#Container Conversions UK

[randrspaces]

Converted Shipping Containers Conversions in the UK 

Explore innovative container conversions in the UK with R & R Spaces. Our converted shipping containers redefine space utilization, and we offer the best options for exclusive needs. From cozy homes to stylish offices and trendy retail spaces, we connect originality with functionality to transform ordinary containers into extraordinary environments. To learn more about Converted Shipping Containers visit our website.

[octaneink]

‘Cause I'm alive when I feel you pressed up to my side

James Marriot x Fem!Reader

Summary : James simps through music Warnings : None (Unless you count me writing James as a sap) Notes : I saw the pictures taken by vap0rize_ on TikTok and my mind spiraled. I am so sorry if this is out of character for James. It is also based on a song called Happy Slides by Daily J!

The sun had barely crested the horizon as James stared out of the dust-splattered window of the tour bus with a notebook and pen in hand, his heart once again feeling heavier than the luggage stored beneath him. The vast, warm and bright expanse of the Australian motorway stretched before him, a stark contrast to the cosy flat in Brighton he'd left behind in the UK with the girl who'd captured his heart. The quiet hum of the engine had been his lullaby for days, a deafening contrast to the music he performed and the roars of crowds at each event.

The band members were scattered throughout the bus. Jago knocked out on one of the chairs with a pair of eye masks and ear plugs on, Matt and Jono individually flipped through well-worn dog-eared pages of books. Sam sat quietly moving his fingers on his guitar, mindful of making any noise, and Lou sat at the wheel.

James tapped his pen on the book, the page made looked like it had more things crossed out rather than actually containing legible words. The most recognisable being ‘song for you’, which made him think. Would you see it as cheesy? Would you even want a song dedicated to you? The both of you had only been officially dating for five months, slowly dancing around each other for eight, and been friends for two years. Was he coming on too strong?

Huffing, he flipped back a few pages to where the lyrics began. His pen hovered over the words, lightly tracing the lines he'd scribbled down weeks ago late in the night. The words bringing memories that held a warmth that bloomed deep within his chest, a melody of a time he struggled to capture at the moment. 

The words were created weeks ago before James left for his newest tour. Harsh winds shaking the bins under the window of their shared flat. The flat itself was warm, cosy, with a strong smell of aromatics as his girlfriend cooked their last meal they’d share for a while, and the occasional meow from Otto. James smiled softly and stared adoringly at her as every time the cat meowed, she’d respond in return, pretending to hold a conversation with him. 

He felt like a disgusting sap every time he thought about anything that was related to her. Her infectious laughter, and how the way her smile had a way of reaching into his very being — where one look, he’d melt, any stress he’d feel before having magically disappear. In the small, shared space, she had become more — his muse.

The pages fluttered as he flicked through them, revealing a photo of the three of them taped to the inside cover of the notebook. It was a Polaroid, peeling at the edges, the tape lifting as James did this for the 3rd time when he got a new notebook. She was cuddling Otto in her arms, while he had one of his arms around her waist. She faced the camera, eyes squinting slightly, with smile lines sprouted from them, while he looked at her with an utterly lovestruck expression it made his head hurt. Before her, he didn’t know he could look at anyone like that.

James blinked back to the warm tour bus as he read the words again. “Let's never leave this room.” he mouthed to himself, the memory of her voice echoing in his mind. The three lines on the page had come to him as naturally as her smile had stolen his heart—unexpected, unassuming, and utterly captivating. 

Though, he struggled to complete the piece. 

“James, you okay, mate?” Lou, peered at him through the rearview mirror, his eyes bleary with the remnants of last night's sleep and today’s early rise.

James looked up, his gae lingering on the horizon. “Yea mate, just tired.” he answered.

Lou nodded, the minutes pass between them in silence, then the bus lurched suddenly. “Shite.” Lou spat, turning the indicator to merge safely into the hard shoulder. The engine thwapping through the way, before it gave one last, loud, thwap and sputtered to a halt. 

The sudden silence was jarring, and the lads looked at one another with a mixture of shock and annoyance. 

“Bloody tour bus.” Matt muttered from the back, breaking the silence, and a round of groans and complaints ensued.

“Right,” he said as the others started to get up, “I’ll sit somewhere and keep out of the way. I doubt I would be of any help.” Noises of agreement bid him goodbye as he walked out of the tour bus with what he had on hand. As he walked away from it, he placed the pen as a bookmark and closed the notebook with an audible snap. Then, walking over the short metal fence, he sat on it facing the bush. 

A few minutes passed of him mindlessly humming an imaginary tune, then his mind raced with a sudden spark of inspiration. He knew he had to write it down it before it slipped away. He turned back to his notebook, the lyrics that had once felt so elusive now flowed from his pen like a river released from its dam.

The words picked up from the picture of their lives together in Brighton—the way the light hit their living room when she drank her morning cup, the sound of her socked feet on the wooden floor as she danced around Otto, who chased the cat toy in her hand playfully. 

As the bus sat there, a silent sentinel on the side of the road, James wrote until his hand cramped. He didn’t notice the passing cars, the sun rising higher in the sky, or the sound of his bandmates talking with a stranger about the breakdown. The only thing that mattered at that moment was the symphony of words that played out on the page before him.

Finally, with the sound of a distant tow truck approaching, he scribbled down the last word, with the tune clearer in his mind, he smiled broadly staring down at it. 

In the back, the driver of the tow truck climbed out, a burly man with an interesting hair cut and a kind smile. “Looks like you’ve got a loose fan belt, lads. We’ll have you sorted in no time.”

James nodded absently, his mind still lost in the world he’d just created in his notebook. As the band members moved to stand by him, and with the mechanic tinkering away, he remained seated on the metal fence, the song becoming clearer and clearer as the moments passed by. 

Humming the tune absent-mindedly and tapping the pen on his thigh as the beat caught the attention of Jogo. He looked over silently at James’ notebook, reading the words on it, a smile slowly started to spread across his face, “You fucking sap.” 

James startled, looking over him and seeing Jogo’s smug smile. James rolled his eyes. 

“What do you mean by that?” James replied, playing it off as if he wasn’t aware of what he had done.

Jogo snickered. “Don't play dumb with me. You've got hearts in your eyes and her name paraphrased multiple times all over your page.”

James felt his cheeks warm, and he quickly slapped the notebook shut. “It's just a song.”

The band members, having heard the exchange, gathered around curiously. “What's he got?” Matt asked, peering over Jogo's shoulder.

Jogo pointed the notebook out. “Looks like James here is feeling romantic. And he's been keeping it from us.”

James rolled his eyes again, “It's just an idea. Nothing serious.”

But the excitement on their face was palpable. “Come on, man,” Sam said, clapping him on the back, “Don't hold out on us. What's the new tune?”

With a sigh, James realised he couldn’t keep it from them any longer. He'd written it for her, but he didn’t expect the others to know of it so soon. “Okay,” he said, “But if it's shit, you can't laugh.”

The guys chuckled and stood closer around him, expression eager. He began to hum softly, the pen tapping on his thigh with a beat, then he took a deep breath and began to sing.

As melody grew, filling the surrounding space, and their eyes lit up as they recognised the potential. “That's a hit, James!” Jono said, clapping his hands.

James felt his cheeks flush under their praise. “It's just the start, really. Nothing special yet.”

But their enthusiasm was infectious, and each of them asked questions on what part they fit into as they drove off in the newly fixed tour bus. And as they pulled up to the new hotel near the venue they would play the night, Lou said “We'll make it something special, mate.” said with a grin, already tapping the rhythm on the steering wheel of the bus.

So, every night before they went on stage, they'd gather around on the stage, dim lights as production set up around them. James with his guitar, Sam with his bass, Jago with the drums, Lou with the keys, Matt and Jono on their guitars. They'd play around with the melody, adding bits and pieces, turning James' quiet confession into something that could shake people’s hearts.

The song grew into something that didn't just belong to James any more, but to all of them. It was a piece of their collective heart, a love letter to a girl they hadn't met but knew well through James' stories.

The days leading up to the last concert were a whirlwind of rehearsals and whispers. The band dropped hints to their eager fans through social media, building anticipation. Edits on TikTok popped up with a silhouette of James and his guitar, with the words 'Surprise at the end??' were in bold in the video’s descriptions. Many fans not in Australia called for the last concert to be streamed illegally. As for the people that were there, they were vibrating with excitement as the date grew closer. 

The hours before the last concert, James sat in the hotel room, his heart racing as he went over the lyrics for the final time. He could hear the muffled sounds of the city outside, but all he could see was her face, imagining her reaction to this song. He hoped it would reach her in Brighton, that she'd feel the same way he felt when he wrote it—alive.

As the sun set on the last day of their tour, the band's nerves were palpable. They'd been playing together for a while, but this was different. This song was personal, a secret shared with a crowd of strangers. The venue was packed, the lights were hot, and the air was thick with anticipation. The crowd roared as they took the stage, and James looked out into the sea of faces.

The setlist flew by, each song a stepping stone to the grand finale. The energy built, and the crowd sang along to their favorites, their voices a symphony of love and longing that echoed through the speakers. 

And then it was time. 

The stage went dark. A single spotlight fell on the band, and Jogo started the song with his drums, teasing a quiet introduction. The rest waited, their instruments poised, ready to bring the song to life.

The crowd, once lively, was silent, holding their breath for James to start singing. 

As they played, James couldn't help but think of her, her laugh, her smell, the way she'd look at him when he played her his favourite tunes. He sang with every ounce of his soul, hoping she could feel it, hoping she knew it was for her. And as the last chord rang out and the applause erupted, he knew he had given her a piece of himself that no one else could ever claim.

The aftermath of the show was a blur. 

One moment he was on stage singing his heart out for the world to see, then he was in the quiet hotel room, luggage packed for his return home in the morning. 

He picked up his phone, his thumb hovering over her number. He'd call her when the dust settled, when he could finally hear his heartbeat without the deafening applause. He had so much to say, so much to tell her about the journey this song had taken him on. But for now, he leaned back in the bed and closed his eyes, the echoes of the music still playing in his ears, a promise of what was to come when he finally returned home.

The flight home was a blur of airport terminals, screaming people, and sleeplessness, but the moment his feet touched the ground in London Gatwick, his tiredness evaporated. He took the earliest train, then a cab straight to their flat. It was late, and the lights were on when he arrived.

He knew she'd be waiting.

James placed the key into the lock, turning the key and stepped through the door. He removed his shoes, put on some slippers and took of his coat, hanging it up by the door. Then he walked into the livingroom. He saw her, curled up on the sofa with Otto in her arms. 

She looked up, her eyes lighting up when she saw him, and for a moment, he forgot all about the tour, the bus breakdown, the song. They rushed into each other's arms, and everything felt right again.

“Welcome home.” he hugged her tighter, “We missed you.”

He pressed a kiss on her head, “I missed you both too.” 

James moved them so they sat at the sofa, limbs intertwined “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

She smiled mischeviously up at him “Oh, I think I may have an idea.” pecked him on the lips “I think everyone online has an idea.”

James felt his cheeks redden slightly “Well, it's not like I was keeping it a secret or anything...”

They both laughed, and she cuddled closer into him, her head resting on his chest as they sat on the sofa. Otto jumped up and nestled in between them, purring contentedly.

“But seriously, James, it's beautiful. Thank you.” she said, her voice filled with genuine admiration.

He kissed the top of her head, and they sat there watching the tv “It's true, you know.” he said, looking at her.

Her eyes sparkled with happiness as she looked up at him, then she leaned in to press a lingering kiss to his lips. “I know.” she murmured, smiling. James puled her tighter to his side as her next words left her lips, “Let's never leave this room. What do you say? ‘Cause I'm alive when I feel you pressed up to my side”

I will say it with full CHEST, when I saw those pictures taken by vap0rize_.... IT WAS OVER

I HAD NO THOUGHTS LEFT

I felt absolutely filthy I had to make something cute to make up for it. I hope I hit the mark!

On another note this is the song that inspired this fic. Idk how to make it smaller 😞

[calolily]

You know what? I’m tired of this. I’m not responsible for the anon post about Gewhana. If I had done it I would have put my name on it, I’m no coward. I will say this with my whole chest.

The people harassing me and slandering me are:

Ethan- @nerdepic aka- @ethanillustrations - aka @wizardpregant there are more as he makes new accounts every other day to evade blocking.

Sam- @gewhanaa

And their friends in Ethan’s clique.

Back in November- December Gewhana made an anonymous hate blog that targeted the owner of Bloodweave sanctuary Discord. I moderated this Discord server. I was dragged along with the owner Pandora who was driven out of the fandom and is no longer my friend as a direct result of Gewhana’s actions. 400+ members of Sanctuary lost their community. Many are still mourning the loss of the server myself included.

The anon blog was a targeted attack against Pandora because of mod actions they took against Gewhana on a previous server regarding MJ and it was a vendetta that Gewhana still holds.

I have never retaliated against Gewhana for doing this.

When I found out who was behind the blog I blocked them but we shared a server for a zine we were both on.

I had never shared a server with someone I had blocked before so I reached out to the mods for guidance on whether I could leave the server since my contribution was complete or if they needed me to stay and what I should do.

I explained the situation with screen shots of the blog and told them how I felt. I never asked for Gewhana to be removed.

These are the screen shots of the full interaction with the zine mods. (Under the cut at the end)

Gewhana ran to several friends and spoke out on other servers and openly bashed me saying I was throwing my weight around trying to get them banned from a the zine. I did no such thing. They were getting a talking to as a consequence of their own actions and they tried to blame me. To frame me as a bully for asking for guidance from the mods. Any action the mods took was within their own judgment.

As you can see from my reaction to them telling me Gewhana was staying on the zine after making a really hollow and I feel a PR show of an apology (under duress) with no real contrition. All the same, I accepted it to keep the peace on the zine. This is where their targeted harassment began.

After this Gewhana has repeatedly harassed me and Ayvaines even though they are blocked. I have done moderated conversation with them to try and ask them to leave me alone. I begged to be left alone and they didn’t relent. They were recently banned from BW Brainrot Discord for this harassment and for brigaiding against another friend of mine at Ethan’s behest.

Someone he has been harassing continuously for 4 almost 5 years. Someone that has said nothing to him or about him in all that time and blocks every new alt account he makes to stalk them.

He has two police reports against him now. One that was a written warning to stop and now a second because he has kept going. Hopefully he will end up in jail after the amount of evidence of his behavior that was provided this time. Thankfully the laws in the UK are more stringent about cyber bullying and harassment.

The only reason I EVER found out Ethan’s name was because of lil’ hiro coming into my patreon DMs to spread a google doc full of private screen shots from DMs belonging to someone else. Screen shots of a private break up where my friend was hurt and confused, in an attempt to get me to join their harassment and witch-hunt against this friend.

I in the most polite and professional way I could declined interest in joining their witch hunt. And they became aggressive. I refunded their sub and blocked them. They came into my patreon DMs because this behavior is against Discord tos and they were avoiding a report. I believe this whole heartedly.

The doc they use to try and sell their narrative of my friend being an abuser and being problematic, contains emotional reactions that are completely normal with a sudden break up. They make allegations of non-consensual sexual conduct- these are also lies and intentionally misleading. The person they are saying was assaulted made no such allegations. Ethan aggressively insists he knows what happened and that my friend is a predator because he says so. The alleged victim said it was consensual and Ethan still (as a third uninvolved party) insists it wasn’t. It’s suspicious to me that Ethan’s romantic advances had been spurned by my friend soon before this harassment began. What was it Shakespeare said about someone scorned?

My friend never told me who Ethan was before that point.

These people act ugly and nasty on their main accounts. They are outwardly aggressive and mean. They are misogynistic and hateful to women. They are transphobic and misgender people they don’t like just to be hurtful. They blame me for every consequence of their own actions and I am tired of hearing about it.

I am a kind person. I am a patient person but I am not a doormat.

I will not lie down and take the slander and bullying any longer.

I am not a soulless emotionless monolith. I am a person with feelings and I care deeply for my friends and they care for me.

I have never done anything to these people or retaliated in any way when they make hate blogs and call out blogs slandering me. They get banned from projects because of what they do publicly. People notice.

They think I’m some super villain pulling all the strings against them because they can’t take any responsibility for their actions.

I hear about the nasty things they say and do from friends that find their comments and things they post on anonymous platforms. I have all of them blocked and they still harass and watch my every move looking for things to harass me about.

I left all public discords for this reason.

I’ve tried ignoring. I’ve tried mediation. I’ve tried blocking.

If I am not left alone, I will be contacting appropriate law enforcement and any licensing boards, colleges, and work places and reporting their behavior. Any place I can find to make sure they have real world consequences for their actions. I am through taking the abuse.

I have seen ample evidence of their behavior and abuse spewed from their own mouths. They have no proof of their lies against me and my friends. Because there is none to have.

We are adults here and when you harass, berate and slander an adult there are real world consequences.

This isn’t high school. You won’t be getting detention and slap on the wrist for bullying several people to near suicide. You will lose things.

My only crime this whole time is supporting friends that have been harassed and stalked and bullied. They see me as a threat because I have a moderately sized following. I can protect my friend a little with my good reputation. So they are trying to ruin it. It’s insidious and disgusting and I’m tired of letting it slide.

I am very close to washing my hands of this entire fandom and receding to my private server and patreon only. I share my creations publicly because I want to. I don’t care about followings or clout. I have certainly enjoyed the support and the dialogue with people that enjoy what I do, but these people are making it extremely difficult for me to want to put myself out there.

None of those harassment of ME matters. The only reason I am still involved is to protect my friend and support them. It’s a catch 22 if I didn’t care about and support my friend, they wouldn’t harass me.

This is the last anyone will hear from me on this matter. Sorry for the long post. No fandom tags here. This is personal.

[madeinhell666]

Seo Moon-jo's psychology

This Korean horror series, Strangers From Hell has one of the most psychologically thrilling plot to me in a while.

So the main antaganist, (the cannibalistic cult leader) Seo Moon-jo's psychology is so interesting to me. He knows that all the people he has control over are weird, gross, immoral and insane, yet he doesn't mind it. He actually loves it and encourages it. He loves seeing people embrace their true selves, the parts of them that he knows exactly how to bring out. He doesn't really need them to do what he wants, but he finds it useful, and in return for letting them live, he has them under his control. He doesn't need help, and he doesn't really mind if he's in control or not, but he knows people. He knows every little part of them, down to how they think and act in every situation. He's always prepared for anything. Moon-jo doesn't need to be in control, but he does love seeing people be willing to do anything and everything just to please him. They'll do anything to not be tortured, killed, and eaten. That being said, he's so involved and and in love with his work, that if anyone tries to intervere with it, he won't stand by and let it happen. He's said this himself. If his following don't want to fall victim to his work, they'll do what he says. He's naturally and mentally strong, so it doesn't matter to him if people go against him. He'll win anyway.

However, he doesn't feel any need to control then his obsession, Jong-woo (the main protaganist). He sees himself in him, he sees how much he needs to act on his strong urges for violence. Jong-woo might reason that people are horrible and piss him off enough that he can't contain his anger anymore to the point of extreme violence. While Moon-jo senses that he just is a violent person for the love of it. That just like his obsession, he loves the taste of beating people down within inches of their lives. He loves to see people beg to not get hurt by them. He loves the feeling of panic and heat within his victims veins. He thinks it's so funny seeing the true nature of people come out when pushed far enough. Moon-jo just can't get enough of pushing people and them acting on it - even against him, if he loves them enough. Jong-woo is his current obsession and so in love with him that he wants him to be violent against him as well. He might not want people to disobey him, but for someone like that, he's willing to do anything to make him lash out against him. He wants to hurt as well, but only by someone special just like him.

It's just, I love how insane and complex he is. He even says in response to Jong-woo asking why he does what he does, "there's no particular reason". There's really not besides the fact that he just loves it. Even if there is a tragic backstory or some justified reasons for being this way, it doesn't matter in the whole grand sceme of it all. The fact of the matter is, he believes society would be better if people just say what they want and be how they really are, violent or not. No tiptoeing around conversations or faking theirselves to look good for others. He doesn't want people to be fake, especially not with him. That's why the people that he teaches and guides look and act weird around outsiders. Most people aren't used to seeing people not put on a mask for them to be accepted in society.

"I can't be killed, not when there's so many of me in the world." Whether it was Moon-jo or Jong-woo saying this, it holds true for anyone. There's so many people in the world, that everyone starts repeating and acting either like others or themselves. No matter if it's the united states of america, the uk, australia, or korea, society is the same. People falling in line with others around them. Its truly once people are separated from it, in like-minded groups or by themselves, that people feel free to drop their masks and just be their actual selves.

When Jong-woo states to another new outsider from the hell he lives in that he gets along with, "it finally feels like home here with you", it seems he still finds comfort at this time in the familiarity of someone that society deems normal. Its true that people feel more comfortable with familiarity, which can help but can also hurt. Jong-woo made a bad decision to stay at the dangerous place because he had finally made a normal innocent friend there. He gets a taste of normality again after feeling so out of place there and at work and with his girlfriend. Because of this, Moon-jo fears his progress he made with Jong-woo will be for naught, and his obsessive project will be ruined. Its another example of him getting rid of any obstruction to his work.

Moon-jo loves to bring the worst but true colors out in people by pushing them to their breaking point and further, until they either give in to his whim or they die trying to escape his evil doings.

The message of this series is open for interpretation and the ending is ambiguous, so this is just my take on it. There may not be reason given in the show for the cult leader to be how he is, despite him pointing out that this is people's true nature when pushed far enough. It's even pointed out to him that most people don't do what he does. I believe his reasoning is pales to the fact that he just loves it. Everyone has their own battles and tragedies in life, but very few act like he does. His upbringing from an already insane orphanage owner (and possible abuse before that, given he has lifelong scars on his arms that he always covers up) could be how he was molded and manipulated into becoming, or it's how he was simply born. Perhaps it's a combination of both; the psychology field theorizes that how people behave, act, think, and feel are a result of both nature and nurture, and not one or the other.

There is just so much to uncover in this show, despite it being only 10 episodes long and came out in 2019, so there's unfortunately an unlikely chance for there to be a second season. I just love figuring out people/characters and their psychology.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this korean show!

[our-trans-punk-experience]

WARNING for trans america

Regarding the U.S. v. Skrmetti case, which challenges Tenessee state law prohibiting trans youth recieving any affirming medical care, being heard in the supreme court I have this below quote from anti-trans group "Our Duty".

"Various gender critical groups are coordinating a rally that will occur in Washington, D.C. on DECEMBER 4, 2024.  The transgender activists will be there in force, and we need to be there too."

If you were planning to stand in, there will be multiple groups such as Our Duty standing there. Now Our Duty is largely a parent group, so trans youth might want to watch out for that. If your parents ask questions about your experience of transition, be warned that Our Duty files amicus briefs (extra information testimonial petitions) to the supreme court taking testimony from its members about the lives of their trans children. They file similar amicus briefs to any trans-related case in both the US and the UK.

Below is the heading paragraph of the amicus brief they have submitted to the supreme court ahead of the Skrmetti case

"Parents of gender-dysphoric children are given false choices: treat your child with off-label use of cancer-drugs, experimental cross-sex hormones, and surgeries—or lose your child to suicide or the state. Parents seeking to avoid unproven treatments do so in fear of being investigated for abuse and losing custody of their children. To avoid these tragedies, Tennessee and Kentucky enacted statutes (collectively, the “Acts”) to safeguard children’s bodies and futures. See Tenn. Code §§ 68-33-101–110; Ky. Rev. Stat. § 311.372. The Acts are constitutional and should be upheld."

This brief also contains dozens and dozens of parent testimonials about their children's experience. I know none of these children, and some of them very well have simply experimented with gender before concluding they were cis, but many of these seem to be terrifying stories of conversion therapy. And regardless of what truth lies behind these stories, parents second hand testimony of the trans experience should not be used to make life worse for all trans children. Some of these stories are about these peoples children who are actually over 18 and so should not be considered at all in this case. And none of these children gave their consent for their stories to be shared.

At the end of this post i realise it might be a bit incoherent and not exactly follow one thread through. so ask follow ups about the case or about Our Duty if you want and ffs stay safe out there punks, and stay sharp. Tell your friends you love them

[mariacallous]

Salman Rushdie has just published Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. In August 2022, he was giving a talk at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey, rushed the stage and stabbed him 15 times. It was astonishing that Salman survived. He lost the sight in one eye and sustained terrible injuries, but he’s still with us and he’s still writing, and unlike Hadi Matar, he’s still worth hearing.

We think of fanatics as stalkers with an obsessive knowledge of their targets.  Like the antisemites who compile lists of Jews in the media or the homophobes who so focus on the details of gay sex they might almost be closet cases

Most terrorists and bigots are not like that. They are like soldiers in an army who kill and hate for no other reason than tradition or men in authority have told them to kill and hate. If we were less fascinated by the pseudo-glamour of violence, we would see them for what they are: dullards and jerks.

In Knife Salman is almost as angered by the sheer lazy stupidity of his wannabee assassin as his violence.

“I do not want to use his name in this account. My Assailant, my would-be Assassin, the Asinine man who made Assumptions about me, and with whom I had a near-lethal Assignation … I have found myself thinking of him, perhaps forgivably, as an Ass.”

The ass “didn’t bother to inform himself about the man he decided to kill. By his own admission he read barely two pages of my writing and watched a couple of YouTube videos”.

That was enough, apparently, along with a little light indoctrination in the Levant.

We know from Matar’s mother that her son changed from a popular young man to a moody religious zealot after visiting her ex-husband in the Hezbollah-controlled town of Yaroun in Lebanon, a mile or so from the Israeli border.

“I was expecting him to come back motivated, to complete school, to get his degree and a job. But instead, he locked himself in the basement. He had changed a lot. He didn't say anything to me or his sisters for months.”

Salman quotes a wonderfully perceptive line from Jodi Picoult

“If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”

Rushdie is openly contemptuous, as he has every right to be.

“I see you now at twenty-four,” he writes, “already disappointed by life, disappointed in your mother, your sisters, your father, your lack of boxing talent, your lack of any talent at all; disappointed in the bleak future you saw stretching ahead of you, for which you refused to blame yourself.”

This has always been the way. Readers old enough to remember 1989 when the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Salman’s execution for writing a blasphemous satire of Islam’s origin story in the Satanic Verses,will know that Khomeini had not read it. Nor had the furious demonstrators in the streets or the regressive leftists and Tory ministers who upbraided him for the non-crime of causing offence.

Those of us who had read the book pointed out that it was a magical realist fiction which contained sympathetic accounts of the racism Muslim immigrants in the UK suffered. Indeed, the Tories of the day loathed Salman, we continued, because of his confrontations with official racism.

But after a while we fell silent. Pleading with his enemies felt demeaning. It gave them undeserved credit, as if they were reasonable people, who could be swayed by evidence rather than just, well, pillocks.

In Knife Salman attempts an imaginary conversation with his persecutor.

OK, he says, Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, holds that man is not made in God’s image. God has no human qualities, it says.

But isn’t language a human quality? To have language, God would have to have a mouth, a tongue, vocal cords and a voice, just like a man. The terrorist’s understanding is that God cannot be like a man, however. So, God could not have spoken to Gabriel in Arabic. Gabriel must have translated his message when he came to the prophet.

The angel made it comprehensible to Muhammed by delivering it in human speech which is not the speech of God.

Thus, the version of Islamic instruction Matar received in his basement when he switched from playing video games to listening to Imams was an interpretation of a translation.

“I’m trying to suggest to you that, even according to your own tradition, there is uncertainty. Some of your own early philosophers have suggested this. They say everything can be interpreted, even the Book. It can be interpreted according to the times in which the interpreter lives. Literalism is a mistake.”

For a while, Rushdie says he wants to meet Matar again at the trial, as if he wants to have the argument in the flesh.

He tells a story about Samuel Beckett, which could only have happened to Samuel Beckett.

Beckett was walking through Paris in 1938 when he was confronted by a pimp named Prudent, who wanted money from him. Beckett pushed Prudent away, whereupon the pimp pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest, narrowly missing the left lung and the heart.

Beckett was taken to the nearest hospital, bleeding heavily. He only just survived.

You will never guess who paid for his treatment. James Joyce, of course, he did.

Anyway, Beckett went to the pimp’s trial. He met Prudent in the courtroom, and asked him why he had done it. This was the pimp’s reply: “Je ne sais pas, monsieur. Je m’excuse.” (I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.)

But the more he thought about it, the less Rushdie had to say to his enemy. The idea that you can have theological arguments with a man who wants to kill you for writing a book he hasn’t even read felt ridiculous.

Although popular culture is full of stories about murderers, and true crime podcasts top the charts, killers and fanatics are nearly always less interesting than their victims. More often than not they are just thick. Nasty and vicious, but thick first of all.

We are about to see the stupidity of fanatics deployed on a mass scale. Two thirds of Republican voters (and nearly 3 in 10 Americans) continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and that Joe Biden was not lawfully elected. They think it because that is what Trump told them to think.

Islamists told Matar that Salman was an apostate, and that was all he needed to know. Trump told Republicans the election was stolen and ditto.

If Republicans were consistent people, they would not vote for Trump in 2024. What would be the point? They would have every reason to fear that the deep state would rig the 2024 presidential election as it rigged the 2020 presidential election.

But they will vote for him because, once again, that is what he tells them to do.

In the end there is a limit to how much attention you can pay the vicious and the stupid.

They are not interesting enough, as Rushdie concluded with marvellous disdain as he contemplated the life sentence Matar will face.

"Here we stand: the man who failed to kill an unarmed seventy-five-year-old writer, and the now 76-year-old writer. Somewhat to my surprise, I find I have very little to say to you. Our lives touched each other for an instant and then separated. Mine has improved since that day, while yours has deteriorated. You made a bad gamble and lost. I was the one with the luck… Perhaps, in the incarcerated decades that stretch out before you, you will learn introspection, and come to understand that you did something wrong. But you know what? I don’t care. This, I think, is what I have come to this courtroom to say to you. I don’t care about you, or the ideology that you claim to represent, and which you represent so poorly. I have my life, and my work, and there are people who love me. I care about those things.”

[disneyprincemuke]

in another life * fem!driver au

"if not in this universe, do you think we're at least together in another?" "there has to be at least one where we're happy."

i HAVE SUCCUMBEDDD TO THE VOICEESSSSSS THE VOICESSSSSSS AHHHHHH

and my demons bc here we are :/

this is more smaus and shorter blurbs just because i don't wanna get too attached to logan and my literal fictional character being together huhuhuhu

could've been -> in which logan decided to make a move on her after her confession instead of ignoring his feelings and eventually getting over it

everything at 18, but nothing at 22 -> in which the drastic difference in their performance in their career seems to finally be catching up to them

they ask, “do you have a man?” -> in which everyone is curious why the grid princess is still single despite instagram posts from them seem to be giving out another narrative

is it just platonic? -> in which she and logan can’t help but flirt with each other in public, but it’s always disregarded as them being mega best friends

everybody talks too much -> in which he accidentally slips up during an interview and calls her his ‘girlfriend’ sending everyone into a frenzy

in the late night, in a disguise -> in which logan has to dress entirely differently to run some late-night errands with her in the uk

the grid princess x everyone -> in which everyone seems to ship her with everyone but her actual secret boyfriend

kiss all your tears away -> in which she and logan don't walk into the paddocks together for the first time all season and sends everyone speculating about the status of their relationship friendship

is it killing you like it's killing me? -> in which she and logan try to navigate the worst part about dating your literal coworker

tis the season for mistletoasters -> in which they invite a select few of their friends over for the holidays and a particular holiday decoration catches them off guard

there doesn't seem to be anyone around -> in which they're simply not discreet enough about sneaking around in the paddocks

the summer seemed to last forever -> in which they didn't want summer break to end because that meant having to sneak around again

baby, it's cold outside -> in which she always get seasonal depression at the same time of the year and he tries to make her feel better about it

i don't want you like a best friend -> in which their trip to the bahamas two years ago suddenly becomes a push and pull game that neither of them knew the rules to

the kind of book you can't put down -> in which the thought of settling down and being with her scares him more than anything in the world, but he can’t seem to steer away from the thought of ‘them’

you make everyday feel like it's christmas -> in which logan surprises her in the morning with a throughtful second present

in sickness and in health -> in which she's down with the flu and while she's locked herself away to contain the virus, her boyfriend simply refuses to stay away for too long

bad sushi and bad stomachs -> in which she completely overanalyses the situation when she wakes up puking from bad sushi, forcing her to have a conversation about potentially having kids

it's when we're in a crowded room -> in which they’ve got their own little ways to communicate their feelings for one another while they’re under watch of the crowd that’s not supposed to know of their relationship

god bless america -> in which it's everyone's favourite american's birthday and they can't help but take the piss out of him

i'm a monster on the hill -> in which insecurities suddenly strike up when she sees her boyfriend parading with williams’ star guest for the race weekend

[randrspaces]

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[writingsfromhome]

Dos and Don’ts III

A/N: firstly apologies for the wait and secondly I absolutely did not want to cut this into another part but here we are 😢 I think this will change some ppls opinions oops dont hate me

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

——————————————————

I couldn’t put my finger on it but something was off in my life; I felt disconnected from myself, my friends, and most importantly from Gray. But getting Gray to communicate when he didn’t want to could feel like pulling teeth. And I was no dentist.

I figured the solution was to stubbornly throw myself into work. After all, with Harry’s European tour starting March there was always a lot to do.

“Nice of you to get here so early,” Harry says as I step off the elevators just before 9–an hour later than I usually do.

“I had dry cleaning to pick up,” I ignore his sarcasm. “Your tour fits aren’t going to magically appear in the penthouse as nice as that would be for me.”

I keep my tone light, joking, but it’s passive just as he is. And he can’t call passive out.

That’s what working for Harry has been like since December. It was winter outside these walls and inside.

I had originally decided to let it all go after sitting with the party’s events that weekend but upon arriving to work Harry had been particular asshole-ish and I decided two could play at the game. It was like the holiday party never happened. And I was okay with that.

“If they did, I wouldn’t need you would I?” Harry takes on the same tone I do.

Asshole, “yeah, how nice would that be.”

I walk away to his closet to hang up the garment bags.

“You still have two fits that need final fitting. For today, you’ve got a 2pm for your ear plugs and monitors,” I say as I walk back into the main living space. I take in Harry in his bathrobe and bedhead and realize he must be hungover. Which meant extra grumpy. “Also a meeting before noon with Jeff—he’s sick so he’ll do a Zoom. And rehearsals start tomorrow at 8am.”

The long-awaited tour he was rehearsing for was 2 months long and with his tour manager joining him I’d be kind of redundant. We agreed I’d start the tour with him, and then end it as he came back to the UK but I’d take a break in between.

“Good,” Harry sits on a barstool and as the robe parts I hoped he was wearing something underneath. “Are you joining rehearsals?”

“Tomorrow yeah,” I instinctively start tidying the coffee table littered with Harry’s activities from last night. There’s empty bottles and unused rolling papers, takeout containers and unopened bottles.

“Can you stop that,” Harry snaps. He’s wincing when I look up. “The clinking—it’s too loud.”

His second statement comes out softer but it doesn’t make him any less irritating.

“I’ll just toss these ones,” I take the ones I’d gathered in my hand.

“So,” he carries on with the earlier conversation. “Just tomorrow yeah?”

“Yep, to make sure everyone’s there, forms are signed, and all that. Jeff will drop by too. Otherwise I’ll just be there once a week or so since I have other things to complete.”

“So you’ll enjoy the full glory of the show once it’s live on stage?”

“I guess.”

“Please y/n reign in the excitement, it’s just too much.” Harry flexes his sarcasm again.

I look up from the other side of the island and lock eyes with him. With one bottle still in my hand I don’t put it in gently, instead letting it drop onto the others in the bin. His face twists in pain and I get my hit of satisfaction.

“I am excited,” I continue. “I’ll be more excited when you get on tour but right now I’m buried under an insane amount of logistics and stuff. So I’m just pacing myself.”

“Glad you got that out of your system,” he slides off the stool. “Are you sure you want to join tour? It takes a toll.”

“What? Am I taking up the space you reserved for groupies?” I goad.

He pretends to think, “No…we’ve got a whole other bus for that.”

“Great,” I smile. “Then I’ll definitely be there for the start of your tour, cheering you on.”

“Not too hard though,” Harry grabs a water from the fridge and heads towards the bedrooms. “Can’t have all of y/n’s enthusiasm overshadowing my fans.”

I roll my eyes behind his back and choose not to respond, as tempting as it was.

By the end of the week I’ve met everyone that’ll be joining the tour, taken copies of a million contracts and filed a billion papers.

It’s Saturday night and we’re heading home from the studio. Harry, in a twist of kindness, offers to drop me home.

“You don’t live too far,” he comments as we get closer to my building.

“Yeah, I was surprised with that.” It was a stroke of luck having a short commute.

“How does Mr. Duran feel about you coming on tour?”

I throw him a look but he sits there smug, waiting. “Well he’s not keen on me being away from home for so long but otherwise he’s fine.”

“Is he?” Harry extends his knee to nudge mine, irritating me. Just a few more minutes.

“Yes.” I turn to look out the window, no longer interested in the conversation. In reality Gray had been pretty upset that I’d be travelling the continent with womanizer Harry Styles. I’d soothed his fears but he was hard-headed about it.

Originally I’d saved the conversation to be had after New Year’s to not ruin the holidays but Josie had brought up tickets for the tour during Christmas dinner and although I played it off then, he’d been in a mood since.

“You’re an awful liar,” Harry says. I don’t respond. Luckily I’m home.

I figured Sunday, on my day off, Gray and I could catch up and spend quality time together. Maybe iron out some of our kinks. But he tells me he had a few sessions and I’m left alone for most of the day, convinced Gray booked them on purpose but not wanting to admit what that meant.

The following Thursday night, Gray and I finally collide after I’d spent the week stewing in my anger and anxieties.

“Why won’t you just talk to me? I feel like I’m living with a stranger these days.” The conversation starts out semi-tamed as we wash up for dinner.

“You feel that way? Well I’ve seen my fiancée for less than 48 hours a week this last year. Talk about being a stranger.”

“I’ve been taking more time off,” I wonder when he decided to count the number of hours. But it was true—I’d started doing a half-days on most Saturdays and coming home earlier on week nights. Like tonight, I’d been home by half past 6. “I’ve been trying to spend more time at home.”

“Too little too late,” Gray mutters.

“What?”

“I just mean,” he sighs. “I…y/n, we barely get time together. We’re like flatmates these days aren’t we? We haven’t-“

“Don’t you dare Gray,” I wasn’t having this. I refused to hear what he was trying to get at.

“Y/n don’t be difficult-“

“Difficult!? You can’t go radio silent on me and then decide 3 years can just go down the drain.”

“I’m not saying that-“

“Then what are you saying!?”

The silence rings to the corners of our kitchen. The dishes are long forgotten, suds drip down my elbow and onto the floor, and Gray’s towel hangs like a white flag beside him.

“You knew what this job meant—you work with the same clientele, and you encouraged me to go for it. I’m trying to be better I don’t get it.” I finally say.

“I’m saying something needs to change.”

What takes me back the most is the even—even apathetic, tone. It’s the fact that he must have been thinking on this for long enough to be so level-headed about it.

Who has he talked to, I wonder. His sister? Our friends? Who’s advised him to go in this direction because the Grayson I know wouldn’t do me like this. Couldn’t.

Are you even the y/n Grayson knows, a small voice asks in my head.

“We’ve changed, I get it.” My tone takes a pleading ring to it and I hate it. “But you can’t just decide this isn’t worth fighting for Gray-“

“I’m not Y/n,” he puts the towel to the side and grabs my arms. “I’m not throwing anything away but we need to bloody figure something out because…I’m unhappy. And can you really say our relationship is the same? Can you call what we’re in a relationship?”

“Why not?” I whisper, tears choking me. “I thought we love each other and we support each other and-and we see each other through thick and thin.”

“I love you,” Gray squeezes. “And I know we’ve seen each other through thick and thin but…I don’t know if I can keep supporting you at the expense of us.”

“Well what do you want?” I look up into his brown eyes. They’re steady like they usually were.

“I want you, selfishly. I want all of you.”

He had what he wanted, didn’t he get that? He had me. I don’t know what more of me I could give him. And that thought tears me right through.

“What happened to setting a date?” Gray steps back and takes his steady grip with him. I sink into the countertop behind me. “What happened to planning for our future? Marriage and kids and buying a home and doing something more?”

His voice raises as he talks.

“I feel like I’ve been living in limbo for the last year! Just waiting around for you. I don’t know how much longer I can wait-“

“We can set a date,” I say. “We can do all that! You-you haven’t brought up any of it either! If it’s been weighing on your mind why don’t you ever just say something!?”

“I shouldn’t have to!”

I’d hit a nerve. We’d had this conversation a dozen times.

“Of course you do! Like, I’m not a mind reader you’ve been stewing in these feelings for god knows how long and now you’re telling me you’re thinking of-of-of ending things!?”

There, I’d said it.

His face contorts into a flurry of emotions. My body feels ragged just saying these things out loud.

“When I spoke to Stewart and Bex they said-“

“Stewart and…” I was right he’s been talking. “You were talking to Stew and Bex!? Since when did you spend time with Bex?”

“Since I had a lot of time alone at home.”

Fuck, he managed to get the upper hand all the time with that one valid point he had.

“They both agreed with me that this isn’t right. I’m allowed to be upset and ask you for something to change-“

“But why didn’t you talk to me!” The switch to anger is quick when he admits he was talking to our friends. I think about the last few times we saw them—had they been judging me? Had Gray told them by then?

Gray tries to brush past and tell me more about his validated feelings, about how things had changed. I can’t hear anymore.

“This decision you seem to want to make for both of us should involve me too and yet you make it the talk of the town before consulting me. I’m so goddamn tired of the way you shut down Gray I-“

“I’m tired!” He butts in. “I’m tired of watching things change and being forced to move past it.”

I stare at him. He’s not bending whatsoever. He’s not even understanding the frustration at being the last to know his feelings on our fucking relationship. Didn’t he understand how iced out that made me feel? When I’ve been trying to be as mindful as I can?

“You know what Gray,” I sneer. “You talk about us changing but did you ever think that we’ve been changing since we first met!? The only thing that’s different now is we stopped talking!”

I throw the rest of the dishes into the soapy water and storm out to the only safe haven I had right now—our bed.

Everyone wanted parts of me I couldn’t give and I felt torn to shreds! I hardly recognized the girl in the mirror, I hardly remembered what it felt like to be me.

The only time I felt centered, a bit of calm, was here. With Gray.

And now I knew the feelings weren’t mutual. He’d been thinking of ending things while I had curled in his arms. While I had kissed him goodnight and hello. While we had dinner or drinks. While we hung out with friends who were privy to all the cracks in our relationship. Who knows how long it had been a one-sided feeling.

I bury my head into my pillow wanting to scream and cry at the same time. My head hurts but mostly my heart hurts. I feel betrayed by my bestest friend and the person I love the most.

You’re no better, the ugly voice in my head shows up again. You’ve done things you should be ashamed of.

I block the voice out. I block it all out until all I feel is numb.

Gray doesn’t come to bed at all that night. I drag myself out of the nest I’d created some time around midnight, thinking he fell asleep on the sofa. To tell him to come to bed since I knew our sofa wasn’t long enough for him to even fit on.

I sway in the middle of the empty living room. There’s nobody here. Definitely not Gray. He’d left altogether, to wherever he’s been finding refuge recently.

It hits me; I think I’ve done this to myself. I was alone. Really alone.

***

The scowl is permanently etched onto my face as I go about my Friday morning. I feel Harry’s eyes on me a few times but even he doesn’t broach the subject. We silently maneuver around each other until he leaves for rehearsal.

I think about calling my friends to talk about this but I realize all my friends who were up to date on my life had become interwoven with Gray’s. And I already know Gray complained about my job to them based on a few parties last year. So they definitely wouldn’t be unbiased listening to anything I said.

I regret then, not staying in touch more with my friends back home. For the first time in years I feel a bit homesick.

I decide busying myself with work would be the only thing to keep me sane so I throw on headphones and get down to business.

As the day starts to come to an end I put on Harry’s stereo with the mournful songs that had been comforting me today and grab a seltzer from the fridge. He wouldn’t be home until 8 tonight and he’s always been open about using whatever was in the general living spaces.

So I nearly have a heart attack when I see a shadow from the corner of my eyes around 6.

I give a shout when it comes with a voice and once my senses return I realize it’s just a sweaty Harry back early from rehearsal.

“What? Are you doing here!?” I press on my pounding heart. “Alexa music off.”

He’s grinning at the way I reacted and now he laughs, it’s a bending-over laugh and I chuckle myself as I replay how dramatic it all was.

“Wow.” He says when he finally catches his breath. “I wish I had that on video.”

“Jesus,” I swear. “I thought you’d be home a lot later.”

“So this is what happens when I’m not home,” he teases.

“Only on Fridays,” I collapse into the closest chair and tilt my head back. “God, I thought there was like, an intruder or something. Or a ghost.”

He laughs again, moving to the kitchen for a water. “Good thing ghosts don’t exist.”

“They so do.” I reply.

“There’s no proof that’s ever convinced me they exist.”

“You live a sad skeptical life Mr. Styles.” My breathing is finally regulated and I sit up to look at him. “I’ve seen one myself when I was a teen. I wish I could be a disbeliever like you.”

“You’ll have to tell me the story,” he leans on the island looking very amused.

“I will,” I accept his challenge.

“I cut rehearsals short,” he continues. “I’m knackered from this week. I just want to be one with my couch and get drunk and not worry about what moves to do and what song to sing.”

“Yeah,” he looked tired and his hair was getting a bit shaggy. He runs his hand through the damp curls. “I need a shower and I think I should do a trim.”

“Consider it booked,” I pull the phone towards me and text his usual stylist. I hear him move around the space and pause before he disappears down the hall.

“Are you heading home soon?” He asks.

“Hm?” I kill time responding, acting like I didn’t hear his response. I didn’t want to go home at all. I didn’t even know if Gray was home or not and I didn’t want to find out. Harry repeats his question. “No. I wanted to wrap up some things. I can move to the office if you wanted the space to chill out?”

He shrugs and tells me I could go where I want.

I wanted to be out of the way, and not home. So I move to the office. The same office where weeks ago I’d teetered on the edge of a fatal decision and now was faced with the possibility of that decision made for me.

I slump in the seat and take a moment to just decompress. A headache creeps around my eyes and I just feel lost and hurt and alone.

When I break the laptop open again I move like a slug, scraping the barrel of effort and coming up with nil.

“Uh y/n?” Harry’s head pops into the door a while later.

“Yeah?” I blink up at him, still in slug mode.

He stares at me a second, “Do you have plans tonight? You could…join me in doing nothing?”

When was the last time I did nothing? I couldn’t remember. And it sounded like a distraction—not a good one, but one that helped me avoid home for longer.

“Sure?” I respond.

Harry blinks. “Oh. Brilliant. Finish what you’re doing if you’d like or you can join me now. Oh. Could you also order us some pizza or something that’s greasy and bad for us?”

I liked the direction of this. I feel my sluggish feeling slide away. “I can do that.”

“Good. Great. This is going to be a good night.”

He moves away as he talks and his last sentence is shouted from down the hall. I smile, relieved to do something like this.

I consider texting Gray, but decide against it. He left last night without a word, making me worried and today there’s been radio silence. I wasn’t in the mood to take the high road.

I do as Harry asks. Meanwhile Harry had put on some peppier music and brought out a six-pack from the fridge. His head is buried in the pantry rummaging through.

“What do you need?” I come up behind him.

“Oh,” he pops out. “Looking for some sweets. I’m sure I have some somewhere.”

“Oh yeah!” I close the doors he’s looking in and open the top cabinet. His eyes light up when he spots the options. “Food’s on its way by the way.”

He rubs his hands and starts pulling things off the pantry. It’s a different energy than any before, he’s not picking on me or ordering me around. He’s just inviting me to be on the ins with him. My instinct is to stay quiet and see where it goes but I shake it off.

“Are we just playing with beer tonight or is wine on the menu?” I ask. I hated the taste of beer.

“It could?” He unloads the pile in his arms onto the island and starts rummaging through the wines. “How about this one?”

A white. I take it from him and head for some glasses.

We end up making a buffet for ourselves on the coffee table and when the pizza comes we settle in, chatting occasionally about the things around us.

“So what does doing nothing involve?” I ask when we’re situated on the couch. Harry’s left a few feet of space between us which is very appreciated. I pull my feet up. “Because I have to say it’s been a while and I don’t know how to do nothing.”

He laughs, throwing his head back. I find myself grinning in response.

“Touché mon amie.”

“Okay I actually got that,” I nod.

“Do you speak french?” He asks as he opens the wine and pours us both a glass, mine’s a lot more full than his.

“No but I spent a month in Paris when I was in uni,” I savour the sour flavours of the wine as it coats my mouth and settles me down. “So I learned the bare minimum. Now all I can say is bonjour, ca beigne? And also un verre du vin s’il vous plait?”

“So you cut right to the chase—hey are you alright? A glass of wine thanks. Now leave me alone.”

We laugh and I hold up my glass, “I was hoping you’d get the hint. Why is mine so full anyway?”

“I’m just drinking some so you don’t have to drink it alone. Then I’m gonna crack on with the beer.”

“Oh!” There he had to go and be thoughtful again. “Forget it, I will happily drink the bottle. Drink whatever you want.”

“Yeah?” He leans forward to put his glass down.

I lean over and pour his measly amount into mine. “There, you’ve done the sharing part.”

“So y/n,” he asks after we’ve grabbed our respective snacks of choice. “Can I ask why you were listening to all those ballads before I came in?”

“I need to get a bit more drunk before I do that,” I down some more wine, already feeling the buzz of it. Obviously this was not the cheap wine I generally had.

“Alright we’ll get you there,” he promises. His eyes flicker from his phone to me and back to his phone. “Uhh could I show you something?”

“Like what?”

“We’re releasing the MV for one of my songs a week before I go on tour right.”

“Right,” I name the single that’s been thrown around countless times this week.

“I got back the deck for what it’ll look like. I’m excited can I show it to you?”

It’s endearing, in a way, how eager he is to show it. His cheeks even have spots of pink.

“Uh yeah! Let’s see it!”

“Cool,” he grins. He turns on the TV and casts whatever video is on his phone to the screen. He gives me some background on how it was setting up a whole storyline and how they’ve already started filming some of the scenes.

“The shooting starts the week after this one right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be in Scotland for a few days. You’re joining me right?”

“Yes! I’m excited to see all the action myself.” I had signed up for the 4-day trip with zero hesitation. As someone who’s always been making up stories and concepts to most music I listened to, getting to see the bts for an MV was a dream come true.

“Really?” He asks.

“Yeah, it’s real excitement I promise.”

“You’re interested in it?”

“Yeah! I love music videos, it creates a whole new experience for a song we’ve probably listened to on repeat. It’s cool!”

“So this is y/n really enthusiastic,” he leans back in the cushions to get me in full. “Now I really know you couldn’t give a rat’s arse about tour.”

“Stop saying that!” I laugh. “I was just stressed. I am excited about all of it okay?”

“So you say,” with a final glance he presses play and I’m entranced as the narration takes us through the plan.

“Umm all I can say is wow.” I turn to him when it’s done. My wine glass had been emptied and my brain had been itched with the most beautiful location and storytelling I’ve seen in a while. “That’s like a mini movie.”

“That’s what I said!” He exclaims. “It’s going to blow everything out of the water.”

“Look at us, doing nothing.” I realize we’d turned around and talked about work.

“Bollocks we’re no good at this.” Harry slides a hand down his face and I laugh at the dramatics. “Let me refill you at least.”

I happily oblige.

We talk about the mv some more, and move onto the tour. Harry asks me about the concerts I’ve been to and we get the kind of excited when you’re tipsy once we find out we were both at a Coldplay concert four years ago in London.

“That would’ve been before the success so I would have been just another bloke to you,” he notes.

“Yeah, imagine we crossed paths then? That would be crazy.”

“If we did, we might still be doing this tonight, just as mates,” he points to between us. “Or you would have fallen in love with me and I would have sacrificed my music to raise our kids.”

“What!?” It’s so absurdly ridiculous that I nearly snort my wine. “Where did that comes from!?”

“Admit it,” he puffs out his chest. “That would have happened. And I’d be so committed-“

“Well you’re assuming that in a 4 year time-span we would get to the point of having kids. So firstly no, secondly who said you had to sacrifice your career?”

“I-“ he stops mid-sentence, looking into the distance.

“Exactly!” I shout. “You’ve got nothing. You’ve just made up a story that makes you sounds good and noble!”

“Fine,” he settles down. “Fine! We never meet and you end up with your Duran bloke and I end up a musician.”

“Is that all I’m reduced to?” I raise my brow. “Who I’m with?”

“No!” He leans between us to pat my leg. It tingles. “No I didn’t mean it like that. You’ll do great things. I just mean the person you end up with isn’t superstar Harry Styles.”

I roll my eyes, “I need more wine if I’m gonna be subjected to any more of this bullshit.”

“Bullshit?!”

“Mhm,” I pop a gummy into my mouth and ignore the look of shock on his face.

“Fine. Then tell me about your bullshit,” he raises his can. “What’s happening to make you so ferocious this morning.”

Oh god. I hold up a finger and shimmy forward for some more wine. I’d drank 2/3 of the bottle and I was definitely tipsy. Maybe I’ll just sip this one.

“Fine. If you want to hear it.”

“I do.”

“I got into a fight with Gray.”

He raises a brow, I continue.

“He’s upset with me and complaining that I work a lot and that he feels like I’m his flatmate!”

“Flatmate with benefits.”

“Shut up!” I groan. “Not the point.”

“Sorry!” He holds his hands up.

“I don’t think he realizes how much of my head is just Gray like, I’m always thinking about him, about what I could do for him and say to him just to make sure he feels seen and reassured and loved! You know I’ve asked you for half-days on Saturdays when you don’t have a lot going on-“

“Mhm,” he nods along.

“I’m like, making sure I’m being a good partner. And apparently he’s been upset and not saying anything.”

“The old silent on the home front.”

“Yes!” I nearly drip wine as I pump my hand. “Yes, on the home front he’s bloody broody and quiet. I knew something was on his mind but like always he’s tight lipped. Even when I asked him a week ago he said he’s just been working a lot. What a liar!”

I complain about how it felt to be iced out of my partner’s emotions and having to guess all the time.

“Then I find out he’s been talking to all our friends to get advice.” Harry raises his brows in judgement and leans back into the sofa, and the small gesture makes me feel so validated. I didn’t realize how much I needed a third-party to just listen to my side of things. Until now, I’d literally not had anyone to talk to about this especially since I avoided talking about work with Gray. I get misty eyed.

“And when we’re talking he’s like so-and-so said this as if I want to know. And!” Now I was on a roll. I put my glass down in fear of spilling it on the pristine sofa and get on my knees to emphasize my frustration. “And the girl he quoted? Get this, I met her—Rebecca—at a job I did like a year ago? And we got along fabulously and I invited her to this party we threw right because she was new to the city and all that. She met my other friends and she fit in so well they invited her the next event. I got her into the group and now she’s talking shit about me with my fiancé behind my back!”

“She’s probably got a thing for your man,” Harry suggests.

“Oh she definitely does!” I’m animated as I continue. “She so does! I’ve caught her making eyes at him before, and laughing a lot whenever he makes a joke. I even mentioned it to him once but he said he didn’t notice.”

“He probably didn’t,” Harry shrugs.

“I know, the male species is a wonder. You get big flirts like you and then otherwise they’re completely oblivious.”

“I’ll have you know when I was a teen, a girl literally gave me a valentine cupcake and I just thought—well I knew she liked to bake, so I thought she just had extras. I didn’t understand why she didn’t speak to me the rest of the year.”

“No way,” I laugh—a lot because the wine was definitely sloshing around in my head, but also I couldn’t imagine Harry being that aloof. “I guess it comes with the ego territory. Were you less of a jerk as a kid?”

His jaw drops. “You just called me a jerk right now. To my face.”

“I did,” I say with glee. I stand to get the full picture of an offended Harry. “And I don’t regret it. So? Were you nicer as a kid?”

“No I’m not answering until you take that back.”

“What! You are a jerk…sometimes! I’m not taking it back!”

“You have to take it back otherwise I will cut you off on the wine.”

I take a step back and stumble as he speaks. Which makes me laugh more. “I think I should cut back. I am a hot mess.”

“At least you’re laughing,” Harry stands too. “It’s world’s different from this morning.”

Just like telling someone not to think of an elephant, I think of the elephant.

“Noo no don’t do that!” Harry rushes towards me and bends down to look me in the eye. “I liked it when you were smiling just now c’mon.”

“Well you reminded me why I was so upset-“

“Can’t stay grumpy, just give me another smile. One smile! Small teeny tiny smile—there it is!”

I can’t help it with his face in mine and the way he’s putting on a voice to get me to smile my face splits in a grin.

“You’re soooo annoying!” I push him but unstable and drunk I fall backwards.

I don’t know what happens next but I’m on the floor looking up into Harry’s concerned face.

“Y/n? Y/n!?”

“Yeah,” my head pounds as I try to make sense of where I am.

“Fuck,” I hear Harry say. He moves away and the overhead light attacks my eyes so I squeeze them shut.

I hear him, panicked, on the phone.

“No!” I try to call out. “M’fine! Don’t even worry-“

“Stay down Y/N,” he’s back by my side. I try to prove to him that I’m okay and sit up but a few inches off the ground and my head feels like it’s full of bees.

“So many bees,” I murmur as I go back down, now a pillow behind my head.

A few minutes later Harry’s helping me up gently. I tell him I wanted to throw up and he helps me to the toilet where I do. Gah. Why did I drink so much.

“I think I’ll head home now,” I hear myself saying to Harry like I was miles away.

“No,” his hands are around my shoulder and holding me upright as we walk out. The lift increases my nausea but I keep my eyes shut.

“I’m going home now,” I tell Harry when we get outside.

“No you’re getting checked out.”

“No!” I shove him away and nearly topple over myself. Why did he have to boss me around all the time? “Stop telling me what to do! My head hurts I’m going home!”

He tries to grab my hand but I yank it off. “Stop! Just stop!”

“Y/n,” Harry’s voice is low and comforting as he gets down in my ear. He smells nice too. “You passed out and you have a headache we have to get you checked out.”

“You’re no fun,” I cross my arms but follow him, only because my headache is so bad. As we get in the car I close my eyes shut as the lights assault them. Harry doesn’t let me sleep on the ride home even though his body is warm and steady beside me. I barely know where I am.

Harry’s POV:

I keep telling myself she would most likely be fine, just like the doctor reassured me but it’s hard not to beat myself up.

I shouldn’t have let her get that drunk, especially upset. I shouldn’t have gotten in her space and caused her to tumble back. I should have done something else.

The guilt is added to when I think of how I spoke to the doctor, demanding they do every scan and not to skip any. I hated who I became sometimes, when I pulled the famous card, but I thought it was necessary right now. Even y/n would give me a pass for using it.

I can’t stop replaying the thud as her head hit the hardwood floor, her eyelids fluttering as I rushed to her, her slack face when she lost consciousness for a moment.

It’s been hours since we came in. The doctor finally heads my way.

“Mr. Styles, your girlfriend is alright,” he holds up his hands before I’m fully standing.

I may have had to say she was my girlfriend after they wouldn’t let me have any say tonight…

“She’ll be alright, you did the right thing getting her here right away.”

“But?”

“No but,” he smiles. “Obviously it’s serious she has a moderate concussion but if she doesn’t exasperate any symptoms—takes it easy the next couple weeks, she’ll be right as rain. We can discharge her once the neurologist confirms. She’s just finishing with another patient right now-“

“She should stay overnight,” I cut him off. His cheeriness was starting to irritate me I felt like he wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

“Oh well,” he laughs but I know I’m irritating him right back. “She will be alright. I can provide you and her with a followup plan-“

“Doctor,” I say. “She’s staying overnight. If I need to rent a bed I’ll do that, tell me what I need to do, but she should stay under observation. Get the care she deserves.”

He pursues his lips, and I wait for him to agree.

“Yep,” he sighs. “I’ll tell the nurse. Just follow me and we can sort the details.”

We do that, I even take a selfie for the nurse’s daughter which grates on the doctor’s nerves even more. He leaves shortly after.

I get y/n’s room and walk there slowly, wondering how to apologize. Ever since December we’ve been playing a game of tennis with words and tonight I felt both of us relax onto the same note. Then this.

She’s sleeping when I get to her. My watch says 1am. She looks peaceful and it hurts even more.

The truth was despite acting like I didn’t, I did like Y/N but she was complicated, and the more I tried to untangle her web the more sticky things became for both of us. I didn’t want to make more mistakes than I have in the past so I’d kept my distance. Even if it hurt both of us.

Tonight was good though. Until it wasn’t. This was why I shouldn’t blur lines. You would think I’d have learned that by now.

I step by her bed, hesitating. Someone has wiped the remains of her makeup off and she looks so much younger. Like a sleeping cherub. My heart gives a squeeze.

I push back a strand of her hair, my hand wanting to do something. I settle for taking her hand in mine, it’s not the first time I’ve held it but like it always does, a flood of warmth rushes through me.

I never understood Victorian romances until her; just touching her hand got my blood pumping.

With a stroke of my thumb over her knuckles, she stirs. I freeze.

Her eyes flicker open, “Hey?”

My voice disappears. There’s too much that I want to say and nothing I’m allowed to say. Maybe a sorry. I open my mouth but she squeezes my hand. I forgot I was still holding hers.

“So much for doing nothing huh?” She cracks a smile and it breaks the marble I’d become encased in. I laugh and collapse onto the sliver of the bed.

“We should never do nothing again.”

“Nope,” she smiles, closing her eyes again.

“Y/N I’m really sorry for tonight. I feel awful-“

Her mouth parts. She was asleep.

I want to sit here with her until she wakes again, until the doctors kick us out. Something about seeing her so vulnerable here makes me want to confess the thing that’s been lodged in my chest for a long time.

I release her hand and move away from the bed. This was dangerous. Maybe I could wait in the waiting room until she’s released. Then take her home.

Something vibrates. It’s not my phone, and then I notice the purse I’d brought with us. Y/N’s.

I peek inside for the phone and her fiancé’s face takes up the screen. He looks younger. And then I remember, it’s like stepping out of the fog this night had put me in and into reality.

I pick up.

“Y/N it’s nearly 2 in the morning just tell me you’re alright? You haven’t been answering your texts I-“

“Hi,” I clear my throat and the line goes dead silent. I decide to continue. “Hey uh this is Harry. Styles. Uhm, don’t panic or anything because she is okay but she’s in hospital and-“

“What?” He comes back with a boom. “Why is she there what happened? Which hospital?”

I tell him which one, explain she bumped her head and I had to take her here. That the doctors said she would recover and be herself again soon. He simply swears and tells me he’d be there soon.

This was Y/N’s life. This was the right thing to do. Still, I stay in the room with my head in my hands and think about the whole evening again and again.

“Just tell me the bloody room…I don’t care about the time…”

The voice travels through as doors open and close in the hall and I look out. Grayson. Like a pitbull. I can see him through the rectangular window demanding to see Y/N.

I open the swinging doors and his nostrils flare as he spots me.

“Why the hell is he allowed in and not me?” He continues his tirade. “Does hospital policy not matter when it comes to the rich and famous now? I want to see her doctor and-“

The nurse turns to me, annoyed but before she can ask the question the doctor is out.

“What’s all this? Do you know the time sir, please follow me and we can talk-“

“I don’t want to fucking follow you. I want him gone and I want to see my fiancee.”

Looks are exchanged between the doctor and the nurse, finally landing on me. I imagine what they’re thinking—just another homewrecking famous rockstar, do we tell the fiancé or act cool?

“He should be able to see her,” I say in an even tone. I can feel the eyes on me, especially the laser beams from Gray.

“I thought-“

“Okay. Visitor pass him and let him in,” the doctor cuts his nurse off as she stares at me. Maybe her daughter wouldn’t get that photo tonight after all, and instead be told to pick better role models. It doesn’t matter to me. Not tonight.

I watch Gray get sorted, watch him walk down and to Y/N’s room. To his fiancée’s room.

I wonder how he feels, fighting with her last night just for y/n to end up here tonight. I wonder if that’s why he was so vocal tonight—the guilt.

But I suspected he was the kind of man that called himself easy-going and only got this raucous when another man was threatening his public image. It was pretty clear the hospital staff thought we had some pseudo-relationship arrangement. I don’t think Duran was daft enough to miss that.

Plus, I’d been the one to bring her here not him.

With a big sigh I take my phone out to call a taxi. It was my turn to go home.

I text Y/N from the car, tell her to rest over the weekend and let me know how she feels Monday morning. She could take the whole week off if she wanted but I also knew her and knew she would try to come back asap.

I try to piece back the marble armour I wore before tonight, it’s ill-fitting and hurts to get on but I do it anyway. This was why I couldn’t be the person Y/N wanted me to be; I tried to mix parts of my life together and it would only end with shite.

Y/N’s POV:

I don’t know who this man in front of me was. Or actually, I hadn’t seen him a long time.

I’d been discharged from the hospital on Saturday morning with odd looks all around. Maybe because Harry brought me in? And ever since, Grayson has been doting on me. Doting.

“Did you want anything specific?” Gray stands at the foot of the bed, asking me what he should make me for breakfast. The last time he made me a special breakfast was…last summer?

“I wouldn’t say no to pancakes?” I reply. “I looove your chocolate chip pancakes.”

“I’ll get it started,” he walks over to kiss my temple and leaves.

The weirdest part is that I feel weird; I don’t know why but Gray doting on me like this made me feel claustrophobic and…weird!

I look out the window to the overcast sky. Same, I think. At least for a Sunday, it felt fitting.

I pick up my phone and check the last response from Harry. Since I got discharged he’d been texting me to see how I was feeling. I think he was feeling guilty even though I told him it wasn’t his fault.

I tried not to drink when I was upset because back in uni it led to some shitty situations but the other night I’d overstepped my rule and done this anyway. And paid for it. I should have known better. And after the absolute misery of yesterday’s aftermath—the migraine and the vertigo and the completely lack of appetite, I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. Ever.

Today I feel a lot better. I still have a headache and I’m looking forward to breakfast with my painkiller, but the light doesn’t hurt as much and the nausea only comes back when I do too much.

You: I’ll be back in no time. Feeling better

Harry: I want you to feel the best so I’m banning you from working until Wed. And that’s conditional on you feeling better

Y: Doc said I can resume a lowkey version of my life after 48hrs

H: I didn’t like that doc. take my advice instead

Y: when did you get your md

H: same time you got yours

Y: I have an md?

H: being stubborn 101

Y: your jokes are a lot better when you text

H: cuz you’re not distracted by my face

Y: ooookay I’m no longer giving you the platform byeee

He was sassy, apparently. I never got this side of him before.

I read through the convo again and smile. But it hits me that it sounded like flirting. And that would be incredibly inappropriate. So I shove my phone in my bedside drawer and inch out of bed to join Gray.

We spend the day talking about a lot, but not about what we should talk about. Which, with the way I was feeling, was fine by me. At the same time it felt like we were both politely playing a role neither of us could put our hearts into. It felt shitty.

Gray has a session around 4 and I crawl back into bed, putting on a romcom I’ve watched a million times for comfort.

My body feels heavy and it has nothing to do with the concussion. The last couple days and my current relationship with Gray casts a shadow over my thoughts. I felt like making any decision was like wading through quicksand and running away just sounded better.

I rub my temples, hoping like a genie’s lamp, I could get an omnipotent spirit cast out and grant me easy wishes. I’d wish for things to go back to normal, for my heart not to be such a wretched thing. For clarity.

I pick up my phone and scroll to the one person I had run away from and have missed since. I didn’t talk to her very often but I thought I could use her no-nonsense approach.

My mom frets when I tell her what had happened. She goes quiet as I tell her I’d gotten drunk to forget about the troubles in my relationship.

“Relationships go through a lot of phases. It’s like going through those cave tunnels all made of rock and you gotta squeeze really tight sometimes just to fit through and continue on.”

“That is an amazing comparison mom, but I don’t know if this is one of those times. It feels like Gray’s already given up on us.”

“Well it’s been a long time he’s waited.”

“But he never said. He never talked to me.”

She sighs. “Your Grayson sure is a contemplative son of a bitch isn’t he?”

I laugh a little too hard and feel a pulse in my head. “I know. But then today he was so dang sweet—since I got home. He was so overprotective. And he made me breakfast mom and it made me realize I haven’t had that Gray in a long time.”

She’s silent on the other end. She knew there was more. How did I ever think, as a teen, my mom didn’t understand me? I think I just never understood her.

“But it felt weird.” I continue. “I feel horrible for saying it but I felt weird!”

“Was there heart?” She asks gently.

There wasn’t.

That’s what it was. And my heart weeps. All those actions without feelings.

“Have you thought about coming home?” Mom asks when the silence stretches. She always asked and I was the worst daughter in the world for never going back. The last time was when I graduated, for 2 weeks in which my family drove me crazy and I had been crazy in love with Gray and eager to get back to him.

“Maybe,” I close my eyes and slide down into bed.

“Your brother’s new girlfriend reminds me of that friend you had where she came on our camping trip and cried the whole time? What was her name?”

“Deanna? Mom I stayed friends with her all through high school! She was just very anxious.”

“I know! His girlfriend’s always darting about, jumping at tiny things. Reminds me of her.”

“Well Jace better be treating her right.”

“He does,” mom’s voice raises. “You should see them together. It’s cute but they’re still teenaged loves so I try not to break his bubble too much.”

Mom had definitely relaxed a lot since I was a teen. She had practically chased my first boyfriend away.

“Remember your first boyfriend?” She asks and I shout how I was remembering that too. We end up talking about old memories, and I feel a little more known and a little less lonely when I hang up.

Gray and I order takeout and I try to watch a movie with him but the strain on my eyes gets too much. I tell him I was going to bed and insist that he stays and finishes. I didn’t feel like watching him play boyfriend.

I’m eager to get back to work, for next week when I can go to Scotland for the MV. The eagerness comes from guilt but I carry both as I fall asleep.

***

I feel like a kid at Disneyland. Or maybe a Disney adult. Either way, I’m blown away getting to watch this MV come to life.

It’s long hours, a lot of waiting, and some shouting. But everything else is magic.

I came back to work last Thursday and other than an ear-splitting headache on the flight and a low-grade one when I stared at a screen too long, I was on my way to normal. When I got back to work Harry kept making excuses for me so I could work from the office but I refused to be treated differently and eventually he relented.

“It’s so freaking cold!” I jump up and down beside Harry by the cliffside. He’s just wrapped up a scene and the crew was taking a look at the footage to see if they needed anything more in this spot.

“Why don’t you put on more layers? Do you want an extra coat the crew might have-“

“No!” I continue wriggling around. “I’m heading back to the car in a few. This is an amazing view.”

“Isn’t it,” Harry turns to the sea that’s churning away much like my own heart these days. It feels calming to see it physically somewhere else.

We stand in silence except for my occasional teeth chattering and stare out to the view.

“Have you seen more of it?” Harry motions to the cameras. “What do you think?”

On this trip I’ve been giving my honest opinion, and I know I’ve offended Harry at least once but I didn’t come all the way here for my dream experience only to stroke his ego.

I tell him my take. We talk about the overall storyline about belonging and sacrifice until we’re interrupted with two hands holding out hot teas.

“You both looked cold,” the woman says. She was another assistant on set and I’m not sure what to do being waited on as a PA myself.

“Oh, thank you!” I make sure she knows I appreciate it. “That’s…that’s super kind thanks!”

She throws us both a smile and I stare at my cup, the heat tingling on my cold fingertips.

“Friendship and belonging yeah,” Harry starts up again.

“Yeah but also I like how you—your character, whatever, knows when it’s time to leave for his better growth. Sacrifice with his friend and sacrifice with the only home he’s known. Plus that’s a comfortable outfit.”

I tap a button on Harry’s jumpsuit. He grins. “You can have it.”

“I would be drowning in that you’re a lot taller.”

“We can have it altered,” he says. A shiver runs through me at we. I blame it on the cold.

I sip the tea now that it’s not scalding and find it’s a lot cooler. The open air, I guess.

“So you really love all this,” Harry says. “You weren’t joking about that excitement.”

“No I told you!” I flash to the night we did “nothing” which feels long ago. “I have a vivid imagination when it comes to music and I spent any spare courses on film so now I can interpret the heck out of any song and music video like my life depends on it.”

“We should get you back there,” he motions to the crew. “Get you on board.”

“Would I get the little clipboard and clapper?”

“Yeah!”

“Goals,” I sigh.

Little did I know, by Saturday as we’re filming our final scene one of the crew members hands me the clapper. He tells me I’m supposed to cut the final scene. I stare at him, thinking I misheard.

The clapboard hangs between us. He shakes it a little and I take it. It’s heavier than I thought.

“Harry asked if you can cut for the final scene, see the man behind the camera? He’ll look to you and give you the nod. Then you step in front and just do the thing.”

“Oh…” I’m still staring at the thing in my hand. My palms feel sweaty like it’s going to crash to the ground and break in two but that thought gets me to hold it closer. “Thanks.”

“Yep,” the guy walks away and I stare at the scene being filmed. Slowly I walk closer to the cameraman and he glances at me, notices the clapper, and smiles holding up two fingers.

He whispers something to someone beside him and they change the lighting. Harry walks off “screen” and I try to catch his eye to show him what I had. We catch it briefly and he winks before walking back onto the screen.

Oh my god! My heart is racing as I hold it in my hands. I had to chill. Or I’m gonna make a mess of things. It’s just a clapperboard and you’re saying one word!

Two minutes. I manage to calm down enough and when I get the signal I step in front of the camera and, as I see it later on, with the biggest grin on my face I clap down and yell “cut!”

Harry lets out a whoop and the crew cheers as the filming wraps up. I’m sure my eyes are wide as saucers as I go to Harry. He puts an arm around me and pulls me in, laughing because I tell him my heart is racing and how does he do tours when just that made me shaky.

“It gets easier,” we walk now with his arm around my shoulder. “One day you’ll be behind the camera shouting at me to move places.”

“Oooh getting to boss you around and get paid for it?” I look up at him and my breath catches because he’s handsome at every bloody angle. “Sign me up.”

He let me go and gives me a few tsks. Then he gets his phone and tells me to pose with the clapper and I do it happily. The picture shows a grinning girl with pure delight on her face.

“I’ll put that as your contact photo right,” Harry says as he gets into a jacket. “And that way at least when you call me with bad news I get to see a smile beforehand.”

“Har har,” I roll my eyes but I don’t hate the idea.

A lot of the crew decide to go out for drinks and dinner and Harry passes but I decide to go. I’d met some friendly faces and I would miss working with them, miss the overall energy, when we got back to London.

As I fall asleep that night, full and content, I realize I hadn’t texted Gray all day. I wake to check my phone and see he’d sent a text a few hours ago.

Sorry I was out for lunch with the crew. Babe it was sooooo fun I can’t wait to show you pictures when I get home.

I read the rest of his message asking how I was. I tell him my headache was gone and ask him about his week but I’ve fallen asleep before he can respond.

***

The morning I have to leave for tour I wake up way too early. Too much nervous excitement. I’d already brushed and checked my luggage was packed before crawling back into bed waiting for Gray to wake.

I watch him sleep, my eyes following the familiar contours of his face. We’d been making an effort at rebuilding the relationship since we agreed we at least had to give it a try after I got home from Scotland a month ago. On one hand it feels like starting a new relationship and also breathing easier because we were both on the same page. On the other, we’d finally started planning the wedding!

I would miss him, nearly 3 weeks away which is the longest we’ve been apart since we got together. Then I’d be home for 2 weeks, and away for the last week before Harry finishes with a couple shows in London. It was going to be epic and crazy as exhausted as I’ve been.

I huddle close to Gray and he stirs slightly but I kiss his neck to wake him.

“Hey,” he mumbles in his sleep.

“Morning,” I press another kiss to his face.

“What time?” He moves his head to kiss me back.

“Hmmm half past 7?”

He grumbles about it being so early but it stops shortly after with both of my legs on either side of him and my hair curtaining our faces.

“M’gonna miss your snooty face,” I say with another kiss. He finally opens his eyes and his hand comes up to hold my chin.

“I’ll be the one here missing you.”

“I’ll call every chance I get.”

“You’ll get to see so many new cities,” he says.

“Barely but I’m gonna try to make the most of it,” the travel schedule was hectic but I know there were a couple slower days I could use to explore cities. If I wasn’t completely exhausted.

“You’ll have a lot of fun,” he pushes my hair behind my ear.

“Remember Josie’s coming this weekend to stay the week.” Gray’s sister had taken the opportunity of a semi-empty flat to stay here while she studied for mid-terms. I had encouraged it so Gray felt less lonely.

“She’s gonna drive me crazy,” he huffs.

“Just behave,” I warn him.

“I don’t know how,” he smiles, rolling us around so he’s on top and showing me what misbehaving means. I don’t mind it a bit.

After a quick shower together we head out to the airport, Harry offered to pick me up on his way but I wanted to make sure I spent as much time with Gray as possible so he doesn’t feel like I was leaving him like before. I hoped he knew, at least, the effort I was making.

***

Stockholm, Hamburg, Oslo, and Copenhagen in one week. It was exhilarating and exhausting and hectic and so fulfilling.

I had seen Harry at small shows before but on the big stage he has a presence with a capital P. It’s amazing watching him perform and dance and be charming all over. He could be cheeky yet command the crowd at the same time. And despite all these sides he’s never inauthentic.

For the first time I’m able to take somewhat of a backseat. He already had his manager, tour manager, stylist, and tour chef with him to manage most aspects I would regularly. I became sort of an extra hand when I wasn’t having sit-down hours. That’s what I called the times I was sitting on the laptop sorting out future timelines for Harry’s life (and my wedding).

But I loved it. I’d pick a cafe close to our hotel and spend a few hours working. I’d call Gray during these times and if he was free we’d catch up on all I saw and he’d share stories with me until Josie crashed the conversation with stories of her own.

My eye bags require more concealer than usual and my body begs for nutrition but otherwise I love every second.

I’m back from my sit-down hours and get off the lift. Harry and his team were placed in the same hotel just down the hall from each other. As I approach my own door one of Harry’s band mates rushes out of his door looking stressed.

“He’s in a mood,” she huffs. “Don’t go in there.”

“Did something happen?” I ask.

She shrugs, “he gets this way. Usually at the start of tour I don’t know why. Kinda snappy just…give him space.”

I do as she says but the next morning as we wait to board our early flight to Paris he continues to be a dick to everyone.

“Maybe take a nap on the flight Haz,” one of his bandmates suggest. “We’re all bloody tired don’t be such a grump.”

“I don’t need a bloody nap stop treating me like a child.”

“What to do when you act like one.”

“You know what-“

“Woah hey c’mon.”

I startle at the commotion, I was starting to doze off but Harry rushing out of his seat and someone else stepping between him and Mitch wakes me entirely.

“Let’s stand there get some space.” Niji recommends.

Everyone follows the group away and it’s Harry, myself, and my bag left.

He glances at me, “Don’t you start too.”

“I wasn’t…”

“I could see it in your face.”

“What the hell? I was just napping I don’t even know what’s going on except that you really are being a dick.”

“There you go!” He points. “I knew you wanted to say it.”

“Guess I’m joining the others…” I pick up my bag and walk to everyone else. They’re all venting their frustrations for Harry and comfort me that he was an asshole to everyone.

It gets worse on the flight when our pilot announces we couldn’t land in Paris.

“What’s going on?” I ask our hostess.

“The weather, we apologize for the inconvenience folks but there is high winds and a lot of fog so it’s not safe to fly.”

“I have a show tonight,” Harry stands and starts to advance on the poor woman. “I need to be in Paris before 4 where are we landing?!”

“Sir we’ll be landing in the Lille airport. This is good because we’re only a few hours from the city-“

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry runs his hand through his hair.

“I understand,” the woman looks back at me and I nod, letting her know I got it.

“Harry we’ll only be delayed by a few hours-“

“I don’t have time for a few hours. We need to set up and run tests in Paris! We were supposed to be there yesterday but somebody booked the wrong shit!”

It was true, his tour manager had booked us for Monday morning rather than Sunday morning but at the time it hadn’t been a big deal since the show was 7 on Monday and we got an extra day to relax. Now it made things more stressful.

“Fuck this,” Harry mutters. The other members on the plane roll their eyes and put on headphones, sighing and looking out the window. It was obvious to everyone but Harry that this was just a minor setback.

I decide to be the idiot who enters the lion’s cage. Harry sits in the back of the plane jiggling his leg and trying to connect his phone to service.

“Are you trying to call Morgan?” I ask.

“No I’m trying to call the pope.”

“He might be sleeping.”

He looks up at me and if I wasn’t aware of how stressed he was I would laugh. Confused doesn’t even cover his expression.

“I don’t have time for this right now, I need to get to the show-“

“We have like a five hour wiggle room it’s just a minor-“

“I can’t perform thrown off like this!”

“There’s no reason to be thrown off!” I try to keep my volume contained but I can feel eyes on my back.

“I don’t need you right now just go.”

“So I guess the one week rule is true.” I mutter.

“What’s that?” He asks with an i-dare-you expression.

“I said the one week rule of you being an asshole on tour, I guess that was true. I wish someone told me I would have skipped it.”

“Well you could have skipped the whole thing and nobody would notice.”

His comeback is muttered but cuts like a machete and I feel like the words were physically slung at me. I stand there stunned, my heart sinking as he continues to fiddle with his phone until the call connects.

The shock wears off quickly leaving me with the familiar heat of anger. This was how I reacted to Harry and his dickish ways. How dare he? Why the fuck does he think it’s okay to treat me like this when he wanted? I clench my fist as his voice rises with Morgan.

But beneath the anger is a raw hurt, his words struck a nerve. The same one Gray had struck once. I was replaceable, and all the efforts I’ve put into my career were unimportant and unappreciated.

I snatch the phone from Harry, annoyed at hearing him talk at Morgan.

“Hey Morgan it’s Y/N, yeah it’s a minor inconvenience but if you can get a bus or something to the airport it should be…”

I look to the hostess and she flashes me two fingers and a shake of her hand.

“About 2 hours to get into the city.” I finish. I nod along to Morgan’s questions and repeat details back. “Yeah just text me on my phone, not Harry’s. We’ll sort this out.”

“Thank you y/n. I’m really glad you’re there today.”

The words are a feather on a pile of nails, it’s nice to hear but Harry’s cruel words still ring in my ear.

I hand the phone back to him, expecting a thank you or an apology, but he just takes it and slinks down in his seat.

“It’s her isn’t it?” Sarah gets up on her seat on her knees to look back at Harry. I pause as I walk up the aisle. Is was who?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry mutters with his eyes glued to his screen.

“It is,” someone else says.

“Who?” Claire asks.

“Don’t take his mood personally,” Sarah says to me. “Paris is a touchy city for him.”

“Do you guys ever shut up?” Harry asks.

“No that’s why we’re your crew,” Mitch responds.

“We understand,” Sarah continues. Who was she talking about!? “Just don’t take it out on us. It’s not nice.”

Harry doesn’t respond but I sense a deflating happening on his side. Sarah’s words had gotten through to him but they’d just made me super curious.

I get filled in as we wait at the airport for our bus—Morgan had saved the day.

I hear about Harry’s french lover and how he got his heart broken a couple years ago. How the last time they were in France he had disappeared for a day and they’re all sure he visited her. How he can’t go to Paris without getting in a mood, either because he doesn’t get to see her or he’s anxious about seeing her.

“That’s like a city-specific booty-call.”

“Kinda,” Sarah laughs. “But I think he grew really attached to her so it’s a bit—he’s coming back.”

Harry stomps back to where we are, a tray of coffee in his hands. His team accepts it without a word. The world’s most famous non-verbal apology.

I watch him wearily. I still wanted a verbal apology from him, was that crazy? What he said was deeply hurtful. And hearing about his French lover makes me feel a way that I don’t like so I shut it out. I stick to the anger instead. It was easier.

He starts to warm up as we board the bus, cracking jokes with his band. I pick a seat near the front and stay there with my headphones. Aside from answering Morgan’s texts I pretend to be asleep. Eventually I do.

Someone flicks my hat, “C’mon sleepyhead! We’re in the city of love.”

“Wha?” There’s a crick in my neck and I feel rusty. But Harry’s right, we’d landed in Paris. He hovers above my seat with a jovial smile but it dies the longer I don’t return it. Serves him right. He doesn’t get to be cruel and wipe it away with coffee and a joke.

He gets the hint and boards off. I grab the last of the bags and join the group in the lobby where Morgan greets Harry like his long lost son.

“The trials aren’t over just yet,” he cringes. “I don’t know why Paris keeps fucking with me but we’re booked tight for rooms.”

“What does that mean?” Harry asks.

“Uhm well,” Morgan clears his throat. “The hotel overbooked. We have 3 rooms between the 8 of us. Luckily I have a mate who lives in town so I’ll crash at his. The rest of you need to share.”

“Morgan you’re fucking with me,” someone groans.

“No I’m sorry. I booked 5 with an en-suite but they screwed up. They’re refunding us half—I fought for that at least. I can use that to put others in another hotel if you’d like but so far I’ve only managed one room with two doubles.”

“Claire and I can share,” Sarah says.

“Good, Mitch you good with the boys?”

“I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Uh y/n…would you like me to book you an extra room somewhere? I don’t want you to be far from the team-“

“She’ll stay with me.” Harry says. “I’m performing tonight and then we’re moving to Amsterdam tomorrow afternoon so…”

I squirm a little as all eyes fall to me. Cool. Casual. “Sure.”

“Sorted! Let’s get these bags up and out of the way. I’ll have a car waiting down here in a half hour so you can all freshen up and meet me again.”

We trudge along and get off on our respective floors.

“The truth is,” Harry says as we scan ourselves into our room. “I’m probably not even gonna use the bed for the night so it’s all yours.”

“Oh,” I look around the room. It’s got a french touch and a lush queen in the middle. I could deal with not having to share it. I’m sure my fiancé back home would be happier too. Even though I want to ask why I don’t. “Okay.”

We settle our things in silence and a part of me wants to break it and start talking about the ride and Paris but I’m still not over his earlier behaviour so I continue giving the bare minimum. He doesn’t seem to care.

We head off for tests and I end up falling asleep in one of the booths. The tiredness was really creeping up. I could sleep through all the noise the band was making.

A particularly loud screeching from feedback wakes me up. I look down to the group, everyone’s mostly broken up while tech crew tapes down some wires and connects equipment. Harry sits on the edge of the stage, swinging his feet and texting away at his phone. He’s different from the grump this morning. He’s lighter.

Charlie catches me looking and waves, I wave back. There’s a pit in my stomach that grows heavier as the day passes into night.

Paris is not the loudest but super engaged. Everyone has some reference to Harry adorned on their clothing or their face and I can tell Harry has a special connection to the group.

“And finally,” Harry says into the mic. “This is a special song for my French friends. Tonight has been a blessing and I want to merci beaucoup for showing up!”

The crowd cheers as the intro to his song comes on. I listen to the lyrics for the first time since hearing the song last year and connect the dots to what Sarah said earlier. Maybe this was the girl. Maybe this was why he wasn’t sleeping at the hotel tonight.

As we’re leaving the venue and I’m going through a mental list of everything we could have forgotten, we spot a familiar face around back.

“Riley?” Mitch spots him first. “Is that you mate?”

“Hey,” Riley like, Harry’s old assistant Riley is standing with a couple other people who are having a smoke. He squashes his and greets the band who apparently still feel fondly when it comes to him. He looks the exact same but my feelings towards him are curdled after knowing what he’s like and how he left us high and dry.

That leaves Harry and I still hovering by the entrance alone, staring at the reunion by the time Riley comes up to us. I guess the band knew his friends because they get to chatting. I remember then, Riley ditched Harry to work for one of his friends. Must be a small world.

“Why the long face you two, c’mon still not holding a grudge are we?”

“Riley,” Harry addresses him. I stay silent, watching Riley from where I stand behind Harry.

“Nice to see Y/N’s still sticking around. How are you liking tour life?”

“Did you come to the show?” I find my voice.

“Yeah,” he nods all friendly like this was casual and he’s done nothing wrong ever. “I might be biased because I worked for the guy but Harry Styles is one of my top artist. And I’m in Paris until the Fall so why not come support him.”

“Well,” Harry says in the same deadpan voice. “Thanks for the support Riley.”

Riley glances over at him, smug. He knows he’s annoying Harry. So maybe I wasn’t the only one who got enjoyment out of doing that.

“Oh c’mon you’re still upset with me jumping ship? It’s been months! Y/N we’re cool right-“

Riley moves to walk past Harry and to me but Harry side-steps to stay in his way. I look at Harry. So does Riley, confusion sliding away to amusement.

“Oh I see,” he steps back, arms crossed. “Harry you sly dog you did it again.”

“We’re going now,” Harry says. “Try not to show up at any other shows.”

Harry tried to leave and I take the few steps to follow but Riley starts again.

“So y/n you fell for his trick too? I’m disappointed I thought you were immune.” Riley continues. “How’d he get you to the bedroom? Lots of booze? Or did you not even make it to the bedroom? Was it being treated like shit that did it for you?”

“What?” Now in the middle, I look between the two, wondering how this conversation took such a bizarre turn.

“You have some obsession with me Riley?” Harry steps back towards us. “Because you sure enjoy making up stories in your head with me starring in it. Don’t rope y/n into them either.”

“Not all stories,” Riley stays smug. “Some of them I’ve seen with my own eyes.”

They had to be talking about the last PA. The story Riley told me. Which means he thinks I…

“You really should watch what you talk about,” Harry reminds him.

Riley turns his attention to me, “Y/N I thought I warned you good enough. But I guess you put out as easily as the last one.”

“Riley whatever drama you’re trying to-“

“Mate,” Harry gets in Riley’s face so he can’t even look at me. I go quiet. “Get the fuck out of my sight before I get security to kick you out permanently.”

“Being the knight in shining armour doesn’t really suit you Haz,” Riley says. With one final judgemental look thrown my way he walks away. I have to lay a hand on Harry’s arm just to keep him from lunging at him but as soon as my hand makes contact he brushes me away.

This whole interaction was ego-bruising. “Why did he think-“

“Ignore him.” Harry cuts me off, his back still to me. His band, having watched the final scene unfold, now awkwardly shuffles back to us. “You okay?”

“Yeah but why-“

“Good.”

He cuts me off from asking anything and I don’t get to push because the group tries to defuse the situation by changing the subject. That includes the girls inviting me for drinks at their favourite parisian place. Harry disappears and so do those answers.

I try to poke whether the girls at dinner knew anything about his last PA but they barely met her. So I’m forced to eat oysters when they find out I’d never had them and the subject changes quickly to new and other things.

“So oysters thumbs up or down?” I’m asked as I slowly eat another.

“Weird texture…ehh?” I hover my thumb in the middle.

“Well too bad your partner—what’s his name again?” They ask. I tell her. “Ooh good name. Too bad Grayson isn’t here to cash in on all these oysters.”

They laugh and I think I’m not drunk enough to laugh as much with.

It’s the wee hours of the morning by the time we get back to the hotel. I crash alone as soon as my head hits the pillow.

***

After three weeks of tour I’m ecstatic to get back home. I wanted to sleep in the same bed for more than a day, I wanted a shower with even temperature, and I wanted a home-cooked meal.

And I wanted Gray.

I even catch an earlier flight—the night before rather than the next morning. I build up surprising Gray so much that I end up being the one who’s surprised when I come home to an empty flat.

I double check I’d set my phone back to the right time but it’s nearly 11. He must be out with friends, not a client.

I want to call him but still hold the idea of a surprise so I take a shower instead, put a load of laundry in, and make myself a sandwich. I crawl into bed at 1, still no Gray.

I end up tapping through our friends’ stories and find him in one. At least I knew where he was. But 2/3 photos I can find of him, Bex is standing too close for comfort.

I can tell by the photos there’s nothing going on. From his end. The most contact they have is his arm around her shoulder but for some reason all of this makes me mad. I’d broken it down to him that he couldn’t talk with people who had a thing for him because they would only give biased advice. But he didn’t listen. He said I was reading into it too much. And here she was, gazing up at him in every damn photo.

I hate that I wasn’t even home for a couple hours and already found something to annoy me.

I must have fallen asleep shortly after because I wake to poking on my side.

“Y/n? Is that really you? Y/n? Y/n?”

Gray.

“Hi,” I turn in bed. “I’m home early.”

“Shit!” He stands and sways back slightly. Wow, he was pissed. I hadn’t seen him this inebriated in a hot minute. “You didn’t say!”

“I know I-“

“I thought I imagined you.”

“Nope all here,” I grit my teeth. Why was I annoyed at my boyfriend for having a life, I scold myself.

Why is he so drunk and is this a new thing or did he only get this way cuz I’m not around?

“You finally came back to me,” he slurs. He smells like a brewery as he climbs into bed and I wish I could force a shower on him but I get swept up in his arms. “Hey you were right by the way.”

“About?”

“About.”

“Gray! What was I right about?”

“I’m getting to it! You. Were right. About Bex.”

“H-how do you know?” Weird coincidence. Or not?

“Sheshe she tried to kiss me!” He falls back laughing in bed. “I said nooo cuz I have a fiancée. Y/N. Oops. She was maaad.”

My heart drops. I knew it. That little bitch! And she had to go and try to kiss my man when he’s drunk! I officially didn’t like her. And the story itself adds to my irritation.

“Wow. Crazy. I’m tired as hell so I’m going to bed.”

I turn and leave my back to Gray. I didn’t want to see him this drunk, this chill about someone I warned him about trying to kiss him.

He splays on the bed where he is, draping an arm over me and pretty soon I hear his even breathing. That annoys me too, that he could fall asleep so quick. His arm is a weight over my body and I feel like I’m sinking into the bed and out of view.

***

It’s like Grayson and I have forgotten how to live with each other.

What starts out as minor annoyances turn into bickering pretty quickly. Our 1 bedroom flat begins to feel cramped and I desperately try to cling onto the idea of us because I can’t fathom us fizzling out like this but my fingernails are raw from scraping threads.

Work is the easiest it’s been in a while. With no set working hours I just spend a few hours everyday doing admin and running errands. Otherwise, unless somebody calls me I’m free.

I thought it would be great. So much free time with Gray, we could continue planning the wedding and catch up again. But he busies himself with work, and when we go on dates he doesn’t make much of an effort to talk. It’s like getting to know him all over again except he’s a broodier version of himself. It makes me mad and I end up picking fights.

I book brunch with some of the girls on the last Saturday I’m home, thinking it might help to have space from Gray and see other people. I thought everything would be fine. And it is, on a surface level—they treat me perfectly normal.

Except the only time they gave me space to talk about myself went something like this,

“So Y/N how are you? Busy touring how is that?”

“Oh yeah it was great! Really taxing but fulfilling too. I went to so many cities I haven’t visited even though I’ve been in London for like 7 years? Copenhagen was one of my fave-

“Ooh. Yeah I really want to visit Copenhagen this summer.”

“Oh I love Copenhagen…”

And I was officially asked out of sharing my own life. The rest of brunch was me reacting to everyone else’s stories and having the subject change quickly after I brought up anything about myself. When I mentioned Gray casually, I could feel the judgement. It’s like they were waiting on me to complain about him so they could pounce. It’s a weird and tiring energy.

As we all say our goodbyes I manage to catch Rebecca alone.

“Hey Bex,” I stop her on the edge of the group. “I know we haven’t talked much lately but I just want to say I don’t appreciate the moves you’re making on Gray.”

She raises a brow, “moves?”

“He told me you tried to kiss him. Those kinds of moves.”

Her face pinches. “Well someone has to make some.”

“Excuse me?” She tries to walk away but I rush to step in front of her.

“It’s no secret you and Gray are on the road to a breakup,” she has the audacity to look judgey in that moment and I want to slap the look off her face.

“What the fuck do you know about me and Gray? Back. Off.”

“Hey what’s going on?” One of our other friends drifts towards us and I notice they’re all looking our way.

“Just a friendly chat,” I say with sarcasm you can’t miss. At the same time Bex responds, “Y/n’s being delusional.”

I was going to get physical, I step back towards her but our friends get between us. I think they knew uni me, and knew I wasn’t afraid of confrontation.

“What the fuck y/n?” I was so tired of the look on their faces, like I was crazy.

“She tried to kiss Gray!” I reveal. “Last week! I’m just telling her to back off and I have every right to!”

It’s news to them. They turn to Bex who’s fidgeting with her sweater as a flush creeps up her neck.

“I-I he did! He tried to kiss me!”

I snort, “I don’t have time for your bullshit Rebecca. I’ve gotta go.”

“Oh yeah we all know you don’t have time y/n, you’re so busy these days.”

“Bex!” Someone scolds her.

“Somebody better teach her hand to keep her hand over her mouth because I will get through all of you if it means getting to her. You know you guys don’t know shit about my life. And you don’t even care to these days! Just because Gray told his sob side you guys treat me like-like shit!”

“That’s not true-“

“It is! You don’t even know my side! And I don’t care to explain because you lot are supposed to be our friends, not the judge and jury of my relationship.”

They stare blankly at me and nobody denies it so I continue: “I try so hard to stay involved in your lives knowing I can’t make it to half of our parties, I’m always messaging you guys and trying to stay on top of your socials to know what’s going on in your lives. I feel like I make all the effort and I’m just made the pariah.”

It feels good getting it off my chest. It feels amazing. I feel like I’m breathing an actual lungful of air now.

“We’re sorry if we made you feel that way.” I look at who’s said this. One of my oldest friends from uni. I scoff.

“You’re sorry if you made me feel that way?! I just said you did!”

“Sorry,” she says, quieter.

“Y’know it’s…it’s disappointing. I thought, when we became best friends first year of uni nothing could shake the bond we had. Apparently a man you met 3 years ago who vented to you about your best friend was just the thing.” All their faces are small and nobody makes eye contact with me. “Anyway, I do have to go. I have an appointment. Let’s not do this again.”

I walk away, proud of myself for saying what I had to and getting it off my chest. For sticking up for myself.

But the farther away I get, the more the adrenaline crashes through me and I end up walking onto the tube on shaky legs and collapsing in my seat. The reality of what’s happened falls into my lap and I see a bunch of burned bridges.

I spend a couple extra hours out after my appointment. I’m not going anywhere in particular, I let my feet carry me through the city as my mind continues to whir.

Harry texts me, asking me to stop by his place before I fly back for tour tomorrow evening. Apparently the concierge needed all his mail picked up and he needed a few of the items. It annoys me that he waited last minute to ask.

When I get home at 4, Gray’s vacuuming the flat. He stops it when I come in.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How was brunch?”

It’s the way he asks. I know he knows. Which means a group chat exists with our friends and him without me. It feels like another betrayal. Who keeps their partner out deliberately? Who opens up their relationship like a hockey net, open for anyone to take shots at?

“Why’re you asking?” I feel another fight coming.

“I can’t ask you how brunch went?”

“Did you hear something? Let me guess, did Bex snitch?”

“No, chill out why would Bex snitch?”

“Grayson,” I look at him deadpan. “Don’t bullshit me. If you have any respect for me, which I know now is not a lot, don’t bullshit me.”

He sighs but doesn’t say anything more. Doesn’t lie and doesn’t tell the truth.

“So?” I ask. “Is there like a group chat or something?”

“Let’s just drop it-“

“No! I’m not dropping this when you brought it up. So is there? Did you disrespect me in front of all our friends by talking shit, and then do it even more by allowing them to ice me out in a group chat you knew I wasn’t part of?”

He doesn’t respond. My temper flares.

“The hurtful part isn’t even not being part of the chat, it’s that you didn’t tell me.”

It makes sense now. I was always initiating birthday messages there or privately, thinking everyone was forgetting to wish each other. Now I know I was public fool number one keeping that convo alive when they were probably all wishing each other elsewhere. God. I was an idiot!

“Look I’m sorry y/n, after you stopped showing up to things they just made a new one so they don’t bother you.”

“Oh is that why? Because that was active up until a few months ago. So according to the timeline it was probably when you fucked up and talked shit about me to all our friends and they decided I was a bitch and they should all cancel me! Well I hope you’re happy Gray!”

“I’m not! I’m sorry I didn’t realize-“

“Stop!” I slam my hand into the wall and it hurts harder than I anticipated but I bite back the pain. “Just admit it! You want to paint me as the bad guy so fucking hard, and I am in some ways I know I’m far from perfect Gray! But instead of talking to me like normal fucking people do, you just iced me out and then isolated me from the only friends I’ve ever made in this stupid fucking city!”

I can’t help the tears now even though I don’t want to cry. I want to rage and scream and throw things about but the hurt is bigger and it bubbles over the pot and sears my heart.

I leave my shopping bags where I’ve dropped them and walk back out of the door before he can come up with a response. I couldn’t stand to look at his face. He’s betrayed me over and over and the whole time I was desperately trying to show him I hadn’t changed and I loved him.

I walk the 40 minute to Harry’s and the early evening air helps me learn how to breathe again. I take in gulps of it and try not to cry. I didn’t want to waste tears on Gray and my stupid friends. I didn’t want to do any of this! I just wanted to press pause on my whole damn life and take a nap.

Outside his building I pull out my phone and make sure I don’t look crazed. My hand is killing me and I ignore the bruising blooming fresh.

The concierge spots me just as I enter, and we make small talk about Harry on tour and his last few shows that would happen in London. I make a note to mention to Harry to send him tickets—apparently his niece listened to him.

He helps me load a cart with Harry’s mail and take it upstairs.

It had been over a month since I’d been in here and it’s weird that it feels comforting. Or maybe that was just after two weeks of feeling like a stranger at home.

Harry’s words on the plane echo back to me. Not that I was appreciated here either.

If there was ever a time to go back home to the States, it would be now. But that felt like running away. I had to sort my life out here before I made any rash decisions.

With a sigh I dump the paper onto the coffee table. After sorting what looked like bills from letters from miscellaneous I spot the two envelopes Harry wanted and put it to the side. I open the boxes next and locate his custom orthopaedic inserts he asked me to grab too.

I take the extra mail to my office to sort out. In the familiar closed quarters where I’d spent too much time in the last year rolling through a hundred phases, my feelings edge out of me. I try to wipe the tears and continue on but I end up pathetically sat over on the chair crying until I can barely breathe.

It’s pathetic because this is the first space I’ve felt I had the space to cry. And it was where I worked. Where, apparently, I wouldn’t even be missed.

New tears. Less breaths.

“Get it the fuck together,” I say between gasps. “That’s. Enough.”

Through my own self-talk I manage to calm down enough to finish the work. It’s half past 8 by the time I get back to the main living area. I get water to rehydrate myself and stay sitting on the couch staring into space for another ten minutes. I don’t think I had any more tears to cry. Just a rock in place of my heart and another bigger one attached to my ankle.

“Okay,” I finally get the courage to head home.

The end isn’t big and explosive. It’s a simple statement: I think we both know what needs to be done now.

I don’t fight him this time. I have no fight left in me. I just nod.

“I’ll sleep on the couch and still drop you off tomorrow,” he reassures me.

“Just sleep in bed,” I couldn’t even muster enough energy for expression. My flat tone is how I felt. “You don’t fit on the couch. And I’ll get myself to the airport.”

“No I’ll take you. I’ve already made the arrangements-“

“You don’t have to worry about me anymore Gray,” I say. He looks crestfallen and it irks me that he does. I didn’t want him to be sad, it was ridiculous but it was.

“Well I’ll take you anyway.” He says then turns back to the TV.

I wash the day off and make sure everything is packed for my early flight tomorrow. As I lay in bed alone I realize this might be the last time I ever sleep here. Like this. I would have to move all my shit out. Oh god, the wedding. I’d have to cancel my dress shopping dates and the cake testing, the invites we were still designing.

We’d only told our friends it was going to be a winter wedding, I’m glad we never gave them a date. Nobody had marked their calendars. Nothing about us would been permanent.

I look down at the simple ring on my hand. Everything but that.

I keep it on.

I’m still awake when Gray comes to bed but I pretend to sleep. My mind can’t stop making lists to answer: what now.

I’m in a fugue state all night and the only thing that clears the fog is the rays of sunshine peeking through the blinds in the morning. I hadn’t slept a wink.

Quiet, so I don’t wake Gray, I get up and dressed. I order a taxi and try not to linger on the hurt of doing this alone. Of Gray waking up to an empty bed.

The flight to Madrid is a couple hours and I miraculously nap through it. Everyone is happy to see me when I get back, especially when I present them with snacks they’d all said they missed from home while we were on tour. With them in hand, I’m an angel in their eyes.

I hand Harry his mail and he stops me. His eyes don’t stop examining my face.

“What happened to your hand?” He asks.

I’d picked up a bandaging kit and ice pack at the airport and with the help of Youtube, wrapped it up. It had started to bruise even worse but I couldn’t be arsed to deal with it even though it hurt. Nothing a few painkillers couldn’t fix.

“I accidentally got it caught in a door,” I lie easily. I had practiced. “It’s nothing.”

“Did you get it checked?”

“No.”

“Make sure you do, tonight’s show.”

“Sure. It’s really nothing though.”

“You sure?” He asks. His gaze is unnerving.

“Mhm,” I nod.

He’s silent, eyes scanning my face. Right as I decide I couldn’t take the scrutiny he asks, “Why were you crying last night?”

I stare, unsure what kind of trick he was playing.

“Sorry.” He laughs to himself. “I have one of those uh, motion sensor cameras in the entryway. I turn it on while I’m away so it sends like, automatic clips if there’s movement. I saw you come in and leave.”

“Oh.” Shit. Think fast. Think fast. “I uhm, got into it with some friends I had a meal with. Y’know…they were being a bit icy cuz of what they’ve heard. I’m over it though.”

“Yeah?” His eyes flicker down to my hand.

“Yeah.” I hold his green eyes for a moment, to reassure him I’m okay. I don’t know why he cares, maybe because I looked like a right mess last night as I left. How embarrassing. But I do my best acting job ever.

Satisfied, he lets me go. I return to the group asking for updates and any stories they wanted to share. Before long I’m laughing along and creeping out of my depressed mood. But something heavier still lingers.

***

TAGLIST: @boomitsallie1 @indierockgirrl @ndunad @jerseygirlinca @sunshinemoonsposts @ninasw0rld @love-letters-to-uranus @mayamonroem @sassamanda77

[mondaysamiright]

Falling Into You (Part 2)

Pairing: Emilia Clarke x fem!reader

Summary: Y/N and Emilia find themselves on the pages of the Daily Mail

Word Count: 2k+

Part 1 Here Part 3 Here

The morning light crept through the thin curtains of Y/N’s new flat, illuminating the scattered boxes and half-unpacked luggage that still littered the living room. It had only been a couple of weeks since she’d moved to the UK from Colorado, and despite her best intentions, she hadn’t quite found the time or energy to finish unpacking. The flat was a charming, if modest, space with creaky wooden floors and large windows that let in the autumn sunlight, but it still felt more like a temporary stopover than home.

Y/N padded around the kitchen in her worn slippers, her movements leisurely and unhurried. The kettle bubbled away on the stove, steam rising as she waited for the water to boil. She glanced around at the cluttered countertops, mentally adding ‘organize kitchen’ to the ever-growing list of things she needed to do. But not today. Today was going to be a lazy Saturday.

The whistle of the kettle broke her train of thought, and she poured the boiling water over a coffee filter, the rich scent of the brew filling the small kitchen. She sighed contentedly, the familiar smell a comforting reminder of home. Her favorite mug—a chipped one from a café in the Rockies—sat waiting on the counter. She filled it to the brim, taking a cautious sip before making her way to the kitchen table.

She pushed aside a pile of unopened mail and travel brochures, finding a small space to set down her coffee. Her laptop sat closed in front of her, an open invitation to start her day with the mindless scroll of social media or catching up on emails, but she resisted the urge. Instead, she leaned back in her chair, cradling the warm mug between her hands as she soaked in the quiet stillness of the morning.

Just as she was starting to enjoy the peacefulness, her phone buzzed, vibrating its way across the cluttered table. She glanced at the screen and saw her coworker's name, Sara, flashing. With a bemused smile, she picked up the call.

“Hey, Sara. What’s up?” she greeted, her voice still thick with sleep. 

Sara’s voice crackled through the speaker, rapid and almost breathless with excitement. “Oh my God, Y/N! Did you see it? Tell me you’ve seen it! I just sent it to you!”

Y/N blinked, bewildered, her still sleepy mind struggling to catch up. “Uh, seen what?”

“Check your texts!” Sara insisted, her voice buzzing with so much energy that Y/N couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Alright, alright,” she muttered, pulling the phone away from her ear and opening the text message thread. A new message from Sara blinked at the top of the screen. She tapped on it, her thumb hovering over the image file for a moment before she clicked it.

Her eyes widened as the Daily Mail article loaded. It was a bright, glossy picture of her and Emilia Clarke from the other day. They were walking through the park, Emilia mid-laugh, her hand brushing against Y/N’s arm as they stood outside the café. The headline blared across the screen in bold letters:

"Emilia Clarke Enjoys a Cool Fall Day with a Mysterious Woman!"

Y/N nearly spat out her coffee, coughing as she read the caption below the photo. “‘The Game of Thrones star was seen enjoying a casual day out with an unidentified brunette, sparking rumors of a new romance...’” Her eyes widened, and she could almost hear Sara's barely-contained glee on the other end of the line.

“Are you kidding me?” Y/N muttered to herself, scrolling down the article. There were more pictures—one of her laughing at something Emilia had said, another of them at the café, their heads close together in conversation. Each image was accompanied by captions that only seemed to add fuel to the fire. “Who writes this stuff?”

Sara’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “So? Spill! Are you secretly dating Emilia Clarke, and you just forgot to tell me? Because that’s something you don’t forget to mention, Y/N!”

Y/N rubbed a hand over her face, feeling a mix of amusement and disbelief. “No, Sara, I’m not dating Emilia Clarke,” she said, shaking her head as she continued scrolling. “‘The pair appeared at ease as they strolled through the park, sparking rumors of a potential new love interest.’ Really?”

Sara giggled on the other end of the line. “I mean, they’re not wrong. You two looked super cute together. Who knew you’d have such an eventful first month in the UK?”

Y/N let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, because this is exactly what I pictured—moving to a new country, getting mistaken for a celebrity’s new girlfriend in the tabloids. Totally normal.”   

They both laughed, the absurdity of the situation lightening the initial shock. Y/N glanced around her still-chaotic flat, the unpacked boxes and scattered belongings serving as a stark contrast to the glamorous life the article seemed to suggest she was part of.

Y/N shook her head, returning her attention back to the article. “‘The pair appeared to be quite cozy as they strolled through the park, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Could this be the beginning of a new celebrity romance?’” she read aloud, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Unbelievable.”

“Cozy, huh?” Sara teased, giggling. “You know, this could be your big break into the world of tabloid fame!”

Y/N rolled her eyes, unable to hold back a laugh of her own. “Oh, great. Just what I need. My fifteen minutes of fame as Emilia Clarke’s mystery woman.”

Y/N glanced back at the article, a strange mix of amusement and disbelief washing over her. The way the article painted the day as some kind of romantic rendezvous was almost comical, if not for the fact that it was now out there for the world to see.

“Well, I have to go, but we’re not done talking about this!” Sara warned, still giggling.

“Yeah, yeah,” Y/N replied with a smirk. “I’ll talk to you later.” 

Y/N set her phone down and leaned back in her chair, chuckling to herself. “Emilia Clarke’s mystery woman,” she muttered with a shake of her head. The idea was so absurd it was almost laughable. She glanced around her cluttered flat, her eyes landing on an open box filled with books she still hadn’t unpacked.

“Well, if I’m going to be famous, I guess I should at least finish unpacking,” she said to no one in particular. With a grin, she pushed herself up from the table and set to work. After all, it wasn’t every day you got mistaken for a celebrity’s love interest in the tabloids. She might as well enjoy it.

Emilia’s POV

The late morning sun was warm on Emilia’s skin as she settled into a wicker chair in her garden, cradling a mug of steaming tea between her hands. It was a rare, quiet Saturday morning, and she intended to savor it. The garden was her sanctuary, a little pocket of green amidst the bustling city, filled with blooming flowers and the soft hum of bees. She took a sip of her tea, the gentle breeze rustling through the leaves as she let herself relax into the tranquility of the moment.

Her phone, resting on the small table beside her, buzzed with a notification. She ignored it at first, not wanting to interrupt the peaceful silence, but curiosity got the better of her. She reached for the device, glancing at the screen. It was a message from her publicist, Jackie.

Jackie: What do I need to know about this?

Emilia frowned, confusion furrowing her brow as she opened the attachment. Her eyes widened as the Daily Mail article loaded, the headline jumping out at her in bold letters:

“Emilia Clarke Enjoys a Cool Fall Day with a Mysterious Woman!”

A groan escaped her lips, loud enough to disturb a few birds perched in the nearby tree. “Oh, for the love of—” she muttered, scrolling through the article. There were pictures of her and Y/N from the other day, walking through Hampstead Heath, laughing at the café. The captions were all suggestive, spinning a narrative that was completely out of line with what had actually happened.

She rubbed her forehead, her mind racing. How had the paparazzi even found her? It had been such an ordinary day, and she hadn’t noticed anyone following them. Her eyes skimmed the article again, noting how it made Y/N out to be her new love interest, emphasizing their supposed chemistry and the cozy atmosphere between them.

Before she could fully process her irritation, her phone rang, Jackie’s name flashing on the screen. Emilia sighed and answered, bringing the phone to her ear.

“Good morning, Jackie,” she greeted, trying to keep her tone light despite the frustration simmering just beneath the surface.

“Morning? More like afternoon at this rate,” Jackie quipped, but her tone quickly turned serious. “Emilia, what’s going on? Are you dating this woman or not? Because, from these photos, it certainly looks like there’s something going on.”

Emilia closed her eyes, the absurdity of it all almost making her laugh. “No, Jackie, I’m not dating her. I literally just met her the other day. I tripped over her in the park, we had tea, and that was it.”

“Mhm,” Jackie’s voice was skeptical, but playful. “Because that’s how everyone looks at a stranger they just met. I mean, look at these pictures. You two look awfully cozy together.”

Emilia bit back a retort, her gaze shifting to the garden around her, the flowers swaying gently in the breeze. “We were just talking. She seemed nice, and we had a good conversation, but that’s it. I feel terrible for her—now she’s got her face plastered all over the tabloids because she happened to have tea with me.”

Jackie’s sigh was audible over the line. “You know this happens. You’re Emilia Clarke, for crying out loud. Every time you step outside, people notice. Whether you like it or not, that’s just how it is.”

“I know,” Emilia muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “But it’s not fair to her. She didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Maybe not,” Jackie conceded, her tone softening a bit. “But you can’t control what the paparazzi do. You know that. It’s part of the deal, unfortunately.”

Emilia was silent for a moment, staring down at the half-empty mug of tea in her hand. She’d been through this a hundred times before, but it never got any easier. And now this poor woman, who had probably just been trying to enjoy her day, was being dragged into the spotlight because of a random encounter.

“What can I do, Jackie?” Emilia asked quietly, feeling a pang of guilt. “I want to apologize to her, at least.”

Jackie was silent for a moment, considering. “I can try to find out where she works, or maybe get her contact information somehow. But you know how tricky this can get. We don’t want to overstep.”

“I know,” Emilia sighed. “But I just… I feel like I should do something. This is all so ridiculous, and now she’s caught up in it because of me.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jackie said, her voice gentler now. “But try not to worry too much, okay? These things blow over. People will be onto the next story before you know it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Emilia murmured, though she didn’t feel much relief. She thanked Jackie and hung up, setting her phone down on the table with a frustrated sigh. The garden felt less serene now, the peaceful morning soured by the thought of Y/N being dragged into her chaotic world without warning.

She leaned back in her chair, staring up at the sky. It was such a small, silly thing—just a chance meeting and a bit of conversation—but it had spiraled out of control so quickly. And now Y/N, who seemed so kind and genuine, was probably dealing with the fallout.

Emilia closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and let the cool air wash over her. She’d find a way to make this right, or at least to apologize. Somehow. But for now, all she could do was sit there, sipping her now-cold tea, and wonder how one simple day in the park had turned into this.

[earthstellar]

Imagine Cybertronians on Earth, already trying to get their translation systems/linguistic programs to figure out organic chirpy noises (human talk)

Like, the Autobots on the Arc (which landed in the USA) finally figure out English and probably like various forms of locally relevant Spanish etc. (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and so on) just to be Extra Sure they can communicate with different humans in their immediate area

And then they find out there are multiple types of English, and the confusion begins

UK Person: "I have a hen party on Sunday!"

Cybertronian: "A party for the Chicken animal??? Or is it about the Chicken animal?"

USA Person: "They mean a Bachelorette party."

Cybertronian, furiously searching language banks: "Your mating rituals are fascinating; Based on your perception of traditional and cultural concepts of gender, you gather similarly gendered humans, isolate yourselves from your mate immediately prior to your bonding ceremony, and get arrested while severely intoxicated as a way to celebrate securing a beloved partner??"

Humans: "Uh, yes. Although getting drunk and arrested isn't--"

Cybertronian: "Do they arrest the chickens as well? Organics are strange, why does avian incarceration factor into your bonding celebration?"

Humans: "What? No, I mean, a lot of people will eat chicken--"

Cybertronian: "You consume your bonding celebration animal??? Is this the 'hen party'? Teletraan's data banks contain historical texts on ancient human hunting tactics and behaviours, but these do not elaborate on modern human culture. Do you remove the chicken to a preferred hunting terrain for the ritual?"

the entire conversation makes everyone involved feel delirious by the end of it, lmao

[eemoo1o-animoo]

10 Grelle-based paraphernalia that I found on eBay, in no particular order but my subjective deeming of relevance or importance

Possibly part one of a series? Perhaps?

If so, then I probably won’t contain it to only eBay, and I’m going off of what comes up for someone who’s based in the UK, so maybe there’s more or less stuff available if you’re in other countries due to shipping limitations, etc.? But eBay at the moment is my main source, and I’m only doing this — work that anyone can do, nothing exceptionally thorough or insightful — because I’m just a little bored, and I know Grelle is the most valued in the fandom and TSOGTR hasn’t been writing itself for the past year and a quarter, so why would it start now?

This is written at 3AM-6AM on 29/8/2024, so if this is found long after this date then there’s a chance my sources have already been bought out or deleted for whatever reason.

1.

Grell Sutcliff Funko Pop 18 Kuroshitsuji Black Butler POP! Vinyl Anime Figure

At the time of writing this, there are no bids for this and so the price remains at £21.99 (item and shipping). The current bid is due to end on ≈1/9/2024. Wait for the last second to bid one pence higher than the asking price and you’re golden.

I actually have one of these, but it was gifted to me, and so I don’t know how much mine was sold for, but seeing as the four Black Butler Funko Pops have been vaulted and are sold for way higher in other places online, I think this is a pretty good deal.

(Fun fact, the person who gifted her to me as well as tracked down other cheap listings for the other three called her Greta. Consistently. So. Greta. Greta Sutcliff.)

As we can see from the item’s pictures, the figure has been taken out of its box, at the very least just to be show-cased or inspected, but it does appear to come with the box. Here is a listing on Amazon (9.99 GBP, excluding shipping) for 10 Funko Pop display sleeves that should match the item’s measurements.

The current conversions for this item’s price (18.99 GBP) are as follow:

25.06 USD

36.91 AUD

33.77 CAD

22.52 Euro

2,103.26 INR

855,31 Turkish Lira

39.92 NZD

3,623.33 Yen

Obviously I’m not including every conversion in here, only the most obvious/prevalent. If your country’s currency isn’t here, then my apologies, and feel free to bring it to my attention (with currency named) so that I may add it to any future episodes to this possible series, or to edit this post back with the conversions of that time.

2.

Black Butler PVC Keychain Grell

The description of this listing says that this is officially licensed and from one reverse image search to find a bunch of listings across several websites for it, I’m inclined to believe that this is actually an official piece of merch and not a fan-made item that is being resold as I had originally thought it to be. (Wow, I’m such a knowledgable Black Butler fan. I know, I know.)

There’s not much to say on this other than the fact that it’s cute and I think a few pence has been shaved off from the original selling price, though I’m not too sure. I imagine it would have easily gone for 8.99 GBP, but again I’m not too sure; it’s 3AM after all and this isn’t a serious project for me.

The current conversions go as followed:

11.87 USD

17.47 AUD

15.99 CAD

10.66 Euro

996.15 INR

405,49 Turkish Lira

18.90 NZD

1,715.62 Yen

3.

Grelle Black Butler manga plushie Anime Soft Toy

It’s not the best price, I admit. If you’re looking for something cheaper then maybe go for the 5" plush, and there’s another listing on AnimeWare, but once tax and shipping get evolved it ends up being more or less the same price, anyway.

I think this is under the same line as Plushlois comes from, and to that I say: if someone buys her, will that come back? Will Grelle’s face be remade by @fancymeatcomputers, as @nullbutler’s Plushlois once had?

Anyway, she’s super cute. Her hair is a bit too saturated, but that’s not much to lament over, and she’s pricey, but is still far less expensive than any available Plushlois listing I could find (£52!! Usually!!).

Here are the current conversions:

39.61 USD

58.30 AUD

53.35 CAD

35.58 Euro

3,323.16 INR

1,351.58 Turkish Lira

63.01 NZD

5,727.47 Yen

4.

Black Butler Kuroshitsuji Grell Undertaker Anime two sided Pillow Case Cover 250

I’d originally listed another pillow for listing number four, which goes for the same price, but decided not to as Grelle is more prominent on this one.

Not much to say about this other than as far as I can tell it’s just the pillowcase and not a case and a pillow, but if you want to add a lil extra something to your Grelle shrine or limit your chances of finding a normie partner by having this as the centrepiece to your 20-something pillow statement on your romantic four-post bed.

Here are the current conversions:

7.91 USD

11.64 AUD

10.65 CAD

7.10 Euro

663.67 INR

269.94 Turkish Lira

12.58 NZD

1,143.54 Yen

5.

Black butler Grell Sutcliffe figure Kuroshitsuji SEGA PVC Scale Anime s01

Another shambolic price, I know. But out of all the non-Funko Pop Grelle figures listed, this is definitely the cheapest.

Out of all of the non-Funko Pop Black Butler figures, it’s far from it. I think the cheapest figures went to Ciel and Sebastian, but with a massive gap between the cheapest Ciel figure versus the cheapest Sebastian figure (there’s a lot of listings for this particular figure, all with free shipping and of similar prices). There’s also a listing that sells Sebastian and Grelle together with free postage, which would value each figure as far less than what this one figure is being sold for.

The current conversions (of 130.22 GBP) go as follows:

172.00 USD

252.73 AUD

231.50 CAD

154.48 Euro

14,430.37 INR

5,874.98 Turkish Lira

273.31 NZD

24,865.90 Yen

6.

Black Butler Grell Sutcliff Cosplay Costume Red Death Men Full Set Outfits New

I’m not much of cosplayer or a cosplay fan, but from the few full cosplays I found that range from £40-50, this seems like a good price.

There’s also a good few listings for Grelle-style shoes? The cheapest of which would be here. And both the shoes and the clothing come in men’s sizes, so it’s a match if you ask me.

The current conversions of the cosplay’s price are:

23.76 USD

34.92 AUD

31.98 CAD

21.34 Euro

1,993.77 INR

811.52 Turkish Lira

37.76 NZD

3,435.09 Yen

7.

Kuroshitsuji Black Butler Madam Red Angelina Dalles Anime Figurine - Play Arts

Look. I know this isn’t a Grelle figure, but I assume that most if not all Grelle fans are also Madame Red fans. And you have to admit that this is a damn good price for a figure of this type. In fact, I’d say this figure is the second cheapest, right behind the aforementioned Ciel figure.

Also the seller has the username “welsh lady”. Surely it’d basically be treason if I didn’t promote it.

The conversions of the item price (6.99 GBP) go as follows:

9.23 USD

13.57 AUD

12.43 CAD

8.29 Euro

774.85 INR

315.29 Turkish Lira

14.68 NZD

1,336.09 Yen

8.

USED Dolk Black Butler Book of Circus Grell Sutcliff Cast Doll 700mm Japan RARE

This is a fucking awful price. It hurts just to imagine buying this. However, it seems like a rare or custom-made doll, in a fancy box, and it was the only listing I could find of it, meaning it’s not a re-sell.

There’s not much to say — as you can see I ranked it pretty low on the relevancy scale, but I don’t know: maybe someone’s into this sort of thing, especially if it comes to Grelle.

The item prices are converted as follows:

2,805.52 USD

4,123.16 AUD

3,776.66 CAD

2,519.24 Euro

235,385.31 INR

95,779.75 Turkish Lira

4,458.47 NZD

405,826.75 Yen

9.

1 x playing card Black Butler Anime Sebastian Michaelis - Jack of Hearts ZT 85

For one playing card, to me this price seems ghastly. There’s also a Sebastian variant for the exact same price, but that’s all I can find in this style. The other listings for Black Butler playing cards aren’t in this style, coming wholly in colour with patterned frames. As far as I can see, on eBay there are only two listings for this type of playing card, and I’ve already linked them both to this post.

The current conversions of the item price (2.49 GBP) are:

3.29 USD

4.83 AUD

4.43 CAD

2.95 Euro

276.04 INR

112,34 Turkish Lira

5.23 NZD

476.23 Yen

10.

Black Butler Ceramic Mug Grell, Sebastian

There’s a more expensive mug with just Grelle on it that I’d contemplated listing here instead. (And, hey! From Germany, too. The TSOGTR imagery just won’t quit.) But this one is cheaper.

Besides, enough scrubbing with some iron wool will get rid of that ugly demon mug (no pun intended) in no time, surely!

The current conversions go as follows:

19.62 USD

28.84 AUD

26.41 CAD

17.62 Euro

1,646.22 INR

669,76 Turkish Lira

31.17 NZD

2,841.32 Yen

[wildshona]

Meeting MAGA

OK, so on Wednesday Chris, Richard and I met two MAGA consultants. They told us that they were dvising the transition team on Europe and we were their first stop – well, Richard and Chris were. Then they were going to Paris, Berlin and, of all places, Budapest.

Anyway we met them at Richard’s cos he has an impressive flat with loads of bookshelves and books in a number of languages about history, politics, foreign affairs and so on. He had prepared a buffet and a presentation which included a map of Europe with, very naughtily I thought, no country names but just the boundaries.

One of the Americans was quite a courtly gentleman with white hair, impeccably dressed, and an absolute caricature of a southern gentleman. His colleague was 25, brash and loud but pretty good looking if I’m honest.

I hadn’t really expected to be there but I, like the map, were a bit of a test.

“And who might this young lady be.” Asks the older guy taking my hand.

This is Shona, Richard replied, she is my aide and an expert on European affairs and especially the current situation on Ukraine. Overstating it I thought and I swear the young MAGA snorted. Now if those reading this post have not read back on my blog far enough you will think, “I thought she was just a time wasting sex maniac without a brain, you know a bimbo.” However, although my education was interrupted when I ran away from home my GCSEs were brilliant, I have been studying under Richard in international politics and history as well as well, sex, and I am in the process of applying to universities. And I am an occasional aide to Richard and I attend all the sessions at events that Chris organises that don’t contain classified information. So there!

Anyway we tuck into the food and the Americans tell us that the President (Trump) had given some clear indications that the UK has to decide whether it was going to be on the side of the EU or the US. Also that he believes that Putin would be amenable to peace and had no further territorial ambitions and would be willing to do a deal with Trump.

I know that foreign affairs are not covered on American TV much so just in case my Followers have missed this Trump has basically threatened the UK that there would be dire consequences for the UK if we got closer to the EU rather than doing a trade deal with the US favourable to the US. The Prime Minister has forcefully responded that allies don’t threaten allies and we would do what we wanted, thank you very much.

Anyway Richard and Chris covered that and the brash young guy, RJ, said that the UK would clearly have to do what the President wanted because the US is a great power. Things were going a bit downhill until Mr Courtly Gentleman basically told RJ to calm down. AS they seem to like initials I think I will call him CG for the purpose of this post.

Anyway in the conversation about Europe RJ, and this is where it started to take a slide, told us that Trump is great friends with Orban and Orban was obviously popular because he had been elected President of Europe. A frosty silence created mainly by the fact that we couldn’t believe what we had heard. Viktor Orban is one of the most reviled politicians in Europe, is widely considered to be a fascist, and is President of the Council of the European Union for six months because it was his turn and much of what he has been trying to do – like changing EU foreign policy – have been boycotted by other leaders. Come January the Presidency will move on to Poland which most certainly will not be cosying up to Putin.

Anyway Richard politely pointed all that out and RJ simply didn’t believe it. AS Orban is called a President he must have been elected, right?

Finally we got on to Ukraine which RJ insisted on calling the Ukraine which is itself a pro-Russian position. Anyway I gave a briefing on the current military position front by front – I do keep up, you know, casualty figures, the fate of the North Koreans and I talked a bit about the troubles Putin was now having in Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Richard invited me to comment on the line from RJ and CG that Putin had no further territorial ambitions. I said that if Ukraine fell or became a satellite the next targets would be Moldova and Georgia.

RJ couldn’t help himself and said that the Baltics weren’t important and that Putin was hardly likely to invade the US. We had another one of those silent moments. I calmly pointed out that that Moldova is not a Baltic country and anyway if Putin did invade the Baltics we would all be at war wouldn’t we – unless of course the US failed to honour its NATO obligations in which case Europe would be on its own (again). CG quietly pointed out to RJ that Georgis was a country that bordered Russia. I had not been talking about the US state.

After that we had some brandies and talked about things that didn’t matter largely to lay cover over the fact that RJ knew fuck all about anything to do with Europe. I honestly couldn’t tell you what CG thought or knew.

Anyway all pretty depressing.

Chris, Richard and I had a few more drinks to get over it after they left. I expect they have both been briefing their European networks.

So that was that. If I’ve upset any of my US followers I’m sorry. I promise I’ll get back to being the bimbo you want me to be in future posts. If any of you actually agree with RJ please feel free to unfollow me. I try not to have Trump, Putin or Orban lovers on my list.

Next post back to normal.

[theunderestimator-2]

A picture worth way more than a thousand words: rockabilly legend & "Brand New Cadillac" songwriter Vince Taylor backstage with Joe Strummer in Paris in September 1981. The photo, taken by an unknown photographer, was in Mick Jones's possession and surfaced in 2019, when it was first published in Mojo UK magazine, (Dec. 2019 issue, p.23, Mojo UK).

According to Joe: "Vince Taylor was the beginning of British rock 'n' roll. Before him there was nothing".

(*from Keith Topping's book "The Complete Clash" Reynolds & Hearn Ltd London, the 2004 edition paperback, p.39-40): "…Born Brian Holden in London in 1939, (after the life in California and his obsession with Elvis Presley), A trip back to London in 1958 brought him a name-change… Taylor's second single for Parlophone, 'Pledging My Love', contained on the B-Side his own composition, 'Brand New Cadillac', an instant classic thanks to Taylor's histrionic vocal and guitarist Tony Sheridan's tense riff. Although it was never a hit in England, the song, and others like it, made Taylor a rock 'n' roll superstar in France during the early 1960s… His story inspired David Bowie, who met Taylor in the mid-60s and had a long conversation with him about aliens, to create the character of Ziggy Stardust. 'I met (Taylor) in The Pig's Foot restaurant in the early 80s', remembered Strummer. 'He talked to me for over five hours about the Duke Duchess of Windsor were planning to kill him with poisoned chocolate cake. .' Taylor's final years were spent as a virtual recluse in Switzerland, where he died in 1991…' .

(via)

[randrspaces]

Shipping Container Conversions | Converted Shipping Containers UK

At R&R Spaces, we transform shipping containers into custom-made and creative spaces for various purposes, such as living, working, shopping, and more. We are one of the top Shipping Container Conversions companies in the UK.

[sentientcave]

Presenting Sadie Blackmoore-Price in Nobody Does it Better

Sadie wouldn't have worn this dress if she'd known that her ex-husband, SAS Major John Price would be here.

Read on AO3

Contains: Trips down memory lane, Attempts to rekindle a failed marriage, Set in the future (roughly 2032), Oral sex (F and M receiving), P in V sex, Unprotected sex (don't do this), Brief daddy kink (You can't tell me John Price doesn't love being called daddy I simply will not believe you), Tabloid mentions, Sadie is a politician (Politicians in real life aren't sexy but this is a fantasy world where the UK Secretary of Defense can be a hot MILF), One mention of possible stalking.

~7.1k - Minors and Ageless Blogs Do Not Interact -

Sadie felt his presence before the big hand landed lightly on her back. Before he leaned over her and spoke, his deep voice rumbling like thunder. “Excuse me, gents, was wondering if I could borrow the lady for a moment.”

They evaporated in an instant. John had that effect on people.

“Hi, John.” Sadie didn’t bother looking at him. Or resisted looking at him, rather. At an official function like this, he’d be wearing his dress uniform, and it always reminded her, rather unfairly, of their wedding day. And that always reminded her of him pulling her away from the reception to absolutely wreck her with his fingers and tongue, until she was so frustrated that she ended up dragging him off to their hotel room and riding his cock, both of them in too much of a rush to get undressed.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he purred, his rough fingertips gliding over her exposed back. She wouldn’t have chosen that particular dress if she’d known John would be there. “You look gorgeous.”

She turned her head slightly, eyebrows raised. “Don’t give me that, John. Your last girlfriend was nearly Scout’s age.”

“Keeping tabs on me, are you?” He steered her to the side of the room with just the barest pressure, all too easily despite her efforts to remain aloof, unaffected.

“Of course I am. I thought you were in the states this week, running those joint combat exercises with the marines.”

“Hm, is that why you wore this dress? Because you thought I was all the way across the Atlantic?” His touch skirted up her spine, hand settling on the back of her neck. “Who are you trying to impress, darling?”

“Kate and Michelle are here.”

“Ah, so they are. You hopin’ to take them home?”

Sadie shrugged, heat gathering high on her cheeks. “Might be.”

“Think I can change your mind?”

“No.”

His fingers squeezed slightly. It took everything she had not to melt all over the floor. Even after all these years apart, he still knew how to play her body like a fiddle. He leaned in close, his breath tickling her ear. “Are you so sure? I’m fairly confident that I can, and we can’t both be right.”

“What makes you think that?” Sadie scoffed, glancing around the room, looking for someone she could flag down or start a conversation with to escape, but every time she made eye contact with someone, they quickly looked away. No one quite brave enough to consider pissing off Major Price by interrupting his little reunion. It was a shame he was still so effective. It would be one hell of a power play if she could get his ass fired.

“Because you won’t look at me. I know this uniform reminds you of our wedding night.” He smiled when she finally looked over, exasperated. “There’s my Sadie.”

“John, I’m not your anything anymore. Haven’t been for a long time.”

His hand dropped to her waist, and he tugged her along beside him. If she’d had any sense, she would have shoved him away and gone home alone immediately. It wasn’t as if she was going to get any networking done with John hanging over her shoulder and making everyone nervous.

“You’ll always be mine, Sadie. You kept my name, didn’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean anything. It was for Scout—”

“Hm, that might’ve flown as an excuse ten years ago, Sadie. You’ve been married and divorced since then. Could’ve taken his last name. Could’ve dropped mine.” Somehow, he’d guided her into a side hallway, gotten her alone and isolated before she could regroup. He backed her against a wall, strong arms caging her in. “But you didn’t. Are you going to tell me that your rings aren’t hung on this little chain?” His blunt fingertips followed the thin necklace, halting short of where it disappeared under her dress.

“I hate you.”

He slipped a finger under the chain and pulled it free, her engagement and wedding rings clinking against each other faintly. “I really don’t think you do, darlin’.”

He let the rings fall, on the outside of the dress now, her inconvenient sentimentality brought to light. Sadie took a deep breath, glaring at him, readying a tirade that would make him wish he was in America like he was supposed to be.

All of those keen soldierly instincts told John exactly what she was going to do, so he struck first, diving in for a kiss before she could tear him to little pieces. And he kissed just like he used to, too much tongue, enthusiasm bordering on desperation, like he would perish if he didn’t get a proper taste of her.

For years, Sadie had been so careful to not let him get his hands on her, keeping doors and distance between them, making sure their daughter was always present when they had to be in a room together, to keep John from getting too handsy, dressing conservatively so he couldn’t stroke his clever fingers against bare skin. He’d ambushed her tonight, gotten under her guard before she’d even known he was there.

She had always known that the instant he touched her like this that she’d be helpless, all good sense thrown to the wolves as she returned the kiss, clinging to his shoulders to pull him closer, knocking the beret off his head as she ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair. He didn’t even have the decency to go bald, like most men their age. In her opinion, he looked better than he had when they were married— The last few times he’d come sniffing around looking for another chance, she’d nearly given it to him. The muttonchops would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but it had taken considerable effort on her part not to drag him inside by the collar and kiss him senseless the first time he’d shown up with that precisely trimmed beard with a bouquet of her favourite flowers in hand (gladiolus and roses and carnations, something he’d picked out specifically, not out of some catalogue). She’d kept the flowers, and slammed the door in his face.

When her husband asked about them, she’d lied through her teeth and told him that she’d picked them up for herself on the way home.

John kissed his way across her jaw to her ear. “You still livin’ in that big flat on Knightsbridge?” he purred.

“Oh, um—” a familiar voice squeaked nervously, pulling Sadie and John’s attention to the nervous face of Sadie’s assistant, a bubbly, round-faced young woman named Emily. She eyed John with the sort of wide-eyed wariness that one might usually reserve for a wild animal. “Sorry, Madam Secretary. The French ambassador was looking for you. But I’ll, um, tell him you’ve gone home early?”

“Yes, thank you, Emily,” Sadie said, as professionally as she could with John still unashamedly feeling her up.

“Have someone bring her car around, would you, pet?” John asked, smiling wickedly at the poor girl.

Sadie nodded when Emily looked a her for confirmation, and watched as she fled the hall as fast as her sensible flat shoes could take her. “John, you couldn’t behave yourself for all of one minute?” she asked tiredly.

“Certainly not. Got about twenty years to make up for.”

“You’re not going to manage that in one night,” Sadie said, laughing and then gasping as he kissed across her collarbone and back to her neck, tongue dragging across her pulse. “And you’re not getting more than one night.” He hummed, unconvinced, teeth finding purchase at the junction of her neck and shoulder. She hung on to him tightly, the solid bulk of his body the only thing keeping her upright. “John, come on, let’s go wait for the ca-a-ar,” her voice broke on the last word as he pinched her nipple through the fabric of her dress. “John, please, just wait till we get home.” She regretted the phrasing instantly. “Back to mine, I mean.”

Too late. He pulled back to look at her, eyes shining with clear, wicked intention. “Home, huh?” He pressed his forehead to hers, so that she couldn’t escape looking right at him.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh? But it’s what you said, isn’t it?” His fingers closed around the rings, and he tugged lightly, snapping the thin chain, his other hand tracing along the outside of her left arm to find her wrist. The chain slipped through his fingers to the floor.

“John, what are you doing?” Sadie asked.

“Something I should’ve done years ago,” he replied, lifting her hand so he could slot the rings back onto her finger. He brushed a kiss across her knuckles, eyes sparkling. “Now, lets get home hm? Want to see if that pretty cunt tastes as good as I remember.” He stepped back, keeping his hand closed around hers so that she couldn’t take the rings back off to fling them at him, and stooped down to grab his hat, fixing it back into place.

“John, we’re not together again, this is not going to be— John!” She squeaked, a thoroughly undignified sound, as he scooped her off her feet, holding her against his chest in a bridal carry. “You’re going to make a scene!” she hissed. “Don’t— No, don’t go that way!”

The stares that landed on them as John carried her through the main room were humiliating, to say the least. She accidentally made eye contact with the French ambassador, who winked at her. He’d probably only just gotten her excuse from Emily, and now he knew that she was lying and leaving with her ex-husband. She was sure to be the centre of some truly ridiculous gossip for a little while.

John smiled wolfishly, pleased as punch that they were getting looks, striding across the room like he owned the entire world. He’d always been arrogant, so sure of himself, and it had only gotten worse, twenty years of experience telling him that he could have anything he wanted, so long as he possessed the will to reach out and take it. He was laying claim, telling everyone in the room, her colleagues, friends, acquaintance and strangers, that she was his. Maybe in his mind, she had never been anything else.

“You’re awful, you know that, don’t you?” Sadie asked. “I should never have married you.”

“I know. But don’t say that. We’d never have had Scout if we hadn’t.”

“That’s true. I suppose I’m glad we did then.” As if Sadie could ever regret their daughter, that was so much like her, and so much like John, and somehow so much better than the both of them.

"We could have more. It's not too late," he murmured, leaning in close.

Sadie caught the gleam of a camera lens and quickly put her hand up to obscure as much of John's face as she could, realizing half a moment too late that she'd just flashed her wedding rings at the bloody press. "John, I am forty-six years old. I'm not having more children."

He smiled. "Sure I can't convince you? Another girl, just like Scout? Or maybe a son, as smart and driven as you are, my nose and your eyes." He ignored the few shouted questions and loaded her into the car that idled beside Emily. "Thanks, duck," he said, sliding in beside Sadie. "I've got her from here."

"Do you need a ride home, darling?" Sadie asked, leaning across John and speaking through the rolled down window. "I don't want to leave you all alone. Ben can drop us at my building and take you home."

Emily nodded and slid into the front seat. "Thank you, ma'am. I was going to call a cab."

"No, absolutely not. I know Ben would be happy to drive you anywhere you need. Don't hesitate to ask him." Sadie reached forward and patted the driver on the shoulder. “Right, Ben?”

He grinned at her through the rearview mirror. “Of course, ma’am. Miss Emily is my second favourite passenger.”

“He’s angling for a raise,” Sadie said to John, laughing. “And he is about due for one, by my accounting.”

“Wouldn’t know, ma’am,” Ben said blithely.

John’s hand landed on Sadie’s thigh. He’d always been a bit of a jealous bastard, even in situations like this one, where it made no sense for him to be. Even if Ben were not her employee, he was at least fifteen years younger, and she was fairly sure he had a little crush on Emily. But what did she know, really? She had never been that good at identifying those kind of feelings, in herself or others. Always had to rely on what people told her. She recognized fear, ambition, could spot a lie like it was lit up with a neon sign. When it came to love, she compared everything and everyone to John, and no one ever matched his intensity.

There was no doubt that they would be fighting within a day, and that she’d throw him out after three, on the outside, but there was still something between them. He had that same mischievous glint in those blue eyes as he had the day they’d met at some house party one of her friend’s older sisters had thrown. John had been a friend of a friend of the sister’s boyfriend, there more by chance than anything else. He’d punched out some creep that had been all over her, and of course, that meant that she was his girl, from then on.

Other than a kiss that shook her whole world to it’s foundations, the first few months of their relationship had been conducted by letters and emails and text messages, each with separate conversations. He was smart, as well as handsome and tough, and he wrote directly, bluntly, dryly, interspersed with sentences that read more like poetry. The sky is red, this morning, like the dress you wore, like the lipstick marks you left on my collar. I thought missing you would feel blue.

How could she do anything except jump into his arms when she saw him next?

He asked her to marry him three times-- She'd said no the first two, because she was young, still in college, still figuring herself out, and yes the third, because he was persistent, because he loved her, because he wanted to know she'd be taken care of if anything happened to him. As if there was any risk, really. She came from a wealthy family, old money on her father's side and new on her mother's. Her parents made him sign a prenup, and bought them a house as a wedding present. Or bought Sadie a house, rather, and John lived there whenever he was home. The distance might have chafed for anyone else, but Sadie liked having time to herself, to focus on school, her friends, the summer work at her father's arms manufacturing facility. John was like a vacation from everything else, a whirlwind that hit a few times a year.

Then he'd started talking about family, about having kids, about turning that pleasant whirlwind of affection into a tornado that would last all year, all of every day. She'd aborted the first pregnancy, too scared to tell John-- She still hadn't told him-- but she didn't have the same excuses when the next pregnancy took root. Sadie graduated eight months pregnant with Scout.

The problem with being a mother, was that she was expected to put so much on hold. John had been out in the field when Scout was born, and she'd been alone for the first few months, barely holding it together. John's mother had been a great help, coming a few times a week to help her tidy up and make sure she was eating, but she resented John his freedom. She hated him for being far away, for fatherhood changing nothing for him and everything for her.

John’s facial hair tickled her ear when he leaned in close. They were just pulling up to he building now. “Where’d you go, Sadie?”

She let him help her out of the car, and bid goodbye to Ben and Emily before responding. “Just thinking about where it all went wrong.”

He sighed, hurt flashing in his eyes. “Come on, Sadie. You don’t want to think about that.”

“Someday, I’d love to stop thinking about it,” she said, forcing a laugh.

“I know where it went wrong,” John said, crowding her into the lift and pressing her up against the wall before she could press the button for her floor. “I never should have let you kick me out. Should’ve worked it out right then and there.”

“Your way of working things out never fixed anything, John. Just made us forget a little while.” She sighed, smoothing her hands down the front of his jacket. “Maybe you should just go. This is a bad idea.”

John quickly leaned over and hit the button for the top floor. “It’s not a bad idea, Sadie. We still belong together.”

That kind of talk was the exact reason why she shouldn’t even consider rekindling anything. He wanted a night or two of passion to mean something more, and she couldn’t let it be more. But the lift doors opened, and he ushered her out into her foyer, kissing the back of her shoulder and neck while she unlocked the door. He didn’t give her a chance to try to shut him out, using every dirty trick he could think of to keep he off balance. She offered him a drink, hoping to prolong things, talk for a moment, and he accepted, but he pushed her over the back of her couch as soon they reached it, and sank to the floor behind her, pushing her dress up over her hips.

“John!” she complained. “That’s not what I meant by—” The sharp snk of a blade opening, the back of the blade running along her skin cut her off. He sawed through the silky fabric of her panties in seconds, rather than contend with the garter clips and stockings. He’d always had a thing for garter belts.

“Sorry?” he asked. “What were you saying?”

“I—” She bit back a whimper as he licked across her cunt, the tip of his tongue parting her folds to taste her. His hands slid up her thighs to her ass, squeezing appreciatively.

“Didn’t quite catch that, love.” His voice was a bit breathy, like the smallest taste of her was enough to knock the wind out of him.

“Oh shut up, John,” Sadie said crossly. “You’re doing that on purpose!”

He chuckled, biting down hard on her ass. Probably intentionally trying to leave a mark, the bastard. For all his bluff and bluster, he knew just as well as she did that this was only temporary, and he wanted to make sure she remembered it for a long while afterwards. She tried to kick him, but he just caught her leg and pushed it up and to the side, giving himself more room as he pressed his face to her cunt and started feasting on her, groaning.

The sounds he made were filthy— It was almost impressive how much John could make it seem like eating pussy was more for him than for her— and it seemed more that he was getting reacquainted with a long lost love than actively trying to get her off. Still, he knew exactly what he was doing, like he’d memorized the steps to have her come apart on his tongue, tight circles around her clit with the tip of his tongue, hard sucks that he pulled away from with a slick, wet pop, licking into her hole and lapping up arousal, growling and groaning, hands holding her in place with a bruising grip.

He brought her to the edge three times, but didn’t tip her over. He wanted her begging. It wasn’t enough for him that she was practically sobbing into the couch cushions, breath catching, crying out desperately. Well, she wasn’t going to entertain the notion. “John, if you don’t make me come in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to kick you out and call someone who will.”

He laughed, surmising that she didn’t exactly have a list of casual lovers that she could call up on a moments notice (not entirely accurate, with Kate and her wife in town), or maybe thinking she was joking (she wasn’t), but he picked up the pace regardless, sliding two thick fingers into her cunt and replacing his tongue with his thumb. “Impatient as always,” he chastised her. “You can come, baby. Come all over daddy’s fingers.”

His voice was so sexy now, roughened by age and years of smoking. It was hard to say if it was that growled command or the over-stimulation, or the way he curled his fingers inside her that sent her into cataclysm, but she came hard, legs shaking, muffling her cry in the cushions. He continued the cruel-clever movement of his fingers to draw out her orgasm.

“Fuck, gorgeous girl, I missed this pussy. Just as tight and wet as I remember.”

Sadie pushed herself up on shaking arms as he withdrew his fingers. She tried to think of something appropriately cutting, but she hadn’t come like that in ages, and it was a bit flattering to think that she had changed so little in all the years. He had changed— Not just the timbre of his voice, but the patience of his touch, the way he sought to unravel her completely, show her that experience had only made him better.

He wrapped an arm around her and dragged her upright, onto legs that wobbled like a newborn fawn, still recovering. He pulled her close, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck, breathing her in. “Can’t believe you still wear the same perfume,” he said wistfully. “I like this one.”

“I usually don’t. I felt like doing something different.” Sadie swatted at him playfully, laughing despite herself when he rubbed his face against her shoulder. “John, your beard is soaked,” she complained.

She could feel his grin. “And who’s fault is that?”

“Yours! You decided to grow that silly thing.” She turned in his arms, tipping her head to the side while she studied him. “I do think it suits you.”

“Yeah?” He puffed up slightly from the praise, eyes sparkling with mirth. “You don’t think I look old now?” he asked, keeping his tone light, hiding real insecurity under that teasing facade.

“No. Seasoned. Experienced, maybe. But not old yet.” Sadie carded her fingers through his hair, smiling to reassure him that she meant it. “I think you look better now than you did twenty years ago.”

Something in his eyes turns soft, loving. “You think so?”

“Of course I do. Now stop looking at me like that.” She kissed him, tasting herself on his lips, salt and sweet. “You know we can’t get back together, John. You only think it would work because you’re just remembering the good parts. I know they were really good, but there’s no road back.”

“I’m not askin’ for things to be the same, Sadie.” He brushed his knuckles against her spine, the other hand anchored on her hip, keeping her close. “Maybe things could be better now.” He swayed, moving her along with him, turning slow circles like they were dancing.

“John,” Sadie said softly. “I can’t give you what you need. You still want a family, more kids, a wife who wants to be at home to raise them with you. We can’t turn back the clock, and even if we could, that wasn’t the life for me then, and it’s definitely not for me now.”

“I still love you.” And god help her, he meant it.

“I know, John. I love you too. I always will. But—”

He kissed her again, a long, lingering one that sent prickles down her spine. He didn’t want to hear it, still wanted to draw out the delusion a little longer. “Let me take you to bed.” He spoke with a voice laced with devotion, near zealotry. Too stubborn to stop worshipping at the alter of their failed marriage, still trying to rebuild a house that had burned down long ago. John Price hated to admit defeat, hated to be wrong.

“Alright,” she whispered it back, as if trying to sneak it past good sense and self-preservation. Those parts of herself would have to cede ground tonight, relent enough for them both to get this out of their systems.

Once more, with feeling. Just one night for them to pretend that what was broken could be fixed, that there was something to rebuild on that old foundation, even though they both knew better.

John picked her up again and carried her to her bedroom. Funny that he remembered the way so well, even though he had only been to the apartment a handful of times, and not once had been invited to her room. Of course, knowing John, he’d broken in dozens more times and been over every inch of the place. Something that probably should have bothered her, but just felt par for the course. He might have still been in love with a girl long gone, but she knew well the kind of man her first husband had become. A General in all but name, someone who controlled the battlefield, commanded respect, and saw obstacles as inconveniences overcome with enough grit and determination. Boundaries were just lines in the sand, erased and rewritten on a whim.

He set her down and turned her, undoing the buttons that held the halter straps of the dress around her neck, and then ran his hands over the sides of the dress, searching for the zipper. He found it quickly, and Sadie let the gown slip to the floor, her heels clicking as she stepped free from the pool of silky material and turned toward John, turning her face up for a kiss while she loosened his tie and he shed his jacket, throwing it behind him blindly. She took her time with the buttons of his shirt, revealing an expanse of dark hair thick over powerful muscle. Yet another part of him that had improved with age.

John tossed the shirt in the same direction as his jacket, and stilled her hands when she reached his belt. “Greedy girl,” he said smugly. “But you’re going to have to ask nicely if you want daddy’s cock.”

An old tactic that used to fluster her. At least all of his tricks didn’t still turn her into a useless puddle of need. Sadie kissed him again, nipping at his lower lip, fingernails dragging down his neck lightly. “Please?”

“Please what, sweetheart?” he asked.

Her fingertips trailed down his chest. “I didn’t make you beg, did I?”

“No, you just made me wait twenty bloody years.” John grinned, cupping her face and pulling her in for yet another kiss, like he couldn’t get enough of her, reminded of simpler times, when they both were young, optimistic and in love. No one kissed like John did, like he needed her more than air. His fingers carded back into her hair, scattering pins all over the floor, her careful updo undone. He steered her backwards until her knees hit the bed, and pushed her down gently, pulling his mouth away from hers as he straightened back up.

“You know why I stayed away, John. We both needed to move on. And you did.” She hooked her fingers into his belt and tugged him closer, parting her thighs so he could stand between them. The rings on her finger winked at her in the low light, reminding her that it wasn’t him that had struggled to move on.

As if there was anyone else that even compared.

She kissed his stomach, appreciating the soft layer he’d accumulated over the past few years of desk work, hands planted on his thighs. She looked up at him through her lashes. “Are you going to let me take care of you?”

“Since you asked so pretty,” he said, his beautiful hands finally dropping to the belt buckle, making a show of freeing his cock while she waited impatiently. He gave himself a few rough strokes, his other hand settling in her hair to keep her from leaning forward until he gave her the go ahead. She hated to admit it, but this was the cock that she measured all else against. Thick, just the right length to fill her completely without it becoming painful, and pretty, uncut, the tip flushed pink. “Show me that tongue, Sadie,” he growled.

She obeyed, opening her mouth wide and sticking her tongue out for him.

He tapped his cock against her tongue, smearing salty pre across it. She tried to dip forward and take him into her mouth, but John held her back by her hair, grinning down at her. "So eager for me. Did you miss this cock, Sadie? None of your little boyfriends ever compared, did they?"

"No," she said, and it was the truth. No one had ever compared to him— It seemed unfair that she'd met him so young, that he'd ruined her for anyone else before she even knew how rare men like him were. He was flawed, yes, deeply flawed, and she'd never been soft enough to accommodate his sharp edges, but he made love the same way he made war, fully, completely, with his entire being. "None of them have even been half as good."

That seemed to please the proud, jealous animal in his chest. His blue eyes glittered with satisfaction, and he let her lean forward to close her lips around the tip of his cock.

The sound he made when she did ran down Sadie's spine like electricity. Another thing she’d always liked about him. He was appreciative as she licked and sucked and stroked his cock, vocal, growling out praise like he couldn’t bear to stop, a litany of good girl, and fuck, just like that, and god, you look so beautiful like this and more that she could barely make out, like he had lost his ability to enunciate the moment she swallowed around the tip of his cock. It was tough to take him that far— Her jaw ached already from the effort of keeping her teeth away from sensitive skin, but it was worth it for the way his knees shook, the hands buried in her hair gripping so tight that she couldn’t help but moan.

That was what pushed him over the edge. The thought that she enjoyed it as much as he did. “Fuck, Sades, m’gonna—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence before he came, spilling thick, hot spend over her tongue. She swallowed it down, licking any trace of it from his too sensitive cock, until he growled and pulled her away. “Bloody hell, you’ve learned some new tricks.”

“Of course I have.” She leaned back on one hand, watching him shed the rest of his clothes while she ran her other thumb under her bottom lip, rubbing away the pale remnants of lipstick that had been bright red earlier in the evening, until John kissed most of it away. There was probably some smeared on the couch cushions too. “It has been twenty years.”

John dropped down to one knee and picked up her foot, unbuckling the strap of her shoe and easing it off. “Far too long, darlin’. Missed you somethin’ fierce.” He dug his thumb into the arch of her foot, humming contentedly when she sighed and sank back onto her elbows. “There’s never been anyone that compared to you either.”

“Flatterer.”

“I’m serious, Sadie. No one. I hate that we weren’t together all this time. Should’ve been better for you. Should’ve listened more.” The blue of his eyes in the low lamplight was sincere, piercing, like he needed her to understand just how grievously sincere he was, how much he meant it.

That was John, though. A man that couldn’t give up his vices, no matter how much they hurt him. Conviction that would outlive the earth and all the stars in the sky. At the end of the universe, it would just be John, gripping tight to what remained, jaws sunk deep into what he couldn’t bear to let go of.

“I let you go for a reason, John. Love isn’t always enough. You wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I couldn’t be what you needed. I could hardly be what Scout needed. I probably failed there.” She reached out, brushing her fingertips through his hair and down the side of his neck. “I wanted you to find someone else. I was a bad wife and a terrible mother.”

His eyes dropped, hands moving to take off her other shoe, mouth set in a grim, unhappy line. “You weren’t. I should’ve been there. You kept telling me you needed me there, and I didn’t listen.”

“It’s in the past.” Nothing could be changed at that point. Sadie wasn’t sure that she would have changed anything. “You have to forgive yourself, John. It’s not your fault things didn’t work, and it’s not mine either. Sometimes People just don’t belong together. We would have made each other miserable.”

“I still think we could make it work.”

“Ever the optimist,” Sadie teased. “Let’s not worry about tomorrow, John. Let me show you how much I missed you.”

That spurred John to his feet. “You just did, darlin’. I think it’s my turn again.”

They settled closer to the head of the bed, his arms wrapped around her possessively while they kissed. Some of the frenetic energy of earlier was gone now, need giving way to want. The enthusiasm from earlier was still present, but John set a languid, easy pace as he licked into her mouth, matching faded anamnesis to new reality, committing every detail to memory. His hands roamed, pulling her tighter against him, as though hoping to pull her into his own skin, desperate for reconnection, apprehensive of the severance they both knew would come. His touch was none too gentle, palms pressed firmly to skin as he explored every inch of her. He needed to map and catalogue the terrain, ever the soldier, familiarizing himself with the field of battle.

She allowed herself a similar exploration, skimming her fingertips over powerful muscle, petting through he thicket of hair on his chest, tracing new and old scars alike. The foundation was much the same, but the topography had changed, the unkindness of the years writ plain across his skin.

Her fingers wandered further down. It was hard not to break the kiss with a smile when he made a soft sound of surprise. Was he so unused to initiation? Perhaps that was the downside of partnering with younger women not yet comfortable with their own desires. Although Sadie was fairly certain that she’d never had any trouble taking what she wanted. Sentiment echoed by John when he pulled back slightly, grinning, as she wrapped her fingers around his cock again. “Impatient girl,” he grumbled. “Some things really don’t change.”

“I don’t recall that being a problem for you.” He was already half hard, twitching with interest at just a few gentle strokes, tip nudging against her thigh. “But we are getting older, aren’t we?” she asked, biting back a laugh at his scandalized expression. “I can be patient for you, daddy.”

His eyes sparked hot again. That was still a sure-fire way to get his engines rumbling back to life, his cock swelling under her fingers. “I don’t think you can, sweetheart. S’not in your nature.” He knocked her hand away, making room between their bodies for his thick fingers to slot between her legs. “So fuckin’ wet. All from takin’ care of me?”

Sadie nodded, hooking her leg over his hips to give him more room. “You always make it worth my while.”

John’s fingers parted her slick folds, rubbing soft circles around her clit, kissing her again, drinking her whimpered reactions from her lips, too greedy and covetous to waste them on the room around them. He brought her to the brink, focused on her clit until her legs started shaking, until she tucked her head down against his chest, too dizzy to let him steal any more of her breath.

“You gonna come for me, sweetheart?” John asked wickedly, curling forward so he could kiss the spot in front of her ear. “Need you to before I fuck you. Be a good girl for me.”

Sadie pressed her face into his chest, nails digging into his shoulders, a desperate attempt to ground herself before he had her arching into his touch, crying out, toes curling as her orgasm tore through her body, leaving her shaking and blinking away stars.

His touch slowed, turning gentle to coax her through it. “There we go. Good girl, Sadie. Always so perfect for me.” Satisfied that the last echoes had begun to fade away, he rolled on top of her, one hand planted on he bed while he lined himself up with her sensitive cunt and pushed in slowly, his eyes glued to her face, searching for any hint of discomfort. He stilled for a moment when he hilted fully inside her. “Fuck. You still feel like heaven, Sadie. Still feel like you’re made for me.”

Although she was loathe to admit it, she felt the same way. He felt perfect inside her, just thick enough for the stretch to burn pleasantly, just long enough to fill her completely without ramming into her cervix on every thrust. No one fit just right except John, as if he had carved out a place for himself all those years ago, and she’d always been waiting for him to come home. She pitched her hips up to give him a better angle, winding her arms around his neck so she could drag him down for another kiss. He started to move slowly, shallow, grinding thrusts that hit every sensitive spot inside her, as though he couldn’t bear to pull away even for as long as it took to push back in.

"John, please," she murmured against his lips, hardly moving away enough to speak.

John reared back and hooked her legs over his arms, gripping her hips tightly so he could drill into her with purpose. She pressed her hands against the headboard to keep them from inching up the bed, a breathless laugh turning to a moan. He watched her though half lidded eyes, the fondness in his expression countering the almost animal way he fucked her, hips snapping into her hard, hitting that spongy spot with every thrust, all the accuracy of a sniper even now. “I love you,” he growled, one hand sliding across her hip, thumb zeroing in on her clit. “Has anyone ever made you feel like I do, Sadie?”

She yelped, overstimulated, but arching into his touch anyway, greedy for anything he could give her still. “No one,” she panted. “Never.”

“That’s right,” he dropped down, folding her legs up toward her chest, hardly interrupting his pace, although the change in angle had Sadie crying out, legs shaking. She wrapped her arms around him to keep him close, manicured nails digging into his back. “You’re still mine. You’ll always be mine.”

In that moment it was hard to argue, especially with her own body agreeing with him, her cunt gripping him tight in response to his possessive words. She pressed her face into his shoulder rather than answer, biting down hard as everything reached a crescendo, muffling her scream. John groaned in her ear, the sensation of her coming around him, of her teeth buried in his shoulder hard enough to bruise sending him over with her. She could feel the hot throb as he came inside her as deeply as he could, filling her up as if he meant to mark her as his forever, like he forgot their age and still hoped to make good on his dreams of breeding her again, picking their life up from where they dropped it so long ago.

Sadie let her head hit the mattress, but didn’t let go, arms and legs still locked tight around him. He panted, kissing her neck, more of his weight dropping down on top of her as his limbs grew heavy.

After a moment, he pulled himself together enough to untuck his head and kiss her again, until she finally let him go.

It was strange how they fell into a familiar routine after, cleaning themselves up, brushing their teeth side by side, watching each other in the mirror, just like they used to. He teased her for having so many little bottles of goop to layer on her face after she washed up, but he didn’t go anywhere either. They changed the sheets, laughing about the rather pronounced wet spot they’d left, and finally fell into it, wrapped up together to sleep.

Sadie slid out of bed in the morning, gently untangling herself from John. He made a grumpy, sleepy sound, cracking open his eyes in the weak gray light.

“Come back here,” he grumbled, reaching across the bed, fingers brushing her back, not quite fast enough to snag her and pull her back in. “Not done with you.”

“I’ll just be a moment. I’m going to start coffee so it’s ready when you are done with me.”

John rolled onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head and watching her pull a robe on, blue eyes hot. “I never will be.”

Sadie sent a fond look over her shoulder and padded into the kitchen, making coffee on auto-pilot, snagging her phone out of her abandoned purse to check her emails quickly on the way back to the bedroom. Nothing pressing, although a text came in just as she was about to set it down. John snagged her around the waist and pulled her onto the bed, curling around her to peer over her shoulder.

Scout: Hey, what the hell is this?

Sadie laughed as she opened the link that came through a moment later, tilting her phone so John could see the picture better. One of the pictures that had been snagged outside Westminster last night, with John carrying her, a red circle in the corner of the image a zoom in on the rings on her finger, with the headline Sadie’s Choice.

Scout: I’ll save you the read, but apparently you’re quite the heart-breaker in the house of commons.

Scout: Are you and dad getting back together?

John kissed Sadie’s shoulder, tugging the phone out of her hand and gently tossing it onto the side table. “You can answer that later. I’m not quite finished making my case.”

She let John pull her down on top of him, still smiling as she kissed him.

It couldn’t hurt to hear him out.

Image Credits: Title Card 1 - 2 - Dividers

Graphics made in Canva by me!