#(ignoring the last five minutes of JE)

[turnleft]

something about donna starting s4 wearing an alternate version of ten’s costume and ending it in her own doctor-y costume. i love how it signifies her gradual growth from someone trying to find the doctor to literally becoming one.

[kzpearce]

GENSHIN MEN WHEN THEY’RE JEALOUS !! 

ft. kaedehara kazuha, kamisato ayato, kaveh, diluc, kaeya, zhongli, tartaglia, cyno, tighnari, alhaitham, scaramouche, xiao.

sypnosis. an old friend comes to you to greet you. unfortunately, your boyfriend/s is/are not pleased with it. (jealousy by olivia rodrigo song suggestion 😉)

// gender neutral reader ,, no mentions of pronouns and (y/n) and the name of the "friend).

i've decided to post again! thank you so much my two previous posts, people are so amazing and i'm so grateful to all of u !! i've decided to do another oneeee <3

NOTE. i'm so so sorry if the rests are SOOO short. UGHHH i think this is going to be my last trying to fit everything. i'm sorry if your favorite character is shorter than the rest :(

i'll remind everyone again! some of you might consider them oc, so i'm sorry for that. but so you know i'm trying my best to act on their own!

— kaedehara kazuha

“hi my love,” kazuha suddenly enters the scene while you’re talking to your old friend. 

you smile after your boyfriend approaches you. when you glance at him, his gaze doesn’t leave your old friend. “who is this you’re talking to, hm?”

kazuha’s gaze looks back at you with a smile; yet this smile isn’t his usual genuine, soft smile. is your boyfriend jealous? you thought.

after you introduce your old friend to your boyfriend, he abruptly leaves. maybe because of the demeanor kazuha gives him. you chuckle when your friend leaves. 

“you scared him, kazu.” you smiled, giggling.

“i don’t like how he looked at you.” he frowns.

“i’m yours.” you assure, you then kiss his cheek for assurances. 

“good,” kazuha grins, wrapping his arms around your waist.

— kamisato ayato

“i’m sorry i kept you waiting, darling.” there is a possessiveness in ayato's tone that makes your friend embarrassed and scared. your friend asks permission to leave, and you smile, waving goodbye at him.

you playfully glare at your boyfriend, who’s wearing a victory smirk. “what’s that for, ayato?”

“who was that?” he asks, ignoring your question. 

“he was my old friend. we were classmates back then when i was highschool.” you answer him.

ayato looks at you and nods (he looks satisfied, but he really isn’t). you glare at him. “now, what’s that for?”

“i don’t like strangers talking to my lover.” he answers, (again, it’s not a proper answer).

your glare soon is replaced with a chuckle. ayato’s gaze softens. “you’re cute when you're jealous. but no. he’s not a stranger.”

“complete stranger to me.” he shrugs as you continue laughing. 

his gaze softens, watching over you. he can’t help but let his lips curve into a soft smile.

— kaveh

kaveh pouts when you’re done talking to your old friend. you chuckle, “why are you pouting?”

“who’s that? are you replacing me already?” 

you laugh. “what are you thinking? of course not! why would i replace my adorable and handsome boyfriend?”

you wrap your arms around his waist and kiss him on his lips. 

kaveh smiles, but he brings his frowning face back. he’s enjoying this, so he’s trying to look like he’s still jealous. 

you peck his lips thrice and give him a cute smile. kaveh couldn’t take it anymore and smiled widely. 

“you’re so cute, you know that?” kaveh smiles, boops the tip of your nose.

“i do.” you reply, smiling. “only because you said it.”

— diluc

after you stopped talking to your friend, you turned around and saw your boyfriend at the corner. his eyes are on you as you make your way to him. 

“hi,” you kiss him on his cheek. “how long have you been waiting?”

diluc slightly smiles, yet there is something off behind those smiles. “more than five minutes.”

you frown. “you should’ve approached me.”

he shakes his head. “all good. you’re busy talking to you…” diluc pauses, “—someone.”

you tilt your head, eyeing him suspiciously. “uh-huh.. he’s my old friend. we happened to bump into each other.”

he nods, refusing to look at you. your lips form into a smile. “diluc? are you possibly… jealous?”

his cheeks become bright red. he jerks his head into different directions so that you wouldn’t see his face. he didn’t deny it nor confirm it. but you already know the answer.

you chuckle as you rest your palms on his cheeks, forcing his gaze to look at you. you smile softly, “old friend only, okay?”

he sighs in defeat. he then nods, appreciating your assurance.

“he’s not you.” you kiss him on the lips. “i love you.”

heat rising in diluc’s face, he smiles, “i love you more.”

— kaeya

when your friend leaves, kaeya shows behind you. he grins. 

“if you’re going to replace me with someone else, find someone better than me, okay?” he smirks.

your jaw drops, hitting him on his arm. 

“first, i’m not replacing you. second, what the actual hell?” you laugh. 

“i’ve never imagined you would choose someone like… him.” he says with a slight disgust tone. “we’re not going to downgrade, dear.”

you grin. “you’re so weird when you’re jealous.” 

he blinks rapidly, he then later shrugs. “me? jealous? pft.. he’s not even close to my beauty.”

despite his coping mechanism, you kiss his cheek and smile. “exactly, that’s why i’m not replacing you okay? you’re the hottest boyfriend.” you wink.

his cheeks redden, yet he manages to regain his composure and replace his shock expression with a smirk. “o-hoh? it seems my lover is head over heels for me.”

“i’m taking back what i said!”

— zhongli

zhongli walks over your direction, and he places his arm around your waist. your eyes widen at his sudden physical affection.

“hello dear, would you like to introduce us?” he smiles, kissing your cheek. zhongli’s gaze returns to your old friend, giving him an intimidating look.

“oh,” you chuckle. you mention your friend’s name, introducing him as your old classmate before. “and, this is my boyfriend zhongli.”

“pleasure to meet you,” zhongli grins. “pardon me, i’ve never seen you before, that’s why.” 

when your friend leaves, you face zhongli with an amusing grin. “what’s that?”

he tilts his head, allowing you to explain further. “what do you mean, dear?”

you sigh. zhongli is the most mature person you’ve ever met (you’re still wondering how you two became compatible). you’re not expecting him to be jealous, but you will be more surprised if he’s jealous.. 

“nothing,” you smile as you shake your head, shrugging it off.

zhongli chuckles. “are you possibly thinking that i’m jealous?” 

your face reddens, feeling vulnerable when he easily reads your thoughts. your outcome confirms his assumption, thus he laughs lightly. “i was jealous, i had decided not to let my emotions control me, that’s all.”

you smile. he’s so mature, and you can’t help but fall in love deeper with him. you can’t help yourself and kiss his cheek. 

“that felt good.” he retorted, lingering in the soft voice and his smile. “besides, i know that you’re mine. and i don’t plan on letting you go, my dear.”

— tartaglia

when you’re finished talking to your old friend, you see your boyfriend leaning his side on the wall, crossing his arms. you glimpse at him in adoration, you can’t help but thank the heavens that he’s your boyfriend. 

you approach him with an exciting smile on your lips, yet you notice that he’s facial expression is serious.

“hii, how long are you waiting?” you kiss his cheek. 

as much as ajax loves your kisses, he still can’t help but still feel jealous. your lips frown, confused, when you see your boyfriend doesn’t act like he usually does. you can’t help but worry about him, “is there something wrong?”

“i don’t like how close you are to that guy.” he retorts. ajax is pouting, avoiding your gaze so that you wouldn’t easily read him (although that unfortunately fails because you know him too long in order not to).

a chuckle escapes your lips. his serious look is now replaced with embarrassment. you tease him with a playful tone, “ajax’s~ jealous~!”

he glares at you, and the frown in his lips linger. 

“i’m yours,” you wrap your arms around him, kissing his lips. “i chose you, and i’m going to keep choosing you over and over again..”

his gaze softens at your assurance, he can’t help but kiss you back. “i love you.”

“i love you too.” you giggle, “now let’s eat! where do you want to eat?”

“pavilion maybe?” 

“that’s too expensive!” you frown.

“my treat,”

“let me treat you this time,” you whine.

“your broke ass can’t afford the liyue pavilion.”

“don’t talk to me.” you shoot daggers to your boyfriend.

“i’m joking baby,” he laughs then kisses you.

— cyno

when your old friend is about to bid goodbye, you feel your boyfriend’s presence behind you. you glance at him, and he’s giving your friend a cold and deadly stare. you blink rapidly at the sight. cyno refuses to talk too, he’s just staring at him for—quite too long.

your attention jerks to your friend, who suddenly says goodbye. perhaps, he feels uncomfortable at your boyfriend’s not so friendly stare.

“if looks can kill, he’s probably dead by now.” you chuckle. “what’s up?”

cyno finally averts his gaze back to you, and his death glares hastily switch to soft ones. he shakes his head, “i saw you talking to your friend. i don’t mind—of course…” 

he refuses to continue his sentence. you, however, look at him with a teasing look, tilting your head. “...but?”

he sighs, “...okay. i was just a little…” he pauses, “jealous.”

an amusing smile forms your lips. “aw, you’re jealous?” 

cyno ignores you while you’re laughing. his cheeks are red, embarrassed. nevertheless, you place a soft kiss on the side of his lips and hug him tightly.

“i love you,” you whisper.

his stoic expression vanishes like ashes. he smiles softly, “i love you too.” he says, kissing you back.

— tighnari

when tighnari sees that you’re talking to your old friend, he remains at a distance. a sigh escapes his lips when he feels his ears starting to heat up. he closes his eyes to focus; it’s normal to talk to a friend. 

“tighnari,” you pout, standing in front of him. tighnari and his thoughts make him unaware of his surroundings that he doesn’t realize you’re in front of him already. 

“are you doing okay? you’ve spaced out quite a bit.” you wrap your arms around him, comforting your boyfriend. tighnari can’t help but look at you with admiration. your worried outcome makes his heart flutter. his hot ears can’t help but twitch at the sight.

he shakes his head, “nothing. how long have you been here?” he kisses your head. 

you’re not convinced, the frown in your mouth lingers. “we don’t hide, remember?” 

tighnari sighs; he couldn’t resist you. “i-i just saw you talking to a man, and i—”

you smile as he exhales, “tighnari is jealoussss?” you tease, tightening your hug around him.

his ear twitches again, making you chuckle softly. “he’s my old friend, we just bumped into each other, that’s why.”

tighnari smiles softly at your assurances. he kisses your lips, “i understand.”

— alhaitham

alhaitham sees a guy approaches you while you’re seated. his eyes narrow, eyeing him suspiciously as he makes his way back to you. his eyebrow twitches with the barest hint of irritation. although, alhaitham knows that this is quite irrational, given that he doesn’t know what the conversation is about.

alhaitham sits beside you; wraps his arm around your waist, and his chin rests on ur shoulder. he grins, kissing you on the cheek. alhaitham then stares at the guy you’re talking to with a sneer.

you can’t ignore the butterflies exploding inside your stomach. your breath hitches as your lip slightly parted. you glance on your side, where alhaitham is, and smiles at his kiss. your boyfriend’s so close to you, and his affections surprised you.

“h-haitham,” your cheeks are hot and your heart rams against your ribcage, skipping a beat. you smile nonetheless. “you’re here.”

you look back at your old friend and introduce him to your boyfriend. “and my boyfriend, alhaitham.”

“your boyfriend is the acting grand sage,” your old friend mutters, smiling sheepishly. “please to meet you, acting grand sage.”

alhaitham curtly nods. his stares at him with a cold and irritating stare, yet his lips curve into a smirk. he is never proud with his position in akademiya until now when your friend knows that he’s your boyfriend.

when your friend leaves (he doesn’t take too long hanging around in front of you two because he is uncomfortable around alhaitham’s stare and presence), you raise your eyebrows to alhaitham, wondering about his sudden affections.

“the acting grand sage is oddly touchy and affectionate in public,” you shoot him with a smug smile. 

alhaitham’s smirk turns into a soft smile, “i just wanted to make sure that you knew you are mine.” he kisses your cheek again.

you chuckle despite your heart exploding in joy. “jealousy, jealousy~” you sang.

— scaramouche (wanderer)

“who are you talking to?” kuni says the moment you come to him. his voice is dead serious, but he’s trying to control it. so he appears to be much calmer than usual.

“huh?” you tilt your head in confusion, but you then nod, remembering who he is talking about. “he’s my friend back when i was in early high school.”

kuni furrows his eyebrow, letting you elaborate more. you grin, amusing you that he’s jealous. you decided to tease him a little.

“he says he is here for a vacation. apparently, he’s going back to inazuma.” you explain, shrugging. “pity, i want to hang out with him though if i find out sooner.”

kuni glares at you after you mention your last statement. you look at him innocently, “what?”

“whatever,” he rolls his eyes, crossing his arms on his chest.

you smirk at him, “yes kuni?”

“what?” he answers, irritated, yet he refuses to look at you.

you grin, then you decide to sing. “all i see is what i should be~” the smirk doesn’t leave your lips. “i’m losing it, all i get’s, jealousy, jealousy~”

“shut up.” kuni’s face become red because of embarrassment. you suddenly laugh out loud, hugging him as an apology. 

“i love youuu,” you smile, looking at him while you hug him tightly.

your cheekily smile makes him sigh and wrap his arms around you. “you’re mine, okay?” 

his cheek is bright red, but his tone is very serious. you lightly laugh, “yes kuni. i’m yours.”

— xiao

after you're done talking to your friend, xiao can hear your feet marching on the wooden floor as you make your way to the balcony of wangshu inn. 

“xiao,” you call his name softly. normally, he would turn to look at you with a soft smile, yet this time, he chooses to ignore you. 

“xiao?” you repeat his name, but now you’re standing beside him. 

“...what do you think of him?” 

you’re trying to tilt your head to see a good glimpse of his expression. xiao jerks his head to your direction, seeing his piercing gaze looking at you intensely. xiao face is stoic as usual, yet you could sense underlying anger within that blank expression. he doesn’t look like he's angry at you, but you couldn’t simply ignore his stare that’s too cold. 

you know you don’t need to ask him but you choose to do, “who?”

“that mortal you spoke to earlier.” he answers curtly.

his blank, cold expression makes him more intimidating. the tone of his voice is calm and composed, but there’s underlying menace brewing within it. it’s been so long since you last encountered this side of xiao, and you’re not used to it anymore.

“an old friend,” you whisper, “he’s about to leave tomorrow morning, so he decided to meet me for a bit.”

xiao didn’t say anything, but his stare remains on you. you can’t decipher him if he’s satisfied with your reply or demands more answers. it’s difficult to read him, and this is something you’re struggling ever since he becomes your boyfriend.

you boldly ask him, “are you jealous, xiao?”

“jealous?” he seems not pleased by your question and his stoic expression soon replaces annoyance and irritation. his golden eyes narrow slightly. “why would i feel jealous? the concept of jealousy is foolish.”

his voice is harsher than his usual when he replies. however, when he finishes his sentence, his voice grows softer as he looks away, turning his back against you.

you wrap your arms around him instead. xiao flinches at the sudden contact, and his eyes widen for a split second in surprise. however, the way he doesn’t move a single muscle nor breathe reveals that he doesn’t dislike the hug.

you warmly smile, “falling in love is also foolish,” you reply. “but you choose to fall in love with me. and i’ve been forever grateful for that.”

he stayed silent, looking down at you. he can’t hold himself and finally hugs you back and shoots you a soft smile. he kisses your forehead for a few seconds as you shut your eyes, feeling his lips on yours.

heheh see you guys again soon! i appreciate everyone of uu !!!! <;3 i most likely not going to make part 2 sadly :( i'll be posting different context if i post another one!

[oddinary4bts]

The Forgotten Spaces | ch 12 (jjk)

☆summary: you've been dancing on the same dance crew since your teenage years, and you finally have an important role in it. It feels like life is taunting you when your rival comes back after disappearing for a year, ready to tease you every chance he gets. Will the teasing turn into more, or are you going to take him down with you?

☆pairing: photographer and dancer!Jungkook x dancer!female reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI, there is mature content in this chapter)

☆genre: slow (SLOW) burn enemies to lovers, college!au, slice of life!au, angst (oop), smut and fluff

☆warnings: a conversation about Laura, details about Jungkook's accident (he says what happens and gives details, it's towards the end of the chapter if the subject is heavy for you!), curse words, domestic ass fluff that will make you go :))))), explicit content: jerking off, oral sex (male receiving), fingering, unprotected sex (do not be stupid)

☆word count: 8k

☆series masterpost here

☆a/n: I think this one is also one of my favourite chapters! I hope you enjoy reading <3 Thank you to @moonleeai for her beta reading on this fic, I won't ever thank you enough, you're the best <3

☆Read What Was Hidden here, the fic that inspired this whole story, written by @daechwitatamic, one of my fav human beings on this app <3 It follows the story of Jo and Taehyung before The Forgotten Spaces

☆☆☆☆☆

For this meeting of our end of the world

It's with you that I want to sing

On the threshold of the memories the dead of today

Them that breathe for us

The forgotten spaces

Je t'écris - Gaston Miron (rough translation by me)

☆☆☆☆☆

Saturday, October 20th

                You’re exhausted. You haven’t been able to move from the spot you’ve been sitting on the counter of your new apartment. Jiho and Hobi have finished making the coffee table you got at Ikea earlier this week, and they’re currently chilling on the couch, though they’re about to leave. Jisung and Felix took care of the desk in your room, and they left about five minutes ago, since they had a dinner to get to. At the moment, Jungkook is nowhere to be seen, and you reckon you appreciate the little bit of peace.

Moving day has made Jungkook far too excited for the anxiety that’s been coursing through your blood. Especially when you had to go to your mother’s house this morning. You’ve ignored every call of hers since she first started calling you last week, choosing to remove yourself entirely from her life.

At least for now, though you’re pretty sure you won’t go back on your decision, considering she’s kicked you out of the house.

You’ve listened to her voicemails though. Most of them were just her asking when you were going to move, though one of them was about a dinner at your aunt’s house that she wanted you to attend. You have an okay relationship with your aunt, you do, but not enough to choose to go when you know your mother will be there. So you decided not to go last night, and your aunt texted you to go grab a coffee sometime this week instead.

You were putting away your new dishes that you’ve just washed in the washing machine when you decided to sit on the counter, too exhausted to take care of the glasses too. It’s then that Jiho raises her head, glancing at you.

“Do you want some take-out for dinner?” she asks. “We were thinking we could eat here before we go.”

Jungkook’s head appears in the doorway to your room. “I’m down for take-out.”

You snort, and he smiles at you. It’s like your brain malfunctions – you forget that Jiho has asked you a question until she repeats it.

“Oh,” you let out. “Sure! But you guys can’t stay over late, I want an early night.”

Hobi laughs, glancing between you and Jungkook. “Right, an early night.”

Jiho slaps his thigh, and he just laughs again, shaking his head. You’re too tired to find a retort, so you just shrug your shoulders, meeting Jungkook’s gaze again.

You don’t even know if he’s sleeping over tonight. You haven’t talked about it, yet the thought that he’d stay… it makes your first night sleeping in your apartment less scary.

“What do you guys want?” Jiho asks after she’s pulled her phone from her black tote bag. “I was thinking fried chicken.”

The fact that the last time you ate fried chicken was months ago, with Jungkook, makes your heart beat just a little louder in your chest. Only he can notice, and a knowing smile grows on his lips.

“Sure, I’m down,” you agree, and Jungkook’s smile turns into a grin.

Jiho nods, and then she’s ordering the food. You jump off from the counter, moving towards your fridge as Jungkook walks out of your room, making his way to you. When he stops next to you, he gently bumps his shoulder into yours, right as you’re opening the fridge door.

“What?” you ask him.

He tilts his head to the side, looking at you with those big doe eyes of his. “Nothing.”

You narrow your eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“I mean nothing,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. He winks at you as you just furrow your brows. “Unless…”

You wait for him to continue, but he falls silent. “Unless what?”

He purses his lips, before pulling on his piercing. You can feel Jiho’s gaze on you, but you do your best to ignore it. “Am I…” He pauses, long enough for a smirk to blossom on his mouth. “Am I sleeping over tonight?”

You look up to the sky, faking annoyance. “Uh, please don’t.”

His mouth falls open and your gaze drops back to him, and it’s your turn to wink at him.

“Alright then, I’m not sleeping over.” He folds his arms on his chest, standing tall with a frown on his features.

You laugh at his expression, and one of your hands darts to his inked forearm. You try to force him to unfold his arms, but he doesn’t budge, as he’s clearly far stronger than you are.

“I’m just teasing you,” you say, pouting as you offer him the best puppy eyes you can muster up.

He chuckles. “I know.”

You don’t move for a few seconds, content just looking at each other, but then the fridge makes a sound as you’ve been holding the door open for too long. It startles you a little, and you both laugh as you turn to reach for a water bottle.

“We should get beer,” Jungkook suggests, and his eyes slide to Hobi, who perked up the minute beer was mentioned.

“We have to, with the chicken.”

“I’m not going out, but feel free to go grab some if you want,” you tell the boys. “I don’t really drink beer anyway.”

“What about sangria?” Jungkook says teasingly, and your cheeks flush red.

“No sangria tonight.”

He pouts. “Why not?”

“Sangria is a Thirsty Thursday drink. It’s Saturday.”

“I mean,” Jiho lets out. “I’d be down for sangria.”

Hobi jumps up from the couch – it was delivered earlier today. It’s an L-shaped grey couch, that you wouldn’t have been able to afford hadn’t it been for your father.

“We can make it ourselves!” Hobi exclaims. “I’ve been told I make the best sangria.”

“Nu-uh,” Jungkook says, shaking his head no. “Yoongi makes the best sangria, you just stole his recipe.”

Hobi chuckles. “Still counts.”

Your eyes slide to Jungkook, and he catches your gaze. He must have read something on your face, because he steps closer, and he grabs your waist. “Something wrong?” he asks, just for you to hear.

“I love them, but I don’t want to hang out with them tonight,” you admit truthfully. “I’m tired.”

Jungkook seems like he ponders for a time, and when he leans down to press a soft kiss on your forehead, your eyelids flutter shut and you rest your head on his chest.

“What about we grab drinks some other time?” Jungkook suggests, face turned towards your friends on the couch.

Hobi doesn’t get the clue. “We can’t eat fried chicken without beer.”

“Babe, we can,” Jiho says, and she sounds scolding.

It makes you chuckle against Jungkook’s chest, and he wraps his arms around you.

It’s wild. Some part of you never expected to be comfortable with public displays of affection. Mind you, Jiho and Hobi don’t form a big audience. But still, being in Jungkook’s arms right now feels just right, and you already feel a little less exhausted. He’s energizing, when he holds you like this, with the warmth of his body seeping through yours. You just want to stay there for eternity, but it’d be a little selfish, wouldn’t it?

After that, Jiho and Hobi understand that you want to be left alone. They leave after you’ve eaten, wishing you good luck on your first night in your new apartment, and Jiho hugs you tight against her chest, saying that she’s the next one allowed to sleep over here. It makes you laugh, and then you wave your two friends goodbye as they walk down the hallway towards the elevator. You close the door when they turn the corner, before leaning against it.

“Something wrong?” Jungkook asks gently.

“I’m drained.”

He grabs your hand, gently squeezing your fingers. “I can take care of the rest of the dishes, if you want.”

He’s too good to you, but gosh you love it. “You’d do that for me?”

He smiles gently, nodding his head. “Of course. As long as I’m allowed to be the little spoon tonight.”

You laugh, letting him pull you towards the kitchen. “I promise. You can hold Totoro this time around.”

“And not Appa?” he asks, pouting as he glances over his shoulder at you.

You roll your eyes, chuckling. “Both.”

“That’s better.”

As Jungkook finishes emptying the dishwasher, you sit on the counter, leaning against a cupboard. You take a moment to look at him – he’s wearing green cargo pants, with another of his many oversized dark t-shirts. His hair is so long you think you could probably tie it in a ponytail, though you reckon you’re not sure if it would look good on him. Besides, you like his hair untied, especially now that it’s started to curl a little at the ends. It makes him look soft, and it takes everything in you not to reach out between you and run your fingers through his hair.

“How do you feel about being in your own apartment?” he asks as he’s putting glasses away in a cupboard next to you.

You observe him for a few seconds, before letting your gaze slide away to the living room. You haven’t finished decorating yet, but it already feels like home a little, especially with Jungkook by your side.

“I’m happy,” you reveal. “Tired, yes, but I really am happy to finally have my own place.”

He smiles. “I can imagine. When I moved in with the boys I rode a high for a few months before it just became normal.” He chuckles, slightly shaking his head. “It was such a mess at the beginning.”

“It still is,” you point out.

He raises his eyebrows as you turn your head towards him. “Trust me, it’s not half as bad as it used to be.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Why’s that?”

He ponders for a time, and the only sounds in the room are those of the glasses as he puts them away. “Probably because we’ve thrown less parties this semester? Last year we had one almost every week. But I think Jin and Yoongi outgrew the phase.”

“Kinda hard to throw a party when two out of five residents don’t want to,” you say, and he nods his head.

“Exactly.”

He works in silence for a time, as you just yawn next to him. You close your eyes for a few seconds, and really you’re so tired you think you could fall asleep like this. You’re about to do so when Jungkook nudges you gently.

“You gotta move,” he tells you, and he laughs when you whine. “All the other cupboards are full, I need to use the one behind you.”

You crack an eye open, and surely one of his hands is extended towards the cupboard. His inked one is holding a glass and the fondness in his eyes does something to your insides – melts them, the same way metal melts, turning bright and liquid and burning, burning, burning.

You grab the glass out of his hand, putting it next to you. His hand is still extended towards the cupboard, and he’s looking at you with a cocked eyebrow, clearly not understanding what you’re doing.

In all truth, you don’t know what you are doing either. Only know that all the restraints you’ve once had are breaking, melting, popping. The dam is open, and the flood rushes in, washing away all the pain, all the fear you’ve gone through in the last few months. You feel like maybe you’ve drowned, maybe you’re at the bottom of the lake looking up to see the light, to see Jungkook. And if you had to drown to make it to him, then you think it was worth it. It is worth it. Because he puts oxygen in your lungs the way nothing ever did before.

You grab his arm, whining a little again. He chuckles, but doesn’t resist when you pull him towards you. You pull him in, until you’re able to wrap your legs around his waist. The smile on his lips dies slowly as he watches you, sees the look in your eyes. He falls fully serious, and when you pull him down he follows your lead.

The kiss is slow. The kiss is time stopped, eternity awaiting. You feel like you’re everywhere, everything, yesterday and tomorrow. You feel infinite, yet finite like you’re just a punctuated event in the chronology of time. You’re nothing, but you’re also all, and you think Jungkook feels it too.

You know he does, because his hands steadily fall to your waist, and his touch on you is gentle, yet firm. He holds you into your spot, setting your place into the universe to your seat on this counter, with him between your legs.

You cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing his skin as he deepens the kiss, tilting his head to the side. His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, and you sigh as you let him in.

This kiss is the start. But it’s not a start that hurts, like the cataclysm under the stars. It’s a start that makes you think ‘this is it, this is where I was meant to be’. Urgency slides into it, slowly, until passion takes over the two of you. Jungkook’s fingers dig in the supple skin of your hips, and you softly moan in his mouth as he bites at your bottom lip. He lets out a sound similar to yours when you pull him ever so closer, pressing him against you.

You can taste the sauce lingering in his mouth from the fried chicken you ate before Hobi and Jiho left. You’re pretty sure he can taste it in yours too, but you both don’t care, too busy building yourselves anew.

Jungkook pulls away just long enough to breathe in, and then he’s crashing his lips on yours again. If you could choose your Heaven – if such a thing exists, which you highly doubt – it’d be this moment, repeating over and over.

The moment you realize you’re in love. The moment you realize it was all worth it. The moment you realize Jungkook is love, in its purest form. You want to lie in this moment forever, make your bed in it and die right here, right now. Because you know no moments will ever top this, right now.

He’s your heaven.

“Jungkook,” you breathe against his lips.

He pulls away, resting his forehead against yours. “What was that for?”

Your hands move to his hair, get lost in his long locks. “I’m falling for you.”

He doesn’t say anything for so long you start to feel your heart ache. It starts slowly, but soon overpowers everything. You wish you could move away, but he’s like a magnet, and you a piece of metal. You’re glued to him.

He murmurs your name, with so much devotion you feel like you’re a god. And then he chuckles as he wraps his arms around you, holding you close.

“Me too, baby, me too,” he whispers. “You have no idea. I’ve been falling for so long.”

Your closed eyes manage to fill with tears. “No falling anymore. We’ve got each other.”

The sound he makes next resembles a sob, and you hold him tighter.

“You really think that?”

You nod against him. “Yes.”

He nods too, and then laughs softly. “Gotta add fried chicken to the list of things I want you to eat or drink more often.”

You snort and when he picks you up you just hold onto him tighter.

“Where are you bringing me?” you ask.

He parts so he can look over his shoulder. “There’s something I want you to see.”

An air of mystery fills the space surrounding him, and you close your eyes as you snuggle your face in his neck. “Mmh.”

“That tickles,” he complains with a whiny voice that makes you giggle.

Jungkook carries you to your bedroom. The sun set a little while ago, though the sky outside is still painted in royal blue, having yet to give way to night. He puts you down on the freshly-made bed, and your eyes flutter open as he steps away.

“What are you doing?” you ask, but then your room fills with light.

Fairy lights. He’s hung them around the painting over the head of your bed, and even around the window. It gives your room an inviting glow, a warm tone that feels just right with him in your vicinity.

“When did you do this?” you ask.

He smiles softly, fondly. “Earlier. Before dinner. I thought you were going to like it.”

Your eyes have filled with tears by the time you croak out, “I do.”

He looks so happy with himself, like he accomplished something remarkable. And maybe to him, making you happy is that. Remarkable.

“Come here,” you say, making grabby hands at him.

He laughs, but immediately complies, walking over to where he sat you on the bed. “What do you want?”

You never were asked such an easy question before. “You.”

Something passes in his eyes. “Me?”

“All of you?”

At that he laughs. “All?”

“Shut up and come here,” you whine.

He giggles that sweet giggle of his, but he obeys, sitting next to you. You’re not surprised when he pushes you down so you’re lying on your back, with his hand on your stomach.

“How do you like your apartment?” he asks after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

You turn your head to look at him. “I love it.”

He smiles. “I’m glad.”

Your heart feels content in your chest, yet it demands more. So you prop yourself up on an elbow in order to get closer to him, and you press your lips on his again. This kiss starts the same way as earlier, but it meets passion faster. Way faster, like your hearts are chasing each other in a race, and maybe they are.

You climb on top of him, straddling him as his hands hold your waist once more. Your mouths haven’t disconnected while you moved, but they do now as you descend to his neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the column of his throat. He tastes a little salty from when he sweated throughout moving day, but you don’t care, you just want to feel him.

He says your name, and his grip on you tightens when you suck a hickey over the collar of his shirt.

“Do you want me, Kook?” you ask, and it’s a little rhetorical.

He still replies. “I do want you.”

“Tonight?”

He breathes hard when you suck on his skin again. “Yes.”

Satisfied, you sit back on his lap, tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Then take this off.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then he sits up, pressing a kiss on your nose. “But first let me get you out of your shirt, mmh?”

You let him sneak his hands to your back, until he’s grabbed your shirt and pulled it over your head. You help him a little, and he lets it fall to the floor next to your bed. His hands return to your back, and he gently caresses your skin as he presses his lips to yours for a soft kiss.

When he pulls away, his doe eyes meet yours, and you help him out of his shirt. Soon, it finds yours on the ground, and you slowly roam your hands on his chest, on his abs. You find the scar he has there, and you trace it with a finger, holding his gaze.

“I love your scars,” you breathe out.

His eyes glaze a little, and he looks down at himself. “You do?”

“Of course. They are a part of you.”

He kisses you again, languidly, pulling you down as he lies back. You follow him, resting your hands on his chest to keep your lips against his. His hands roam your back, finding your bra strap and a second later he unhooks it. You don’t disconnect your mouths as he slips your bra off, and you shiver a little when it’s off and his hands move to your breasts.

He gently cups them, squeezing once before he grabs your waist instead. You whine against his lips, and he laughs softly.

“What?” he asks.

“Touch me,” you let out.

He breathes in sharply. “Fuck.”

You kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “Please.”

“I will,” he whispers, and he says it like a promise.

A promise you know he’ll hold, because one of his hands glides on your side, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind before it finds your ass. He holds it firmly, while his other hand goes back to your breast, rolling your hardened nipple between his thumb and index.

You moan against his lips, unable to resist, and he slips his tongue in your mouth. You kiss him harder, passionately, fingers moving to get tangled in his long hair. He grinds up into you as your hands get lost in the soft strands, and you moan again.

“Fuck,” he curses once more.

You pull away, enough to look at his features. “Is something wrong?”

His eyes are screwed shut, and he looks like he’s in pain. “Just…” He wets his lips, but his eyes stay obstinately shut. “Are you going to run again?”

Your heart falls in your chest. It falls and aches, and you gently cup his cheeks. “Kook,” you murmur. “Look at me.”

He pulls at his piercing, and it takes him a few seconds but he eventually obeys. When your gazes connect, you pour all of your feelings in your eyes, hoping he’ll read it himself while you say, “I’m not going anywhere. It’s you and me now. Us.”

“I don’t deserve you.” He says it with conviction, and it makes you clutch him a little harder.

“Kook, stop this. I told you before, it’s my choice.” You pause, giving weight to your words. “I choose you.”

He looks between your two eyes, and then his gaze shines with tears. “I should have chosen you before.”

A tear escapes his right eye, and you gently wipe it away with your thumb. “But you’re choosing me now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He chuckles. “You’re stuck with me.”

Your lips break out into a soft smile. “Good. Now kiss me stupid.”

Mischief fills his gaze, replacing the sadness. “Oh, I’ll kiss you stupid and fuck you dumb.”

“JK!” you burst out, and he rests a hand flatly on your back, spinning you around until he’s pinning you down on the bed. Your gaze widens, and you have about two seconds of looking at him, heart beating out of your chest, before he catches your lips with the pillowy softness of his.

He’s propped up on his elbows, caging you between his arms, and your hands wander down his body, caressing his sides before going ever so lower. You find the band of his pants, sliding one finger in just to tickle him. He grinds into you, and you feel his erection pressing against you.

Lava trickles down to your core, and your legs circle his waist again until he’s tight against you. It makes it hard to rid him of his pants, and you reluctantly let go as he himself pushes away, standing up so he can get out of his pants. He looks like an angel in the fairy lights, skin turned to honey you want to taste, and you reckon you want to taste every inch of him. Want to press kisses all over his body until all he can feel is you.

Jungkook palms himself through his boxer briefs, and you watch the imprint of his dick shamelessly. He cocks his head to the side, before saying, “Why don’t you take off your pants too?”

“You’d like that?” you tease.

He chuckles. “Brat.”

“You love it.”

He doesn’t deny, just watches you as you finish undressing. It occurs to you that it’s his first time really seeing you fully naked, and a little bit of insecurity seeps through you. He notices right away, because of course his big eyes notice everything.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs as you lie down, in just your underwear. “I’d take a picture of you right now.”

You blush. “Please don’t.”

“Just burning your picture behind my eyelids then,” he says, and one of his hands moves under his boxer briefs, fingers wrapping around his cock. “I want to see you every night as I’m falling asleep.”

It’s dirty, especially as he starts pumping his dick. You sit back up, just long enough to hook your thumbs in the band of his boxers, pulling them down his legs. He lets you do it, focusing on jerking himself off. His dick sits right next to your face, and you look up at him, questions in your eyes.

“You don’t have to suck my dick,” he says, sounding reassuring. “I’m all ready for you.”

“Then just a little?” you suggest.

His eyes shut as he tilts his head to the side, chuckling. “Alright baby.”

You smirk, biting at your bottom lip before letting your gaze drop to his dick. You eye the bead of precum that sits at the slit. Jungkook is still holding his dick up, but he’s stopped jerking it off for now. You lean forward, tongue darting out to taste him, and he tastes just as good as you remember. You lick him clean of the precum, and then swirl your tongue around the head, playing with his frenulum.

He slowly starts pumping himself, and you look up to connect your gaze with his as you suck on his tip. You moan, softly, before pulling away with a popping sound.

“You know,” he says, and his eyes fall shut as if he needs to concentrate. “As much as I want you to suck my dick, I think I’d rather just be close to you tonight.”

You melt again, like snow under the spring sun. “Kook…”

“And now I’m far, aren’t I?”

He sort of is, standing up like that while you’re sitting on the bed. So you move backwards, lying back down. “Come here then.”

His eyes open, and he takes in the sight of you for a few seconds, not saying anything. He just has a small smirk on his lips, and he’s still pumping his cock. It makes you jealous a little, because you haven’t really had any action yet, so you let your hand wander between your legs, under your panties.

Jungkook watches, mouth falling open, as you start pressing circles on your clit. You go lower, finding your lips coated with your sleek juice, and you use it to press harder on your clit, moving faster.

“Fuck,” Jungkook curses. “Can I take your panties off?”

You smirk lazily, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. “Sure.”

He eyes you suspiciously, sensing the mischief and teasing in your voice, but he lets it slide. He kneels on the bed, moving closer until he can pull your panties down and off your legs. You still just rub at your clit, even as he watches you do it. Even as one of his hands moves up your thigh, and he circles your entrance with a finger.

“As much as I want to be close to you right now, we should get you ready first, uh?”

“You want to finger me?”

He inhales sharply, nodding his head.

“Do it, Kook.”

He pulls at his piercing, and his gaze meets yours as he slowly slides his finger inside of you, arching it immediately to find the spot inside of you that can make you cum in no time.

You keep at it on your clit, moving faster as he starts teasing at the spot, before pumping his finger in and out a couple of times. When he's covered it with your wetness, he adds a second finger, and you moan out his name.

“You’re so wet.” It sounds like a praise, and all you can do is nod your head. Because surely, you’re soaked, and you reckon there’s a high chance you’ll wet the bedding under you. But you don’t care, all there is is Jungkook and his fingers inside of you.

He makes scissor-motions with his digits, spreading you wide open to get you ready for him while you’re still drawing circles on your clit. He works against your muscles as they tighten, spasming from your ministrations on your clit.

“Do you want to cum first?” he asks.

“Uh?” you gasp out.

“Do you want me to make you cum before we have sex?”

The brat in you resurfaces. “I’m doing half of the work,” you whine.

Something changes in his demeanour. He’s still soft and gentle, but his free hand grabs the one you’ve been using to pleasure yourself. He leans over you, hovers over you, until he’s put it over your head, against the bed.

“Not anymore, uh?” he asks cockily, fucking you with his fingers harder.

Squelching sounds start to be heard in your room, and you clench around him. Though you still have an available hand, and you start playing with yourself with it. Jungkook chuckles, and he presses a kiss on the tip of your nose.

“You want to cum so bad,” he states.

You do. You’re tilting over the edge, and it only burns brighter as he starts fucking his fingers faster. You time the circles on your clit to his movements, and when he starts kissing you, so slowly you feel your heart combust in your chest, the coil in your core snaps.

You moan out, loudly, as your fingers slow on your clit. His don’t, and he fingers you all through your high, kissing you softly still. You kiss him back, trying to focus on his lips as pleasure rushes through your body. The hand that was holding yours over your head moves until your fingers are intertwined, and you shudder as he milks the ending of your orgasm out of you.

His digits still in you, and he just keeps on kissing you. You focus on that until you feel strong enough to move, and you do so, wrapping your hand around his cock. You pump him, slowly, and he grinds in your hand.

He pulls away then, fingers emptying you, and you realize you’ve been gasping for air. You breathe in and out quickly, chest moving in time. He surveys you, and then presses a kiss to your forehead.

“That felt good?” he asks, and he moans a little when you grip his dick tighter.

“Fuck,” is all you can think to say.

He chuckles, and then looks at his hand. “Let me just clean that up so we don’t dirty your bed before we’ve even slept in it.”

It’s endearing how he thinks of that even as you’re jerking him off, and you watch him as he reaches for a tissue on your bedside table. He cleans his fingers, and when he’s satisfied, he crumples the tissue and throws it towards the bin in the corner of your room. He entirely misses it, but you both don’t care as he settles comfortably between your legs.

“Do you still want to do this?” he asks, bending down to press a soft kiss to your lips.

“Yes,” you breathe out, and you align him with your entrance. “I want you so bad, Kook.”

“Me too,” he murmurs.

Then a thought pops in your head, and your gaze widens. “Wait.”

He stops moving, even as he was starting to push inside of you. He’s kneeling between your legs, and the startled look on his features makes you grab his hands.

“Are you sure this position won’t hurt your leg?”

He smiles, eyes so full of love you feel like you’re an entire new person. “Don’t worry about me, baby.”

You pout a little. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself for me.”

He resumes his movement, pushing inside of you, and he only speaks again once most of him is sheathed inside of you. “My leg doesn’t hurt as much anymore,” he whispers. “I’ll let you know if it does, and we can always switch positions, mmh?”

You nod, and your gaze dips down to the spot where your bodies are connected. “Okay.”

He leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips. And when he starts pulling back, only to push inside of you again, your hands grab the nape of his neck to hold him in place. To keep him close, so you can feel the weight of his body on top of you.

He fucks you slowly. Lazily, as he kisses you languidly like he’s got until the end of time to have sex with you. It leaves you feeling full, feeling bright like the stars in the sky that July night. Only this time, you both are stars, crashing together, meddling until there’s only one of you, made of the best of him and you.

It’s slow and steady, like the beats of your heart in your chest. Whenever he turns his head one way, you follow his lead, let him kiss you stupid while he just keeps going, slow and steady. It’s warm, like a summer evening. You know every little moment of your life led you to be here tonight, and you know you’ll cherish this moment forever.

You want it to last forever. And it feels as if it does, even when Jungkook readjusts his position, lying on his side a little. He fucks you so slow your heart grows and grows in your chest, like flowers do under the benevolent rays of the summer sun. You grow like a plant nurtured in your home, like love that’s meant to last forever. It feels like there’s just you and him in this space.

And maybe you’re forgotten. Maybe the whole of humanity is gone, and there’s just you and him left. You think that’s okay. You don’t mind being forgotten, not when it’s with him. Not when you know you occupy his thoughts the way he occupies yours.

At some point, Jungkook rests his forehead against yours, and you breathe the same air as he keeps fucking you like this, slow and steady. You hold him, tangling your hands in his hair, running them down his back.

“I’m really falling in love with you,” he breathes.

You wrap your arms around his neck, pressing him ever so closer to you. “Kook… me too. I’m falling in love with you too.”

He’s so close you feel it when he smiles. “Didn’t you say ‘no falling anymore’ earlier?”

You don’t know how he’s still able to think right now. Because the only thing that occupies your thoughts right now is him. Him in his entirety, his soul settling home.

“I…” you trail off, silenced by a soft peck of his. “I’m in love with you,” you correct.

“I’m in love with you too,” he responds, and then he’s kissing you again.

He’s kissing you like he’s making up for the last few months, and preparing you for all those that are to follow. You see a long path ahead, but it doesn’t scare you anymore.

Jungkook’s movements grow sloppier as you kiss, and then his hips settle against yours, his dick embedded deep inside of you. You feel it twitch as he releases inside of you, and he grunts in the kiss as he fucks his orgasm out of himself.

When he’s done, he once again rests his forehead against yours. “Wow.”

One syllable that encompasses everything that you’re feeling right now. You echo it, and you both chuckle. And you hold on to each other for a long time, before Jungkook pulls away to clean up. He pulls you behind him to the shower, and he washes your back under the warm water. You wash him too, and by the time you’ve settled back in bed, you’re going again. This time doesn’t last as long, and it’s a little more desperate, a little faster, like your bodies are craving each other too much for the dance your souls want to pursue.

When you’re done, you lie with your head on his chest, eyes trailed to the sliver of moon you can see outside. Jungkook’s breathing is deep next to you, but you know he’s not asleep yet. You’re drawing circles on his chest, where his shoulder connects to his torso and ink gives way to a blank canvas. Meanwhile, Jungkook is running a hand up and down your back, slowly, never once faltering.

“What are you thinking of?” he asks.

The question takes you by surprise. Mostly because you weren’t thinking about anything, but now that he’s asked, you think about everything. You think about all the months, all the years that eventually brought you here. You think about how sixteen years old you would kill you for being with him, though you think it’d be because she was jealous. You think about the way he broke your heart, about the way you broke his, and the way you rebuilt yourself together. You think about Laura, and inevitably the words she told you at the bar come back to your mind.

You sigh, and if you could you’d move closer until you were under his skin.

“You know, the other day, at the bar?” you let out pensively. He hums. You don’t know if he’s following, so you add, “When Laura talked to me.”

This time, he says in a low, deep voice, “Yes.”

His hand doesn’t still on your back, and neither do your fingers on his chest. “She mentioned something that got me thinking.”

You feel him shift a little as he looks down at you. “What did she say?”

“That I was delusional,” you admit. “That you broke up with her to be with me to boost your ego.”

Now, his hand stops on your back, resting flatly so he can pull you closer. “I hope you know that it is not true,” he gently says. He presses a kiss to the top of your head, and your eyes flutter shut as you sigh.

“Can I ask you why you broke up with her though?” you enquire with a small voice. “We never… You never said why.”

His fingers go back to grazing the skin of your back. “I think it was a combination of seeing you getting hurt and Laura saying stuff about you,” he admits. “That time you hurt your wrist, I panicked. Seeing you hurt, hurt me too, and it made me realize that I cared for you far more than I originally thought.” He pauses, and your hand trails to the top of his shoulder so you can hold him tight against you. “And Laura was a bitch that night. She said a lot of stuff about you, and the more she talked the more I wanted her gone.”

Silence fills the room, and you listen to his steady heartbeat for a time. You take his words in, let them marinate in your mind while you figure what to say.

Because you knew, that day, how much he cared for you. It was written all over his features, in those big doe eyes of his, and it hurt almost more than your wrist did. But two days later, in a fit of heartbreak caused by your mother, you had ended up right by his side, where you were always supposed to be.

“I knew it,” you reveal. “That you cared for me. Even when you were with her I knew it. But…” you trail off, and he waits patiently for you to continue. “Do you remember the night I… I kissed Jimin?”

He stiffens, and you’re pretty sure his heart has skipped a beat in his chest. “Yeah?”

“It was like you didn’t even know me,” you say, voice small. “I expected you to be angry, or to be jealous, but you didn’t even blink.”

He chuckles, and it’s a little sour. “Honestly, it hurt me but I wanted you to be happy. I thought then that you weren’t supposed to be happy with me. I know now that I was wrong, and I’m sorry you had to see me with her. Because, even though Jimin’s one of my closest friends and I love him to death, seeing you two together hurt.”

“I cried for the first time that night,” you admit, and your voice has gotten even tinier. “With Sungie and Felix. I think that’s why Sungie doesn’t like you.”

Because it was evident today. Jisung kept throwing glares Jungkook’s way, kept trying to get Jungkook to be away from you. You think they spent some time alone too, and Jungkook confirms as he says, “He told me he’s going to give me a chance just because you are happy with me.” And then Jungkook chuckles a little. “But he said he’ll kill me if I hurt you again. In Korean at that.”

Your brows furrow on your forehead. “Wait, you speak Korean?”

Jungkook looks down at you. “Obviously?”

“I’ve never heard you speak Korean,” you say, propping yourself up on an elbow so you can look at him. “Say something!”

He just holds your gaze, though a fond smile sneaks its way to his lips.

“Come on,” you whine.

“Guiyeop,” he says, finally caving in.

You grin. “What does that mean?”

His smile turns mischievous. “You’re annoying.”

“Jungkook!” you yell, and you punch him in the chest as he starts laughing. “I hate you.”

“You don’t,” he says, tickling your side. “Besides, it means cute.”

You frown, glaring down at him. “Does it?”

His hand reaches between you, and he smooths the frown away from your features. It makes your breath hitch in your throat, and you hold his gaze as he says, “It does.”

You repeat the word, and then smile wide at him again. “I like it. You should teach me how to speak Korean.”

He pulls you back into his embrace, and you rest your head on his chest. This time, he holds you flush against him, both arms surrounding your frame, and you’re engulfed in his warmth as he hums.

“You’ll need to learn if you want to meet my family,” he says before pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“They don’t speak English?”

You feel it as he shakes his head no. “My brother does, but my parents don’t really. They all still live in Korea.”

“Wait,” you let out. “You moved here without them?”

He chuckles. “No, my parents were here for two years, but then they moved back to Korea because of my dad’s work.”

“So you were just with your brother?” you ask.

He nods. “Yeah. But when he went to college I moved in with Tae’s family.”

You didn’t know that. It feels like you should have known, considering you’ve known him for almost as long as he’s been here, and your heart falls in your chest.

“Wow.” You glance up at him, though all you can see from your point of view is his jaw. “I didn’t know.”

He presses a kiss on your forehead. “We never talked about it before, how could you know?”

You’re pouting when you say, “I just… it feels like I should have known.”

He says your name like he’s reprimanding you. “I didn’t even talk about my family to Laura,” he admits. “So don’t feel bad that you didn’t know.”

“But I’ve known you for years,” you point out.

He hums. “Yeah and? Did you want to know stuff about my life before?”

He’s got a point. You still whine a little, which brings a cute giggle out of him.

“I guess not.”

He holds you tighter for a few seconds. “See? We’re all good.”

Another silence moves through the room, and you just go back to listening to his heart. Its steady beat is threatening to lull you to sleep, though your imagination runs wild with what it must have been like for him to grow up all alone, on an entirely different continent as his parents. It feels lonely, though you reckon he always had someone around.

It’s more than you had, after your father left. Because you don’t consider your mother to have been around for you. All she was was a thorn in your side, one that you’ve finally gotten rid of. Yes, it aches, but you reckon that now you have a chance to heal.

And healing with Jeon Jungkook by your side sounds like a dream.

“Did they…” you trail off, not expecting the question to take shape. “Did your parents come when you got in your accident?”

He sighs. “My mom did, but my dad couldn’t. She stayed for a couple of weeks, but then she had to go back too.”

You press a kiss to his chest. “How did you feel?”

“About what?”

You shrug in his hold. “About being here alone. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like.”

He remains silent for so long you almost think he won’t reply. “I wasn’t alone,” he admits. “I had the boys. They’re like family to me, and it was plenty enough. Besides…” he trails off. “I didn’t want to be around people after the accident. I was stuck in my head.”

You’ve never really talked about that before. As much as the subject scares you, you also want to listen to Jungkook, if he needs to talk. And it seems he does, because he continues after a minute of silence.

“I really thought I was going to die that day,” he reveals, with a small, vulnerable voice. “Sometimes, all I can picture is just me, bleeding out on the backseat.”

Your heart turns to ice in your chest, and you don’t think it’s beating anymore.

“I almost died, actually,” he tells you. “If the medics had gotten there two minutes later I would have.” He’s silent for a few seconds, and his voice is raw with emotion as he adds, “The boys were freaking out, but I was out. Taehyung was just… telling me to hold on, saying my name, and Jimin threw up while Jin called 911. At least that’s what they told me.” You sneak an arm around his waist, soothingly rubbing his back. “Tae didn’t even realize he was hurt too until I woke up in the ambulance and told him. He was so panicked he wasn’t letting the medics approach him.”

The heavy silence that follows is unbearable, and you feel the need to say something, anything. “Jungkook… I’m so sorry.”

“I’m the one that should apologize,” he quickly says, and he scrapes his throat as if to get rid of a lump that’s formed there. “I just dumped that on you out of nowhere.”

“It’s all good,” you reassure him. “I’m here for you, if you need to talk about it.”

“I never really talked to anyone about it, besides my therapist,” he admits. “It just makes it so real.”

You nod, before pressing another kiss to his chest. “You’re alive, Jungkook. You’re alive and that’s all that matters.”

“Alive and with you,” he says, choking on a sob. “Thank you so much.”

You blink back tears as you peck his chest once more. “I’m glad that you are right here.”

His grip around you tightens, and it makes your heart flutter in your chest, even through the heaviness of the conversation. You don’t talk for a while, both of you lost in thoughts, though you reckon you just don’t know what to tell him. You weren’t wrong before – you’re not good with feelings. You try to be, because that’s what Jungkook deserves, especially with what he’s been through. But feelings are one of your many shortcomings, though you reckon you’ve been getting better.

Letting him in is making you better, in all the ways that matter. You think you could spend the rest of your life right next to him, and that he feels the same way. You believe he feels the same way, because his grip never falters around you. He still presses gentle kisses on the top of your head once in a while, and when his breathing slowly deepens, interrupted by soft snores, you smile against him, holding in a giggle.

His warmth eventually lulls you to sleep, and for the first time in forever you sleep soundly, like you’ve finally reached your safe haven.

Prev | Next

☆☆☆☆☆

I am so soft I could cry gosh... they're in love, aren't they? What do we think?

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[azulera]

Hi! If you're still taking request I would like a Kylian and black reader blurb inspired by "Lovers & Friends" the usher song. :) :) :)

Way Back

Pairing: Kylian Mbappé x Black Reader

Words: 1.2k

Notes: not very confident about this one :/ don’t know why it’s been so hard for me to write about kylian lately, but c’est la vie. and anon i hope you like

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

The park where Kylian had asked her to meet was deep in the design district and crowded, but she'd found a clear spot on a bench near a tall, bubbling fountain. It was 9am, far too early to be awake and in the sunlight after the night of expensive white attire, multi-syllabic drinks and dancing they’d had, but since she’d known him, way back in the stuffy hallways of the lycée, he’d been an early riser. The text itself had come into her phone with a seriousness uncommon to her usually buoyant, playful, friend: I need to see you, to talk. Her stomach had turned as she read it, exhilarated and uncertain, but it wasn’t like she could say no.

No more than five minutes later, the crunching sound of wheels on asphalt pulled her eyes from the brilliant display of water. It was Kylian’s car maneuvering into the lot, and as he parked, he motioned to her out of the window. When she approached, the window slid down completely to reveal his smiling face, freshly shaved and smooth, and tan from the Miami sun. He was stupidly handsome, she thought, even when he should have been still jet-lagged and hungover.

“Ça va?” He asked, pulling her into a side hug through the window, with a kiss on both cheeks. She tried to read it as the normal greeting that it was, and ignore her stomach’s fluttering.

“Ça va, Ky. What did you want to speak about?”

“D’accord, straight to it.” He laughed, his dark eyes creasing in the corners. “Come on, get in. We will talk in the car.”

She met his gaze a moment, and watched as his own tracked slowly down her body and back up. Her eyebrows sprung toward her hairline. The earlier apprehension started to shrivel, and the “no-BS” attitude that had sustained a decade of friendship threatened to return.

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

She shifted her weight to one foot. “You’re looking at me like I’m a piece of meat.”

“Mais, non, I’m just, looking.” He denied, smoothing out the neck of his t-shirt. “Last night was a little bit wild, no? I want to make sure you are okay.”

It was a viable excuse, but the anxiety twisting up her insides wouldn’t stop showing on her face. She couldn’t fight the feeling that, as was custom in their friendship, he was joking with her, that this entire meeting was a ploy to build her hopes up, only to bring them down in a pathetic crash.

“Putain, je vais pas te mordre. Why do you look so scared?”

“I don’t know,” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Kylian.”

He sighed out harshly from his nose, turning his head, and her mind flashed to last night, when her friend had completed the same gesture while he had her pressed up against the side door of his car —the very same car she stood in front of now— both their eyes wide and breathing hard into one another’s mouths. The moment came after a night of flirty bantering that wasn’t unusual between them, but that couldn’t explain the heat in his eyes as he followed her through the party, or the hand that drifted lower and lower along her back while they danced and mingled with acquaintances. She’d excused it at first, blaming the loosening effects of alcohol on his straight and narrow system, but that moment, pressed body to body, mouths a desperate decision’s length apart, and his palms burning their prints onto her hips, crossed any of the lines that kept them on the correct side of friendship.

She wasn’t sure now that they, or if she, at least, could travel back to the other side.

“What? Do you mean about last night?” He asked.

“I mean, are we going to pretend?”

He bit his lip, but maintained eye contact, letting the question simmer, and deepen, knowing that the memory playing in his head was the very same as the one looping in hers. Her face and neck began to feel warm, and she forced herself not to touch the spots.

“You did not like it, then? What we did. Or, what we did almost. You did not want it.”

“It’s not that–“ She started, fingering one of the strands spilling from her quickly-done top knot. The jolting feeling of “Is this really happening?” rocked through her again. “I just want to know why.”

“And you are sure you don’t want to do this inside? Where we have some more, privacy?”

He looked around the park still filling with joggers and dog walkers, and she also became aware of how it might look, should someone stop and recognize him, or even worse, if they caught any snippets of the words being exchanged.

Still, she shook her head “no”. It was firm, and the wisest choice, knowing that the second she got another view of the car door, or trapped in the confines of his passenger seat, her resolve would melt like an ice-cream cone left on the pavement. His smooth words, his sweet smell, the fact that she would be within his arm’s reach - if she wanted any chance to reinstate their fraying boundaries, the conversation had to happen here.

“Okay, comme tu veux.” He leaned forward onto the window frame, his forearms flexing, and she held on to his every word. “Bien, last night, tu sais, you looked– beautiful. You do, always, but at the party–” He blew air from his mouth, and licked his lips. “And so many people came up to me, and they assumed that you were mine- I mean, that we were together. And I liked it. It felt, je sais pas, right.

Then, all through the night, it made me think. How you are the person I have the most fun with. How you know me so well. How we are compatible like – I mean, je veux dire, it is not until this trip that I realized–”

“Realized what?”

Her body flushed while he spoke, a battery of emotions blitzing through her, making her palms sweat in the morning’s rising heat, and the back of her neck tingle. Her chest, however, was heavy with the weight of the one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to want.

“‘Cause, I don’t understand. You had all these thoughts, because you liked how I looked? Or because other people thought we looked good together? That’s not – I don’t think that’s enough. If that’s all it is, physical, we should have just kissed, done whatever last night, and been done with it.”

“But, I want to do more than kiss you, Y/N. That’s why I did not. I want … I think … I want to try. If you want to.”

She knew what he meant without him spelling it out; just as she understood that this was him putting everything – the awkward adolescent fumblings and every longing look, joint off-season vacation, and pre-match phone call since then – out there, on the table, a cue for the pretenses and fears she’d built up to fall away.

“Are you serious about this, Kylian? We’re meant to be …” She took a step closer to his vehicle, her voice a murmur, and her eyes still stuck to his like he’d glued them there. There was nowhere to run, and, from the softness she read there in his look, there was no need to. “Yeah. Yes. I want to.”

“Ouias?”

She nodded, scared that more words would break the delicate thing taking form between them, which still didn't feel real. He had leaned further out of the window, but his next words reached her as if in slow motion.

“Last night I wanted you, amour. So badly. But all this time, I’ve needed you, I think. Even if I did not know it.”

“Prove it.”

The words flew from her without permission, but his eyes widened at the challenge, then burned. It lit a fire in her body the rest of the way down.

“Come here,” He crooked his fingers, the same cheeky smile on his mouth that had been there in the stuffy halls of the lycée, but now with something more meaningful, something reciprocated, in it. And just as back then, the door pulled open, and she found her way to him.

[gayemeralds]

sonic prime: 5/10

admittedly im just tired of multiverse stories. spiderverse did it first everything everywhere all at once did it best. so this show wasn’t probably likely going to be getting a good review anyway. but many they really half assed this story.

first of all there’s just way too many flashbacks and repeating footage. i get being limited by budget but that was so distracting. i promise you i remember what happened last episode you don’t need a three minute montage to remind me. the multiverse was also a really big disappointment- the bosco cage and pirate world was really boring. the only interesting universe was new yoke city. also why the fuck did new yoke city have five different aged eggman ????? and the other universes didn’t seem to have any eggmen? before i watched this i had assumed that the eggmen of the different universes teamed up and conquered the universes in this show but that’s not the case. ????

anyway this was an AWFUL sonic characterization can you believe they tried to pass this off as game sonic. firstly sonic was treated like a moron by every character and the narrative and even himself, which is just… disappointing. Sonic’s never been eggman or tails sort of smart by christ he’s not fucking stupid. he’s impulsive yes but he’s not an idiot. second having sonic learn to appreciate his friends is just a really stupid storyline in my opinion but they did such a bad job trying to do that in this show. Sonic DID appreciate his friends in this show all the way since the beginning it just sort of felt like 1) “he didn’t listen” because no one was actually explaining things that well to him? like tails and the whole “it’s a trap!” thing… and then tails didn’t explain anything about how the battle was a trap or that eggman wasnt actually there 2) it comes across more that sonic just isn't used to working with a team, not that he doesn't value his friends. And i actually thinm that could have been a way more compelling story, if it wad framed as "oh sonic's used to adventuring alone and now that hes made all these friends hes having a difficult time leading them in fights and doing things together instead of rushing off by himself" and maybe they could have done an arc where he learns to be a proper team player and/or leader. but no sonic's just a idiot who ignores his friends. awful. also this characterization is like if they took the worst aspects of 2010 and onward sonic and dialed it up go an 11. He was SO obnoxious but i also just hate "excessively chatty, loudmouth, impulsive" sonic as a characterization anyway. Sighs.

shadow was utterly useless 95% of this show and i think they could have written out his character entirely. He was definutelt jyst there because sega likes to milk his charactee, not because je was relevant to the plot. AAlso they VERY much tried to make him come across as cooler & better than sonic which i despise. also jis whple thing was trying to get sonic to listen to him which like. 1) why would sonic tjink shadow knows anything about the prism or whats going on in general 2) shadow is "trying to get him to listen" while also attmepting to give sonic a concussion dhring their fights so like. I donf know what hes expecting.

ok if im honest here i also didnt like nine. I think they should have done a better job explaining his motivations. He also just came across as kind of annoying to me, probably because he took up so much screen time and they didnt really develop him much further than Edgy Tails. i think the idea of a variant of tails becoming the main antagonist id actually really interesting but they missed the mark on him.

i think despite really only having five main characters (sonic, tails, amy, knuckles, rouge) + eggman & shadow they did an awful job balancing them all out. sonic seemed to care about tails & amy way more than knuckles & rouge and had much more screen time connecting to their variants than knuckles or rouge. Rouge didn't get her own shatterspace (tails & new yoke, amy & boscage, knuckles & no mans land) which seemed odd? also her variants were VERY boring they were basically straight-man (responsible/leader) every time which sucked :( the only interesting one was rebel from new yoke because it was interesting to see her take up an actual hero position instead of an anti-hero and coordinate an entire rebellion as opposed to perhaps joining the eggman empire for her own benefit. But new yoke was dedicated to tails so that wasnt explored super well.

The pacing in this series was utterly abysmal. there were fights that lasted MULTIPLE EPISODES and the fights themselves were extremely repetative. I LIKE action i like fights but they need to have purpose and uniqueness otherwise it gets really boring to watch. sonic going back and forth between dimensions was also kind of odd to me? I think it would have been nice if he stayed in a dimension for a couple of epsiodes and really explored the characters and dynamics within that dimension before hoping to the next one. i did kind of like the nonlinear storytelling they did but the excessive repetition of scenes got old fast.

also it’s a crime they didn’t actually have blaze in this series. she totally should have replaced shadow in the idea of like, oh sonic fucking up his dimension fucked up other dimensions or something, so blaze had to come in to help. actual dimension hopping as a plot point and they don’t have “iconic dimensional doppelgänger” blaze the cat. insane. they had some reoccurring background character that was very clearly a bootleg version of her and that actually made me more angry than if they just ignored the idea of blaze altogether.

i think its a shame this show sucked so bad because it could have been pretty cool. The paradox prism held a lot of potential, sonic meeting other versions of his friends that perhaps had a part of gheir peesobality more exagerated than the other would have been interestibf. but i think the only good thing this series had was the really cool abimation and the sheer potential for acrual good storylines. i wouldnt want to watch this again it was kinf of a slog to get through all 24 epusodes it really should have only been like 16 ti mayyyyyybe 20.

[empiredesimparte]

Napoléon V: You're not going to spend all our vacations revising, are you? Charlotte: Unlike some people, I'm not planning to repeat my year

Napoléon V: Joachim and I have it all planned: revise at the last minute, like all normal people Charlotte: A real duo of losers

Napoléon V (ignores, charms): We could rather… go for a picnic on a white sandy beach... then lie against each other and…

Charlotte: Louis, please, I'm trying to concentrate. Why don't you go for a swim for an hour or so, until I finish? Napoléon V: Come on, darling Charlotte: That's a categorical no

Napoléon V: Then I'll go and study too, I want to stay with you Charlotte: Really? Napoléon V: Of course, it's a honeymoon, love

Charlotte: Okay Napoléon V: What are you studying? Charlotte: Economics

Napoléon V: That's the one I understood best Charlotte: I doubt that, darling, you were more diligent in mathematics

Napoléon V: "Imperfect competition refers to a situation of competition in a market where one of the five conditions of pure and perfect competition is not respected" Charlotte: That's the lesson about companies that have a large monopoly, or oligopoly, in the same market Napoléon V: I should send my Uncle Henri to take the economics exam for me Charlotte: It's not that complicated, just look at the chart by the German economist Stackelberg

Napoléon V: I'm a Napoléon, I won't listen to a German! Charlotte (sighs): This is going to take a while Napoléon V: You're giving in?

⚜ Le Cabinet Noir | Honeymoon at Bora-Bora, 4 Messidor An 230

Beginning ▬ Previous ▬ Next

Charlotte is studying for the next École Polytechnique exam, which the imperial couple will take later this summer. Napoléon V gently reproaches his wife for studying instead of spending time with him on their honeymoon.

⚜ Traduction française

Charlotte révise les prochains examens de l'Ecole Polytechnique, qui doivent avoir lieu exceptionnellement plus tard cet été pour le couple impérial. Napoléon V reproche gentiment à son épouse d'étudier au lieu de passer du temps avec lui pendant leur lune de miel.

Napoléon V : Tu ne vas tout de même pas passer toutes nos vacances à réviser ? Charlotte : Contrairement à d'autres, je ne compte pas redoubler mon année

Napoléon V : On a tout prévu avec Joachim : réviser à la dernière minute, comme tous les gens normaux Charlotte : Un vrai duo de loosers

Napoléon V (ignore, charmeur) : On pourrait plutôt... aller pique-niquer sur une plage de sable blanc... puis s'allonger l'un contre l'autre et...

Charlotte : Louis, s'il te plaît, j'essaie de me concentrer. Tu n'as qu'à aller nager une petite heure, le temps que je finisse Napoléon V : Allez chérie Charlotte : C'est un non catégorique

Napoléon V : Alors je vais réviser aussi, je veux rester auprès de toi Charlotte : Vraiment ? Napoléon V : Bien sûr, c'est une lune de miel mon amour

Charlotte : Ok Napoléon V : Que révises-tu ? Charlotte : Le cours d'économie

Napoléon V : C'est celui que j'ai le mieux compris Charlotte : J'en doute chéri, tu étais plus appliqué en mathématiques

Napoléon V : "La concurrence imparfaite désigne une situation de concurrence sur un marché où une des cinq conditions de la concurrence pure et parfaite n'est pas respectée" Charlotte : C'est la leçon sur les entreprises qui ont un grand monopole, ou oligopole, sur un même marché Napoléon V : Je devrais envoyer mon oncle Henri passer l'examen d'économie à ma place Charlotte : Ce n'est pas si compliqué, regarde le tableau de l'économiste allemand Stackelberg

Napoléon V : Je suis un Napoléon, je ne vais pas écouter un allemand! Charlotte (soupire) : Ca va être long Napoléon V : Tu capitules ?

[aaronburrdaily]

August 17, 1809

Upsala, Thursday, August 17, 1809. This is more legible but less convenient and it makes but one copy. ’Twas a bad calculation to bring only that little book. How could I forget to tell you of a new acquaintance? Yesterday Mr. Turner, who is from good nature the cicerone of all strangers, told me that there was a traveler, a Prussian, who had a great desire to see me. He was brought up and presented. A man of about 34; a very intelligent and prepossessing countenance. His name, H. Barth. More I know not, but we are to meet in Stockholm. He speaks English fluently, is very chearful,¹ and has that amiable German frankness and bonhomie² which I do so love. Couch. h. au soi.³ at 10, but having drank a dish of coffee chez le Gouverneur⁴ could not sleep. Got up and dressed and walked abroad near an hour very fast to fatigue myself. I had before walked about five miles, but all to no purpose, so set me down to read the Latin edition of the Swedish laws. About 2 got asleep. Rose at 6. To Turnberg’s at 7. Found him dressed and our coffee was immediately served, brought in by a pretty maid, with dry bread. Afterwards, bread, butter, pickled eel, and smoked salmon, both very good, with brandy and cordials. Mr. T. took no brandy; we both drank water. He offered me a copy of his “Travels” in Swedish, which I very foolishly declined. He answered with great cheerfulness my questions about Japan. I had made notes so that nothing might be forgotten. Pray read his “Travels”; they will amuse you much and then you may question me. You may believe every word he writes. You are perhaps ignorant that in Japan women are as free as in any part of Europe and I think rather more so, but I cannot now (perhaps never) commit to writing all he says. Staid two hours. We exchanged abundance of civil expressions and have agreed to keep up an intercourse after my return to America. Home at 10. You know we are to go off this morning to Sigtuna. Called on the Governor to take leave. He was under the hands of his hair-dresser but would see me. Staid a few minutes. Did not see mademoiselles les baronnes.⁵ Engaged to see him in Stockholm, where he is to be next week. On my return home found Afzelius, Jr. He proposes instead of going now to Sigtuna to make a tour to the mines of Dannemora, which suits me perfectly well. Are to set off at 3 and return to-morrow. Called on Mr. Turner who gave me a great number of pamphlets by the different professors and other matters of curiosity and information. A basket of cherries and a very pretty note from Madame Afzelius la jeu.⁶ A watchman in the steeple with an immense speaking trumpet proclaims the hour throughout the day as well as the night and immediately after the clock strikes, in a melodious tone of which not a syllable is articulated. No line from Hosack in answer to those which I wrote him on Friday last. The young etudiant,⁷ Mr. Hoxsam, came in again. He has been to the Lässesällskap i handelsman⁸ Borell, where I shall be always welcome. The newspapers, foreign and domestic, are found there. Afzelius junior has sent me two more books on the ancient laws of Sweden. One, [by] Joh. O. Stiernhöök, “De Jure Svenorum et Gothorum Vestuto.” Lib. duo., Holmiæ: 1672.⁹ Second, “Leges Svecorum, Gothorum” per Doctorem Bagwaldum Ingemvrdi, Eccle., archid. Ubsalensis, an. 1681 latinatate primum donatæ—a new edition by Johannes Massenius; Stockholm: CIↃIↃCXIV.¹⁰ Third, “Ζαμολξις,” (I can’t make Greek letters as you can), Primus Getarum Legislator, etc., etc. Carolo Landio. Upsala: CIↃIↃCLXXXVII.¹¹

Si Venerem fugias frustra properabis ad arcton Hoc quoque, quis credat! climate regnat amor.¹²

1  So in the MS. 2  Good fellowship. 3  For [je me] couchai hier au soir. Retired last evening. 4  At the Governor’s. 5  The baronesses. 6  For la jeune. The young; hence the young Mrs. Afzelius. 7  For étudiant. Student. 8  Swedish. Reading-circle at the house of the merchant Borell. 9  Latin. “Concerning the Old Law of the Swedes and the Goths”; in two books; Stockholm: 1672. 10  “The Laws of the Swedes and the Goths.” First presented in Latin by Doctor Bagvaldum Ingemurdi, Ecclesiastic, Archdeacon of Upsala, in the year 1681. A new edition by Johannes Massenius; Stockholm: 1614 (An error. He must have meant to indicate 1714, or else the other date should be 1581). 11  “Zamolxis, first legislator of the Goths,” etc., etc.; by Carolus Landius, Upsala: 1687. 12  If thou wouldst flee love (Venus), in vain shalt thou hasten to the pole. In this clime, too—who would think it?—Love reigns. (Apparently Burr quotes from Ovid, but there are some suspicious features about the second verse.)

[liaromancewriter]

Underneath the Tree

Premise: Cassie is in the mood to spread some Christmas cheer and her loved ones are happy to help.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine). Feat. Sienna Trinh, OH Gang, Max Valentine (OC) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Warnings: Brief references to minor character deaths and grief Words: 2.8K

A/N: This is for the Nonny who requested a Christmas in July fic. It’s a story that I originally wanted to write last December, but couldn’t find the inspiration to start. Now I did. It’s set during the Book 2 timeline and events referenced in this pic fic.

Cassie Valentine could feel frustration rising as she scanned the selection of trees in the farm outside of Boston proper. They had been here for almost an hour now and she had rejected most of the offerings. Too skinny, too tall, too short, too je ne sais quoi.

This was the Roomies’ first Christmas tree and nothing short of perfection would do. Aurora had borrowed decorations from her aunt; Kyra had sent a box of candy canes; Elijah’s parents had couriered over customized Christmas ornaments, one for each of them.

Now all they needed was a tree to match the vision in her head. She didn’t remember it being this hard before when she and Jack would buy one for their apartment.

“I swear to god, scout,” Max grumbled after she completed another circle of the section that they were in. “If you don’t pick a tree in the next five minutes, I’m leaving you here to make your own way back.”

Cassie shot her twin brother an arched look and then sniffed before turning her back on him and hunching her shoulders.

“Nice try,” he scoffed. “That didn’t work when we were kids, and it doesn’t work now. Just ‘cause you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not here.”

Giving him the cold shoulder, she continued to ignore him and walked over to check out a group of six-feet tall Douglas firs in the far corner.

“You know there’s no such thing as a perfect Christmas tree, right?” he continued talking in a whiny tone, determined to annoy her as only a brother could. “They all look the same and are just going to end up in a wood recycling shed at the end of the season, blown to smithereens.”

Cassie’s shocked gasp was as loud as it was dramatic. She swiveled to face him with accusation in her eyes and placed her hands on either side of the nearest tree as if covering a child’s ears.

“Don’t listen to the mean man,” she crooned to the tree. “You’re going to tree heaven where you can play with your friends and eat all the mulch you want.”

Recognizing how ridiculous she looked and sounded, Cassie burst out laughing, hugging the tree. Grinning, Max shook his ahead before he too was bent over with laughter.

“You’re such a jerk,” she said, swallowing her laughter when they started to attract weird looks from the other tree shoppers.

He just smiled, unoffended. “It’s frigging cold, sis. Can you please, pretty please with a cherry on top, pick a tree already so we can get out of here?”

Cassie made a face but didn’t argue. She stared at the tree she’d been hugging, tapping her gloved index finger against her lips, green eyes narrowing in consideration. The longer she looked at it the more she could visualize it in the corner of the living room in their apartment.

“This one,” she said definitively. “Final answer.”

Max went to get the owner and twenty minutes later they had the tree covered in burlap and tied to the top of the SUV. By the time they got back on the highway, Cassie had the volume cranked up and was belting out Christmas songs at the top of her lungs, much to her brother’s dismay.

They got lucky with parking as another vehicle pulled out right in front of her building. They climbed out of the car and Max stepped on to the running board to untie the tree.

“Here, let me help.” Farley walked down the steps, leaving the building entrance propped open. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for you ever since Sienna texted to say you were on your way back.”

With Farley’s help, they managed to get the tree down in no time at all and up the steps of the building. When the elevator doors slid open on their floor, Cassie walked ahead to unlock the apartment door, stepping aside as the men carried the tree inside and set it against the kitchen wall.

“It’s lovely,” said Sienna excitedly, clapping her hands together.

“It’s covered in burlap, Si,” Max snorted, rolling his eyes. “You can’t even tell what it looks like yet.”

Sienna’s brown eyes snapped in annoyance and she very studiously ignored him. Instead, she turned to hand Farley a paper bag and a to-go cup. “Thank you, Farley! You’re the best. If you run out of cookies, I’ll have plenty more later today.”

Farley stammered out a thanks and blushed as he often did when Sienna turned on the charm. Soon, it was just the three of them and Max took the scissors Sienna handed him to cut away the burlap.

“It’s beautiful!” cried Sienna, throwing a defiant, steely-eyed gaze at Max as the full tree came into view.

Cassie agreed and shared a look with Sienna. “And I know just the place for it.”

They directed Max this way and that, changing their minds several times just for the heck of it, both still smarting over his wisecracks earlier. He must have guessed this was their way of getting back at him and wisely kept his mouth shut, doing whatever they asked without complaint until they felt that he’d been punished enough.

“What’d you do to piss off the dolphins, Valentine?” called out Jackie with a smirk. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, a coffee mug in her hand, watching him work.

Before Max could fire back a retort, Elijah wheeled himself into the living room. “Cool tree.”

The doorbell rang then and soon the apartment was full of people and Christmas music was blasting from the Bluetooth speakers on the coffee table. Of the Roomies, Aurora was still missing, but she’d texted to say she was on her way back.

Rafael handed Sienna a tin full of his grandmother’s brigadeiros while Bryce and Keiki set their contribution down on the dining table, a Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie from a Hawaiian bakery they’d discovered in Charlestown. 

Cassie lined a platter with the macarons she’d baked yesterday, grabbed two bottles of red wine from the kitchen counter and carried both items to the table.

Max had parked himself on the couch and was scrolling through his phone when Sienna sat down next to him. He looked over as she put a plate of his favorite cookies on the coffee table in front of him and handed him a mug of hot cocoa with extra whipped cream and marshmallows by way of apology. 

She felt bad about how she had given him a hard time about the tree when he’d been so generous about getting it for them in the first place.

Cassie knew she hadn’t been fair either and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled at both of them before biting into a cookie and closing his eyes as the flavors exploded on his tongue. “Hmm. Consider yourselves paid in full.”

Soon after, everyone gathered around the tree and planned how they would approach the tree trimming. Bryce and Jackie bickered over whether the tinsel went first or last, each convinced the other was wrong, while Cassie negotiated a compromise.

Raf and Elijah riffled through the motley collection of decorations, putting aside what they could use. Aurora walked in a few minutes later, holding a nondescript box in her hands which turned out to be a mish mash of ornaments and tangled fairy lights.

Sienna was back in the kitchen, showing Keiki how to decorate the sugar cookies she’d baked earlier. Max leaned over the kitchen island to steal cookies, laughing when Sienna slapped his hand away with a severe look. He retaliated by dipping his finger in a bowl of whipped cream and smearing it on the tip of her nose and then her cheeks.

Cassie glanced over when she heard Sienna yelp, a vague disquiet spreading as she observed the quiet intimacy between her brother and her bestie; how they leaned towards each other, teasing and laughing, and the ease with which Sienna smashed a hand full of whipped cream all over his face.

She knew they were friends but for the first time she wondered if that was all.

When Aurora called her over to help with untangling the lights, she put the thought away to revisit later.

The mood in the apartment was loud and cheerful as everyone got into decorating the tree with gusto while munching on cookies and snacks, crumbs falling on the floor to be swept away later along with the debris from the tree trimming.

The tree was almost fully decorated with only the tinsel and lights left when they decided to take a break. They descended on the dining table like conquering heroes, helping themselves to thick sandwiches, pasta salad, chocolate-covered fruits and marshmallows, Santa and reindeer shaped cookies, and other tasty offerings.

Cassie speared the last of the chocolate-covered strawberries off Max’s plate, smirking when he protested, and tried to hide her reaction when Sienna gave him one from her plate. But her twin knew her too well and he glanced over, quirking one eyebrow to ask if she was okay. She nodded and turned away when Keiki asked her if she could try the wine, just to see what it tasted like.

Cassie didn’t see the harm, telling a horrified Bryce it was perfectly acceptable in Europe and should be fine here too. Enthusiastic at first about being treated like a grown-up, Keiki quickly turned her nose in disgust at the smell and almost spit out the sip she’d taken before bravely swallowing it down with a shudder.

“So, I guess I don’t have to worry you’re going to raid the liquor cabinet,” teased Bryce as Keiki chugged down water to get rid of the taste.

“You don’t have a liquor cabinet,” the teenager retorted in that snarky way Cassie found endearing and she gave her a one-armed hug.

Half an hour later, they assembled in front of the tree again. Max reached for his messenger bag and took out a small flat box.

“I brought something for all of you,” he said, flipping the box open to reveal two small red bells with golden stamps, each with a trailing, red ribbon. “To hang on the tree, if you’re open to it.”

Sienna and the others look confused, but Cassie met Max’s gaze, tears gathering in her eyes as she recognized the meaning behind the bells.

“Bells, like the ones in It’s a Wonderful Life? According to the movie, every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings,” Raf said, taking one out of the box with a wide smile. “That was…” he stopped, sadness shading his face before he swallowed and continued. “Danny loved that movie. I remember he would watch it every holiday season with his family.”

Max nodded. “A friend of mine lost his father a couple of years ago and he told me about a tradition his family started at Christmas,” he said, taking the second bell out of the box and handing it to Sienna. “The idea is to close your eyes and listen to the ringing of the bells; their melody will remind you of all the good memories you have about the person you lost. I thought that you could hang them as ornaments on the tree, and ring them in remembrance of Danny and Bobby whenever you pass by the tree.”

Sienna continued to stare down at the bell in her hand, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks. Cassie wrapped one arm around her and hugged her close. Eventually, Sienna pulled out of her embrace and resolutely stepped towards the tree. She looped the ribbon at the top of the bell around a branch and shook it lightly so that the twinkling melody of the bells rang out.

She turned towards Max and gave him a watery smile. “Thank you, Max. This was a very thoughtful gesture.”

He nodded solemnly, placing his hand atop hers and giving it a comforting squeeze.

One by one, the friends moved in, locking arms together and bowing their heads in memory of the friends and patients they had lost this year.

Determined to not let the evening end on a sad note, Cassie hip checked Jackie. “Are those tears in your eyes, Varma? Wow. Who knew Fuck It Varma was so sentimental over Christmas?”

Offended at the implication that she was soft, Jackie’s eyes snapped together as she shoved Cassie away. “Bite me, Valentine.”

“Girl on Girl action. Cool!” quipped Bryce making Aurora laugh and Keiki groan in embarrassment.

Suddenly the chirpy melody of “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” rang out from the speakers and Max sighed dramatically when Cassie jumped in excitement and glanced his way.

“No way, sis.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re on your own.”

She pouted and reached for Sienna’s hand instead, both of them getting into the bouncy rhythm, giggling and laughing the whole time as they crashed into Aurora before pulling her into their impromptu dance routine.

Once again the mood was jovial and merry and they finished decorating the tree with lights and tinsel until all that remained was the star.

They were debating, quite heatedly at times, which of them was tall enough to take on that feat or barring that strong enough to lift one of them when the doorbell rang. Leaving the friends to figure it out, Max went to check who was at door.

“Ethan!” Max stepped aside to let the other man in. “Cassie said you were going to be in Providence today with your dad.”

“I was,” said Ethan, unwrapping the scarf from around his neck before pulling off the thick winter coat as they stood facing each other in the hallway. “I told your sister I’d try to drop by if I could get away early.”

Ethan heard the raised voices and lifted an eyebrow. “Are they having fun or fighting?”

“Honestly, with this lot it seems to be a bit of both,” confessed Max with a grin.

Cassie stopped mid-sentence as soon as Ethan walked into view and then she was rushing towards him to launch herself into his arms, inhaling his unique scent. “Hi, you made it!”

He nodded and leaned down to brush his lips across hers. “You said it was important to you, right?”

“Yes, it was,” she smiled. “Your timing is impeccable as always, Dr. Ramsey. We need a really tall man.” She leaned back in his embrace, running her eyes over his body. “And I would say you qualify.”

Taking his hand, she led him back to the group who, well used to him being in Cassie’s life by now, nodded and called out greetings. Cassie handed him a red and gold star and when he looked at the glittery object in confusion, Sienna took pity on him.

“It goes at the top of the tree,” she pointed to where the ornament went.

Following her direction, Ethan stepped forward, trying not to upset the various ornaments hanging off branches, and raised his arm to place the star at the top of the tree.

“Amazing. He didn’t even have to stretch on his toes,” Bryce mused, clapping Ethan on the back, a bit too hard so that he almost fell into tree. Luckily Max pulled him back in time, otherwise Ethan would have likely faced some very angry residents.

“Let’s light this baby up,” exclaimed Cassie, clapping her hands together when Elijah flipped the switch for the fairy lights.

Everyone gazed up at the beautifully, and whimsically, decorated tree brightening up the apartment with holiday cheer. Phones came out to capture this memory, but otherwise they basked in the glow of the lights and each other’s company. 

Bryce hugged Keiki to his side while Rafael placed one hand on his shoulder in solidarity. Aurora, Elijah and Jackie held hands, connected as one unit.

Cassie leaned back against Ethan and he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, kissing the side of her head before resting his chin on top of her sunny, blonde hair.

Sienna looped her arm through Max’s and they exchanged soft smiles. She mouthed ‘thank you’ and he nodded in acknowledgment. She leaned her head against his upper arm and watched the flickering lights as the bells twinkled lightly in the distance.

Cassie looked around the room at everyone she loved contentment such as she hadn’t felt in weeks rose to the surface. Despite everything that had happened this year, they were going to be okay. She was going to be okay. She had friends, she had family. She was blessed.

All Fics & Edits: @potionsprefect @trappedinfanfiction @bex-la-get @mysticalgalaxysstuff @genevievemd @choicesaddict5 @jerzwriter @rookiemartin @schnitzelbutterfingers @vi-writes-stuff @coffeeheartaddict2 @quixoticdreamer16 @dorisz @zahrachoices @lucy-268 @a-crepusculo @jamespotterthefirst @ofmischiefandmedicine @headoverheelsforramsey @takemyopenheart @gryffindordaughterofathena @queencarb @crazy-loca-blog @natureblooms24​

Ethan & Cassie only: @custaroonie @lady-calypso

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics​

[magalidragon]

paris is always a good idea | a Jonerys Drabble

Thank you @youwerenevermine​ for my wonderful birthday gift, I love it so much and I love Paris so much and Jonerys and you for making this for me so I felt inspired and wrote a quick little drabble thing, lol. It’s only the fourth time I’ve written Jonerys in a modern, non-Westeros world, but it was fun!  And I wanna’ go back so much!  Paris, je t’aime!

They met while in university, oddly enough, as fate would have it, on her birthday.

She had been there to study art, for a year abroad, savoring every last second wandering the wide, arched hallways of the Louvre, staring at grand masters for hours on end, burning the vibrant colors and mesmerizing brushstrokes into her memory, wishing she could be as good as them one day.  One day, someone would have her art in their house, and proudly boast they'd gotten it back when she was but a nobody, painting on the streets or in the grassy parks.  

Since it was her birthday, she decided to treat herself, and instead of heading straight to the university to get some time in the studio, she decided to get an ice cream at Berthillon, heading to the Ile-St-Louis instead of to the metro, taking her time to admire, as she often did, the glory of Notre Dame, it’s gargoyles and buttresses.

At the glacier she took her time selecting a flavor, did not even mind paying the exorbitant price and shouldered through tourists taking refuge from a cold rain that had begun to fall. She savored it, the clean water bouncing off her peat coat and the beanie she’d tugged over her silver hair.

She was about to set off, to eat her ice cream and wander into the Marais, perhaps drop down into the Latin Quarter— maybe take a trip to Chanel or Dior or Celine to admire the creations she couldn’t afford— when her ice cream went flying, straight onto the wet sidewalk. Where a mass of pidgins attacked it with gusto.

“Merde! Faites attention!” she shouted, stomping her Doc Marten on the ground in petulant annoyance.

The man who had bumped her because he’d been roughhousing with another friend had been apologetic.  He bought her another and said his name was Robb Stark. He was from Scotland, was on spring break with his buddies, which she didn’t care about. To apologize he invited her for a drink, especially when the worker who she’d told it was her birthday had commented on it again when she got another ice cream.

She figured why not?  He was attractive, sorry, and nice enough so she agreed, although she had commented his French was terrible best to speak English. “You’re English?” he had teased.

“Half and half,” she answered. English father, French mother.

At the comptoir where she suggested they meet, in Montmartre, she brought her roommate Missandei and Missandei’s boyfriend Grey. It was just a drink and they’d leave and go to the dinner Missandei planned to take her to anyway.

Except that’s where she met him.

The dark, brooding figure at the tiny table in the corner, ignoring Robb and Robb’s friend Theon, and a couple others, favoring silence and his drink. He was in all black, barely acknowledging her and slipped out for a smoke when Robb began to shamelessly flirt. She didn’t care about Robb, she cared about him.

Jon.

She exited, saw him lighting a cigarette against a lap post. She flicked her coat collar up and sidled towards him. “Puis-j’en avoir un?”

“Sorry I don’t speak,” he began, and his eyes— black in the orange lamplight glow— flicking to her. He smiled gently “French.”

She smiled and repeated her question in English.  “Can I have one?  A smoke  that is?”

He stuck the cigarette between his pouty, sinful lips, framed with a cropped dark beard, and reached into his coat pocket, removing a pack. She took one delicately and he lit it, cupping his hands around the tip so the wind didn’t blow it out.

A stream of smoke escaped her nostrils when she puffed and she smiled up at him, hoping he got the hint. “Do you like Paris?”

“Not especially.”

“Aw come on,” she teased. She hummed, closing her eyes and taking in the cold night. The electric buzz is people on the street and at the cafes and bars around them. “Paris is always a good idea.”

“Someone famous said that.”

“Audrey Hepburn.”

He sucked on the cigarette and smiled, a tiny one, the curve of his lip sly rather than shy.  “You aren’t in there with the rest of them.”

“Because it’s my birthday and I want to do what I want to do.”  She stubbed the cigarette out on the post and turned, disposing it in the bin by the door.  A quick text to Missandei: I’m going to skip dinner, I think I have a date, she turned and studied him.  “I’m…”

“Dany,” he said. He shrugged, finishing his smoke. “I remember.”  

Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t think you were listening when Robb introduced me.”

“I was.”  He pulled the tartan scarf around his neck tighter.  He glanced towards Sacré-Cœur, illuminated white in the lights around its base. He smirked at her.  “You going back in?”

She shook her head. “No,” she drawled. She followed his gaze to Sacré-Cœur. “Have you been up there?”

“No.”

“You should. Some of the best views of Paris.”

He chuckled, voice tight. “You should invite Robb.”

“I think he might be a third wheel.”

It took him a second, the gears in his mind turning, understanding what she was saying. He cocked his head. His black curls were in a mess around his face. A few scattered rain drops landed on them, and he shook it free like a dog. Or a wolf, she thought, noting the animal embroidered on the edge of his scarf.

He narrowed his eyes again. “I told you I don’t really like Paris.”

“Why?”

“It’s loud. Busy. Dirty.”

She laughed. “Every city is like that but in Paris it’s different.”

“Why?”

Her bravado got the better of her and she stepped towards him, linking her arm through his. If he didn’t get it now, he was a stupid fool who deserved it when she kicked him into the gutter. “Because,” she murmured, rising to her toes, trying to gaze as directly as she could into his eyes, which she now saw were actually gray. His breathing quickened. “You’re with me.”

The wolf got the point with that comment. He allowed her to keep her arm around his and lead him towards the cathedral.  They spoke of nothing and anything on the long walk through Montmartre to the highest point in the city.  

He was in Paris for a research trip.  He was studying medieval weapons and was going out to Bayeux to study some relics. His cousin Robb and friends came along for the free trip.  They spoke about being starving artists in their field-- her literally an artist as it were.  They talked about Paris-- how much he disliked it, how much she adored it.  The top of Sacre-Coeur might have changed his mind, but he pretended he still didn’t get the appeal, so she dragged him back down to the streets, to her favorite all-night boulangerie, into the metro and across town to the Eiffel Tower, spinning in circles on the Champs du Mars.  They ran across the Pont-de-la-Concorde and across the Tullieries.  They wandered down the Seine, smoked cigarettes in the doorsteps of old buildings in the Latin Quarter, and drank cheap wine in one of the tourist-cafes near the Jardin du Luxembourg.  

They meandered back through the streets, the city oddly quiet, the rain stopping, and she brought him to her garret studio in the Bastille, up the six flights of stairs to the top of the building, where she shed her coat and boots adn scratched her fat cat Drogon’s ears, leading him to the wrought-iron bars in one of the four windows she had, pushing the window open and crawling out, up onto the roof where she wanted to show him something.  

“Look,” she directed, when he climbed up next to her-- less gracefully-- pointing to the lit-up Eiffel Tower.  

He cursed under his breath.  “It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s my favorite place in Paris.  The rent is steep, but it’s worth it for this.”  She chuckled.  “And it has the best view.”

He whispered.  “Yes, it does.”  

And to her surprise, since she didn’t realize the time, the tower began to twinkle, the 20,000 lights across its metal beams flickering and she glanced sideways; he wasn’t watching the tower, but her face.  She arched her brows.  “You know, the lights twinkle for five minutes every hour, on the hour.”  She smiled and shrugged, whispering.  “It’s a sign that you’re supposed to return to Paris.”

Instead of saying anything, like how silly that was, he leaned in and cupped her face in his wide palm, callused and warm, bringing her face to meet his, kissing gently, in the twinkly glow of the lights.  He pulled back a moment later, breathing, “I think I like Paris.  And you’er right...this place has the best view.”  His eyes were wide on hers, focused.  She chuckled, nodding in agreement, and pulled him back to her for another kiss.

That night she savored every moment with him, as they pulled each other’s clothes off slowly, kissing and touching, every smooth curve and muscle of each other, each hard ridge and plane of his strong, muscular body or her soft, lean one.  He touched her and kissed her and stroked her in ways she’d never experienced, bringing her to heights she’d only dreamed about.  It was intense, the lights behind her closed eyelids when she came, over and over, gripping his shoulders, hair, the bedframe behind her.  He rose up and over her, in and out, their bodies moving as one, thrusting and arching.  

She didn’t know if she’d see him again; if this was a one-time, romantic Parisian adventure, but in the morning when she woke, she found him coming back inside from getting pastries and coffees, the faintest scent of cigarettes and her toothpaste on his lips when he kissed her good morning.  

They exchanged their information, vowing to speak daily, and he would see her when he got back from Bayeux.  She couldn’t believe when he did call and he kept his word.  “When you lie, words lose their meaning,” he’d explained, obviously reading her surprise.  

And when her year ended in Paris, she found herself in London, back at university, dreaming of their magical time there, even when they made time for each other, going back and forth from London to Edinburgh; and he from Edinburgh to Paris during the last couple of months of her year there.  

They made it a priority; every single year they spent time in Paris, like they were students again, on that magical night.  

They grew older, no longer needing to find the cheapest drinks and cigarettes, or staying in studio garrets, eventually able to experience some of the best hotels and restaurants the city had to offer, as he sold books and became a well-known author and professor, and her dream of becoming a famous artist came true, when sure enough, someone bought one of her paintings on the side of the Seine, someone who happened to be an art dealer in New York.  

It was their city, where they met, and where they could remember.  

After they married, about fifteen years after that fateful birthday, they visited again, and spun together on the Pont-Neuf, kissing and murmuring how they loved each other and always would, and he took her back to the tiny studio garret, which was now theirs, and sat on the rooftop and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle.  

“Paris is always a good idea,” she murmured, head in the crook of his neck, her back to his front, wrapped in a warm blanket, and his arms tight around her middle.  She tilted her face up to his, sated, and still hopelessly in love with him.  “Take me to Paris, Jon.”

He nuzzled his nose into her cheek, whispering.  “You are Paris, Dany.”

As it was the city where they’d met, fallen in love, and found true happiness, she grinned, because that was his way of saying how much he loved her.  She brushed her lips over his, sighing, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”  

And they kissed, as the Eiffel Tower lit up, and she curled up into him, falling asleep in the city of love and lights.

[chockfullofsecrets]

okay, this is very much a WIP but i am stressed for the finale and needed something fluffy so! wizard reward tickles!

(extremely mild episode 140 spoilers, no specifics)

He’s making his way up to the third floor of the tower, Fjord and Jester floating alongside, when Jester turns with cautious concern writ large on her face. “Essek, have you been crying?”

Essek is enough of a stranger to tears, until recently, that he cannot tell how she knows. “It is all right, Jester, I am…” He pauses, fishing for a suitable word. “Recovered.”

He looks at Fjord over her head, willing him to convey some kind of guidance. The reason for the aforementioned lapse, one he is hardly sure of his reasons for committing in the first place, is sleeping safe and whole just a floor below in this magical tower of Caleb’s - surely there is no reason to keep the matter open? 

Jester beams at him, fangs on full display, and claps her hands together. “I know exactly what will make you feel better, Essek!”

“As do I, I would hope,” he rejoins, gesturing to the vast library that the three of them are currently hovering in the midst of. “I know it is a little late, but I have not had a chance to take the, ah, the full tour, and I am certain I can find something of interest-”

“Essek, no!” Jester interrupts, throwing her arms wide. “You need cheer up tickles!”

At the last word, he instinctively clutches his mantle closer. “Ah - what?”

Fjord snorts. Essek pointedly ignores him. “Jester,” he says weakly, “I am sorry, but frankly I do not think my heart can take any more strenuous activity today.” 

“It’s not strenuous,” Jester insists, arms still brandished to either side. “It’s super gentle and relaxing! Caleb loves them!”

His disbelief must show on his face - Jester pouts, and Fjord shakes his head indulgently and steps up to wind an arm around her waist. “He does, truly,” he reassures. Essek watches Jester tip her head back and grin at him, two synchronized sweethearts, and smiles a little despite himself. “Ask him, if you like, I don’t think you’ve seen us do it to him before.”

Frankly, Essek is more familiar with the brand of tickling that sends Caleb scrambling to Teleport away when the Nein so much as look in his direction with particular intent. He’s particularly proud of that Counterspell. “I - I am not quite sure where he is, at the moment, and I do not wish to disturb him.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to be in a room alo-one with him?” Jester wriggles her entire body suggestively and promptly returns to pouting when he refuses to blush. “Come on, Essek, we fought an evil flesh city together this morning, can’t you trust us for like five more minutes?”

Perhaps someday trust will stop seeming so new and fragile to him - but today, looking at both of their faces and seeing no trace of deception, he sighs and lowers himself slowly to the ground. “I suppose it cannot hurt.”

“Yes!” Jester cheers. She shakes Fjord’s arm off and digs his out of layers of clothing, towing him into the library and over to a cozy lounging section patterned in Zemnian reds.  “You’re gonna feel so good, Essek, I promise. Take your cloak off!”

There’s little else to do but obey. He drapes it neatly over an adjacent seat, gestures questioningly at his boots and removes them as well when Jester nods authoritatively. “And now your shirt!”

He freezes. “What.”

“Kidding, kidding!” She flops down on the lounge, fluffing out her skirts, and beckons for him. “Come here - Fjord, go away, you’ll make him nervous!”

Fjord glances over at Essek, eyebrows raised in clear amusement. “He’s not a stray cat, Jes.”

“He’s a wizard, it’s practically the same thing!”

“Ah-” Essek starts. Fjord raises his hands in surrender.

“Fine, fine, I’ll be over here.” He backs towards the lounge with Essek’s things strewn over it, mockingly cautious. “If I’m allowed to stay in the room, that is.”

“Of course you can stay!” Jester tells him. “You know, I bet this library has a copy of Tusk Love somewhere-” 

She breaks off into giggles as Fjord grimaces at her. Essek watches the two of them, back and forth, and almost feels glad when Jester turns back to him with more instructions. “Okay, now you lie down in my lap.”

“Jester.”

“Essek.” She pats encouragingly at her knees. 

Essek steps closer and - he doesn’t know how to get in a lap. He frowns, twisting minutely to one side and then the other as he tries to judge the best way of lowering himself-

Jester grabs him around the waist and yanks, pulling his back flush against her, then pushes his chest down with one muscled arm and scoops his legs up with the other.

He stares breathlessly at the ceiling. “Oh.”

A grinning blue face bobs into his field of vision. “I’m gonna tickle you now, okay?”

Essek closes his eyes and braces himself.

Seconds pass without the immediate zinging shock that he’s expecting. He cracks an eye open. “Jester?”

She’s frowning. “You’re so tense, Essek! Just-” She sucks in an exaggerated breath, cheeks ballooning, and whooshes it out. “Breathe.”

He tries. As he’s exhaling, Jester rests one warm palm on his belly and starts to rub gentle circles. 

He sighs despite himself - it is a new feeling, but not an unpleasant one, and he can feel himself relaxing as she widens the circles to climb his chest. “Jester-”

“Shh,” she soothes, and trails her fingertips down his chest and back onto his belly. “Aw, does that tickle?”

His breath hitches as she draws her fingertips slowly from side to side, fluttering at his hips where the fabric of his shirt bunches. “I - hnnnh - nnnn-”

His belly twitches involuntarily as he tries to keep himself from laughing outright. Jester clucks in disapproval and goes back to her circles. “Ess-ek, don’t fight it, just relax!”

She stays at his belly this time for what seems like minutes, smoothing gently over an expanse of skin that warms with each pass. Essek feels his breathing slow, his eyes start to drift shut. The weight of heat and proximity press down on him like a blanket, and he thinks he might fall asleep then and there.

Then she tickles him again, that same light trailing of fingertips, and a laugh slips out before he can think to contain it. 

She doesn’t stop, tracing light swirls of sensation over his belly and sides, and he can’t quite bring himself to try and stop snickering either - it’s pleasant, the waves of warm tingles radiating up into his chest and down to his hips, and all his muscles are loose and pliant enough that he doesn’t even feel the need to squirm away.

Jester coos at him through the haziness. “Aw, you look so comfy, are you having fun?”

“Mm - heh - mmhm,” he manages. 

“Oh, good - I’m glad you like it, Essek. I wanted to do something really nice for you since you did such a good job in Aeor with us, you know?”

There’s a proper response to that, something about how much he owes all of them already and how no amount of good cheer now will see him through his uncertain future, but it’s hard to come up with words at the moment. Instead, he closes his eyes and lets his head fall back even further as Jester starts to skim her gentle touches up to his ribs. “So many cool spells-”

Her fingers creep up into his armpits, a distinctly more ticklish spot, and he’s halfway through humming out a protest when she shushes him again and starts rubbing slow, careful circles in the hollows with her thumbs. “And when you broke that crystal to make sure we could all rest and heal up - that was really good, Essek.”

“Hnnnn,” he manages.

Every muscle in his upper body feels like jelly. He can’t even twitch as she repeats that same skimming swirl under his arms, just giggles a bit harder. “Doesn’t it feel nice to relax and not have to worry about all that anymore?”

Oh, that’s a question - he thinks for a long, liquid moment, trying to string together a sentence. “Hhh - hehe - mhmm, s’nice.”

“It is! You did such a good job, you should get all the tickles.”

“Tickles,” he nearly purrs. He can feel his ears flicking contentedly.

Jester shifts beneath him, whisper-shouting over to where he assumes Fjord is still sitting. “He’s so cute, Fjord.”

“Adorable,” Fjord whispers back. “And - hey, looks like we’re about to have two of them.” 

And then, louder - “Hey, Caleb.”

Caleb? Essek’s eyes snap open.

He’s walking over to them, sans coat and scarf with his hands tucked neatly behind his back. “Ah, I did not expect to find anyone else here.” He turns to regard Essek. “I see they’ve gotten to you too, hm?”

Essek struggles for a moment, trying to wake himself with the realization that Caleb is usually the one receiving Jester’s attentions in this way - and this isn’t a conversation he wants to have while Caleb is standing and he’s flat on his back. 

Jester makes a frustrated sound as he tries to sit up. Caleb looks a little surprised too - even more so, when Fjord walks over and wraps a hand around each of his shoulders. “Oh, don’t be jealous, you’ll get your wizard tickles too.”

Essek blinks. “Caleb, I didn't mean to take anything from you-”

Caleb’s ears go red, but he leaves Fjord’s hands where they are as he crouches down by Essek and pats his shoulder. “I did not mean to tease, my friend - please, relax and enjoy yourself.” He smiles, then, a little flick in the corner of his mouth. “Or Jester will make you, I’m sure.”

He blinks again. “You’re not - upset?”

Caleb shakes his head, sending wisps of red hair flying around his face. “Not one bit.”

Essek lets Caleb press him gently back down into Jester’s lap, watches blankly as she grins down at both of them and reaches out to tap Caleb’s nose.

He stands before she can, quirks a loose smile in her direction. “Not today, Lavorre, I think.”

He turns as if he might walk away, starting to lock his hands behind his back again, and Essek nearly calls him back, offers to let him take his place - but Fjord is just behind him, hands still on his shoulders, and he pins him easily in place. “Oh, I’d love to see you try to avoid this.”

Caleb opens his mouth to reply, snaps it shut again as Fjord’s hands slide off his shoulders and bracket his sides, fingers curling in ever so slightly. 

Fjord’s a little taller than Caleb, enough that when Caleb starts to shrink in on himself he has to stoop to get his mouth next to his ear. “You’ve had a hard day,” he says, low and steady. “Don’t make us watch you hide from a little lightness, after all that.”

Caleb looks all of them over once, frantically, and then looks pointedly away. It’s a sentiment Essek is familiar with - looking for escape, and resigning yourself to none - and he’s surprised when Caleb gives a slight nod.

Fjord’s face splits into a relieved smile, tusks on full display. “Right, then,” he continues, wrapping his arms around Caleb’s waist and lifting him straight off the ground to carry him the few feet to the other lounge.

He sets him down and sits next to him, waiting patiently until Caleb huffs a quiet breath through his nose and leans over to put his head in Fjord’s lap. “Right.”

Jester reaches for Essek’s belly again, but he catches her wrist and looks up at her to shake his head. 

She raises her eyebrows. He tilts his head ever so slightly towards the other lounge.

Jester’s mouth forms a silent O of understanding before pursing into a mischievous smirk. Essek frowns - he’s curious, there’s no need for eyebrow waggling. 

She does draw her hands away, though, so he contents himself with a single stern look before turning his attention towards Caleb. “You’re healed, yes?” Fjord asks.

He starts patting at Caleb’s ribs as if to check them, but the way he starts massaging little circles into them seems distinctly meant to tickle. Essek watches, perplexed, as Caleb doesn’t laugh at all,  just sighs a little and lets his shoulders lay flat. “Ja, Caduceus helped with that.”  

“That’s good. Proud of you,” Fjord says approvingly. 

Caleb looks more flustered at that than he has at anything else said tonight, a reluctant smile working its way over his features. Fjord smirks and bends down to whisper something else to him  - Essek doesn’t catch it, but apparently it’s terrible enough to make him squeak and roll defensively onto his side.

Their eyes meet.

They both stare for a moment, and then Caleb’s eyes narrow - Essek has just barely seen him mischievous enough times to recognize the look. He flicks his fingers in a particular pattern even as Fjord rolls him back over with a series of nibbling little pinches to his ribs that send him squirming, and there’s a slight pop as an illusory feather appears by Essek’s bare feet.

He doesn’t even have time to protest before the damned thing wriggles up against his sole and he’s squealing. He bolts upright, clinging to Jester as he laughs frantically. “HAAA - ahaha - Caleheheb!”

“Cay-leb, stop that!” Jester cries, but she looks absolutely delighted as she cuddles him close with her own fingers wriggling mischievously. “Do you know how long it took us to convince him to let us tickle him?”

Fjord laughs. “ I think someone’s trying to tell me they want their feet tickled. Isn’t that right, Caleb?”

The feather switches to his other foot, and Essek presses his face into Jester’s shoulder and cackles loudly enough that he nearly misses Fjord’s next statement. “Oh, feeling shy? No, no, tell me - do you want feathers or fingers?”

Between one flick and the next, the feather disappears with another pop. 

Essek pries his face up from Jester’s shoulder and turns to strongly protest this treatment, but it looks like Caleb’s been thoroughly distracted from him - Fjord’s taken his chin in one strong hand and tipped it gently back, leaving the thin column of his neck hopelessly vulnerable. He’s already giggling, hiccupy little things, as Fjord runs his fingers gently along a tendon. “Well, speak up - feathers?“

He switches suddenly to the other side of his neck. “Or fingers?” 

Caleb whines, scrunching his shoulders as far as he can against Fjord’s thigh. “Ahaha - nngh - nein, mean! Mean!”

“I’ll be nice just as soon as you tell me what you want.” Fjord tells him. “Come on, you can do it.”

“I - heheheeeeh - I can’t!” Caleb pleads. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have bothered Essek, then,” Fjord scolds lightly. 

Caleb makes a helpless little sound, still giggling. Fjord’s voice softens then, to something cajoling. “This is supposed to be fun for you, Caleb. Let me know how I can do that.”

Caleb whines a little more, squeezing his eyes shut, but he seems to relax a bit at the command. “Feathers,” he says finally. “There’s a writing desk around the corner with some quills.”

“Good boy,” Fjord says, letting go of his chin and patting his cheek. “I’ll be right back, then.”

He helps a heavily blushing Caleb off his lap and lays him back down, smoothing once over his ribs and getting the same blissful giggles Essek remembers himself echoing just a minute ago.

Caleb flops back, catching his breath, and looks wryly across at him. “If you run now, maybe you can get away before they learn too much about you.”

“Nope, too late!” Jester says cheerfully, her arms still wrapped tightly around him. Essek jumps as she starts to tickle his sides. “Aw, Essek, are you going to get all embarrassed if we tell you you’re a good boy?”

Essek scoffs, fighting the laughter and the blush that threatens to climb the back of his neck. “I have received many accolades over the years, I do not think so.”

“A good friend, then? One that we trust completely?” Caleb suggests. It’s more the way Caleb looks at him as he says it, like he already knows how much that means, but Jester still squeals excitedly at the dark purple gathering in his cheeks. 

“Ooh, and what if we tease you about how ticklish you are?” Jester asks, worming her fingers onto his tummy and tapping them there until he’s giggling helplessly at the implied threat. “Cause Essek, you are really, really ticklish.”

“This is not what I was promised,” he manages through his laughter. A few weeks ago, he would have been fearful at this clear intrusion, a transparent search for weakness. Now he mostly wants to calm himself enough to trance in the next few hours.

“Oh, shitballs, you’re right,” Jester rushes out, and stops tickling in favor of rubbing warm circles up his sides. “Okay, okay, lie down and I will give you the best cheer up tickles.”

“I heard that,” Fjord says, rounding the corner with a feather dangling from his fingertips. “You two are going to have to compare notes afterwards and let us know who’s really better.”

“I don’t think-” Caleb starts. He yelps as Fjord pounces on his feet, protests for a moment before dissolving into soft laughter at the introduction of the feather.  

Essek’s busy falling back into dazed, happy snickering as Jester trails her fingertips back up under his arms. 

He feels very cheerful, at the moment.

[slightlyunconventional]

k/az snz hcs part 2 mostly bc i have ideas right now and i don't wanna forget 🤠

- what if his pre-snz face was the same as his "scheming face"

like how it's described in the books as him "head tilted, eyes slightly unfocused"

and then. in/ej and jes/per are like

"scheming face,"

"defini-" "-ahHk'tSHHu!"

ajdhajdbsbdba OK!!!!!!

- sometimes he'll be giving orders or setting out a plan to the crows or whatever and

if it's a bad allergy day or smth bro idk and he finds himself likely definitely about to have a fit then he'd sort of vaguely signal to in/ej for her to take over while he just sort of backs up to deal with it

however in/ej is quieter and probably less scary than k/az so the crows mostly just sit watching k/az anyway cause it's kinda funny even though he's suffering

- when he's sick he craves reassurance but absolutely hates being taken care of

he will 100% brute force his way through it completely alone

- much more subdued when sick

he'll be less hostile and snappy towards people and only does/says what he needs to

- absolutely definitely 100000% always tries to talk through his buildups especially when he's tryna holdback

prime scenario for this is in soc when he goes to ni/na's place (i forget the name does her place even have a name idk) where all the roses and plants n shit are everywhere

sitting down before ni/na, as soon as he begins talking he's met with a faint buzz in his nose which of course he ignores. rookie mistake. he keeps talking to her, setting out his plans, making deals etc etc, and as he does so the buzz slowly begins to flare up, a warning sign that he tries to disregard.

he can feel it getting worse and worse - minor itch turns to a terrible, tickly burn that even he knows will be hard to keep at bay. it's becoming evident now: every other word punctuated by a short intake of breath, gradually getting less and less controlled as he struggles to fight back against his own reflexes.

ni/na for sure has noticed by now, but is finding it much too amusing to say anything about it, so she just observes, feigning interest in what he's trying to say.

he doesn't know why he's still trying to holdback, after all allergies make it so dreadfully difficult to do so. things would've gone so much better if not for ni/na's choice in decor...

his hand now hovers midway between his lap and his face, involuntarily in order to catch what he's so desperately holding off.

finally, after a solid minute or more of merciless hitches, the fire fades down and so does k/az's guard. yet another rookie mistake. the tickle seems to take advantage of this and instantly spikes up again, giving him no time to even attempt at fighting back, and instead throws him forward with a violent, "-uHK'SHHUuh!"

without even a second's time to catch his breath, another stuttering gasp takes over and he's forced to duck back down into his sleeve for- "hDT'SHHh!" and almost immediately afterwards, a softer "huh'iSHh!"

this carries on for a while, and once he's finally done he cautiously lifts his head from his arm, nose and cheeks so red they're almost glowing, eyes glimmering with irritated tears. he averts his still-hazy eyes, sniffling thickly and occasionally rubbing at his nose with a gloved fist.

ni/na snorts. "flowers certainly getting to you, aren't they?" he hates her teasing tone but he doesn't dare speak, not until he's safely out of this place.

after not receiving a reply, ni/na sighs and accepts his request, saying how he should probably be out of here and hope i forget what just happened.

!!!! that was fun to write wait. i wanna write more stuff ok i will write more stuff soon

- when he has fits it's never rapid ones as much as i enjoy that

it's usually fairly drawn out, staggered breaths and gasps in between, and will last anywhere from five to ups of twenty sneezes

- he really tries not to get any rest while he's sick because he knows if he falls asleep he'll be out. cold.

completely knocked out probably couldn't be woken up by an earthquake

and though such sleep would definitely make him feel better, his hatred for the vulnerability of being unconscious for a day or more heavily outweighs this

- sleepy snzs when sick

just soft and drowsy, barely covered, half-stifled sneezes

well LOL that's all i have rn. ok no it's not but it's 4am and i have places to be later so that's all for now

ill definitely write like. a full fic of this man pretty soon i promise

[mandelene]

Lullaby for little Alfred and Matthew?

Here you go! And here's the French lullaby I chose if anyone wants to listen to it: À la claire fontaine

A Song to Chase the Storm Away Word Count: 530

The howling, whipping wind make the walls of the house shiver, and the heavy rain cascading down the windows would be enough to keep anyone up, let alone two small children who despise loud storms. As if that weren’t enough, every five minutes or so, a clap of thunder reverberates across the foreboding night sky, scaring the wits out of all of them, adults included.

So, here they are, gathered together on the king-sized bed in Arthur and Francis’s master bedroom. The boys are in the middle, pressed against one another in wide-eyed fear, while Arthur and Francis offer reassuring cuddles from either side.

“À la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Que je m'y suis baigné,” Francis sings, drowning out the sound of the rain.

Arthur vaguely recognizes the tune. He thinks Francis has sung this lullaby to the children before, though he can’t recall when. He wraps an arm around both of the boys and feels soothed by the gentle lyrics as well, though he wouldn’t dare ever admit this to Francis’s face. French can be a beautiful language…sometimes.

“Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Jamais je ne t'oublierai.”

“I have loved you for a long time. I will never forget you,” Arthur translates in his head. His French isn’t very good, but he studied it in secondary school for a few years. He understands it much better than he can speak it and brushed up on it somewhat during the beginning of their relationship. Having some knowledge of it comes in handy for when Francis is gossiping on the phone about him with other French speakers.

Matthew and Alfred have both closed their eyes, giving in to the temptation of sleep. They look cozy under the duvet, and the thunder seems to have slowed its pace as the storm rolls farther away.

“J'ai perdu mon ami Sans l'avoir mérité, Pour un bouquet de roses Que je lui refusai. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Jamais je ne t'oublierai.”

“I lost a friend without deserving it…because of a bouquet of roses that I refused him...I’ve loved you for a long time. I will never forget you,” Arthur thinks with a frown. This song is deceivingly sweet.

“Je voudrais que la rose Fût encore au rosier Et que mon doux ami Fût encore à m'aimer,” Francis finishes, kissing each of the sleeping boys’ heads in turn.

“I wish the rose were still on the bush, and that my sweet friend, loved me still.”

Arthur hadn’t expected such a somber final verse, but he should have seen it coming. Lullabies often tend to be grim, oddly enough. He exchanges a weary smile with Francis and mouths, “Goodnight.”

“Bonne nuit,” Francis replies. “Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. Jamais je ne t'oublierai,” he sings one last time—for Arthur instead of the boys.

“I have loved you a long time. I will never forget you,” Arthur whispers back.

Francis lights up with pride. “So, you do know some French.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

And with that, Arthur switches off the lamp on their nightstand and makes himself comfortable, ignoring the flutter in his heart.

[royallyprincesslilly]

Kismet {10}

Henry Cavill x Famous OFC Aliya Taylor

Warning: Slow Burn, Mild Cursing, Dialogue Heavy, Small Time Jump, Mild Angst

Words: 5.8k

Summary: Aliya is a singer turned model turned actress. Since she was fifteen, she’s been creating her empire in the entertainment world. As the daughter of a famous fashion model/designer and Hollywood director, you’d think life is easy for her, but her past has been anything but easy. Due to past trauma, she’s forever changed and no longer trusts any man that is not in her family and a select few in her team. She’s sworn off love and serious relationships and has planned never to fall again, but love isn’t something that can be planned. It just happens when it’s meant to. Can Aliya outrun a love that seems hellbent on holding tight to her, a love that is Kismet?

Note: The chapter includes some French. I’ve added the translations best I could. Some from memory, but some from Google translate. If the translations are off, I apologize.

If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG!! 😘  

As always, thank you so much for reading. ❤️❤️

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

***Interactive***

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It didn’t take long for you to realize you’d either offended him or hurt his feelings. It was clear from how stiff he was when he walked away from you. Everything about him was different. You’d wanted to call after him or chase him down the street to explain, but something kept your feet planted right where they were. What made you feel worse was that he didn’t switch up. He still called you to say good morning and wish you a safe flight again the next morning. When you’d landed back in LA, he’d picked up your call on the second ring. He didn’t speak like a man with a grudge or chip on his shoulder. He was the same, Henry.

 Over the next few days, he kept the same energy and consistency. It was something you didn’t expect, but it was something refreshing. You thought about him more and more, and every conversation you had, you wanted to apologize for your stark reaction, but every time you opened your mouth to, the right words never seemed to form. It also didn’t take you long to notice that he wasn’t asking again. You doubted he ever would.

 As the days ticked off and his departure date grew nearer and nearer, you could sense the disappointment in him, and that disappointment came across more and more like hurt. With each passing day, you felt more of an urgency in you that you couldn’t understand. You felt as if your time was dwindling, and you only had so much time to do what was right even though you didn’t know what that was. The day he called to let you know he was about to board his flight, you sat in your living room you wished him safe travels, then hung up, which left you just staring out for hours, wondering how big of a mistake you’d made.

 “What’s up with you?”

 Alicia’s voice beside you brought you out of your daze. You groaned, then dropped your head back onto the couch.

 “Henry asked me to go on vacation with him,” you blurted out, unable to hold it in anymore.

 It had been six days since your time together in London, and you hadn’t been able to get it off your mind or tell anyone. When Alicia didn’t respond right away, you looked to her to find a confused expression on her face.

 “Confused.”

 You groaned again then explained everything that happened in London to her. The only things you left out were the butterflies in your belly the entire night, the feeling of breathlessness every time he came close, the strong urge to touch him any and everywhere, and your impulses that went against everything you’d stood for the last few years.  So all in all, you told her everything.

 The huge smile on Alicia’s face was expected. You rolled your eyes. “Stop smiling.”

 “Okay.”

 Her smile remained pasted to her lips, and it was growing with every second. Annoyance flared up in you.

 “Stop!”

 “I can’t!”

 She began giggling.

 “You like him, like really, really like him,” Alicia accused, right on the money.

 “I do,” your let slip without thought. “I don’t know why or how. I’ve known him maybe two months tops, and we’ve only been out four or five times. I know nothing about him, nothing at all. I don’t know what I like. I don’t know if I like him or his looks and body,” you blurted as each revelation came to mind.

 “Oh, you definitely like his looks and body, but I think this is something different, something you’ve never experienced before,” Alicia revealed.

 You rolled your eyes again, then stared at the ceiling. She made perfect sense, you thought.

 “You’ve heard about love at first sight.”

 You sprang up looking at her like she was bat shit crazy.

 “Bite your heathenous tongue.”

 Alicia busted out laughing then. You remained silent. This was no laughing matter. Especially when the “L” word was waved around willy nilly.

 “Oh god, that was not funny,” you said.

 “Stop being so dramatic. Look, I know neither of us has ever experienced it; hell, I said it was a fucking bullshit, but--.”

 “Don’t Leece,” you cautioned, not ready to remotely go anywhere near that landmine.

 “Okay, look,” she began scooting closer to you. “This is what I know. You have these ridiculous rules.”

 You glared at her, but she didn’t back down. Before she opened her mouth to speak again, you stood and walked off toward the kitchen, knowing she’d follow. Once in the kitchen, you dug in the fridge for a can of ginger ale, hoping it would settle your stomach, and like clockwork, Alicia reached in also to retrieve one for herself. As she opened the can and took a seat at the island, she continued.

 “So your ridiculous rules. I know they’ve kept assholes away this long and has made it possible for you to keep your head above water. I get it, and I’m all for self-perseverance. You know I am. But--,” she smacked her lips as if she was getting ready to tell you off.

 “Your rules—honey--,” she sighed. “They’re bullshit, and they are keeping you from developing something substantial, something real, something—true. Now I get that was the point in them in the first place. However, Mr. Blue eyes and British accent,” she finished reading you like an open book.

 You gulped the soda, ignoring the burn of the acid on your tongue. It was a trick for the brain. Give it something else to focus on, so you got a moment of quiet. It always worked, but it was only temporary. When you lowered the can, you hissed.

 “Fuck!”

 “I like him. Amaya likes him. I don’t think he has ulterior motives, and I’m an excellent judge of character. I never liked Evan for a reason.”

 You scoffed and closed your eyes, trying to get your brain to quiet down.

 “So what do I do?”

 “You know what to do. Lucky for you, it’s what you really wanna do anyway.”

 “He’s on vacation,” you said.

 “Yep, he’s on vacation,” Alicia reiterated.

 “I don’t know where.”

 “It’s a good and lucky thing you’re a member of a royal family no matter how much you like to denounce it. You can find him.”

 A lightbulb went off in your head and giving you your big ah-ha moment. You ran out of the kitchen to the living room where you’d left your phone. You sat then debated what you were about to do. You’d never gone to lengths like this for anyone. It took almost two minutes for you to make the call, and as you did, you wondered if this was a little wrong. It took two minutes to make the call and another two minutes before you had the information you needed. Once you ended the call, Leece was sitting on the arm of the couch with an expectant look on her face.

 “So, where is he?”

 “Bandol, France,” you answered.

 “Ooh, so luxurious. Go get him.”

 You stood then hugged her. You didn’t know how she wasn’t tired of your ass after all the years of knowing you and being the one to talk you down off your ledges or up on your horse.

 “Do me a favor, best friend.”

 “What?”

 “Turn him black, so he never goes back!”

 You snorted so hard that it hurt. Your laugh was so powerful that your stomach hurt after just seconds.

 “Shut up, oh my god.”

 For the next hour or so, Alicia helped you pack while you made the call to your manager to let him know you were planning to take some time off. When you said the words, he even laughed, finding it hard to believe you. It took some convincing to let him know you were serious, but once he got it, he was quick to help, saying you needed a vacation. Turns out he’d been trying to find the right time to bring it up. You had a quick meeting where he assured you he’d tie off all your loose ends for the next two weeks to start. By the end of the call, you were halfway to the airport to get to your waiting private plane.

 Nervousness was the least of what you felt. Anxiousness, fear, doubt, and nauseousness were right up there. After an hour in the air, it had only grown. You kept worrying if you were doing the right thing or if he’d think you were absolutely insane to fly across the world without a technical invitation. The more you thought about it, the more you doubted what you were doing.

By the time you landed in France, your nerves had pretty much mellowed out, for the most part. The beautiful scenery alone should have worked to calm you and give you a sense that you were on vacation, but it didn’t. Using the email you’d gotten from the family’s security services, you gave the taxi driver the address to where Henry was. As you drove through the town, you marveled at the views and tried to enjoy the warm breeze. When the car stopped in front of an impressive villa, your jaw dropped. He sure didn’t go low key, you thought.

 “Mademoiselle Mlle serait -vous que je apporter vos sacs à l'intérieur? {Miss, would you like me to bring your bags inside?}

 You contemplated Pierre, the driver’s question for a few seconds.

“Eh bien, ce n'est pas chez moi, si je le faisais, je serais trespassing. {Well this is not my home and if I did that it would be trespassing.}

 That realization had you making a face that said you knew it was questionable.

 “Comme un homme que je ne serais pas fâché de trouver un ange comme toi-même dans ma maison. {As a man I would not be angry to find an angel such as you in my home}, he said with a wide grin.

 Such a sweet talker, you thought as you laughed. I smile. 

 “Voilà monsieur douce. Je vais attendre ici. {That is sweet sir, but I will wait here}

 “Ici, sur les étapes ? Seul? {Here, on the steps. Alone?}

 He sounded like it was something he’d never heard of. You got out of the car then looked around for the best spot to sit and wait.

 Oui, je vais bien. Merci de votre aide. {Yes, I will be fine, thank you for your help.}

 Pierre came around the car then opened the trunk to take your bags out. One by one, he brought them to the steps of the villa. Once he finished, you dug into your purse and handed him four hundred dollar bills, and pressed them into his palm. He looked shocked but appreciative. After thanking him, he drove off, leaving you there with the seaside cliff view as your company.

 You texted Alicia and Amaya, letting them know you’d gotten there but knew they probably wouldn’t see it right away, thanks to the time difference. You sat for a few minutes only to get up and pace back and forth for another few minutes. Then you switched and did it over and over. Your brain made it feel like it was an eternity that passed, but you knew that couldn’t have been true. You heard a motorcycle approaching and watched as a silverish white one pulled up. You couldn’t tell if it were him, but you had a feeling it was. Once he’d turned the engine off, his movements slowed, and you knew he’d seen you.

 He threw his large leg over the bike then peeled off his helmet, revealing curly hair and a scruffy beard. You gulped. That’s how damn good he looked.

 “Damn.”

 Henry approached you with a confused but cautious look on his face. It did nothing to assure you that you hadn’t made a colossal mistake. Unable to hold his gaze, you looked over what he wore, preppy sky blue shorts and a white polo shirt that was unbuttoned, showing off sprigs of chest hair. You’d imagined he had chest hair, and this was your answer.

 “Aliya?”

 “H—hi,” you stuttered.

 Henry looked around like he was wondering how the hell you got there.

 “What’re you doing here?”

 “In France?”

 “On my doorsteps,” Henry clarified.

 “Oh, um—right. I can see how this would—look. Strange, alarming even. I promise there is an explanation.”

 Nervousness overtook you, making you giggle. Henry stood there patiently waiting for said explanation, but the look of bewilderment didn’t go away.

 “How did you know where I was, first of all?”

 Damn it, you thought, trying to find your voice. “Eh-em, well—I called in a favor and—had your cellphone tracked.

 His eyes widened, and you braced yourself for the freak-out you suspected was coming.

 “What!?”

 With your face scrunched, you decided to face it head-on and nodded. “Yeah. Saying that out loud now, I can understand how it sounds and even how it looks.”

 “So, you know people who will just track a phone?”

 Uh-oh, you thought, trying to find an answer that wouldn’t give anything away.

 “I do,” you slowly answered.

 Henry stared at you, and you knew he was weighing his options on whether to call the cops to get your ass out of there or listen to more. It was hard to read him, harder than it had been the last few times you'd been together.

 “You’re freaking out. Look, I’m not crazy; I promise I’m not. I just—I had to find you.”

 “Why? You made yourself perfectly clear a week ago,” Henry threw in your face.

 “I did,” you began, groaning from exhaustion. You sat down on one of the steps and sighed.

 “God, I have lived with a set of rules for the last three years. These rules have helped me tremendously. They’ve helped me keep people at arm’s length and have helped me protect myself from everyone, whether they meant ill or good. I’ve lived with these rules and have never broken any of them—not one. Then here you come.”

 You dropped your head into your hands and released a heavy breath before you continued.

 “Here you come, and within less than a month, I’d broken three, and that alarmed the shit out of me. I wasn’t prepared and didn’t know how to deal with it. Then you go asking me to go away on vacation with you and—that would have broken another rule, and that would have led to me breaking all of them on this vacation,” you blurted out.

 Henry stood there, staring at you with yet another unreadable expression plastered across his face. Your head said shut up, but your lips kept moving.

 “I couldn’t accept, then this last week I realized that I didn’t want to be anywhere but here—on this vacation—with you, and if it meant breaking another rule, then it would be broken. So here I am.”

 Henry sighed, “What are these rules?”

 Uh-oh, you thought again. You were sure after you told him he’d run for the hills. Even Amaya and Alicia made fun of your neurotic ass because of these obsessive rules. You chewed your bottom lip, reluctant to voice them. Henry didn’t look to be in any hurry, though; he just waited.

 Realizing he still hadn’t kicked your ass to the proverbial curb, you said a silent prayer, took a breath, and sang like a canary.

 “Um—in no particular order—one, no outings that have been labeled as a date, only hanging out is acceptable. Two, no back to back outings and or hanging out. Three, no hand-holding. Four, no one sees my house or how to get to my house. Five, No one comes to my house at all, not even to hang out and definitely not sleep. Six, I don’t hang out or sleep at anyone’s home. Seven, no kissing on the first date. Eight, no kissing on the second date. Nine, no kissing on the third date. Ten, no kissing with my eyes closed, period. Eleven, no PDA. Twelve, no gifts of any kind. Thirteen, no emotional intimacy. Fourteen, no vacations together. Fifteen, no sex with anyone you can see yourself with longer than three months. Sixteen, no meeting families or friends on either side. Seventeen, Never relinquish control.”

 Hearing them out loud, you would have run in the other direction without looking back. He didn’t move, though, hell he didn’t even speak. He didn’t have to; his face was doing all the talking you needed. With bugged eyes, slightly parted lips, and his arms crossed over his chest, he looked the perfect picture of an outright terrified man.

 “Those are a lot of rules.”

 You nodded. “Yes, they are.”

 He took several moments before speaking again. “How do you keep them all in mind?”

 “Practice.”

 “Wow, I don’t—I don’t know what to--.”

 His words drifted off, and you watched him rub the back of his neck.

 “So you’re willingly going to break number six and thirteen.”

 He already had them memorized; you thought as you nodded. “Pretty much.”

 Henry studied you for several more moments and then breathed out before he walked up the front doorsteps. You watched him unlock it before he looked back at you.

 “Please come in.”

 You didn’t know if he was serious or not, so you didn’t move. He must have sensed it because he beckoned you over with an added smile. Sighing, you slowly walked up the steps toward him and the door.

 “I’ll get your bags,” he said before he walked back down the steps to gather your bags two by two.

On his second trip, you walked inside with him and looked around. It looked like a mix of Mediterranean, coastal, and traditional décor. The ceiling's wooden beams complemented the neutral colors of the furniture and the wood strewn around the foyer.

 “Make yourself at home,” Henry said before he walked out again for the remainder of your bags.

 You took a few more steps and looked at the art on the wall. They all were a mix of expressionist and abstract, and all made you feel relaxed. You could see him living here, and you wondered if he were renting this or if he owned it. A photograph on the sideboard resting against the wall caught your eye. It was of him and four other men all wearing athletic clothing, smiling widely and holding up medals. They all resembled each other, making you deduce they could have been his brothers. You walked further inside the home toward what looked like a living room and touched the white brick accent wall. It was a pleasing aesthetic that was set.

“Wow. This is--.”

 You didn’t know the right word. Henry approached and stood beside you as you continued looking around.

 “This is an architectural dream, and very different than I thought.”

 “You’ve thought about my home?”

 You paused with your hand on the back of one of the creamish, grey tufted couch and turned to look at him.

 “Um, the environment to which you lay your head,” you cautiously corrected. “They say someone’s home tells you everything you need to know about them.”

 “Is that so?”

 You nodded and continued walking around the living room. The view from the arched window was beautiful.

 “Let me give you a tour,” Henry offered, leading the way out of the living room.

 He walked around, showing you each room, and they all resembled one another. You could imagine him in each room. Sitting in the armchair by the big window sipping coffee or kicking his feet up while watching tv at night before going to bed. When he showed you the kitchen, you pictured him cooking shirtless, making some French dish. It all screamed him.

 “This is all yours?”

 “I bought it as a holiday home for my family. I wanted us to have a place where we could go on holiday either together or separately. That is why it’s so big. There are a lot of us.”

 “That’s nice,” you answered.

 You nodded and followed him outside the large French-style glass doors. As soon as you stepped out, you could help but gasp at the beauty.

 “Oh my god. Holy shit, this—this is—incredible. Wow.”

You gaped at the comfortable sitting area that was primed for dining outdoors. You went up the few steps and turned to the right, and marveled at the inground pool and the greenery of France.

“It is.”

 Smiling, you turned to him then scoffed. “Wow.”

 Henry smiled softly, then dipped his head. When he did, the smile fell.

 “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep,” he said before turning to walk back inside. You took one more look around and followed him.

 It wasn’t a quick walk by no means. You noted it was probably the other side of the house. When he stopped and opened a large, heavy wooden door, you walked in first. The room wasn’t obnoxiously large. It was comfortable and minimally decorated. You walked to the window and smiled. It was the perfect view of the cliffside.

 “Is it to your liking?”

 You spun while nodding your head. “Of course, thank you.”

 “No problem,” Henry replied. Your eyes locked for a few seconds, but he was the one to look away.

 “I’ll bring your bags.”

 He walked out, leaving you to admire the view some more and formulate a better plan. You’d only thought as far as finding him. You didn’t plan to tell him everything about your rules, and now you didn’t know how to proceed. You felt awkward.

 “God Aliya, stalker much?”

 Sighing, you began pacing the floor, hoping something would come to you while you tried not to imagine him thinking of you like some crazy chick. Your phone went off, and you were thankful for the distraction. You plopped into the chair beside the window and went through your emails and messages, answering the urgent work ones, quickly getting lost in them.

 “Here you go,” Henry began as he placed your bags on the far left side of the bedroom. You heard him come in, but being in the middle of an email, you didn’t look up, just mumbled a thank you.

 “I thought a vacation was supposed to mean no work.”

 Looking up at him, you released a breath. “I’m sorry, I—I got distracted, and I got sucked in.”

 Smiling, you put your phone down, hoping he would see it as a peace offering. He was leaned against the wall with one leg crossed over the other.

 “I understand. It happens to me too. I personally set everyone I work with, or for on a separate ring and alert sound, so I know not to answer or check it.”

 “Everyone? That has to be at least fifty people,” you said.

 “Try sixty-five, seventy.”

 “Wow. How long did that take you?”

 “Ha—hmm, about forty-five minutes maybe an hour,” Henry added.

 “Is that what you think I should do?”

He shrugged, then raked his fingers through his curly tousled hair, and you wondered if he’d even bothered using a comb or a brush this whole time. He didn’t look disheveled, though. He looked perfect like this.

“I can’t say. It’s up to you.”

 Again, your eyes locked, and you were just waiting, wishing for him to give you any hint at all that he wasn’t done with you and just being polite and hospitable.

 “Thank you for bringing my bags, Henry.”

 “You’re welcome.” He smiled then spoke again. “Out of curiosity, how long were you staying? You have enough bags to say a few weeks.”

 “Um—one thing you’ll learn about me, I overpack all the time. I can’t seem to, no matter how hard I try, but I’d rather have something I need rather than not have it when I need it,” you answered.

 He nodded, then uncrossed his legs before changing his position.

 “How—how long are you staying?”

 “I planned on being here for about a week, maybe.”

 You nodded, “Then?”

 “Not sure. I’m not making plans for the next three and a half weeks at least,” he answered.

 Tens of things flashed through your head to say, but you were still trying to read him and the situation. After a few seconds of silence, Henry spoke again.

 “You’re—uh—you’re welcome to tag along wherever the wind blows.”

 You didn’t like the sound of “welcome to,” but you also knew you’d already fucked the situation up, so you shouldn’t have any expectations. You sighed, then bit your bottom lip, trying to stop your lips from opening. You had the worst censor.

 “Welcome? Huh, somehow that sounds different than an—invitation.”

 Henry scoffed then nodded. “Last time I gave you an invitation, you didn’t really accept it or gracefully decline it.”

 Damn, you thought. He’d thrown that right at you with force. You deserved it. He was right, you hadn’t accepted the invite, and it was done in true Aliya fashion—avoidance.

 “Wow. Did you really just call me ungraceful?”

 You bit your bottom lip, fighting the smile.

 “You called yourself that,” Henry answered.

 Another long stretch of silence filled the room, and the longer it went on, the more nervous you got. Henry pushed off the wall.

 “I’ll make some lunch,” he said before he walked out.

 Once he was gone, you breathed out and tried to catch your breath. There was something about him that always gave off an overwhelming feeling. It wasn’t a feeling of you being afraid but in a heightened state. Of what? You were still trying to figure it out. You slowly began unpacking your things while setting all your contacts on an alert. You were going to try his strategy to see if you would actually be able to enjoy this vacation.

 About an hour later, you walked out of what was designated as your room and walked through the house, looking into rooms with open doors and around corners for where he could be. Following your nose and the delicious scent of roasted vegetables, you stepped into the kitchen expecting to see him, only to find it empty. Backtracking, you walked to the opened doors that led outside and saw him putting down a bottle of white wine on the rustic walnut table that had two place settings filled with the fruits of his labor.

 “Right on time. I was going to come knocking.”

 You smiled and tipped your head back to take in the wood and vines wrapped around the pergola.

 “No need. I cannot get over this view,” you said.

 “Do you come to France a lot?”

 “No. I come once in a while, usually for work.”

 “Ever Baldon?”

 You approached the table, sliding your finger along the Rattan chair that accompanied the table.

 “No.”

 “Nice, so you’re a tourist,” Henry said with a smile as he pulled out a chair for you.

 You returned his smile and sat down. “I am.”

 As he walked to his seat adjacent to yours, you took in the spread before you. “What do we have here?”

 “Avocado salad with mozzarella and roast beef sliders on Fiselle,” Henry explained as he pointed out everything he mentioned.

 You were impressed. “Wow. Did you make this?”

 His smile was wide; he looked proud. “I did. The roast beef was leftover from last night, and the avocado salad was quick. The bread was store-bought from the bakery in town, though.”

 It all looked delicious. “So you can cook.”

 “Yes, I can. My mother taught me; she taught all of us. She said it was her gift to our future significant others.”

 You chuckled, already liking his mother. Henry motioned for you to try something, and you wasted no time doing so. You placed a forkful of the salad into your mouth, your eyes instantly closing. You moaned at the avocado's buttery taste and how the flavors of the mozzarella and lemony but sweet vinaigrette complemented the tang of the vegetables.

 “This is good.”

 Henry’s smile widened as he picked up one of his sliders.

 “Thank you. Do you like French food?”

 “I do.”

 He nodded again as he finished chewing what was in his mouth. “Good, you’ll be eating a lot of it.

 You couldn’t help but smile because it sounded like he planned on cooking for you more often. You liked the sound of that and everything it meant. The two of you ate in relative silence, but it wasn’t an awkward one. You were enjoying the feel of the sun beaming down on you through the vines and the sound of the ocean, you guessed was only a few miles away. You could even smell the salt in the air from it. Henry did look to be in dire need of conversation either. He seemed happy to listen to the song of the birds and the rustling of the leaves. You were glad for it because it gave you the needed time to get your thoughts together.

 However, your thoughts only dwelled on one thing; the prospect of him hating that you were there.

 “Are you freaked out that I’m here?”

 Henry didn’t immediately speak. He lifted his glass and leisurely drank half of it before placing it back on the table. “All honesty, I’m just a little confused,” he began.

 The taste of the wine on your tongue told you there was more than grapes in it. You tasted pear and even strawberries. It tasted like France.

 “Yeah.”

 “I do find it interesting that to you, I’m worth tracking my phone.”

 You smiled and brought the glass back to your lips, using it more as a distraction than anything else.

 “So you don’t plan on calling the FBI and telling them what I did?”

 He snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Nah, you’re safe there.”

 “It’s not as hard as you think. You just need the person’s full name and phone number,” you matter of factly advised.

 “Also, a friend with the skill.”

 You nodded again, not wanting to give anything away. From the corner of your eye, you could see him smiling like a fool trying not to laugh out loud. It was too much for you, and you had to laugh out loud. In seconds, he joined in, and any tension between you melted away.

After lunch, Henry suggested a quick look around, so you hopped on the back of his Ducati, and he gave you the driving tour of the area. He pointed out the bakery that supplied him with all his baked goods, the local butcher where he got the best cuts of meat, and even the local winery. The town was beautiful, and the best part was that it was so close to the beach. It was everything that everyone thought of when they thought of a town on the Côte d'Azur—beautiful, quaint, luxurious, and a ten on the romantic potential scale.

 The entire time Henry remained the perfect gentleman. He kept his hands to himself, allowed you to go first, pulled out chairs, paid for all the small treats you sampled, and kept his language respectful. He was behaving so kind and professional it drove you crazy. The entire time you couldn’t ignore the magnetic pull you felt to him or the attraction that was growing by leaps and bounds thanks to the change of his appearance. He looked so good, and your body recognized it.

 Your eyes always found each other no matter the size of the crowd or how far you were from one another. When your eyes met, they lingered so long the butterflies in your belly swarmed wildly, making you feel as if you’d run a marathon. You could even tell by the way he looked at you that he might have been feeling the same attraction, but still, he stayed away.

By the time you took a break, the sun was gone, and it was dinner time. Henry chose a restaurant with the perfect ocean view and the sweetest breeze. There was nothing that could have been more perfect. As you sat at the table across from him, eating a classic seaside French meal—Bouillabaisse. As you ate, you listened to a story Henry told about his childhood and the reason why his parents had to put him and his brothers in different sports. It turned out their competitive natures was too much with all of them grouped together, the testosterone needed to be split up.

 It was nice getting a different viewpoint of him. Through his work, you got the professional view, and through the magazines and photoshoots the sex symbol view but hearing personal stories in the town where he’d chosen for holiday because of sentimental reasons at a restaurant he’d probably eaten at tens of times really made you want to get to know him better and give him a real chance. By the time you’d finished your dessert and began on your way back to the villa, you made the choice. Try.

 The house was quiet, and thanks to the windows and doors he’d left open, it smelled of sea salt, lemons, and the lavender that bathed the surrounding hills. It was a smell you’d gladly get used to.

 “Thank you for dinner,” you said once you were in the living room.

 “No need to thank me. You have to eat,” he replied with a polite smile that made you clench your jaw.

 “How um—how long have you been here?”

 “A few days.”

 You nodded but didn’t know what else to say. With the combination of the wine, the aphrodisiac oysters in the Bouillabaisse, and the smell of lavender, you felt a gentle lull of relaxation that made you feel ten times shier than you usually were. Henry didn’t speak though his eyes looked as if he had plenty to say. After a few minutes of silence, a confused look washed across his face before he looked down and sighed.

 “Good night, Aliya.”

 The words caught you off guard, but you nodded and hid it.

 “Good night, Henry.”

 It was a shaky whisper. You then watched Henry turn from you and walk off in the opposite direction than where your room was. You stood there for a few moments longer, debating with yourself on if you should follow him or not. When you thought to, you had no idea what you’d say when you did. When you finally decided just to call it a night, you’d stood in the dark living room for almost five minutes.

 After a quick shower, you laid in bed staring at the full moon through the window, hoping somehow sleep would claim you, but after forty minutes of tossing and turning, you gave up and watched the moon instead. For the first time in months, you didn’t feel the urge to work. All you felt was a stillness in you that was very new—but welcomed all the same.

 “Tomorrow is another day, Aliya. Make it right.”

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

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[bopbopstyles]

Temptation (pt. 3)

RATING: M/smut (cw: prior sexual harrassment mentioned)

WORD COUNT: 14.6k jesUs

CATEGORIES: fratboy!harry

He paid the price in Nora not being his. He couldn’t say anything when he saw guys looking at her from across the room, he couldn’t hold her hand when they walked down the sidewalk on campus, he couldn’t touch her whenever he wanted in public. There was a barrier they maintained during daylight hours—no contact in public. At night when everyone else was drunk they broke that rule and could barely keep their hands off each other, lasting on the dance floor of the parties for a mere thirty minutes before going up to Harry’s. But he couldn’t show her off the world, couldn’t sing her praises, couldn’t call her his. At least, not in the way that mattered. He called her his during sex, but that wasn’t the same, he couldn’t distinguish the fervor of sex from the reality of his feelings. And it pained him more than he had expected.

Because he was Nora’s.

She just wasn’t his.

or

Nora can’t figure out what she wants and Harry gets hurt in the process.  (part three of this / fratboy!harry)

PART ONE | PART TWO 

Harry woke to the sound of his door opening and an empty bed. Nora was standing at the end of his bed tugging on her pants, hair a beautiful mess.

“Oi, what’re you doing?”

Nora looked up and saw that Harry was awake, sitting up on his elbows and staring at her in confusion. She didn’t want to run out, but she had to. She had a fucking UTI and she was going to have to pee every five seconds, she needed cranberry juice, and she wanted to deal with all of those things not at a fraternity house. “I gotta run,” she said simply.

“Where?” Harry looked over to his alarm clock. “It’s eight AM on a Sunday. Where’re you going?”

“The store,” she replied. “Gotta pick up some things.” She buttoned her jeans and reached for her shirt, long forgotten on the ground.

Harry sat up fully, confused. Who would go to the store at eight in the morning on a Sunday when they could stay in bed? Especially with him? He didn’t want her to leave. “And get what?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re so nosy.” Nora pulled her shirt over her head, exasperated. “I’ve got to get some cranberry juice, okay? And then I have to go home and spend all day by my toilet.”

“What? Why?”

This boy was clueless. But then again, he was also a boy, so what was she to expect. “I’ve got a fucking UTI, H.”

Realization dawned on his face immediately. “Oh.” And then suddenly, he was out of bed, grabbing a fresh pair of boxers, a shirt, and a pair of jeans from his drawers. Nora watched him and tried not to ogle at his muscles as he lifted hisi arms to get his shirt on, or the way his hair flopped into his face ever so slightly when he pulled on his jeans.

“What are you doing?”

Harry stood up and grabbed his keys from his dresser. “Going to the store for you. Now get back in bed, put on some of my clothes that are comfortable, and tell me what exactly you need.”

“What—Harry—“

He pulled her into his body and pressed the most soft and delicate kiss to her cheek. “I’ve got an older sister. Know how much these things suck and I seriously doubt you want to move much farther than to and from the toilet. So get back into my bed and let me take care of you, okay?”

Looking back, that was the moment that Nora fell for him. Right there, Harry holding her close and telling her to let him take care of her. “Okay,” she said, because how was she going to deny him? Plus, his bed was more comfortable than hers, and he was right, the idea of getting in an Uber and going to the store and then home sounded horrific because she already had to pee again.

“Now, what do you need?”

“Pure cranberry juice,” she told him. “No sugars, no sweetener, no mixed with anything else—pure, unfiltered, cranberry juice, and two bottles of sparkling water.”

Harry nodded, memorizing her words. “That it?”

Nora bit the inside of her cheek. “Some Monostadt if you’re feeling courageous.”

“What’s that?”

“Medicine of sorts. Probably will be in with the tampons and stuff.”

Harry’s cheeks reddened—he couldn’t help it—but he just nodded. “Text me if you think of anything else, okay? I’ll be back in a jiffy. And ignore anyone if they tell you to hurry up in the bathroom.” He kisses her forehead with such kindness that Nora possibly melts right there on the floor, and then he’s out the door.

~

Harry finds Nora curled up in his bed in his Fleetwood Mac shirt, hair pulled up in a messy bun, and reading his copy of Americanah that he was reading for a Literature class. Looking back, this was the moment Harry fell for her. His heart stops a bit at her in his clothes, in his bed, waiting for him, but he pushes the thought from his brain.

“Got a few different kinds,” he says, rousing her attention from the book. “Wanted to make sure it was right.”

Nora sits up and watches him pull three cartons of cranberry juice out of the bag, two bottles of sparkling water, a pack of Monostadt, two bars of chocolate, and some chips. She hadn’t asked for the snacks, but he thought she would want them and that warmed her heart, and the fact that he braved the tampon aisle for her gave her immediately more respect for him. She surveyed the options and saw he had gotten two that would work. “Those two are good,” she said.

“Perfect,” he said. He grabbed a cup from his desk and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Supposed to mix the cranberry juice and sparkling, I assume?” She nodded. “And the juice is pretty strong?” She nodded again. “Ok. Let me mix something and you tell me if it needs more of one or the other.”

“Ok, Mr. Bartender,” she said and Harry chuckled. He poured the two together, focusing on making sure it wouldn’t be too strong for her to sip on. He handed her the cup and she took a sip—perfect. “S’good,” she said. “Thank you.”

He smiled at her, proud of his ability to make the perfect thing for her. “Course. Now shove over so I can get in with you.”

Nora blushed, scooted over, and watched him get undressed. He stripped down to just his boxers, and then crawled into bed next to her. “Thank you for doing this,” she said softly, carefully edging closer to him so her head was on his shoulder. “It’s a bit awkward, you know. We just...” Had sex, she almost said.

“Hey,” he said softly. He pushed a strand of hair that had fallen out of her bun behind her ear, fingertips trailing down her cheek. “I wanted to do it. Don’t care if it’s awkward.” He pressed another chaste kiss to her forehead, and then grabbed a remote from his bedside table. “Now, want to watch a David Attenborough nature documentary with me?”

“I’ve been meaning to watch Our Planet,” she said, settling in next to him.

Harry decided that she couldn’t get more perfect.

They laid in bed for most of the day watching nature documentaries and ended up cuddling without even thinking about it. Harry discovered that he loves Nora’s head on his shoulder, their legs tangled at the end of the bed, a thin blanket tugged over them to keep them warm in the late January cold that the heat can’t keep out. Sometimes her fingers found his skin and drew outlines over his tattoos, which never ceased to pull a sharp inhale from him and a plea that she didn’t pull away. But she always did. Nora was better at keeping her boundaries up—she didn’t hold his hand, she didn’t snuggle into him too much—there was almost a reticence to the way she relaxed into him. She wouldn’t stop fidgeting and even when she relaxed, he knew she wasn’t letting her full bodyweight lean into him.

She was up and down constantly to go pee and he kept pouring her more glasses of cranberry juice and sparkling water, but her UTI didn’t go away. He asked about it hesitantly, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, and she just blushed before shaking her head. After another trip to the toilet, she reached for the Monostadt from where it’s been sitting on his dresser.

“You okay, Cherry?” The nickname popped out and he immediately remembered saying it the night before, balls deep inside of her and the image made him harden immediately. He tried to disguise it with the blanket, but Nora saw it without him knowing. The image made her smile inside, the reality of what she did to Harry making her quite happy.

“S’not getting better,” she said. “Gonna take this and hope it helps.”

“Need anything?” He asked and she shook her head before heading back to the toilet. He leaned back against the pillows and sighed, keeping the documentary paused so she didn’t miss anything in her absence. His phone buzzed with a text and he grabbed it, swiping it open. It was Nash.

Who’s the girl who is going in and out of the bathroom and your room?

Nash lived upstairs, but he must’ve been cleaning the house and noticed Nora. Her name’s Nora. She’s not feeling too great.

Aren’t you a gentlemen

Harry chuckled before placing the phone back on the nightstand, the sound of Nora re-entering the bedroom making him want to forget everything else. She was on the phone, he realized when she stepped inside, but she was speaking in another language.

“Je vais bien, maman,” she said. It was French, he realized. He didn’t know she spoke French and the sound of it falling from her lips turned him on more than he wanted to admit. “Mon ami prend soin de moi.” She leaned against the door as she spoke to her mother, Harry understanding that much. “Non, un garçon. Non, on ne sort pas ensemble. Maman, arrête.” She sighed, her eyes catching with Harry’s, and she rolled her eyes. Sorry, she mouthed and Harry shook his head, as if to say No matter. “Maman, je dois y aller, d'accord? Je t'appellerai plus tard. Je t’aime. Salut.”

“You speak French?” He asked, amazed.

She nodded. “My mom’s French.”

“That’s so cool that you know French and German.”

Nora tried ignore the way the fact that he remembered that she spoke German made her heart warm. Without a word she laid down next to him, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders. “You can start it,” she said, and Harry followed her directions.  

They laid in his bed until almost five o’clock, at which point Harry suggested they order food. They decided on sushi and they picked out a bunch of rolls and dumplings to try, and Harry grabbed the food when it arrives, making a spread on his bed for them. He didn’t tell her that he usually doesn’t let people eat on his bed because he made an exception for her, not being able to bear the idea of making her go downstairs and eat when she looked so cuddled up and warm in his blanket. They finished another documentary and it was seven o’clock when Nora declared it was time for her to go home. She was feeling better, she reassured a worried Harry, and Maddy was at home to take care of her. He insisted on driving her and Nora wore his Fleetwood Mac shirt with her jeans out of the frat house, since Harry wouldn’t let her give it back to him. He made sure she didn’t have to talk to any of his brothers downstairs, coming to grab her when he knew the coast was clear, and she appreciated it—she didn’t want to get whistled at or questioned, just to go home.

His car was a Prius, which Nora smiled at. He was so unlike any other fraternity brother she had ever met and he intrigued her more than she wanted to admit. When he turned on the car, Elton John blasted from the speakers and when Harry went to turn it down, Nora grabbed his hand and shook her head, telling him to keep it. He drove her home and they sang Elton John at the top of their lungs, both grinning from ear to ear, catching each other’s eyes sometimes. Harry loved seeing her in his car, loved having her around all day. When he dropped her off, she hopped out of his car without a kiss and he tried to ignore how it made his heart sink. He hated watching her walk away from him and inside her building.

It’s just sex, he thought to himself. It was what he had told himself time and time again and what he kept having to remind himself of.

The thing was, though, he was starting to have doubts.

In class, Harry checked in with Nora about how she was feeling and when she told him she was all better he smiiles warmly at her. They went and studied together after class, but Nora picked up her books around three and told him she was heading out, barely a look over her shoulder at him as she walked out.

She was creating distance. She needed it—after she’d spent all day with him she needed to remember that it was just sex, nothing more. When he dropped her off, she had gone into her apartment breathless purely from being around him and that whole night all she could think about was him. She needed space to figure out what was going on, to get her feelings in check. Nora had a life that she needed to focus on, grades to keep up, friends to see, an internship to search for. She filled her nights with homework and the job search instead of texting Harry, her mother reminding her that she needed to turn in applications soon if she wanted her dream internship position in London with the archival research department at the Museum of London. (She’d gone the past summer with her parents and fallen in love with the history of the city and decided she had to work there.) It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be around Harry, it was that she couldn’t. Everytime she was around him she felt this itch to fucking touch him and she couldn’t handle it anymore. She couldn’t handle how much she wanted to kiss him and curl her fingers in his hair and feel him between her legs. Nora needed air, she needed to re-calibrate, she needed to remember that she didn’t want to date and especially not a fraternity boy.

Harry’s texts went unanswered for the most part, other than the occasional quick response to something related to their classwork. He tried not to wonder if he’d done something wrong, but it was hard when he went from caring for her and her UTI to feeling iced out. Nora acted normal in class, small talk and shared laughter when their professor did something funny. But it wasn’t the same as usual and Harry was confused. When he asked Nash about it, he looked at Harry and said, “you’re just hooking up, right?” That made Harry self-concious—was he having feelings for her? And if so, did she not feel the same pull that he did between them? Being around Nora this week made him realize how much he just enjoyed her company, whether they were talking or studying or just sitting next to each other in class. He simply missed her, despite how much he tried to convince himself he didn’t.

He invited her to a party that weekend, hoping the weekend would mean he would be able to see her, but she responded a few hours later with a simple Sorry, I can’t :(. He spent the party sulking in the corner, sipping on whiskey and watching people have fun before going upstairs and calling it a night earlier than normal. Nash noticed and when he asked, Harry just replied, “She’s not here.”

The next week was just like before. They chatted in class, but beyond that it was radio silence. She responded to his texts even less and Harry was a confused mess. He threw himself into his school work, getting ahead on readings that he didn’t need to do for two weeks. All he wanted was an explanation, but he was too scared to even ask why she was doing it. Did she wants to stop hooking up? Had she been freaked out by his kindness? Maybe it was the nature documentaries. Did she want him to be more like Nash? More aloof? Did she want him not to care? Because he didn’t know if he could.

That weekend DSig had another party, but this time Harry told Niall, who was seeing Nora’s friend Maddy, he discovered, to invite them. Niall did as Harry had asked, but he didn’t know if they would come. And when Friday rolled around, Harry was stood in the kitchen, alone, drinking whiskey. Again.

Maddy and her friends had arrived, but Nora wasn’t with them. When Harry had asked her about Nora, Maddy had shook her head and said that Nora “wasn’t feeling it”.

“Harry!” It was Nash and he was properly drunk. “My man! Why aren’t you drunk, bro?”

Harry raised at his cup. “I’m drinking still.”

Nash looked in the cup and grimaced. “We’re doing shots,” he declared, looking around the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of tequila, two limes, and handed a shot glass to Harry. The shots were doubles and Harry wasn’t looking forward to it, but he did it anyways, because if Nora wasn’t going to be there then he at least wanted to have fun. He was entitled to have his fun—after all, he was Harry Styles, as Nash kept reminding him. He was hot and people were into him right and left, guys and girls alike.

So Harry decided to have fun. He did four shots, his mind whirring by the end, and followed Nash to the sweaty dance floor. The music overtook him and he let go, blissfully and fully. He danced with girls who he could tell were interested, but everytime he looked at them all he could think about was how they weren’t Nora. Sure, they were pretty, but they didn’t look at him like she did. He danced with them anyways, but when they leaned in to kiss him he stepped away and found his friends again, not wanting someone else to touch his lips because Nora had touched them last.

It was after midnight when he stopped dancing. He was hot, trashed, and wanted Nora. He just wanted her, not some other girl to fill the Nora-shaped hole in his night. It wasn’t until this moment that Harry, drunk off his ass, realized just how deep he was. Something was different with her and he didn’t know why or what it was, but he needed it more than he needed to be at this party. So he pulled out his phone and called himself an Uber, not even telling Nora he was coming because he didn’t want her to turn him away.

The knock on the door had Nora looking at her clock and sighing. It was almost one and she was exhausted—she was winding down for bed and watching a documentary on deforestation, finishing a glass of wine, skin fresh from a face mask. Maddy was out with Taylor and Lauren, but Nora had stayed in. She wasn’t sure why, but when they’d asked her to come to the party with them, she had said no. The idea of seeing Harry made her nervous—the last time she’d been at his party they had hooked up, and she didn’t know if she was in a place where she could do that and not have questions after. So she avoided the situation entirely.

But when she opened the door to find Harry standing in front of her, she was just as lost. “H?”

Harry smiled at the nickname, it settling the part of him that was nervous to see her. “Cherry. Hi.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Seeing you.”

“I noticed,” she replied. “Why?”

“Wanted to see you.”

She took another look at him and realized he was drunk. Quite drunk, in fact. “How’d you get here?”

“Uber.”

That was a relief at least—he hadn’t drive himself. “Come on inside. You’ll freeze out there.” He’d not brought a jacket and Nora could see the raised goosebumps on his exmposed arms, the tattoos littering his body open for the world to see.

He kicked his shoes off in the entryway and watched as Nora poured him a glass of water. She rummaged through the cabinets before pulling out an Advil, which she handed to him. He took both, murmuring a thanks under his breath. She leans back against the counter and watched him, his presence in her apartment all consuming and more comforting than she had expected. He smelled of sweat and alcohol, but underneath it she could taste his cologne, the memories of it rushing back to her like a freight train. Him, close to her as he fucked her deep and fast, begging for her to finish. She pressed her legs together at the memory.

“Why are you here?” She asked him again, breaking the silence stretching between them.

Harry leaned on the kitchen island, his elbows digging into the granite countertops. “You didn’t come tonight.”

“Didn’t feel like going out,” she explained. She hadn’t expected him to be so disappointed, but she could read it on his face.

“You’ve been dodging my texts and not spending time with me.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Bullshit,” he replied, his voice hard in the quiet of the room. She wasn’t answering him and he was about done with it. She was standing there, staring him down, and completely ignoring the meaning behind his questions. He wanted answers, goddamn it—he wanted to understand her. “We’re all busy. It’s more than that and I don’t get it. Did I miss something? Did I do something?”

The way his voice trailed off at the end, emotion radiating through his words, had Nora’s heart aching. She hadn’t meant to hurt him—she had been selfish, needing the time away from him and ignoring how it would affect him, or that it would affect him at all. “I needed space,” she said, trying to find the words.

Harry’s eyes met hers and the way they bore into her soul made her stop fidgeting for once and concentrate on him. “But why, Nora?”

The way he said her name made her realize she had to be honest with him. “We’re just hooking up,” she said, the words sandpaper on her tongue. “And I needed space to make sure it stayed that way. I’m not in the position for anything more and I didn’t want you to be confused.”

Harry didn’t reply. He just looked at her. Maybe it was the alcohol or the hour, but Nora thought she saw disappoint and defeat in his eyes. And if she did, she had nothing to offer him. She didn’t have the psace in her life for someone else right now, only herself. People were complicated, especially relationships, and Nora didn’t want that. She wanted simplicity and hooking up with Harry would only stay simple if she kept it that way.

“I know we’re just hooking up,” he reponded finally. The lie was bitter on Harry’s tongue, because she did need to. The minute her words met Harry’s ears he knew that he was craving more. He had fallen with her, one way or another, somewhere in the week he had known her. His crush was full-fledged and suffocating, because when he looked at her he could barely look away. In her oversized sweatshirt and tiny shorts, her hair loose and messy, face clean of makeup and eyes weary with exhaustion. So when he looked away from her, it took every bone in his body, but he knew if he continued to look at her she would know he was lying. And he wasn’t ready to lose her yet. “You didn’t need to avoid me to make that clear, you know.”

His answer brought comfort to her—he felt the same way, that it was just sex. He didn’t need more, he wouldn’t complicate her life. He would let her be her and not ask for more. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “Shouldn’t have done it.”

He watched as she rounded the corner of the kitchen island and came up to him, her body mere inches away from him. Harry could smell her coconut shampoo and see the wrinkles between her brows from when she frowned. The desire to touch her was almost too much for him. “I survived.”

Nora wanted to touch him with every bone in her body. She wanted to feel his skin under fingers and watch him inhale as she scratched down his back. Since they were on the same page, she realized she had no reason to stop herself anymore.

Watching closely, he exhaled sharply as she touched him for the first time. It was soft, reticent, a reminder and a memory of before. A simple brush of her forefinger down the length of his bicep that had his heart beating faster in his chest. “Cherry,” he said, his voice gravely with desire.

When their eyes met, a simple understanding passed between them in seconds. And then Harry was pulling her up, her legs were around his waist, and he was walking her into her room, their lips melded together as if no time had passed. They hadn’t forgotten how to kiss one another, it was like muscle memory, the need for one another feeding through their skin as they kissed, a shared desire for more and more.

Nora dropped to her bed and she wasted no time with shedding her clothing, her shirt and pants coming off before Harry could even tug off his shirt. He wasn’t drunk anymore—their conversation had sobered him—but when he looked at her skin, he thought he might be intoxicated again because he couldn’t get enough. Sheets curled in her fingers as he pressed his lips to her body, murmurs of how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her flowing from him freely. Gasping, she reached for his chin and pulled him up to her, needing him to kiss her properly again. Which he did. He ground into her, desperate for her to feel him, and Nora moaned at the feeling. How had she managed to go two weeks without him between her thighs?

“Need you,” she said, breathless.

He looked up from where he was attached to her nipple. “Where do you want me, princess?”

“You know where.”

Once he might’ve made her spell it out, but he was too spellbound. He lowered himself flat on his stomach and tugged her panties aside without another word, pressing his tongue to her hot skin.

Things passed like that for a few weeks. They texted each other when they needed one another, Nora went to Harry’s parties just for Harry, and they flirted all through their class. Nora was comfortable with where they’d left things—clear and precise on the fact that they were nothing more than friends who were fucking. No relationship and no future of one.

Harry, on the other hand, couldn’t shake the disappointment he felt that night when she told him they were just hooking up. It poured through every fiber of his being and the more time he spent around her the more he knew that he had messed up. Royally. He had missed the opportunity to tell her how he felt, he had missed the opportunity to steer their relationship in a different direction and he was going to pay the price.

He paid the price in Nora not being his. He couldn’t say anything when he saw guys looking at her from across the room, he couldn’t hold her hand when they walked down the sidewalk on campus, he couldn’t touch her whenever he wanted in public. There was a barrier they maintained during daylight hours—no contact in public. At night when everyone else was drunk they broke that rule and could barely keep their hands off each other, lasting on the dance floor of the parties for a mere thirty minutes before going up to Harry’s. But he couldn’t show her off the world, couldn’t sing her praises, couldn’t call her his. At least, not in the way that mattered. He called her his during sex, but that wasn’t the same, he couldn’t distinguish the fervor of sex from the reality of his feelings. And it pained him more than he had expected.

Because he was Nora’s.

She just wasn’t his.

It was a Friday night and Nora wasn’t at DSig—a rarity. Maddy, Taylor, and Lauren had convinced her to go to the bars with them, telling her they needed a girls night. That she had been spending all of her time with Harry (a lie) and they missed her. So she dressed up, looking hot as fuck if she said so herself, and got drunk with her girls. They played drinking games in her and Maddy’s living room until they were all perfectly wasted, before taking an Uber to Slots.

At first, it was just the girls. The music flowing, dancing at the table they get in the corner, dragging each other onto the tiny and cramped dance floor. It was sweaty and drunk and so much fucking fun.

But then, some boys who Taylor knows came over, and one of them had eyes only for Nora. He was tall, but not as tall as Harry, with dark brown hair, but not as curly and gorgeous as Harry’s, and blue eyes, but they didn’t pierce her heart the way Harry’s do. His name was Leo and he stuck to Nora all night. She let him too, basking in the attention, loving when he bought her drinks and asked her about her classes and her life. She asked him about his and the more they talked the more Nora thought he was cute. Not in the way that Harry was—Harry was hot—but Leo was cute in his own way. A bit unsure, fumbled for words, searching for the way to say something in a way that Nora would like. She loved the power that surged through her veins at knowing that she was desired by someone other than Harry.

Leo was a Economics major and planned on working on Wall Street after college. He was from a few towns over from their college and had planned to go here most of his life. He wasn’t in a fraternity, but he was in a couple of clubs and they discovered quickly that they had some mutual friends. He was kind and made horrible jokes that Nora laughed at anyways because she saw that he wanted her to laugh. No—he needed her to laugh. He listened intently when she told him about her major, about her interest in German history, about her time abroad. He asked her questions and listened, diving deeper and asking her more and more. She felt like he wanted to know her in a way she wasn’t used to and she was surprised, but also flattered. Harry didn’t ask her these things, they just came up in conversation. But Leo sought them out, desperate for more information about her.

So when he asked for her number at the end of the night, she didn’t hesitate to give it to him. She didn’t know what to expect, but it couldn’t be anything big.

But when he texted her in the morning asking if she wanted to get coffee that afternoon, she was thrown off guard. She had told herself she wasn’t going to date anyone. But it was almost March and she had been seeing Harry and a part of her was intrigued by Leo. She wanted to get to know him, see what he was about. If all else failed, she could always tell him it wasn’t going to work out, she decided. So she said yes.

Harry was working Saturday afternoon shift, aka his least favorite shift. He usually spent the afternoons in the library or his room working on readings or writing papers. He had to work on his paper for the Urban Studies class he had with Nora, actually, he realized as he flipped the switch on the espresso machine. Would she want to help him outline maybe? It would be an excuse to hang out with her in a purely PG environment, something he was increasingly trying to find excuses for. He wanted more from his relationship with Nora and had decided he was going to try and ease into the idea—take it slow. Maybe they’d just…end up dating?

Somehow he sensed her presence the second she stepped in the door of the coffeeshop. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, a simple white tshirt and jeans that showed off her body in the ways he loved seeing. He watched her eyes lift from the floor and then they met his, a look of shock running across her face. Somehow they’d yet to have the discussion about which coffee shop he worked at, but here she was when he was working behind the bar making espressos and fancy coffees. Then, her eyesight shifted without even a smile in his direction, and he watched helplessly as she made her way over to a boy who had come in 15 minutes earlier—he was seated in the corner. He’d ordered some flavored latte, and Harry decided that was reason enough to hate him. He had never seen the kid before, but that wasn’t impossible at their school, especially if he wasn’t in a frat or in his classes.

“Harry.” He turned and Lauren, the other barista was looking at him in confusion. “You okay?”

He glanced back at Nora, her eyes bright and a smile dancing across her face. “Fine.” He grabbed the coffee cup Lauran handed him and turned back to the espresso machine, placing the cup under the drip and staring daggers at the back of this kid’s head.

Not too long after, Nora rose, her wallet in hand, and made her way to the bar. This guy wasn’t even going to buy her coffee? Maybe it wasn’t a date, he thought to himself. Any guy who didn’t take Nora out was an idiot, but that was a thought for another time. He heard Nora order her coffee, the same drop coffee and skim milk that he remembered, and tried to avoid making eye contact with her until she was standing right in front of his station and said his name.

“H,” she said, words soft. The nickname she used jolted through his body and he hated it. How dare she use while she was on a date with another guy? But then again, she wasn’t his, was she?

“What?” Harry knew his voice was gruff, but he didn’t care. She should know that he was pissed, even if he had no right to be.

She sighed as he filled her cup. “Why are you acting like this?”

Harry grabbed the milk and filled the cup the amount he knew she liked, and then looked up at her again. He rested his hands on the corner of the counter and leaned towards her—he wondered if she could feel the tension radiating between them. “You on a date?”

“I—“ she looked over to the guy who waved at her, and then back at him. “I don’t know.”

Fuck that. It was obviously a date. “Did he ask you to coffee, no studying or other excuse?” He handed her the coffee, but she didn’t move.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s a fucking date, Nora.”

Her fingers slid up and down the cup, moving the sleeve with them. “Are you mad?”

The laugh that left his lips was dry, mocking almost, and Harry didn’t have it in him to care. “No, I’m perfectly fine, Nora. We aren’t doing any more than fucking, right?” He ignored the way the hurt look on her face stabbed his heart and turned away, desperate for literally anything else to do. A beat later, her heard her footsteps as she moved away from the counter, and Harry tried to blink the tears from his eyes.

Nora knew she had fucked up, but how did she fix it?

She was lying on her bed, staring up at her ceiling and running through every moment she had shared with Harry in the past few months. The sly gazes in class, the conversations as they cuddled in his bed, the sex—the sex. And him. He was unlike anyone she’d known, he was unlike Jonas in all the ways that mattered and the ones she didn’t know were important. Harry was someone she never saw coming and the feeling she had for him she’d been trying and trying to push down since she’d met him, because if she let herself feel them then she would be ripped open for him to see. All of her demons out of the closet laid bare for him to investigate, to judge, to tell her how handle. And she didn’t think she wanted that.

And Leo was simple. He might want to date her, but she didn’t feel the need to share everything about her life with him. He was…easy. They could date for a while, just enough to get her mind off of Harry, and then she could break up with him. She didn’t want something serious and Leo didn’t scream serious at her—he screamed pure, kind, caring. The kind of guy who wouldn’t push her when she didn’t want to talk, wouldn’t bed to know everything about her. And that was exactly what she needed.

And the exact opposite of Harry. Harry desperately wanted to know her—she could see it in the way he looked at her, and it scared the shit out of her. He knew all the surface things and was begging to see the depths of her in a way that wanted her to lock a door and never reopen it. But she had hoped to at least stay friends with him, she enjoyed spending time with him. After the way he’d acted today, though, she didn’t know if that was possible, though. He seemed royally pissed off, despite the fact that he didn’t technically have the right to be, she told herself. She wasn’t his, not in any real way. Despite the way he had said the words, they were true—they were just fucking.

Her phone buzzed next to her and she rolled over to see who it was—Leo.

I had fun today. Study tomorrow?

Nora considered her thoughts, the things she knew and the ones she didn’t. Leo was something to be explored, she decided. See you at noon, she replied, pushing the sinking feeling in her stomach aside.

When Harry saw her on the dance floor, his heart lept in his chest. She’d come to another DSig party, despite the date on Saturday he’d seen. Despite the fact that they’d barely spoken this week, no funny texts during the evenings or study sessions or picking up coffee before class. Just words shared about the lecture and reasons given for goodbye. He could see her messy waves bouncing as she jumped and he smiled, he’d always loved how she danced. Carefree, not giving a fuck what anyone thought of her.

He wanted to go to her, touch her, make her his. But then the face of that other guy flashed through his brain, and he couldn’t rationalize it. She was seeing someone else unless she said otherwise. Off-limits, at least for right now.

“That Nora?” Nash leaned against the doorjamb next to him, handing him a beer. “What’s she doing here?”

“Fuck if I know,” Harry replied. He’d told Nash about what had happened in a rare moment of honesty over one too many beers on Saturday night, but now he was thankful to have someone who got it. “Think I misread the situation?”

Nash shrugged. “Dunno man. She’s coming over here, though, I think.”

Harry whipped his head towards her and saw Nash was right—she was weaving her way through the crowd alone and heading straight for him. Nash left his side so he could be alone, and Harry was thankful for it. Nash was one of the rare good ones.

“H,” she said, voice barely audible over the thud of the bass. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He wanted to talk to her with every fiber of his person, but his brain was screaming at him to walk away, leave her alone, let her figure out her shit and come back to him after. Her fingers ghosted over his chest and Harry sucked in a breath. He looked at her eyes and realized she was pretty drunk—drunker than he was, at least. Is that what it took for her to touch him—alcohol? “Nora,” he said, covering her hands with his, “what are you doing?”

“Touching you.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, her tumbling down her back, “want you.”

Harry gulped. Did he have the self-control? “What about that guy?”

“He’s not here.”

“Are you dating him?”

“No.”

Harry considered her words, the look in her eye that was begging him to fuck her. And for some reason, he decided to do it. “I’ll only do this if you’re sure you want to.”

She nodded, curling her fingers into his black t-shirt, slightly damp from the sweat of being in a room this crowded. “Positive.”

And with that, he decided to shove all of his thoughts telling him that she was just using him to the side and kissed her. Her arms wrappd around his neck immediately and he grasped her waist, pulling her flush to his body. Fuck, he’d missed how she felt against him, like she was made for him. Nora’s fingers curled in his hair and tugged slightly, a moan falling from his lips that he couldn’t stop. “Upstairs,” he said, voice rough with desire and hurt and disappointment.

She followed him up the stairs, hand grasped in his, and pulled off her clothes the minute she was inside his room. He raked his eyes over her, knowing it might be the last time, and decided to fuck her like it was. Slow, deep—make her remember that she wanted him. Make her know how much he wanted her, that he regretted not telling her when he’d had a chance.

And so he did. He left hickies all over her body, telling whatever boy she was talking to other than him that she was his, fucked her so deep she moaned his name like a prayer, held her so close that their skin felt like one, and didn’t let her go after. When she rolled over and crawled down his body, he let her, wanting to have her go down on him one last time, to feel her mouth and watch her grip his hips as she bobbed up and down. And he fucked her again, this time a little faster, a little rougher, but just as deep. And he licked into her after, drawing another orgasm from her, trying to memorize her taste on her tongue, how his name sounded off of her tongue, the way it felt for her fingers to curl in his hair and pull. After, when she was curled up in his arms, eyes shut and asleep on his chest, he prayed that she wouldn’t regret it in the morning. That maybe she’d tell him it meant something, that she wanted him and not the other guy, that she was his and only his.

But when he woke up, the only trace of her was her perfume on his pillowcase.

Weeks passed without more than a few words in class and it pained Nora, but she understood. When she’d woken up in his arms, him holding her close so her faced was smushed in the crook of his neck, she knew it was going to be a bad idea to let herself do this again. He’d barely returned his texts or replied to her in class, the smiles she adored were forgotten. She avoiding the coffee shop where he worked and told Maddy she wasn’t going back to DSig. He didn’t want to be her fuck on the side anymore and she would respect that. She spent time with Leo in small doses, trying not to give too much to him, and when they had sex, she tried not to think of Harry. But it wasn’t as good, it wasn’t the same.

Leo introduced her to his friends and she struggled to stay interested in the conversation, her thoughts anywhere and elsewhere. When they studied together, she found herself on her phone stalking Harry’s Instagram, wondering who the girls in the photo he’d just posted were. It came time to work on the second paper for the class she shared with Harry and she missed his insights into her outlines. Leo couldn’t provide the same help and got frustrated when she didn’t take his suggestions (which weren’t good).

The trees changed colors and as she laid out on the lawns with a book, Nora wondered if Harry liked the Spring as much as she did. Maddy laid next to her with an iced coffee and her computer, working on an assignment for her GIS class, eyes flittering over to Nora every once and a while.

Finally, Nora heard her voice break the silence. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Nora lied. She was thinking about Harry.

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you’re thinking about Harry,” Maddy said. She closed her computer and laid her head on her forearms. “Spill.”

Nora shut her book and sighed. She’d avoided talking about Harry with Maddy or any of her friends, never really telling them why it fizzled out. Just that it did and it was fine. Maddy had seen straight through her lies, but didn’t push. “I miss him,” she said simply.

“Then talk to him.”

“He doesn’t want me to.”

“Valid,” Maddy replied.

Nora whipped her head to her friend. “You’re supposed to say he’s stupid.”

“Well, he’s not,” Maddy said. “He’s got every reason to not want to talk to you—you started seeing another guy and then fucked him a week later.”

“But…”

Maddy sighed. “If you tell me you were just fucking, I’ll literally kill you.”

“We were, though!”

“Nora, you’re not stupid, so why are you acting like you are?” Nora narrowed her eyes at her best friend. How dare she?

“You’re supposed to always be on my side, you know.” “I am. You just aren’t thinking straight.”

Nora rolled over and shoved her face into the blanket they’d brought with them. “What am I supposed to do then?”

After a beat, she heard Maddy’s voice. “Do you like Leo?”

“He’s fine.”

“Fine.” Maddy parroted Nora’s word back to her and Nora grimed at how it souned. Bored, uninterested, which was exactly what she was most of the time. The interest she’d had in Leo had fizzled after the first two weeks, their conversations stalling, the desire dissolving.

Lifting her head nad making eye contact again, Nora said, “He’s boring.”

“And Harry?”

Harry. What was there to say and what wasn’t there to say? He consumed her thoughts and her dreams and she hated it. She’d had a sex dream about him last week while she was in Leo’s bed which was quite possibly the worst thing of all time. Sitting next to him in class was hell because she had to be close to his body, smell his cologne, just be around him, but she couldn’t switch spots because the other students would throw a fit. She missed the way he kissed her and touched her and said her name and laughed with her.

“He’s…Harry,” she said simply, becuase that’s all there was to say.

“Nor, I love you,” Maddy said, giving her a small smile, “but you fucked up.”

And Nora knew it the minute Maddy said the words. She’d hurt Harry and she just hoped there was some way she could fix it, because if she didn’t she didn’t know if she could forgive herself.

Leo was her first task. She texted him to see if he was at his dorm and when he said “yes!” she walked over, backpack thrown over her shoulder, a pit of dread in her stomach. Leo was perfectly nice, just not nice for her. He needed someone simple, easy, and most importantly, not completely infatuated with someone else, all things that she was not. Leo lived on the other side of campus in one of the nicer dorms, known for not having too many parties and only upperclassmen and thankfully for her, lived alone. If she had had to go in there and deal with a roommate after she broke up with him, nora didn’t think she could do it.

He answered his door immediately, a wide smile on his face, a pair of sweats and a loose t-shirt for their college adorning his body. “This is a nice surprise,” he said, kissing her cheek sweetly.

Nora nodded, making her way inside. “Are you busy?”

He sat down at his desk chair and gestured to the notes spread out in front of him. “Studying. Or trying to, at least.”

She sat down on his bed, the plaid bedspread reminding her of the nights she had spent cuddled up next to him in his Twin-XL, much too small for her tastes. Harry’s double bed in the frat hour was far superior. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, the words rough on her tongue.

Leo cocked his head to the side but said nothing, shutting his laptop and giving her his full attention. Somehow, this was worse, having him stae directly at her. She almost wished he didn’t have the courage to look at her because she sure didn’t.

“I want to break up.” The words were blunt in the quiet of the room, the only sounds the soft echo of a door shutting in the hall. Leo blinked at her and Nora’s eyes shifted down to her lap, winding and unwinding her fingers. She knew she didn’t care deeply about Leo—not in the way she suspected he did—but she didn’t expect the words to come as easily as they did.

“Why?” Leo asked, his voice broken at the end of the word. Nora expected if she looked at him he would be tearing up; he was always more open with his emotions than she was. Vulnerable, something she did not excel at.

“I—I just…” Could she tell him? Be completely honest with him? Her eyes met his, trying to gauge what she should say.

But he beat her to it. “Is it Harry?”

“What?” She hadn’t even told him about Harry. Nora had kept those two parts of her life as far apart as possible, other than when Harry saw her first date with Leo. Otherwise, she made an effort to never mention Harry to Leo. She didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t bare it or if she said his name it would be harder to be around Leo. Either way, he wouldn’t have gotten Harry’s name from her.

“I saw his name on your phone one time. Asked around. Someone said that you and him were a bit of a thing before we started seeing each other.”

Thankfully this person seemed to have left out that Nora and Harry had last hooked up once she’d started seeing Leo. That was a truth that Leo didn’t need to hear. “It’s Harry,” she agreed, “but it’s also me. I’m…I’m just not right for you, Leo. I’m sorry it took me this long to figure that out, but it’s—this—just isn’t right.” That was about as honest as she could be with him without hurting him. And she didn’t want to do that, as much as she didn’t really care about him, she still cared about his feelings.

Leo studied her, his straight brown hair not falling into his face like Harry’s curls did. She loved Harry’s hair and somehow Leo’s always reminded her of Harry’s. Maybe that was the problem with Leo—he was a constant reminder of Harry, particularly of his not being Harry. “Why aren’t you right for me?” He asked, eyes darting around her face. “Like, how can you make that decision for me?”

God, so many things were wrong with them. “I’m not trying to make that decision for you,” she said, trying to backpedal, find her thoughts. “I—it’s...”

“So what you’re trying to say is that I’m not right for you.”

He was right. “Yes,” she said, voice soft. “But, fuck, it’s not like there’s something wrong with you. It’s just that I need someone and something else.”

Leo bit his lip, blue eyes hard as they looked at her. “And that someone is Harry?”

“Yes.”

It was silent in his room, Nora’s eyes falling to her hands still clasped in her lap. She didn’t have a plan for how to leave the room, but now she felt like she needed one. “Leo, I’m sorry—“

“Jesus, Nor, don’t fucking apologize.” She hadn’t heard Leo curse before, not even during sex, so the word was jarring. “If that’s how you feel then that’s how you feel, I can’t argue with you about it. I mean, I wish you’d been more upfront with me about how you felt, but I’m not going to sit here and say I thought we were completely fine. I just thought you needed more time or something…I just liked you so much, I thought you’d get there.” He swiped at a tear that fell from his eye and Nora softened. Just because she didn’t care for him in the way he did didn’t mean she was completely immune to his pain.

“I was hoping I did too,” she admitted. “You’re a really good guy, Leo. I hope you find someone who loves you in all the ways I couldn’t.”

Leo exhales and wipes his palms on his sweats before looking up at her. “Can…can you go now?”

“Fuck, yeah, ok,” she said, eager to get out of there if he wanted her out. She scrambled to grab her backpack and her shoes, tugging them on at the door. “I’ll see you around, I guess?”

Leo stood behind her in the doorway and just nodded. “Bye, Nora,” he said, and then shut the door in her face.

Which she guessed she deserved.

Harry didn’t know who—or what to expect when he heard a knock on his door at 12:30 at night. There was a party still going downstairs, it being a Friday night and all. Harry didn’t feel like attending tonight though, and had decided to spent the evening curled up in bed with a pint of ice cream watching re-runs of That 70’s Show on Netflix. He’d get up early and go for a run, he decided, and forcing pledges to clean up the mess downstairs. He’d probably end up helping them, though, because that’s just who he was as a person, no matter how many times Nash told him the pledges were supposed to do it.

So when he opened his door in just his boxers and a shirt, his glasses on the tip of his nose, the last person he expected to see was Nora. She stood probably a foot away in leggings and a big sweatshirt, her hair in a messy bun, and Harry wondered what looks she had gotten downstairs when she’d tried to get in. Although basically all the guys knew her by now, since she’d spent so much time in the house when they were…fucking.

Harry leaned against the door, waiting for her to say something. He decided after the last time that he wouldn’t hook up with Nora again, not unless she was properly his. So unless it was to tell him that, he decided he would kick her out, tell her to go home. Have one of the guys call her an Uber though, since it was late and all.

“I broke it off with Leo,” she said finally, brown eyes staring at him with such hope in his eyes he didn’t know what to do with it.

“Good for you,” was all he could come up with to say. What was he supposed to say? Thank god, I’m kind of obsessed with you still?

She looked at him and then into his room. “Could we talk…please?”

Harry stepped back and let her into his room, shutting the door softly behind her. She stood in the space as if she was meant to be there, a piece of art that had been on loan but was finally back home. Harry couldn’t shake the fact that he had been waiting for her to come and see him for so long and now that she was here he had no idea what to say to her. So instead he was quiet, waiting for her to speak, and went and sat down on his bed.

“Are you going to say something?”

“What do you want me to say?” That I can’t decide if I’m happy you’re here or mad it took you this long? That you look gorgeous? That I want you, but all of you not just the bits you give me? He didn’t have the words for what he wanted to say, which was everything.

“Just…fuck. I guess I’ll talk first?” She said, her words rambling—he could tell she was nervous. “I fucked up, okay? I pushed you away and I don’t even know why—well actually I do. But it wasn’t a valid reason. I should’ve talked to you, told you what I was thinking, not just started seeing someone else without any explanation.”

“Why did you push me away?” He asked, the rest of it blending into the background, zeroing in on those few words.

“I—can I sit?” She asked, gesturing to his bed.

He nodded, shifting over to give them space and so he could face her while she talked. Harry had this feeling that this was when he might finally know Nora after being on the outskirts of her emotions for so long. And he so desperately wanted to know. It felt like the only way to know her before this was through sex, through seeing her when no one else was looking and her emotions and her pleasure took over and she was just…her. But if she could give him words and context for the rest of who she was, that would be even better. Then he might, finally, know all of her.

“When I was in high school I dated this guy—Charlie—and we dated for a year, almost a year and a half. And he knew everything about me. All of my secrets, all of my past, all of the things about me that I was scared of people knowing. But he was a year older than me and so when he was going to graduate I wanted to break up because I didn’t want to be that high school girlfriend left behind, you know? I didn’t want to be worrying if he was going to cheat on me with some college girl, and I thought if it was meant to be we’d find each other again. But then, when we did break up, he spread this video of me going down on him around the school and it destroyed me.”

Harry’s heart stopped. Of all the things he thought Nora would share with him, this didn’t even make the list of things he expected. He wanted to hold her but she was sitting bent over, her eyes not even meeting his, and he knew that she had to do this on her own.

“And he didn’t even care? Or get it? Like he didn’t understand why I was so hurt--or he pretended not to, because if he didn’t think it would effect me then why did he even share them in the first place, you know? And then he graduated and he could just leave, but I had a whole nother year there in that place. And it was hell. My friends stuck by me, thankfully, but everyone else treated me like I was trash. And I couldn’t bring myself to file a police report or something because rehashing it all to some police officer felt even more horrible than just dealing with it on my own. But anyways,” she said, running her hand through her hair, “ever since then I’ve had trust issues with relationships. Especially when I have feelings for someone and trust them. And so with you, it was like I had this trust in you from the beginning and you were so good but also wanted me so much and it just…it was too much for me. But Leo I could hold at a length, you know? Like I could keep him away from my heart, but you, you wormed your way in without me even realizing it.” Her eyes met his then, and they just looked at each other for a bit, Harry struggling to find the right words. If there even were such a thing as the right words. Which there probably weren’t.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Harry said, picking his words carefully. “For him to have done that to you…it’s horrific. And I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

She gave him a small smile, her hand flickering up to wipe a tear from her eye. “Thank you.”

“When you said I…I wormed my way into your heart,” he said, breathless, “did you mean that?”

She nodded, hair falling into her face.

Harry scooted closer to her, so close that their knees were touching. They both sat criss-cross-applesauce on his bed and somehow it felt so intimate, more intimate than anything they had done before because they were just looking at each other. “You wormed your way into mine, too,” he told her, a light chuckle leaving his lungs. “And you haven’t left. Did I?”

He ran his fingers over her knee and he could hear Nora’s inhale of breath. “No,” she said softly. “I just refused to believe it.”

“Well,” he said, taking her hands in his, finding joy in the feeling of her skin under his again after so long. “Do you believe it now?”

Her fingers interwined with his and when her eyes met his, Harry knew that she did. “Yes,” she whispered, and Harry didn’t pause before taking her face in his hands and kissing her the way he had been craving ever since he woke up in an empty bed.

Nora’s reaction was immediate, lips melding with his, body falling into him in the way he had missed. Her fingers scrambled up his back, pulling at the fabric with a desperation that Harry felt in his bones. After weeks apart, he wanted to see her—all of her—and feel her against him.

“Will you take this damn thing off?” Nora mumbled against his lips, pulling at the neck of his shirt. Harry smiled at her frustration and pulled it off, groaning from the way Nora traced his tattoos. Her mouth attached to her favorite spot—the place right above his swallow where she’d sucked a lovebite into the skin so long ago—and it felt like coming home. The pain of her teeth nipping the skin sent goosebumps up his spine and he couldn’t stop the helpless hum that left him, loving the feeling of her so close to him. He could smell her shampoo in her hair when he leaned his head down to rest on top of hers, and when he tugged her head up and traced a line from her earlobe to her neck, wrenching aside her sweatshirt that he wish was his instead, the scent of her laundry detergent filled his senses.

“Your turn,” he said, nudging up her sweatshirt so he could grab onto the bare skin above her leggings. “Wanna see you.”

Nora leaned back and smiled at him, one of the smiles she gave when she was perfectly at ease. The same one he earned when he brought her ice cream to the couch or tucked the blankets in around her in bed or wiped at a bit of toothpaste at the corner of her mouth. The fact that she was at ease with him again meant the world to him—he was safe for her. After so many men who weren’t, she trusted him, and Harry was never going to give her reason to think it was misplaced. She pulled off her sweatshirt and he helped her get it over her head when it got stuck, muffled curses leaving her mouth before their lips could reconnect.

But Harry missed her skin. So he gently laid her back and set about recreating one of their first moments together, kissing a line from the top to the bottom of her body. Trembling mewls fell from her lips as he went about his work, sucking on her nipples like it was his God-given duty. “I, missed, you,” he said against her skin, each word with a suck of his lips, earning him a wanton hiss that left his aching for her. “All of you.” He licked a stripe from her rib cage to her belly button, softly nipping at the skin of her belly. He loved digging his fingers into her skin and adored the fact that she let him suck marks onto her. Most girls hated them, but Nora didn’t mind in one bit, and Harry was an arrogant son of a bitch and loved the idea of her looking in the mirror and seeing proof of how much he cared for her.

When he made it to her leggings, Nora wasted no time in lifting her hips so he could peel them down her legs. Harry pressed his forefinger to the fabric right over her center and gasped, looking up to catch her eyes. “You’re dripping, love.”

The blush that colored her cheeks felt so out of place in the moment, but Harry loved it all the same. “Your lips are…” She paused, searching for the right word before settling on, “good.”

“Good?” He hooked his fingers in the hem and pulled them down. “You need to work on your vocabulary, baby.” He loved using that pet name on her and he loved even more when it made her smile.

“It’s not my fault I’m not a—fuck—literature major,” she replied, cursing when his tongue licked a circle on her folds. “H, please, Jesus.”

Harry peeked up at her and sucked harshly on her clit, a sharp squeal reverberating in his ears. “Not Jesus,” he teased, rubbing circles on her clit as he nosed at her skin, “just me.”

Nora snorted, but when Harry dipped his finger inside of her, it quickly changed to a gutteral cry that only rose as he found an even rhythm of his finger sliding in and out of her, his tongue licking cirlces on her clit at an even beat. It was like music to him, the most perfect symphony of sound. Her fingers wound into his curls and when he curled his finger inside of her she tugged on his locks, a groan leaving his lips and falling on her skin, drawing a gasp from her. It was give and take and give and take and it was Harry’s favorite game.

“H,” she said, tugging at his head, “need you.” She groaned as he sucked on her clit again, Harry ignoring her words. He had missed the taste of her on his tongue and he wasn’t about to give it up. “Please,” she cried, “I’m too sensitive, I want you.”

“What do you want?” He asked, adding another finger just to torture her for a little bit longer. He lived for her little whines and moans, he decided, the way her eyes fluttered shut and then open, desperately trying to keep him in view. “Use your words, princess.”

“Your dick,” she said, not even wasting a second. “Deep. Please. Please, H.”

“Fuck,” he breathed, drawing his fingers from her, storing the groan that left her deep inside of him to remember for later. Harry wasted no time in pulling at his boxers, tugging them off and dropping them to the floor. She bent at the waist, sitting up and pulling his glasses from his face—he wasn’t sure how they had survived his assault on her skin—and tugging open the drawer in his bedside table, searching around for a condom.

“You’re out,” she said, turning to look at him with a surprised look on her face.

Harry let out a string of curses and clambored over to the table to look inside. She was right though—the brothers must have stolen them in the weeks since he’d last seen her. He’d been low before then, but he hadn’t had any reason to restock. “I—I didn’t need to restock,” he said, looking at her, trying to gauge her reaction.

Nora wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him back down against her, his body resting on top of hers, his dick pressed against her skin. “You haven’t been with anyone else?”

He shook his head. “You…and him?”

She nodded slowly and Harry tried to ignore the part of him that hurt. She was with him now. In his bed, with him, no intention of leaving. “It wasn’t as good,” she whispered, runing her fingers across his jaw. “He didn’t know me like you do.”

That sure as hell made him feel better.

“And we always used a condom,” she continued. “So I’m clean.”

His eyes widened at her meaning. Bare? With her?

Harry thought he might cum from the thought itself. “Me too.”

Her voice was small when she asked him, “Is that okay with you?”

Harry took her face in his hands and kissed her nose, begging her to see how much he cared for her, wanted her in every which way. “Baby, that sounds like fucking heaven.”

She smiled, her lips crinkling at the edges, and Harry kissed a line across the freckles that danced on her cheeks. “I want to know what you feel like,” she said, testing the words, “bare. Inside me.”

The deep growl that left Harry was one he’d never heard before, but it perfectly encapsulated how he felt at hearing her speak like that. “You…are magnificent,” he told her and then he leaned his body up, just enough so that he could reach down. Her fingers drew circles on his arms as he pumped his dick once, twice, a hiss between his teeth filling the silence around them. When he brushed his tip against her folds, they both moaned and Harry recaptured her lips, wanting to feel her moan against his mouth. He wanted to not miss one single sound that left her when he pressed into her.

And when he did it was like remembering how to speak.

Nora’s hands grabbed at the skin at his shoulderblades, begging for purchase—something to grip as he pulled back and then in again. The feeling of being bare inside of her, of feeling the velvet of her walls and the way she gripped him when she clenched without meaning to, Harry decided this was better than any high. “Faster,” she mumbled against his chin, but Harry shook his head. He wanted her slow, he wanted to feel her.

“Want this to last,” he whispered, words threatening to expose his deepest fears.

But she knew immediately, her hands cupped his chin as he thrusted deep inside of her and she said, “I’ll be here in the morning. And every day after. Okay?” She kissed his nose, then his eyelids when his eyes shuttered closed at the grip she had on his heart. “We have all the time in the world.”

Harry gathered her in his arms, wanting to be as close to her as humanly possible, and drove himself as deep as he could. Her legs hooked around his waist, begging him deeper, the neverending stream of moans spurring him on. But he tried to hold back, wanting to enjoy every second of this. Because she—she was heaven and Harry didn’t want to leave.

“I know you want slow,” she said, digging her fingers into his skin, “but I need slightly faster. Please, H. Please.”

That was all he needed. He would have slower later. He wanted to please her, he wanted to give her everything she asked for and more. So he leaned her down on her back and lifted her foot to rest on his shoulder, earning him a deeper angle and drawing a gutteral moan from her chest as he slammed into her. Their hips met over and over again, the only sounds the sound of skin on skin and the moans and breaths that left them both. Harry drove deeper and deeper, wanting to find every inch of her and when he hit a spongy spot she keened, back arching up into him, her breasts bouncing up and down in a way that begged to be touched.

So he did, never wanting to let her be without his touch. “You’re perfection,” he mumbled against her skin as he licked patterns on her skin, kneading into the other breast as he drove his dick deeper inside of her, hitting the spot repeatedly. “Utter perfection. Goin’ to tell you all the time, yeah? Never want you to forget it. How perfect you are. Nora. Nora, fuck, you feel so good,” he said, words a mess in his brain. He didn’t even know what he was saying but from the way she gasped and clenched around him, he knew she liked it so she kept going. He told her that she was all he thought of, of how he’d tugged himself off in the shower to the thought of her, how he could barely stand to sit next to her in class knowing he couldn’t have her. How she ruled his every thought and dream.

“I’m about to come,” she said, arms hooking around his shoulder so he could press closer to her, “you?”

He nodded, hair sweaty against her shoulder where his face rested. Her legs had fallen back to the bed and they were impossibly close. Harry didn’t know two people could be this close, but with Nora it didn’t feel like enough. He wanted to be inside of her skin somehow. To see every nook and cranny of her. He dug his knees into the bed and kept up the pace, hands kneading every inch of her skin, words whispered in her ear for only her to hear, and she did the same. She told him how much she cared for him, how she missed him every moment of the day, how being with him was a new kind of solace. Her fingers drew lines down his back that he decided he would treasure for the rest of time.

Suddenly, her walls fluttered around him and then clamped down and Harry knew she was coming. Her back arched her hands scrabbled for purchase on his skin, his name leaving her mouth in an echo, a prayer, a desperate desire for salvation. Harry could feel himself falling after her and he slammed into her once, twice, and again, and then he fell, holding her still against him as he came, her name whispered in her hair.

She held him against her, arms a cage around him and Harry didn’t want to move. He didn’t have muscles left, he didn’t think.

“H,” she said, kissing his shoulder, “I should pee so we can sleep.”

“But I want to hold you.”

He could feel her smile against his skin. “After. Promise.”

“Fine.” He rolled to the side and she kissed his nose once before pulling on her sweatshirt and his boxers, padding over the door to go pee. Harry’s eyes fell to the sheets which they had claimed as their own and he smiled. He had missed her—everything about her, but this was how they had started in so many ways. This was where they learned each other, memorized one another.

The door opened and she was back, a smile on her face, a flush on her cheeks. It was quiet downstairs—the party must have ended while she’d been here, he realized. “C’mere,” he said, arms outstretched.

She answered by stripping off her clothes and falling back into him. Her chest pressed against his, legs intertwined, and they lay there. “Missed you,” she said softly. “A lot.”

“Me too.”

There was a pregnant pause before she asked him, “H?”

“Mhmm?”

“Can you…” She trailed off and Harry swiped at her hair, pushing it back so he could kiss her neck.

“What is it?”

“S’awkward,” she said and Harry chuckled.

“We just had sex, baby, you can’t say anything that’ll be awkward.”

She ducked her head so her chin rested on his arm which was wrapped around her. “Can you put it back inside me? Miss the feeling.”

He stilled. Fuck, he thought, where did she come from? “Course, love.” He lifted her leg slightly so he could fit there, and then tugged at his cock a few times before pushing gently inside of her. “Still wet,” he choked out. “How?”

“Always want you,” is what she replied and Harry keened.

He pressed kisses to the back of her head and tugged her closer into his body. “Sleep now, huh?”

“Love you,” she breathed out and Harry’s blood stopped in his veins. It was so sudden, but at the same time, so right. The words were what he needed to hear always, he realized. The ones he had been missing.

“Love you,” he answered and closed his eyes against her hair, thankful that she’d be there in the morning so he could say it again.

Waking up next to Harry, shirtless and holding her close, was a dream in of itself.

Nora blinked her eyes sleepily, adjusting to the sun streaming in his windows. He had these soft grey curtains that didn’t do much except hold off the harshest parts of the sun, so whenever she slept over she usually woke up fairly early. Not that she minded too much—it meant she got to watch Harry as he slept, which he hated her doing when he was awake. He always got twitchy under her gaze and ended up distracting her, usually with his lips.

She rolled slowly in his arms so that she could look at his face. His brown curls were smashed against the pillow, long eyelashes framing his cheeks with an impossibly sharp cut to themm. His nose—Nora had always loved his nose—and his perfectly soft lips. Nora reached out a hand and brushed her fingers across his jaw and Harry’s eyes fluttered, but didn’t open. Nora decided that was a good sign, and continued to trace the outlines of his features. She’d missed looking at him studying him, just being with him. She didn’t realize it until she was gone, how much she ached to be with him. And now that she was here, she wasn’t going anywhere. She pressed her lips to the column of his neck, right above his adam’s apple, before gently pulling his arms away from her waist. He was pliant under her touch, adapting quickly to her absence, which she tried not to think about too deeply.

A collection of paper had caught her eye. It sat in the opposite corner of his room, shoved up next to his guitar. It was the one he still had on loan from the guitar shop downtown. He’d taken Nora there once, wanting her to see guitars and understand them like he did. She tried to, but her favorite part was watching him appreciate them—that was enough for her. She slipped on his tshirt that was closest to her and her underwear and made her way over to the stack. Maybe it was snooping, but the truth was that Harry didn’t share this side of him with her all that often. She’d tried to get him to sing for her, but he had refused time and time again. Nora tucked her legs in and sat down on the floor, grabbing the stack to investigate further. The first couple papers were scribblings—words and letters—chords, she realized, Harry had shown them to her. Some chord diagrams too. But when she got fifth page, it was different. Full lines. Chords matched up with it, his handwriting crossing out things and changing them. It was lyrics, she realized. A song.

She looked up at Harry, still curled up in bed, the sunlight hitting his face perfectly, and wondered if this was too much of an intrusion. But when she glanced down at the pages, she couldn’t resist. She wanted to know his brain, that was all. She wanted to know what he thought about and how. And so she read.

Don't you call him "baby" / We're not talking lately / Don't you call him what you used to call me

I, I confess / I can tell that you are at your best / I’m selfish so I'm hating it

I notice that / There's a piece of you in how I dress / Take it as a compliment

Don't you call him "baby" / We're not talking lately / Don't you call him what you used to call me

I, I just miss / I just miss your accent and your friends / Did you know I still talk to them?

Does he take you walking 'round his parents' gallery?

Don't you call him "baby" / We're not talking lately / Don't you call him what you used to call me

She couldn’t help the tears that fell from her eyes because the lyrics were about her. About them. About when she ended things and started seeing Leo. About her calling him “baby” over the phone when he was being annoying, about him seeing her with Leo and the pained look on the face, about the graphic t-shirts that he’d bought that resembled her own. About her accent when she spoke in French that he always loved, how Maddy told her that Harry still would stop and talk to her in the quad. Leo’s parents owned a gallery a few towns over and he’d taken her there on a date, and she’d mentioned it in class one day. “Don't you call him what you used to call me” hit her the hardest, because she never could. The nicknames that she gave Harry, baby especially, they were all just for him. Leo would give her pet names and she could never do the same. The words came easily with Harry, but for Leo, they would’ve been forced and even she couldn’t do that.

When she left Harry it had caused him so much pain—pain she didn’t even stop to consider. It was a snap decision, Leo, and when she thought about him she thought only of herself. How it would be easier for her to leave Harry, to stop what they were doing, to shove her feelings to the side, ignore them. But she had forgotten that she wasn’t the only person in whatever relationship they had. And she had hurt him, despite that being the utter last thing she wanted to do. She had wanted to save him from the trainwreck that she was, from her inability to care for people in the deep way that Harry did for her. But she had surprised herself, because what she had said to Harry last night after they’d had sex, right before they went to sleep, it was true. She did love him. She loved him with every bone in her body, every hesitant, dubious part of her soul.

She was his, even though it scared her.

“Cherry?”

She looked up at the nickname, one he hadn’t called her in a while. He was sitting upright in bed, looking at her on the ground with his papers in her hand. “I was curious, I read them. I’m sorry if they were private, I just—I wanted to understand.”

Harry shook his head at her, giving her a warm smile that immediately put her at ease. “It’s fine, love. What do you think?”

Nora looked back at the paper she was holding and then up at him. “Is this one about me?”

Harry’s eyes widen and she can see the panic on his face. He must not have known this one was in the pile or that she’d read it. “Fuck. Um, yeah—I’m sorry, I just…I needed to process, you know? And then I wrote it, I’m so sorry, it’s so personal, I—“

“H, stop.” She got up, feet padding on the rugs on his floor over to his bed. She laid the paper on the duvet and crawled over to him, throwing her legs over his so she could sit comfortably at his waist. “Don’t apologize, yeah? It’s okay. You have every right to write all about me, about how I make you feel, about your pain. It’s not mine just because I cause it, it’s yours because you feel it.”

Harry’s eyes searched hers, trying to discern if the words were honest. But he would find no hint of a lie, because Nora wasn’t mad. She was angry at herself for being so blind to how her actions had made him feel. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, curling a finger in his hair. “I’m sorry for hurting you,” she said, and shushed him when he tried to speak. “I didn’t think about how I was going to hurt you, I was thinking about how to protect myself. I tricked mmyself into thinking that somehow by distancing myself from you I was protecting me and you, and in the end I just hurt us both. So I’m the one who gets to be sorry here, ‘kay?”

He brushed circles on her thighs, chin dipped to think about her words. “It was so hard,” he said softly, words quiet in the silent house. No one else was up yet, it was just them, wrapped in their own world. “Seeing you with him. Knowing what you were doing with him and not with me. Having to see you all the time—it was like my own specialized torture.”

“Never again,” she said, pressing a kiss to his browbone. “I promise. I’ll tell you what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking. No secrets.”

Harry wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her body in close, and rested his head right between her breasts. It felt so intimate in a completely different way than anything they’d done before. This felt vulnerable in that way where your heart is completely bared open, ready and willing to be taken from you. “Love you,” he said, words muffled in his t-shirt that she still wore. “No secrets.”

Nora kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek against his soft curls. “I love you too, H.���

They sat there on his bed, their body curled up against one another like two commas, perfectly aligned. Meant to be, as long as there were no letters separating them. And for now, it was just them, the two commas, in a sentence all of their own.

——————————————————————————————-

YEEEE SHE’S DONE!!!!! this took so long to get my shit together to write--I had like half written and just couldn’t figure out how to finish. there were supposed to be four parts, but I ended up just rolling it all together in this one. I’m planning to do an extra (#italy!harry anyone!?!?!?!!) and lmk if you have any requests for Nora + Harry. love u all to pieces!

ask me about fratboy!harry here | masterlist here | fratboy!harry tag

PART ONE | PART TWO

[professorthaddeus]

Out of Sight

This is a companion piece to @io-kj-cr‘s heartbreaking fic, Decisions, an AU of 2x128 where Caleb gives himself up to Trent. Would highly recommend checking it out!

also on ao3

—————————— 

They let him go. 

The chips were down, they were out of options with enemies at the door, Mama and Yeza and little Luc were not going to be trapped in a building with Icky-thong, and in that moment of weakness, they let him go.

“Cad, what do you see?” Fjord, grim. Caduceus is standing at the one window in the room, chosen for his keen ability to read people to keep an eye on the exchange.

The exchange. They’re selling Caleb back to the grossest person in the Empire, to his literal lifelong tormentor, and they’re just sitting here like it’s nothing. 

“They’re not hurting him. They’re just talking.” Caduceus’ voice rumbles in a steady cadence, ever the rock in the rapids. But Jester sees how his knuckles are clenched white around his staff. 

“Is he… how does he look?”

Veth, piping up from the floor, clutching Caleb’s spellbooks to her chest. Yeza’s holding her, Luc sitting uncharacteristically still by their side. He’s got a book in his hands as well. Jester’s heart thuds painfully when she recognizes the title as a collection of Zemnian fairy tales.

“He’s standing tall.”

Of course he is. They’ve all seen Caleb file away his fears and stitch himself together in the moments that really count. They’ve also seen him shake apart immediately afterwards.

This time, none of them are going to be there to help him pick up the pieces.

“This doesn’t sit well with me,” Yasha says quietly, fingers twitching toward her swords.

“Yeah, no shit.” Beau, pacing, coiled like she’s ready to pounce. “This was such a bad plan. I say we go ahead and attack them now. They’re busy with Caleb, so we could absolutely ambush them in a pincer move, or—“

“They’re gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Beau rushes to the window, where Caduceus is stepping aside. He leans back against the wall, looking lost in a way Jester hasn’t seen since his first time on the sea.

“I mean he and his friends stepped into a portal and disappeared.”

Beau’s jaw tightens. “They’re not his friends.”

“I don’t know,” Fjord murmurs, though Jester knows he would definitely be fuming as well if Beau wasn’t so close to the edge right now. “They did warn us they were coming.” He holds up his hands when Beau shoots him a withering look. “It could be a good thing. They might help us get him back.”

“With or without their help, I wasn’t kidding when I said our next step was going to be a jailbreak,” she mutters.

“Agreed.”

Veth lets out a shaky breath. “And he’ll be okay until then. He just has to hold on for one night, and we’ll go get him. He’s the smartest, most capable of us all; he’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, he’s way more powerful than them,” Jester adds, automatic. Something twists in her chest.

“Sure, except he doesn’t even have his fucking spellbooks.”

For once, Veth flinches instead of snapping a retort back at Beau.

“You keep these safe for me until I return, ja?”

“I don’t like this, Cay. There has to be another way.” There’s a tremor in Veth’s hands as she takes the books.

“There isn’t, and we are running out of time. Besides, he won’t kill me. He… ah, he has said many times already he simply wishes to talk.”

Jester winces. It’s going to be a long time before she forgets the haunted look that appeared in Caleb’s eyes every time Trent’s voice slithered into his ear today.

“Be good for your mother and father,” Caleb’s saying, ruffling Luc’s hair. 

He straightens to look at the rest of them, meeting their eyes one by one. Jester can almost hear him counting in his head. 

A wall slams down over his expression as he squares his shoulders.

“I am so sorry about all this.” He continues before any of them can protest. “Thank you all.”

Jester tries not to think it sounds like a goodbye.

She shoves the image of Caleb’s pale, determined face out of her head, swallowing the building lump in her throat. The last thing she needs—the last thing Mama needs—is for her to break down right now. 

“Well,” she hedges into the silence, “he’s got like, a really good memory, you guys. Maybe he doesn’t need them. Maybe he remembers all his spells.”

“I don’t—“ Beau starts, before taking a deep breath. Yasha’s hand is slipping into hers. She softens her tone. “I don’t think that’s how it works, Jes.”

“Oh.”

“Jester, I’m so sorry.” Mama speaks up from where she’s been sitting anxiously beside her. There’s so much regret in her face. “Your friend, he—”

“No, no, Mama, no.” She’s been so strong today, and Jester’s so, so proud of her for facing her fears, but she never should have been forced to do it. “This isn’t your fault at all. We brought them to you.”

Technically, she brought them here. Caleb can blame himself all he wants, but Jester’s the one who put a target on Nicodranas in that letter to Astrid all those months ago and the one who dropped Mama’s name into a conversation with an enemy guard just a few hours ago.

“Who… are they?”

“They’re, um.” Her voice wavers. She swallows again. “They’re bad people. Really, really bad people.”

“Oh, my Sapphire,” Mama hums, and it’s kind of crazy how those three words can sound like music from her lips. She reaches up to cup Jester’s cheek. “You and your friends are some of the most amazing people I’ve met. “And you,” she brushes her thumb gently across her skin, “are more creative than anyone in the world. You’ll find a way.”

Mama presses a kiss to the top of her head and then takes her hands. They’re smooth, warm. Jester looks down. Red and blue, just like when she was little, except now her hands can’t be fully covered by Mama’s. She’s grown up and stepped out of Mama’s arms and the sanctuary of their Chateau. Just like she always dreamed and plotted with Artie. It’s all she can do not to cry.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” she manages, tries for a watery smile.

“Jester,” Yasha ventures gingerly. “Can’t you talk to him?”

She shakes her head, blinking away the blurriness. “Not until tomorrow. I don’t have the energy left to cast a spell.” 

Caduceus clears his throat. “Good.” The rest of them look to him, startled. “Now there’s nothing to do but get some sleep so we’ll be ready for tomorrow. Mr. Wensforth, can you help us set something up for the night?”

The poor goblin looks up from where he’s been wringing his hands in the corner. Jester doesn’t blame him. 

Man, Yussa’s gonna be super pissed when he wakes up to find so many people in his tower.

She can’t imagine how she’s supposed to fall asleep, but Caduceus makes her drink some tea, and eventually she feels the tension of the day seep into her bones. Before it claims her consciousness, she brings the symbol of the Traveler to her chest.

“Artie, look out for him, okay?”

——— 

In the morning, Beau and Caduceus wake her and the others, careful not to disturb Mama, Yeza, or Luc.

Jester tucks the blanket around Mama a little more securely before heading out.

They all cluster together in a smaller room off of one of the tower’s winding stairwells. Caduceus starts passing around breakfast, but she declines, sitting in the middle of the floor instead and prepping a familiar spell. 

Fjord gives her an encouraging nod, holding ten fingers up at the ready. 

She focuses on the image of her friend, on the furrow in his brow as he wields magic like a weapon, on the way his eyes crinkle when he offers one of his soft, rare smiles. She fires up Sending.

“Caleb! Are you alright? Where are you? Are you hurt? Are you in Rexxentrum? I’m sorry, I had to wait until today to Send to reach you but we’re—”

Fjord’s nudging her, signaling the end of the spell. Jester blows a strand of hair out of her face, tapping her fingers against her knee.

She waits five seconds, ten, a minute. No response.

She bites her lip. “You guys—”

Beau’s there already, tugging her into a hug as Fjord gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Veth lets out a muffled noise of frustration.

“He could just not be in a place where he can talk freely right now, we don’t know,” Caduceus says evenly.

“Maybe I should try Astrid?”

Beau shifts, but she doesn’t let go. “I dunno, man, I don’t trust her.”

“She loves Caleb,” Veth says, but again, none of her usual ferocity is there.

“Yeah, maybe.” Beau’s face darkens. “And now she has him back.”

Her words hang heavy in the air.

Jester shakes herself. “Look, fuck it, I’m just going to do it.” She takes a deep breath.

“Astrid,” she chirps. “Is Caleb with you? Tell him to talk to me when he can. Oh also, if any of you hurt him, we’re totally gonna find you and make sure you never—”

“That’s it, Jester.”

“You should send another one. Let her hear the end of your threat,” Yasha says, and Jester swears she can hear thunder roll beneath the mild suggestion.

Fjord cracks something resembling a smile. “As entertaining as that would be, I think—“

Jester shushes them as Astrid’s voice comes back. 

Good morning, Jester. Bren is well and unharmed. He is here with us and under no restraints or compulsion. He is home now.

Jester growls. 

“What did she say?”

“That Caleb’s okay and like, he’s home, or some total bullshit. She’s wrong, obviously.” She has to be. Jester ignores the building pressure in her chest, flicks her wrist to cast again.

“Please, tell me something, tell me anything, tell me you’re fine, or dead, but please, we need to hear from you, we need to plan our next moves and we can get you out of there as long as you just—” Fjord squeezes her hand. Stupid, stupid spell with stupid word limits.

Nothing on the other end anyway. Her eyes sting, and this time, Jester doesn’t try to stop the sob in her throat.

“I’ll keep messaging you, please Caleb, we’re scared and worried, please tell us where you are, we can fix this, we can get you back!”

Finally, finally, Caleb speaks.

I am well, Jester; returning was my decision, and I am unharmed.

He sounds so tired.

I need you all to stay away. Stay safe. I am sorry.

Silence once more.

Jester’s messages have reached across thousands of miles, over oceans and barren wastelands and enemy lines. This is the first time she’s felt the yawning distance the magic has to travel.

She swipes at her eyes, glaring through her tears. 

She knows what he’s doing. It’s what he’s always done, protect and shield and give and give and give like it’s all he’s good for. But she’s also seen him start to unfurl, seen him laugh more and trust more and take one careful step after another out of the shadows of his past. He knows he’s part of their family. They just need to help him remember what that means.

“He said something,” Veth guesses.

“Something awful and self-sacrificing?” Beau mutters. 

“Yeah.” 

Jester pushes back her sleeves, and she can feel a breeze drift into the chamber, the rustle of a green cloak at her side.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to get him, now.”

[prettyboyreid]

can you write one where the reader is learning French and goes to spencer all the time for help since they both like each other. One day he snaps at the reader for how annoying it is, so the reader starts asking help from Emily and he regrets being mean to her. Fluffy ending pls!!!

parle moi

Reader overhears a conversation between Spencer and Morgan, which leads to her ignoring him for a few days.

Spencer x Reader

Word Count: 2,869

“Hey Spence?” you asked almost timidly as you approached his desk.  He looked up from a large book, which you probably assumed was some technical book on quantum physics.  He marked the page before turning his full attention to you, giving you a soft smile. 

“Hey, Y/N, do you need something?” he asked, sitting up slightly in his chair so his back was pressed against the soft cushioning.  I felt so much more anxious now that I was actually face-to-face with him, like he would laugh in my face and think I was an idiot for what I was about to ask of him. 

“I, uh,” you started, fidgeting with your hands behind you nervously as you tried to figure out a better way to say what you wanted.  “I wanted to know if you could help me out with some of these pronunciations?  It’s kind of hard for me to understand what I’m supposed to say based on a book, you know?”

You had been trying to learn French for a few months now.  You were going to a family friend’s wedding in Paris in a little over a month, and you wanted to be able to get around a bit without having to look at Google Translate every five minutes.  Spencer, thankfully, was fluent in it.  You had been asking him to help out every now and then, and he’d been more than happy to help.  But lately, he seems to get annoyed every time I ask him. 

He let out a heavy sigh but nodded reluctantly, running a hand back through his hair as he stood up and followed you to your desk.  You had an old workbook Emily had found when she went to school in France, and she had loaned it to you so you could learn a few basic phrases that should get you through your trip.

“What are you stuck on?” he asked, looking over the problems in the workbook as he waited for your response. 

“Um, number six?  The one about which one you want?  I feel like I can’t get it right…” you said, sitting down at your chair as your eyes raked over the sentence once again.  “Set celui que je vuks,” you tried pronouncing it to him, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you watched him shake his head.

“C'est celui que je veux,” he corrected you, folding his arms across his chest as he looked down at the book.  “You’re using English pronunciations on the words.  French modulation is much smoother, they don’t accent on words as harshly as we do,” he explained, his voice slightly hinted with annoyance.  You gave him a soft nod, thanking him quietly as he turned and made his way back to his desk.

Since it was an office day with no case and just some paperwork to catch up on whenever it did come across your desk, you just kept penciling in your answers in between files.  Around lunchtime, you got up to go fix yourself another cup of coffee over in the little kitchenette area.  As you placed your mug under the spout of the Keurig, you couldn’t help but overhear Morgan and Spencer talking by the entrance to the BAU.

“So, pretty boy, how do you like playing professor with your favorite student?” Morgan taunted him, undoubtedly with his infamous grin as he did so.

“It’s… alright,” Spencer answered almost numbly, like he had rehearsed what he was supposed to say. 

“You don’t sound all that excited, considering you’ve been begging Emily to pair you two up on cases so you can get alone with her,” Morgan replied.  You picked up your mug and added some sugar to it, trying your best not to listen to them (though you couldn’t really help yourself.)

“I know, but… I don’t know.  It’s just… annoying, I guess is the best way to put it.”

You felt your heart sink at the words and your face contorted into a frown, picking up your mug before making your way around the desks and back to your own, out of their line of sight.

You hadn’t meant to be a burden on him, you just figured it would help you learn easier.  Plus, you had an excuse to talk to him.  You didn’t often get that.   Next time, you’d just make sure to ask Emily.

-

Spencer’s POV

“So, pretty boy, how do you like playing professor with your favorite student?” Morgan asked as we came back into the bullpen from visiting Penelope.  I rolled my eyes at the question, but just shrugged as we stopped towards the front so no one else would hear.

“It’s… alright,” I told him.  I wasn’t necessarily lying, I just wasn’t being entirely honest with him.  He raised an eyebrow at my answer.

“You don’t sound all that excited, considering you’ve been begging Emily to pair you two up on cases so you can get alone with her,” he said with a teasing tone, grinning at me as he sipped on his coffee.

“I know, but… I don’t know.  It’s just… annoying, I guess is the best way to put it,” I tried to explain, but when I noticed both of his eyebrows raised, I knew I had picked the wrong choice of words.  “Not-not like that… I just mean… I hate that it’s all I really talk to her about anymore,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.  I blew air out through my nose in a huff as he still looked confused, racking my brain as I tried to figure out a better way to express what I was thinking.  I never was good at that.

“We used to talk about everything, you know?  She always would come to my desk when she had free time just to talk to me about anything… Now every time she talks to me it's only to give her a quick language lesson,” I tried to explain to him, my hands moving with my words as an extent of my expressions.

Morgan just hummed and took a sip of his coffee, shaking his head at me with a grin.  “You could start up your own conversations with her, you know,” he told me, which only earned him a scoff as I sipped from my own hot mug of coffee.  “I’m serious, kid - You can’t complain about not being able to talk to her when you’re not making any of the first moves,” he reminded me.  I huffed softly, folding my free arm across my chest as I begrudgingly listened to him.  

He clapped his hand over my shoulder before bringing me closer to him with a grin and chuckle, leading the two of us back to my desk.  “At least think about it.  You’ll never know if you don’t try,” he reminded me. 

-

Reader’s POV

It had been a few days since you’d overheard Spencer and Derek’s conversation, and you had done your best to avoid him almost completely.  You didn’t have a case this week, which was rare but also a bit of a blessing right now.  Every time you had a question, you went over to Emily’s desk and asked her.  She was always so eager and happy to help, even giving you more common phrases that people were more likely to use.

Spencer, of course, had noticed.  Every time he saw you get up from your seat after a while, he got excited for a moment before he watched you go in the opposite direction.  He would sink back into his chair and just continue to do his work, ignoring everything else around him to try and focus on the task at hand. 

Morgan, as expected, was the first to notice this.  He picked up on you isolating yourself from him (and really everyone besides Emily), as well as Spencer becoming more and more easily aggravated.  He all but bit Derek’s head off when he moved his chicken tandoori lunch to a different spot in the fridge.  

He figured he needed to intervene before it got any worse; he knew how explosive Reid could be. 

You were finishing up one of your files before you opened up your workbook yet again, tapping the eraser end of the number two pencil you held before a call came through on your desk’s phone.  You picked it up, answering in your usual cheery voice. 

“Hey, pretty girl,” you heard Morgan on the other line, smiling a bit as you leaned back in your seat.  “Any chance you can spare me a minute down in my office?”  he asked you.  You checked the time on your watch before nodding, setting your pencil down in the book to mark your page before standing up.  

“Always.  I’ll be down in a sec,” you told him, hanging up the phone before taking the last sip of your coffee.  You headed out of the bullpen and down towards Morgan’s office that Penelope had set up for him a while back.  Given the time of day, the hall was mostly empty, so the only sound was the echoing click of your heels until you opened the door to the office.  You saw him sitting at his desk, going through an old file.  You assumed he just needed help with it. 

“Hey, Der,” you said, closing the door behind you before making your way further into the office.  “What do you need?” you asked, sticking your hands into the pockets of your slacks as you spoke, looking around the almost barren office before your eyes landed back on the tall man.

He looked up with a smile the second his door opened, setting down what he was doing before leaning back slightly in his seat before gesturing to the seat in front of his large wooden desk.  “Have a seat, I just wanted to talk to you real quick,” he said, the pads of his fingers tapping against the arms of the leather chair.  

You sat down as instructed, crossing one leg over the other and rested your hands clasped together in your lap.  “Is everything alright?” you asked almost nervously.  He wasn’t technically a superior to you, but he did hold some power over you.  

He shook his head quickly and chuckled, pulling his chair closer to his desk as he spoke.  “Nah, nothing like that,” he assured you, folding his arms over each other as they rested on his desk.  “I just wanted to know what’s up with you and the kid.”  

You instinctively flinched at the thought, almost forgetting about the entire situation with Spencer until he had brought it up.  “Oh, it’s nothing,” you lied through your teeth, your hands mindlessly tightening around each other.  Morgan frowned.

“Come on, I know I’m no boy genius but I can tell when something’s off with two of my closest friends,” he reminded you, raising his eyebrows as he waited for you to elaborate.  You sighed, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you leaned back into the cushioned seat.

“I heard him say he was annoyed with me the other day,” you confessed to him.  As you saw his raised eyebrow, you let out a breath of air through your nostrils before you explained everything to him. “You two were talking and he said me asking him for help was getting annoying, so I just started going to Emily instead.”

“And ignoring him in the process?”  Derek asked, his arms folded across his chest.  He didn’t mean it to be intimidating, but it still came off that way.  You nodded softly, and he did the same. 

“Maybe you should talk to him about it.  I know for a fact that wasn’t what he meant at all, and I think the both of you need to just sit and catch up before he bites someone’s head off and before you have to go another day without talking to your favorite profiler,” he said with a grin, nodding his head up towards the door as he let his hands fall into his lap.  You gave him a soft smile before getting up, thanking him before making your way out of his office. 

Thankfully, you didn’t have to venture far before you saw the doctor you were looking for, especially since he practically knocked you over as you turned the corner to head back to the bullpen.  His amber eyes went wide for a moment, and his mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish out of water as he tried to think of what to say.  You figured it’d be easier if you said something first.

“Can we talk?” 

He nodded quickly in response, looking around for a moment before he led me back to one of the empty offices.  You assumed he thought you didn’t want to talk in the public eye of your unit, and you were grateful for that.  He opened the door and let you inside, leaving the lights off so people wouldn’t see them as they passed before closing the door behind them.  

You looked around at the room littered with cardboard boxes, a few seats, and a desk, opting for one of the seats identical to the ones in Morgan’s office before crossing one legs over the other.  You watched as Spencer looked around the room quickly and anxiously before leaning against the wooden desk in front of you, waiting for you to say something first.  He almost always hated starting a conversation with you, because he wanted to make sure you said what you needed to before him.

“I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” you began, clasping your hands together in your lap as you looked down at them, almost ashamed of your actions as you thought them over.  

“I just… I heard you saying that I annoyed you and I got upset and figured I just shouldn’t bother you anymore.  I went to Emily instead because I hate to think I annoy you because I don’t want you to end up hating me or something, so I just avoided you entirely so you could have a breather from me,” you rambled off.  You noticed that you started doing it a lot more after you had met Spencer, but you everyone assumed that you had always done it and the two of you were just very alike.

He paused for a moment, to make sure you were finished and to figure out the best way to articulate his response, not wanting to say something to push you away even more.  “I’m not annoyed with you,” he started.  He needed to let you know that first and foremost.  “I was more annoyed with myself, I suppose.  All we were talking about was just… a stupid language and we used to talk about everything.  I missed that and I was frustrated that I wouldn’t even try to talk to you about anything else but God it was so much better than not talking to you at all.”

You watched the way he talked with his hands, the way he avoided your eyes so he could stay focused on what he was trying to say - like he’d forget how to speak if he even looked at you.  His eyes finally met yours as he finished, his hands fishing to the bottom of his pockets as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.  

You stood to meet him, folding your arms across your chest as you gave him a soft smile.  “I’ll make you a deal:  You can help me learn some more French, and then you can come with me to the wedding and we can talk about anything you want for a week,” you propose with a smile, which only grows as you watch his face perk up at your offer.

“Are you sure?” he asks you, standing up a bit more from his position, his hands pressed into the hard wood of the desk.  “I don’t want to be a burden or anything.”

You shook your head quickly in response, shifting all of your weight to one foot as you looked up at him slightly.  “I’m positive.  I needed a date for it anyway; I’d rather it be you than anyone else.”

He raised his eyebrows for a moment before they furrowed together, watching as his eyes darted across your face, making sure he had heard you correctly.  “You-your… your date?” he asked, his cheeks flushing a deep pink at the thought.  

You let out a quiet laugh before nodding softly.  “Yes, Spence, my date.  Unless you don’t-”

“No, no, no, I want to,” he cut you off quickly.  “I just- I didn’t want to impose or anything if you were uncomfortable.”  Ever the gentleman, you couldn’t help but grin as he always seemed to think of others before himself. 

“I’ll send you the flight information,” you told him, leaning up on the tips of your toes before pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.  You turned on your heels before letting yourself out of the office, doing your best to hide your small smile and your faint blush you felt that heated your cheeks.