with their accuracy, and you grinned as he brought you tumbling right back into his arms, perfectly. If he’d been trying to win you over, his dancing alone would’ve had you swooning. “You just show up to a fancy event like this, dripping in diamonds and pearls and looking like a million bucks, supposedly single. You mean to tell me you didn’t know that all these rich London boys wouldn't descend on you like vultures?”

“Not my fault I’m single and hot, Enz.”

He just laughed, dipping you a little. “We do struggle, don’t we.” You wove between people, a happy silence falling between you both once again as he guided you over the floor, back and forth, “Are you, though? Single, I mean.”

“That is up to your cousin.”

“Touché.”

You continued to move, until your feet were sore from all the twirling, clinging to Enzo in fits of giggles as he spun and twirled and dipped you more, hands on your waist as he lifted you through the air, making a show of his dancing. 

He may have seemed altruistic in his gestures, sweeping in to save you and Draco from your dance with the boy, but he was using you too. Enzo was taking every opportunity to show off his moves to every lady around the room watching, a flirty smile on his face between conversations and he glanced around, and you wouldn't be surprised if he received more offers than Theo or Dario by the end of the night. 

As the third song came to an end, and the music fell for just a second, you panted slightly, arm around his neck now, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and a bright smile. “Can we take a break?”

“Tired, already? You only gave me three so far.” He smirked at the way your jaw dropped, your face going hot and you knew your cheeks were red. You untangled yourself from his body, barely making it a step away from his laughter before he wrapped an arm around your waist, tugging you into his side. “Oh, c’mon. I thought the aim was to flirt and make him mad?”

“He’s not even here to listen!”

“I’m practising,” Enzo murmured, steering you towards the bar, and leaning on the wood as he flagged down the bartender. You were quickly served, by a woman who fawned over Enzo as she passed by, and you had to snap your fingers in front of his face to snap his gaze away from her retreating form. “So, how long are you going to make him—”

A tap on Enzo’s shoulder cut him off, and he turned to look, straightening up instantly from his slumped position. As soon as he moved so you could see, your relaxation melted away too, as you found yourself face to face with Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. 

“Lorenzo, I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to you all evening. I want to ask you about your schoolwork.” The impressively formal and deep voice of Lucius Malfoy settled over your skin like fresh snow, cold but smooth, and you shuddered. 

Narcissa only chuckled lightly at her husband’s words, her eyes on you. “You’ve been busy, though. Who is your lovely lady?”

“Uncle Lucius, Aunt Cissa. This is my friend, (Y/n).”

It wasn’t exactly the circumstances you’d wanted to meet them under, but you smiled nonetheless, nerves running wild as you offered your hand to them both, shaking politely just as your parents had taught you. 

“Ah, (Y/n). Yes. I make a point of knowing all of Draco’s school friends, but I’m in business with your father, aren’t I?” Something like a small kernel of sweetness was buried in that statement, his interest in his son’s life, even if he tried to hide it behind formalities, but it wasn’t your place to comment. 

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“They’re very proud of your schoolwork. They were telling me about your latest project. You synthesised a new potion to grow murkweed faster, is that true?”

You were surprised he knew so much, your small project submitted for Herbology was the last thing you’d expected Lucius Malfoy to know of, or take an interest in, and your mouth felt like sandpaper as you tried to form words. “Yes. Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“Interesting.” That calculating gaze scanned over you, analysing you from head to toe, like he could see right through you with a single glance. “That is impressive, for someone of your age. I’d be open to learning more. Are you considering making a future out of your alchemy talents? I have connections that I could contact for you.” 

You were speechless, your stomach going wild with butterflies born of both excitement and anxiety. He smirked, a look that would set you on edge if you weren’t sure deep down that this was in your interests, not against them. 

“Perhaps we can discuss it more soon, when we next see you. With Enzo?”

Enzo’s arm around your waist shifted, a reassuring weight that you were sure had been your only grounding presence for this surreal conversation. He patted your hip encouragingly. “Oh, no, we aren’t…” 

Motioning between you both, Lucius’ brows furrowed, and Narcissa tried to hide her sigh.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Aunt Cissa. (Y/n) isn’t mine, though it is wonderful that you approve.” Before either could question him, or expand on their confusion, Enzo gave your waist a final rub, before removing his touch from you entirely, and stepping towards his family. “Shall we go and discuss schoolwork then, Uncle? You have questions, and I have answers. I hope the ones you want.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss (Y/l/n).” Lucius politely offered you his hand again, shaking it firmly, and that was about as friendly a dismissal as you’d ever get from him, you’d heard. This was only supported by the surprised look on Narcissa’s face, and the beam Enz gave you as he guided his uncle away. 

“I hope to see you again soon, (Y/n). You look wonderful this evening, thank you for coming.” Narcissa murmured, before following her husband and nephew, glancing back at you only once over her shoulder. She knew. The woman was far more cunning than she let on, the true embodiment of a sneaky Slytherin, observing quietly and taking everything in. Her eyes glinted. She knew you knew she knew, too.

Your heart was pounding, cheeks warm as you lifted your fingers to them cautiously. The disappointed waitress placed down two drinks before you, Enzo long gone without his, but you smiled at her with appreciation, fingers shaking a little as you lifted the glass to your lips to take a sip. 

You’d spoken to Draco’s parents. 

They’d liked you. Lucius had offered to put you onto the career path, and Narcissa had complimented your dress. A soft laugh of disbelief slipped free, your eyes sliding closed for just a second as you revelled in the moment. 

It hasn’t been what you’d set out for tonight, but it was far more than what you’d hoped for. Opening your eyes again, to head back to the table and find Draco, you were met by the sight of a stranger leaning before you on the bar, grinning down at you in amusement. “Hello.”

“Hi.” You gave a terse smile, and a single nod. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“I didn’t even get to ask you to dance yet. Saw you out on the floor with the Berkshire boy, earlier, and I thought—”

“I’m dancing with her next, mate. Piss off.” 

Draco rarely sounded that mad, a chill went down your spine as you felt an arm slide around your waist, tugging you back into his chest. “Dray…”

The stranger only scoffed, glaring at Draco as he wandered away, and your hand reached for his forearm on your body. He snatched it away too soon, however, tugging on your hip to turn you around. His jaw was clenched tight, eyes more frozen than the coldest glacier. “Dance with me.”

Not a request, and he didn’t wait for an answer, before plucking your drink from your hand and slamming it down onto the bar, guiding you back to the swaying bodies. Standing before you, you offered him your hand, your hand sitting lightly on his shoulder. He didn’t take the respectable route, instead, his arm wrapped tight around your waist, sweeping you close to his body, and beginning to move you both in simple steps. 

It was several minutes before he relaxed, your arm sliding further around his neck in a more intimate hold, bringing the two of you much closer, swaying slowly. The tension in his body gave way with every step, and with a resigned sigh, he finally spoke, “You met my parents.”

“I did. They were lovely. Very curious about Enzo and I’s relationship.”

His hand clenched on your waist, and you tipped your head at him as his piercing gaze drilled into you. One more move…

“Oh, don’t be so mad, Dray. We’re only shagging, after all. You’ll find a new girl if I get swept away by someone else.”

His eyes narrowed, jaw clenching, and a fire burned in those silver eyes now, melting the ice away with rage. Checkmate.

“You win, alright? I’m not playing this stupid game any longer.” He took a deep breath, and another, fingers twitching on your back as jealousy bubbled under the surface. “For fucks sake, how many pieces of jewellery from other guys are you wearing? Who bought you those earrings, that necklace? I should be the only one buying you gifts. I should be the one spoiling you. You want the Malfoy family ring? I’ll go yank it off my mother’s engagement ring from her finger right now, just take all this off.”

He studied you for a second, confusion growing at the smirk that grew on your lips. Victory was yours, and you leaned in, pressing a delicate kiss to his cheek. Letting the hand from his neck smooth down his chest, his gaze stayed locked on the jewels around your neck, glaring angrily. “No.”

“No?”

“No. It’s pretty. I’m going to keep wearing it all, let it remind you what you have. Next time you piss me off, forget a date, or use the last of my shampoo, I’m going to put it all back on so you can remember how many guys would jump at the chance.” His nostrils flared, but he stayed silent, wisely knowing when to keep his mouth shut. “I don’t want your family ring, Malfoy. Not yet. I just want a proper title, and the respect that comes with it. I’m not your booty call, or your side piece. You don’t want to play games anymore? Then don’t.”

“You already won.” He whispers, his head dropping down to let his forehead rest on your own. “You know how much you mean to me.”

“Yes, I do. But I want the whole world to know it, too, Dray.”

He didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he twisted his head, enough to press his mouth to your own, silencing any more arguments between you both as he kissed you. His lips claimed yours, a tender and loving kiss, showing everyone just how much you meant to him. There was no mistaking the emotions within it, not as his arms wrapped around your body, holding you to him as the pretence of dancing was given up, your hand on the back of his head, fingers in his hair, meeting every push and pull.

When he pulled away, your smile took over, bashful now under his openly adoring gaze, and he stole several more pecks from your lips. A happy sound escaped you as he tugged you in, tucking his face into your neck, and swaying you both to the music. 

“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

“You have, but I’d be open to hearing it again.” Your hand smoothed over his hair, and he chuckled against your skin, leaving a kiss on the crook of your neck before raising to meet your eye. 

“You are breathtaking, darling. I’m in awe. This colour is my favourite, you know.”

“Why do you think I wore it?”

His fingers trailed down your spine, eyes sparkling even more at that revelation. “How about we get out of here? We’ll make our goodbyes to my parents, and head out.”

“Our goodbyes?” You repeated as he took your hand, lacing your fingers together. 

“Yes. From their son and his girlfriend. I think you deserve a proper introduction, after all.”

Tugging you across the floor, he gave you no time to prepare, and certainly, none to disagree, as you smoothed your hair and attempted to control the blush he’d brought to your cheeks. Through the crowds he wove, until he was pulling to a stop just shy of his parents, and Enzo looked as though he could have cried with relief when Lucius’ intense focus was taken away from him. The boy quickly slipped away as both of Draco’s parents turned to face you. 

“Miss (Y/l/n), when we said we hoped to see you again soon, I didn’t realise you’d take it quite this literally.” He murmured, voice as low and calm as always, and your lips parted, a different kind of heat flooding your features. 

“Oh, behave now, Lucius,” Narcissa grinned, her gaze dropping to your clasped hands, before she reached up to her son’s face, pinching his cheek with a smile. “Draco, darling, I’ve hardly seen you all evening.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you Mother, but we’ll be leaving early.” She only gave him a knowing look, ignoring Lucius’ displeased huff, as if she wasn’t surprised at all. 

“‘We’?”

“My girlfriend and I.” He said, proud and strong, before tugging you forward a little more to stand in front of him. His hand left your own, circling your waist instead, and she offered him a smile at the news. 

“I see.” She smiled, patting her son’s cheek affectionately, before turning that knowing gaze on you. “Now Lorenzo’s evasiveness whenever I asked him about you makes sense.”

“You asked about me?” Your words were a rushed squeak, which only seemed to amuse Narcissa more. 

“Of course, dear. I wanted to know more about you. I’d ask you to sit and chat with me for a spell, but I believe my son might combust if I did.”

“Mother!” He gasped, and Lucius only tutted. 

“Draco.” His father growled softly, shaking his head, and the red on his son’s cheeks only grew.

“You both may go, for now. But I hope you’ll visit me soon, and we might talk?”

“You mean… just us?” Your words tapered off to a near whisper, and Lucius smirked to himself as Draco rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, dear. We’ll have tea.”

You could only nod, bidding your final farewells to them both in a state of awe, before Draco was hurrying you along. Tight hands gripping your waist, lips on your neck as he loved you through the crowds, swiping up your bag and giving you barely a moment to say goodbye to your friends before sweeping you away again. It was only due to the snow falling outside, you were sure, that he allowed you to stop long enough to get your coats. 

Helping you, he lifted the garment onto you from behind, kissing your cheek as he reached around your body to fasten it. His elegant coat was already on, and leather gloves were on his hands as he offered you one. Lacing your fingers through his own, he smiled, tugging you out into the freezing night, and ushering you around the side of the Manor, away from the stream of cars lined up for guests as they left. 

“Where are we going, Dray?” 

“To one of the gardens near the path.” He never turned back, leading you carefully around patches of ice and slippery snow as you moved, the light from the house fading. It was almost pitch black, before he mumbled a small spell, and the garden lights glowed to light, glittering on the fresh blanket of ice. 

Sitting on the grass was an old-fashioned sleigh, enchanted to keep dry, even in the snow, and two reindeer sat happily in the snow snuffling at the grass and scattered food. 

The landscape stretched out far before you both, trees and grass and walls all covered in snow like something from a Christmas card, and the sigh that left your lips clouded in the air before your face. 

“Oh, Draco…” Taking a few steps closer, snow-tipped over the tops of your heels as you stepped off the pathway onto the grass, chilling your feet for only a second, before Draco was following. Scooping you up into his arms, you kicked the ice from your feet with a giggle, your arms looping around his neck. “What’s all this?”

“This is your Christmas present. I didn’t realise that was the kind of ice you wanted instead.” He muttered, eyes flicking down to your neck, as he carried you carefully through the snow and towards the ornate sleigh. As you leaned in to kiss his cheek, he smiled shyly, avoiding your gaze as he became embarrassed, “I wanted to do something romantic for you. We can take the sleigh back to the town, get a cab, and take the jet anywhere you want to go. Pansy already packed a bag for you.”

He placed you down on the edge of the sleigh, letting you shuffle across onto the warmed leather. With another kiss to your lips, he scoffed at your smile. 

“Merry Christmas, my wicked little girlfriend.”

“I can’t believe you arranged all this.” You were practically bouncing in your seat, watching as Draco nervously tugged on the reins, prompting the lazy animals to stand back up, before settling into the sleigh himself. Like they knew just what to do, they took off in a slow trot, tugging the pair of you along through the snow. 

“Maybe if you’d have waited, instead of making me fight for my life tonight, you’d have been surprised.”

His arm was splayed along the back of the seat, and you snuggled in a little closer to him. Curling his arm around you, he pressed a kiss to your forehead, shaking his head and burying his nose in your hair. “If I didn’t make you fight for me, Dray, you’d probably have introduced me to your mother as your study partner. I gave you a little push, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” He muttered, guiding your face up so he could peck your lips. “Who do you think helped me arrange all of this for my ‘lovely lady friend’, hm? I’ve been writing to my mother about having an interest in someone for months now. You underestimate me.”

“You never gave me any other indication!” 

“Oh, please. You walk me like a damn dog, you knew how I felt.” His mouth closed over your own, stealing a kiss, and you couldn't help but smile into it. “I think tonight just proves it.”

The sleigh trotted on as Draco kissed you in the back, beyond thought and reason, your hands tucked into his coat for warmth as he kept you cuddled in close to his side. 

Minutes melted away, the two of you lost in your own world as you jostled and trotted through the fields, back toward the town. Whatever he had planned, it had been in motion for days, and the thought only made you fall a little more in love with him. Perhaps you had underestimated him, but none of it mattered now, not when he was kissing you like you were his only way to breathe, and you had him in your arms, properly, at last.

“So, Pansy knew about your little plan?”

“Yes. I told her days ago.” 

“Hm…” You loved her, and it was perhaps her knowledge of Draco’s actions that made this all the funnier. “So, she knew about your plan, and mine. And still, she made sure to introduce guys to me all night. She played us both just for her own amusement.”

As you thought of her, your fingers lifted to your neck, sitting on the delicate jewellery there, and Draco huffed. Looping his finger underneath it, he tugged lightly. “Can you take this off now, please?”

“Why would I do that?” His pout deepened, glaring at the offending item, and you gave in with an airy laugh. “Pansy, Daph and Tori picked it out personally.”

“What?” His head snapped up, pout gone as his jaw dropped, and he was not laughing like you were. “You let me believe another guy decked you out in diamonds all night! What about the matching earrings?”

“Blaise.”

“The bracelet?”

“Theo and the Notts.” 

At that mention, his eyes narrowed again, searching for your clutch and finding it resting in your lap. “But Theo’s cousin Mario gave you a separate gift.”

“Dario.” You corrected, and he mimicked it childishly, scoffing afterwards. “Well, that part was real. He truly was flirting, and I have no idea what it is, I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Give it to me.” He reached for your bag, a second too slow as you swiped it away from him with a gasp. He didn’t give up, still trying to snatch it as he leaned over you, pressing you back into the seat through fits of laughter, the two of you fighting over the bag until it was pressed to your chest, your eyes wide as you stared up at him, shaking your head. “Give it to me! I’m chucking it, hand it over!”

“No, it’s mine!” He slumped back into his seat, panting for breath and smoothing his hair back down. He was pointedly staring away in the opposite direction, and when you leaned in closer with a chuckle, he leaned away. Grabbing his shoulder, you planted yourself firmly in his lap, kissing the underside of his jaw. “I’m keeping it, but your present is better, I just know it. Whatever it is, could never beat this.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Dray.” 

He gave in, wrapping his arms around your waist, tugging you in closer to his body and pressing a happy kiss to your cheek. “Fine, but I’m buying you a new necklace when we get off the damn plane. I don’t care who bought that one.”

[samah-h]

A Confession from the Heart of Suffering: An Unbearable Reality

I hope you read my confession, and thank you. This is the reality of all the people of Gaza.

Whenever I think of the life we used to have before the genocide, I have to struggle to hold my tears so I don't cause my children more pain than what they already feel. Our life, then, was neither easy nor perfect but it was full of warmth and the simple joy of being together under one roof .

We have never felt completely free because we have always been under a siege that has only gotten worse during this war but at least we felt somewhat safe and we had quite a decent life with the means that we were allowed.What kept us going was our belief that the future might be brighter one day.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no better tomorrow for us anymore. Nothing remains of our previous lives but rubble and memories, and the future is so bleak and full of uncertainties.It's not just the walls of our house that were turned into ruins, it's our hopes and dreams that were reduced to ashes. Now, we only dream of things that might seem so trivial to other people around the world like being able to sleep in and wake up in a comfortable bed or having a meal without standing for it in line for hours.

We dream of having enough clean drinking water so we don't have to worry about dying of thirst. We dream of the days we had a home with a regular kitchen and stove, the days we could celebrate special occasions with family in peace. Above all, we dream of not losing the people we love in a split second and of living safely and with dignity.

Instead, we have been wrongfully sentenced to a life of fear, displacement, and humiliation beyond belief. It is a living nightmare here now. Everything needed to ensure the bare minimum of decency and normalcy is denied to us. As you well know, there is no safe place in Gaza anymore and We are deprived of simple rights like having having a roof over our heads or enjoying some peace of mind for even one single day. The airstrikes and the buzzing of drones almost never stop. We live with a very real sense of impending doom day and night.

The water and food scarcity are only getting worse with time. Even regular chores like cooking or doing the laundry have become true challenges. I cannot propely bathe my children because the little water we get is polluted and their sensitive baby skin keeps getting irritated.

Before the war, my nine- year-old daughter was so picky about which outfits to wear; it made me laugh that she acted that way at her age but now we don't even have enough warm clothes for the winter. It kills me each time she says she doesn't need fancy clothes anymore and only wants to feel warm and go back to school. What makes it worse is our tent has recently been flooded by rain.

The whole camp turned into a swamp overnight. The children woke up soaked, shivering and terrified. It was almost impossible to calm them down as the rain kept pouring. We are doing our best but even if we succeed in finding the treatment, it's going to cost almost a fortune. This is why we need your support even more now.

All we do now is fight for survival every day. I never imagined,even in my darkest nightmares, that I would be searching high and low to put food in my children's mouths and keep them warm or that I would be begging the world to literally save their lives but I have no other choice now.

Despite the unbearable suffering we're daily going through, I still believe in humanity. please keep us in your prayers and help us anyway you can. Donate if you're able to,reblog and share our story as widely as you can.We are grateful to each and every one of you

Vetted by @bilal-salah0

7,464$ / 10,000$

[iminmywritersdungeon]

Been thinking about Arcane and good parents v loving parents. Parents who care so so deeply but are toxic and poisonous.

Silco loves his daughter but he put a gun in her hand. He would give his life for that girl but he wouldn’t heal for her. He would burn the world to the ground but he wouldn’t plant a tree.

Vander seems cold and uncaring but he fights for those kids until his dying breath. He’s gruff and mean, he takes his kids things and he punishes them but he shows them what it means to live the way they do, what it means to be angry and to see where that anger goes.

Ambessa Medarda loves her daughter but she is a warlord, a conqueror. If her daughter fails to fit the mold then she will be conquered too. She will chisel away at the marble of her children and when the cracks become visible she will toss them out, and when golden tears bleed through the chips in the stone she will cry out “I did it for you!” And yet they are empty words. The golden sunburst of her daughter will wilt in her shadow.

Cassandra kiramman is so cold and venomous and like a disease to everything her daughter loves, but she also gets them a meeting with the council. She spreads her vulture wings over her daughter, clouding the sun, drowning her, and still dutifully feeds her when she asks oh so nicely, when she can no longer deny her.

Ximena Talis is both loving and good because she does what she needs to keep her son safe and by god does she love him. She will make the sacrifices and make the choices and make sure her son can live the life that he almost lost.

Singed is like Viktor’s father, but Viktor will be crushed underfoot if he cannot make sacrifices, love and legacy. He will tear his own body to shreds and he will look into that scarred face and he will feel his body destroy him.

And of course, there are Jinx and VI’s birth parents. We know nothing about them, not their names, who they were, whether they were cold or warm or caring or cruel. What we know is that they were on that bridge. What we know is that they wanted better.

Parenthood will rip you to shreds if you cannot handle it. It will riddle you with bullets and it will cry over your corpse are you willing to lose them, are they willing to lose you?

Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?

[ladystoneboobs]

so, one aspect of catelyn which i think is underrated (certainly the biggest adaptation loss which nobody talks about) is her, let's say superstitiousness, or better yet, let's call it genre-savviness, being one of the few adult characters open to magic and the supernatural in this fantasy world. we first meet her in the godswood, home of gods which are not truly hers, yet she is still very aware of their power. when she and ned talk of the deserter he killed, he hopes he won't have to go with the nw to deal with mance rayder, but she has even more fear of that idea bc there are worse things beyond the wall than just wildlings. ned scoffs and says she's been listening to old nan too much, but she's right. we already know from the prologue that she's right! and here she is, understanding the genre of their world better than her husband, who was actually born and spent his earliest years in this northern land of deep magic, listening to old nan's stories. same with the direwolves, where she was uncomfortable with them at first, but later believed in them as guardians from the old gods even after robb had lost his own faith. and once again, we know she's right even if she doesn't know the evidence to back up her instincts, bc summer and shaggydog did not fail bran and rickon and robb was almost certainly a warg like his brothers. (perhaps making it more fitting that she's the one brought back as a fantasy vengeance monster, not ned and robb, the most unbelieving dead starks.) and in her 2nd agot chapter, everyone focuses on her ambition in wanting ned to agree to the hand job (pun intended) and sansa's betrothal, and while she does recognize the value of their daughter being a future queen more than ned does, that's only her stated argument bc she thinks it's rational enough for ned to listen to. (if ambitious matchmaking were as important to her as to her father she never would have made those frey betrothals fandom loves to blame her for.) in her own head there's a deeper urge driving her. she keeps thinking of the dead direwolf with antlers in its throat, an omen which filled her with dread from the first she heard of it, before robert's arrival, and thinking of it again is what makes her desperate to convince ned not to refuse robert. she had to make him see. and really, she's not wrong, as jon snow would say. the dead direwolf was an omen of ned and robert getting each other killed. it's just one of those misread portents, with no way of knowing the danger to ned was in his loyalty to robert, not conflict with him. BUT the next time she's dealing with baratheons, she knows exactly what she's talking about. it's catelyn, not brienne, who sees the shadow slaying renly, and explains that it was stannis who did that through some dark magic. with no way of knowing how it was achieved and no prior expectation that such a thing were ever possible, she realizes with no hestitation that stannis was guilty and that his red witch was capable of pulling this off somehow. really, the only instinct of the supernatural she's wholly wrong about is her insistence that varys gathered his knowledge through some dark enchantment. however, though that might offend varys, given his own personal experience with a sorcerer, i'd say it's a reasonable assumption without knowing the dude had children moving through walls everywhere like oversized rodents. and imo it just shows she had a healthy respect and awe for varys's power which most other characters lack.

oh, oh, and let's not forget that she also believed in the curse of harrenhal, from her own childhood and the stories old nan told her kids. "and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed. 'I would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,' Catelyn admitted." sure, that wasn't enough to save robb, but he did not die from the curse of harrenhal. that doom was meant for his enemies from tywin lannister to roose bolton.

[madlori]

On Tommy Kinard

"It's not that I don't like Buck and Tommy, it's just happening so fast, he's underdeveloped!"

*clears throat*

Here is a recap of what we know about Tommy. And this is just off the top of my head, I didn't rewatch anything.

He was closeted at the 118 before and found the atmosphere repressive. He (probably) acted like a dick to fit in. When presented with the chance to make things better, he took it, and developed positive relationships with Hen, Chim and Bobby.

He was in the army and trained there as a pilot.

He knows Muay Thai and has a set up in his house.

He likes to work on cars and has a lift at his house (where TF does he live is my question - he has some nerve being agog at Buck's loft if he has a muay thai gym and a car lift)

He is down for violating departmental policy at the drop of a hat (has done so on at least two occasions) to help a friend and has no problems fucking with the fire chief.

He is a nerd. He likes pub trivia and has incorrect Star Wars opinions, and can keep up with Chim in the movie-quoting department.

His favorite movie is "Love, Actually" and he likes craft beer and monster trucks.

He came out when he transferred to Harbor and felt comfortable enough to stop lying about who he was.

He follows MMA and has friends in Vegas who like him well enough to hook him up to a frankly insane degree.

He'll risk his own life and engage in helicopter skulduggery to save people he doesn't know...I mean, apart from doing that for a living.

He'll take time out of his day to give a tour to the cute boy who called him up and offer to give that boy flying lessons (a significant time investment) which was probably maybe about more one on one time with said boy.

He yearns for the belonging and found family that the 118 became after his departure and probably befriended Eddie hoping to earn a plate at the cookout, aside from just clicking with him.

He likes Eddie and Chris a lot and they like him. Chimney also likes him.

He was attracted to Buck right away and was emotionally aware enough to pick up on Buck's jealous feelings over Eddie and his friendship, even if he was surprised that it was him Buck wanted to get to know.

He respects and values Buck and Eddie's friendship and wanted to make sure Buck knew that.

He's brave enough to shoot his shot by planting one on a dude.

He's a lil bitchy but also generous and ready to throw in with this insane guy who's inviting him to a family wedding after 0.5 dates.

He showed up to a bachelor party when he was on call because Buck asked him to, then showed up in turnouts after fighting a fire for like 12 hours yadda yadda we all know this part.

He has got it BAD for one Evan Buckley, who he only calls "Evan" which according to LFJR is a conscious decision by the writers, which fascinates me.

He was willing to take a chance with a man just discovering his sexuality BUT wasn't willing to put himself through that if the man in question wasn't ready for it. When Buck showed him that he was, he was all in.

He does NOT take his coffee like that.

Oh and

He's a beast.

This is VASTLY more information than we knew about ANY of Buck's previous girlfriends with the possible exception of Abby. Even Taylor did not get this much development over 20 episodes (things we knew about her: she was an ambitious and ethically flexible reporter, did not eat fudge, had a dad in jail, and sometimes jogged for exercise, she was capable of being nice and did love Buck, I believe). And as for it being fast? Sometimes it just be like that? A relationship doesn't have to have year(s) of buildup. Sometimes people do just meet, like each other, and start dating, in fact in the real world that's usually what happens. It's in TV Land that you have to have eighteen seasons of UST before pulling the trigger. Most of the time in reality people just vibe off each other and decide to go out and THEN they learn about each other.

And they've got a great start. You'd think they'd barely spoken by how a few naysayers are talking about it - the loft scene was like a solid five minutes of very open conversation, the Cringe Date seemed to have gone well and again, open and honest (if cringey) conversation before Cockblocker Eddie showed up, and the coffee meetup was again....open and honest conversation. They're not gonna show us long scenes of them exchanging firefighting stories and workout preferences (I mean, I'd watch that, but it's not what the show is about).

In conclusion, anyone saying he's poorly developed or the relationship is "out of nowhere" either is being willfully obtuse or has ridiculously unrealistic expectations for relationships and/or what constitutes character development.

As for whether they have chemistry, that's a matter of subjective opinion. Given that a TON of people watched that harbor tour scene (even when it was posted as a sneak peek) and started going "wait...what's going on here...are they flirting??" might be a clue. People were talking about Bi!Buck maybe happening with Tommy based solely off that clip of the harbor tour and what they were seeing between them. And imho that loft scene was crackling. But we all see things through the lenses of our biases, myself included.

Got that off my chest, whew.

[adelheidvonschicksal]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ It's Like That *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

You decide to accept Itadori's invitation to the movies. It turns out better than expected.

Pairing: Itadori x GN!Reader

CW: Fluff, SFW, hand holding, potential friends to lovers, it's technically a date 💕

“Do you guys want to see Human Earthworm 4 with me?”

The three of you minus Itadori, who posed the question, share a lukewarm look. You’re on the edge of the shopping district, trying to decide what to do after your mission, if anything, and that’s the first idea that floats out amongst the group. 

“What’s it about?” Nobara asks.

After Itadori explains the horror romance, there’s even less enthusiasm amongst the group to watch the movie with him. Sensing this, he ups the bargain.

“I’ll pay.”

You wince when you see Fushiguro pull out his phone. “I don’t really have the energy to sit through a movie,” he excuses himself, fingers going a mile a minute to escape the situation of friendship for today. “I’m going home.”

Your broody classmate holds his ringing phone to his ear and briefly glances at Nobara.

“I’m going to hit up the shops," she responds to his silent question.

Megumi leaves the three of you behind in no time flat. Nobara only stays behind long enough to ask if you want to go shopping with her. While you normally love to go with her and are in dire need of new shoes, you notice a lonely sullen shadow building over your slit-cheeked classmate and throw up an apologetic smile to her. 

“I think I’ll go with Itadori-kun today.”

You miss the way his head perks up as you wave her off. Before you have a chance to collect your thoughts, Itadori is already on top of you, his fists drawn in front of him excitedly and chestnut irises filled with happy stars.

“You’re going to love it,” he tells you. It’s cute how he nearly shakes with excitement, you can even hear it growing in his voice and shining in his eyes. “It’s such a good series! I mean, I know it sounded weird, but it’s so much better on screen that— forget any of what I said, you gotta see for yourself!”

He wastes no time taking off in the direction of the theatre, and you jog to keep up with the speed of the Tiger of the West. It isn’t until he notices you lagging behind that he slows up to grab your hand and pull you with him.

“Come on, come on, we don’t want to miss the opening.”

“Is this one of those movies where I need to see the first three to know what’s going on?”

“Well, there’s a few returning characters, like Dr. Richter, but I can fill you in on the important stuff so don’t worry.”

When you get to the theatre, Itadori immediately jumps in the ticket line, huffing in relief when there are still seats available. You begin to pull out your wallet but pause when he hands you a pink paper ticket.

“I told you it’s on me,” he reminds you before going down the line and ordering a large popcorn, two drinks, and beating you to grab a packet of candy that you were staring at for two seconds too long. 

He hands the bag of sweets to the cashier to scan. “And this please,” he asks before handing the candy to you. 

“That’s okay,” you tell him, but he laughs it off.

“It’s fine. That’s your favorite, right?”

You shyly nod and hold onto the envelope of overpriced candy like it’s the most precious thing in the world causing the cashier to smile at you as she finishes preparing your items.

“Aren’t you two the cutest,” she comments. 

You squeak quietly at her comment, crumpling your candy in surprise. It’s not a big deal she mistook you as a couple, it’s not like Itadori was someone you didn’t like after all, and it’s not like there was any need to correct her but you didn’t know if he felt the same way about the situation. 

Curiously, you look at him, waiting for him to make the decision on the matter. Surprisingly, he blurts out a quick and happy, “Thanks!” before moving on to fill his drink.

As you watch him, you fight the urge to ask why he didn’t correct her; and when you notice that he’s way more interested in finding the right theater, you decide he must have said it because it wasn't worth a fuss.

The two of you get seats at the back of the theater, and you shift over people carefully to avoid falling into Itadori’s back as you find your seats. You can finally relax as he sets the bucket of popcorn on the armrest between you.

Soon enough, the movie begins to play.

It starts off like every normal horror movie. A mad scientist, a hapless victim, and an escape followed by a romantic subplot of the human earthworm discovering that the woman he met indeed loves him even if he is a worm. 

That’s about as much as you can keep up with. There are too many easter eggs that keep flying over your head and too many callbacks to the previous movies in the series. Itadori does his best to try to help you whenever you whisper questions at him; but eventually, you’re too distracted by the couple in front of you making out to pay attention to the movie.

It’s so obnoxiously grotesque, their arms wrapping around each other and a soft moan every so often that’s drowned out by the guttural sounds of the earthworm children. You can’t really believe they’d do that in public, and why did they have to be so close to you out of all people?

Itadori looks at you and then finally catches on to what’s making you squirm. When he does, a faint hint of red starts to coat across his nose, and he becomes equally uncomfortable. 

Deciding to make it a little better for the both of you, you nudge him then make a silly disgusted face with your tongue stuck out to mimic a gag. You’re rewarded with a snicker from him and his own silly face in turn, and it makes the awkwardness of it a little easier to take as you try to focus back on the movie.

It’s another half hour in before you wonder exactly how the hell are they still going at it. 

“Society really needs to bring shame back,” you think before a warm breath hits your ear and fans down your jaw. 

You nearly jump before the smooth sounds of Itadori’s voice greet you. 

“So, that guy—” he begins but you’re way too focused on how close he leaned into you this time, how low the timbre of his voice goes to keep from disturbing those around you. It makes your feet curl in your shoes and your breath catch in your chest when his shoulder connects with your arm.

You feel heightened to his presence and the heat of him so close. It wasn’t like this earlier, but your heart is racing and your skin tickles the more he whispers. You think he’s so close that he could almost kiss your earlobe. 

It’s a path that you didn’t know you had in your mind, and it leaves you rattled as the smallest brush of pink hair hits your skin as he straightens back up and reaches for another handful of popcorn. 

Every time he touches your arm after to get your attention or your hand scoops by his in the popcorn bucket, you start to become flustered and jittery like a child after too much sugar. 

It lasts until the movie reaches its apex.

There’s a combined scream that fills the theatre, and you tense at the splatter of blood hitting the camera, leaving the few remains of your popcorn scattered across the floor as you unwittingly knock it over and squeeze Itadori’s hand tight. 

Your fingers slot with his and your fingertips bury against his palm, and it’s the only thing keeping you from bursting into a scream. 

When the lights flash back on, you notice how pink his hand looks under your tense hold and mumble out an apology. 

“Oh, that?” he asks followed by the same charming laugh as always. “It was pretty funny. You should’ve seen your face, like a blowfish,” he comments, teasingly mocking your blow-eyed expression as everyone around you begins to exit. “I never took you for a scaredy-cat.”

“You’re one to talk. You screamed in my ear at least a dozen times,” you remind him as the two of you also make your way towards the exit doors. “Sounded like you were on fire.”

“Don’t say fire in a theatre!” he scolds with a hiss.

“You said it louder.”

“To remind you not to say it!” 

You giggle at how offended he sounds as you break out into the light of the late afternoon. You walk with Itadori back to your pickup spot on the edge of the shopping district. It’s surprisingly quiet especially considering who you’re with, and it makes you worry a bit. 

You thought Itadori would be more excited after watching the film and practically forcing you to run 500m dash to get there, but he’s barely said two words about it since leaving the theatre, briefly mentioning how he’s still glad they used a real costume for the main earthworm instead of CGI.

But since leaving, his mood seems to have dampened. You thought about bringing something up from the movie, but you couldn’t really catch more than a few bloody scenes and a little evil monologuing from Dr. Richter outside the moments when Itadori would have your attention, with his voice in your ear or his hand excitedly clasping around your wrist each time he enthusiastically info-dumped a scene to you.

“Hey, um,” he begins piquing your interest. He seems to lose his nerve when you catch his eye; his gaze flutters to his feet before nervously picking back up to glimpse at your face but only for a few seconds. “Thanks for coming with me.”

You smile. “Don’t mention it. It was…different.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees but he still seems down. 

“Itadori-kun? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah…It’s just…I could tell you didn’t really like the movie. I mean I knew from the start it wasn’t really your thing. You and Nobara usually like to shop together more than watch horror movies. But still—” he breathes in deep, a shy color blossoming across his face. “It’s been a while since it felt like I did something normal, so it was really nice having someone to come with me. I appreciate it.”

There's something about his explanation that makes your heart hurt. He hasn’t been a sorcerer that long yet; and coming from being a normal kid to the world you were born into was probably scarier than you all could understand. 

“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it! I just couldn’t really follow the story between that annoying couple smacking the whole time, and I felt like I barely follow anything at all!” you reason with him, but he still has that kicked puppy look on his face. 

You sigh with soft empathy before offering him a reassuring smile.

“Hey, Itadori-kun, you know I think I’d like to come back and see it again with you. After we watch the first three movies of course."

He gives you a curious look, his eyebrows raised with disbelief. 

“Really?”

You give a cute and short nod. “Mhm! I can’t really give it a fair chance if I haven’t seen the ones leading up to it. Besides, I want to know why Dr. Richter was trying to kidnap the baby H.E.s in the first place? Couldn’t he make more Enhanced H.E.s from the DNA left from the original experiment victim like he did at the beginning of the movie?” 

It’s like you open the skies back over him when your words sink in, and he moves so happily, speaks so fully, and it makes you happy to see him simply be happy. 

“They explain it so good in the third movie,” he says, unable to hold in his excitement. “I know a great site, it has subtitles and everything, and a special director’s cut at the end of the second movie.”

You laugh. “Sounds good!”

“We should pick up some more snacks; the original is actually pretty long,” he warns and starts to lead you towards the convenience store. Your smile only breaks when you feel the tug on your arm and look down to notice his hand still fastened around yours. 

You freeze, feeling your face warm a bit when you realize he’s probably been holding it since before you left the theater. This makes him pause and turn towards you.

Softly, he calls your name and asks if you’re okay, making you drop your head bashfully.

“Oh, it’s nothing really but you’re still holding my hand,” you point out.

Itadori looks down between the two of you and confirms that his fingers are still locked with yours, a comfortable fit.  

“Huh, oh, I guess I am,” he states matter-of-factly before he blushes. “Oh, it’s probably all gross and oily right? Yuck.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s not actually,” you correct, making no move to force him to let go because you honestly don’t want him to stop this good feeling pouring from him into you through the simple act. 

Your soft expression makes his cheeks warm for a different reason this time. 

“Oh, well, w-we should probably hurry,” he stammers out, and your hand tightens around his hand just a little bit more as you agree and find the closest convenience store to prepare for your first movie night. 

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

Nobara stops outside the convenience store, hand to the glass as she stalks back and forth, trying to catch glimpses down the aisle. 

She could have sworn she just saw the two of you walk in from the other side of the street, and she was going to come to say hi – partially to ask how the movie went and partially to make Itadori carry her shopping bags if the two of you were done – that was before she noticed how close the two of you looked.

Weirdly close. 

When she finally catches you in the foggy glass, hand in hand, looking at the mini gacha inside the store, she gasps and quickly shuffles her bags around in search of her phone. 

Kugisaki quickly scrolls through her contacts, impatiently tapping her foot as she waited for the line to pick up.

“Fushiguro get here quick,” she harshly whispers into the device.

There’s a lazy voice on the other end asking what she wants, and she vaguely explains the situation to be met with resistance.

“Well then have Ijichi drop you off again! What do you mean ‘No’?" she growls. "Shut up and listen to me. They just went into 7/11. Ugh. Fine, fine, I’m sending you some pictures,” she argues. 

Kugisaki quickly starts to snap some pictures through the glass and frantically sends them off before bringing the phone back to her ear.

“That’s what I’m saying so hurry up and get here! Yes, it’s like that!”