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angelisverba · 4 years

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thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number)

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

* * * * * *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter.

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat.

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society.

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’ his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room.

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck.

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin.

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit.

Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips.

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had.

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango.

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion). The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere.

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it.

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough.

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did.

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother.

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat.

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door.

Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be.

And he wasn’t lonely anymore.

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company.

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants, and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel.

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already.

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.”

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like.

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy.

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation.

Right?

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy.

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table.

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon.

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants.

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny.

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could.

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again.

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin.

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class.

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go.

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’.

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence.

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said.

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement.

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.”

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible.

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked.

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t.

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited.

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible.

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another.

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart.

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent.

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.”

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy.

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.”

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully.

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be.

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her.

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer.

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning.

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him.

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked.

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home.

His home.

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture).

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too.

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did.

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number.

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room.

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise.

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her.

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her.

“Oh my god!” She said, “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with. She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’.

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’.

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm. The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow.

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up.

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf.

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.”

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.”

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.”

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three.

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said.

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n.

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her.

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.”

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck. Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements.

Like dropping her card when she piped up again.

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm.

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous.

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing.

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram.

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added.

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?”

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.”

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma.

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time.

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates.

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat.

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store.

***

Harry was having a shitty morning.

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should.

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage.

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead.

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance.

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way.

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day.

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that.

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning.

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart.

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down.

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content.

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.

It’s no use.

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true.

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be.

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him.

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier.

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin.

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible.

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy.

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips.

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay.

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day?

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look.

“Back again so soon, H?”

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop.

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.”

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said.

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal.

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and-

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart.

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?”

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off.

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove.

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.”

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.”

It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence?

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.”

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.”

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out.

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle.

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly.

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice.

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door.

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like.

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.”

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance.

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought.

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.”

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling.

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.”

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!”

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles.

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!”

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all.

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else.

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time,

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-”

Harry and y/n giggle at each other,

“You go first.”

“Y’speak first.”

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.”

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands.

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm?

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.”

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose.

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.”

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her.

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.”

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum.

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face.

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body.

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything.

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers.

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes.

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay.

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning.

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole.

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum.

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?”

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.”

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-”

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists.

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?”

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.”

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning.

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching.

“Will you text me?” She asked him.

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?”

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center.

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?”

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.”

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent.

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling.

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.

********

Harry can’t stop thinking.

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning.

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom.

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds.

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface.

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button.

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like.

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut.

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock.

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her.

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself.

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm.

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge.

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base.

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum.

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum.

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out.

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again.

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body.

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads:

y/n <3 : so… dinner?

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name.

He couldn’t be happier.

* * * * * *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

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spideyspeaches · 4 years

Text

Heart made of glass ↬ t.h

A/N: Beta read by the lovely @hollandcrush !! <3<3

Request (Summary): can you please write one about Tom, who is on the filming process of cherry and has some emotional problems because he feels that his character is already part of his life, so he comes home very angry and in a bad mood, so he just snaps and creates a big fight with the reader and just says things that he obviously didn't meant, you know very angst, and at the end just very fluff.

Hope you like this anon! Lemme know your thoughts heh <3<3

Warnings: breakdowns, slight vomiting but it’s not graphic. I’m not in any way romanticizing or sexualising breakdowns.

WC: 2k+

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Masterlist || Taglist

Tom was an ambitious guy. He took his roles seriously, no matter what his character was and who he played. It was an admirable trait, the way he both enjoyed his work and worked hard to earn a high place in such a place as Hollywood.

You always took pride in how amazing and accomplished your boyfriend was, your heart swelling whenever you heard his name being mentioned in events and interviews. You enjoyed how he tried to diversify the movies he worked in.

("I've been playing the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man for so long, it's about time I play someone different now." He once said in a Jimmy Kimmel interview. You were watching from the audience, smiling as the audience roared in affirmation.

"Well looks like you took quite a big leap from playing a superhero." Jimmy said, smiling at the audience with his paparazzi smile.

You knew the question was scripted, quite harmless, but you still noticed how his shoulder stiffened, his smile not wavering once.

"Well yeah, I used to be a superhero and now I'm a heroin addict." He joked, winking at the audience as he ran a hand through his nearly hairless head.

He cried himself to sleep that night, burying his face in your chest as you shushed him. )

It always worked in his favour, with the incredible support his family and fan base provided. And he was always so humble about it.

Filming Cherry, however, was way different than he thought it would. With filming Cherry came consequences that he didn't necessarily like. He knew what he was bringing on himself and his family when he was first introduced with the script.

(Contrary to popular belief, he didn't actually give out spoilers, it was just small promotional stunts that kind of took over as his reputation to spoil minor details.)

The process was intense, getting into the mindset of "Cherry" was taxing, and people were beginning to notice it in him. He was more restless, tugging at his non existent curls when he thought no one would notice.

He was more clingy, more appreciative of your body and you, letting you know that there was no sexual intent behind his acts of caressing your waist at random times. You didn't notice the change in his behaviour.

He had always been like this, watching you with the most gratifying gaze a man could muster, his pretty brown eyes like globes of whiskey, staring at you with a muffled expression. You didn't notice.

There had always been a cutting edge to his voice, you knew and adored it. Behind the British actor who played Spider-Man, he was your Tom. Your Tom who gave you forehead kisses and baked cakes with you and made silly playlists that reminded him of you and you of him, your Tom who worshiped the ground you walked on, your Tom, your Tom and your Tom.

(Sometimes you envied that he was an actor, so good at hiding any emotions he felt, it came easy to him, just another fake emotion like he was a face behind the camera.)

He was never aggressive towards you. Never. Even on tough days, he was soft, caring and understanding to the point where it made you mad, immediately making you feel guilty. He worked so hard and yet here you were, blaming him for being nice, never standing up for himself.

"Uh, Tom, Tom stop, wait." You grunted, pushing his shoulders as he scrambled away from you at your discontent.

You held his face, his breath hitching, hyperventilating as he tried to get himself together.

Ever since he had started filming Cherry, he had been away from you. And now that you were finally here, he had been all over you, making love to every inch of your skin, like it was a holy grail he had to find, caressing your warm skin under his fingers making you shiver as his nimble fingers wandered. It was the intimacy, sexual and quasi-sexual, that made you realise, that there was something wrong.

Sex- it had been a constant in your life other than Tom. But of course, you didn't live on it. It was but a fuel that strengthened your relationship, it was about discovery and showing your vulnerable sides. It was a reminder of the coffee dates and baseball matches. It was loving, gentle and raw, like a gentle breeze caressing your face.

But this, this was different. And you noticed. This, what you had been doing, it was fucking. It was aggressive and needy and it felt good, but at the same time, it felt different.

"Baby?" You asked softly, trying to meet his eyes in the dark lit trailer. It was late, way past filming times, the only time you got to see his vulnerable side.

You should have been in his hotel room, but you were in his trailer instead. All alone in the all encompassing darkness, it made your heart stutter beats.

"Baby speak to me. What's happening, who's doing this to you?" You ask once again, holding onto him firmly this time, his squirming frame making you loosen your hold. You didn't care that you were naked, he had already seen it all.

Fiddling with the rough sheets, he huffed a heavy breath. And that was all it took for the dam to break.

"Tell me how do you feel baby, you're starting to scare me." You urged. All you got in response was his muffled sobs. Pulling him forward, you let his head rest on your bare chest, rivulets of tears sliding down your warm skin, almost burning you like acid, his tiny hair tickling you, a very contrasting feeling.

"I can't do it. I can't take it anymore." He sniffed, wrapping his strong arms around you, shivering at the contact. It was a cold night in Cleveland, and you were naked and he was crying. You were berating yourself for not noticing.

"What can't you take anymore?" You hold him, tracing circles on his buzz cut hair, just the way you did when he had his curls.

"I feel like I'm becoming him. I don't like it at all, I try and try but I can't." He sobs, shoulders hitching with each sob. You felt your heart break, the sounds of his cries sending daggers into your skin.

How could you have not noticed? The lively sunshine of a man was almost an empty shell. The interviews with former drug addicts had been excruciating for you, pity, disgust, sympathy and every other sinful emotion swirling in your mind.

You couldn't believe that you hadn't thought about Tom, of what an effect it would have on him.

"Bub, listen to me, carefully," you said, shushing him as he continued to look at you, teary eyed and red nosed, snot dripping out of his nose,"you listen to me. You're strong and resilient and nothing like him okay? He's not you. You're Tom Holland. You're brilliant and brave and amazing okay?"

"But I don't feel that way!" He said, his aggressive stance surprising you, "he's- he's…"

"He's what?" You asked, a little too impatient. Muttering a sorry, you rub your palm on his cheek, kissing the soft, moist skin.

"I don't feel so good." He croaked, getting up suddenly, making a run for the washroom. You rushed after him, watching him as he heaved into the toilet. Rubbing his back, you muttered affirmations, curling besides him as he sat on the ground, his back to the cold wall.

You got up to switch on the lights, feeling his hands tugging yours, a soft "stay" coming out of him.

"Better?" You asked, feeling him now against your collarbone.

"I shouldn't be this affected, this- this isn't fair. I'm overreacting, I'm sorry I worried you baby I swear I didn't mean to-"

"Shh, Tom first of all, you're not overreacting okay?" You smiled, kissing his nose, moving towards his brows and his forehead, "It's perfectly reasonable. The role you're playing...It's not exactly picking daisies. Fuck you're playing a heroin addict Tommy, a broken soldier with PTSD, a breakdown was inevitable. It only shows that you're human."

"Really?" He smiled, it looked more like a grimace, a plea for reassurance.

"Yes, really." You said, booping his nose, eliciting a giggle from him,"now, you better go to bed mister, you have an early shoot don't you?" You playfully scolded, kissing his lips, laughing as he carried you bridal style.

"Tomorrow will be better." You whispered, kissing his eyelids, already closed, chest moving rhythmically as you counted his pulse, making sure he was completely asleep before slipping on your clothes, covering him with the thin quilt.

***

"Is everything okay on set?" You asked casually, watching the crewmates work tirelessly in the daylight.

You were standing next to Ciara on a prop jeep, fiddling with the water bottle held in your hand.

"Hmm, as okay it can be with two people playing drug addicts." She shrugged, looking at you with a small smile.

"Are you okay?" You asked, turning to give her your full attention, remembering your boyfriend's breakdown yesterday.

"It gets… intense at times. Some scenes are hard to play, but we're okay. Mostly." She answered, taking your water bottle and chugging the water.

"I'm not a therapist, but you can talk to me, you know?" You smiled, holding her shoulder as she gave you a bashful smile.

"It's been tough on Tom. He's more aggressive, nearly had a breakdown during a scene." She said.

"Yeah, that.. that happened yesterday too."

"It was time, a person can only hold so much right?"

"Yeah."

You pondered her words, wondering if you could do anything to curb this.

"I think I need help." He said one day while you were eating dinner. Harry, who was sitting next to you, looked up from his plate, giving you a knowing look before clearing his throat.

"I'm gonna get some water." He said, waving awkwardly at you and getting up. You took that as a cue to scoot closer to Tom, running your hands through his camel hair.

"That's very brave of you hun, asking for help." You smiled, kissing his cheek softly. You felt him smile, sliding closer to you, holding you by your waist.

"I learnt from the best." He muttered in your hair, kissing your forehead.

You felt his love that day, felt the way he ran his smooth fingers on your waistline, sliding across your thighs with care and softness you hadn't felt in a while. He was healing. It was a process, it took time but it happened.

***

You were walking across the library, his hand in yours, your hearts beating in silence.

"How was your appointment?" You asked, shivering in the cold air. You rubbed your palms together, bringing your jacket closer to your chest, huffing the cold air.

"It was good, much different from what the media portrays. She even showed me this meme she thinks you would like, look." He said, bringing out his phone to show you the saved meme.

You laughed at his eagerness, kissing his lips as a final gratification.

"Well it looks like you're having a great time. You have another scene left to do today in the evening so we better scram." You reminded him.

You always did that, remind him of his schedule, reminded him to take a breath when he felt like he was drowning. You reminded him of home and what he had to look forward to.

"Why can't we have a lazy day today?" He whined, kissing your neck, making you giggle as it tickled.

"You know you can't do that hun, you already took three days off." You snickered, poking his sides.

"Well that sucks. I just want to spend my day with my girl, is that too much to ask?" He smiled, kissing your forehead, one hand holding yours, swinging back and forth, the other holding a large cup of coffee in a tight grip.

You reached to loosen his fingers, taking a sip, slurping loudly, making him laugh. You decided you liked this laugh much better, it was breathy and free, a melody to your ears.

You noticed how he was more relaxed and back to being that ray of sunshine. Back to being your Tom.

Thanks for reading! also as a side note- here’s a similar fic @itsallyscorner !!

#tom holland x reader #tom holland x reader fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader smut #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #spideygirl writes

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crystalas · 3 years

Text

Instincts

A one shot inspired by @purble-turble and @its-kall-the-clown Cos I love the two concepts and they need to be together. Secret relationship Pregnancy and the concept of nesting, this is also pure fluff.

Red Son was feeling a conflict of many emotions at the moment and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it; on one hand he was elated that he was soon to be a parent and so happy to be going through this with the one person he has ever met that seemed to get him. He would often find himself day dreaming of what he and his little one could be doing as they grow up, hearing them say their first word, watch them take their first steps, the whole idea was exciting!

But he also felt a foreboding dread in his stomach when he thought about it too, there was the fact that he was indeed having a child with an enemy of the family. Even if his family doesn’t immediately kill his mate and child if they found out they would no doubt have plans for their grandchild given its heritage. Which is why they were hiding out till MK could safely defend himself and their baby from any harm without Red Son just in case his family tries anything.

The one thing however that had Red Son terrified whenever he thought about it was the child itself. The more research he did into pregnancy, birth and possible midwifery [there was a bloody good chance he was going to be the one delivering their child so he wanted that stuff memorised!] the more he realised how easily this pregnancy could go horribly wrong.

There was the factor of biology, MK was human and Red Son was a demon two beings that had vastly different life spans. Demon pregnancies lasted twelve to eighteen months while humans only lasted nine, would the child be born premature or be okay at nine months? Would the child be only ready at twelve and need caesarean to be born? Red Son balked at that idea it was scary enough at the idea of a home birth but he couldn’t imagine him purposely stabbing MK to get their child. Not to mention the difference in magic, the creation side of Monkey King’s powers and the destructive nature of his fire magic did not seem like a good mix, especially in a baby!

Red Son would wake up sweating after having nightmares of coming back home to find MK’s charred remains on the bed and their child innocently playing with the burnt remains of their parent’s entrails.

Although Red Son was feeling all these emotions and more, he planned on keeping them to himself. MK was going through enough as it is; seeing as he had to stay hidden from his family. MK wanted nothing more than to announce the news of their little bundle of joy but Red Son informed them that his parents had Bull Clones on constant surveillance of their hang out, there was no safe way for them to know without Demon Bull King finding them. He didn’t need Red Son telling him that he might have a flaming chest burster growing in his belly! So Red Son was going to be the best supporting partner and if that meant going on an ice cream run then so be it.

He came into the apartment and headed to the kitchen to put the ice cream away he froze when he saw the living room…

It looked like someone had tore up the sofas and then had been knocked over in a struggle. He couldn’t see MK anywhere so slammed the ice cream down on the table and searched the house. The airing cupboard had been opened and emptied out it looked like something had ransacked his house…Red Son’s heart started to pound and his throat was dry as he couldn’t bring himself to call out and was about to go into full panic mode when he heard something.

“Dang it!” MK groaned.

Red Son honed in and found himself bolting to the bedroom where he heard the voice and nearly tore the door off its hinges to find MK kneeling on the floor with what seemed every cushion, pillow, blanket and pile it up on the mattress that had also been pulled onto the bedroom floor. MK turned around to see Red Son staring at him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry for the mess…” he muttered, “I don’t know why but I really want to make a blanket fort but I can’t get it right which doesn’t make sense…and ugh this is so frustrating!”

Red Son stared at MK for a full minute before he burst out laughing both in relief and at the sheer absurdness at the situation.

“You’re nesting!” he chuckled once he got a hold of himself “I can’t believe it, you’re nesting!”

“What?!” MK cried “I’ve read that pregnancy scroll you showed me! That’s a demon thing, I’m not a demon!”

Red Son leant down and hugged MK from behind.

“Hate to break it to you Noodle Boy but you’ve got a lot of demon in you right now!” he laughed as he reached forward and put a hand on MK’s six-month belly. MK pulled a face as they recalled having an ungodly craving for wheat grass and charcoal during the early months, that had been embarrassing to be caught eating.

“So, want help me have another crack at this?” MK demanded as Red Son helped him up, the fire demon laughed again.

“Sure, but let’s try and minimise the use of material I would like to sleep in a bed tonight…”

After an hour of trail and error they finally created a nest that MK felt comfortable in, it was a sort of tent made from bedsheets, with the winter quilt as the floor with every spare cushion and pillow used to add for support. The edges of the nests were raised slightly by the cushions and pillows underneath as it was now sat on the floor in a corner of the bedroom.

“This is such a weird thing to feel compelled to do” MK muttered as they laid in their creation.

“Not really when you consider that most demons lived in caves or run-down buildings, I imagine wanted a safe soft place to have your young is a very practical instinct…” Red Son explained as he rolled over to face his partner. MK was looking thoughtful and rubbing his stomach gently.

“Does this mean I’m probably gonna give birth in this?”

“If you want, but if that is the case, I’m going to laid down some plastic sheets. No offence but I don’t want this stuff to get stained…”

MK took a spare pillow and smacked Red Son in the face with it.

#spicenoodleshipping #secret relationship pregnancy #monkie kid red son #red son #monkie kid mk

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sassyhobbits · 4 years

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for one night standards would you write a scene where aelin cant be found in the castle maybe bc shes doing sth ridiculous with her daughter like a mother daughter photoshoot to surprise rowan with later but when rowan can't find her he gets all panicked and out of his mind bc he still has unresolved trauma from when she was kidnapped and its all angsty until he has both back in his arms but also gives rowan a chance to talk and work through his experience with aelin gone? (because lets face it he probably ignores his feelings about that as much as possible in order to not burden aelin further and because it was just too painful)

loved this idea!!! i also added the prompt “Because I know when I open my eyes this will all turn out to be a dream and I’ll lose you again“ Thank you to everyone who supported ONS!! i had such a fun time writing it and im always happy to come back to it. enjoy!!

~~~

Rowan Whitethorn was generally a patient man.

He knew how to wait his turn, to take his time. He was always one to raise a brow at those who seemed to be in a harried rush to everything. It seemed stressful, to say the least. He was perfectly content to sit back when needed.

Except for now.

He had made a trip back home to Doranelle to surprise Isolde for her graduation from her masters program. Aelin had wanted to come as well, but with the baby and the responsibilities she had back in Orynth, it just hadn’t worked out. Still, she sent her well-wishes to Isolde through a video chat, letting little Eliora babble into the camera and say hello as well.

Their daughter was just over six months now, already growing far too fast for Rowan’s liking. He treasured every moment he got to spend with his two favorite girls.

And although he was always happy to see his family back in Doranelle, it had been the longest he had been away since Eliora had been born. It made him highly impatient to return home.

His jet touched down in Terrasen in the early afternoon. It was summer, though the day was mild. The sky was a vivid blue, fat white clouds floating lethargically on the breeze. Absolutely beautiful.

Due to the time difference, he hadn’t been able to call Aelin before he had got on the plane. He tried to reach her as he slid into the dark sedan that would drive him from the airport to the palace, but all he got was her voicemail.

Maybe she was in the shower, or changing Eliora’s diaper. Maybe their daughter had a finicky night of sleeping and now the pair were trying to catch up on their slumber. It was fine. Or so Rowan told himself. He still hadn’t been able to stop the small clench of nerves at the pit of his stomach.

He scolded those foolish feelings. Of course his wife and daughter were safe. They were just waiting for him to return.

The drive was quick and easy and he was back at the palace before he knew it. His feet carried him towards the room he shared with Aelin, a small smile curling on his lips as he thought about having his wife and daughter in his arms once more. He missed the feeling of Aelin curled against him as they slept.

“Aelin?” he called, pushing into their room and nudging the door shut behind him. “I’m home.”

He was greeted by nothing but silence. No sound of running water in the bathroom to suggest a shower, so soft snores or shifting sheets meaning a nap. He strode into the bedroom, finding that the bed was already neatly made, not a thread out of place.

He dropped his bags by the dresser, noting that Aelin’s phone had been left there, face up. He picked it up, seeing that she still had the notification of a missed call from him and a few miscellaneous emails that hadn’t been checked.

“Aelin?” he said again, moving towards the nursery. He had gotten used to the sight of Aelin sitting in the rocking chair with Eliora, either when the babe was hungry or she just wanted to hold her daughter. Rowan had countless pictures on his phone of the two of them in that position. The sunlight streamed from the window and hit them just right in the mornings, making them look like a painting.

But the nursery was empty and the window was shut.

Those nerves reared their ugly heads once more. He had no reason to assume the worst, the palace was one of the safest places in the kingdom.

But… Aelin had once been snatched away from him on palace grounds. During their own wedding.

Rowan shook himself. No. That was the past. This was now.

Since his wife didn’t have her phone, he knew it would be fruitless to try and contact her that way. But, Rowan knew Aelin better than he knew himself.

He began a sweep of the palace, checking out her favorite haunts. The library was a bust, so was the gym. He had checked the kitchens to see if she had swooped in for a snack or something sweet, but she wasn’t there either. Rowan luckily ran into Aedion, asking the prince if he knew where Aelin was. But her cousin hadn’t seen her at all that morning.

With each failed attempt at finding them, Rowan’s fears steadily crept up. It wouldn’t be much longer before they had wrapped themselves around his throat and pulled him deep into their depths.

He took a long breath to center himself before striding out into the gardens. His heart started beating faster, not seeing any sign of her at first. Rowan’s fingers curled into tight fists as he stepped over fresh, green grass. Gods, where were they? If something had happened to them…

But before Rowan’s fears could conquer him, he heard a soft voice on the summer breeze. A familiar voice at that. Relief washed through him, heavenly and soothing, as he followed that melodic sound.

It was Aelin. It didn’t take him long to realize that she was reading one of Eliora’s favorite books to her. It was a silly tale, and it was made even more vivid when Aelin told it. She was an excellent story-teller. They didn’t know how much Eliora really understood, whether she just liked the brightly colored pictures or the faces her mother would make when she told it. Regardless, it always made the little princess smile.

Rowan rounded a hedge, a warmth spreading through his chest at the sight before him.

Aelin had spread out a large quilt under the shade of a willow. Some of Eliora’s toys were scattered about, but currently, the toddler sat in her mother’s lap, wide-eyes glued on the book before her.

Rowan couldn’t help but think Aelin looked stunning today. Her golden hair was left loose, swaying on the breeze, the summer sun bringing a healthy flush to her cheeks. She wore a silky, pale blue wrap-dress, bare feet tucked beneath her as she read. Eliora looked mighty charming too in a bright pink dress with a matching bow.

Rowan strolled towards them, Aelin’s eyes jumping towards him as she noticed his presence. A huge smile broke out on her stunning face.

“You’re home!” she greeted, putting the book she had been reading aloud down. Eliora, no longer entertained by her mother’s storytelling, crawled over the quilt to grab one of her brightly colored toys. “I thought you were going to call me when you landed?”

“I did, Fireheart,” Rowan said. He lowered herself behind Aelin on the blanket, his wife situated between his legs, before wrapping his arms tightly around her and tugging her back into his chest securely. “You left your phone in our room.”

Rowan placed a lingering kiss on Aelin's shoulder, breathing in her scent deeply. She was safe, in his arms, Eliora happy as can be, sticking her toys in her mouth. Everything was fine.

Aelin turned in his arms slightly, brows knitted slightly. Rowan knew she could see right through him.

“What is it, Ro?”

“It’s nothing, love.”

Aelin narrowed her eyes at him, as if to say, Don’t you lie to me, Buzzard.

Rowan heaved a sigh, reaching out and brushing some of Aelin’s silky hair behind her ear. “It’s just… you didn’t answer me when I called, and I couldn’t find you and Eliora when I got back. I just couldn’t help but think…” His hand drifted until it rested on Aelin’s abdomen, right over the scar she bore from fighting her way to freedom. He saw understanding on his wife’s face.

“We’re here, Rowan. We’re safe.” She placed a gentle hand on Rowan’s cheek, bringing his gaze towards her.

“I know,” Rowan whispered, jaw clenched. “But sometimes, I just worry that when I open my eyes, this will all turn out to be a dream. And I’ll lose you all over again.”

Aelin took his hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “This is real, Rowan. We both fought for this life, for each other. And nothing, nothing, is going to take it away. Ever.”

Rowan saw the determination blazing in Aelin’s eyes. She was right, of course. This was their life now, they had built their happiness bit by bit, even when so much seemed to want to go wrong. But Aelin and Eliora… they were everything to him. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to banish his fears entirely, but he would treasure every moment he spent with them.

Rowan leaned in, kissing Aelin softly before murmuring against her lips, “I missed you.”

She smiled, kissing him again. “I missed you too, Ro.”

They indulged in a few more slow, sweet kisses before loud babbling sounded, tiny hands twisting into Rowan’s trouser. He looked down, finding Eliora’s wide eyes looking up at him, flashing a gummy smile.

Aelin laughed. “It looks like someone else missed you, too.”

Rowan grinned, reaching out and picking up his daughter. He held her up high, making her release the sweetest little laughs, little legs kicking in delight. He kissed Eliora all over her little face before tucking her in one arm, throwing the other around Aelin. Immense love and devotion flowed through him, holding his two girls close.

No wonder why he had been so impatient to get home.

#rowaelin #my writing #one night standards #its cute :)#love this au #what if i just changed the names and some details and turned it into a book

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uwuwriting · 4 years

Text

TW: panic attack, tears no spoilers once again since we all know that baby is alive

It was a slap in the face, seeing him again after a whole month. A whole month believing he was dead. A whole month of mourning and tears. A whole month of blaming yourself for his untimely demise. You could have done more. You could have helped. You could have prevented it. You should have prevented it. And now he is standing right in front of you. Flesh and bone, everything intact, a bright smile on his face as he stood there staring at all of you. He had the nerve to act surprised, surprised and confused as to why the three of you weren’t happy. Confused as to why you had all blanched, whey you had thrown up, why Nobara was leaning on Megumi as if she couldn’t stand properly.

Everything moved in a blur. You couldn’t remember how you got into the forest or how you ended up fighting to protect your best friend. The Kyoto school was ruthless, taking your shock and instability into their advantage. You were off your game and no matter what you did, no matter how much you tried you couldn’t concentrate. Every time you heard Yuuji’s name you wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. The mere thought of his beaming smile brought bile up your throat. It was as if you were back in the first week after his death; no control over your emotions or bodily functions. Your knees kept buckling, muscles tensing up preventing you from moving, everything turning again. This isn’t happening. Maybe it’s a twisted dream. You want to see him again so much to feel him next to you that your brain manufactured all of this. An elaborate dream where he comes back. Where he is alive. But when his voice booms through the forest you know it’s true. And just like that your head is spinning again.

Before you know it the event is over. You are making your way to your dorm accompanied by Nobara and Makki, your classmate in a similar state as everything came crashing down on her. Makki led her into her dorm, giving you a short nod before disappearing inside the room. You collapsed on your bed, burying your face in your pillow. You couldn’t even cry. You wanted to, no you needed to but nothing was coming out. It was as if your whole body was in shock, nothing working correctly.

A soft click came from your door, light dancing across the wooden floor as someone stepped in. You felt the bed dip, an all too familiar warmth wrapping around you while Yuuji laid his head on your back, his arms caging you in his embrace. It felt so much like home, you’ve missed it so much. His warmth, his scent, the familiar beat of his heart, his hair tickling your neck. You could stay like this forever, forever in his arms without a care in the world. His body wash invaded your senses, making your body tense up. His hoodies smelled like that and his room and everything he owned. You had spent so much time in his room trying to memorise everything before they lost his touch. So many hours spent drowning in your own misery, one of his sweatshirts wrapped around your frame trying desperately to feel his comfort again. Jolting out of bed, you tumbled to the floor, a terrified look in your eyes as you looked everywhere but him.

“Y/N-”

“You’re not real. This isn’t real.” You brought your hands to your hair your whole body trembling as your eyes stayed glued to his ugly shoes. You always hated this pair. Tears streamed down your cheeks uncontrollably. Yuuji was kneeling down in front of you, now, his hands reaching out to grasp your wrists before you hurt yourself by how intensely your nails sank into your skin. “Y-Yuuji is gone. You’re not real. You’re not him.”

“It’s me, Y/N I swear. I’m here, I’m not dead, it's gonna be okay, we’re okay.” His heart broke when you shook your head a string of ‘no’ s leaving your lips as you cried harder, curling up in a ball your knees flush to your chest. He couldn’t make you listen to him. Gently taking your hand he placed it over his heart, hoping the steady beat of his heart would calm you down. “See? I’m real. I’m not dead, buttercup.”

“Then where were you!?” Your fingers curled around the fabric of his uniform, yanking him forward as you yelled at him. His eyes filled with quilt and he couldn’t do anything but let you take it all out on him. “Where were you all this time? Why did you let us think you were dead? Why? We prepared a funeral for you, I had to go into your room and pack things up because you weren’t coming back! I mourned you! You know how it’s like to lose the most important person in your life?! I-I-”

He let you cry it out, burying your face in his chest as sobs wrecked through your body. He let you bang on his chest, claw at his forearm, scream, anything you needed. He swore you could hear his heart break with every cry that left your lips.

“Please don’t leave me.”

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

@the-arcana-fan-fic @angelwritings @threeamwriting @dark-thoughts-and-red-roses @wolfkid22 @reinyrei @dnarez @axerrri @storage11037 @ysatrap @angel6786 @yashinosakura @ezoyscorner @letscheereachotheron @aliteama

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gaemkyuu · 4 years

Text

Mommy, Can We Keep Him? (Charlie Gillespie x Original Character

Warnings: mention of teenage pregnancy A/N: I was inspired to write a character like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch and thought of what if Charlie had a daughter like that? Then I thought about Dad! Charlie.... Here is my inspired writing piece! Let me know if you want a follow up wedding piece! Disclaimer: This is a FICITONAL writing piece! In no way do I claim characters in this piece act this way in real life.

Masterlist *now taking requests ;)

Mommy, Can We Keep Him? (Charlie Gillespie x Original Character)

Riley King started working for Netflix when she was 18 and impressed everyone at the head office with her hard work and dedication. With her motivation and work ethic, she managed to climb her way to be part of the executive management team all at the ripe age of 21. People often asked Riley how she climbed the ladder so quickly, or what was the secret to her success. No one ever guessed that her motivation came from a little girl who looked exactly like her.

Emerson Gianna King was born on August 31st of 2014 when Riley was 16 years old. She had quite the wild nature to herself, always sneaking out and illegally partying with her friends. It was only a matter of time that she would be blinded by love and give her virginity to a boy she swore would get married. He was 17 at the time and she was head over heels for him. One drink too many and a poor judgement call resulted in Riley’s teenage pregnancy.

Her one true love broke up with her a week after they had had sex, stating that his dad had had gotten a job at a law firm in Miami and that a long distance relationship wouldn’t work. She didn’t know that she was pregnant at the time, but when she did, she tried to reach out to him. His family thought it was stupid attempt at getting back together and claimed that the baby wasn’t his. They were ready to launch a full lawsuit in order to protect their family’s reputation, something that Riley and her single mom couldn’t afford to do. So they dropped it, signing legal papers that they would never contact them again and that their son wasn’t responsible for paying any child support.

This heartbreak and her daughter made Riley clean up her act and graduate high school a year ahead of her friends. She quickly started working for various companies, taking night classes at the local college campus in hopes to get her foot in the door for a bigger company and work her way up. Which is exactly what she did and how she ended up working for Netflix. That’s how she met Kenny Ortega, who introduced her to the actors of Julie and the Phantoms. She mostly worked with Netflix, but she was assigned to be there every day of boot camp to watch and monitor the development of the TV show, making projections about how their viewers would receive the new show. She didn’t anticipate to be a part of the small family that was created behind the scene with the cast and crew, and she certainly didn’t anticipate falling for one of the lead actors Charlie Gillespie.

They had been dating for three months before Riley told him about Emmerson. She had expected that he call off the entire relationship, understanding that not everyone wanted to be with someone who had a baby at sixteen. They were 22 at the time and Riley explained that she was looking to be in a serious relationship for her daughter’s sake. While Charlie couldn’t promise that this relationship would go in the direction they both wanted, he did promise that he would do his best to be there for her. He didn’t know that winning over the little girl’s heart would prove to be difficult.

Emerson wasn’t like all the other kids. For one thing, she was very mature for her age. She was potty trained at two years old and started to learn how to read basic books at the age of 4. She developed her speech quickly and often looked to use specific words that kids her age rarely heard or understand. She was a perceptive little girl and sometimes she was a little too smart and observant for her own good. This made it difficult for her to make friends at daycare because everyone thought she was weird. Riley would often catch her talking to Lilo whenever she put Lilo and Stitch on for her to watch. She would tell Lilo about the frustrating girls at her daycare and how they too “need to be punished”.

So it was no surprise to her that when Emerson first met Charlie, she would be grilling him. Charlie had expected her to be a cute little girl that likes to play with dolls. Instead, he was met with a perceptive toddler that made him question his own intelligence at times. She was very standoffish when she met him, afraid that this man was going to hurt her mommy, but over time Emerson began to open up and trust Charlie. One night, when they were six months into dating, they had to cancel their dinner plans as Riley’s babysitter came down with a flu and no one else could babysit. Therefore, their dinner plans were changed to ordering pizza and having a movie night with Emerson. Riley groaned partly through the beginning of Lilo and Stitch when her work called, excusing herself as it was an important phone call.

This left Emerson and Charlie alone for the first time.

“Charlie, who’s Elvis Presley?” Charlie’s eyes grew big like teacup saucers.

“Your mom hasn’t shown you who Elvis Presley is?! How many times have you watched this movie?!” Emerson shrugged, not taking her eyes off the screen, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth and chewing.

“Do you want the real answer?” he was caught off guard at the frankness in her tone, starting to wonder just how many times she had watched the film. He shrugged it off and paused the movie, pulling his phone out and opening Youtube to educate the child on the legend, Elvis Presley.

When Riley returned to the living room, she was shocked to see Emerson sitting in Charlie’s lap, holding the phone, staring intently at the screen and listening to the music that played out of the speaker. She had never seen her daughter so focused before. She looked at Charlie who was equally focused on the screen of the phone as well, and she smiled to herself enjoying the view. Out of defense, Riley quickly shrugged off the creeping thought that this could be her family. After all, her and Charlie had only been dating for 6 months.

“How have you not shown her who Elvis Presley is?” he exclaimed, noticing her presence. Emerson looked at her with questioning eyes as well, feeling slightly betrayed that her mother withheld such precious information away from her.

“I’m not really a big music person! I kinda just listen to songs I like rather than musicians” she shrugged sheepishly.

“Mommy, Charlie said there’s a documentary on Netflix about Elvis Presley. Can we watch that instead of Lilo and Stitch?” Riley’s jaw dropped at the fact that her daughter was more interested in watching something other than her favorite comfort Disney movie. She silently nodded and changed the settings on the TV, starting the Elvis Presley documentary. This was the first time her daughter ever really opened up to someone and found something in common.

Emerson absolutely loved the documentary and would go on for weeks listening to Elvis Presley nonstop. After Riley waved goodbye to Charlie and closed the door, Emerson sat patiently on the entryway bench for her mother.

“Mommy, can we keep him?”

“Yeah, Emmy. I think we can”

***

It soon became a regular thing to have Charlie stay the night at Riley’s house. He woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but on his way back to the bedroom he heard soft whimpers and sniffles coming from Emerson’s bedroom. He stood outside her door, debating if he should go get Riley or if he should go in himself. He knew Riley was exhausted having had a full day of work and meetings, so he opted to let her sleep and peek into Emerson’s room. He thought that if it was out of his control, he could always go and get her. The sight of the little girl broke his heart.

Emerson was fast asleep, but she was trembling and clutching onto her stuffed bunny for dear life. She whimpered and tears fell from her closed eyes. Charlie quietly moved to her side and sat on her bed, softly rubbing her back, whispering her name to break her out of her nightmare. It worked, but when she woke up, she jumped into Charlie’s arms and softly cried. He was surprised at first, but quickly snapped out of it hugging the girl and rubbing her back.

“It’s okay Emmy... It was just a bad dream... It wasn’t real... you’re okay... you’re safe” the little girl started to calm down as Charlie soothed her and rocked her side to side a bit.

“They took me away from mommy...” she whimpered and nid her face in Charlie’s neck. He felt the collar of his shirt dampen as she cried, but he picked her up and moved to the armchair she had in her room. He sat down and held her tightly in his arms.

“No one is ever going to take you away from mommy, okay? I won’t let that happen” he didn’t know where these words were coming from or where he got the confidence to say them, but in that moment he knew that he would do whatever he could for Emerson.

“Promise?”

“I promise.” he whispered, kissing her head and rubbing her back. She settled comfortably in his chest and took deep breaths. Charlie instinctively started to hum a song softly as he rubbed her back, until her breathing steadied and soft snores came from the small figure. Charlie smiled to himself that he was able to handle the situation alone, but he realized he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to put her back in bed, or if he had to hold her for the rest of the night. Not wanting to wake her up, he carefully reached for the knitted quilt beside the armchair and draped it over them. Guess he was sleeping in the armchair that night. His neck would hate him in the morning.

Riley woke up early that morning when she rolled over to cuddle the missing Charlie. She bolted up and threw on her housecoat to search for him, but stopped when she noticed Emerson’s door cracked open. The sight inside the bedroom brought tears to her eyes and she covered her mouth to avoid making any sound that would wake them. There was Charlie sleeping in the armchair holding a sleeping Emerson in his arms. They were both fast asleep and quietly snoring.

For the first time, in their nine months of dating, Riley let herself see the possibility of Charlie being the man who could be Emerson’s dad.

***

Charlie fiddled with his collar nervously, holding flowers in the other hand. He took a deep breath and shook off his nerves before pressing on the door bell. He waited patiently and anxiously outside, only to be greeted by his beautiful girlfriend, Riley. She smiled brightly at him and he stood there blown away by her beauty. They were both dressed up semi-formally tonight as Charlie insisted on taking Riley out for a fancy dinner to recreate a cheesy romcom movie date for their anniversary. Their usual dates consisted of hiking or lounging at the beach, so Charlie figured it would be nice to dress up for once, especially since Riley rarely dressed fancy.

“Hey! Come on in, I’m just finishing up debriefing the babysitter” Charlie kissed her cheek quickly and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him as she rushed back to the kitchen. Charlie waited by the front door patiently for her to finish up.

“Where are you taking mommy tonight, Charlie?” he jumped at the voice from behind, turning around to see Emerson sitting on the entryway bench. She looked up at the man who waited for her mom, bunny beside her in one hand and her blanket in the other. Charlie smiled at her presence and squatted down to her level, petting her bunny on the head.

“I’m taking mommy on a fancy dinner. You off to bed?” she nodded and opened her arms, to which Charlie gladly received her hug, only, he didn’t expect her to awkwardly latch herself on to him. Thinking quickly, he adjusted himself and picked her up. She was short and thin, so it was no problem carrying her. Her small stature always made her mother worry that she wasn’t getting enough nutrients. “I guess I couldn’t let you sleep without some snuggles could I?” she nodded as she laid her head on his chest, something her and Charlie had in common was that their love language was physical touch.

“It’s nice to see mommy in something other than jeans or sweats. I like your bowtie too” Emerson fiddled with said bow tie as Charlie gently rocked her. He was always so surprised at how observant she was and how she was able to clearly articulate her thoughts for being six years old. She was very bright and quick to understand situations, which made it hard for her to make friends at daycare. Another thing that Riley worried about often.

“You want me to tuck you in Emmy?” she shook her head against his chest and wiggled, signifying that she was okay with being put down. Charlie obeyed her wish and set her down on the floor, sitting on the entryway bench like she once did. “You’re looking a little sleepy squirt” he chuckled, clearing the hair from her face.

“Mommy said the babysitter and I get to watch a movie of my choice before bed time since it’s Friday. I wanted to watch Big Daddy but mommy said the babysitter might question her parenting choices” he let out a big laugh and Emerson giggled back.

“Having fun you two?” Riley appeared in the entryway with the babysitter. Riley crouched down and opened her arms wide to hug Emerson. The little girl jumped into her mom’s arms, nearly knocking her to the floor. “Love you Emmy. Please listen to the babysitter and go to bed on time” Riley knew she wouldn’t put up a fuss, but she figured she would remind her anyways.

“Love you mommy” she smiled as she kissed her mom’s cheek and walked to Charlie. “Love you Charlie” she tiptoed so that she could reach the man’s cheek, who also gave her a big hug. “Don’t be out too late!” she called skipping into the living room, the babysitter following after. The couple stood in the entryway thinking about Emerson’s last remarks before disappearing.

“Ready to go, my love?” Charlie cleared his throat, opening the door and gesturing for Riley to go first. She playfully rolled her eyes and they stepped out of the house towards the vehicle. Emerson waved at them from the front window, and they waved back, until she couldn’t see them any more.

***

“Remind me again what time you fly in?” Riley wiped some of the water that splashed on her face as she washed the dishes. Like all mothers, she was multitasking. Cleaning the house for Emerson’s birthday and trying to figure out her schedule considering Charlie was flying in from Canada. Emerson sat at the kitchen table quietly coloring while her mother was on the phone.

“Don’t worry about picking me up. You already have so much to do! I’ll just get an uber to your place” Riley toweled off her hands and took Charlie off speaker phone, holding the phone to her ear. Despite dating for a year and a half, they hadn’t officially moved in together. Charlie still had his place with all of his things, but half of his stuff was at Riley’s. “Plus I don’t want Emmy catching on to my surprise for her.”

“Right. Okay, well I’ll keep the door unlocked, since we’re home all day. I gotta go though, I still have to call the bakery to set up a pick up time for her cake and cupcakes” the couple said their quick ‘I love yous’ while Emerson shouted hers from the kitchen. Riley took a moment to herself and sighed against the wall in the corridor. Between everything at work and Emerson’s birthday, she had quite a lot on her plate but she was relieved that Charlie was able to come home a little earlier to help her out. She straightened her spine and returned to the kitchen, kissing her daughter’s head. “Emmy, mommy has to jump on to a zoom meeting in the office, are you okay to color for 30 more minutes?”

“Mommy, when can I go on a date with Charlie?” her mother froze mid movement around the kitchen, the question catching her off guard. “I know we go on dates together, but you always look like you have way more fun when it’s just you and Charlie. I wanna have fun with Charlie too” she smiled at her daughter and sat down beside her.

“Well, why not ask Charlie on a date? You can make him a little card before he gets in tonight and while I do my meeting.” her eyes lit up at the suggestion and she quickly got to work, making her mother smile. Riley got up and headed to her office, not wanting to disturb the project her daughter had started.

Riley’s meeting lasted an hour, much to her displeasure, but it was a productive one. It worked out for Emerson as she had made an elaborate card to give Charlie when he came home that night. Riley helped her daughter take a bath and ordered Sugarfish for dinner, both of them anticipating the arrival of their favorite guy. As soon as Emerson heard the door creak open, she bolted for the entryway and jumped into Charlie’s awaiting arms. He peppered her face with kisses and tickled her until Riley came along, who he kissed deeply and earned a “yuck!” from Emerson. Their dinner arrived soon after Charlie’s arrival and they all sat around the dinner table, Emerson lost in Charlie’s stories of his hometown.

“Emmy, don’t you have something for Charlie?” she perked up remembering and clumsily got out of her chair, putting her chopsticks down to run to the office. She grabbed her card for Charlie and skipped back to the dining room, placing the card beside his bento box.

“Oh? What’s this Emmy? Can I open it?” she nodded her head enthusiastically and sat back in her place at the table. Charlie’s smile wavered as he read the card, feeling slightly emotional. On the front was a picture of the three of them and inside the card read:

Dear Charlie,

Will u go on a date with me?

Love, Emmy

Hearts, flowers and smiley faces decorated the inside of the card, but the text was written in big bold letters. He could tell a lot of effort went into making the card judging by all the neatly placed stickers and carefully drawn pictures and patterns. It still amazed him that for a six year old, turning seven, that she could write so neatly.

“Mommy helped me with some of the spelling, but I mostly did it myself” she smiled, anticipating his response. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful Emmy. I would love to go on a date with you” she clapped her hands and bounced in her seat, her reaction causing everyone at the table to smile and laugh. They continued to eat their dinner while planning things that they could do together, as Riley sat there watching and admiring the relationship that was unfolding before her eyes. How did she get so fortunate to find a man like Charlie?

***

Charlie ended up taking Emerson to Disneyland and even though Riley accompanied them, Charlie and her went on all the rides together. Riley took pictures and held onto their things as the two enjoyed themselves around the theme park. Charlie knew it would be a good thing to have Riley around because she was the voice of reason when Emerson and Charlie thought of having their third Dole Whip of the day. The two of them laughed and had the time of their lives. When supper time came, Riley planned to meet a client over super at downtown Disney, planning on meeting her boyfriend and daughter later on in the evening. This left the two of them to have dinner with Goofy at Goofy’s Kitchen.

As they enjoyed each other’s company and visits from Goofy, Charlie helped Emerson pick out her dinner and order it. Charlie could honestly say this was the most fun that he had had in a long time, but he should’ve known that with Emerson’s intelligence, there was more to this date than just having fun.

“Charlie, when are you going to ask mommy to marry you?” Charlie choked on his water, not expecting the question from the curious little girl. “Mommy said I wasn’t allowed to ask you because it was rude”

“Not rude at all Emmy, but why are you asking me that?” he was genuinely curious, thinking that maybe Riley had been venting to her subconsciously again, or that Emerson overheard a conversation with one of her friends.

“I heard Aunty Savannah teasing her the other day over the phone and mommy got really red in the face. I think you should ask her, I know she’d say yes” Charlie’s eyes grew wide as Emerson nonchalantly recounted the conversation her mother had the other day. Emerson continued to color in the coloring book Charlie bought her earlier.

“Do you want me to ask mommy to marry me?” Emerson nodded her head as soon as the question came out of his mouth. “How come?” the question was meant to be playful, but Emerson’s reply was serious.

“Because I want to be able to call you daddy.”

Charlie felt a lump in his throat.

“I’ve never had a daddy. It’s always been mommy and me. If you marry mommy, then you can be my daddy.” she paused to take a sip of her juice. “I think you’d make a great daddy”.

Charlie wiped away a tear that threatened to fall from his eyes and cleared his throat, feeling emotional. He took a sip from his water and took a deep breath. “You think so, Emmy?”

She nodded her head, continuing to color in her book. “Plus Justina at daycare said that in order for me to have a little brother or a little sister, you have to have a daddy AND a mommy.” Charlie chuckled at the little girl, and got up to kiss her on the head, hugging her too.

“Got any ideas on how I should ask Mommy to marry me?” Emerson forgot about her coloring in that moment as her eyes sparkled with excitement over Charlie’s question.

“Well...I have a couple ideas...”

#charlie gillespie #charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie fanfiction #charlie gillespie imagines #imagine #fanfiction

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oddaodd · 4 years

Note

Request: it’s before season 1, The boys not long come back from the war and y/n has been friends with the Shelbys as she’s also a gypsy, her, tommy and Finn live in there own house, (y/n is like a mother to Finn and tommy and y/n are really close) y/n is coming to the end of her pregnancy but there is a storm and they can’t call for help and doors need to be blocked with sandbags to avoid flooding and y/n’s waters broke so tommy had to help deliver the baby and Finn was helping as moral support, and tommy was just telling her to trust and listen to her body, a few hours later the baby is born, Finn has been sent to bed and tommy and y/n are relaxing with the baby and they talk and they confess feelings and tommy agrees to be the babies father (the biological could have died from war or left or anything else, it’s up to you). A few days later the storm passes and the Shelbys come and see them to check if there ok and they see tommy helping y/n getting the baby to latch to feed and Finn is playing or reading and there just happy and fluffy 💙💙 kind of long and it’s okay if you don’t want to write this, I’ve just never seen someone wrote something like this and thought it would be interesting ✨✨ (I’m also not the best at spelling and gramma so if anything is wrong or doesn’t make sense I’m sorry ❤️❤️)

Stormborn

· Tommy helps the reader give birth ·

warnings: mentions of pregnancy.

Author´s note: I don¨t know much about childbirth or children in general but I did some research and this is what i came up with. Hope you like it ✨

It was a tempestuous evening in Birmingham when a very pregnant Y/n helped little Finn and Tommy barricade the windows and doors in the house against the latter´s complaints against it. Thomas had become very overprotective as Y/n´s due date neared and didn’t want her making any unnecessary efforts. She found his concern sweet but didn’t want to just sit there doing nothing while the storm which according to the newspapers was to be the wildest of the century raged outside. So she helped handing them nails and wooden planks. The nature of the whole situation was concerning. They didn’t know how long the storm would last and she feared something would happen to her and her baby.

Finn was terrified of storms and clung to y/n´s skirt whenever thunder hit. Y//n soothingly rubbing his back as he did. Finn´s fear and her own making her feel specially pregnant in all the worst ways possible. She tried to not let it get to her and bent down to grab a wooden plank to hand to Tommy when she felt water running between her legs. This can’t be happening now.

“Tommy?” She asked trying to not let the panic she was feeling show.

Judging by the speed in which Tommy turned to look at her, her efforts to hide her fear were vain. He instantly noticed the pool of water under her y/and his eyes widened in panic too. Her mouth opened in hesitation before letting out a cry as she felt her first contraction.

Tommy immediately rushed to her side and led her to the bathroom, helping her sit inside the tub before filling it with warm water, an alarmed Finn following close by.

“Y/n!y/n! Are you ok?” Asked the boy, concern evident in his young features.

“Im fine Finn ,don’t worry…” she started trying to reassure him but was suddenly interrupted by another contraction.

Tommy saw his little brother’s terrified face and kneeled down beside him.

“She´s fine Finn, its just her baby” he said partly to calm the young boy and partly to calm himself.

Another piercing scream rang through the bathroom walls as she held on to the brim of the tub.

“Why don’t you go get the towels and the medicine cabinet from the kitchen” Tommy suggested.

Truth was, Tommy was terrified, he knew nothing about births aside from his mother´s screams when his younger siblings were born, but he knew he had to remain collected for Y/n´s sake.

The little boy rushed out of the bathroom and came back seconds later, handing Tommy what he asked for and placing his little hand on top of y/n¨s one trying to be of comfort.

Some minutes passed by as her contractions increased in frequency and pain. Her screams matching the intensity of the storm outside.

“I can’t do It Tom” she cried as she felt a tearing pain.

“Yes you can, love, you’re doing so well. Just keep breathing” he said and moved over to the end of the tub rolling up his sleeves before submerging his arms in the water and feeling for the baby.

“I can feel it´s head Y/n, just keep pushing” he urged

Y/n moved her head in negation, tears in her eyes and her face red “I can’t”

“Just listen to your body love, one more push” Tommy said.

Y/n continued crying “you can do it Y/n” came Finns voice.

She felt another contraction and with an agonizing scream pushed one last time. Finally giving birth.

She passed out seconds later to the sight of Tommy taking the baby out of the water and wrapping it in a towel handed to him by Finn.

——————

She woke up hours later in her bed, her body still tired and in pain. She looked at her surroundings and saw Tommy sitting in the rocking chair she kept by the tiny fireplace with a bundle of blankets in his arms.

“Tom?” She asked, her voice barely there, weak and raspy from her screaming.

He turned to look at her and smiled when he saw her fully conscious, before getting up and walking to her bed. “Ready to meet your daughter?”

Y/n prompted herself up so she was sitting and took her baby in her arms when Tommy handed her to her. Her eyes welled up in tears as she saw her looking deeply into her eyes and then she could see all the pain she went through completely justified.

The circumstances in which she had gotten pregnant weren’t ideal to say the least. Her boyfriend at the time left her when she told him she was pregnant, her mother kicked her out of the camp when she too found out and having no place else to go, she found herself living with Tommy ,who welcomed her with open arms, and his little brother Finn.

She turned to look at Tommy and let her emotions and tears run freely as she saw him looking at her adoringly. She had always been in love with him but never confessed anything, convincing herself he didn’t feel the same when she saw him going out with other girls. But when he looked at her like that it made her question everything.

Tommy wiped away some of her tears gently and put an arm around her, letting her rest her head on his chest.

“Have you thought of names?” He asked.

“Rosemary” she said after a second ”It was my grandmother’s name” she whispered taking her baby’s little hand in hers. Marveling at how small it was.

“Its a beautiful name” he whispered pressing a kiss to Y/n´s temple.

Y/n moved a little to look at his face “Thank you Tommy… For helping me, helping us… for everything”

He cupped her face “ You don’t have to Thank me, Im always going to be here for you and for little Ro“

She smiled at the nickname and held one of his hands, just relishing the moment and then without really thinking about it she confessed “I love you”

A flash of panic ran through her insides the second she registered what she had said. Would he leave her too?

But all or her concerns were dismissed when Tommy leaned in, softly kissing her lips. “I love you too. Always have and always will.

————

After a week of constant rain and gushing winds, the storm cleared out. Finn was playing in the parlor with some toy horses as Y/n sat in a sofa breast-feeding Rosemary and singing her a Romani Lullaby that her mother had sung to her when she was a baby, and that her grandma had sung to to her mother when she was baby, and that many other Romani women before them had sung to their children.

Tommy then walked into the room with Polly following close by. The woman’s eyes widened when she saw Y/n rushing to her side.

“When Thomas told me he had delivered your baby I couldn’t believe it.” She admitted sitting next to Y/n.

Y/n smiled at the woman and gently handed Rosemary to her. Covering herself with a quilt. Polly admired the baby with adoration, reminiscing about the time she had had her babies before they were taken away from her.

“What’s her name?” She asked with a coo.

“Rosemary” Y/n sighed happily as Thomas walked to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder, her own hand going to grab his.

“Rosemary Shelby” Pol confirmed “she’ll be a strong woman, just like her birthday´s storm and her Mum” she said, handing Rosemary back to Y/n with a smile.

And in that moment all was well.

@captivatedbycillianmurphy

#Tommy Shelby #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby fluff #thomas shelby #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby one shot #thomas shelby fluff #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders one shot #peaky blinders fluff

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nataliedanovelist · 3 years

Text

GF - The Sapling of His Labors

A Drifting Stars AU one-shot, in collaboration with @clownwry.

1st, 2nd, 4th.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford hummed an old tune to himself as he worked on dinner. Rather than sitting in front of a fire-pit in the middle of nature, butchering food to make it edible, he was blessed to be standing in a humble kitchen with a stove, cabinets, counters, and everything. The only thing he didn’t have was a fridge or freezer, but that was okay. Ford worked calmly and at his own pace as he chopped up the onion, blinking the burning feeling away, and he used his knife to scoop the diced pieces of onion into the hot skillet, and it sizzled and immediately smelled good.

Ford smiled as he added the green bell pepper, and other delicious things from the garden, and then he gave the veggies and herbs a stir with his hand-carved wooden spoon. Estimating that dinner would be ready soon, he walked across the kitchen, through the living room with a fireplace, two rocking chairs, and a large homemade three-way desk with two chairs, and to the front door.

The top half of the dutch door was already open, so he leaned against the bottom half of the door to watch his little girl run around with other kids her age, playing tag. “Mabel, honey, dinner!” He called. “Will you please bring some water when you come?”

“Okay!” Mabel called back cheerfully, and Ford trusted her to end the game soon and say goodnight to her friends as he went back to dinner.

The veggies were cooking well, so Ford threw some of Mabel’s special homemade butter into another pan, let it melt, and then he carefully laid two filleted fish down to cook.

The bottom half of the dutch door opened and Mabel came in with a bucket of water from their well. She grinned at the sight of him and sat the bucket down to use a ladle to pour some water into wooden cups. “Ms. Mahogany asked about you again.”

“Oh?” Ford raised an eyebrow at her, his smile still present.

“Yeah, I told her how just last night you told me you were lonely and only wanted someone to hold at night…”

Ford barked a laugh that Mabel joined in with, but she continued as she set the table. “Then she said her son is still single if…”

“Mabel, please!” Ford guffawed with rosy cheeks as he flipped the fish. “I wish you would stop trying to set me up with everyone in town.”

“But I’m a great matchmaker!”

“I know you are. Why not focus on someone else’s love-life?” Ford suggested as he began to plate the veggies.

“I don’t really care about everyone else’s love-life.” Mabel said with a shrug as she sat.

Ford snorted as he platted the fish on top of the veggies, one plate slightly smaller than the other.

“Well, not nearly as much as I care about you.” Mabel elaborated, and smiled sweetly at her uncle as he turned to set the food at the table. “I just want you to be happy, Grunkle Ford.”

The old man was a bit surprised by this, but he smiled softly and said, “I am happy, darling.” He sat the plates and himself down where they belonged, then patted his lap. “Come here.”

The girl didn’t hesitate to crawl into his lap and let him hug her. “I’ve got you.”

“Yeah, but imagine how much happier you’d be if you had me and a partner!” Mabel said optimistically.

Ford chuckled and brushed her shoulder-length hair with his six fingers. “Sweetie, I’m much happier now than I ever thought I would be.”

Mabel grinned at him and hugged him around the neck, allowing Ford to squeeze her gently and hug her back.

A little while later they sat by the fireplace, Ford in his rocking chair, and Mabel by his socked feet, propping her back against his leg as she knitted away. Ford used to tease her and wonder why he even built her a rocking chair, but once she explained she felt more comfortable against him, he let it go. Maybe next time they go to the store, he should trade fish for fabric so he can build a couch.

The eldest read a book out-loud while Mabel knitted, their favorite thing to do in the evening, when all they had for light was the fireplace and lanterns and the stars, but there were no stars tonight. Rain peacefully trickled down outside. They left the dutch door open to enjoy the smells and sounds and cool air, not a hint of a storm in sight.

Ford was enjoying the book, but not nearly as much as he enjoyed looking down at his beautiful girl. The sounds of her needles clicking as she worked, the way her brown eyes twinkled, the blush on her round cheeks, the shine in her hair. Ford had no idea what in the Multiverse he did to deserve her… No, he didn’t deserve her, but he was still grateful for her, and beyond happy he somehow managed to give her a happy life.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford was very excited, too excited to let his little girl sleep in too much. True that he purposely got up early to get the eggs, milk the cow, and let the sheep out for her, but he decided to surprise her earlier rather than later, so he made her some pancakes and eggs, squeezed her some fresh orange juice, put a pretty flower on the tray for decoration, and tucked the present wrapped in parchment and card under his arm.

A soft knock alerted Mabel of company, and her door opening and a warm voice fully woke her up. “Mabel, honey,”

She grinned and sat up in her bed. Ford had no regrets. All his hard work was worth it for that smile. “Happy Birthday.”

Mabel was absolutely delighted by the sweet surprise, but a bit disheartened when she saw no plate for her uncle. She raised an eyebrow suspiciously at him, still too used to his bad habit of skipping meals so she could eat. Well, he didn’t have to do that anymore. “Grunkle Ford, where’s your breakfast?”

Ford smiled and chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s all fixed and downstairs waiting for me.”

Mabel smiled again and said, “Why don’t you eat up here with me? Then I’ll open my present!”

Ford nodded. That seemed like an even better idea than eating separately. So Ford retrieved his mug of coffee and pancakes, and when he sat at the foot of Mabel’s bed, she opened the card. There was no glitter to decorate it with and the card wasn’t nearly as colorful as Mabel would have made it, but Ford still drew plenty of pretty pictures for her and wrote plenty of kind words, and more importantly, he made it just for her.

Mabel grinned and thanked him for the card, sitting by her nightstand and candle so she could see it every day, and then she tore into her present. She gasped happily and squealed at the gift. Mabel had seen Ford sew here and there, but she didn’t know this was what he was working on.

It was a large quilt. It had many different patches, some with colors, some with pictures of animals, one with a shooting star and one with a six-fingered hand. There were so many different patches that Mabel felt she could look and look without seeing every detail.

Ford rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I asked everyone in town if they had scraps of cloth. I wasn’t sure what to get you, but you deserve something nice, and…”

“Grunkle Ford, I love it!” And Mabel let her new quilt fall on her lap so she could hug him tightly around the waist. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ll use it forever! I love you, thank you!”

Ford chuckled and hugged her back tightly. “Y-You’re welcome.”

It wasn’t much, but it was better than what he could have done for her before.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford ran as fast as he could. He didn’t care how sharply branches pricked his face or how many times he stubbed his toe on a rock or tree root. The screaming rang in his ears. Mabel needed him.

He was grateful to find Mabel up in a tree, safe, but not for long. At the base of the tree was a giant black bear, roaring and growling and scratching the tree. It wouldn’t be long until the bear decided to try to climb. Ford gritted his teeth and allowed instincts to take over, animal vs animal.

Ford threw a rock and it hit the bear on the neck, making it forget the human cub in the tree and turn to the adult to roar warningly. Then Ford shot his crossbow and it hit the bear right in the shoulder, close to the chest, but not quite enough to kill it, only to anger it. Mabel screamed for Ford to run away, to get away, but Ford stood his ground as the bear charged at him and he rolled out of the way just in time, then shot the bear again, this time hitting it’s back.

The bear turned and roared at Ford, and he was prepared to pull the knife out of his boot and do some real damage, tired of giving warnings that the bear wasn’t hearring. But then something made everyone freeze. A small wheezing roar. A squeak from a cub. The little baby black bear ran out from the bushes and to its mother, who nuzzled the cub with her nose and stood protectively. Ford lowered his crossbow and nodded. Mabel must have accidentally stumbled across the cub, must have gotten too close, and the mother was being overprotective.

The mother roared once more at the humans and ran off into the woods with her cub, taking the arrows lodge in her with her. Well, good. That’s what she gets for going near Ford’s niece. Speaking of…

Ford turned to the tree and looked up at the frightened girl. “Mabel, are you hurt?”

“N-No. I’m okay.” Mabel looked at the spot where the bears disappeared and bit her lip. “I… I didn’t even see the baby one…”

Ford smiled and nodded. “It’s alright. You’ll find parents are quite protective of their kids. Can you climb down?”

Mabel nodded and carefully made her way down the tree. When she was about halfway down, she leaped into Ford’s arms and they hugged each other tightly, the crossbow still in Ford’s hand.

“Oh, Mabel, I was so worried…”

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…”

“Shh, hey, it’s alright. I’m not mad.”

“I thought you… I thought…” Mabel mumbled into his shoulder, her grip on his coat extremely tight.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I’ve got you.” Ford muttered to her as he walked them home. “I’ve got you.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford walked home from the ocean, smiling with the large net filled with fish on his back. Mabel was with the sheep, as usual, and smiled and waved when she saw his safe return. The leaves were changing colors and the air was getting more comfortable and crisp. Soon winter would be with them, and rather than fish for money, Ford planned to build music boxes and carve toys, a brilliant idea Mabel had when she noticed how he missed tinkering and building. He enjoyed fishing, but it wasn’t like the old lab work that made him proud.

The next day, like always, Ford walked home and saw Mabel among the sheep, but this time she was chatting with a boy her age. Ford had seen the boy before, Mabel labeling him as a friend, but the old man couldn’t help but wonder if he should be putting money away for a small wedding, a thought that made his blood boil and his heart swell at the same time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford gave the soup another stir before ladling it into a bowl. Poor Mabel sat on the newly built couch, wrapped in her quilt, close to the fire, her cheeks and nose cherry red and dark circles under her eyes as she sneezed and coughed. Ford wasn’t as worried for her as he normally would be; it was just a bad cold. She would be alright.

Weirdly enough, Mabel’s brain had decided to call it quits and she was nothing more than a rag doll, barely interactive and aware of her surroundings, which was fine by Ford. He could take care of her and the house just fine. He smiled softly and sat next to her, holding out a spoonful of warm soup for her. “Here you are, my dear. This will make you feel better.”

Shakily Mabel ate the bite she was given, but it burned and made her cough roughly. Ford rubbed her back and stirred the soup to cool it down a little. “That's it, easy does it. There we go, I’m sorry, sweetie.”

The second time was the charm; Mabel was able to swallow a second spoonful of warm soup no problem. She actually made a weak smile, then muttered to Ford, “Thanks Daddy,” and coughed roughly into her quilt. She patiently waited for her next spoonful, unaware of what she had done to Ford.

She had said it so innocently, so quietly… Was it possible, that in her weakened state, Mabel thought she was back home with her father? Even though she seemed out of it, she did seem aware of where they were; a few minutes ago, when Ford was making the soup, she had asked if the sheep were put away. And she had thanked Ford for making the soup when he first started on dinner. So, maybe, there was a small possibility that Mabel knew exactly who she was talking to, and she articulated with a title that felt fitting to her.

Ford smiled with a bit lip and held out the spoon filled with soup for her. “Y-You’re welcome.”

He smiled sympathetically as she sniffed again, her poor sinuses turned against her. But then she sniffed again, louder, and Ford began to notice it sounded different…

He also began to notice he was sore. And lying down. And wrapped up, like he was tucked in for bed.

Ford was pulled from his dreams and was sluggishly half-awake, his eyes still closed, and he bought his body some time to gather some strength by paying attention to his blind surroundings.

He could hear and feel a fire going. He was lying in a sleeping bag on the ground, and he could tell there were other things keeping him warm and wrapped up. Some damp cloth was on his forehead. And he could hear crying.

Ford forced his eyes open slowly and he discovered someone had taken his glasses off. He forced himself to work with his blurry vision and he sat up a little, leaning on his arm for support in search of his niece. She sat a few feet away, in a tight bundle. If Ford had to guess, she was hugging her knees and hiding her face in her arms and knees. “Mabel…”

She lifted her head up quickly, but then hid her face again, looking away from him and wiping her face dry with the sleeves of her coat.

“Hey, no,” Ford said softly, taking the damp cloth off his forehead. “None of that, you don’t ever have to hide anything from me. What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“N-No,” Mabel cleared her throat and finally turned to look at him; he was a little disheartened to see her trying to smile and still hide what was bothering her. “I’m okay. H-How do you feel? Tea is almost ready.” And she scooted closer to the fire on her knees to check on the teapot.

Ford sighed tiredly, his lips tight to try to keep her from hearing it. “Mabel…”

“Oh, here!” Mabel reached into a pocket of her uncle’s backpack and pulled out his glasses for him. “I thought I’d better take them off you so your face wouldn’t hurt.”

Ford smiled and accepted the visual aid. “Ah, thank you.” He slipped his glasses on and more clues came to his senses.

They were in the middle of the desert. Well, not entirely in the middle, it looked like there was a jungle a few yards behind them. Ford had also been blanketed with sweaters for extra warmth in the cold desert night. Everything seemed well in order and normal, except when Ford looked at his poor little girl. Her hair was a mess, frizzled and… Ford recognized that hairstyle. His hair often looked like that after he grabbed at it too roughly and tried to pull his hair out. There were dark circles under her eyes, eyes that didn’t sparkle. That legitimately scared Ford.

“Mabel…”

“Good! Tea is ready.” Mabel turned away from him again, refusing to look at him as she pulled out a cup for her uncle and poured him some hot drink. “Here, it’ll make you feel better.”

Ford accepted the drink and sat up fully. “Thank you.” He sipped it and watched Mabel carefully. She didn’t pour herself a cup. Or bring out the water canteen for something else to drink. Instead she held her knees and watched the fire dance. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was alright, but she beat him to it.

“How are you feeling? Does anything hurt? H-How’s your neck?”

“My neck?” Ford touched his throat, a bit confused, and answered, “I feel fine. Nothing hurts. Why?”

“We were ambushed. You got shot. You… You had a bad fever and wouldn’t wake up.” Mabel, still refusing to look at him, held out a dart to him that had been lying on the sand. “Here. I thought you might wanna study it.”

Ford adjusted his glasses and held the dart. It was quite long, but very skinny, and it had a red bull point at the top, like a sewing needle, but Ford recognized the dart. “Interesting. These are Hummie darts. They’re sold through the dimensions, they’re very useful for bounty hunting. See, the top here is filled with poison, just enough to render the body useless and to also hypnotize the target in a deep, dream-filled sleep. Oftentimes the dreams are the victim’s happiest memories or goals, so they won’t try to wake up. It’s also very fascinating because the side-effects are next to none, this makes these darts ideal if you want to bring someone in for questioning or for next-to-perfect condition.”

But Mabel wasn’t listening. Her eyes were still on the fire, she was still holding her knees, but her mind was elsewhere. Ford watched her mournfully and tried to remember what had happened.

Oh. Right.

They were in a different dimension than this one. They had been laughing and playing in the woods, unaware of who they were attracting. By the time Ford hoisted a laughing girl on his shoulders, a dart barely missed him and it hit a tree, causing him to run while Mabel shot pop-rocks with her slingshot. Ford can now remember feeling a tiny prick by his neck. He had hoped Mabel had accidentally pinched or pulled some skin on his neck, but she was horrified to have let a dart get past her. Ford managed to stop running and put Mabel down safely, shaking his head and even slapping himself to try to stay awake and attentive, but just as he was sharing a plan with her, he fell on his knees and collapsed into the grass, the last thing he heard was Mabel’s desperate please to be okay. Not to stay awake, not to help, but to be okay.

Ford put the dart and his tea down on the ground. “Oh, Mabel… You were amazing. Absolutely amazing! You saved us. You saved my life.”

“M-Maybe if I hadn’t asked you to play with me…”

“They were relentless. I’m glad we had fun and played.”

Mabel held herself tighter and turned her head away so it was out of sight. That broke Ford’s heart. What he wouldn’t give for her to just look at him. Had he done something? Had he scared her? He had heard that while under the influence of the Hammie darts, the body is as useless as a ragdoll, but… Oh. Maybe that had scared her. Mabel had no way of knowing what the darts did, she had no idea what kind of poison they were filled with. Did she refuse to look at Ford because when she did all she saw was the shadow of a dead man?

“Mabel,” Ford croaked longingly, and he opened his arms. “Please come here.”

Mabel was trembling. She sniffed again and swallowed a sob down.

She was a Pines, after all. She was going to be stubborn. So Ford scooted himself and the sleeping bag and pile of sweaters. He carefully began to scoop her up, but she finally broke and turned and hugged him around the neck, sobbing into his shoulder and allowing him to hold her close and burrow her in his arms and sweaters and sleeping bag.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright now.” Ford petted her hair and closed his eyes, giving everything he had into making her feel better. “I’m okay, I swear. You did an incredible job.”

“I thought… I thought…” Mabel croaked and swallowed to try to communicate better. “Y-Your eyes… they rolled! Into… y-y-you looked d…” And she choked and sobbed and held him so tightly her fingers ached, but she didn’t care.

Now Ford had never heard of that side-effect before. “Oh, Mabel, honey…”

“I k-k-know you’re okay now… I know… but I th-th-thought I was g-gonna lose you!” Mabel cried out, her throat sounding like it was going to tear in half.

“I’m sorry…” Ford cooed to her and adjusted her so she laid by his heart and he felt her hands. Holy Moses, she was so cold. “I’m so sorry. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I love my little starshine too much to be anywhere else.”

Mable hiccuped a weak giggle and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest. “I love you, too, D-Grunkle Ford.”

Yup. Ford wasn’t shedding tears alongside her. No. A raindrop must have fallen on his cheek. On a cloudless night. Yeah, that was it.

#GF #gravity falls #gravity falls au #drifting stars au #fanfiction #MORE SWEATER-TWINS BONDING #clownwry #gift

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