#I bring you the most blessed photos I’ve taken in years

[inga-don-studio]

She blep

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Brandon Kyle Goodman

Brandon Kyle Goodman can currently be seen playing Deco in Netflix’s Feel the Beat, which follows a failed actress returning to her small hometown, who is roped into training a misfit group of young dancers for a big competition. Other acting credits include eager father-to-be Andy in Amazon’s Modern Love, as well as roles in People Just Do Nothing, Alive in Denver, Plus One, and Papi Chulo. Aside from acting, Brandon has found success as a writer for Netflix’s animated comedy series Big Mouth, which is set to return to Netflix in 2020 after an unprecedented three-season renewal. As a proud gay Black person, Brandon has recently emerged as a staunch advocate for the #BlackLivesMatter movement, actively speaking out against the injustices plaguing the African American community. He encourages his followers to donate to The Innocence Project, The Bail Project, NAACP, and Black Lives Matter.

What drew you to the role of brave, outspokenly queer Deco in Feel the Beat? 

What drew me to the role was Deco’s fearlessness, as well as the movie’s choice to not center Deco’s story around his identity. He was allowed to be unapologetically queer without taking on an oppression-based narrative.

You are in the writing team for Netflix’s hugely successful Big Mouth. Can you tell us about how you got there and what it’s like writing for an animated series?

I was fortunate that the creators of Big Mouth considered reading a script of mine. We met a couple of times and discussed my experiences to determine if the writers’ room was the right fit. Thankfully it was and continues to be. Writing on an animated series like Big Mouth is truly a dream. It forces me to expand my imagination in a way live action doesn’t, while also strengthening my ability to tell impactful stories in new and exciting ways.

What inspired you to enter into the creative industries, and which came first for you—acting or writing?

I grew up with a minster for a grandmother and an actress for a mother, so creativity was ever-present in our household. More specifically, I watched two very talented women write for themselves. They blessed me with that tool. Even though I professionally started as an actor, as a middle schooler, my first love was writing. Acting soon followed. I’ve been fortunate to have many moments where they get to be linked together, and honestly, there’s nothing better.

You use your platforms to speak up and share your experiences as a Black person in America. Can you tell us a bit about how the response has been?

The response has been overwhelming and bittersweet. On the one hand, as a human being, there’s nothing better than feeling heard and seen. On the other hand, as a Black human being, it’s painful that it’s taken this long to be heard and seen, and quite honestly, there are a lot of people pretending they hear and see us. I choose to keep my focus and attention on the ones that really do—the people really doing the work and striving to do better, be better, and fix this abhorrent mess of a system.

In what ways does your activism influence your creative work?

My sheer presence on stage or on camera is activism. I’m Black and openly queer in an industry that doesn’t value Blackness or queerness, and especially not Black queerness. I pick my roles based not just on what I want to do but also on whether the role will be a portrayal that will amplify, elevate, and expand representation, or whether it’s a caricature. More times than not, it’s the latter, and those roles I turn down. Whenever I write, I write for myself and people like me. I write Black characters, POC characters, and, more specifically, Black queer characters, and I do it as fully as possible. I want to be seen as a full person, not just an accessory to the white lead. My activism is my creative work.

Which activists currently inspire you, and why?

There are so many, and they all inspire me for the same reason. They’re bold, they’re vulnerable, they’re smart, and they are committed to the amplification, elevation, protection, and equity of Black people: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, Sonya Renee Taylor, Tamika D. Mallory, Ashlee Marie Preston, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Mila Jam, Tiffany Dena Loftin, Yves, and Kendrick Sampson, to name a few.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get involved with advocacy but doesn’t know where to start?

Start in your community. Start at your place of work, your apartment building, your local businesses. Take it day by day. This is a lifelong commitment to life long change. It’s not going to get done in a day, a month, a summer, or a year. So, if you feel like you have to do everything, you’ll find yourself stuck and not making any change. But start with the three things you can commit to working on this month. If you’re feeling ambitious, maybe it’s this week. Remember, in addition to the protests, donations, petitions, phone calls, there are internal things you need to do. What are you reading? What are you watching? What POVs are you exposing yourself to? It all counts.

On the subject of advice, do you have any for young queer Black folx who want to get into acting/writing in America today?

My first bit of advice is to get into it! We need you. We need your voice, we need your experience, we need you to take up space in these creative spaces. My second bit of advice is to be yourself. Work towards showing up fully wherever you go. Obviously, depending on where you are, there are things you have to do to maintain your safety. Your safety is important. But how do you show up in your mind? Are you free in your mind, in your soul? Are you fully yourself in your spirit? Get to know yourself every day, it will make you a stronger actor and writer. It will bring an unmatched authenticity to your work.

What would you change about the industry if you could?

I would change the white supremacist system of doing things. I would change the value we place in whiteness as the ideal. I would change the lack of inclusion on screen and behind the scenes. I would change the all-white executive suites that think they’re diverse because they have a singular person of color on their team. I would eradicate the violent grip on the keys to “the gate”. I would create systems that mentored and shepherded new talent, especially Black, POC, and queer talent—especially from places outside of LA and NY. I would find ways to empower more artists having the ability to create and share their work in a global way. I would ensure that Blackness was valued and treated with the respect, reverence, and honor that it deserves.

Describe each of the following in one word: Who you are, what you value the most, and what you’d be if you were a food item.

Brandon. Spirit. Mac & cheese.

Thanks for taking the time, Brandon! Feel the Beat is now streaming on Netflix.

Photos: Leslie Alejandro

[watchmegetobsessed]

Dead Or Alive - Harry Styles

a/n: oof okay hello! this is a little different, i guess? but im very excited to share this with you! don’t ask me how i got the idea for this, no clue but it was stuck in my head for days before i finally gave in and started writing it. please share your thoughts and comments on it, i would love to read them!! hope you’ll enjoy it!

pairing: Wanted!Harry x BountyHunter!Reader

warning: violence, talks of drugs, murder, guns, i really lost track of it lol

word count: 15.2k

masterlist

The man in the handcuffs growls in pain again, but you just yank him forward, not in the mood to deal with a whining girl trapped in a six feet tall disgusting looking, oily-faced bald man in his forties.

“Y/N! What do we got today?” Jeremy greets you at the front desk, thumbs hooked into his belt as he watches you tug the guy into the hall of the station, pushing him down to the nearest seat as you step to Jeremy who is already handing you the paperwork.

“Dennis Delgado. Took me a few days to find him, but he couldn’t hide forever,” you grin proudly as you grab a pen and start filling the papers out.

Jeremy walks over to Dennis who just looks up at the officer in disgust. It’s not enough that he is a child molester disgusting prick, he is racist on top of everything and now Jeremy is enjoying having the higher ground, Dennis trapped in his handcuffs while Jeremy will be the one to get him behind bars for a long time.

“Nice one. We’ll have a lot of fun with this one,” Jeremy chuckles. “Want me to ring up your brother?”

“Is he in? Would love to have a word with him,” you nod smiling. When you’re done with the papers you hand them over to Stella, the receptionist who gets to work with them right away so you can get your money.

“Sure, I’ll get him for you on my way,” Jeremy nods, grabbing Dennis by his arm, pulling him along on his way to the elevators. “Come on you scumbag, you have a cell waiting with your name on it.”

The two of them disappear and you get into a little chit-chat with Stella while she is finishing up the paperwork. Leaning against the counter you look around, officers come and go in the hall, all of them dressed in their uniform and for a moment you picture yourself wearing the same outfit. At one point in your life it seemed to be part of your future, but now it would be the most ridiculous sight. Y/N, the best bounty hunter in the region in a police uniform? That’s not happening.

The elevator dings and your brother, Robert walks out. He on the other hand, made this vision happen. He has been an officer for about ten years now and though at first he was outraged that you chose the not so gracious lifestyle of a bounty hunter, but you soon became his unofficial partner, handing him over a wanted person every few days, making his work easier. Everyone at the station knows that Robert is the one who plays by the rules, doing everything according to the handbook, the perfect officer, always working to keep up the peace in town while you are… Well, you are a rebel. You could never play by the rules, always sneaking ways to do things according to your desires. You never liked if someone wanted to tell you what to do and how to do it, you are not a team player or either one that can easily managed by higher forces. It didn’t take long for you to realize your nature will never let you be an officer so you chose the other path that’s somewhere near joining the police, but still playing by your own rules.

Being a female bounty hunter wasn’t the easiest when you started off at the young age of seventeen. In desperate need of the extra money after the tragic passing of both your parents, the two of you had to get along on Robert’s slim, beginner paycheck. He was only twenty-three, started working at the station just a year prior, you knew you had to help him out. He kept bringing up cases, worked on them through the nights and when he passed you on the couch from exhaustion, you sneaked your way into the dining room and looked for easy targets. Speeding tickets, light drug trafficking, whatever you could deal with as a high schooler.

Robert hated the idea of you dealing with wanted people, you had endless fights about it, but you were too stubborn to stop and besides, you liked the adrenaline rush you got whenever you caught another one and brought them back to the station. Loved the stunned and shocked looks on the older officers when you managed to catch a bigger fish. It took Robert a few years to come to peace with your choice of lifestyle and now he doesn’t even try to talk you down. Instead, he keeps bringing you cases that pay well and he knows you’d like them.

“Who did you catch this time?” he grins at you, walking up to you and he envelopes you in a short hug.

“Just got Dennis Delgado, Jeremy took him.”

“Poor Dennis, he’ll have a rough evening,” Robert chuckles. “Did you get your money?”

“Stella is already working on it,” you nod towards the lady behind you.

“Oh, I’ve got you, Sweetheart,” Stella pushes herself back from her desk and walks over to you with an envelope filled with your reward.

“Amazing, thank you, Stella,” you grin at her happily. Dennis was worth a little more than the usual, you are well covered for the rest of the month thanks to him.

“Do you have something coming next?” Robert asks, hands on his hips as he watches you put the money away into your backpack.

“Not yet. Got something exciting for me?”

“An old friend,” he nods with a small smile. He reaches behind the counter and grabs a flyer, handing it over to you, a familiar face staring back at you from the photo this time.

Harry Styles is a name you’ve heard plenty of times and you know him well by now. You actually went to high school with him, you were just never in the same group. He was labeled as troubled all through his teenage years, his parents were brutally killed when he was just a kid, he was tossed around from one foster family to the other, moving around town every few months. It was no surprised when he got into some darker circles, he almost got kicked out of school right before graduation but somehow managed to stick around to get his diploma at the end.

You have actually handed him in a few times before. Never for anything bigger than drug trafficking or robbing smaller shops downtown, Harry is actually not as bad as people tend to portray him to be, he was just not blessed with the best background as most people. He is a smart guy and would never hurt anyone for real, this is why you are now staring down at his flyer shocked.

He is wanted for the murder of a local man who was found dead a few days ago in his home, Harry’s hair was found near the body with no other evidence.

“Are you sure about this?” you ask Robert with a concerned look. This doesn’t feel right. Not that you know Harry that well, but it’s very unlike him.

“Very much. His hair was the only thing we found near the body of Dave RIchards so evidently, he is our number one suspect.”

“I don’t know, this doesn’t sound right,” you think to yourself, staring down at the mug shot of him that was taken the last time you brought him in for selling weed to underage kids. You remember it exactly, because bringing Harry in is always… fun, if you could say that.

That last time, he was already expecting you, waiting around in his usual motel room that is somewhat considered as his home.

“My Y/N! You arrived earlier than I expected!” he greeted you when you kicked his door in. He was sitting in the middle of the double bed, rolling a joint as always, not a care in the world about your arrival.

“You knew I was coming?” you cocked your head to the side walking in and stopping at the end of the bed, watching him finish the joint and simply light it before taking a big puff.

“Of course. I was informed I’m on your list again, just thought you’d give me a few more hours, but it’s alright.” He waved around carelessly before holding out the joint in your way, offering you to try it.

“No thanks, I don’t trust your sketchy stuff.”

“That hurt!” he gasped dramatically, placing a hand to his tattooed chest that was partially on display since his shirts are never buttoned all the way up.

You brought him in that day, stopping for McDonald’s on your way to the station before handing him over to Robert. He was actually a great guy, nice sense of humor and good looks, you never thought otherwise, he was just moving around in different circles than you so you were left with the few jokes he always cracked when you took him in every few months.

“Well, it’s not your job to question his innocence. Want to take the job or not?” Robert asks you.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll find him,” you nod and fold the flyer, sliding it into your back pocket.

Normally, you take the rest of the day for yourself after turning someone in, but this situation with Harry just bugs you way more than to just go home and pretend like it’s not all you can think about. Harry is not a murderer, he would never randomly kill a man, he is not a psycho, just a guy with a rough background and some poor life decisions.

You know the route to the motel like the back of your hand. Arriving to the dodgy parking lot you park your car in the far end before taking one last look at the flyer. Then you push it into your backpack and get out, heading to Harry’s room with firm steps. You see no lights on, the door is closed and you almost don’t even get closer, thinking he is not here when you see someone move around inside.

You are almost at the door when a hand covers your mouth and an arm wraps around your body, pulling you back forcefully. It takes you a moment to recover from the shock as you are yanked backwards, but as you are being dragged towards the alleyway next to the motel you elbow your attacker in the stomach before kicking them in the knees. The hands fall from around you and turning around you pull out your pocket knife, ready to cut throats right away, but you are shocked to see Harry hunched over, groaning in pain as he holds his arm to his stomach.

“The fuck, Y/N?!” he growls, his chocolate curls falling forward, they’ve definitely gotten longer since the last time you saw him, he could easily put them up into a bun now. “What was that for?” he whispers in disbelief, his green eyes meeting yours in a scowl.

“What the fuck do you mean? You attacked me!”

“I didn’t attack you, I was trying to fucking save you!”

“From what?!”

“From the fucking asshole in my room who is four times bigger than you and would have probably shot you the moment you kicked my door in like you always fucking do!”

It’s just now processing in you that if Harry is here, the person you saw in the room can’t be him and he surely looked bulky. Harry runs his hand through his hair, straightening up from his hunched position before he sighs tiredly. He looks… worn-out, even more than he usually does. The dark circles under his eyes and beat-up knuckles are new, he usually looks fine despite everything that goes on in his life, but this is a version of him you haven’t seen. He has definitely been through some shit lately.

“What are you doin—“

“No time for questions now, we have to get out of here,” he cuts you off, grabbing your hand and pulling you through the alleyway to another parking lot on the other side of the motel. You spot his old jeep right away, but you yank your hand out of his hold, stopping in your tracks.

“Wait, my car is there!”

“We’ll come back for that later, but they can’t find you here with me or they’ll be after you as well,” he explains, grabbing your hand again as he pulls you towards the car and this time you follow him blindly.

You get into his jeep without even questioning it, not even caring that he is a man who is currently wanted for murder. Your instinct is telling you that you’re completely fine with him and you believe it. The two of you head out of town, taking the route to the next town nearby, but he takes a turn to the left, the jeep rolling onto a dirty road leading along fields filled with wildflowers. You have a guess where you’re going, there are some abandoned cabins near the woods that used to function as vacation homes, but they were slowly left to stand empty for eternity when a luxury resort was built on the other side of the woods.

“Care to tell me what the fuck just happened?” you ask him calmly, turning to look at him. He has one hand on the wheel, while his other elbow is resting on the armrest, fingers tapping on his chapped, pink lips.

“I’m in… deep shit, Y/N,” he admits with a sigh, eyes glued to the road ahead of him.

“No shit, you killed someone?”

“I didn’t,” he states, his eyes meeting yours for a moment to emphasize his truth. “It was a fucking set up and now they are after me every way possible.”

“Who is? And what did you do to get into so much trouble?”

“I’ll tell you about it when we arrive, okay?”

You sit in silence for the rest of the ride until you finally arrive to the cabins. You follow Harry inside one of them and it seems like he has set his base up here a few days ago. There’s a double bed with blankets thrown over it and a few mismatched pillows, a sports bag with his clothes and a few grocery bags on the dusty kitchen counter, candles everywhere since there’s probably no power in the cabin. You wonder how long he has been camping out here.

“About a week ago I got a visit from Hugo McKain, you’ve heard about him?” he asks as he grabs a bottled water from one of the grocery bags and fills up two plastic cups, handing you one of them.

“Sure. I’ve heard that… he is a big fish,” you nod.

“Yeah. He wanted me to work for him, but I sincerely rejected the offer, however it didn’t sit well with him. He threatened me that if I’m not selling his stuff, then I won’t sell anyone else’s stuff,” he explains, walking over to the bed and he sits at the edge, staring at the cup in his hands. “He gave me another day to change my mind, but I said that I don’t want to get involved with any of the heavy shit he deals with. I was hoping he would just willing to forget about it, but apparently, he is not the kind to just let shit go,” he chuckles bitterly. “A few days ago he sent two of his men after me, but I was able to run away. I was ready to pack my shit up and just leave the state forever, but then the fucking asshole framed me for the murder of that guy. A friend called me to let me know that I’m the only suspect in the case and that my face has been sent out already everywhere in the state. Hugo made it impossible for me to leave, I would be caught the moment I stop to pump fucking gas in my car,” he growls in annoyance. “So it’s a whole shit show, the police and Hugo are after me and I’m fucking stuck here.”

You stand there at a complete loss of words, because though you have no evidence if he is telling you the truth, you just know he is and the situation is fucking miserable. Harry drinks his water and throws the cup into a plastic bag that serves as a trashcan, his fingers running through his hair nervously.

“Do you know who killed the guy?” you speak up after some silence.

“Yeah, one of his men called Axel, he is a proper idiot, I’m actually surprised he didn’t leave his DNA back, just mine,” Harry scoffs.

“If you know they are after you, what were you doing at the motel?” you ask, leaning against the wall, curiously eyeing him as he glances up at you.

“Knew you’d come after me, didn’t want them to pull you into this mess too.”

Your eyebrows rise at his words. He went back because of you? Harry notices your surprise, a smug smirk tugging on his lips.

“What? Couldn’t let them lay a finger on my Y/N, right?”

You can’t help but roll your eyes at him. He has always been so flirty with you since day one, always trying to pull your leg, chatting your ears off in hopes that he can finally drag you to bed one day. But you never give in, it all stays just some empty flirting and a playful banter.

“So what are you going to do now?” you ask clearing your throat. There’s just always been something in the way he calls you his Y/N that makes you a tad bit nervous.

“That’s an excellent question to which… I have no answer,” he truthfully admits.

“You can’t hide here forever.”

“You tryna’ lure me into going to the station with you?” he asks with a grin. “To be honest, I’m surprised you haven’t cuffed me yet. You love that stuff, don’t you?” Harry stands from the bed and strides over to you, the height difference between the two of you forcing you to tilt your head up a little as he smirks down at you, enjoying that he has successfully made you blush. “Question is, have you been the one in the cuffs?”

You part your lips with the intention of answering, but nothing comes out. Harry smirks down at you, so full of himself before stepping away.

“Anyway, I think I’m just gonna lay low here for a while and then hopefully I’ll be able to sneak out of town at one point.”

“You wanna stay here?” you ask looking around. The place is fine for just a few nomad days, but staying here for more seems impossible. There’s no electricity, probably no water, some of the windows are broken in, the temperature must drop drastically in the nights so close to the woods.

“Not that I have any other choices,” he huffs, opening a bag of chips from the groceries.

“Don’t you have any friends who can share their couch with you for a while?”

“You think anyone would want to hide a dude who is wanted for murder and who is also in trouble with Hugo McKain? Baby, even if any of my friends were willing to help, I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t want to pull them into my shit. Besides, Hugo is probably already keeping tabs of all my friends, he has the connections to know everything about me.”

“And what about me?” you suddenly ask. Harry freezes, eyes flickering at you in confusion.

“What about you?”

“Would he look for you at mine?”

Now it’s his turn to rock a stunned expression, eyebrows shooting up as he stares back at you. He wasn’t expecting it, but truth is neither did you. However it doesn’t take him long to turn it into something entirely sexual.

“You know, if you wanted to see me in your bed, you should have just asked.”

Luckily, you don’t fall under his spell this time. Rolling your eyes you put the cup to the nearest surface and head to the door.

“Alright, changed my mind. Have fun camping out here on your own,” you mumble, reaching for the doorknob, but he is quick to get between you and the door, stopping you from leaving.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I was just not expecting you to make that offer, alright?” You take a step back, folding your arms on your chest. “Were you serious about that?”

“It seemed like an option. I doubt you’d be expected to be at my place.”

“And you’d actually let me stay there?”

“I guess a few days wouldn’t hurt. Until you figure out what to do.”

Harry stares at you in awe, like you just did the best thing ever for him and the thought that he never had anyone to do such favor for him is kind of heartbreaking. He might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but there’s just something in him.

You help him pack his stuff back into the jeep, leaving the weathered cabin empty again before you head back to town. Harry drops you off a few blocks from the motel so you can walk back to your car, you glance at his door just once, it’s still closed but they could easily still be there.

Harry is already at your place when you arrive to your building, waiting around in his jeep, he has put a beanie and sunglasses on, keeping his head low. As he follows you up to your little apartment, you actually realize that Harry is about to move in with you for the upcoming days, he is going to live in your place, you’ll share your home with him. How crazy does that sound?

Unlocking the door you walk into your small apartment. It’s just the perfect size for one person, a decent kitchen with a small dining table, a living room that also functions as your study, your desk filled with folders and flyers from previous works. Then you have a little bedroom and a bathroom opening from the living room. It’s cozy and homey, but definitely not the setting you would have ever imagined Harry in.

“So, the couch is a pull out, I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow, make yourself… home I guess,” you tell him walking into your bedroom to get him everything he needs. However, he is following you into the room, already snooping around in your private little space.

As you grab him a blanket and pillow, you find him inspecting your clutters on top of your dresser, your jewelry, perfumes and makeup stuff is just thrown out there, and he seemingly takes an interest in your rings.

“Never seen you wear any jewelry,” he huffs as you walk up to him.

“Don’t like them on me that much,” you admit. “Here,” you give them the bedding and usher him out of the bedroom before he gets way too adventurous and starts digging into your lingerie drawers.

When the pullout is all set up and Harry has settled in a little, you are faced with the fact once again, that Harry is in your home and about to spend the upcoming days here with you, since he can’t really roam around the streets.

You make sandwiches for the two of you and sit at the small dining table, eating in silence until you speak up.

“I can ask my brother to help find the guy who did it. There has to be a way to get you out of this.”

Harry glances at you, chewing on his food before putting the sandwich down, swallowing the bite.

“Not really if they don’t find evidence.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“We?” he smirks at you playfully, earning a blush from you again. You hate the effect he has on you, he is clearly a good-looking guy, you always thought that, even in high school. Thanks to his troubled name, girls easily fall for his bad guy behavior, they just never really saw that being a so called bad guy wasn’t just about the looks, with a slightly similar background you could imagine how hard it really was for him. Though he never really let it show. He is always this whitty, cocky bastard who is ready to flirt his way into your pants whenever the opportunity is given.

“If you keep up with the teasing you’ll find yourself on the street one morning,” you warn him and he just holds his hands up with a smug grin.

“You are the boss lady here,” she chuckles softly before returning to his sandwich.

For the rest of the evening you bury yourself into some other work stuff, you always have a few smaller gigs going on that are easy money, Harry in the meanwhile makes himself comfortable on the couch, watching your tiny TV in silence, letting you do your thing. It’s nearing midnight when you wrap it up and head to have a quick shower. Standing under the hot water you take a few minutes to collect your thoughts and just simply try to get used to the thought that you are in fact hiding a man who is wanted for murder. It’s going to be some pretty interesting days you have ahead of you, that is for sure.

Putting on your oversized t-shirt and cotton shorts you leave a clean towel on the counter for Harry in case he doesn’t have one before heading out.

“Towel is on the counter. Sorry, I don’t have shower gel for men, but the soap is unscented so feel free to use,” you tell him walking out, only to find him already waiting around the door, leaning against the wall. His eyes fall down the length of your uncovered leg, a smirk tugging on his lips.

“If you’re the kind who sleeps naked, feel free to get rid of the textile.”

“Are you a naked sleeper?” you ask tilting your head to the side.

“I can be, if you want me to be,” he grins smugly and you just roll your eyes at him.

“Good night, Harry,” you sigh walking into your bedroom and shutting the door behind you, only allowing yourself to let out a shaky sigh when you are out of his sight. Leaning against the door you hear him shuffling around until the bathroom door closes and the water starts running. You try your best to ignore the thought of Harry currently in your shower naked as you climb to bed and pull the covers over your head. You need the coverage, hopefully it’ll help you with your wandering thoughts.

“Thought you’d deliver Styles by now,” Robert teases you when he meets you at the station the next day. You left Harry at your place, sincerely asking not to trash your home while you’re away and headed to the police station in hopes that your brother might be able to help him out.

“Uh, no. But actually, he is the reason why I’m here,” you tell him with a nervous chuckle.

“What? Did he hurt you or something?”

“No, nothing like that. Can we please talk in your office?” you ask and he nods, leading you up to his office.

Once the two of you are settled and secluded from the rest of the officers, you just decide to start right in the middle and not waste your time beating around the bush.

“Harry didn’t do it. He was framed.”

Robert gives you a surprised look as he leans back in his seat on the other side of his desk. He thinks about your words furrowing his eyebrows before scratching his neck.

“How… do you know that?”

“I just know. He is being framed by Hugo McKain, it was one of his men who killed the guy, not Harry.”

“I have a feeling that your source about this was none other than Harry himself.”

“Does it matter?”

“It does, because of course he would try to defend himself!”

“Harry is not a murderer, Robert,” you snap. “He always owns up to his mistakes and he would never do anything to hurt others. Yes, he is troubled and did a lot of illegal shit in his life, but never anything that could hurt others. He became a target because he didn’t want to join Hugo.”

Robert stares at you for a while, probably trying to figure out whether he should believe you or not. You knew he’d be skeptical, but you can only hope he trusts you enough to help you out in this one case.

“And what do you expect me to do?” he asks after a while.

“He knows the name of the guy. Axel something, can you get someone on his case? Look into the evidence more? Something might come up that could help Harry out of this mess.”

Robert’s jaw clenches as he stares back at you, contemplating his choices but something is telling you he is already in. You won him over.

“I’ll have Jake look into it, I think I know who this Axel guy is.”

“Thank you, Robert!” you cheer in excitement. Jumping from your seat you go around his desk and hug him from behind, kissing his cheek as he tries to escape your embrace. He hates it when you get all affectionate at his work, but you just had to. You head to the door to get out of his hair before he changes his mind, but he stops you before you could leave.

“Y/N, just please be careful with Styles, okay?”

“He is not as bad as people make him sound.”

“I just don’t want him to get you into trouble. There’s only so much I can do to save your ass.” “Don’t worry,” you smile at him softly. “I’ll be alright.”

The rest of the day goes by with catching some stupid guy who was wanted for trying to rob a gas station while drunk, it’s a mystery how he was able to run away, you saw the security footage, the guy was barely standing on his feet, but lucky for you, he is in the exact same state when you surprise him at a bar and bring him in.

It’s past seven when you finally get home. Keying yourself into the apartment you are met with a quite pleasant sight. Harry has pushed the pullout in to make some space in the cramped living room and as you step inside, you are met with the sight of him doing pushups in the middle of the room, no shirt on, just a pair of loose shorts, all his tattoos are on display, a thin layer of sweat covering his body, his curls are held back with a headband. When he hears you arrive, his head shoots up and smirks in your way before doing a few more and then he stops, standing up just as you shut the front door.

“Welcome home, Honey,” he winks in your way and you just roll your eyes at him.

“Turning my living room into your personal gym, huh?”

“I can’t just sit around all day, waiting for you to get home, can I?”

“You can always just fix up my apartment while I’m gone,” you joke chuckling. Setting your bag down on your bed you join him in the kitchen where he is sipping on some water. “Anyway, I have good news for you. My brother said he’ll have one of his guys look into the case. I’m sure he’ll check after this Axel dude you mentioned.”

“That’s great! I’ve also been asking around today, some of my friends said they will try to dig up some dirt that might help me out, but I don’t want any of them to get too deep and then have Hugo go after them too.”

“It’ll be fine,” you nod, convinced that things will turn out well. “Alright, I’ll throw something together for dinner, what—“

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I already ordered, should be here soon.”

“You ordered food?” you ask in surprise.

“Of course. I won’t just eat your fridge out, dinners are on me while I’m here,” he smiles genuinely and you’re stunned by the gesture.

Half an hour later the two of you are sitting on the living room floor, Chinese takeout boxes littering the place around you, having a full on feast because Harry didn’t go light on the order.

“So, tell me, what have you been doing since high school?” he prompts the question. “I feel like I know you but I also don’t. Don’t get me wrong, being handcuffed by you every other month is fucking hot, but I don’t know much about you.”

“There’s not much to know,” you shrug. “I’ve been doing this since I was seventeen, no grandiose career.”

“But did you have any other plans before?”

“Thought about joining the police, but I was never tame enough to follow their rules.”

“Ooh, a little rebel?” he teases you and you throw a handful of napkins in his way, making him laugh.

“You can joke about it, but I’ve had my fair share of trouble as well, you are not the only one who’s been through some rough years.”

“I know that,” he nods, eyes getting serious for a moment. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“You know about them?” you ask in surprise. You didn’t really share it with anyone, talking about the loss of them just made it harder to deal with it and you also didn’t want everyone’s petty.

“You just know about this kind of stuff when you grow up in foster care. Though you were lucky your brother was already of age.”

“I know. I’m convinced I wouldn’t be here if I had to go into foster care.” Putting down the box from your hands you look at Harry. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that.”

“Not that it was any of your fault,” he smiles softly, but you can see the pain in his green eyes. Despite not knowing him well growing up, you always felt this weird urge to tell him how sorry you were for everything he had to deal with. He deserved a better childhood and teenage years and most importantly, respect from people. Everyone just labeled him as a lost case because of his background, but no one really tried to help him. Part of you feels guilty, because you could have helped through those years, but you were a little frightened from him as well, believing the rumors and talks about him, though now you know they were probably just stupid gossips.

Harry reaches into your box, stealing a dumpling and you snap on his hand, but he just pops it into his mouth grinning slyly.

“Hey! You have your own!” you tell him off.

“I know, but yours just tastes better.”

“You are such a pest,” you roll your eyes at him as you grab your box and start eating again.

“So, what does your boyfriend think about me being here?” he asks out of nowhere, but you see through his act. It’s his sneaky way of trying to get you to say if you’re single or not, probably already knowing the answer to that, but you choose to pull his leg a little.

“He is fine. Though you might have to plug your ears in a little when he comes over,” you tell him with a straight face and see his fall, a stunned expression on his handsome face.

“Wait, really? You have a boyfriend and told him about me being here?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I?”

It’s hard not to start laughing, especially when the words process and he realizes that you are in fact taken. The flirty, teasing act is long gone, he presses his lips together nodding to himself as he continues to eat in silence.

“I’m just fucking with you, I don’t have a boyfriend,” you tell him at last, finally letting out a laugh. His eyes snap up at you and a smirk slowly tugs at his lips as he points a finger at you.

“You had me for a hot minute. Nice one.”

“Why were you so surprised when I said I have a boyfriend?” you ask tilting your head to the side.

“Guess the thought was just a little weird, I’ve never seen you with a guy before.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve never been with any,” you point out, furrowing your eyebrows.

“Oh, I know. I never thought you are pretending to be a nun,” he snorts.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you gasp, feeling like it was a subtle way to call you some sort of slut. Harry looks up at your upset expression and he immediately knows how his words were taken.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” he defends himself.

“Then how did you mean it?”

“I meant that I always thought a girl as pretty as you must have plenty of guys after her.”

Your eyebrows shoot up at how bluntly he just called you pretty. It had a refreshing sound after all the shameless flirting he has been doing when it came to you, and your poor little heart immediately skipped a beat upon hearing his words.

“Well, I didn’t have,” you admit with a sad smile. You briefly dated a guy from another school in tenth grade, but after that, your life was just way too complicated to get involved in a relationship and you haven’t really been able to change that even years later. When you’re very keen on some intimacy you go to a nearby bar and just let whatever man to pick you up and have for the night, but that doesn’t happen too often either, because it seems useless most of the time, you can do the job yourself just fine too, you don’t need some random man to call you his babygirl when he doesn’t even know your name. Some never even bother to finish you, they pass out once they got what they wanted so you prefer being on your own.

“Fucking losers!” Harry huffs dramatically. “They have no idea what’s good.”

“You don’t need to say that just to make me feel better,” you roll your eyes at him, but you can feel yourself blushing.

“I’m not, I was always crushing on you a little in high school, if I’m being honest,” he admits truthfully, managing to surprise you once again.

“For real?”

“Sure,” he nods, turning his focus back to his food as he continues to talk. “Even thought about asking you out to prom one time. But I figured you might not even know who I am.”

“Come on, everyone knew who you were!”

“Are you telling me off for being humble?” he asks grinning. “Okay, let me rephrase it. I didn’t know if you wanted anything to do with me after hearing stuff about me, so I just dodged the idea.”

You chew on his words a little before looking up at him, eyes meeting his green irises, though you are usually not one to get in on the flirting, now you just feel like being a little blunt.

“Well, I always thought you were good-looking.”

“Were? Am I not good-looking anymore?” he teases with a dramatic gasp that makes you roll your eyes.

“Well, the smugness takes a bit away from it, if I’m being honest,” you tell him off making him laugh.

Once you both are well fed you clean the boxes up together, you wash the few extra plates you used while Harry dries them off and puts them away. Opening one of the cabinets he moves the door a bit, examining how it hangs a little low.

“I always forget to fix it up,” you sigh. There’s quite a few things that could use some work, but you just never get to start on them so they are always put aside.

You take your turns in the bathroom as usual and you sit at your desk a little, working on a few stuff before calling it a night. Harry is already lying in his temporary bed on the pullout, scrolling through his phone. The covers hide only half of his body, his naked, tattooed chest is on display, one of his arms is tucked under his head, the muscles on his arm flexing just right. He surely is a sight, you can’t deny that.

“Seeing something you like?” His voice snaps you out of your thoughts and you realize you’ve been caught staring. Clearing your throat you stack up the papers on your desk and head into your bedroom.

“Good night, Harry,” you mumble, feeling your cheeks heating up.

“Sweet dreams, Y/N,” he calls after you before you click the door closed.

The next day you go with your usual routine, Robert checks in with you letting you know he already has someone on Harry’s case, so there’s not much you can do for now, only hope that something will surface that can help him out of this mess. Throughout the day you often catch yourself thinking about what Harry could be doing at home all day and you pray to all higher powers he is not currently snooping through your lingerie.

It’s a frustrating day, you couldn’t find the guy you’ve been after but you were really hoping to finally get the money for him. He is big money, but he makes you work for it certainly. When you arrive home Harry is nowhere to be seen, but then you hear the shower running so you figure he must have just been working out and is now taking a shower. Two pizza boxes are set on the dining table and you sigh in relief that you don’t have to think about cooking with him around. Going to the kitchen you are about to grab two plates when you notice that the cupboard door that’s been hanging low a little is now fixed. It’s as new as it never was since you’ve been living here and it gets you wondering if anything else has been taken care of. Going through the kitchen you start to realize that all the little things that’s been waiting to be fixed are now working perfectly: the handle on one of the drawers, the loose tap, the shelf that’s been crooked for a while, it’s all perfect now.

The bathroom door opens and Harry walks out wearing a pair of black sweatpants, his hair is wet and he has a towel hanging from around his neck.

“Oh, hey. Didn’t hear you arrive,” he breathes out throwing the towel to the back of one of the chairs around the dining table.

“Just arrived a few minutes ago. Hey, did you fix my kitchen?” you ask furrowing your eyebrows at him.

“Uh, yeah. Took a look at the stuff that seemed off. Also fixed the shoe rack near the door and the hangers in the bathroom.”

“Oh wow. You really shouldn’t have.”

“Didn’t you tell me to fix the place up while being here?” he teases you with a smirk as he leans against the table.

“That was just a joke.”

“I know,” he chuckles softly. “But I really didn’t have much to do today so I thought I might make myself useful.”

“That’s… actually very nice of you. Thank you.”

“No worries.”

“So how was your day?” Harry asks as the two of you are chewing on the pizza, sitting at the dining table.

“Why are you making small talk like we’re a married couple?” you scrunch your nose, taking another bite from your slice.

“What, I can’t be nice?”

“You can, it’s just you are usually not,” you point out.

“Or you are just never around when I decide to be nice,” he grins. “You usually just burst into my place, handcuff me and then bring me in. That doesn’t give much time to be nice.”

“I wouldn’t cuff you if you didn’t try to run away the first time I wanted to bring you in,” you retort shrugging.

“Okay, first of all, I was not expecting you to just kick my door in and have a fucking knife pointed at my throat, of course I tried to escape! And second, I quite enjoy being handcuffed by you, so I guess it’s not that bad.”

That smug smirk is back on his lips again and you wish you could just wipe it off sometimes. He is so full of himself!

“You are always coming with this cuffing thing. Get a hold of your kinks, Styles.”

“You can’t tell me it doesn’t turn you on. I bet you’d like that, if you haven’t already been cuffed in the bedroom,” he snorts, taking a big bite, the sauce dripping a bit from the corner of his mouth that he wipes with the back of his hand.

“My kinks are none of your concerns,” you sternly reply, but it just makes his grin wider.

“Oh, so you do have kinks! Tell me more about them!”

“Well what are yours?” you retort, hoping it would shut him up, but it has the opposite effect on him. Leaning back he swallows the food in his mouth before starting the list.

“Well I do love getting handcuffed, I’m into spanking, both ways. I have a weird thing for—“

“Alright! I’ve heard enough!” you cut him off. “Stop, just… stop,” you breathe out.

“What?” Harry chuckles, clearly enjoying the situation more than you’d want him to. “Don’t tell me you’re too prude to talk about sex.”

“I’m not,” you answer right away.

“Okay, then tell me about your kinks!” he teases you some more. Snapping your eyes at him you can tell how much he is enjoying making you so uncomfortable, but you also know that he thinks he’ll just make you blush and you won’t tell him a thing. So you decide to give him his own medicine.

“I do in fact like to be handcuffed, I love a good spanking, when my ass cheeks turn red from the slaps, that makes me cum very hard. I love a good old choking and I particularly enjoy giving blowjobs because I don’t have a gagging reflex, makes men go fucking nuts when I have them down my throat to the last inch, I get off their reaction easily.”

Harry’s lips part as he stares at you with a stunned expression, he definitely did not expect that answer, or any answer at all. That face alone makes up for the slight anxiety that took over you talking about what you really enjoy in the bedroom. Your eyes wander down and a triumphant smirk tugs on your lips.

“Don’t be such a horny teenager, I can see your dick getting hard,” you tell him before flipping the pizza box closed and walking into the kitchen you put the remaining of it into the fridge.

“You are such a tease, Y/N,” he shakes his head with a soft chuckle. “But it might backfire, because now I’m gonna get off thinking about spanking you,” he grins at you, but you just shrug, heading to the bathroom.

“Do whatever you want, fantasizing is free,” you tell him before locking yourself in the bathroom.

You’d be lying if you said you don’t think about him in the shower. As your hands move down your body, your fingers wander between your legs, gently playing with your clit while thinking about Harry spanking you. Knowing that he is kind of into the same things as you makes your fantasies even more vivid, but you don’t let yourself get off. You wouldn’t want him to hear you moan under the shower, he would tease you about it forever.

When you’re all done you step out of the bathroom only to get startled by Harry who is standing right at the door, wearing only his boxer briefs.

“Shit!” you gasp, snapping your hand to your chest.

“You took awfully long in there, Y/N,” he smirks at you, but you just roll your eyes at him. “If you ever need help washing you back, don’t be shy to ask me to join.”

“Keep dreaming,” you mumble under your breath as you walk past him and make your way into your bedroom.

“I already do that!” he calls after you before you shut the door closed.

Throwing yourself to your bed you take a deep breath closing your eyes. If he keeps up this act, you have no idea how you’re gonna survive having him around any longer.

Two days go by in the same manner. You spend most of the day out doing your usual stuff, you actually manage to catch another guy who was a small reward, but it’s more than nothing. Harry usually has dinner ready and waiting for you by the time you get back home. During these two days he has fixed up basically everything that wasn’t working in your apartment, freeing you from doing it yourself for probably twice as long as he did.

You sit and eat together, Harry usually tries to get under your skin with some more flirting that you return with a cold shoulder, but then, when you’re lying in the comfort of your bed or standing under the hot water in the shower, you always find your thoughts wandering off to the man on the other side of the door.

Ashamed to admit, but you’ve gotten yourself off once thinking about him. You woke up in the middle of the night from a quite hot dream that, of course, featured a shirtless Harry and you just couldn’t stop yourself from bringing you some relief. For a little while your hands weren’t yours, you imagined that Harry’s big, calloused and ring clad fingers were moving against your body and you needed every drop of self-control not to moan his name out as you came. You blame it on him being so comfortable shirtless around your place, he has been really making himself feel home. Not that you’re complaining, he is a sight for the eyes certainly, but it’s also giving you a hard time.

Robert soon asks you to swing by the station to discuss some details about Harry’s case. You can tell he couldn’t dig up anything helpful, he would have already mentioned it through the phone, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything that can be useful in further investigation.

“So, I’ve caught wind of Axel Morris being involved in the death of the victim, but we haven’t been able to recover any evidence that would point towards him, unfortunately,” Robert explains as the two of you sit in his office. “Didn’t want to bring him in for questioning either because then Hugo would find out we are after him.”

“So what can be done now?”

“I’m… really not sure, Y/N. If Axel doesn’t magically confesses the murder on tape, I’m not sure I can do anything to help Styles.”

Chewing on your bottom lip you’re trying hard to think of what to do. This can’t end like this, there has to be a way out for Harry…

“Look. I know you’re trying to cook up something to help Styles, but I’m not sure I can give you much time.”

“What do you mean?” you ask with a puzzled look.

“I mean that…” He glances at the door and then leans closer, speaking more quietly. “If I had a guess where he could be found, I would say he is at your place as we are speaking. I can’t let a guy walk free who is wanted for murder, Y/N. I eventually have to bring him back.”

“Alright, alright. Just give me a few more days. I’ll figure it out,” you plead, running your hand through your hair. Robert sighs, shaking his head.

“You have three days. That marks ten days since the warrant has been out. If you don’t bring me evidence by then, I’m sending the guys to your place to get him.”

“Three days, alright. I’ll… figure it out. Thanks, Robert,” you nod, leaving his office in a rush.

You have three days to find evidence against Axel and free Harry, but how do you even start? You’re good at what you do, but this is kind of out of your field and you’re not sure you can deal with it.

Walking around town you try to come up with an idea, but end up doing what you always do when you’re stuck on a case. Thanks to your work you’ve built up quite a web of connections, you always know someone who knows someone who is exactly the person you need. So sitting at a diner, munching on a late lunch you start calling your connections to see if you can dig up anything that could help.

A few hours later the situation becomes brighter and you finally have a somewhat useful plan so you head home to let Harry in on what you’ve come up with.

He is seemingly surprised when you arrive home earlier than the usual, he is sitting at the dining table, a bowl of instant noodles in front of him as he is watching some video on his phone. Like usually, he is only wearing a pair of sweatpants, his tattooed abdomen on full display.

“Oh, hi! Something happened?” he asks, concern showing in his eyes as he watches you kick your shoes off and storm into your bedroom, going straight to your wardrobe to dig up one particular outfit. “Y/N?” you hear him call out for you, his voice coming from your door.

“Yes! I knew I still had it!” you cheer in triumph as you hold up the latex set that clearly leaves very little to the imagination. When Harry sees it, his eyes go wide and his imagination probably gets wild for a moment, because he clears his throat as he looks at you puzzled.

“What do you need that for?”

“It’s part of my plan that will get us evidence against Axel Morris.”

“I’m not really following, so please elaborate?”

“I talked to Robert, he said we need to get him to confess. Now, I made a few phone calls and found out that our friend, Axel is a regular at this strip club called Siren. I’ll pretend to be a dancer and wrap him around my fingers and get him to confess while recording. You said it yourself, he is a real dumbass, I’m sure I can make it work.”

Harry stares at you frozen for a long moment before he lets out a heartfelt chuckle and now you’re the one confused about what’s really going on.

“S’cute you think I’m letting you close to that man. Funny, that was a good joke. Alright, what do you want for dinner?” he asks, walking back to the dinner table, but you chase after him.

“It’s not a joke, Harry. Pretty much our only chance to get you out of this mess!”

“You are not going anywhere near that guy and that’s not up for debate.”

“Not that you can tell me what to do!” you scoff at him.

“Y/N, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” he shakes his head sitting back to the table, stirring his pasta around with the spoon.

“I certainly know, and this is pretty much your only chance to save your ass, Harry.”

“Not if it means you go near Axel, nah,” he shakes his head calmly, as if it wasn’t even an argument and he had the right to grant you permission.

“Well, I’m doing it and you can’t do anything about that. I’m going in tomorrow. I know one of the dancers, she is helping me set it all up,” you shrug, your attitude meeting his careless one, but he doesn’t like your answer, not even a bit.

“Y/N, you are not going there!” he snaps, standing up, the chair falling back from the sudden movement. “That psycho killed a man or did you forget about that?!”

“Okay, so what’s your plan to save your ass? Because there’s literally no other choice,” you retort giving him a frown as you march back to your room and Harry follows you.

“But it won’t be you dressing up as a stripper, seducing a fucking murderer to get him to confess!”

“So then what is it going to be?!” you snap at him facing him again. “Because Robert gave me three days to sort things out before he comes here and takes you in himself!”

“Then I’ll go to jail! No big deal!” he throws his hands into the air like it was just a minor inconvenience and not a case of murder that could put him behind bars forever.

“Are you fucking insane?” you laugh in disbelief. “You’re willing to lose the rest of your life for what? Nothing at all?!”

“It’s not nothing, Y/N. You are not getting yourself into this mess and it’s not up for debate.”

“You hold no control over me, Harry!” you scream at him at this point, fed up with his bullshit.

You find yourself pinned against the wall in a blink of the eye, Harry is pressed up against you, hands grabbing onto your forearms as he keeps you in place firmly, one of his thighs coming between your legs as his face is dangerously close to yours now. He knocks the air out of you for a moment and you stare back at him with parted lips for just a split second before your instincts kick in.

You easily knee him in the crotch, giving you just enough opportunity to grab one of his wrists and twist it behind his back, forcing him to get on the ground, growling in pain.

“Fuck! Y/N!” he groans, snapping his other hand against the hardwood floor. You give him another squeeze as a warning before letting him go and he falls to the ground for a moment before he pushes himself up to sit on his heels.

“You still think I can’t protect myself against a man?” you sneer at him walking over to the bed to grab the outfit that was tossed to the side in the hustle.

“Shit, I think you broke my dick!” he breathes out hunching over and you just smile to yourself as you hand the outfit up to the side of your wardrobe.

“Don’t be such a crybaby, you’re fine.”

“Don’t think so, might need a get-well kiss on it though,” he smirks through his painful expression and you roll your eyes at him. How is he still at it when you just kneeled him in his crotch? “Okay, your message came through very clear though, but I’m still not a fan of your plan,” he sighs finally standing up from the floor.

“It’s gonna be easy, I’ll get him a little drunk, offer him a private dance, make a move and get him to talk. If he really is that dumb like you said, I can easily get him to open up, just gotta make sure he is focusing on something else,” you explain gesturing towards the outfit on the hanger.

“You can’t wear that, Y/N.”

“This is what strippers wear, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“My problem is that it’s like… nonexistent. There’s no textile at all!” he rages, still eyeing the red latex set.

“Are you… jealous?” you ask, starting to get a feel of what’s really going on. Harry’s head snaps in your way and the look in his eyes answers your question even when he tries to hide his real reasons.

“Jealous of you becoming a stripper? I bet I can make more than you if I became one,” he scoffs smugly.

“Oh my god, you are so fucking jealous!” you laugh, enjoying this one in a million moment. “What’s next, you have feelings for me? Are you gonna confess your undying love?” you tease him.

“Okay, you had your laughs, that was enough. Excuse me if I’m looking out for you and I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

“Don’t get all smitten with me now. I’ve been doing just fine without you so far.”

“Yeah, how many people did you bring in for murder?” Harry questions and that leaves you without an answer. Not that you don’t know it, but because the number is exactly zero. You’ve been doing your job for quite a while and there’s been all kind of cases under your hands, but not murders. Though you are completely capable of defending yourself, you’re not sure you want to deal with monsters who took a human’s life. The only reason you took Harry’s case was because you had an inkling feeling from the very start that he did not do it.

“Just as I thought,” Harry scoffs. “Listen, if you really want to do this then I’m going with you. No way I’m gonna just sit around here and wait to see if you make it back home.”

“How do you plan on leaving the house? Someone might recognize you and then it’s game over.”

“I’ll just… disguise myself,” he shrugs. “Can’t be that hard.”

You never thought the day would come when you see Harry Styles wearing a fake mustache and a ridiculous wig, secured with a beanie to his head. The moment the two of you finish his disguise, you can’t hold your laughter back. He looks so damn ridiculous, you can barely breathe through your laughter as he checks himself out in the mirror.

“I look like a fucking pedophile,” he shakes his head chuckling as he pushes some fake hair out of his forehead. “Where the fuck did you find this wig?” he snaps at you in disbelief.

“Does it matter? You look so fucking bad!” you laugh hysterically and Harry just stands there, waiting for you to finally stop, but it seems like he is not bothered by your reaction. He probably finds it equally funny too.

It’s currently seven pm, you have to head to Siren soon to start your fake shift as a stripper and you haven’t been able to talk Harry down from following you, so there you are, getting ready to fool everyone around you. Harry with his awful disguise and you with your stripper outfit.

When you finally catch your breath you leave Harry in the living room to get ready as well. Following a heavy makeup with dark, smokey eyes, you also put on a wig, a short, red bob that’s part of the outfit. Then you squeeze yourself into the latex, the tiny top barely covering you, the skirt is not even a skirt, rather than just a belt. As an extra to the fit, you’ve put on a red corset, though it’s more so you can hide the voice recorder since the original outfit doesn’t give too many places to do that. You pair it all with fishnet tights and a pair of black, thigh-high boots. As you check yourself out in the mirror you don’t even recognize yourself. Y/N is officially gone, the girl in the boots is… Crystabel.

Opening the door you step out of your bedroom, Harry is standing in the middle of the living room, busy with his phone so at first he doesn’t even see you walk out.

“Ready to leave?” he asks, eyes still on the screen of his phone.

“I… guess?” you breathe out, feeling extremely self-conscious in this revealing set.

When Harry finally looks up his mouth drops open. He is not even trying to hide his hunger as his eyes rake down the length of your body. He takes his time to take in every inch of your exposed skin before his gaze settles on your eyes behind your long fake lashes.

“Holy shit,” he breathes out and it gives you quite the confidence boost.

“You like it?” you ask, striking a pose as you push your hips to the side and place your hands on your waist.

“I-I’m… I’m fucking speechless,” he chuckles as you walk closer and grabbing the strings of his hoodie, you tug on the playfully while he is still shamelessly checking you out. “I don’t know how I could live this long without seeing you like this.”

“You are such a flirt,” you roll your eyes, but just as you are about to step away from him he grabs you by your waist and pulls you against him firmly. Your hands move to his broad shoulders right away, trying to keep your balance in his hold.

“I might be a flirt, but you are the hottest woman I’ve seen and I admit I will be fucking jealous of every man that’s gonna lay their eyes on you tonight.” His voice is low, full of lust and if it wasn’t for his funny disguise, you would have melted right into his arms in a heartbeat.

“I can’t take you seriously with this mustache on,” you chuckle softly, running your fingers over the fake facial hair, the pad of your fingers slightly touching his soft lips underneath.

“Just wait until we get back home and I get rid of it,” he smirks and winks at you, making you chuckle, but you can also feel yourself blushing at his words.

You put on a trench coat to cover the racy outfit as the two of you make your way to the club. Harry is driving, but you took your car in case someone might recognize him near the club. Arriving Harry parks at a darker corner in the parking lot and he pulls out a little box from his backpack.

“Alright, let’s wire you up, Love,” he smirks as you undo the coat and let him help you get the devices situated on you.

The voice recorder gets pushed into your stomach, hiding behind your corset. It’s thick enough that it doesn’t give away that anything is hidden under it, it’s just a little uncomfortable for you, but you are sucking it up.

“Here, put this into your ears,” Harry hands you an earpiece that you place into your right ear, hiding it with your wig. “It’s not the best quality, but you’ll be able to hear me and I’ll hear everything around you. We need a safe word if anything happens so I know I have to go inside.”

“This is starting to look like a spy movie or something,” you mumble under your breath as you start buttoning your coat again.

“Don’t turn it into a joke, Y/N. Axel might be a stupid jerk, but don’t forget he killed that man. He doesn’t care if you’re a woman or not, or if you’re a real stripper or not.”

“Alright, alright,” you sigh nodding. “How about… cherry?”

“Okay. Use it if you are in trouble or someone is hurting you or anything.” You nod, fidgeting with the end of the coat, but Harry grabs your hand and makes you look at him. “I mean it, Y/N. I don’t want you to play the hero.”

“I won’t, calm down. I gotta go now. I’ll see you soon,” you tell him before getting out of the car and heading to the backdoor. Glancing back one last time you see Harry standing at the hood of the car, watching you intently as you disappear from his sight.

Sienna, who is helping you tonight is already waiting for you at the backdoor. You met her a few years ago when you caught her abusive ex and took him in. She said she owed you one for freeing her from that asshole and now you are finally here to collect that favor.

“Damn, you look good!” she grins, pulling you into a short hug.

“You think it’s gonna be alright?” you ask, pulling the coat open to show her the whole outfit.

“Fucking fantastic. No men will be able to focus on anything than your boobs,” she snorts, pulling you inside.

The plan is easy. You won’t be out all night, Sienna will be your eyes and when she spots Axel arrive, that’s when you come into the picture. Sienna will escort him to a secluded area and tell him he has a free lap dance which will be, of course, performed by you. Some flirting, some seducing and hopefully Axel will be dumb enough to let a some sort of confession slip.

Sienna takes you to the changing room and you stay in the corner, trying not to be in the way as you watch the girls get ready. There are ten girls in total, five of them are dancing tonight, the other five are servers, but they still dress like dancers. They all wear equally revealing outfits, just like you and as you watch them move around so confidently, you start to get more and more nervous. What if Axel figures out you’re not a real dancer right away? Or if he notices the recorder pushed into your stomach? This plan is definitely not the safest you’ve ever come up with, and you are starting to doubt yourself now that you are so deep in it.

“Y/N?” you hear Harry’s faint voice in your ear. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” you breathe out and hearing his voice calms your nerves a little.

“Everything alright?” First you nod, but then you realize he can’t see you.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Are you nervous?”

“Very,” you admit with an awkward chuckle. Luckily, Harry doesn’t bring his usual cockiness out, feeling how serious the situation is.

“You can still come out and we can just go home. You don’t have to do this.”

“No, I want to do this,” you firmly answer. “Just… talk to me a little. Please.”

“Alright, I’ll tell you about when I wanted to ask you out to prom,” you hear him start and you can’t push a smile down as you sit and wait, listening to his soothing voice. “You were wearing this pretty white sweater that day and tight jeans, you looked so fucking good, Y/N. I saw you walking to your locker and you smiled at some random guy and I was instantly jealous.”

“Really?” you ask quietly.

“O, yeah,” he chuckles. “I told you, I had a crush on you. So I thought about asking you out, wanted to just walk up to you and casually ask if you wanted to go with me. But then I just watched you and realized that you probably wouldn’t want anything to do with me, so I just watched you get your books out of your locker and then you walked right past me, looked me in the eyes and I straight up felt my knees turn into jelly. Good thing I was leaning against the wall. You walked away and I never asked you out. Still regret that,” he admits and your heart flutters at his words.

As weird as it sounds, you remember that day. Especially because when your eyes met Harry’s you felt kind of the same. You felt intimidated and wondered why he was watching you so intently, but you would have never guessed he wanted to ask you out.

You see Sienna walking in, her eyes find you and you immediately know it’s show time.

“Harry?” you breathe out at last.

“Yeah?”

“I would have said yes,” you tell him before you follow Sienna out and the blasting music pushes down Harry’s voice in your earpiece.

The bright lights of the back are switched to the dim, red lighting in the main bar area, a dancer is already on the stage and the place seems packed for the night as all men are hungrily watching the girl on the stage, throwing dollar bills at her shamelessly.

Sienna pulls you to the bar and leans closer to your ear so you can hear what she is saying.

“He is in one of the private rooms, told him the dance is on the house to thank him for being a regular. I asked one of the guards to stand nearby.”

“Thank you, S,” you nod at her as she squeezes your hands.

“Good luck, girl,” she smiles a little bitterly before she shows you the way to the room where Axel is currently waiting for his private dance.

As you stop at the door you take a deep breath, staring at the doorknob for a moment, trying to brace yourself for whatever is about to happen in there.

“I’m going in,” you say, partially to yourself, but mostly to Harry so he knows what’s happening though you don’t hear an answer before you open the door and step inside.

The room is mostly what you were expecting, a small stage with a rod in the middle, across that a long, plush, deep burgundy couch. The walls are black, just the red led lights illuminating the place.

And there he is. Axel Morris is sitting in the middle of the couch, manspreading so widely like the asshole that he is, arms leisurely draped across the back of the couch as his hungry eyes immediately snap to your body.

Axel is big. He is a large man and you realize that the moment you see him. Though he is sitting you can easily tell that he’s tall and he is definitely bulky. Could end you in a blink of an eye and knowing that he is capable of murder is just an eerie thought that doesn’t leave you alone. But you suck it up and get into character, only thinking about one thing: help Harry out of this mess.

Music with low bass starts playing through the speakers as you make your way over to Axel who grins at you disgustingly, making it hard for you to keep the façade.

“Hey big boy, heard you’ve earned a dance for yourself,” you coo at him stopping at the edge of the stage as you keep eye-contact with him. You lean against the edge and spread your legs just enough to tease his imagination about what’s about to come.

“Hell yes, I did! Hope you’re a good dancer, babygirl. Haven’t seen you around here.”

“I’m new. But I’m really good, that’s why they sent me,” you smirk at him sweetly as you walk closer until you’re standing in front of him. He reaches out and grabbing your hips he pulls you to straddle his lap and it catches you by surprise but you don’t fall out of character.

“Then show me what you can do. What’s your name?” He licks his lips as you start moving, doing your best from movies you’ve seen with strippers in them.

“Crystabel, but you can call me yours,” you hum, grinding and bouncing yourself, completely unleashing your inner hoe. “Tell me, big boy. Are you as dangerous as you seem?”

“Oh baby, you have no idea,” he grins proudly.

“Really?” you coo, pushing yourself up against him. His dirty hands find your ass and you want to push them away so badly, but you let him have his way with you for the sake of the plan. “What’s the worst you’ve done?”

��Why does a pretty girl like you want to know about that, huh?” he cocks his head to the side, eyeing you with suspicion so you know you have to be careful.

“Because I have a thing for those stuff. I love pain and blood, it gets me off always,” you smirk at him teasingly, grinding yourself against him to divert his attention a little from the words spoken.

“Mm, yeah?”

“Yeah, I love that kind of stuff,” you moan, running your hands down your chest, his eyes hungrily following your every move and you know he is zoned out. It’s going perfectly.

“Well, I’m the perfect man for you then, babygirl. I’ve done all the things you can imagine.”

“Really? You are turning me on, big boy,” you murmur lowly, turning around for a bit so he can get a good glimpse of your backside as well. “Have you… taken anyone’s life before?” you bluntly ask, hoping you aren’t moving too fast and he won’t snap at you.

“Not sure I should be talking about that with you, pretty girl,” he smirks smugly. You turn back to face him, pushing your crotch against him as you try not to gag feeling his erection under you.

“I’m good with secrets, Honey. My lips are sealed,” you grin at him, stroking his oily face and try your best not to wipe your fingers into the cushion of the couch. Axel smirks at you, clearly enjoying the show you are putting on, his fingers are digging into your thighs as his eyes are practically glued to your chest.

“I’m a killer, babygirl.”

“Yeah?” you gasp, faking your excitement. “What did you do, big boy? Tell me, make me wet,” you purr biting into your bottom lip, pushing your chest out some more to distract him from his consciousness that might keep him from answering.

“Killed a guy recently,” he smugly admits and your adrenaline is high in the sky. You are so close to what you need!

“Oh my, sounds like a dirty job.”

“It was.”

“Saw it on the news a guy got killed not long ago, did you do that?” you smirk at him, his hand slapping your ass and you fight yourself not to punch him in the face.

“That Richards guy? Yeah,” he nods and you almost start screaming in your triumph. This dumbass really did just confess to you, because you had your ass and tits out for him!

“Cool. What’s your name, big guy? Wanna know who I’ll think of when I touch myself later,” you pant into his ear, you need him to say his name otherwise the confession might go to shit.

“I’m Axel, babygirl,” he grins, leaning dangerously close to you, he clearly wants to push his tongue down your throat but you push yourself away and up from his lap.

“Our time is up, big boy. See you later!” you sing and walk out of the room while he is still kind of zoned out.

The moment you are out, you start running. You can’t have him realize what just happened and stop you. Pushing your way back to the dressing room you grab all your stuff and spring out of the building. Harry is standing at the entrance, his ridiculous disguise is gone as he spots you with wide eyes. He probably heard everything and wanted to be there for you when you get out and as soon as you reach him he grabs your hand and the two of you run to the car. Right when you get into the car, you spot Axel running out from the front entrance and he definitely realized what just happened.

“Hey! Get back here you slut!” he shouts as Harry starts the car and you melt into the seat, scared of what’s about to happen because you see Axel reach to his back and the next thing you know is that he has a gun in his hand.

“Harry! Go!” you scream when you see him aim at the car and right at that moment, the wheels screech as Harry pushes the gas pedal to the fullest and the car yanks forward.

Your heart drops to the floor when a bullet shoots into the side of the car as Axel tries to stop the two of you. Harry takes a sharp turn and leaves the car park with full speed. You see Axel from the mirror, he is raging and keeps shooting after you, but he has no aim or whatsoever. You reach the end of the street and you feel like you can finally breathe again.

“Oh shit, fuck,” you mumble, chest heaving as you grab onto the armrest for some kind of leverage, your adrenaline is still pumping through your veins from the action movie-like scene that just happened.

“Are you alright? Did he hurt you?” Harry asks, eyes dancing between the road ahead of him and you as he tries to figure out if anything happened to you.

“I-I’m fine, he was just… fucking nasty to deal with you,” you groan at the thought of his hands on you. You’ll need the hottest shower after this, that’s for sure. “Go to the station, we gotta bring the tape in now,” you tell him as you reach into your corset. Pulling the recorder out you huff in relief, it’s been pressed into you for way too long. The tape is still rolling so you end it and then rewind it, checking if everything you need is on it. Luckily, it caught the whole thing perfectly, that means Harry is not going to jail. Well, not this time at least.

He is speeding down the streets as you get rid of the wig and put on your coat, you don’t want to walk into the police station dressed like a hooker and have the word spread that Robert’s sister has been making money some other way lately.

Arriving to the station you hold the recorder so tightly as if your life depends on it while Harry reaches for your other hand and firmly holds it in his warm palm. You walk inside and immediately spot Jeremy at the front desk. Letting go of Harry’s hand you run up to him.

“Jer, I got evidence for the Richards case! I got a confession on tape,” you beam at him holding the recorder up. He gives you a stunned look as he takes the recorder.

“Confession? How do you—“ He is cut off when you hear Harry’s voice from behind you.

“Hey! What the fuck!” he snaps and as you turn around you see that two officers are already on him, trying to handcuff him. Jeremy quickly forgets about the recorder as he joins in on strangling Harry. but you grab his arm and try to pull back.

“No! He didn’t do it! Listen to the tape!” you cry out, desperate to end this mess, but it feels like no one is listening to you.

“Harry Styles, you are under arrest for the murder of Dave Richards. You have the right…” One of the officers starts saying the usual speech as they drag Harry away while you are begging to Jeremy to listen to you.

“Jeremy! He didn’t fucking do it!” you scream, tears rolling down your face.

“What do you mean?” he asks giving you a puzzled look. It was Axel Morris! One of Hugo McKain’s men! They are trying to frame Harry!” you explain, while Harry is being taken away. “Harry, no!” you shout after them, but the officers don’t stop.

“Don’t worry, Y/N! I’ll be fine!” he calls after you before he disappears from your vision.

“Jeremy, please just listen to the fucking tape! I got his confession!”

“I’ll look into it, but I’m afraid Harry is spending the night here,” he sighs, looking down at the recorder before he walks away.

“Fuck, no!” you choke out.

When you finally stop crying you rush out of the building and call your brother, not even caring that it’s past midnight. He better answer your call or you are showing up at his house and start banging on his door until he opens it.

“What the fuck, Y/N?” he growls into the phone.

“Robert, they fucking took Harry in! I had the confession on tape, but they just wouldn’t listen, they arrested him!”

“Hey, slow down, what are you talking about?”

Taking a deep breath you tell him the whole story. The club, the dance, the confession and then how you came straight to the station but they arrested Harry without listening to you.

“Alright, you can’t do much now, Y/N. He is still a suspect but I’ll call Jeremy to look into the tape. If it’s found relevant Harry will be out in the morning okay?”

“Please come in early in the morning and make sure he is let out, please!” you cry out, feeling so helpless after everything that just happened.

“I will. Meet me at the station at six, okay? It’ll be alright. Go home, have some sleep and then we’ll make everything right in the morning.”

You do as Robert asked, go home, have a shower, wash the night off of your skin and lie in bed however you are not able to sleep, not even for a minute. You keep thinking about Harry and what might be happening to him now. They better get their shit together and let him out in the morning or you are losing your mind. You didn’t go through all this just to have him put behind bars anyway.

It’s not even six when you are already at the station, anxiously waiting for Robert to show up. You keep glancing up at the building, thinking about how Harry is somewhere in there and you can only hope he’ll be out with you shortly.

When Robert arrives he goes straight up to check out the situation with the tape and Harry. Waiting for him down in the hall is nerve-wrecking, you feel like time has stopped. When he finally appears again you jump to your feet running up to him with high hopes.

“The tape has been examined, it was classified as evidence. Jeremy has already put out an arrest warrant on Axel. Harry is no longer a suspect. He’ll be down once the paperwork is done.”

“Oh thank God!” you breathe out and throw yourself at him, hugging him tighter than ever.

“Look, but there is something I need to talk to you about,” he says with a serious look.

“Okay, what is it?”

“We might be able to get this Axel guy, but I’m pretty sure Hugo is already after the two of you. We have a whole team for him, working on catching him finally, but it might be smart if you just left town for a little.”

“Oh. Yeah, sounds logical,” you nod.

“Let me know if you need help with that. I can arrange something for you.”

“We’ll see. I have to talk to Harry first.”

“Harry, huh?” Robert smirks down at you knowingly and you feel yourself blushing. A lot has changed lately around you and Harry and you guess it’s quite evident for everyone else as well. “Just so you know, he asked about you during the night. Wanted to know if you are alright.”

“Yeah?” you breathe out with a small smile.

“Yes. Might have been wrong about him a little. Tell him I said hello, I need to get to work now,” he nods with a fond smile.

“Thank you, Robert!” you call after him as he waves in your way before disappearing in the elevator.

Waiting around in the hall you keep looking towards the hallway, hoping to see him appear finally, but the minutes are just dragging by way too slowly.

You’re impatiently sitting on one of the benches by the wall when you finally see him walking down the hallway, leisurely running his hand through his hair, a tired smile sitting on his lips when he sees you leap from your seat and launch at him, throwing yourself into his arms.

“Hey, hey! It’s all good, Love. Told you not to worry about me,” he chuckles, but holds you tight anyway, his arms wrapping around you as he lifts you off the ground, taking a few steps forward.

“Of course I fucking worry about you, idiot!” you mumble into his neck before leaning back you look at his pretty face.

“Yeah? Does this mean I had the right to worry about you last night?”

“You were?”

“Fuck yes,” he laughs. “You have no idea what it was like to sit outside and listen to everything that fucker told you. Wanted to punch him in the face so badly.”

“So heroic,” you grin at him, your face already inching closer to his, arms still wrapped around his neck.

“Only for my favorite stripper,” he winks at you, making you gasp.

“If you dare to bring it up again and call me a stripper, I swear to God I—“

You don’t get to finish your threat, because his hand snakes to the back of your neck and he pulls you into a hard kiss, his lips smashing against yours. Melting into the kiss you open your mouth for him without hesitation, his tongue meeting yours as he kisses you with so much vigor and passion, he makes you bend your back, leaning back as he holds you firmly in his strong arms. And suddenly, you feel like you’re seventeen again, making out with your high school crush in the school hallway, luckily, you are kissing the same person you wanted then.

“I’m fucking starving, babe,” he breathes out once you finally pull away from each other. “For you as well, but can we get some real food?” he asks as he laces his fingers together with yours, heading out of the station.

“Sure,” you chuckle. “Hey, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Love, told you, you can handcuff me to the bedframe, I’m into that stuff.”

“Shut up!” you laugh smacking his chest as the two of you walk out to your car. “It’s not about that,” you murmur with a soft blush. “Robert said we should leave for a while, Hugo might be after us after what happened last night.”

“Yeah, thought about that myself too,” he nods as he gets behind the wheel without even asking if you want him to drive or not.

“So what should we do?” you question, sitting in the comfort of your car. Harry reaches for your hand and brings it up to his mouth, kissing your knuckles softly before he smirks at you.

“Have you been to Ireland, Love?”

“No,” you breathe out, a little stunned by the question.

“I have a friend over there, I’m sure he would love to have us there for a while. What do you say?”

“Are you for real? You want to go to Ireland with me?”

“Yeah, would be fun, don’t you think?”

“Okay,” you smile in awe. Even after that kiss you had doubts he would want to run away with you for the time being. But he is definitely planning to have you around longer. “Yeah, Ireland sounds fun.”

“Great. Then let’s head home to pack,” he smirks, starting the car. “Oh, Love?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget to bring your handcuffs,” he grins and you just laugh at his smugness before leaning closer to kiss him quickly before the two of you finally drive away from the station.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

[judyhopps934-mt-zd]

Thoughts on Miraculous Shanghai: The Legend of Lady Dragon

Warning: Spoilers! Other than that, have fun!

Also, if you want to watch the full English Dub, click here!

I love how we saw Fei's backstory as to how she became guardian of the Prodigious and how it was actually stolen because there are people who want money from her adoptive father's studio. It was also sad to see that the values her father implemented into her fade due to the circumstances they found themselves in. I speak for all of us to say that this girl needs a hug.

The intro as always is beautiful! Since it was not the first thing we saw, I was confused when looking through the episodes on YT.

I always enjoy Marinette's monologues, and this one was over how she looked forward to her holiday (it was like a vacation type thing). And how she looked forward to spend time with Adrien since his father was going to let him out. It was all perfect...

...until she went to deliver Uncle Wang's package and found out Adrien left for Shanghai at the last minute. But all is good though because she could go to Shanghai, deliver the gift personally, and see Adrien.

It hurts me to see that the writers made Marinette's purpose to go to Shanghai is to see Adrien when she can do that in Paris! It frustrates me that her character development goes back to square one, even as the protagonist of the show. People might point out this was before season 3, but I have a few points that say otherwise or that the writers are mixing things up. But first, the plot points and thoughts of everything else.

Also, I get that Marinette is 14/15/16 at the time of this episode, but how likely is it to send your child on their own halfway across the world??? On SHORT NOTICE??? I swear Sabine and Tom are too chill with this, but then again, there would be no story.

Also, I love how Ladybug and Chat Noir took the opportunity of their patrols without akumas to bond more. The Ladynoir in this episode I stan!

Gabriel you piece of trash! If you did not plan to spend time with your son, why take him to Shanghai when he was hoping to spend time with you?! And do not say "for business purposes" because even though Adrien is a face in the brand, at least don't give him false hope and that bs!

Nooro, thank you for trying to talk Gabriel out of it, but he is literally a wall (talking to Gabriel=talking to a wall)

I will say, the waiting for 15 years thing is very concerning.

Uncle Wang has been looking forward to see Marinette in person in Shanghai to learn more about her roots. He is ecstatic and its just heartwarming and heartbreaking when you think that part of Marinette's stay will be related to Adrien.

At least we see one thing that makes Marinette's stay not all about Adrien though: she is genuinely interested in her origins! Like when she asks about her family's traditional songs and about her mom, even learning her real name!

Speaking of which, Sabine's name is Xia Ping and only called herself Sabine when she started living in France. Also, I love her photo!

Bastille the bird that was around since forever is an icon!

Also, I can't believe Uncle Wang has not taken a break since Sabine moved to France, like what the hell??? Give this guy a break for goodness sake.

Thank you Gabriel for having one brain cell and allowing your son to leave the hotel! We still hate you for everything else though.

Its cool that Kwamis speak all of the languages. It is also the most logical thing because their wielder could be from anywhere. My question is are they taught the languages, does it form when a concept forms in the universe and they start existing, or like everything else is it magic?

Gorilla is iconic for two reasons: he is still a self care king, and he was willing to give Adrien some space to get action figures.

And now as I wrote that, this is where I am getting confused and start to believe this is post season 3: 1) Gorilla seems less anxious about being in a new place (unlike NY where he stayed in the hotel room the entire time), and 2) His obsession for action figures was shown in Party Crasher (season 3), which makes me wonder if the explanation is during season 3 or this episode hints at season 3. For the first point, it could be because Gabriel was not in NY to his knowledge.

Fei appears again and explains how she views the world and how she also uses that to help and take advantage of others.

She almost steals Adrien's phone and miraculous until Gorilla steps in. It hurts me because she is a good person but had to resort to stealing for a reason that we will explore soon.

Plagg, we always say your stomach causes trouble, but this time, you brought Adrien to Marinette's uncle...

...but also that ironically separated them as Marinette found them just as they climbed into the taxi.

This is also where Fei (wearing a disguise) crosses paths with Marinette and steals her purse. Then she went for the kwagatama and miraculous.

Things get worse for Fei as these boys that took a photo with Adrien earlier started chasing her. Then Marinette started going after them.

That is when she realized she was robbed and understandably, she was more horrified of losing her Miraculous.

Adrien shows up to Uncle Wang's home/restaurant. So many iconic moments happen.

1) Bastille says something about love between Marinette and Adrien. And Adrien responds with the line that makes us want to jump into the TV and talk some sense into him.

2) You say that "she's JuST a fRIenD" yet you stay over with her mom's uncle so you can surprise her lol. Adrien, you kill me and every other Adrienette fan with this contradicting statements.

Speaking of Marinette, she gets lost and has trouble communicating with others because she does not speak Chinese. And at some point says that she regrets not taking lessons?! Uh, what does this imply, that she refused lessons or that she did not have the opportunity for lessons??????? I NEED ANSWERS!

Can we say once again how talented and artistic Marinette is? Bad time? Moving on!

Uncle Wang is unaware of Marinette's tardiness, and Adrien just jokes about it. Considering that she is technically missing (reality is that she's lost), I don't think its time to joke about it.

The lady that gave Marinette some earrings that look like the Miraculous is so nice and bless her soul

The person from the pawn shop is the bad guy that we see at the very end of the NY special! And he knows about what happened to Fei's father! I am grateful that he sees no value in Marinette's stuff so he won't sell it for a lot, but I hate how he's greedy for money and was willing to exploit Fei's hunger for answers and Marinette needing her miraculous for personal gains.

Meanwhile, the boys from the photo with Adrien that chased Fei were trying to get Marinette's attention (they found her kwagatama when Fei dropped it running away and fighting them), but she thought they were gonna attack her. And then she bumps into Fei, who helps her escape.

Marinette finds comfort in Fei for being willing to "help" her (remember that she was gonna bring her to the pawn shop). She also finds Fei as a helpful, kind person who is brave: something that Fei does not see in herself, but does not have the heart to tell Marinette the truth.

Meanwhile, Chat has transformed to find Marinette and its the most endearing thing I've seen! Adrien, you blind oblivious fool! You care about her more than you think!

They arrive in the pawn shop, Tikki escaped the claw machine, and Marinette finds the earrings...for 100000 Yuan.

Fei, understanding what its like to have something entrusted to you be stolen, gets in a spat with the pawn shop owner in Chinese, accusing the owner for greed and accusing Fei for theft, while Marinette just stands her.

Also, when did Marinette become naive???????? I get that she's in another country and they are speaking in a different language that she does not understand, but based on the tone of their voices and shouting, I feel like she should have sensed something was off.

Fei swaps the earrings the lady gave Marinette and took the miraculous back. To the lady, this is why your soul is blessed. So bless your soul!!!

Apparently, Marinette realized what happened and said that Fei stole her earrings and feels bad for the man. Girl, you do not have to feel guilty for the man! He was about to destroy them before he thought about sentimental value! Also, he did not pay Fei anything for them! (Felt that this should be brought up because even though Fei was wrong in stealing her stuff, she was also robbed from potential cash and answers, therefore the man was owed nothing.)

The boys from Adrien's photo are actually vigilantes of Shanghai (and will be referred as such from now on), wanting to bring Fei to justice for stealing, which catches Marinette's attention, but not enough to ask any questions.

Also Marinette is not wanted as a criminal. She is missing as Uncle Wang called the police.

Fei still lives in the school, which has been in ruins. Despite not having much, she still offers Marinette a cup of what I believe is water (or tea?). See peoples, Fei is a good person at heart (if y'all aren't aware of it by now)

Gabriel saw and recognized Marinette. This is horrifying and if it is prior to season 3, we see why he tries so hard to target her. Or reasons why he targets her in season 4 along with everything else we know from "Truth".

Fei should have been given the chance to explain why she stole Marinette's things, but the pawn shop owner was like "you know, I might as well expose Fei myself"...

...and it really broke Marinette, who heavily trusted her. But she can't dwell on it for long...

...because AKUMA COMES FOR THE PAWN SHOP OWNER! AND HIS FAN SHOOTS KNIVES! AND HAS GREEDY MOTIVES! AND HELPED HAWKMOTH GET INTI THE CAVE WITH THE PRODIGIOUS!!!

Also, Nathalie was involved in obtaining the bracelet years ago. Again, the 15 years thing is concerning.

Marinette flees to transform, but not without telling Fei how she broke her trust and how she feels that Feinwas not genuinely helping her. It hurt me so much!

Ladybug transforms, hears Chat's voice-mail (to which she is swooned by the fact her kitty cares for her civilian self), and calls him. The best Ladynoir scene so far!

So the prodigious is like a jewel with powers, there is only one prodigious from what we see, and that one prodigious has multiple renlings that only the wielder can see. Oh, and the bracelet is like a key. Cool.

I don't like how Fei's Lady Dragon outfit looks whitewashed, but at least her hair is red instead of blonde (which still does not make this okay)

Epic Showdown between the akuma, Hawkmoth, Ladybug, and Lady Dragon. Hawkmoth corners Ladybug and Lady Dragon gets caught in some rocks.. All hope seemed lost...

...until Chat shows up and frees the akuma with the help of a basketball.

We learn something new folks: the same butterfly can create a different akuma. This is very frightening because...

The statue that determines who is worthy of the prodigious gets akumatized! The horror!

Also, if the statue says Fei cannot become the dragon because her intention to seek vengeance for her father is not noble and worthy, then what makes Hawkmoth think he will be successful in becoming the dragon??? Because it seems that his intentions are not pure or noble. Just saying.

Hawkmoth notices the akumatized statue heading to the city and all of a sudden remembers about Adrien. Confronting the statue, he gets turned into ashes(?).

CHAT, HAWKMOTH IN ASHES WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR THE BETTER IF THE STATUE DID NOT DESTROY SHANGHAI AND YOU WOULD NOT THINK AS SUCH IF YOU KNEW HE WAS YOUR FATHER! But I am not mad at you, just wanted to point out your irony.

ML WRITERS, WHY DO YOU KEEP KILLING OFF CHAT????? LADYBUG DOES NOT NEED ANY MORE TRAUMA AND THAT WAS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!!!! I AM SCREAMING INSIDE!!!!!

Fei is understandably upset and blames herself for what happen. I want to hug her so badly.

Marinette reassures Fei and forgives her, even though Fei felt that she could not be forgiven.

The structure they were standing on collapses and it was Fei as the Dragon who saved her, not Chat. Honestly, I love how it turned out as it strengthens their friendship, but I still prefer a Marichat alternative. WHERE IS THE MARICHAT PEOPLES???

Final showdown!

Poor statue guard was upset about the damage they caused as an akuma, but Miraculous Ladybiug fixes everything.

Fei learned an important lesson: let justice take its course, not enact revenge. But it was quite funny to have the pawn shop owner be flown away to court in a literal sense.

The bracelet has a renling-like creature, who is just so adorable, especially since they missed Fei and was waiting for the day they would be reunited. Aww!

Ladynoir version of the Moon scene from NYC! Except no dancing, just them challenging each other over who will get to Paris first if they traveled in opposite directions. No one shall ever know we were in Shanghai as civilians lol (Reminds me of my best friend when eating grapes during choral rehearsals)

Marinette, Adrien, Fei, and Uncle Wang enjoying a birthday (?) dinner was wholesome.

I love how Uncle Wang calls them boyfriend and girlfriend because of how they act around each other, yet Marinette and Adrien both deny it. Bruh, these children need to open their fricking eyes! I really wanted to jump through my phone screen!

The Shanghai Vigilantes came to return Marinette's kwagatama necklace. They are so precious even though we thought they were enemies in the trailer.

Even though they were at odds at first, love how the Vigilantes blushed when Fei played the accordion and she's just like "whatever". I stan an asexual queen.

Do I even want to know what Marinette accidentally said when she mispronounced "sister" in Chinese? Based on what Fei said, probably not.

Uh...NOW I WANT TO SEE MORE OF ADRIEN TEACHING MARINETTE CHINESE! While I do take some issue of Adrien (a white French boy) teaching Marinette her culture like most of us had issue with in "Kung Food", I also want to see them interact outside of school and hopefully bond. ML writers need to keep their word otherwise Adrienette stans will riot!

Love how the final scene turned out! Its just *chef's kisses*

Also, the hell with the business trip?? It was mentioned once again IN THE ENDCARD! It might not be as interesting, but I want to think that there was more truth to it.

Also, wifi troubles kept interrupting the show at crucial moments, but okay.

Overall, I live for the Shanghai episode! The animation is just as incredible as the NY special (which I also live for) and I love how this episode has a great focus on Fei and the prodigious. I mean, before the intro, she tells her story. And she has her monologues alongside Marinette's. In many ways, it's refreshing. Also, Ladynoir and Adrienette stans will be satiated with the scenes associated with each ship. Also, I love Fei's character development! And the final scene is wholesome!

I won't lie though: there are a few issues regarding whitewashing Fei's transformation and such. It is important to see these things and as a good friend of mine always says: you can enjoy something while also being critical of it. And that is very important no matter how devotive to something you actually are.

Anyways, we are being well fed with all the Miraculous content and I will see you all very soon! Also, get some sleep peoples! I know some of you aren't sleeping!

[sequinsmile-x]

Riptide

A love story told from two perspectives. One after it is has ended, and the other just as it begins.

Chapter 1: The Beginning 

Words: 3.8k 

Rating: Mature. Major Character Death.

You can either read over on a03, or below the cut. 

I would love to know what you think. 

“I have loved with the breadth of the ocean, and lost with the grief of rainfall.” - Angie Weiland-Crosby ___________________

October 2025

His wake is in the house they shared together. People she both recognised and didn’t mill through their home, giving her and Jack their condolences as they passed by.

Emily’s grief felt oppressive, like she was drowning in it. Every breath she heaved in through her lungs burned in her chest. Hollowing out the place where his love used to live.

She had been through a lot in her life. Her childhood was snatched away from her at 15 in a small clinic in Rome. Ian Doyle had torn through her life twice, leaving disaster behind him both times. The ruins of her life his personal victory, even in his death.

But this, losing Aaron, was by far the worst thing she had experienced. Since the moment she was told he was dead she had struggled to comprehend it, only really believing it when she was taken to see his body. Emily felt numb. She knew she was pushing everyone away but she couldn’t help it. The solitude of her grief helped her just about cope enough to get up in the morning.

“Emily?”

She turns to see JJ standing at the door of Aaron’s home office, having clearly sought her out. Emily would place money on the fact the team was taking it in turns to check on her. Their own grief for Aaron outweighed by concern for her.

“I’m hiding from my mother.” Emily explains from where she is sitting on the couch. “She has no tact and I can’t cope with her today of all days.”

JJ sits next to her and places her hand on Emily’s. She runs a thumb over her knuckles. A gesture Emily thinks is supposed to be comforting, but she can barely feel it. The numbness she has felt the last couple of weeks ever present. Like she was watching life from behind glass, all of her senses muted and warped by grief.

“Em-”

“Don’t ask me if I’m ok. Or say anything kind.” She pulls her hand from under JJ’s and stands, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. Trying desperately to hold herself together, but feeling like she could fall apart any minute. “I don’t think I can take it.”

JJ stands too but keeps a good distance from her friend, respecting the boundaries Emily had put firmly in place the morning after everything changed. “He wouldn’t want this for you, he’d be worried.”

Emily scoffs, but tears fall onto her cheeks anyway. She furiously wipes them away with the heel of her hand. “I wish people would stop saying that.”

JJ’s face crumbles, barely restrained emotion on her own face. “He loved you Emily. You were going to-”

“JJ. I really don’t need you to explain my relationship to me.” Emily says harshly, bitter words falling past her lips to stop her from breaking down. She felt like she hadn’t stopped crying in days. “I have to go check on Jack.”

“Em-”

“He lost his father. The only parent he had left. He’s what’s important right now, everything else can wait.” She turns to leave, hand hovering over the door handle to lead her out of his office and she hesitates to turn back around to look at her friend. “I love Aaron, JJ.” The use of the present tense wasn’t lost on either of them. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone. And he’s gone. I’m never going to get him back and you need to let me deal with that in my way. Okay?”

She leaves the office before JJ can respond. She walks through the hallway of the house she and Aaron had bought together, a photo on the wall making her stop in her tracks. Penelope had taken it on a night out with the team not long after Emily and Aaron first got together. She had just been injured on a case, her shoulder still sore from where she’d been stabbed. Aaron was still fussing, not drinking so he could take her home whenever she was done. He had pulled her onto his lap, his broad chest protecting her shoulder from being jostled by anyone. Occasional whispers in her ear asking how she was slowly driving her crazy. Penelope snapped the photo as she turned her head to admonish him, a loving look on her face.

The squeal that came out of her friend after she took it still echoed around Emily’s head 4 years later. Penelope had passed her phone over, showing them the photo of them looking at each other like no one else existed.

She’s always loved that photo. She had sent it to her own phone immediately and had it printed. Now it made her heart clench in her chest, wishing she could see him again. Their home now felt like a museum of memories, their life together a snapshot in time that would never have been enough, even if they had grown old together. In the two weeks since he had died every part of her wanted to run, to get out and leave this all behind.

She stays despite everything in her screaming to leave. To get out of the house they shared, the city that reminded her of him at every turn. She wants to be somewhere he never had been, in the futile hope that she would one day be able to breathe without it being painful, without her lungs constricting like she was underwater.

She stays. She knows from experience that running away won’t fix anything, that she would just take memories of him anywhere she went. Carried on her skin like tattoos of his affection, etched permanently onto her. And in her worst moments, when having been loved by him felt more like a curse than the blessing it was when he was alive, she wishes she could hate him for it.

Jack is standing with Jessica in the living room. Emily is reminded of watching Aaron and Jack together at Haley’s funeral so many years ago. It was hard to believe that the little boy was now the young man in front of her, back in town from college and clearly wanting to be anywhere else.

He looks so much like Aaron that it steals her breath away.

“Jack.” She says gently as she approaches, a tight smile on her face. Both Jack and Jessica turn to look at her. “I’d ask how you are doing but that’s a stupid question.”

The 20 year old nods at her. “It’s weird. Knowing he’s gone forever.” Jack replies, clearing his throat. “It feels final now.”

Emily agrees, her fingers digging into the skin around her thumbnails. “Where are you staying tonight? You can stay here if you want. Your room is still set up.”

“I’m going to stay with Aunt Jessie.” He says tilting his head towards his aunt. “Thanks, though.” He adds as an afterthought. “Excuse me.” He walks off, having spotted Henry in the corner, and Emily sighs as he goes.

Her relationship with Jack had always been good, but since Aaron’s death it had been difficult. Tense in a way that tore through her. Their mutual love for Aaron was no longer the thing that was the foundation for Emily and Jack’s relationship.

It was that they both believed his death was her fault.

“Emily.” Jessica puts her hand on her arm and squeezes it. “He’ll come around. You know he doesn’t actually think-”

“Thanks, Jess.” She cuts the other woman off, not wanting to hear anything else. She walks off again, desperate for a moment alone.

JJ seeks her out again once most people have left. The team helps tidy up, removing all traces of the wake from her house before they leave. JJ has a plate of food in her hands that was clearly intended for Emily. She places it in front of her on the coffee table and sits next to her.

“I’m not hungry, JJ.”

“Em, please.” She says, worry laced through her voice. “You have to eat something. He wouldn’t-”

“JJ stop.” Emily shouts, finally at her wits end. “Aaron is dead. He’s dead. So it doesn’t really matter what he would want, does it?” She curses under her breath as tears spring to her eyes, and she wipes them furiously away from her cheeks as they fall. She’s aware of the rest of the team around them, stopping their individual tasks and desperately pretending they weren’t listening in.

“Emily-”

“Do you know what I keep thinking about?” She asks, interrupting any more platitudes JJ may have that she simply cannot bear to listen to, she watches as her friend shakes her head. “I keep thinking about when I died. There was nothing. It was dark, and empty. Just nothing.” Emily’s chin wobbles as she tries to keep the emotion in, failing as her next words choke out around a sob. “And I lay there at night, on his side of the bed, and hope it’s different for him.”

This time she doesn’t shy away from JJ’s touch, and allows herself to be pulled into a hug she cannot bring herself to return. ___________________________

Once everyone has gone she lays in bed, on his side, and stares at the ceiling. She is wearing one of his shirts and wonders when all of his clothes will stop smelling like him, when she will lose the last trace she has of him.

Emily closes her eyes, both wanting sleep to come and for it to evade her. Aaron was always in her dreams, mostly good ones. Memories of their lazy mornings in bed together played out during the night in her head. The sound of his laugh as he trailed his fingers down her spine to wake her slowly, his enjoyment at her inability to function first thing in the morning never ending.

The dreams were a blessing. A reminder that it had been real, that she’d had him. They were also a curse. She’d wake with the ghost of his touch on her skin, and for a blissful moment she’d forget he was dead. She’d half expect to see him standing at their bedroom door, coffee in hand with a smile on his face.

Then she would remember, and it was always too much to bear. ___________________________

It’s Dave that comes over. Letting himself into the house with the spare key Aaron had given him, claiming that he felt better knowing other people that they trusted had access to their home in case of an emergency. Emily knew it was a lingering fear he had from when Foyet had broken into his apartment, those memories still sharp in his mind until the day he had died.

A small knock on the bedroom door announces Dave’s arrival a mere second before he opens it. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t tear her gaze from the dress hanging on the door of the closet. She's sitting on the floor, back pressed up against the side of the bed. Her knees are against her chest, her arms wrapped around them like she was physically holding herself together.

“Did you draw the short straw today, Dave?” She sniffs, wipes her hand across her face to wipe off what felt like ever present tears. “You guys don’t need to check up on me. I’m fine.”

Dave sighs and sits next to her, groaning as he joins her on the floor, his body protesting the movement. “You’re not fine, bella.” He says simply. “And the others don’t know I’m here.”

She can sense his want to help her, sees his fingers twitch out of the corner of her eye as he seemingly tries to figure out if she wants to be touched or not. In the end he settles for leaning against the bed with her, a distance between them just small enough that she can feel his presence. Emily leans her chin on her knees, eyes still fixed on the white dress infront of her.

The dress that, if things had been different, if she hadn’t lost him, she should have worn today. She remembers teasing Aaron about it, telling him just enough about how it fastened up her back, how careful he’d have to be when he took it off to not break any of the delicate buttons.

She fiddles with her engagement ring before she opens her clenched fist to reveal two matching wedding bands in the palm of her hand. The rings they would never get to wear.

“It’s meant to be my wedding day, Dave.” She says, voice breaking around the words that didn’t need to be said. “And he’s not here, he never will be.” ___________________________

June 2021

When Aaron first moves back to Virginia it feels strange, like he was stepping back in time. The first thing he thought of was the team, of her. Once he no longer had to hide his identity he could have reached out. He almost had more than once, this thumb hovering over Emily’s name in his contacts, but he always stopped himself. Unsure what to say, thinking whatever they could have been had passed them by in a flurry of tragic circumstance and bad timing.

He’s back for two weeks when he sees her, and she’s somehow more beautiful than ever. He calls her the next day. ___________________________

Emily shouts at him. A lot. Years of pent up anger and worry spilling out over the phone when she answers, mixed with curse words and sighs in a way that was just so *her* it makes him laugh.

“And what is so fucking funny, Aaron?”

He clears his throat, tries to smother another laugh but doesn’t quite manage it. “Nothing, Emily. I just...I missed you.”

“Well.” She replies. “Whose fault is that.” There’s a pause, and it is just long enough that he thinks she’s going to hang up, leaving their interaction there. Aaron is about to speak and give her an excuse when he hears her sigh. “I missed you too.”

A spark of hope flares in his chest, something he hasn’t felt in a long time. “How about I take you to dinner? My treat. You can yell at me in person.”

Emily laughs at that, and he can picture how her eyes would crinkle with it. She was always so damn beautiful when she smiled. “That does sound appealing.”

“Tomorrow? If you don’t get caught with a case?”

She pauses, and he would bet his life savings if he could see her that she was biting her lip. “Tomorrow.” ___________________________

When she doesn’t get a case, and confirms that she will meet him at the restaurant he suggested, Aaron tries not to overthink it. He tries not to get carried away and think that this could be their chance, that the universe was finally aligning for them.

Emily tells him about her relationship with Andrew, how it had come to an end. Both of them were too set in their ways to truly make room for each other in their lives. He tells her about Jack, how he cannot believe his son is a teenager. The years had slipped by in a way that made him reflective, and she teases him out of his melancholy by telling him stories about the team. Aaron didn’t realise how much time had passed until the waitress came over and gently told them they needed to close the restaurant. Emily exchanges a sheepish look with him when they realise they are the last ones there.

She refuses his offer of walking her home, claiming it was pointless since she lived so far away and that she’d be fine in a cab. He gets a text from her when he gets home himself, an offer of another meal soon, insisting that she pays next time.

For their third date, because that was how he now exclusively thought of their dinners, if only in his head, he purposely choses somewhere near hers so he can walk her home. She narrows her eyes at him as he suggests it, having figured out his game but she allows him to play it anyway.

During the three block walk to her place she slips her hand into his. He turned to look at her but she was pointedly looking ahead, avoiding his gaze. That’s when Aaron realises she wants this as much as he does, and is just as worried about it as he is, what it could do to both of them. Neither of them would ever admit it, but they were both fragile when it came to love. Damage as clear as the scars they both bore on their bodies.

He stops them in the street, now half a block from her building, and stands in front of her, still holding onto her hand. He uses his spare hand to cup her cheek, to make her look at him. She licks her lips, her eyes now staring right into his.

He’d always thought her eyes were beautiful.

Aaron closes the gap between them and presses his lips to hers. She responds almost immediately, tearing her hand out of his so she can cup the back of his head and pull him closer.

It’s years of waiting, of hoping, coming together in a perfect moment. Her hands are in his hair, and his are on her back, pulling her closer as he tastes the dessert they shared on her tongue.

She pulls back, and rests her forehead against his, a laugh escaping her lips before she presses them against his again.

“We should have been doing this for years.” She murmurs against his lips, her hand stroking the back of his head . He mumbles his agreement before kissing her again, unable to help himself now the dam was broken. She suddenly pulls away, lips swollen as she looks at him, seemingly remembering that they were standing in the street still. “Come on, let's go.”

Aaron smiles at her as she tugs his hand, determined to lead him down the street. “Where are we going?”

“To mine.” She says simply, groaning when he comes to a stop, easily stopping her from walking any further. He places a hand on her hip, pulling her closer to him again.

“Em-”

“Don’t ask me if I'm sure.” She says, bringing a hand to his cheek and smiling at him, “We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

That night they lay in her bed, in tangled sheets, fingers trailing over scars they’d both imagined for years. They are reverent with each other, acting as if they are both made of something precious. He laces his fingers through hers as he enters her for the first time, her broken gasp in his ear almost too much for him. When she breaks around him and he follows her over the edge he whispers words of praise into her skin, tells her how perfect she is to him, and he hears her repeating it back to him as her lips press to the scar closest to the top of his chest.

Aaron thinks she has never looked so beautiful as she did when she was curled up against him in her bed, hair in disarray and a sleepy smile on her face. When he tells her as much she scrunches her nose at him and tells him he’s ridiculous, a hand sliding up his chest as he pulls her in and kisses her again.

He stops himself from telling her he loves her that night as she falls asleep in his arms. The promise of their next date being breakfast the following morning dying on her lips as she is lulled into sleep. ___________________________

Emily gets hurt on a case a month later, and it’s bad enough that she ends up in hospital. Dave calls him, and Aaron isn’t even sure how he knew to do so until he says Emily asked for him.

The case was mercifully close by, Aaron jumping in his car to do the two hour drive as soon as he’s off the phone with Dave. A note left for Jack saying what had happened, and a call to Jessica to ask her to look after the teenager that night.

He makes it to the hospital in 80 minutes. A vaguely amused looking Dave meets him at the front desk and tells him that she is fine, that she lost a fair amount of blood to the unsub’s knife and that they were keeping her in for observation overnight.

Aaron doesn’t believe him until he sets eyes on her himself, the door to her room clicking closed behind him. He briefly thinks about the team standing outside her room, the confusion on their faces at him being there, at what he was sure was fear on his face.

“Em, sweetheart.” The nickname slips out before he realises what he is saying, the first time he’s said it, and it makes her eyes brighten at him.

“Hi Aaron.” She tries to smile at him, but the pain lacing through her arm and shoulder means it doesn’t go far. She swallows against her dry throat and she holds out her good hand to him which he eagerly takes, any concerns about the team disappearing as quickly as they had appeared. “It looks worse than it is.”

He raises an eyebrow at her before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“Me too.” She smiles up at him. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, Em.” Aaron smiles when she fails to suppress a yawn. “You should get some sleep.”

Emily frowns at him. “You only just got here.”

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” He runs his hand over her forehead, pushing her hair out of the way. He can’t help but smile when her eyes flutter shut at the first touch of his skin to hers. He keeps the movement across her skin going, watching as her breathing evens out.

“I think I love you.” He whispers, sure she was fast asleep, lulled into unconsciousness by his thumb stroking over her forehead.

She laughs weakly and opens her eyes. “Oh, well I know I love you.”

Aaron leans down to press a gentle kiss to her lips. “I love you.” Another kiss. “Now get some sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She closes her eyes, the painkillers in her system making her tired. “I hope you’ll always be there.”

Aaron smiles at the admission, something she would never have said out loud in normal circumstances. He runs his thumb over her forehead again.

“I’ll always be here, I promise.”

(It’s the only promise he ever breaks.)

[onesweetdreampodcast]

For fun, a micro episode! A reprise of RAM’s critical reception over time. Positive reviews referenced in the episode: Pitchfork “..Paul McCartney's Ram is a domestic-bliss album, one of the weirdest, earthiest, and most honest ever made. What 2012's ears can find is a rock icon inventing an approach to pop music that would eventually become someone else's indie pop.”

ALL MUSIC

“This made Ram an object of scorn and derision upon its release —and for years afterward in fact — but in retrospect it looks like nothing so much as the first indie pop album. Ram has a fuller production yet retained that ramshackle feel, sounding as if it were recorded in a shack out back, not far from the farm where the cover photo of Paulholding the ram by the horns was taken. It's filled with songs that feel tossed off, filled with songs that are cheerfully, incessantly melodic; it turns the monumental symphonic sweep of Abbey Road into a cheeky slice of whimsy on the two-part suite "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.".All three of these are songs filled with good humor, and their foundation in old-time rock & roll makes it easy to overlook how inventive these productions are, ... These songs may not be self-styled major statements, but they are endearing and enduring, as is RAM itself, which seems like a more unique, exquisite pleasure with each passing year.”

LOUDER THAN WAR

“Cool is the most overrated component of rock roll. It blinds the fools and sends the insecure up grubby back alleys of music taste.  ...Maybe it’s a measure of the times but what people ragged on about Paul at the time was the good bloke/family man/simple things in life/not very rock n roll personae that are now seen as assets and that brings us to Ram.At the time the album was buried by the media but now sounds forward thinking and full of that buoyant pop imagination that the supremely talented Macca seems to effortlessly ooze. With the luxury of history the album now sounds like a decades too early precursor to lo fi indie with all the post late sixties bombast stripped away.Of course this simplicity is deceptive. The precociously brilliant McCartney is playing many instruments and he’s great at anything he picks up, dealing out guitar licks, bass runs or pastoral acoustics with an ease for his perfect pop voice to fly over with those cascading and exquisite melodies.” 

SUPER DELUXE EDITION

“Ram has McCartney’s DNA all over it. It is endlessly melodic … with a maze of musical ideas; vocal harmonies,...and, perhaps uncharacteristically, there is a steeliness of purpose evident.Ram works so well for many reasons. McCartney’s voice is at, or near, its peak – everything sounds completely effortless, including the performance on the throat-shredding ‘Monkberry Moon Delight’, and the whole thing just feels so real. Paul wasn’t struggling for things to write about, whether it be the seemingly constant backbiting with Lennon or his new-found love of family life and spending time with his new wife.” FAR OUT MAGAZINE

‘...You can trace everything from Britpop to pure jangle indie back to this record. What started as a piece of pure pop innovation would provide a sure footing for a host of other groups to spring from … there is no denying that Paul McCartney’s Ram is a seminal moment in musical history.’

50Thirdand3rd

“Paul McCartney has rarely sounded more exuberant than he does on Ram. With Linda’s emotional support, he found his way through the darkness occasioned by the collapse of The Beatles and shed all traces of depression and disorientation that marked his first solo effort. On Ram, he sounds positively thrilled to embark on a new, independent musical adventure, as is evident in the unbridled energy he displays throughout the record and the blessed return of his sense of humor. His melodic gifts remain intact, he sings as well as he ever did and he’s still one hell of a bass player.”

THE QUIETUS

It’s a record by a man and woman unburdened, enjoying the happiest days of their lives. It’s full of hope and honesty and goofing around. Unlike so much music from the era, it wasn’t trying to shift units or promote itself as ‘real’ music. In fact Paul McCartney probably doesn’t give a toss if you like it or not.”

SPECTRUM CULTURE

“...it’s clearer than ever that this is one of the great magical experiences in rock … The key to Ram’s power is the two equal and not-necessarily-distinct modes it toggles between. Domestic life between the album’s credited artists is portrayed with earthy whimsy; the instruments crack and splinter, content that the center will hold. Meanwhile, the material dealing with the meaning of the most coveted Beatle’s decision to settle down with the woman of his dreams is painted in the same grand, sweeping strokes as Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the Abbey Road medley: symphonic pop that pines for transcendence.”

RAM ALBUM CLUB:

“I listened properly the next morning, I sat in front of it and played it loud. My god, what a fool I’ve been, what a joy this record is. There’s hardly any of the 12 bar I was expecting and there isn’t a twee moment to be found. I adore the first bars of Too Many People, his beautiful tramp voice over those fab four chords into Pet Sounds snare hits. Honey to my bee. Lyrically he sounds like he’s kicking some demons around, eating apples, settling scores and having a ball doing it. Ram sounds like it was recorded at 9.12am amidst a sea of sunflowers under a hazy sun. It’s high as monkeys, full of itself and oh my, what a fool I’ve been. Ram On sounds like the whole of the Department of Eagles album In Ear Park (which I love) and Uncle Albert is fine as it is, all of it. I’m not that bothered about Eat At Home. The Back Seat Of My Car is like a track off the Beach Boys album Friends except better, much better. It’s one his best songs and I’ve never heard it. Third time, I take it downstairs. I light candles. I dress smart and bring gifts. I’m in love and o’ what a fool I’ve been. I’m uplifted, uploaded and upended. His singing is great, the musicians are right on the money and the sound is perfect (it is a truth that all records made in the early 1970s sound fantastic).”

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 10

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV. Mild smut in this chapter.

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Tony fluff, Tony snark, Tony sass and Tony smut (finally!). My & reader's brain be like: tony tony tony tony. A request for my readers: do I write a believeable tony? Is he in character, more or less?

My beta @miscmarvelwritings - she's not into Tony but even then, she was finally excited about them finally getting down & dirty. The patience of this woman...

"Tony, could I borrow, like, a hoodie or something?"

He eyed my attire critically for a moment, seemingly coming to the same conclusion I did minutes earlier, and made a beeline for the couch in the back of the lab. Picking up and examining a black mass of fabric, deeming it satisfactory, he tossed it to me. "It's clean enough, I guess."

The thin straps of my mesh top rubbed against a lot of tender skin, leaving pink lines in the wake of it. A sigh of relief escaped me involuntarily when I removed it -

"Woah, woah," Tony squeaked, covering his eyes with an exaggerated gesture. "Warn a man!"

I honestly didn't see what the big deal was. "Tony, chill. I'm pretty sure you've seen it all and then some." I snorted, stretching briefly, shrugging on the slightly oversized hoodie. It smelled like the lab - like Tony, too, but mostly like motor oil and iron. Beggars can't be choosers, however - I had already devised and executed the plan that will let me keep the hoodie.

"When you put it that way..." He smirked, briefly returning to his usual self and giving me a salacious eyebrow wiggle.

I laughed in response, wiggling my hips, feeling the hem of my skirt swish against my thighs. I considered removing the fishnet tights, too, but a brief look in the reflective wall divide between Tony's and Bruce's labs got me pulling out my phone to take two dozen selfies. I looked great with Tony's clothes on.

The engineer chuckled at my antics, coming up behind me as I sat on the floor with my knee raised, chin resting on it. The amber liquid sloshed over the top of his glass, dripping down his fingers. He sat behind me.

"Weller Full Bourbon?" I asked, bringing my nose closer to his fingers to get a good whiff. The distinctive vanilla notes in his whiskey were unmistakable. "Good choice," I made a serious face. "Fancy."

"I can afford it, darling," He snarked back, devoid of malice.

He was so close. And so warm. And I needed a new screensaver. Shuffling back, I reclined against Tony's chest, carefully wedging my head in the crook of his neck.

God help me.

I felt his breath hitch. The dark, magnetic pools of his eyes stared at me from our combined reflection. Tony's eyes were the most expressive, he could fake a smile, he could charm the press and countless investors, but his eyes only spoke the truth. Always. I loved working with Tony because his gaze would light up. It was akin to seeing a little kid on Christmas.

A muscular arm snaked around my waist, pressing my back to his chest. The metal of his arc reactor jabbed uncomfortably between my shoulder blades but there was nowhere else I'd rather be.

"You're filming, Princess," He interrupted my Moment.

"Sure," I answered, not caring. There could be another alien invasion happening and I wasn't able to give a damn.

I felt the vibrant chuckle more than heard; Tony snatched the phone out of my hand without permission. I noticed the furrowed brow when he opened my Instagram and saw the unmistakable evidence of my frequent partying, yet he didn't comment on it.

"Tony, the press is going to go nuts," I raised my eyebrows, seeing what he was planning to do.

"They've seen me doing worse things," He scoffed. And took a photo of us ‘just chilling’ in his lab, hugging. He picked out a filter and everything., and then posted it.

"First of all, I am pretty awesome to be 'doing', I've had only good feedback," I scoffed at his dismissive attitude, using my free hand to make quote marks. Then I turned my head to stare him square in the face. "Steve's going to be pissed and Ms. Potts is going to call to yell at you." I punctuated the statements with a raised eyebrow.

There was really no innocent way the press could represent the photo that he posted. I didn't care for it, my parents wouldn't give a damn (my father probably would encourage it, the free publicity and all). Tony himself didn't seem like the kind of man to care much about some gossip articles, if anything, he enjoyed provoking them into a frenzy. Or at least, he used to.

"I'll put them both on hold. I like to watch the line blink," Tony winked, smirking. "I've been told the press expects me to have a midlife crisis since my last breakup," Eyes darkening, the man swiftly finished off his drink.

Midlife crisis seemed such a bitter way of putting it. Considering my own preferences in romantic partners, I couldn't help but feel offended at the way people offhandedly dished out labels - "midlife crisis", "daddy issues" and so on and so forth. The briefest part of me traveled back to Mr. Davies' living room where - no, I am not going there.

"Huh," I said, coming to a conclusion. A sad one at that.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Princess, but you don't seem like the kind of girl who thinks about pesky things like reputation or consequences," Tony mused idly, coming to a conclusion of his own.

"Nope, I don't give a fuck," I agreed with his opinion wholeheartedly. "If I would have a publicist, they would quit on the second day."

"I pay mine, uh, twice the average amount and they still quit. We're doomed, baby," Tony's gleeful face was mere inches away from my own, whiskey-tipsy and glowing.

I snorted, sliding lower to further burrow into his arms. Tony's sudden touchy-feely mode wasn't lost on me. My own touch starvation overrode any common sense that I had left. The totally-PG (well, not quite) embrace, one armed hug brought me more satisfaction than any of my sexual partners had ever achieved to give me.

"Why are there so many messages from Banner? Are you staging a world domination plan and forgot to include me? I'm hurt!" Tony exclaimed suddenly, a whiny tone to his voice.

"Thor's space yeasts have corrupted our minds with their spores. Soon all will become... Mushroom!" I deepened my voice for the dramatic effect, flailing my arms on the last word for the extra flair.

The man wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye; his eyes were sparkling, laughing even. "I'm evicting Thor and his supremely selfish yeast. How dare it ignore me."

"I vouched for you, I really did," I kept up the silly game. "But alas, the yeasts deemed you too... Boomer," The pride in my voice could barely hold back the laughter threatening to spill.

"Did you just..?" Tony gaped. "Did you just call me old?!"

I attempted to get away, shrieking when the tips of Tony's fingers squirmed along my midsection. "It was the yeast! IT WAS THE YEAST!" My resistance proved to be futile. The engineer had mass and strength on his side, years of piloting and maneuvering the Iron Man suits showing just how quick and nimble he could be when the situation demanded it.

"Take that from an old man!" He exclaimed triumphantly, using his arm to hold down both of my hands from grasping at him. One of his legs held down my own; we were a squirming, writhing mass of limbs in the heat of a tickle fight.

The cocaine in my blood, the mild buzz from being drunk on Tony - my body reacted to the close proximity of the man who occupied my fantasies. I was blushing, breathing heavily, and it wasn't just from the exertion. It should have affected me less, but I struggled to keep my eyes from Tony's face; his own flush, the moist part of his lips.

I wondered how a deer in the headlights felt. Was it hot, like it's body was suddenly alight, or was it cold, liquid nitrogen freezing in its veins?

"Fuck," I mumbled half-coherently.

"What was that?" He arched an eyebrow, clever eyes carefully watching my own.

"I'm in trouble," I chuckled weakly, looking away, pretending to struggle against his arms.

"You're trouble," He announced, grinning. His fingertips slowed, skimming gently along my sides now.

I retaliated with a tentative brush of my foot along the softness of his jean-covered inner thigh. It was euphoric, seeing Tony shudder, the thick eyelashes fluttering for the briefest part of a second.

"We should stop," He whispered suddenly, making a move to disentangle us both. Mixed signals, we've got em, ladies and gentlemen.

"Why?" I was tired of this dance. It was fun but painful. My firm decision of the past still stood: I won't be the lovesick fangirl, I won't be another notch in his bedpost. The resolve was crumbling but it was still there, to some point.

"You're not sober, this is wrong," He mumbled. "I'm more than twice your age, Princess."

That ship had sailed, Tony. If only you knew... "Do you seriously expect me, out of all people, to find common ground with someone my age? Someone like Peter? Jeez," I tried to be amused. If it came out more pleading, I pretended to not notice it. It was the moment of truth. It needed to be said. "I'm FUBAR, Tony. I'm lucky if anyone at all will want to put up with me, much less someone I can stand. I'm spoiled, I'm selfish, and annoying. I know that. I just thought we were friends and you'd be...kinder about it." My mumbling was met with a somewhat perplexed stare.

"I..." His eyebrows threatened to have a close encounter with his hairline. "What the fuck? Are you dead set on giving me a stroke today? I have a heart condition," He yanked me back towards his chest, unceremonious and indignant. "You can be so smart yet so stupid. Gosh, where is the world rolling, I'm quoting Pepper now." He seemed to be muttering to himself.

"Pot, kettle." I didn't resist the urge to snark.

"Right," Tony rolled his eyes. "You're beautiful and all that jazz. You deserve much more than this." Uncharacteristically sad, he pointed to himself, again. "I'm an old man with more issues than Playboy magazine."

"And I'm an angsty teenager with daddy issues, we're a match made in heaven."

"Hell," Tony was eyeing our combined reflection with a sort of petulance. It was hard keeping track of his microexpressions; his eyes and face held fleeting, half-finished thoughts, just like when he was creating, inventing something new.

"Works for me. Lucifer's hot," I answered with my brain on autopilot. He caught my eyes in the shiny glass, trapping me in his calculative gaze.

"The Netflix one or the Supernatural one?" Tony asked, equally absent from the conversation. Neither of us were able to break eye contact, breathing laboured and hearts thudding in our chests. I felt Tony's pulse fluttering under my palm where I'd rested it on his wrist.

The organ that dutifully pumped blood through my own veins and kept me alive threatened to escape my body, jump out of my chest, make its way out my mouth. Tony's unblinking stare penetrated my skin, seeped into the hollow behind my eyelids, ignited a flame within me and froze my thoughts.

"The one with the detective kink," I answered breathily. "I have an affinity for brown-eyed, narcissistic, sarcastic men with self-destructive tendencies," The last part of my sentence was swallowed by Tony's lips.

My brain shorted out, just like that. Bourbon on his breath and a new dose of snark on his tongue, he licked into my mouth with the grace and finesse of years of experience. It was sudden, it was rough, it was fantastic. His beard left marks on my face and I craved the burn of it.

"Fuck," I moaned when we were forced to surface for oxygen. My hips had moved, pressed against his own, prominent arousal digging into the small of my back. Tony had me moaning and grinding into it in mere seconds.

A hand rested on my face with surprising tenderness, turning my face to look at my own reflection. My hair was a mess, lips puffy - Tony wasn't looking any better, hunger and lust in plain view. It was a good look on him.

"Watch," His breath ghosted over the shell of my ear, lips traveling to the nape of my neck to attach themselves to the very sensitive flesh of that area.

I obeyed, gazing at the scene with lidded eyes. Keeping them open was a struggle. My body was flooded with sensation, riding the waves of pleasure like a rollercoaster. I wanted to please him, needed to obey him, to feel him.

My thighs quivered at Tony's touch. There was no warning, no preamble as he wedged a firm hand, separating them quickly to follow the heat. His biceps flexed deliciously. Under my skirt, through the fishnets and the tiny, lacy panties I wore.

"Fucking shit," The man moaned loudly, finding me, predictably, soaking wet. It was one hot, sticky mess between my legs.

The keen that left my mouth might've been embarrassing, yet it only spurred Tony on. Gently parting my lower lips, he gathered the moisture, suddenly withdrawing from me. My confusion met his amusement in the mirror as he stuck the two fingers in his mouth, moaning obscenely and loudly at the taste.

The corners of my mouth lifted, happy. "To-ony," I whined, my pussy aching for more. Now that I had felt the relief and pleasure of his touch, I didn't want it to end.

"Princess," He replied, seriously and sternly. I shuddered at the scratchiness of his voice. The hand that I was missing returned, stroking over the outside of my pussy with broad, soft motions. I arched, presented myself into the touch. "So eager," Tony mumbled into my shoulder, catching a bit of my skin between his teeth.

His fingers dipped deeper, delving in between the puffy, engorged flesh and stroking once, twice, before finding my clit. The pads of Tony's fingers were rough, hardened by manual work and hours spent in front of his inventions, making, tinkering, creating. The friction was perfect. I followed each stroke with a fluid motion of my hips.

"Tony, fuck," I slurred my approval, needing him to know how amazing he made me feel. Tony's form pressed closer, both of us melting, molding into each other.

"Baby girl, what do you need?" His raspy voice tickled my neck. I was sure there would be an array of marks decorating me come morning and absolutely loved the thought. I belonged to Tony Stark, in body and heart and mind and soul.

"I want to cum," I had no shame left. "I want to feel you."

He groaned, rutting into me. A squeak was all I managed to emit as two thick fingers plunged inside of me with a wet squelch. My pussy immediately took hold of the situation, squeezing and rippling around them. I was so close, my nerves pulled up taut like an overtaxed string. The effect this man had on me was positively unholy.

My clit throbbed under his thumb. Tony somehow managed to reach every single sweet spot on my body, effortlessly, easily, like he'd done it a thousand times.

"Ohmyfuckinggod, Tony," I came hard, shuddering, drenching the fingers inside of me. The moment I began sagging in his arms was the moment they tightened around me; I felt Tony grind helplessly against me, saw his own eyes slam shut and his brow furrow.

The hand that was in me withdrew rapidly as he hastily popped the button on his pants, freeing his cock and giving it several desperate tugs. I couldn't see it; I had to settle for the sensation of his hand, his hips rubbing against my clothed back.

He came quickly, with a loud shout. My curiosity got the best of me and I used the brief moment of his weakness to turn around, take a good look at him.

Tony was a fucking mess with a fucking gorgeous cock. Thick and veiny.

My face was level with it before he could have opened his eyes. I wanted, craved to know how he tasted. With gentle kitten licks, I collected the stray drops of cum running down his hand, careful of the rapidly softening, sensitive flesh.

His eyes popped open in surprise. I smiled at him, unseeing, collecting as much of him as I could.

"Fuck, Princess," He breathed. "I'm just a man, I'm pushing fifty," Gently pulling my head away but holding it mere inches from his cock. Indecisive.

I reached over for his hand with my own, popping finger after finger in my mouth, collecting every drop of cum like it was nectar. I could be good...I If properly motivated. The salty musk was all the motivation I needed at that moment. He pulled me in for a filthy, sloppy kiss once I was done, both of us humming, vocalising the shared pleasure.

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[antisocial-af]

Title: A Chance at Forever

Gift for: @brightasstars

Chapter: 3/3 COMPLETED

Square Filled: Free Space (For @shadowhunterbingo​)

Raiting: T

Wordcount: 1839

No Major Archive Warnings

SFW, Angst with Happy Ending, Time Travel, Malec Fluff.

Author’s Note: I am still under the weather and have been for a bit. But I wanted to finish this Bingo Square before the event closed. 

Summary:

Alec and Magnus travel to the past and make a big decision about their future.

Read on Ao3

Story:

The portal threw the couple out on an expensive-looking rug, causing them both to groan in discomfort. 

"Where are we?" Alec questioned as he started to straighten himself out. 

"Not really where darling," Magnus corrected him as he held his hand out to help his husband up. "More like when."

"When?"

Magnus looked around and confirmed that Ragnor's portal actually worked. "we are in the past, Alexander."

Alec just looked at his husband, confused. He didn't understand what Magnus was going on about. Finally, Alec took his husband's outstretched hand and replied, "Magnus did you hit your head hard on the landing?"

"No, but darling, we must get moving," Magnus stated as he started to pull Alec through the old house. "We can't stay more than an hour, or else we might be stuck."

Alec stumbled after his husband at the insistent tugging. Magnus had never led him wrong, so he trusted the other but still didn't stop the confusion growing within the Shadowhunter. 

Alec watched as his husband's eyes darted around the room till a smirk played onto Magnus' lips. 

"There you are!" Magnus declared in an excited tone. He moved forward, pulled on the bookshelf in front of them, and sent a pulse of his magic through the vault’s lock. He had to make sure that even if someone found his vault, they wouldn't be able to open it without his magic signature. 

"Magnus?" Alec called out, even more confused than before. He looked around the room and saw old reports laying on a desk. Alec's breath caught when he noticed the dates on them. 1989.

"Just a sec, darling," Magnus called back as he shifted through the small vault. He was sure he put the vial in here. He was positive about it. Magnus pushed back some old photos till a small purple vial attempted to roll out and onto the floor. He quickly wrapped his magic around it and saved it from a shattering fall. "Got you.' 

Magnus couldn't help the small thrill and anxiety that shot through his body as he looked at the flask. This small ingredient held the key to his happiness. 

"We should get going, Alexander," Magnus stated as he turned back to face his husband, who was now reading through reports Magnus must've left out in the past. He could see the horror and strain on his archer's face. "Alexander?"

"In Idris, all these are locked away and censored," Alec managed out as he kept reading the orders the Clave had signed off on in the past. "Magnus, I had no idea…." 

Magnus pushed the vial into his vest pocket and made his way to Alexander. He moved the files away from the Shadowhunter and cradled his husband's face gently. "My love, you aren't them. What they did in the past, you have worked relentlessly to reverse and amend. It is a part of our past, but it doesn't define us."

"They took so much from you all," Alec whispered as he leaned into Magnus' touch. "I'm sorry."

"Darling, what they did is not for you to apologize for," Magnus continued. "Now we can talk about more when we go back, but we really have to go, darling.” 

“Cause Rangor and the portal?” Alec asked as he nodded. 

“Yes, I’m not sure how long our dear little cabbage will be able to stabilize this magic,” Magnus replied, tugging on Alec’s hand towards the unstable-looking portal. He assumed the way back was the same way he got here. He just needed to think back to the present day for the portal to push them back into the loft. “Make sure you don’t let go, darling.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Alec smiled and pulled Magnus closer. He didn’t exactly understand how he ended up here, but he knew those documents. He had so many questions, but they could all wait until they got home and far away from this time period. 

“Always the charmer,” Magnus winked and closed his eyes, thinking of the potion he left on stasis in his apothecary, of Chairman probably looking around for him for lunch duty and of all of Alec’s gear and things around their home.

Alec watched his husband concentrate and, like always, swooned at the tiny creases around Magnus’ eyes as he focused harder. He cherished the small details of his husband. The Shadowhunter tightly wrapped his arms around his warlock and closed his eyes, putting his complete trust in him. 

“Let’s go back home,” Magnus smiled as he pulled both of them through the portal. Magnus felt the volatile pull again as the magic ripped through time to push them back out to his present-day loft. 

“Took your time, didn’t you?” Ragnor groaned, exhausted as he tried to bat away the small feline making circles around his feet. “Your beast seems to be hungry as well.” 

Magnus patted himself down, checking everything was in order and the vial still secured in his vest pocket. He quickly turned around to see Alexander doing the same. 

"We got the ingredient," Magnus confirmed as he snapped his fingers, summoning Chairman Meow's food dish filled for the small cat. 

"I'm glad," Ragnor groaned as he fell onto Magnus' desk chair, exhausted. "I've already contacted Cat; she will be here to collect me shortly. But, be warned, she is furious." 

"At you or me?" Magnus asked as he quickly started to pull out the rest of the ingredients Catarina had written down in the recipe. 

"Both." Catarina's voice rang through as a portal appeared in the room. "I can't believe you both would be so reckless."

"Really? I thought this would be expected. I have different cure vials prepared at my home for whenever Magnus calls," Ragnor joked as he started to cough and groan. "Speaking of, do you have magic exhaust remedies on you?"

As Ragnor and Catarina kept going, Magnus gathered all the ingredients and started to measure them out. 

"So it was for a potion?" Alec asked, walking around Magnus' workstation, careful not to get in the concentrated warlock's way. 

"Not just any potion, darling," Magnus confirmed as he dumped the last of his Seelie tears into the pot before vanishing the jar with a mental note to contact Meliorn for more. "This is one of the most important potions I have made." 

"For a client?"

"No, it is for you, my dear husband."

"For me?" Alec questioned as he kept watching Magnus add ingredients before letting the potion simmer. 

Magnus walked forward and took Alec’s hands, and tugged him close. “Remember how we had talked about immortality in the past?”

“We agreed that if it came to it, I would get Raphael to turn me,” Alec nodded as he remembered the conversation that came after he had convinced Magnus to tell him what was bugging him. His husband had been reluctant at first to confide his newest fear with him. It had taken some coaxing till Magnus finally informed Alec that a life without him was not something he was looking forward to and often kept him up at night, especially on those that Alec was off on a mission. 

“What if there was another way?” Magnus asked, bringing his hand up to caress his Shadowhunter’s cheek. 

“Is there?” Alec asked while attempting to temper his excitement. He wasn’t too fond of the idea of changing to a liquid-only diet but would if it meant he would be with Magnus forever. 

“We will see in a few minutes; the potion needs to set for ten minutes before it is safe for you to take it,” Magnus confirmed.

“Will I still be a Shadowhunter?” Alec asked as he looked between Magnus and the resting potion. 

“As far as Catarina found, you will remain the same,” Magnus answered. “You will stop aging within a year of taking it, but there is a slight side effect of it.” 

“What is it?” 

“The potion was created by a Seelie so that they could keep their partner without binding them to the Seelie Realm,” Magnus explained. “In doing so, the partner, later on, developed some extra abilities. Abilities that are usually only Seelie. Random plants growing at will and the sort.” 

“So I will be part Seelie and part Shadowhunter?” Alec questioned as he kept counting the seconds for the potion to set. 

“Not enough Seelie to cause a ruckus but enough that I won’t have to worry about you around my greenhouse,” Magnus teased, trying to lighten the mood. “We can wait, you know. I could put the potion into stasis and look for more ways before we settle on this one.” 

Alec looked between his husband and the potion. With the potion, he could maintain a close to normal Shadowhunter lifestyle. Sure, Alec might have to quit later on once people start figuring out he isn’t aging, but he could have a few more years protecting his Parabatai and sister. Alec wouldn’t have to put Jace through the pain of a broken Parabatai bond. The potion was a blessing compared to other methods they have explored. 

“I want to do it,” Alec confirmed and kissed Magnus’ cheek. “This way, you can also still show me all the great food around the world like you enjoy doing.” 

“I won’t hold it against you if you want to wait, Alexander,” Magnus conveyed, not wanting to push his husband into a choice. He didn’t want Alexander to come to regret it and their relationship to suffer for it. Magnus was aware he was already selfish by making his lover immortal but, he refused to let it cause a rift between them. If Alexander wanted to wait years before making the decision, then Magnus was ready to accept that. 

“Magnus,” Alec called softly. “I don’t want to wait. I want to spend the rest of your forever together. I want to take the first step into our forever.” 

Magnus leaned forward and sealed their lips together, relishing the stubble that brushed against him and the soft reply from Alec as he returned the kiss. “You will never cease to amaze me, my love.” 

Magnus lifted the pot and poured it out to a small glass, observing the potion for discrepancies. Finally, he turned to Alec and handed him the violet drink. “It might taste a bit like metal, but that is normal.” 

Alec smiled and looked at the half-filled cup. He thought that it would be filled with fanfare and dramatics when the moment came to be immortal. Alec believed that he would be nervous, and he still was but not the type of nervous he expected. He was nervous because he would be ensuring his fairy tale with Magnus would never have an end date after this drink. Instead, he would get a happily ever after. Forever after. With one more look at his husband and even the two still bickering warlocks in the background, Alec tossed the potion back like a shot of alcohol and swallowed it all. 

[herstoryherlegacy]

Her.Legacy.

My brother called me tonight after work. He had been researching details on my prognosis (I can’t even write the C word sometimes..it’s too heavy) and shared some uplifting information with me. During our conversation my phone must have lost my wifi and picked it back up because I got a venmo email from KS Gonzalez donating $1,500 to me. My face was complete shock when I opened the email and saw the thumbnail of one of my favorite beauty influencers @Iluvsarahii 😭 my page has been trending high lately and it’s even reached Karen.

We have some friends in common who she may have seen my Gofundme post circulating through. I was touched to say the least by her incredible gesture. I promptly responded back to her message making sure to thank her so much. Karen is a big role model for me in so many ways. We have similar beginnings from working at MAC, making YouTube videos. But aside from her fame in those areas, Karen is just a pure and genuine human being. I met her for the first time at my first Dose of Colors Christmas parties. She has the biggest smile and I introduced myself and she hugged me like she’s known me forever. She was kind and let me and my friend take a photo with her. Karen shares my spirit. Many of my customers at MAC know that I am the same kind of genuine person. I don’t have to try to be nice, I don’t have to put on that customer service act, it literally is just me. It’s in my DNA to treat others with the same kindness as an old friend and the same respect as a family member. I genuinely love people and making new friends. This is the reason why I worked in my local mall for close to 15 years. Ask anyone who has been in retail before..they probably were over it the first month in. One of my favorite things is to meet new people, talk to new people, hear about their lives, interact with them, and maybe because it just feels like I’m gaining new friends each interaction. I’m just interested in people, which is also why I love doing makeup. I get to meet so many interesting people and hear about their lives, and if I’m lucky, I get to grow with them. From first dates, to engagements, to weddings, to maternity shoots. It’s a fucking honor to be part of those days. And wanted to be part of those days. I’m at a point in my career where people are seeking ME out for their special events and disappointed if I’m booked. That feeling is so special. Not just because I’m some random person they found in a phone book, but because of the impression I’ve left. As a creative, one of the bead references is word of mouth. One satisfied client will tell another and another. I’m blessed to have been so well liked (and in some cases loved 🤍) by so many that they felt inclined to pass me along. I pride myself on that ability. To make my clients feel loved, and appreciated, and heard. I’m never stingy with my knowledge. If I know how to help someone with a makeup issue I will spill ALL the details, because I don’t believe in keeping the information to myself. You know how you compliment that one girl on her outfit but she won’t tell you where she got it because she doesn’t want you to have it? Nah. What good does it do me to keep this valuable information inside my head if it can benefit you? I tell everyone I’m a fountain of knowledge, please ask me! I’m an educator at heart, which is why my YouTube tutorials were so fun and successful. I love to teach. I love to speak. I have so much to say I often run out of breath. That’s just who. I. Am. So back to my phone call. My brother was saying how I have such a huge support system rallying around me and you can definitely see it. I feel like for those few days you couldn’t open up Instagram without seeing my face. You, or someone you knew, was posting about my page. And I told my brother..this brings me to a thought I had a while back before this whole situation happened. I had thought to myself, “if I died, who would even come to my funeral? I don’t have many friends..maybe a handful but that’s it” and I would picture a small and empty funeral.

But how..you might think. She must have so many friends seeing how people were posting her. Well no. I often feel lonely not having an inner circle like I so often see. I have no close friends inviting me out to brunch, taking vacations together, doing co-family bbq’s. It’s just…me and maybe one or two people who sometimes may get together once or so a year. Which led to my initial thought. But that perspective has changed. I believe If god decides to take me before I’m ready (and I really fucking hope not), that my funeral would be filled with each person I have left a love mark on. And I believe now that that is a lot of you guys. Without trying, and just being the me I was born to be, I now see just how many have been touched by me in a way that they allowed me a spot in their hearts. And that’s honestly…all I could have ever asked for. I just want to leave the most positive impression on people. And some have taken that trait before as “fake” or me “kissing up” but it’s not. It’s just Salina being Salina, and I can’t fake that. I love each and every person who has allowed me space in their prayers. In their thoughts. In their days. Thank you because I really do feel like I’m not alone anymore. On that note, goodnight. Don’t stop praying for me 🥲

[simmeraries]

Ren: Part 1

hey world, it’s Ren. 

It’s been a shitty few days, that’s for sure. Mom went insane about family portraits, like she does every year, making sure we all went on diets before we got them taken. There was no way in hell she was gonna have her precious middle-class suburban dream family look like they’ve gained a few pounds over Thanksgiving. That would be an aesthetic nightmare for her facebook page.  So we all gathered up on the couch while mom had her photographer friend, Ellen, take the most awkward family photos anyone has ever seen. 

“Act like you like each other!” Ellen yelled out at us, from behind the tripod, as we all sat in cramped positions on the couch. 

“What if we don’t,” Calum giggled out, before Mom gave him a small smack on the back of the head, not hard enough to hurt him, but it got her point across.

“Y’all are the cutest little fam-bam-ily, I have ever seen!” Ellen squeaked, “Say Harmon!” The camera flashed. 

The photos turned out okay, nothing to write home about, but my mom certainly would write a long post on her timeline explaining the incredible feats of her children and husband that had happened throughout the year. It was kind of a cute tradition, if you didn’t realize how much of an enormous ego boost she got when she read the comments. 

Happy Holidays from the Happy Harmons!

What an amazing year we Harmons have had!  Our sweet son, Calum, turned 12 in August and has been absolutely thriving in Junior High! He loves going to Speech and Debate tournaments, and has been doing so well in Humorous Interpretation (Three First Place Trophies!). He also has been on the honor roll, his whole first semester of 7th grade! We are so proud of our funny guy!  Our beautiful 17 year old, Abigayle, has been killing it in volleyball and soccer, and she is so excited to start basketball next semester! She has been applying to colleges and already has so many offers for athletic scholarships! We can NOT believe she is a senior this year, but we love her so much and are excited to support her in all of her future endeavors. 

My hunky husband, Raymond, is truly a genius and has rocked his office to the core this year with all his new infrastructure changes. Engineers really know. how to think outside of the box, and he is so good at that in and outside of the workplace! I am so proud of my man and am stoked to announce that we will be celebrating 22 years of marriage this year! I love you Ray! I am also very proud of the accomplishments I’ve made in my workplace this year, I have once again been named Realtor of The Year by BBRA, and made a record number of sales this year (beating the previous record, also set by Yours Truly lol!) 

 And last, but certainly not least, our eldest daughter, Serenity, turned 21 this year and has been working her butt off at a new writing project! She has also been taking some classes at Bay Area Community College. She hopes to finally be able to move out this Summer. We are proud of her too!  This year has been so great for my sweet family, and we can’t wait to see what the New Year brings! Have a very Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays! 

God Bless,  Angelique Mathews-Harmon

I don’t know if you notice the way she talks about me, versus the way she talks about my younger siblings, but it’s certainly... different. Look, I wasn’t always the disappointment child. I used to be on the honor roll in high school, I was captain of the debate team, and Student Body Vice President, I was popular for a nerd, and I was praised heavily on my mom’s yearly facebook Christmas card.

 After I graduated, I wanted things to stay the same. My best friend, Emily, and I both got debate scholarships to Britechester University, our dream school, and we decided we were gonna be roomies. For the first few months, things went great, we were eating in the dining halls and riding our bikes to class together. We would spend the evenings gathering evidence for debate practice, and then collaborating on Game of Thrones fanfiction. Emily made way more friends than me, but she never ditched me for them. She would always cancel with her new friends if I wanted to hang out, and never go to any frat parties that I also didn’t want to go to. That was, of course, until she met Desi. 

Desi was a senior girl who joined our debate team the last semester of her senior year, because she needed a Fine Art credit. She was president of Tri Pi sorority, and everyone knew about it, especially Emily. Emily had always talked about wanting us to join a sorority, but I always talked her out of it. Maybe I was being selfish, but I knew I would never fit in with all those preppy girls. Yes, my family had a lot of money, but they never spoiled us, and I certainly was never skinny enough or white enough to be considered on of the ‘pretty’ girls at my rich private high school. Emily, though, was. Desi quickly noticed how much interest Emily was taking in her sorority, and asked Emily to come meet the girls at the Mansion for a private tour, and an opportunity to get a bid (if you don’t know, a ‘bid’ is an offer to join the sorority, and in the Spring, they’re very rare.) Emily was so excited and that evening begged me to come with her to the Tri Pi Mansion. I was very against it, but I couldn’t say no to Em’s jay blue puppy-dog eyes. So Emily and I biked across campus to the giant Tri Pi house. 

When we got there around 7 pm, we were in awe. Every dorm on campus looked like it had been built in the 70s, but the Tri Pi’s lived in a modern palace. All the walls were painted a blush baby pink, and the floors were tiled in white marble. There was a giant modern kitchen with three fridges, and two stoves. And in the living room, 18 of the girls were sprawled out across an extra long, pink, suede sectional. They were dressed in matching pajamas and drinking cocktails served to them by a private caterer. I felt like I was in a movie, this type of luxury didn’t exist in real life, but there it was right in front of my eyes. When she spotted us, red-headed Desi leaped up off the couch to greet us. 

“Emi! You’re here!” She gasped, bounding towards the two of us. “Oh my, and you brought your other freshman friend. I’m so sorry babe, what was your name again?” She widened her smile at me, showing her flawless white teeth, I wondered if it was healthy to bleach your teeth that much. 

“Serenity, but everyone calls me Ren.” I kindly stated back to her, thinking maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

“Oh my god. Serenity is such a pretty name, one of my sisters is named Felicity, and that’s kind of similar!” 

“That’s pretty too!” I responded, “Older or younger sister?” 

Desi just laughed at me, and so did Emily. I didn’t get the joke. After awhile of them laughing, Emily finally explained. 

“Not her biological sister, Ren. Her sorority sister.” The two of them looked back at each other and kept laughing. 

The rest of the night continued on like that, Desi and Emily always having something to laugh about that I didn’t fully understand. Desi introduced us to many of the girls, and while Emily seemed to remember all of their names, I couldn’t even recall one if you asked me that night. I wanted to be as nice as I could to all of them, because they were all really nice to me, but I felt so completely out of place. We drank a few Bloody Mary’s and watched the movie Step Sisters, they asked us questions about our majors, and what we wanted to get out of the College Experience (TM), and at about midnight Desi and the rest of the girls sent us home. On our bike ride back to the dorms, I could tell Emily was upset. When we got back in our room, she was full-blown crying.

“What’s wrong, Em?” I asked, after shutting the door. 

“They didn’t set up a follow-up interview,” Emily cried, “Everyone knows that during Spring Rush, Tri Pi always does a house tour and a second interview before you get a bid. I can’t believe it. I thought I did everything right!” Emily fell back into her bed, and sobbed into her hands. I was shocked, I had no idea Emily knew or cared that much about getting into Tri Pi. 

That night, Emily cried herself to sleep in her bed, while I quietly smiled on the top bunk. I knew it was wrong, but I knew that if Emily and I got into a sorority, our friendship would never be the same. I didn’t want anything to change, I would have been happy if the next four years had been the same as the previous four years before it, just me and Em, debate partners, fanfic authors, and best friends. I fell asleep that night excited to take on the rest of the year with Emily by my side, without Desi or the Tri Pis. 

The next morning, I was happy to get this email: 

Dear Serenity Harmon, 

It was so great meeting you last night! However, it is unfortunate that we will not be able to extend you a bid to Pi Pi Pi Sorority at this time. That being said, you are more than welcome to attempt to rush again next semester. Have an awesome rest of your semester! 

Pi Pi Pi President, 

Desiree Cast

I giggled at the formality, but I already knew I was not getting a bid, because of the lack of a ‘follow-up interview.’ In the midst of me laughing to myself, Emily popped her head up on the top bunk. She had a shit-eating grin. 

“Check your email!” She shrieked. 

“I just did,” I responded, “What a bummer.” I faked a frown. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Emily shoved her phone in my face and I read the bright screen. 

 Dear Emily Piper, 

We had such an amazing time with you last night. After talking with the other executive members, we have decided that we would be honored to extend you a bid to Pi Pi Pi Sorority, without a second interview. You are a perfect fit to the Tri Pi mission and you fit in so well! You clearly did your research, and we can tell you will dedicate your whole heart and soul to this organization.  Initiation will be on February 11th. Congratulations, Emily, and welcome to Tri Pi! 

Tri Pi Love and Mine, 

Desi Cast

That was the beginning of the end for me and Emily. A few months later, Emily moved out of our shared dorm room to move into the Tri Pi mansion. I can just imagine her in the silk pink pajamas, letting some frat boy feed her chocolate-covered cherries. At the beginning of sophomore year, she quit the debate team to focus on getting ready for Homecoming. When I asked her how she was gonna be able to pay for school she said that the Tri Pi girls helped her find some scholarships to make up for the one she was losing. Without my debate team partner, and without my best friend, I didn’t do so well in debate anymore. It just wasn’t as fun as it was when Emily and I could practice together. I lost my scholarship the second half of Sophomore year, and had a hard time focusing in any of my classes. Emily still tried to hang out when she could, but, by the end of sophomore year, she never could anymore. I was failing most of my Gen Eds,  and since my parents had started paying for everything, they weren’t too happy about how I was wasting their money. They gave me an ultimatum, either come home, or shape up. The thing was, I didn’t want to shape up. I didn’t have any good friends at Britechester, I didn’t have a scholarship, I stayed in my room all day and all night when I wasn’t in class. So, I went home. 

And I haven’t left since. When I got back to Brindleton Bay, I started focusing on my fanfiction more and more, and decided that I no longer wanted to be a lawyer, like I was going to school for. Instead, I wanted to be a novelist. Neither of my parents thought that was a good idea, but my mom especially lost it when I told her I wanted to take Creative Writing classes at BACC. She doesn’t approve of any job where you can’t make money immediately, even though it took her 6 years to sell her first house after getting her real estate license. My dad convinced her, though, to let me follow my dreams, despite how wary he was of it himself. Ever since then I’ve been working on my own fantasy novel (loosely based off of the fan fiction that Emily and I used to write together.) I don’t think it’s any good yet, but as I take classes and learn more abut writing, the better I feel like I get, and the more my novel grows.

I don’t hate being back at home. I like being around my siblings, most of the time. Sharing my childhood bedroom with my seventeen year old sister, absolutely sucks, but more for her, than me, I think. 

She fought me for days on taking the top bunk when I first moved back in, and even though I felt pretty pissed about it at the time, now I kinda like being able to just collapse on my bed at night instead of having to climb up the ladder. Abi is also rarely home, she’s constantly at some sports practice, or some school activity. I’m also pretty sure she has a boyfriend that neither of my parents know about, but sometimes I hear her giggling on the phone late at night. Abi is much cooler than I ever could have hoped to be at seventeen and absolutely makes sure everyone knows about it. 

“Hey, Abi! Cute jacket! Can I borrow it sometime?” 

“Don’t be a fucking loser, Ren.” 

Abi and I don’t fight, she just kinda makes me feel like an idiot for existing, and honestly, she’s right. But, Abi is not the coolest sibling I have, nor my favorite person in my home, that honor goes to my absolutely perfect younger brother, Calum. 

Calum is the funniest, nicest, goofiest kid you have ever met, and I he is the spitting image of my father. He always makes everyone in the room laugh, and never lets anyone feel bad about themselves for any amount of time. I wonder if my dad was like that too, before my mom scratched away his personality with her acrylic nails. Calum is the definition of an empath, he can always tell if you’re upset, and feels it like you do too. He laughs hard, and loves harder, and he is my favorite person in the world. The worst thing about leaving home was leaving him, and the best thing about coming home was being reunited with him. He’s in seventh grade now, though, and I deeply worry that annoying, asshole kids are gonna start beating him down the way they did to me. I’m afraid that his deep love and interest in the world will turn to apathy as soon as some kid calls him a homophobic slur or something. I’ll do everything in my power to protect him from that. 

With my rather large and chaotic family, though, shit can get pretty overwhelming. Especially when you’re trying to develop an entire fantasy world in your brain. And the best part about being an adult that lives at home, is I don’t have to ask to leave the house when I want to. Suck on that, Abi. 

We live in a Seaside town called Brindleton Bay, and everyday, between my classes or after I get done editing some of my manuscript, I take a walk down to the docks. The Mathews’, my mom’s side of the family, have lived in the Bay for many years, and owned a lot of land next to the ocean. Inheriting this land is what got my mom into real estate in the first place. The family property stretches out long across the shoreline but my favorite part, is the lighthouse. You have to take a dingy or a speedboat to get out to the island where the lighthouse resides, but it’s the most beautiful part of town for sure. 

So in the afternoons, I’ll hop in our boat and zip down to the lighthouse, it’s not too far of a trip, and the view is well worth it. I climb up the mountainous staircases to reach the top, and if I time it just perfectly... 

I’m there right by sunset. 

This is where I come to think, to imagine the rest of the world I’m creating in my book. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a famous fantasy novelist like JRR Tolkien or George RR Martin, or any other old RR man, for that matter. But, I’m certainly trying. I know that my mom is disappointed in me, I know that I am last AND least on her Facebook Christmas Posts. I know that I’ll never be the perfect college student like Emily, I’ll never be the star athlete like Abi, and I’ll certainly never make anyone as happy as Calum makes everyone he meets. But, maybe I can be Ren, and maybe one day I can prove them wrong. Even if that means I have to live at home for a little while. And at least I can be at the light house, alone- 

“Ren? Ren Harmon? Is that you?”

[oh-for-fic-sake]

A Man And His Cat

You both explore pet play.

Masterlist

Warnings: Adult situations +18 , Pet play, Spanking, Oral, Its kinky

A/n: Sooo who wants smut? my quarantine imagine went down well so here is another dirty fic. This will probably be a mini series feel free to send me your kinks and I will try and incorporate them. I am still working on my other stories slowly but on a little writers block and I may or may not have re-watched superman vs batman so look out as there might be some more dc on the horizon because omg I nearly forggot how yummy they were. Anyway here is another smut piece for you all hope you enjoy xx

Taglist @two-unbeatable-beaters​ @thatgirly81​

A Man And His Cat

You lounged across the sofa in your hello kitty onesie playing your xbox, you'd gotten Jurassic world evolution and was currently snickering letting your t-rex run around eating people. Henry was upstairs you could hear him moving around in the study. The door bell went off you quickly got up wrestling kal out of the way to answer it hearing the post man call out he had left it on the bin you thanked him bringing the large box inside with a few letters piled on top. Not thinking anything of it you brought the post in kicking the door shut behind you.

"Babe what the fuck?" You froze not sure at first what you'd done wrong

"Shit hands! hands! sanitize them quick! we cant take chances! Your not supposed to answer the door I've told you that! Were in London! For Christ sake" He said rushing to you snatching the post handing you the sanitizer that sat on the table by the door. You shook your head quickly rubbing the sanitizer over your hands letting it soak in as Henry shook his head at you watching closely.

"Sorry, sorry I forgot" he sighed since receiving your official 'shielding'  letter from the government Henry had been a little mother hen....papa bear? Either way he was on edge hounding you about keeping your hands clean not touching anything that could possibly be infected or letting anyone other than himself with in 6ft of you. He even made you take your temperature each day with good reason tho your heart clenched things were getting bad the infection and death rates climbing each day ,there was rumors that the UK was on the course to being just like Italy and Spain. In a way his worrying was your fault when the letter came through Henry had freaked out a bit, it hit him hard when he realized it wasn't just speculation it was a fact that if you caught this thing it would most likely kill you and he was shook to the core. It didn't help when you'd only told him a few days prior not to worry about your condition that it was under control ,which technically it was every two months you was having blood tests every so often your blood count would dip a little but you normally managed it with your diet just eating more meat usually does it, the protein helping your count go up a little. You didn't bore him with the details he didn't need to know to much, you knew what to do and when to do it, it was normal for you. You feel yourself getting rough you get a blood test and up your steroids, you feel better you lower them back down the main goal being avoiding blood transfusions. But Henry had insisted he needed to know everything now he said it'd make him feel better so you told him, sat him down and explained that somehow your body can survive on a borderline blood count it should be 120 to 150 yours hovers around 100 to 110... If your lucky, not low enough for a transfusion but low enough to cause a few problems if it drops any more the lowest it got in recent years was 57.... yeah that wasn't fun, you'd spent two whole days seven till seven getting transfusions then had to go back to have the iron in your blood taken out....It was not pretty, but since then you'd been more careful. You explained the fact that your immune system was practically non-existent you caught chicken pox a year before and it nearly killed you two days after the spots appeared causing all sorts of issues pneumonia, bacterial infections in the heart and lungs then sepsis resulting in a few weeks in hospital in the infectious diseases unit so yeah safe to say catching this thing would be bad. Henry bless him was gobsmacked he knew you was anemic ,that was it, he had enough on his plate you didn't want to add to it.You leaned back on the side unit by the door trying to pet kal who sniffed at your hand then snorted walking off, he didn't like the sanitizer one bit.

"Henry I'm sorry I just-it keeps slipping my mind" he nodded wrapping you up in a bear hug resting his chin on your head.

"I know baby I'm sorry for snapping... I just don't want to loose you, stay indoors and stay safe those aren't just the government's rules ,their my rules as  well baby girl remember?" You nodded kissing his chest before replying.

"Yes daddy" then turned and walked to the living room again noticing kal playing in his small cubby hole that had been a cupboard until recently, it had been turned into his own little bed room, complete with bed, night light and shelves that had some family photos of the three of you, you blew him a kiss and he huffed plonking his head down on his fluffy bed stretching out ready for his morning nap, you settled back down to play your game. Henry used the sanitizer then ran a hand through his hair sighing he picked up the post bringing it in placing the large box on the counter. He smirked realizing what it was. His order from bondara ignoring the letters he quickly got a knife slicing open the box. Henry routed around in the box like a kid on Christmas excited he headed up stairs to collect his other investments. You was pulled out of your game by Henry combing your hair back with his fingers pulling it up and back into a high ponytail, something you had no idea he could do, you paused the game turning to him but he held you still facing the TV then you felt them. He had clipped your little fluffy grey kitty ears in your hair pulling the pony tail tighter to secure the bottom of the crocodile clips. You brought a hand up to them confused a little touching them softly. He walked to the side smiling cooing at you

"There she is my precious little kitty! Just look at how cute you are?" You flushed at him as he bent down petting between your 'ears' then he growled in your ear.

"I could just eat you all up" you mewled rocking on the sofa a little anticipating the way this would turn out he gasped a little.

"But whats this? you still need your collar how will anyone know you have a loving owner if you don't have a cute little collar on?" he strode across the room plucking something from the box and retrieved a few more items from the counter that you hadn't known was there ,now tho you could clearly see a folded black towel you moaned at the implication he must have brought it down from upstairs turning he made his was back to you this time standing in front of you.

"As much as I did like your own kitten collar I got you a new one, not from bondara I didn't like theirs much but thankfully etsy is still up and running, here it is see?" You gasped as he revealed a pink leather choker with a pretty lace and ruffle design making it look more like a fancy Lolita choker then a kitty collar apart from the large rose gold D ring hanging from the middle just below a dark pink bow and medium-sized rose gold bell You quickly made to grab for it but he pulled it out of reach .

"No let me do it" you quickly held your head high stretching your neck for him to put it on he chuckled at how eager you was, you smiled wide as he quickly placed it around your neck you sighed when you felt the inside was a little padded with a soft almost suede like material. He spun it around so the bell and D ring was central then hooked two fingers inside checking how tight it was satisfied that it wouldn't choke you he pulled away and watched you closely then he sighed

"No ... its still not right is it kitten?" You tilted your head feeling a little ashamed?upset? he didn't like it? Did he think you were ugly? You blinked frowning at him bottom lip wobbling a little as you were on the brink of tears pulling back from him.

"What-" he shushed you placing a finger to your lips

"Kittens don't talk, now there is something missing pet, Ah! I know now this might be it" he said and picked up a small shiny matching rose gold heart tag, he held it to you to read it. On one side it said kitten the other had 'Property Of Henry If Lost Call' and his phone number on it you gasped a little opening your mouth the thank him but he snapped his fingers at you.No talking. You pouted mewling up at him again not sure how to communicate how much you loved it. Then you clicked leaning forward licking his hand biting lightly before tilting your head nuzzling his crotch. You smirked as his breath hitched in his throat and he grunted swearing quietly unable to stop himself from grinding on your head a little then stopped as you pulled back he grunted again rearranging himself in his bottoms. He made quick work of threading the tag onto the D ring he kissed your head

"Good girl and look baby it was a set" he leaned over you picking up a thick soft paracord lead in pink with leather handle decorated to match your new collar clipping it onto the D ring then looped it around his hand tugging lightly prompting you off of the sofa once you stood he quickly undid the buttons on the onesie letting it fall leaving you naked in the room. You shivered nipples puckering as the soft lead grazed your breasts and tummy as he moved, stepping out of the onesie Henry kicked it across the room.

"There we are kitten, nearly finished now down" he said barley containing his excitment you got down on your hands and knees before him holding his gaze rubbing your thighs together rocking side to side trying to caress your tingling clit between your lips as you felt small trickle of your arousal escape onto the floor mewling at the tiny flickers of pleasure it caused. Henry lead you across the living room to the island in the kitchen crawling was a little tricky at first but you soon found a smooth rhythm staying beside him smiling as the bell tinkled at every movement you made, he smiled down at you from this angle you could already see the bulge forming in his trousers, you went to sit down when he stopped only to have him fold the lead in one hand an strike you with it lightly across your breasts making you yelp out then moan looking down seeing a red stripe across them.

"No sitting until your told now ass up, good kitten just like that" you complied preening at his praise. He bent down holding out a fluffy grey kittytail plug you squealed a little bending further down pushing your tender breasts to the cold floor looking back at him expectantly waving your ass in the air at him. He laughed and crouched beside you running a hand across your dripping pussy  he leaned over kissing your head growling as his fingers massaged your wet center you moaned pushing back on him, he dragged his fingers to your opening plunging two thick fingers inside crooking them trying to scoop out more of your cum holding the plug just below you arched pushing back skimming your breasts across the cool floor trembling as he fucked you slowly bringing the plug to your clit and pressing it in small circles making you buck against him moaning and keening in higher pitches.

"Oh looks like I may have wasted money on lube hey baby? all wet and ready for me already such a precious thing." he ran the plug along your ass smearing your arousal across you all the way down to your slit you moaned as he spread his fingers out pulling your lips with them revealing your quivering hole to the cold air of the room making you gasp and clench as the freezing metal plug passed over it resting heavy on your clit, bucking a little you whined pushing back a little as the cold metal met your heated wet flesh, he held it still letting you warm the toy before running it back and forth slowly twisting it letting your arousal coat it wanting to make sure it was wet enough for him to push it in once satisfied he lifted it moving one hand to your bottom then began pressing it insistently at your tight little pucker. You whined placing the side of your face on the cool tile looking at him, he stroked your head shushing you when he realized just how much bigger this was from the last one

"Ok kitten now try to hold still one big deep breath just like before...Good girl now out push on your bottom" you nodded whining  bearing down on the toy as he held your shoulder using it to pull you back as he started pressing the tail further into you. You arched taking deep breaths when the plug seemed to get wider and wider you shook your head trying to arch away as it stung despite your arousal easing the way, you panicked a little as it seemed to keep stretching becoming sore as your tight ring tried fighting it .

"N-no its to muc-AAHH!" you cried out , he shushed you

"Come on kitten... Nearly there....Just a tiny bit more I promise......Push out again for me good girl! shh that’s it...Such a good girl for me......Ah ah no! stop moving bab-baby no no don't do-HEY! enough!-you’ll hurt yourself!" He scolded you as you tried to push against his hand on your shoulder to wriggle away then when that didn't work you unconsciously tried tucking your bottom beneath you whimpering. He stopped you with a quick volley of sharp spanks you yelped as his hot hand heated your ass, then there was a familiar popping sensation as your bottom swallowed the plug closing snug around it. He had used the distraction to quickly push the last of the plug in with a quick little shunt. You pushed up on your hands breathing heavy as the plug was indeed larger then the one you had used before, you ached as your ass tried fighting it wanting to push it out you let out pitiful breathy moans as you rippled around it.

"Daddy? Its big-im not sure-FUUCK OOHH" you cut yourself off moaning loud when he grabbed the tail and gave a small tug smirking as you cried out then followed it trying to ease the pressure he thrusted it a few times hitting something deep that made you arch high and squeal pressing back on to it as your pussy ceased and your clit throbbed so hard it almost felt raw he let go then twisted on his feet petting your head drawing patterns on your back.

"Oh baby I know its hard but your a kitten and kittens don't talk , if you carry on daddy will gag you understand?" you nodded at him pressing your head into his chest and kissed it softly wanting a little comfort, hissing deep breaths as you clenched around the tail plug whining, he brought the hand from your back and rubbed around the plug pressing it lightly.

"Its a little bigger but look at you? such a good girl look at that pretty little tail now just one more thing and you'll be daddies perfect kitty" he stood back up getting the remaining items a set of mittens that had no thumb piece instead just one Little pouch to fit your hand in with little paw prints on them they would be held on by two thin leather wrist cuffs. you wriggled around now growing accustomed to the bulbous plug pressing on your insides moaning as the ache became more a pleasurable throb you rocked a little in the air mouth open gasping as you rocked faster feeling the plug press against the back wall of you pussy, Henry quickly snatched up your hands one after the other locking them into the paw mittens. He stood back groaning loud as he watched cupping his erection rubbing along the bulge moaning rocking his hips into his palm as you kept arching your back. The sight was more erotic then he could have dreamed, he almost drooled as you rotated and wriggled your hips pushing back and forth trying to make your plug hit the spot he had pressed it to earlier moaning with closed eyes flushing a bright red, flinching as the tail ghosted your legs as it swayed behind you, turning you looked at the soft tail hanging between your legs giggling as the soft fur licked at your thighs. He snapped out of it and tugged you moving slower this time you stopped every so often moaning and whimpering as each step make your pussy twitch as the plug pressed against the back wall of it teasing your sensitive flesh from the wrong side by the time you got to the sofa both thighs were wet and you was shaking with need he sighed sitting down on it legs spread holding the lead tight keeping your head close to his crotch

"Come on baby time for your little treat" he said motioning for you to pull him free you brought your hands up fumbling with the zipper only really achieving to rub him through them ,making him grind against your hands throwing his head back you groaned in frustration whimpering at him resting your head in the inside of his thigh running your nose across the bulge sighing he looked down then petted you between your ears again.

"Oh kitten you can do better then that come on get daddy out." you pouted at him and nipped his thigh with your front teeth making him hiss and tug harshly on the lead growling at you before wrapping the cord around his fist once more pressing your nose into his crotch

"Bite me again kitten and see what happens, you think I wont fuck your throat raw? Ram into your mouth until my cock is choking you? Face fuck you until your pass out? I wouldn't test me kitten not now Ive waited to long to have you like this." His low ground out threats made you moan you couldn't wait until he fucked your mouth, already craving his salty taste, you kissed his cock through his trousers licking at it, it made you realize what you should do you trembled tucking your knees underneath you to keep your weight off of the plug you licked a long strip up the front of his trousers wetting them making him grunt again, one hand rested on your head petting you, you smirked watching through your lashes as he started flushing and panting, he loved it when you did this it was the only time he let you tease mostly because he was enjoying himself to much to fight for control, for all his talk of wanting control you think he secretly liked being at your mercy every once in a while, you poked out your tongue grazing his zipper then bit down making sure to press on him harshly making him yelp and hiss though clenched teeth when you dragged it down, he fumbled quickly undoing his top button and shimmied them down his hips giving you enough room to bite his boxers and pull them down....only you didn't you wrapped your lips over them sucking on him hard through them making sure to soak his boxers with spit making him groan giving a  thrust up to your face fisting his fingers in you hair a little careful not to pull off the ears.

"FUCK kitten!! Oh GOD! fuck pleaseplease do that again!! come on once more such a good girl" you did taking your sweet time kissing and suckling on him nudging him with your nose pushing him up and latched onto the sensitive underside of his cock running your teeth over his hot flesh rocking your hips left and right letting your pussy massage itself poking out your tongue you flattened it running it up the vein near his head pinning it to his hip then opened your mouth around it humming, he jerked up ass leaving the seat moaning out loud swearing at you for being a tease, you continued up finding his swollen crown you licked at it then his slit sucking again on him. He groaned loud and drawn out flexing his fingers and widened his legs you carried on enjoying having the man at your mercy for once kissing and sucking at his twitching length he began rocking faster panting.

"OH! yesyesYES Baby...WAIT HOLD ON!... Fuck slow down!Dont nono that's it kitten thats enough daddies going to cum! NO! ENOUGH!" you giggled as he used the lead to jerk you away panting and sweaty you thought it was funny you'd never heard him that desperate before, he normally had godlike restraint  holding himself back for hours if he really wanted to, he gasped then ran a hand across his face and melted into to sofa fighting of the impending orgasm. You sat there biding your time once he relaxed you swooped back in ready to force him to cum in his boxers, but only managed one kitten lick before being jerked away again he growled at you in warning giving you a stern look then tugged of his top still panting.

"you cheeky little thing!" you grinned raising yourself to your knees running your hands up his thighs as you leaned in kissing along the v of muscles above his boxers licking at his skin then nuzzled him lightly ghosting his stomach with your nose placing butterfly kisses here and there feeling him flex trying to arch his cock up to you, you slowly made your way down again opening your mouth tilting your head to engulf the muscle just on his boxers waistband flattening your tongue relishing in the pleasure filled noises he let loose and in the same moment curled your fingers over it the elastic pulling it away letting him spring free hitting your chin. He grunted as you let go letting the elastic snap back onto his balls only letting his cock free he looked down at you giving you a heated look

"Careful baby you don't want to play these games with me" you blinked innocently at him smiling then began kissing lower until you was at the base of his cock ignoring the small patch of hair at his root kissing him obscenely with open mouthed wet kisses then licked him from base to tip before plunging down on him he groaned closing his eyes tight

"FUCK KITTEN! Oohh god that's so hot, shit your mouth is SO FUCKING HOT UGH!" You sucked him deep swallowing around him letting one hand wander to his balls cupping them and rolling them in your palm your other hand dropped between your legs and you ground yourself on your hand moaning onto his cock as you worked your clit in slow firm strokes making your new gloves sticky and wet from your arousal. He cried out desperately bucking into your mouth and throat moaning and crying out cutting off his own words as you kept changing your pace hearing your little bell jingle with your movements on him bobbing your head slow with harsh sucks to his head then fast making sure to swallow or moan as he hit your throat focused solely on making him cum. Today he would cum first you were going to make sure. You whined as you changed direction on your clit feeling the heat in your belly slowly make its way down settling in your hard clit rubbing and tapping at it moaning louder as your orgasm began to build. He shivered his thighs jerking and trembling as you pointed your tongue pressing on the sensitive vein underneath it he shook his head clutching at the sofa grunting breathlessly each time he felt the vibrations of your throat moaning on him.

"BABY BABY STOP! I cant fuck please its to much- no nononono not yet I FuckFU-Fuuuck ah AH AH OH SHIT FUUUUUUCK" you ignored him, he was so lost that he had forgotten the lead, you used it to your advantage pulling back and sucking hard on his head licking at his slit then gripped his sack squeezing it tight as it tensed upwards then with one small drag of your teeth he whimpered loud and high releasing in your mouth jerking himself uncontrollably into your mouth face fucking you just like he threatened. You gave yourself a mental pat on the back but decided to go further swallowing as much of his cum you could but continued to suck and bob on him then cried out as your rocking hips found that perfect position on your clit making it throb and twitch your walls clenching, spasming making the plug move and caress your depths finally you screeched around his cock and came over your hand soaking the glove he yelped curling his feet into the floor shifting back trying to get away you followed placing your hands on his thighs pushing them back as he tried closing his legs trembling from your own release moaning and withering against him.

"UGH NOO FUCK STOPSTOPSTOOOP! ITS TO MUCH BA-KITTEN STOP IT NO PLEASE" he through his hands down blindly pushing you but you fought him wanting to torture him a bit, a little pay back for the other day you reasoned, but you couldn't fight him long even in his fucked out quivering state he was ten times stronger than you, you dragged your teeth across him one last time as he pushed you back off of him completely.

"Your a little bitch, you know that?" He said head tilted back and one arm draped across his eyes heaving deep breaths you just giggled kissing his thighs

"Where the fuck did that come from Anyway?" You just smirked licking your lip trying to collect the cum that had escaped from your mouth he groaned watching your pink tongue darting out.

“Meow?” You were a dangerous little kitten he decided. He looked down feeling your wet mitten then frowned a little before smiling deviously.

"Oh kitten? You didn't touch yourself did you?" You froze a little then sent him coy glance pulling your hands down slowly hoping he wouldn't notice. He caught your offending hand quickly

"Did you?" You shrugged feigning innocence as he pulled your hand up sniffing it you blushed

"It certainly smells like you" you whined at him flushing embarrassed  making him chuckle, he licked a long strip of of the mitten slapping his lips as he puled away tutting.

"Oh i think you did didn't you? Because daddy knows exactly how you taste and that my sweet little kitten is definitely you on this little mitten, such a needy little kitty hm? Did suckling on daddy really make you that desperate? Poor little baby" you panted as he bent forward his pupils dominated the blue of his eyes hot and playful all in one he peered down at the wooden floor sighing.

"Such a messy little pussy you have" he pushed you back a little you ducked when his leg swung over you and he got up walking to the counter again you watched  carefully as he approached the box you took the time to admire his taught ass as he bent forward a little reaching inside picking something out then folded the towel over his arm then hear the distinct sound of leather cracking on an open palm. You snapped out of your ass worshiping gaze eyes flicking  to his hands as he spun around looking at him as he held a new leather paddle with a paw print on it he smiled slyly crooking a finger at you. Come here. You gulped then rose from your spot on the floor crawling toward him gulping.

"You know kitten you was very reckless at the door earlier it was very naughty trying to torture daddy and playing with yourself without permission? I think you should be.....Corrected shall we say, for future reference just as a deterrent?. After all prevention is better then cure isn't it?" he licked his lips watching you squirm on the spot just across the kitchen island he tested the small paddle again. Your whole body ceased up as he stared at you.

"Erm N-no lets not how about best two out of three? You know three strikes and your out?" He chuckled shaking his head.

"Oh baby but that was three strikes and how many times do i have to tell you? kittens don't talk do they?" You pouted trying to sit your bottom down only to jerk it back up as your tail plug pressed deeper and the soft fur tickled your leg... not only that you didn't want to get it wet with your arousal

"Come kitten what do you say?" You blushed

"Meow" his face lit up yet his eyes only got darker

"That’s it such a clever kitty, but I must say you will be getting more then three strikes of your new paddle trust me now come round here like a good girl" you crawled around to his side squeaking as he lifted you effortlessly bending you over the counter you hissed as your breasts squished into the freezing cold marble your toes didn't touch the floor as he shuffled you up with the edge of the island on your thighs. He stood off to the side a little admiring the way your grey tail hung between your legs, the pitiful noises were delicious he grunted feeling himself twitch already starting to harden again he patted you bottom drawing lines along the soft skin moving to your slit following up towards the plug lifting the tail holding it taught in a fist but not pulling it out just tugging enough to make it press down into your pussy from behind. You moaned squirming trying to follow it as he held it high toes scrabbling up the cupboard door failing.

"Oh baby that's so cute, you know I  can see your pussy trying to find something to latch on to, does it feel hot? Is it empty? Sweet kitten you see if you had been a good girl following your rules, if you had stopped when daddy said and asked to touch yourself daddy would already be balls deep, battering away at your needy little pussy painting your insides with his cum... but no instead you hand to be a naughty girl and will have to settle for your paddle." You cried out as he circled your twitching clit as he spoke emphasizing words with shallow thrusts on his fingers he pulled away picking up the paddle striking your lower cheeks and pussy making you jump and moan hearing a wet slap as the sting settled in he pulled away running a hand over the pink spot

"Oohh look at that hah you have a little paw print on your tush now,I think fifteen will do don't you sweety? Five for each naughty thing you did? You know normally I would have you count and say thank you, but well seeing as your a kitten today you should meow instead" You groaned as he lifted it again slapping a bit harder this time you yelped as he aimed for the under curve of your left cheek then meowed dutifully.

"Very good again" he struck you again lower on your thigh no harder then before this time you meowed again moaning as your pussy clenched dripping on your touching thighs. You closed your eyes tight as he continued peppering your ass with the paddle the final five landed in quick succession on your weeping pussy you meowed loud and hard sobbing each pussy spank had directly struck the underside of your clit. Throwing the paddle on the counter he cupped your red swollen lips his hand cooling the burn. He smiled then tilted his hips up bringing his fully erect cock to your entrance. Throwing the towel down on the floor. You sobbed higher as he drew lines on your slit teasing your muscles you jerked against him just on the edge of cumming kicking out your legs.

"You know I have been doing some reading about squirting, I think I've sussed out how to make it happen on command shall we test it out?" You shook your head grunting as he thrust forward you cried out feeling him force your walls apart making room for his fat throbbing cock it stung more then ever with your weight on your tummy and plug in your ass but you loved it.

"Ugh! NOOO!AH AH FUCK!" You mewled grunting at each punishing thrust stretching you he was fighting the plug in your ass for room holding firm  he grinded your clit you screeched as he angled his hips and tugged up on the tail making the embedded metal run along his cock growling. Before you knew what happened your body ceased walls tightened clamping around his cock moaning and gasping releasing, flooding over him he laughed groaning as your steady stream of cum hit his abdomen and washed over him.

"Oh fuck! yes I knew you could do it good girl, fuck that's so HOT! again more come on baby you can do it! Give it to daddy once more then I'll fill you" he grunted doubling his efforts stroking his cock around inside of you giving sharp tugs to your tail jolting you back against him to meet his brutal hips making you whimper at the harsh treatment one of his hand snuck below you pinching your clit almost jerking it off.

"FUCK I’m nearly there KITTEN! OH SHIT! Fuckfuckfuck you better fucking cum for me! Or I'll get the wand out again!" That did it You threw your head back placing your toes on the cupboard door rocking against him cumming again long and hard, so hard you couldn't make a sound all the air left you and you just hung there your mouth hanging open in a silent scream he grunted gabbing your shoulders pulling you back to him making your spine curve painfully as you fell apart around him again your sopping pussy sucking on him trying to trap him with on final painful thrust he growled rubbing his cock head on your cervix releasing torrents of cum into you. He lowered your shoulders down feeling you go limp taking a moment to catch his breath then he pulled the box towards him panting heavy fishing out another plug

"NOnonono please Henry no moreIi cant-I came again I promise I did please don't get the wand out!" You panicked pleading with him as his hand disappeared into the box pushing back on him, he smiled waving a dildo plug on your face

"Not a wand see this is for your pussy love, to keep my cum inside you for the rest of the day.....after all you was a bad kitten" you mewled relaxing happy he wasn't going to torture you again to tired to argue you laid still as he pulled himself from you quickly plugging you up before anything could escape. You moaned and wriggled he slid you off of the counter to you feet quickly supporting you as you nearly dropped to the floor smirking a smug little smile you reached behind you to pull the tail from you he smacked your hand away

"Ohh no I think I will have you stay like this all day, at least then I know you wont answer the door" you gaped then pouted at him crossing your arms at him

"A-all day? What if I get cold" he chuckled walking across to the sofa throwing you his tshirt you quickly tried slipping it on but dropped it due to your mittens you sulked stamping a foot he pulled on his boxers then returned picking up the tshirt sliding it on you then quickly undid the mittens you flexed your fingers when they were free , he collected the damp towel on the floor wiping down your thighs and between your legs you took the other end patting his pelvis down blushing realizing just how much mess you'd made you looked down still wiping him tears sprung to your eyes sniffling

"Oh god this is so embarrassing" could hear the quiver in your voice, ready to cry out of shame he growled not having non of that he shook his head hooking his fingers into your collar pulling you up on your tiptoes forcing you to look him in the eye.

"Not its fucking hot! I cant believe how sexy that was feeling you cum so thoroughly, drenching me uncontrollably, fuck it was the most amazing feeling! And I cant wait to make you soak me again and again, one day I’m going to drink it from you." You blushed shocked by his words as he leaned in kissing you passionately sucking on your tongue he pulled away tossing the towel into the washing machine then pulled the leather cuffs from the loops in the mittens throwing then in as well quickly turning it on to rinse and dry. Then quickly he scooped you up settling back on the couch, you squirmed pulling the tail from under you he held it up your back lightly  then handed you the controller.

"Now show me your Jurassic park d-did you let the t rex out?" You smiled giggling at him nodding then snugged back into him as you started making a new paddock in the game. These next few months were going to be the best of your life if today was anything to go by.

[male-reader-requests]

Unknown

Pairings: None

Word Count: 2,351

Warnings: This is a little short story so not a one-shot. This talks about Serial Killer stuff, specifically the Zodiac Killer. So uh, blood and gore. Be careful. I am also in the middle of getting together an actual update so don't worry!

-

I would not know them.

They would be chosen at random, by pure coincidence.

The game, the most dangerous game would be my game. The most dangerous game, the most dangerous prey, the most dangerous predator, they would become my prey. 

I do not know my target, so they will not know me. I will go at night, not caring for the dangers of being caught, for I would not be linked to them. I would not care for my appearance, for I do not need to impress them. 

I would find a couple, maybe they are together for a passionate night, or perhaps I've caught them just as they decide to split ends, but it will not matter, for no one will ever know. They would be alone, at a beach or on a lover's lane, but I would make sure it was clean, that there were no witnesses and no survivers. This will be my design.

I will shine a light, maybe my headlights or perhaps just a floodlight, at them so they are unable to see me. The light, if a floodlight, will be tapped to my gun. I will have a silencer, to make my act a bit more privet from prying ears.

 Whoever is in the passenger seat, whether a man or woman, will be shot once in the neck, and the driver I will shoot twice in the head. If the passenger lives I will shoot them again, perhaps in the chest, maybe in the stomach, I do not care is they survive anymore. 

I will shoot the driver again in the chest and again perhaps in the stomach, then I will shoot the passenger as many times and as recklessly as I want, for I do not care. In the end, I will unload an entire magazine into two people, and I will leave, leaving the two of them to rot unnoticed until morning. If either survives then that is their problem. 

In the morning, at around 6 AM, I will call the police, reporting a double homicide. If one of them survives then that will just be a blip in the system, a single count of homicide and a single count of an attempt at homicide. 

I will tell them I did it, but I will call them from a burner phone. I will proceed to crush said phone and throw it into a river, never to be seen again. 

I will be familiar in all the wrong ways, and I will be an ever-recurring nightmare.

I will become the Zodiac Killer of the 21st century.

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

Marissa sighed, looking at the mass of paperwork before her. Being a detective in California was surprisingly boring, especially when all you ever see is a one on one gunfight between rivals. Currently, the last thing she'd done that seemed even slightly interesting was her divorce, and that had been four years ago.

Light hair fell onto the desk before her, her head following. It was slow for some reason, there was nothing for her to do. Well, that was a lie. She could answer the phone ringing on her desk, she could fill out the paperwork before her, and she could go actually eat something, but here she was, debating.

She was drifting in and out of sleep, dozing as her partner August would say, but it was a warm afternoon, who could blame her?

A sharp crack came across her back, the pale woman yelping as her partner snapped her suspenders. August chuckled at her, obnoxiously slurping at cheap coffee in hand. Marissa glared at him, but it was halfhearted, holding no true anger.

"What was that for?" she asked, but she was eyeing the coffee in his hands, not really listening. She didn't really care, the snapping of her suspenders had become a greeting of August's ever since they were paired up, so she's grown used to it.

August just hummed, putting the coffee mug down on the cluttered desk, having to push a few papers so make room. The two of them hardly cared for germs, so when Marissa cupped the mug to herself he hardly batted an eyelash.

"We've got an assignment," August mumbled, his voice shadowed by drowsiness and a slight speech impediment. Marissa didn't move, truthfully she wished that August hadn't said anything. 

August, bless his heart, normally dealt with all the paperwork. This meant that they were almost completely ready to head out to wherever they were needed, and as much as Marissa just wanted to sleep she knew that this was probably important.

They would have to talk to the head of their department, an older man named Louis Ridgway before they could go, and Marissa truly wished they didn't have to. Ridgway wasn't a bad person, but he liked to make things seem far more interesting then they are. 

Marissa struggled with her jacket as the two of them made their way to his office, dodging interns, other detectives, and officers. Their department was always busy, considering so many people died in California, but it seemed there were even more people here now than there ever were.

August, used to Marissa's struggles, helped his shorter partner into her jacket, then opened the door for her as they entered Ridgway's office. Ridgway, all bushy eyebrows and droopy mustache, waved them over. 

He ignored the normal "sit down and listen as I tell you about the case" and made the two of them stand behind him as he pulled up a few things on his computer. Marissa, ever the nosey person, saw a few crime scene photos, the kind you'd expect to see with the yellow number cards and a bit of blood on the ground.  

The thing that really got her attention though was the other set of photos, ones that looked like carbon copies except that they had been taken with an older camera, the photos themselves obviously being older if the dates on the bottoms of them were right. 

Ridgway turned his monitor off, cutting Marissa's view. "There's been a murder," Ridgway said gruffly, ignoring how lame that sounded. There were tons of murders in California every day, even more, if you count car crashes and accidents.

"I want the two of you to check it out, see if it matches." Marissa blinked a few times, confused and tired, but August nodded, grabbing the pale woman by the shoulder and steering her through the crowded office area. 

Actually back to herself, Marissa looked at August in confusion, but the taller man just got into the driver's seat of the car, motioning for her to also get in. Rolling her eyes she complied, not that she really wanted to, buckling herself in.

She didn't know where they were going, who was murder, how many had been murdered, but she blamed that on her pension for spacing out. August probably knew. .....probably.

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

It was a 2-hour drive. It was a 2-hour drive for only 38 miles, San Francisco to Benicia, and Marissa slept the entire time. She knew she wasn't looking her best, but that never really mattered to her. 

Sleep rumbled hair and bags under her eyes the short woman got out of the car, accepting the lukewarm coffee August handed her with silent gratitude. The two of them got a few odd looks from local police, but that was more of their own fault, being in a completely different county tended to do that. Police were oddly territorial.  

One young man though, obviously just out of training from how much younger he was than the other officers, offered to bring them to the scene. He was all polite and charming, and Marissa was thankful, she and August had to deal with enough rude officers back at the department. 

The younger officer brought them through the yellow tape and through the mass of officers mostly loitering. The first thing Marissa got to see was a shit box car, obviously older than average and painted in a fading teal that patched out to show a bit of rust. She then noticed the blood. 

There was blood smeared on the passenger door, backseat door on the passenger side, and in the window of the passenger door. There was a pool, or what was probably a pool at one point, of dried blood on the gravel at the backseat door, but Marissa couldn't look further for her view was blocked by a stocky man.   

The man himself she didn't recognize, once she'd actually looked up, but she could tell by the way he held himself that he was the head honcho here, and that he wasn't very happy with the two of them being there. 

He was tall, taller than Marissa but then again almost everyone was. He was older than the two of them, his face was saggy in a way you only get from heavy drinking and it was twisted in a sarcastic sneer.

"Well, what do we have here?" His voice, like his face, had a strangely saggy aspect to it, and Marissa hated it immediately. As rude as it was she wished she could zone out now, but August had put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her focus.

"Detectives Shultcher and Lynn, we're from San Francisco." August and Marissa pulled their badges out from their pockets, Marissa ending up holding hers upside down. 

The saggy faced man seemed to sneer a bit less, but it never left completely. He smiled down at Marissa, then moved to look up at August. His smile was fake, holding no joy or happiness, only restrained rudeness. 

He stepped back, letting the two of them through, but you could see the hesitation in his motions, the way he didn't want them there. Police were oddly territorial.

At the actual scene itself, there was a woman and a young man, both of them must have been part of the forensics force. The two of them were collecting samples from the blood, off the car and off the gravel. They had a chest next to them, full of little sample bags. 

Marissa hated dealing with Forensics specialists. It may just be a bit of prejudice, but every single Forensics team she's dealt with in San Francisco were rude beyond beliefe and treated her and August like they were stupid, like they hadn't gone through any training.  

The two of them hardly even noticed August and her, quietly talking to themselves as they worked. The guy apparently said something funny, making the woman laugh lightly. They left the two of them alone. 

Splitting up August went to talk to the first responding police officers, leaving Marissa to survey the scene. This is how they always did it, this is why the two of them worked so well together. August always talked to suspects and officers, leaving the scene to Marissa. 

Marissa walked a perimeter, looking around at different angles, knowing that anything could help. As she looked around something started to bother her, this scene, this crime itself, was oddly familiar, oddly something she felt she should know. 

With furrowed eyebrows and confusion Marissa continued to look around, but as she got closer to the Forensics team she started to see all the things that looked familiar, making her even more confused. 

On the other side of the car, Marrisa saw that the driver's windowsill was covered in blood, so was the seat and steering wheel.  It was odd how familiar all of this seemed, but there wasn't much she could do until the Forensics told her about what they'd found.

Walking back over to August she zoned out, trying to place why all of this was so God damned familiar, but she was getting nowhere, only getting frustrated in herself. She drank the coffee that August had given her early, she zoned in and out of August questioning, and she debated on falling asleep as she stood there, but as per usual when she wanted to sleep she wasn't able too.

August, finally finishing up, guided the two of them over to the Forensics team, who were started to clean up. The guy noticed first that they were coming over, lightly pushing the girl in the shoulder.

The guy was all smiles, skinny with a pair of wireframe glasses. The woman was also skinny, but very tall, looking like a beanpole. The two of them told them about what they'd found, what they thought may have happened, and about the two victims.

Victim one was a young woman named Stacy Lamburdas. She lived not that far away, she was married, worked at a little restaurant, and had been the driver. She had been shot 4 times and did not survive.

Victim two was a young man named Darcy Monroe. He was one of the many people that Stacy had been having affairs with. He also lived not far away, working as a deliveryman for the post office. He had been shot 8 times. Miraculously he survived. 

Marissa was furiously scribbling into a notepad she had, taking down all the details she thought was important.

"It's funny isn't it?" the guy said, pushing his glasses up. Marissa raised an eyebrow in question, but she didn't look up.

"It's the 51st anniversary, and it's a complete carbon copy." Marissa now looked up, more confused, the woman seemed to notice.

"It's the 51st anniversary of the first killings of the Zodiac Killer, and this scene is very similar," Marissa stalled, his vision tunneling. The two Forensics kept talking, August keeping the conversation going, but Marissa wasn't paying attention.

This is why it was so familiar, why this all looked like something she knew.

The 51st anniversary huh?

Lord help them if this was a copy cat.

[angelaiswriting]

The Assistant (15 of ?) | Vladimir Ranskahov x fem!reader

[original picture found on: pinterest]

✏️ Pairings:

(almost official) Vladimir Ranskahov x fem!reader

Anatoly Ranskahov x OC (Paulina) mentioned

✏️ Requested by @kellydixon01 : Y/N–hacker, big mouth, even bigger attitude–is the new addition to Fisk’s team. Sent to help the Ranskahovs, she immediately gets on Vladimir’s nerves. But as time passes, they start to take a liking to each other, even if none of them is willing to admit their feelings. Yet.

✏️ Previously on The Assistant (aka I’m shit at updating): Y/N has moved in with Vladimir and the two have found themselves growing closer. There’s only one problem: Vlad’s old friend Ulyana thinks the two are a couple and has invited them over for dinner to celebrate.

✏️ A/N: y’all. Y’ALL. First off, I just want to apologize, it’s been forever and a month since I updated this; I’m not even sure there are still people reading/that remember this story apart from Alice lol. It took us me 144 pages !!! but it’s finally happening. Enjoy! I literally cried when I wrote the end of this chapter because it was about fucking time!

✏️ Warnings: fluff; and tears, but those were mine as I wrote this lol; Sergei has a doggie!; a smidge of swearing.

✏️ Word-count: 6,060

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MATCHMAKER

Sitting on the closed toilet seat with the pipe wrench still in his hands, Vladimir could hear Y/N and Ulyana laugh in the living room. He couldn’t make out their words, for their voices were quiet despite their hilarity, and the left-ajar door of the bathroom didn’t help him any.

The most surreal situation I’ve ever experienced, that’s how Y/N had labeled it less than an hour ago, before he helped Lina bring in the tray with the cups of tea. And the more he mulled things over, the more he found himself agreeing. The most surreal situation I’ve ever experienced – and he had lived through plenty of what could be considered ‘weird shit’. Ulyana in general had been a whole exception in his book. Ulyana, with her afternoons spent playing bingo at the daily center for the elderly with all her old-lady friends; Ulyana, with her borscht and her endless words of encouragement and comfort when both he and Tolya had needed them the most.

But also Ulyana, so dead-set on the idea that he was too stiff and needed a gentle touch in his life that she just… mistook Y/N for his woman. As if he needed someone! But it was still a good thing in a way, though, he reasoned as he stood up and moved to stand in front of the sink to stare at his reflection. And probably his brother was right about the fact that he had to open up to her, tell her what he felt – and what he was scared of. And just… try, for once. Make an effort to take his private life into his own hands instead of just wasting it away on cigarettes and underground fights.

As he stood there, hands gripping the sink, wrench abandoned on the counter, he tried to focus on what existed beyond that scar on the right side of his face and all it meant. By now he was convinced that she didn’t see it – not because she didn’t want to, but because she was able to see right through it. She knew about his past, and not just about Utkin, but also about some of the stupid things he had done in his short-lived youth – he had told her about that over vodka, a bit more rarely over coffee. And while he had always had problems with that, he found himself having fewer and fewer now.

Yeah, maybe it wasn’t that bad to pretend he had someone that cared about him, and while that equaled lying to Lina, maybe it was for the greater good?

It came off as a question even in his own mind, but it was one he found himself being willing to put in the time and effort to find an answer to. It was almost stupid, to think that feelings seemed to terrify him to the bone, while he could take a gun pointed at his head any day without batting an eyelash. Because that’s what he did, that’s what the target on his back felt like.

Maybe all he needed was to grow a pair, listen to what Ulyana had always told him, and walk out there a somewhat taken man.

And not taken to the demons in his head, but to someone – a friend, maybe? – that he had learned to respect. In a way, that is; that road still seemed a long one, after all.

When he joined the two women again some twenty minutes or so later, after he had fixed the kitchen cabinet Lina had been too shy to ask him to repair, he found them leafing through an old photo album. Belka – Ulyana’s old, white cat – was snoozing in Y/N’s lap, the tip of her fluffy tail moving up and down every once in a while as she purred at her new friend.

It was a weirdly cozy view, one that seemed to put all the thoughts that were still swarming his mind at ease. He leaned against the frame of the door, arms crossed in front of his chest, and he just stared for a while, half-present in the moment and half-lost in his own mind. He didn’t miss the moment her head lifted up an inch and her eyes met his, though, and before he could realize anything, he found himself smirking back.

“Ulya is showing me the photographs of her wedding day,” she said when he moved away from the door and really entered the room. Her fingers absentmindedly scratched the cat behind one ear as she maintained eye contact until he sat down at the round table in front of the window to her left.

“Those are a must-see when you step foot into her house.” His was a playful huff as he lit himself a cigarette. They had all gone back to Russian, which meant that Ulyana had gotten to know Y/N faster than he had. “Next thing you know, you’re walking down Soviet memory lane.” And then, when his eyes met Lina’s: “You know I’m joking. Tolya and I have always loved your stories.”

The woman shook her head, but there was a smile on her face that somehow warmed his heart. It meant that it was all back to normal now; that, in her heart, she had forgiven him for disappearing for so long and never, not once, calling to check in on her. “This girl’s bewitched you,” she chuckled, patting Y/N’s knee with her free hand. “I don’t remember when the last time he wasn’t serious was, anymore,” she explained as she leaned back against the couch, giving her guest’s unasked question an answer.

Vladimir scoffed and when his phone beeped on the table with a text from Sergei a moment later, he stood up. “We gotta go now. Work’s calling.”

Ulyana had a look on her face that seemed to complain On a Saturday? but she knew he was a busy man with a demanding job, and so she dropped it. “You’re both invited over tomorrow,” she said instead. “I’ll prepare a nice dinner to celebrate together.” She closed the album of photographs and put it down on the coffee table by the side of the couch.

When she stood up, Belka seemed to catch the hint: she woke up, let out a huffy meow, and jumped down from Y/N’s lap to rub herself against one of Vlad’s legs.

“There’s nothing to celebrate, Lina,” Vladimir was saying as he let the old woman fix the collar of his shirt before engulfing him in a hug.

The way her eyebrows rose when she turned to look at Y/N was almost comical on that round face of hers. “He’s still as stubborn as always, isn’t he?” she whispered in her ear when she hugged her goodbye. When she turned back towards Vladimir, she had her hands on her hips and a firm look in her eyes that he knew he couldn’t escape. “You two will come over for dinner tomorrow night if it kills you! It’s so good to see you finally happy, my boy, and not just alone as always. And if that’s not enough, I haven’t seen you in months! Is this how you treat your old Lina?”

*

“I can’t believe she managed to convince you.”

He was driving to Sergei’s place when Y/N spoke again. They hadn’t exchanged a word after leaving Ulyana’s apartment and truth be told, he was almost afraid to hear her speak again.

“I can’t believe it either,” he groaned, one hand gripping the steering wheel tightly while his left arm just hung out the rolled-down window.

There were heavy clouds behind the buildings in front of them and it looked like it would start pouring soon. But the slightly chilly air was a blessing after that day’s stuffy heat, so he was ready to face the early-summer bad weather when it would come.

After that exchange, the silence went back to being almost embarrassed. She was looking at him from the corner of her eye – he hadn’t missed it, he was good at noticing things about people, even though probably not as good as he thought he was when it came to her. Whether she was trying to come up with something to say or not, though, he did not know.

His own thoughts were all over the place as well.

He had a little less than one day to come up with an excuse to ring Ulyana up with just so that he could avoid that dinner date she had organized. In his heart he knew she was doing this for him: she and Aleksandr had never had children, and that’s exactly how she had always seen him and his brother ever since they had first rented that apartment on her same floor. We’re all Russians, we have to stick up for each other, she had said once, one of the first times she had insisted they’d come over for dinner. She had taken care of them; and it was remarkable, the way they had let her into their lives, one kind act at a time, in a time when the Siberian wound was still tender and they didn’t know who to trust in this new, foreign land.

Then, a little more than a year and a half ago, when Anatoly had introduced Paulina to her, it had become just Vladimir and Ulyana most of the time. Tolya was busier now – he didn’t only have his job, but there was a woman now and he did things with her, took her places, came up with things just to surprise her for the sake of it… It had been a shock at first because that was someone more similar to the old Anatoly Ranskahov, the one who had lived in Moscow and had danced around a different woman every night – with the only difference that he was now a faithful lover.

“Are you upset?” Her voice tore him out of his mind once again and he turned towards her with a questioning hmm? that prompted her to clarify. “About her thinking that we’re together.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t think I am, nyet,” he confessed eventually.

She was staring ahead, not looking at him, but a smile still blossomed on her face at his words. “If I don’t tell you now, I know I’ll never have the guts to.”

But Vladimir was already slowing down to park the car and when Y/N turned her head to see what he was staring at with such a confused expression on his face, the faint smirk on his lips already fading away completely, she knew she wouldn’t be opening her heart any time soon in that car.

“What the fuck?” was what Vlad mumbled as he hastily turned off the engine, pulled on the handbrake, and threw his door open. “What is this?”

Sergei was standing there, a black and brown rottweiler laying at his feet, panting with its tongue almost touching the asphalt in the somewhat stuffy evening air.

“This,” his friend said, slowly, shoving the handle of the leash in the other’s hand before Vlad could come back to himself, “is Sharik. I need you to look after him while I’m gone.”

Vladimir stared down at the dog, and the dog sat up against Seriozha’s legs so that he could stare back at him better. He was a big piece of meat, and he could already picture him drooling all over the couch he had back at home. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” frowned Sergei, dropping the black gym bag from his shoulder to Vlad’s feet. “I told you yesterday, before you and Y/N left the garage. If I need to go out of town for business, I won’t be able to bring him with me. You agreed to look after him for me.”

While his owner spoke, Sharik sniffed at Vladimir’s shin with curiosity, and after a long moment of scrutiny, he lazily wagged his tail in approval.

“You need to take him out in the morning and at night, he loves walks in the park.”

“What?” He wasn’t sure the type of ‘take the dog out’ he was thinking of was the one Sergei had in mind.

“Don’t feed him weird shit. His dry food is in the bag. Don’t give him more than what I wrote down – he loves to beg. And make him play before bed, or he’ll keep you up all night.”

“What?”

“Your apartment complex also has a pool and he enjoys chilling in the water, so if–”

“I won’t be looking after your dog. What?”

Before either of them could speak, Y/N’s What’s going on here? made them turn in her direction. She had gotten out of the car, and while she was still holding onto the door with one hand, Vlad knew she’d soon come forward.

“Solnyshko, hi!”

Vladimir knew he was fucked when Sergei greeted her and hugged her back when she walked up to them. He’d manage to convince her and while she was just a guest in his house, Vlad knew he’d be the one bending his will.

Sharik gave her the same treatment he had reserved for him just moments before, but he sped it up this time, and the wagging in his tail wasn’t as lazy as it had been with him – it was a hard slapping back and forth against his leg that gave him just a slight taste of the dog’s strength.

“Who’s this good boy?” she cooed as the dog sniffed the palm of her hand before giving it a lick and allowing her to pet his head.

In no time, and before he had the chance to register what was going on, Y/N had gone back to the car and, appalled, he had to watch her lead the dog onto the back seats.

As if he had read his mind, Sergei reassured him: “Don’t worry, he doesn’t shed. But you still need to keep him brushed, it relaxes him.”

He stared at the car, kept an eye on Y/N as she put Sergei’s gym bag in the trunk, and then walked back around the car to sit on the passenger seat. She was still caressing the dog, her back turned towards the two men, when Vladimir spoke.

“You know I don’t deal with animals.”

Sergei scoffed. “We deal with much worse. Now, don’t be a brat, I didn’t have to listen to the two of you singing like shit last night just to then not be able to get payback.”

“We didn’t–”

“It’s all cool, Volodya.” Serzh patted his shoulder and grinned at him before turning back to stare at the car his dog had got into. “She’s nice, I don’t mind. It was about time you found someone that would headbutt you every time you headbutted them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about, brother. Sharik is a good matchmaker, who else do you think got Tolik and Paulina together?” he grinned. “But if he is missing even so much as a hair when I come back, we’ll have a problem.”

He scoffed. “A threat? Over a dog?”

“He’s not just some dog, Volodya. He’s my boy.” He stared him down for a moment before turning around. He had already started to walk back towards the building he lived in, when he said one last I’ll call you when Aslan and I have left the state before Vlad turned his back on him.

*

Just as he had expected, Sharik launched himself onto the couch the second Y/N opened the door of his apartment. The only thing Vladimir could do was watch him run across the entrance corridor, fly mid-air, and then fall heavily onto the clean cushions of his couch half a second later. And to be such a big and heavy dog, he was fast.

“I’m going to kill Sergei,” he muttered but before he could take another step forward, Y/N stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

“C’mon, he’s just a dog, Vlad. Don’t be mean. I’ll get him down,” she chuckled and toed her shoes off before walking up to Sharik.

Sometime later, after that dog had finally stopped whining and complaining that he wanted to get on the couch despite said couch’s owner didn’t want to, there was silence again. 

The next-door neighbor had knocked on the door not long after they had got home: he had heard the noises, and had felt the need to complain about that sudden surprise, and to poke his nose into business he knew nothing about – There’s a pet fee you’re supposed to pay if you want to keep an animal in here. And then, when Sharik had walked up to the door and nosed his way to stand between Y/N’s legs – Vlad has seen it in the mirror hanging on the wall right at the other end of the room – that very neighbor had found something else to complain about. Its size exceeds the limits allowed in this complex, or some shit like that. He hadn’t heard what she had told the dude; all he knew was that less than five minutes after he had shown up at the door, he had left with his tail between his legs, and so Vlad had managed to go back to staring at the screen of his laptop.

He wasn’t doing anything, really. For once, he didn’t feel like burying his head into his work – everything needed for Aslan and Sergei’s trip to Florida had already been organized, and the last touches for the upcoming shipment could wait until Monday. It was very un-Vladimir-like, to take a whole weekend off, but for once, he wouldn’t complain.

What he ended up thinking about – or, rather, whom –, however, was Ulyana. He had been praying for an excuse to cancel that dinner date for the next day, but he hadn’t expected to be actually presented with one. And although he still had the intention to ring her up and apologize, he still had to pick up the phone. He couldn’t possibly leave Sergei’s dog home alone, now, could he? Or did he want to come back to a destroyed house? 

“Shari’s napping.” When he looked up, not even taken by surprise by her sudden appearance in the doorframe of the kitchen, he found her standing there, leaning a shoulder against the wood and staring at him. “What are you up to?”

“Work,” was his quick reply. “Checking that everything is in order and… stuff.”

“‘And stuff’?” She didn’t seem convinced, and she stared at him for a long minute, before dismissing it and sitting opposite him at the small kitchen table. “Anyway, why didn’t you tell me about this favor you had to do for Sergei?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t know I had to look after stupid dog.” And then, when she raised an eyebrow: “A very smart, but spoiled dog. Better?”

“He’s not spoiled. Serzh just really loves him a lot,” she pouted. And when he glared at her, she continued: “This doesn’t matter, though. You have to find a solution for tomorrow night. Call Sergei and ask him how Sharik deals with cats, and then call Ulyana and ask her how Belka deals with dogs. Or something.”

“Why me?”

“Because I asked nicely? Because you got us into this?”

As it turned out a couple of calls later, Sharik was very gentle, almost submissive with cats and animals in general – despite his size, despite his face, and his breed, and the size of his paws big enough to be as big as at least three cat legs put together. And Ulyana had no problem having a dog over either – she had looked after a neighbor’s dog more times than she could count, and Belka was used to napping in her bedroom when another animal was over.

So, not a problem – as Lina had said. Just come over and bring the dog, I’ll have something ready for him too.

His plan to avoid that dinner date had miserably failed, although there was something inside him at the thought of showing up at Lina’s and pretending like he and Y/N were a thing of some sort that just… pulled at some strings he didn’t even know he had inside. And as he watched Y/N fill Sharik’s bowl just as they got ready to eat dinner, he found himself being almost happy that those strings were being pulled, for once in his life.

“So we just take him over to her place?” she asked him when she sat down, a steaming plate with rice and veggies right in front of her.

His diet had taken a turn for the better ever since she had moved in with him – he still had more vodka than was healthy to have hiding pretty much in almost all the cabinets in his apartment, but at least his fridge was full of food his body could actually digest this time.

“That’s what she said,” he grumbled.

They ate in silence after that, and only when he had done the dishes, did she speak again.

“Do you wanna settle for a story?” She was sitting next to him on the couch, with Sharik’s heavy head resting on a knee. The dog was staring at her with adoring eyes as she gently scratched behind his ears.

“A story?”

“Yeah, about how we met. How we ended up together. Ulyana asked a couple vague-ish questions this afternoon, so I think she’ll ask more tomorrow. No?” She glanced at him when he didn’t reply. “Unless you wanna tell her the truth.”

“I don’t know what I want,” he eventually confessed. “I don’t want to lie to her, but if I hear her ask me about ‘my woman’ another time, I’m going to burst.”

He didn’t expect to chuckle with her, but he did. And when they grew silent again, and she went back to staring at the TV screen after a quick Let me think of something, then, he laid his head back against the seatback of the couch, head turned in her direction, and studied the profile of her face. The way the corner of her mouth rose up into a smirk before she giggled at Sharik’s sniffing nose against her bare shin. The way her chest rose and fell with every breath she took, slow and regular and almost gentle. And before he knew it, his eyes had dropped closed and he had fallen asleep.

When he woke up sometime later – the clock on his phone signaled just a few minutes after half past eleven –, Y/N and Sharik had already left the room, and he was uncomfortably half sitting, half lying on the couch covered by a pile blanket. The TV was off, and not a sound came from inside the apartment – nor from outside in the corridor.

He briefly wondered whether Y/N had managed to come up with a story in case Ulyana would ask questions, but he barely had the time to walk into his room and sit on his bed, that his ears picked up some snoring.

There, bundled up under his blankets, was sleeping Sharik, who had somehow managed to make himself at home. He even had the audacity of staring at him with an accusatory look in his eyes, the fleabag, when Vladimir turned on the lamp on his bedside table to get a closer look.

“Get off,” he groggily ordered, yanking the covers back with a quick movement of his arm. “Get off my bed, dog.”

But for all he tried, the dog wouldn’t budge. And even when Vladimir picked him up and put him back down onto the living room floor, he barely had the time to close the door of his bedroom – something he hadn’t done since before Utkin – that Sharik was already pushing against it with his nose to slip into the room.

“You are stubborn beast, aren’t you?”

Taking him back to the living room by force didn’t help at all, for the dog wouldn’t stop bugging him. He had managed to lower the door handle twice in the half-hour Vladimir spent trying to get rid of him without… yeah, without actually getting rid of the fucking four-legged light of Sergei’s life.

When it became apparent that he wouldn’t have a good night’s sleep in his goddamn bed that night, was when Sharik almost tripped him over from behind just to then launch himself onto his bed much like he had done that evening with the couch – and the at least other ten times Vlad had tried to kick him out of the room. He laid there, on his bed, curled up like a too-big cat, staring at him with eyebrows that wouldn’t stop going up and down until he huffed out a complaint and went back to sleep.

“I’ll kill you, Sergei,” he groaned, rubbing his face with both hands to try and shoo the annoyance away.

He stood in the hallway for a while, then, eyeing the couch from the other side of the living room while mentally cursing himself. Before fixing the spare room, which he had turned into Y/N’s bedroom as the weeks had gone by, he had had to take care of his brother and by giving him his bed, he had had to get the couch. It was too small for him, and uncomfortable – and the thought that she, too, had had to sleep there for endless days before he got his shit together still stung, in a way. And since it looked like he wouldn’t be able to get Sharik out of his bedroom – nor out of his bed, for that matter –, he was left with only two options to pick from: either the couch or…

He knocked on her door before he had the time to talk himself out of it.

“Is something wrong?” She was scrolling through her phone when she told him to come in. The lamps on both nightstands were on, and it looked like she was still far from falling asleep.

“Dog’s in my bed,” he said, staring at her from across the room. “Couch is…”

“I know,” she chuckled. “Still not the worst couch I’ve slept on, though, don’t worry,” she continued when he made a weird face. “Stay in your half of the bed, and you can sleep here if you want.”

He didn’t sleep that night, however. He laid on his right side, staring at the wall, and she laid on her left, staring at the opposite wall. She had wished him good night at some point, when she had put her phone away and had turned the lights off, and he had answered with a hum. But then, he had just laid there all night, listening in on her soft breathing – and then her soft snoring – and he remained motionless. When he did fall asleep, sometime in the early morning, just before the first light of day peaked in through the curtains, his last thought was that maybe, this wasn’t that bad.

*

“Through mutual friends, if so one could say,” Y/N replied over celebratory vodka. Ulyana had kept her best questions for the end of the dinner and Vladimir had almost deluded himself into thinking the old woman would never ask. They had come up with a story to tell just in case, but silence would have been better. “I apparently showed up at the garage at the least opportune time.”

“Oh! So was it love at first sight?” Lina was pouring them all a second shot with one hand as the other one rested on Sharik’s head.

Vlad laughed – what an absurd concept, he found himself musing. Love at first sight? With someone as careful as him? And although Y/N kicked his foot under the table to try and silence him, he couldn’t fully erase the smirk from his face. “Nyet,” he chuckled eventually as he wiped away a tear with a knuckle.

“Hell no! He was very rude and stubborn at the beginning,” confessed Y/N, and Vlad was barely able to scoff at her that Lina had turned in his direction with a gaze of steel.

“Very rude?” she inquired, eyes squinting as she frowned. “With this lovely lady?”

“Don’t gang up on me, she was very stubborn too!” he complained. “Still is.”

“One ought to be stubborn if one has to put up with you, my dear Volodya.” Ulyana patted his hand on the table. “Doesn’t give you the right to be rude. I didn’t raise you like that.”

He had been on the verge of pointing out that he had, in fact, been raised by his own mother and not by her, but he didn’t deem it appropriate tonight – nor necessary. Lina didn’t mean any harm, and he knew what she was trying to imply.

“It’s alright, Ulya, he has learned how to tone it down now.” The smile on Y/N’s face seemed sincere, and at that moment, he wouldn’t be able to tell what she was thinking about. “Ever since we moved in together, he’s learned how to behave himself. Most of the time, at least.”

It was Ulyana’s turn to playfully slap Vlad’s forearm and he found it almost weird, to find himself with his back to the wall in front of those two. And not even in a bad way, with all of them drinking vodka together and celebrating a romantic relationship that simply wasn’t there.

What had he become? Lying like that to an old, dear friend… Without thinking twice; without remorse. He sat there in her living room, eating her food, drinking her alcohol, and he kept on adding lies to the fire without being able to stop.

“Hey, she’s not a saint, either! Tell her.”

Y/N laughed, and it somehow took him by surprise, it knocked the wind out of him. He fully turned his head to stare at her, and it almost felt like seeing her for the first time and for the millionth time at the same time. The way she tilted her head back as she laughed; the way her earrings and piercings caught the light of the lighting fixture; even the way her fingers brushed against his, and the way he ended up holding her hand in his. Warm and soft, the skin so smooth that he almost pulled away.

He watched her talk, recount the story of how they met – or a watered-down version of it, with anything too compromising being filtered out. And as she conversed with Ulya, her fingers played with his and his gaze kept on dropping down on his hand, never missing a movement. She had somehow ended up tracing the three-bar cross between his thumb and forefinger – without looking at it, almost as though she had done just that so many times that she had ended up memorizing its placement, its lines. And as she went on talking, her fingers brushed across the Xs on his knuckles, and he had to fight that sudden impulse that pushed him to pull his hand away.

A couple of hours later, when they had finally bid Ulyana goodnight and thanked her for the pleasant dinner she had offered them, he found himself walking his best man’s dog in the park just across the street from her old friend’s apartment building. He watched Sharik sniff here and there, and for a moment he found himself wondering if that was what a normal life felt like – walking the dog at almost eleven in the night, with plastic bags in a pocket in case the dog pooped, arm in arm with a woman.

“You’re quiet,” she said at one point, when they stopped under a tree while Sharik sniffed just a few meters in front of them. “Is everything alright?”

It took him a while to answer. And it wasn’t because he hadn’t heard her, but because he was afraid of somehow saying the wrong thing as was custom with him. “Da,” he sighed eventually, “just thinking.” He shrugged, but he didn’t make a move to pull away when her hand trailed down his arm and her fingers entwined with his.

“I had a good time tonight. I hope you did too, and that I didn’t push myself too far with that story about… you know, us.”

“It was fine, she bought it.”

“Doesn’t make me feel less bad, though.”

He turned his head to look at her, and for a moment, the thought of how it would be like to do this every night with her crossed his mind. “Eh, I know.” It was quiet for a while after that, but when Sharik steered off the path, he found himself cursing out in Russian. “Come here, you stubborn dog!”

“Don’t be mean, Vlad! He’s just a dog.” She ran after Sharik then, and he watched her take him back by the collar as he fished a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his pants. He had just lit himself one when she took it from his fingers and put it out against the sole of her high-heeled shoe as she kept her balance with a hand firmly wrapped around his forearm.

“Why did you do that?” It was almost a gasp, half-surprised and half-pissed at a cigarette waisted in such a way.

“I had something to tell you yesterday, in the car.”

“You could’ve done that over shared cigarette!”

“I don’t want to taste cigarettes when I kiss someone, though.”

He almost opened his mouth to retort when her words registered in his brain, and all he could do was stare down into her eyes, not a sound leaving his lips.

“Like that night after the bar, just without drinks. I wanna do this sober.” She had taken a step forward, and they were now standing toe-to-toe. He could almost feel her, even with that short distance separating them – like when she had turned around and had ended up pressing her forehead against his back the night before, with the only difference that they were both awake now. “I want to kiss you again so badly it’s driving me nuts.”

That gasp didn’t leave his lips just because he managed to abruptly inhale quickly at the last second, but her words did make his heart beat faster somehow.

“I kept on telling myself that you’d do it, but you haven’t so far, and I can’t understand if that’s because you still dislike me or –”

He cut her off before she could continue. Her cheeks were burning when he cradled her face between his hands, and her lips were soft against his. Her hands came up to wrap around his wrists. When he pulled her closer, she let him; and when she deepened the kiss, when her tongue brushed against his teeth, he let her.

It was like one of those cliché moments, although it lasted for a couple of seconds at most: his breathing stopped, and the world seemed to stop with it as he kissed her. And then, when everything picked up again – his breathing, his heart, Hell’s Kitchen late-night traffic, Sharik’s tail snapping like a whip against his leg as he stood there – he found himself not wanting to pull away.

She did, though, and she looked up at him out of breath, his hands still cupping her cheeks and her hands still holding on to his wrists. “You’re so stubborn, I swear,” she chuckled. “But if you don’t kiss me again, I’ll go back to being stubborn, too.”

He cackled, and when Sharik pushed against his thigh with his nose, he looked down at him and shook his head. “Maybe Sergei was right, after all,” he mumbled before turning his attention back to Y/N and kissing her again, silencing her question before she had the time to voice it.

This is Sharik :) (pics found on Pinterest eons ago, I don’t remember the links, credits to the owner(s)!)

Comments and inbox are always open for feedback :) pls if you have any ideas you’d like to see in this story, feel free to hit me up, they’d for sure help me out lol since I’m slow AF :’)

TAGS (to be added to or removed from any list, shoot me an ask)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi @becs-bunker​ @gruffle1​

The Assistant: @flowers-in-your-hayr

People that might be interested: @kind-wolf​ @brobachev

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

Mermay - Dilliam - Operation Renovation!

While working on Mark and Celine’s house, William has the bright idea to bring Damien inside to help give him a second opinion. It’s another chance for both to learn more about each other, and for William to realise he caught feelings for the cute merman.

Word Count: 2,046

-

William and Mark mutually agreed to stay away from the Rockpool that night, bar Mark briefly hurrying down with dinner. Whatever happened between the siblings would stay between them. William had a hunch that Damien felt isolated from his family - and even his sister he adored - because it seemed difficult to find middle ground, but William kept that to himself. 

As he went to bed that night, William was drawn to the window to look out over the sea. A glimmer of light could be seen at the Rockpool, seeming to only emphasise the distance between the house and the coast, as well as between the twins. If there was a way to help them re-establish a connection, he would.

Opportunity arrived two days later. William had spent the entire of the first day painting the living room to freshen it up, and was unexpectedly left alone to handle the redecoration part on the second. Celine, who was supposed to be there, was called into work urgently. William always preferred having a second opinion on matters like this and was nearly about to abandon his plans for the morning when the breeze hit the chimes just outside the kitchen window. He turned to see the garden and… Of course!

-

"Damien!" William scrambled down the rocky steps, screeching to a halt just beside the water. "Damien, you here?" He could see small bubbles popping on the surface just beside the large rocks. Then, after a few moments, Damien's head slowly rose over the water. His eyes were half-lidded as he peered up at the source of the loud voice.

"Oh, uh, sorry. I didn't think you would be asleep. I can come back-"

"No, it's alright… What's wrong?" Damien pulled himself out of the water to sit on the path. He began stretching to undo the effects of being curled up all night. William couldn't help but stare at how toned the merman was. Damien's body had more bulk to it to help keep warm in colder climates, but it was well defined between the lack of patterns on his body and his current stretches. William had to quickly snap himself out of it before he was caught staring in a daze of awe.

"I'm trying to rearrange the living room space and have been trying to decide where I should… what are you doing?" With his back still to William, Damien interrupted the other's train of thought by lifting his hand and turning the palm up.

"Pass me your phone."

"What?"

"Show me the photos and I'll tell you what I think."

"I never said anything about photos."

"Then I can't be of help."

"Poppycock. You're coming back up with me." William's suggestion had Damien finally turn to face the human. Even with what William could only describe as 'merman bed hair', Damien's accusatory look was sharp.

"I cannot walk, remember? I'm not of the species that can magically shapeshift -" Now it was Damien's turn to trail off as William let out a snort of laughter.

"You know, for someone who is so smart, you're awfully fond of jumping to conclusions and thinking you know what I'm going to say, huh?" William put his hands on his hips as he grinned. "No, no, dry your tail! I'm carrying you up! And no - I know that look from Celine - don't try and argue, I've made up my mind. Unlike Mark, I've spent years in the army. I'm a strong man. Have you even had a chance to see the house yet with your own eyes?"

William’s observation stunned Damien into silence. William was right - why did he keep assuming the worst of William? Was the simmering anger from yesterday influencing this, or was Damien really expecting the worst of humans?

"Only in photos…" He finally answered after a short pause. Damien was bewildered that William was even considering this after how Damien had behaved yesterday. "But you must know my tail is -"

"You won't know until you try. Come on, chop chop!"

Damien sat on the picnic bench, shaking the tip of his tail of extra moisture while William properly examined the merman's body to decide how best to carry it. At a glance, his tail was longer than his torso, and the eye-catching tip was large and potentially awkward if handled wrong. But William’s thoughts briefly strayed as he admired the colours. Damien was rather handsome. Not only that, he had such a wonderful personality (when he wasn’t jumping to conclusions) that William genuinely enjoyed the other’s company. But right now, he needed to focus. The last thing he wanted was to make the merman uncomfortable. Hoisting Damien over his shoulder was rather undignified, so it would need to be bridal style at a higher angle. 

He grunted at his decision. It caught Damien’s attention and he lifted his head in time to see a smirk peeking out under William’s moustache.

"I'm starting to think that is the 'I have an idea' look Mark had warned me about," Damien muttered as the soldier approached. Establishing how best to pick up Damien was a little awkward - "We'll get the hang of it!" William insisted - but they managed it. Damien wrapped both arms around William's neck and held on for dear life with such strength he was sure he’d leave marks on the skin. One of William's hands was at the base of the torso, while the other arm had the tail draped over it. To Damien's amazement, there was no sign of struggle from William once they settled.

"I can carry twice my own body weight," said William with a wink, like he read the merman's mind. With that, they made their way up the steps. William's eyes were on the ground to watch his footing, while Damien needed time to recover from that damned wink.

-

The initial reason for William bringing Damien into the house was ignored as Damien was taken aback by a moment of awe upon seeing the house for the first time. William decided that Damien absolutely needed the 'grand tour'. It was the right choice, as Damien was curious to learn more about the house beyond the photos he had been shown. William was able to point out the various jobs he was required to do while here until, finally, it brought them to the chaos that was the living room. Damien could see why William wanted a second opinion. All the furniture was grouped together in the middle of the room. It was quite a sorry mess of eccentric items that needed to somehow find new homes within the room.

Damien was sprawled across the couch - the end of his tail casually dangling across the far arm of it - as William set to work moving items to and fro as Damien instructed. Neither homeowner being there was a blessing, as William discovered that Damien had a very good eye for object placement and how to make a room look nice. Damien laughed and admitted that it was probably due to the natural merfolk love of beautiful things combined with a human awareness of furniture and ornaments.

The pair chatted throughout the morning as William completed the heavy work (not that Damien minded that he had to watch the human flex his muscles and show off that strength). This was how William learned that merfolk are not as materialistic as humans. A normal human home would be too 'cluttered' for them. There was little need for 'the latest and trendiest goods' in a merfolk's life in the same way as humans needed them, but those that had trinkets or ornaments knew they would never be stolen since they only have sentimental value.

"Is it true that merfolk like jewellery, since those are pretty valuable?" William asked as he showed Damien a mermaid figure before he could put it on the shelf.

"It is. It's purely aesthetic. The value of the materials mean nothing. I once met a young mermaid who had one of those bright, plastic bracelets a human child would wear. She valued it so much that when it went missing, the entire community banded together to search for it. I realised that an item imbued with sentimentality should be the most important value in my life, not how much money is used on it. Though there is a natural draw to gold because it isn't as unpredictable as silver in the water."

"At least the movies get something right. So what about the nesting-whatchamacallit - they aren't 'homes', right?"

"Right. Merfolk communities normally have a shared 'living space' that we call 'nesting grounds'. These are areas that are sheltered, mostly shallow, and open. It's a communal area, so it's ideal to have enough room for everyone to socialise without the danger of being swept away by storms. There are small nooks and crannies that are used for nests, which are a merfolk's personal spot for sleeping. Everyone knows to leave another's nest alone. Messing with the nest or the items near it without permission can land you in a lot of trouble." Damien paused, eyes drifting to one of the seascape photos on the wall. "The nesting ground I've been welcomed into has our distant relatives in it. Their home is situated amongst the coral reef. There's always colour there, along with whatever 'souvenirs' are brought to either share in the communal space or for a personal nest."

"Huh....Sounds like the dorms in the barracks I'd stay in. We'd have individual beds and lockers, but that's it in terms of 'personal space'. Everywhere else is communal." The comparison, though not perfect, was close enough to help William gain a better understanding of Damien's world, and of the setting for Celine and Mark's home. "So… Would that make the land part of the Rockpool the nesting grounds, and the small section under the water by the rocks your nest?"

"Yes, I consider it as such. I like it as it is. I don't see why it needs to be changed."

Realisation dawned on William. That explained Damien's offense at the mere thought of the space being changed. If everything was fitting for a merman, why humanise it? There was a solution to this, he was sure of it!

The pair took a break in the afternoon to bring Damien into the bathroom to get some moisture back into his body - the handheld shower head made this a lot easier - and have some lunch. Then, as William was asking Damien his opinions on which colour would better suit one of the empty rooms, Celine returned. She thought William was merely talking out loud as usual and was pleasantly surprised to see her brother lounging across three kitchen chairs, waving innocently at her.

-

And that was how the pair spent the next week. Each morning, William would set up and go on a long walk to strengthen his leg and explore the area, then fetch Damien so they could spend time together while William worked. Mark had gotten his hands on a wheelchair, which William then spent half the night refurbishing it to support a long, heavy tail instead of two feet. It gave Damien a little more independence when in the house… As well as the ability to ram into William with it when he was fetching items. The three humans agreed that it gave Damien a new lease of life once he was able to be involved in a way that was suitable for him. Some days he would ask William to bring him back to the Rockpool so he could spend the afternoon alone instead, and that was a request that was always respected.

However, as the week went on, William found he would spend his evenings at the Rockpool, regardless of whether or not the others joined him. He found Damien to be such good company… and feelings had taken root. But with how adamant Damien had been in not wanting to be humanised, he decided it would be best to keep it to himself. 

It didn't help that Mark gave him a knowing nudge one night when they were heading back into the house and seemed to be blissfully oblivious to William’s threat to keep it to himself.

[the-hopeless-haze]

Someone Whose Feelings You Spare (Being Alive Chapter 8)

A/N: Two things! I suggest listening to “Any Man of Mine” by Shania Twain before you read this because it will make a lot more sense - yes it’s cheesy but go with it lol. Second - forgive me for any courtroom inaccuracies! I love Rita though and I gotta give her some love in this series (even if she’s lowkey a bitch to the reader haha)!

Word Count: 3.5k

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AO3 Link

The defense had gotten word. And it was your fault. Maybe it’s just how it goes, a domino effect: one person finds out and then another person finds out and then another... It wasn’t all the defense attorneys in Manhattan at once, thank God, but it was the one and only Rita Calhoun, and you were set to testify tomorrow. You’re in his office like a bat out of hell the second you get her message, complete with a picture of the two of you closer than what was appropriate outside the courthouse, most likely taken at an inopportune moment from Rita’s cellphone when you kissed him despite his half-hearted protests. Rafael wonders how much ibuprofen he can take before his liver starts sending him death threats as he stares at it, takes a deep breath, and then looks up at you.

“Well. This isn’t great.”

“Not great? This is terrible, Rafael. And it’s my fault. Now what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs, leaning back in his chair.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Why don’t you seem as concerned about this as I am?”

“I’m concerned. Believe me, I’m concerned. But this was bound to happen, (y/n). Both of us knew that.”

“But I mean... if it comes between our careers and our relationship...” you say, anxiety bleeding into your tone as you fiddle with your watch. “What are we going to do? There’s no outcome where it’s fair if it comes to that.”

See why it’s easier to be alone? This would’ve never happened if you just let him be. But he swallows that down with two pills and a swig of coffee and doesn’t verbalize it.

“It’s not going to come to that,” Rafael says, even though he doesn’t quite believe it himself. Your worries weren’t completely unfounded, especially since he had no idea how Rita was going to play it in court. It could very well come to that. But you didn’t need to hear it from his mouth.

“What are you going to do, then?” you ask; your hands on your hips.

“I believe it’s what ‘we’ are going to do, cariño, since we’re both in this mess, together. Right?”

You shoot him a withering look before you start pacing the room. “You’re unbelievable. Why are you not stressed about this? You’ll get strung out about a bad headline from some no-name journalist or a slight glitch in a case but this? You’re making jokes? Do you not care if we have to end it? Is that it?”

“No, (y/n). Sit down. Of course I care, but I’m not a miracle worker or a mind reader.”

“So then call Rita! See if you can work something out with her.”

“Can you trust me?”

“I don’t know. Can I?"

“Jesus. Have a little faith in me, will you, mujer?”

You roll your eyes but you finally stop pacing and sit across from him. “What’s your plan, then?”

“I’m not calling Rita. No, hear me out,” he says, glaring at your exasperated facial expression. “If I go running to her with my tail between my legs, then that just proves there’s something going on, and while that picture is incriminating... it’s not exactly proof.”

“So what? You want me to commit perjury? Have every case I ever testified in be thrown out because I’m not only in a relationship with the attorney who prosecuted them, but because I’m a liar to boot?”

“Can you calm down and just listen to me? Hmm? Do you think you can do that?” Rafael says, trying not to let his irritation show. You are pissing him off a little, though. Hysterics aren’t going to solve anything, and surely you know that.

“Fine. But you’re not saying anything I like so far.”

Rafael sighs and rubs his face with hands. “Maybe because you haven’t exactly let me speak, cariño. Now, I’ve seen this situation happen before, albeit not exactly like this. One of the other district attorneys in Brooklyn was married to a doctor who testified in a lot of her cases. Not exactly the most ethical arrangement in the world, either, but it slid. Some defense attorneys tried to bring it up and discredit him, but both of them had a good reputation and nothing much ever came from that.”

"This is a lot different, though, Rafael."

He shrugs. "In a way. It'd be worse if you were a higher rank, but you've only been on the squad for a year and you're not looking for promotions, right?"

"Even if I was, I wouldn't get one any time soon. But if this gets out, though, your political career—“

Rafael chuckles. "What political career? That's been a lost cause ever since I charged Alex. He made sure of that."

"I just feel so bad, though, honey. You're always telling me to stop in case someone sees—“

"Don't. We're going to figure this out, okay?" he says, looking at you intently. "Okay?"

"Okay," you say, exhaling maybe for the first time since you stepped into his office. "I really am sorry, though. God, I feel so stupid."

"Well, don't. You're not. Like I said, this was bound to happen. Maybe it's better if we just get it over with," Rafael shrugs, then reaches for your hand across his desk. "We'll figure it out.”

But wouldn't it be so much easier if you didn't?

——--

Carisi is outside the courthouse with you, a comforting arm around your shoulder. Rafael bites back a comment. You don’t need any grief today.

“Hey, Barba,” Carisi says. “You doing okay?”

“I’m not the one going up on the stand,” he says, feeling a sense of pride when you leave Carisi’s arms for his own, even if that's not the most appropriate place for you to be right now.

“This is insane,” Carisi says, shaking his head. “I can't believe Calhoun's going to bring this up. I mean, it's not like you give us any breaks because you're with her; if anything you're harder on us—“

"Shush," Rafael snaps, shooting him a dirty look. "We don't know if that's what she's aiming for, although I do suppose we have a good idea. She wants to confuse the jury, muddy the waters. You want to be a lawyer? Get used to playing dirty. You'll do it, too. Are you doing okay?” he asks, turning to you.

“Been better. We have backup plans for our backup plans, depending on the route she goes with. Just gotta get through it and not fuck up."

"Hey, that's the spirit," Carisi says, grinning as he squeezes your shoulder. The three of you walk up the steps and try to settle into your respective seats in the courtroom. But you never make it on the witness stand, because Rita calls to approach before you can be sworn in. Rafael is thankful for little blessings. Much better that this came up in the judge's chambers than in open court.

"Your Honor, I don't think that the next witness should be called given her personal relationship with the prosecutor of this case,” Rita says. "I have photos--"

"No need. She's not lying," Rafael interjects, glaring at her.

"You're welcome for the heads-up, by the way," she says, smirking at him. "But again, given the fact that Mr. Barba is dating the witness... how can he be expected to be impartial, especially since she is going to accuse my client of attempting to assault her while she was undercover?"

"Don't you think this should have come up earlier, Mr. Barba?" the judge asks, crossing her arms. "Now, I'll allow this because I know she worked on this case - but tread lightly. I don't want to have to call a mistrial."

"Won't be necessary, Your Honor," he replies, leaving the bench and heading back to his seat. You're sworn in, and he runs through the questions he'd already asked you a million times - where were you, how did you meet the defendant, what the defendant did to you, how you and the squad tied him to the rest of the victims. You do a phenomenal job, and Rita can only object once successfully.

But when Rita's allowed to cross... she doesn't hold back.

"So, Detective... would you like to elaborate on your relationship with the prosecutor of this case?"

"Objection? Relevance?" Rafael asks.

"I'll make my point clear."

"I'll allow it, but let's not make this a showcase, Ms. Calhoun?" the judge says, nodding to you.

"We're dating," you say, keeping your voice level.

"Right... and let's say something happened to you. Like any significant other, he'd be upset, correct? Was he there the night in question? Did he see this happen to you?"

"He wasn't at the club, no, but he did come into the precinct later on in the night."

"Right. So he saw you after the incident. Don't you think, maybe, tensions were high, you had just gone undercover... and the two of you read into this more than you should have?"

"Did the whole precinct? Because it was my sergeant who decided to bring him in for questioning before Mr. Barba even looked at this case," you say matter-of-factly.

"Let me rephrase. Did he talk to you or my client first?"

"He spoke with me first."

"So, before he even meets my client, he talks to you, and he has that in the back of his mind the entire time. Now, anyone would want to take the side of their significant other, and you thought that you were luring out a potential rapist. Of course, he's going to take your word for it: he loves you, doesn't he? So, from the beginning of the case, his emotions already ruled over his decisions."

"Objection. Speculation," Rafael states as he stands up. Fucking Rita, using the 'L' word before he'd even thought about telling you that.

"Why don't you tell us, then, Mr. Barba?" Rita says coolly.

"Enough, you two," the judge sighs heavily. "Continue, Ms. Calhoun, but get to the point."

"I think I'm all set. No further questions."

"I'm calling for a short recess after that lovely display," the judge declares, rolling her eyes. "Court will return in 30 minutes."

You're staring at Rafael as you step down from the stand, and you make your way over to him. "How do you think that went?"

"It went. We'll see," he murmurs, shrugging. "You did a great job, cariño.”

"So did she. I mean, there’s reasonable doubt—“

But you’re cut off from that thought because Rita’s walking over, a smirk playing on her lips. “This is cute, hm?”

“What do you want, Rita?” Rafael asks, sighing exasperatedly. “It didn’t work out so well for you. She still got to testify.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts. How long has it been for you two, though?"

“It’s been a while.”

“It’s not a good look. You work far too closely with SVU to be sleeping with one of their detectives. Surely you should know that?”

“I’m standing right here, Rita,” you mutter through gritted teeth.

“Well, the adults are talking.”

About a million emotions flash through your eyes, and Rafael just hopes to God you don’t start crying because that will only make it worse, and he knows Rita didn’t mean it to be bitchy. Her tone was light enough to be joking, and she probably meant it more along the lines of ‘the lawyers are speaking’, but he knows you wouldn’t take it that way. Thankfully, though, you manage to bite back your tears and nod.

“Well, then, I’ll let them talk,” you snap and brush past Rita out of the courtroom.

“(Y/n), don’t—“ Rafael starts but you don’t look back, and he sighs, glaring at Rita. “Was that necessary?”

“She’s emotional, hm?” Rita says as he starts to put his things into his briefcase. “Though I find most SVU detectives to be. At least she's pretty.”

Rafael snickers. “Thanks for your approval, but I didn't need it."

"Apparently you don't think you need anyone's approval. Don't you think this is an iffy situation at best? How long were you going to try and get away with it? Really, I think you should be thanking me for forcing it to come to light. McCoy must not be happy."

"Mm, yes. Thank you for harassing my girlfriend on the stand, Rita," he says with a grimace as he closes his briefcase. "I don't bring up your personal life in this courtroom and believe me, if I wanted to, I could find something. I expect you to show me the same courtesy from now on."

"Fine. We can play nice,” she says, following him out of the room. “But this is the last time her testimony is going to be admissible when I'm in this courtroom. I don’t trust either of you to be objective, and neither should any judge. You got lucky today.”

"I rarely ever call her for this reason, Rita.”

“Good. Glad we’re on the same page. Just know, if I ever find any evidence that you were anything less than impartial—“

“You’ll make sure the jury hears about it. I get it.”

“Good. What are you going to do when you get married? I mean, you can’t expect for both of you to keep your jobs.”

“Who the hell said anything about marriage?” Rafael asks, trying not to let his tone become too defensive.

“I don’t know. Isn’t that the logical progression of things? You two seem pretty close."

In open court, she’d want to do everything to make it seem like he had the tightest bond imaginable with you. But now, there was no reason to keep harping on this point, and it makes him wonder and worry about how deep that soft spot for you actually went. "I know you'd love to see me transfer out of this district, but it's not happening," he snickers. "I'll see you in 20."

"Oh, hey, Barba. Warning: she's pissed," Carisi informs him as he walks up to the two of you.

"I'm not pissed. Asshole," you protest, jabbing Carisi playfully in the side, to which he holds his stomach like you really injured him. "Although that was uncalled for on her part. And it would've been nice if you defended me..."

"You walked away before I even had a chance to - which I did after you left, by the way."

"Right. So what happens now?"

"Come with me,” he says, ushering you out of the hallway with an arm around your shoulder. He finds an alcove in the stairs, somewhere he’d hide and do his deliberation on closing statements right before it was showtime.

“Not a good look for you, being alone with me like this, you know?"

“Don’t you know I don’t care? They can say what they want to say, but there’s nothing anywhere that says I can’t date you."

“But they’re going to question every warrant you give—“

He silences you with a kiss, pitting an arm around your shoulder. “You’re a detective. Not a sergeant. Olivia’s the one who asks me for warrants.”

“They could still say—“

“Let them talk."

“Okay,” you say, leaning against his chest. “I'm sorry I accused you of not caring. I know you do. You're meeting with McCoy later, right?"

"Yeah. Hopefully, it goes well."

"Hopefully," you grin. You lean up, kissing the side of his jaw. He chuckles as your hair tickles the skin of his neck.

“You did a good job, bebita. I’m proud of you.” He squeezes your knee and you turn to kiss him. It’s a languid kiss, long and soft, filled with yearning. He almost forgets where he is, all he can feel is you, his hands threading in your hair. He wants to take you right here, but it’s not a primal urge, it’s a soft one, where he needs to be in you to feel you.

"You want to be the one that gets us into a mess this time?" you tease. "Regardless of what happens, it is probably best if we keep our distance from now on, at least in the courthouse."

"Not the easiest task, mujer," he whispers, running his thumb over your lower lip before kissing you again.

——

What in the hell kind of music were you listening to? Some woman was singing about how she didn't know her last name, and you were belting along, just off-key enough for it to be grating. But he doesn't say anything, because you were in such a good mood, chopping vegetables in his kitchen, and he'd hate to burst your bubble after that week the two of you had.

You reach up for him, kissing him gently on the mouth before he puts his briefcase down, and then you're back to your work at the cutting board, swiveling your hips a little to the music. The song switches over to another country song, and you're saying, "This is what a woman wants," slightly out-of-time with the recording. If it was anyone else, again, Rafael would be the first to point out how irritating that is... but it's you, and he'll spare you the smartass-remarks.

The song isn't what he'd prefer to listen to, either, but you're cooking his freaking dinner, so he's let you be the DJ more often. It's obviously meant for comedic effect - the singer's elaborating on all the things her man should do for her, and how it's okay if she doesn't reciprocate. And you're coming over to him, wiggling your eyebrows and squeezing his upper arms as she sings "better show me a teasin'-squeezin'-pleasin' kinda time".

All Rafael can do is chuckle and kiss you. It was rare that you got this enthused, not to say you were melancholy most of the time, but you were like him in that it took a lot to get you excited or cheerful. Maybe you had reason to, today, as McCoy cleared the two of you and said it was fine to continue your relationship, but Olivia had to keep tabs on you and Rafael would be watched with a closer eye.

Just another headache. Maybe it was worth it, though, to have you dancing in his kitchen at 9 pm while you make enchiladas and make his apartment feel like a home.

"And when I cook his dinner and burn it black, he better say, mm, I like it like that," you sing, cackling with laughter as he raises an eyebrow.

"You better not start burning my food now, (y/n). Your reputation precedes you. I know you can cook."

But maybe that's all anyone wants - and leave it to Rafael to try and analyze a song meant for comedic value - but everyone just wants someone to spare their feelings, someone they can come home to after a long day and who won't add to the weight of the burden the world put on them, at least not when the going's already tough. And couldn't he have that with you?

"Come on, Rafi, this is where you come in," you giggle. "Let me hear you say 'yeah'..."

And even though he feels beyond stupid, he plays along, attempting to harmonize with the male vocalists that come in despite not knowing the song. Then, you're dancing to the rest of it, "shimmy, shake, make the earth quake" - and yes, you're the sexiest woman he can remember ever being in the presence of - but you're also beautiful, happy, and so fucking alive.

His breath catches in his throat and he realizes what that is - it's been so fucking long since it's happened - but he knows now, he loves you. Should he tell you? This moment won't stay perfect forever, and it's fading as quickly as the song fades out, but what if he doesn't actually love you? Shouldn't he spare you that heartache, if he should ever wake up from this spell you had him under? God, this was why he always hesitated: how do you know, and how do you know if it will last? Besides, what if you didn't love him back?

But he'd never had anyone fight to be with him like you did, and you'd told him multiple times you'd look into transferring to a different SVU if it came to that. And, come to think of it, he'd never fought to be with someone, either. Granted, this was a unique situation not posed by his ex-lovers, but either Rafael or them proved they wouldn't be willing to go through a struggle to stay together by ending the relationship for whatever reason.

Still, Rafael can't get himself to say the words, simple as they are, and the moment slips through his fingers like maybe you will one day as the song bleeds into another one. He's tuning it out, though, kissing you and trying to stop his mind from running away with all his fears and doubts.

How long would you wait for him to be ready, though?

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

Taglist: @caked-crusader​ @thatesqcrush​ @law-nerd105​ @arabellathorne​ @blackeyedangel9805​

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[krispydefendorpolice]

Miraculous Future (1)

The Class Picnic/Saturday Afternoon

Happy Holidays. This is a gift fic for @a-marlene-s for the SSMariBat secret Santa arranged by @eve-valution. You left your wishes pretty open, so I’m hoping I came up with something to interest you.

For the rest of you freeloaders (that’s meant as a tease) I’ve been seeing a lot of talk lately about there being too much salt: class salt, Alya salt, Lila salt. If you feel that way back out right now cuz that’s what this is. (Not sure how you feel on the salt issue a-marlene-s but I got the impression that you would appreciate a salt fic). That being said I’m not sure I managed to do the salt issue justice (any feedback on that would be appreciated. Was it salty or just ho-hum?)

Enjoy!!

Next Masterpost

_________________________

Ms Bustier’s class had already started to gather for their year end class picnic in the park across from the school. Since they were now in Lycée instead of Collège, and this was the last time they would have an end of year event as they were graduating, they had agreed that anyone who was dating could bring their partners with them if they weren’t in the class.

Marinette sighed as she pulled her phone from her pocket to check her messages again. Adrian and his boyfriend were running late from his photo shoot ending late. His last update was the last message in her cue. Marinette was just thankful that she had Kagami and Chloe to keep her company while waiting for her friend and her boyfriends, who were also running late, to show up. Marinette scowled when no new messages were there.

Marinette scowled when other kids in her class were making those oh so obviously secretive looks at her before whispering to each other and laughing. She knew it was because the boys were running late. Lila had made a big deal in class the day before about how she was so sad her boyfriend wasn’t going to be able to come to the picnic because Damian Wayne was in Japan for some business or other with his fathers company. Lila had made an offhand comment that she felt so bad that she couldn’t show Marinette what a healthy relationship was like since Marinette was such a call girl. The rest of the class had puzzled over the comment until it had clicked with someone and asked if she had a ‘sugar daddy’.

Marinette and Chloe had stared at the class in disgust because for the last two years Marinette had been in a steady relationship with Luka Couffaine, not that the class knew that as they had never asked, not even his sister was aware of it. The rest of the class had accepted Lila’s insinuation as gospel because they always did and had laughed at her. Some had made bets on if Marinette would bring one of her ‘customers’ to the picnic as a stand in boyfriend.

She kind of preferred it when the class was ignoring her like they mostly did day to day for the past two years. It was only when Lila though Marinette’s notoriety might be in danger of being forgotten that she would come up with some new scandal or action Marinette was supposed to have done to further isolate her from the class. There was the supposedly stolen field trip money in 2ème (10th grade) that had miraculously turned up in the principal’s office, the allergy scare in 1ème (11th grade) and now a sex scandal? Really? Couldn’t the girl keep her stories straight? Or at least to a consistent degree of escalating badness?

Her parents had stood by her and tackled the school issues with her. They couldn’t pull her out as the school the best one academically in the district and they couldn’t afford to send Marinette to another school in a different district so they did what they could to ensure she had minimal harassment from the school itself. But unfortunately they couldn’t tackle the class relationships in the same way.

So Marinette was left in the class with Adrian and Chloe. She had gotten over her crush on Adrian and had become an honest friend with him. After he saw how her relationships with her classmates were being affected by the lies he had tried to stand up for her. His father nearly pulled him from class but Adrian had fought it and threatened to quit modeling if his father pulled him from school. Since the brand was currently dependent on Adrian’s representation Gabriel had left him in the class with the understanding that he had to suffer whatever happened now.

Marinette had raged against Gabriel’s callousness when it happened and made sure her and her parents provided the love and support Adrian needed to get through the class issues when they eventually turned on him too. Adrian worked on creating positive friendships with Marinette and Kagami from his fencing class. When Kagami had started dating Chloe, Marinette and Chloe had a sit down discussion on their past issues to get it resolved since so many of their outing were now spent as a group and they didn’t need their issues causing tension. It had been a blessing as Chloe had become a great supporter in the class and once the class had voted Lila as their new representative (Marinette had declined running that year and every year since) she and Adrian had helped Marinette start up her new online business: MDC Designs.

It replaced the web business Alya and the girls had helped her set up as she had been flooded with negative character reviews (not even design or business reviews) from her classmates that she’d had to shut it down.

It was through MDC Designs that Marinette and Luka had met their boyfriend, the actual, Damian Wayne. Marinette had gotten a commission for Bruce Wayne, who was recommended by Jagged Stone. Marinette was hired to make a suit for an upcoming Gala event. He had been so impressed that he had immediately hired her to make suits for his children who had flown out for the fittings. Luka had gone with her when she did the fitting for Damian Wayne and when he had asked her out after it was over she had initially declined saying that she was dating Luka.

Damian had looked at Luka and said he wouldn’t object to taking him out too. He left his personal number with Marinette and let them know if they would both be interested he would love to take them out.

Luka and Marinette had discussed it and decided that it would be interesting to talk to the young man some more. The date had gone well and they initially did a long distance communication exchange as Damian was finishing up classes in America. He had spent most of the holidays and many weekends in Paris getting to know Luka and Marinette. Just three months prior they had decided that they liked the arrangement and wanted to make it official that they were all dating.

So why was Marinette alone with Chloe and Kagami to help her deal with her class? Because Adrian got delayed at his photo shoot and his boyfriend was picking him up while Marinette’s own boyfriends were delayed by Damian’s business meeting.

I’m going to kick their asses for leaving me alone with the class, she thought to herself. She knew she wasn’t exactly being fair. They had expected that Adrian and Jon would be able to join her before the picnic started but then they got delayed and she was left alone with a class that had spent the better part of the last two years pretending she didn’t exist when they weren’t spreading lies about her.

It had hurt at first when the class had started isolating her because of Lila’s stories. She had known most of the class for years before the Italian joined them. Most had been witness to her actually meeting the celebrities Lila lied about but no one would listen to her when she told them about the lies. Lila had used their disbelief to insinuate here and there that Marinette was jealous, she was a bad friend, she was getting in trouble with the law and doing bad things like drugs and staying out late.

Eventually Marinette stopped trying.

Since she was currently on her own and still on the outs with the class, Marinette stood at the edge of the group with Chloe and Kagami and people watched. This was the end of their school careers and everyone was preparing for the next step in their lives. Mari listened as Alya was boasting about how Lila was going to get her an internship at the local news station, Rose, Juleka, and Ivan were making a demo for their band that Lila was going to get to some music studios for possible contracts while Nino was hoping for an in at the movie studio. Nathaniel, who had stepped away from Lila and the class but didn’t get involved with Marinette, was going to get his comics published with Marc. In fact the first book would be available at the end of the week.

It was pretty clear from listening to the class who was still in camp Lila and who had left. Camp Lila had big dreams with no actions taken to reach them, while those who left had plans in the works and were achieving steps towards their dreams. Max had an internship at a a robotics company after his last robotics competition. Kim was in training with an Olympic trainer, while Alix was entered into the local x-treme sports competition.

Marinette checked her phone when it dinged to let her know she had a new message.

Adrian: We’re just wrapping up. Jon and I will be on our way.

“An update from Adrikins?” Chloe asked.

Marinette relayed his message. “At least we’ll have some back up soon.”

The girls watched the group the class made. Every so often one of their classmates would look at them but would quickly turn away when they caught the girls looking at them.

“Do you think they’ll ever find the missing brain cells?” Chloe asked when the third classmate in a row turned so fast they nearly gave themselves whiplash.

Marinette shrugged, she had gotten over their ditching her with a good therapist and had found some honest friends in Adrian, Kagami, Chloe and Luka who supported her.

Marinette pulled out her phone when it dinged with Luka’s ringtone. Many of her classmates phones were ringing at the same time.

Luka: Check the news

Marinette clicked on the link he sent with the message. It was a live news report from an American news site. The reporter was relaying the events of children popping up around the world with stories that they were...

“MOM!!” “MAMAN!!”

The class turned as a group of children came running up to them. A few broke off to go to Nino and one went to Alix. The rest swarmed around Marinette, Chloe and Kagami. The smallest girl jumped and Marinette struggled to stay standing under the unexpected weight.

Four more children joined into a group hug around Marinette, while one had wrapped herself around Chloe and Kagami and two almost adults came behind the herd with a toddler that was reaching for Marinette with whines of “mama”.

A set of twins were glued to Nino while an older girl stood next to them glaring at Alya and Lila in turns. Nathaniel had a small girl hugging him and even Alix had a pair of boys holding her hand and staring at the group.

Most of the kids were staring at Lila in fear and horror and hiding behind the class.

“What’s she doing here?” the older male teen asked looking at Lila who was standing in the larger class group.

“The better question is what year is it McGinnis?” the girl pushed the toddler into the boys arms before smacking him upside the head. “You’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng correct?” She addressed Marinette.

“Um, yes,” Marinette tried to answer before the kids around her tried to pull her attention back to questions about Papa Luka or Daddy Adrian and where they were.

“Gosh, Marinette how can you have so many kids calling you mom? Didn’t you listen at all during Ms Mendeliev’s sex ed lecture? Or couldn’t you keep a guy interested?” Lila asked in a sugary sweet voice.

“Ignoring the terrorist in the room for the day,” the boy interrupted, “what year is it for you right now?”

“20XX,” Marinette answered before Alya exclaimed.

“How could you call Lila a terrorist? She’s done so many amazing things and so much good. Where do you get off doing that?”

It was the girl that answered. “You’re Alya Cesaire?” she asked, and after Alya nodded she continued, “Well, considering we come from 20X15, 15 years in the future, and after Hawkmoth and Mayura were captured and stood trial with one Lila Rossi of France, pretty goddamn easily Ms. Tabloid reporter. It’s standard modern history and taught as part of the third grade curriculum of the super-hero acts.”

“Lila is from Italy. Her mom’s a diplomat,” Rose said.

“Actually, she’s not. She was born in Rodez, France. She’s a French citizen and her parents are not any kind of diplomat. If I remember correctly her mom’s a paralegal at one of the more prestigious law firms and her dad is working as a teacher at Ecole Primaire Rue (primary school).”

“That’s a lie,” Alya yelled.

“Why would we bother lying about her?” The teen boy asked.

“Besides I did my final report for retired or inactive heroes on Ladybug and Chat Noir,” the second oldest girl said. “Hawkmoth’s defeat was a major reason why they retired and the trials were broadcast on national television. Ladybug herself testified to Lila’s actions and she had video evidence,” she stressed the two words, “to support her testimony and disprove all the lies that had been posted on the tabloid blog ‘The LadyBlog’.”

The second oldest boy recited, “Lila Rossi was held for assisting in the insa, inta...”

“Instigation,” the oldest boy supplied.

“Instigation,” he repeated, “of 33 Akuma attacks from the period of 20X-2 to 20X2. After the heroes Ladybug,”

“CHAT NOIR!” One of the younger children interrupted,

“Viperion.”

“Abeille.”

“And Ryukou.”

The boy nodded and continued what he was saying, “as well as the emergency miraculous users Bunnx, and the Rooster, took down the terrorist known as Hawkmoth, and his assistant Mayura, later investigations turned up and proved the knowing and complicit actions of Lila Rossi.”

“In addition, Lila Rossi was taken to court for over 80 acts of fraud, slander and libel against well known individuals including but not limited to Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, the Prince Ali of Achuu and members of the Wayne family.”

In the middle of the class group Lila flushed as she had just been telling the others how she was dating the youngest Wayne son.

“You’re lying,” she argued. “There’s no way you can prove any of that. Marinette must have paid you to say all that. She never liked me since I showed everyone how she’s a bad influence.”

“Believe us, or don’t, it doesn’t matter to us. Our future is set and nothing we do today is going to change it. This is a fixed event after all.” The oldest girl said before turning her attention to Marinette “Marinette have you heard back from Damian or my Dad yet?”

“Your dad?” Marinette asked because she hadn’t been able to figure out exactly who any of the kids around her were yet though she could make some good guesses.

“Bruce Wayne,” she answered.

“Not yet,” Marinette said. “I just got a text from Luka about a report before you all ran up to us.”

It was Max that interrupted with a question, “Are you saying you’re from the future like the other kids that the news is reporting are turning up all over the world?”

The class looked at Max who turned his phone for the others to see the same news report that Marinette had been watching a moment ago.

They were reporting that children were appearing from 15 years in the future near their parents in the present.

The second oldest boy, who had green eyes and darker skin was the one to answer, “Obviously. How else would Maman have a child who’s nearly ten years old calling her mom? Did you truly lose all ability to think for yourself? I thought Papa Adrian’s stories were exaggerated because of the liars presence.”

“Thomas,” the older girl chided.

Just then Marinette’s phone dinged with a new message.

Damian: Has anyone come to you?

Marinette: Like half a dozen kids calling me mom? Not at all

Luka: Half a dozen??!!!!!

Marinette: There are at least 7 more here but they apparently are kids of some of my classmates.

Damian: My father is sending a couple cars. Have all the kids and any of the would be parents that are going ready when they arrive.

Marinette: If you’re going that route you’ll need to send someone to round up my classmates. They don’t listen to me anymore

Luka: Damian’s on the phone with Bruce. He’s trying to see if he can get one of the other boys to help

“Hey, Chloe,” Marinette said, “can we round up the kids. Dami’s trying to get his father to send a couple cars to pick us up so that we can get this situated.”

“I don’t see why not. I’m sure daddy would be okay with putting up a few kids in the hotel until we can get them back home,” she added eyeing the kids with Nino and Alix. “I’ll call ahead if you want to take them there Lahiffe, Kubdel.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Nino said a little overwhelmed with how the kids were clinging to him and glaring at Alya.

“What’s with all the kids?” Adrian asked walking up to the group with Jon Kent in tow.

“PAPA!” “DAD” the kids around Marinette yelled and swarmed around Adrian and Jon. Jon in good humor picked up one of the smaller boys and carried him on his shoulder.

“Damian, was able to call and give us a heads up on our way over to expect something. Just not so much something,” Adrian said when he reached Marinette with a kid of his own hanging on his arm.

“I’m so glad he was able to call you,” she said sarcastically. “It’s not like his own girlfriend is stuck in the middle of this madhouse,” she finished as she began to round up the kids and guide them towards the curb. She could see cars with a familiar English butler stepping out parked in the street.

“Hey Alfred,” the oldest teen boy called with a wave. “Alright Litter bugs let’s move out.” He said helping to get the kids moving towards the car.

Marinette froze, “What did you call my kids?”

“Litter bugs?” He said confusedly, “It’s what you call them in the future since there’s so many. And it helps to keep things organized at the family’s Christmas party and get togethers.”

Marinette turned on Adrian furiously. “What did you do to get our kids called by THAT!!” She yelled at him.

Adrian smiled nervously, “Well my Queen, technically I would argue that I haven’t done anything...yet.”

“I will gut you for this Agreste!”

Adrian wisely grabbed one of the kids in front of him and ran to the cars yelling over his shoulder, “Come on kids, before mama kills papa.”

———————————————

I hope this was enjoyable. And the ending got some laughs. I know it nearly killed me when I reread it to check for edits. So, I got the Litter bugs idea at the end of my rewrite (this went through at least two different versions in my head before it got written) and I sorta remembered that mama cats are called ‘queens’ and I looked it up and its true. I think Adrian would totally be the idiot to pun off this.

This AU is based on (edit: @vivilakitty recognized the premise of their story idea. I knew there was another more headcannony take on the future kids story but I couldn’t find that original idea in my likes. I hope I can do it justice.) and the story/ideas from @snowhirl who got their idea from @multishipper1needshalp and Maribat by @ozmav. I loved the idea when it first came out but had no real motivation to flesh it out in my own way so also: Thank you. A-Marlene-S for the motivation to get this down.

Also this is a part one, the whole idea gave me so many ideas that my first draft was a whopping 2,831 and this is technically only half that idea and comes in at a total of 3,133 words. So before I post the conclusion on how the kids get home and answer some questions like: why are Marinette’s kids calling Adrian and Jon dad and she’s saying ‘our kids’? How did the kids come to the past anyways? I want to know if anyone is interested in a slice of life take on how the kids get by in the present? I may end up doing it anyways but if anyone else is interested that’s more motivation for me to do it. (Send me a comment or an ask if that works to keep me motivated. I’ll wait until 1-5-20 before posting the next bit either way so please if you are interested let me know.

@a-marlene-s @eve-valution @multifandomscribette @mochinek0 @zebrabaker @northernbluetongue @bluerosette23 @g-arya @thepeacetea @vivilakitty @actualaster @galahadwilder @del-phin @sassydepression @mindfulmagics

Ps if you want to be tagged for part 2 or removed from the taglist let me know that as well.