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sunflowervolvimp3 · 4 years

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42 Hours (II)

Content: part 2 to an enemies to lovers au in which Harry and Y/N are forced into a cross country road trip to make it to their best friends’ wedding on time!! includes a karaoke bar in Cleveland, Ohio, sharing of motel rooms (oh my god there was only one bed 👁️👁️), and a lesbian wedding in the Catskills

Warnings: language, alcohol, NSFW content, making fun of Nebraska and The Notebook

Pairing: Harry Styles x reader

Word Count: 32k

A/N: okay can I just say that I am so glad this is finally done. I have been working on this fic for over a month!!! the entire thing is over 51k in length!!!!!! my word doc is almost 100 pages!!!! this was meant to be a fun story about enemies to lovers stuck on a road trip!!!!! what happened!!!! but thank you guys so much for all the love and support and interest in this story <3 I was really nervous about splitting it up (which looking back was a good choice because again. it’s so long.) but you all showed so much love for the story and the characters!!!! I’d like to give a special shout out to miss andrea @adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy and miss alex @darthstyles for proof reading, and miss andrea again for this pretty header image!! if you’re looking for any good reads after this, I highly recommend checking out their masterlists!! and as always, if you like this fic, please like it AND reblog it!! and shoot me a message about it!! feedback is always appreciated, not just by me, but by ALL content creators, and is the main motivation for us to create more for you all to enjoy!!

{masterlist}

here is everyone’s wedding looks!! and HERE is a lil moodboard of Jo and Laure’s wedding so you can sense the vibes!!

also!! if you want to set the mood for a road trip with Harry, here is a link to the playlist that is mentioned and referenced in this fic!!

It’s almost instantaneous, Y/N notices, how quickly and easily she and Harry fall into a rhythm of friendship. From the moment she wakes up the next morning to a blue sky, the storm long passed, and Harry holding out a cup of black coffee for her, the stress and anxiety of the previous day is gone. There’s no watching herself around Harry, biting her tongue to stop herself from snapping over every small motion he makes as he fidgets in the driver’s seat. There’s no irritation caused by the way he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, or how he asks any question that crosses his mind, speaking out his random chain of thoughts just as often.

The thing that Y/N’s come to realize is that Harry is so much more interesting than she’d ever thought. He’s certainly more interesting than the endless fields of corn that whip by her window as he drives down the interstate. His jokes are dumb, but he says them with such a big grin on his face that she can’t help but laugh. His comments are strange, but Y/N finds herself enjoying the weird words that slip from his mouth without being caught by a filter.

“If we were in a Children of The Corn situation,” Harry begins, raising his voice to be heard over the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel. “Do you think you’d be able to outsmart the cult? Or would you get sacrificed to He Who Walks Behind the Rows?”

Y/N half chokes on the bottle of water she’d just raised to her lips, and coughs the liquid from her lungs as she turns to give Harry an incredulous look. “Excuse me?”

“We’re in Nebraska. That’s where it takes place, right?” Harry asks, glancing at Y/N from behind his sunglasses. “There’s, like, a weird child cult, and they kill all the adults in town for the corn harvest, or something, and then this couple on a road trip discovers them, and tries to stop them. Do you think you’d be able to?”

“Do I think I’d be able to stop a child cult? Or would I get sacrificed to their weird corn god? That’s what you’re asking me?” Although she can’t help but snort at the ridiculousness of the question, her mind is already appraising the situation Harry’s proposed. “I think I’d be able to stop them. They’re just kids, right? You just can’t be afraid to—you know—” Y/N drags her thumb across her throat, and Harry quirks up an eyebrow at her casual response.

“You’d kill a bunch of kids?”

“If the kids were evil and wanted to kill me? Absolutely.” Y/N leans her head back on the head rest, still keeping her eyes locked on Harry. “Wouldn’t you?”

Harry lifts one shoulder in response. “I don’t know. I’d try to reason with them, I think.”

Y/N extends a finger gun at him, clicking her tongue in sync with the motion. “And that’s why they’d sacrifice you and not me.”

Harry laughs, shaking his head slowly as he turns his attention back to the road. “Lovely. Wouldn’t you try to save me?”

Y/N hums, pretending to think the question over. “That depends on how annoying you’ve been that day.”

“You’re such a sweetheart, Y/N, you really are.” Harry laughs more, but stops abruptly as he spots a sign to the right of the road. “Oh! There’s a souvenir shop at the next exit!”

A groan falls from Y/N’s mouth as her head flops back, already sensing defeat. “No, Harry, you don’t need another keychain—”

“You don’t know that! Maybe I could get a corn stalk keychain!”

…

“You know, I could drive for a bit. If you’d like.”

Harry looks up at Y/N with an apprehensive gaze, his nimble fingers halfway through attaching a new silver key chain in the shape of Nebraska to his key ring. “What?”

“You’ve been driving for three days straight.” Y/N leans over the passenger side of the car, resting her arms on the sun-warmed roof. “I could drive. I know how to; I just don’t do it in L.A. because the traffic is annoying. But the interstate is practically empty, so…”

“Uh, no offense, Y/N, but…” Harry opens the drivers door, a small smile curving the corner of his lip. “No one drives Stevie but me. And besides, she’s a stick. Have you ever driven one?”

“Well, no.” Y/N admits, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “But you could show me.”

Harry inhales deeply, glancing around the souvenir shop parking lot. Y/N can tell he’s surveying the area, searching for a reason to say no, but as far as she can tell, there isn’t one. There are no other cars around, and the area is mostly flat, giving her a good space to practice driving in. With a defeated look on his face, Harry exhales sharply and gives a quick nod as he takes a step back from the driver’s side. “Fine. Get in.”

Y/N and Harry swap sides in the car, although Y/N is much more enthusiastic about it than Harry is. From the moment she climbs in and begins adjusting his seat, a pained look comes over Harry’s face, making her roll her eyes.

“Oh, come on. You’re a giant, Harry, I have to adjust things so I can reach the pedals.” Y/N scoffs, reaching up to adjust the rear view mirror. “You can put them all back later.”

“Yeah.” Harry sucks in another breath before pushing his sunglasses up into his chestnut curls. “Okay, so…there’s three pedals on the floor. The right one is gas, the middle is the brake, and the left is the clutch. And then here—” Harry takes Y/N’s right hand and places it over the gear shift. “This is how you shift. There’s six gears, right? And their use depends on the speed you’re going, so you’re going to start with one—” His hand squeezes hers as he shifts the gear shift over and up to the left with ease. “Which is here. Here’s two—” He shifts the gear shift down to the left, and continues to move it as he speaks. “Three. Four. Five. And reverse. Got it?”

“I think so.” Y/N nods, her hand flexing beneath Harry’s large palm. His rings feel cool against her warm skin, and she has to admit, it’s not the worst feeling in the world. “Up left, down left, up middle, down middle, up right, down right. Right?”

“Right.” Harry lifts his hand off hers to point towards her feet, which are sitting on the carpet cover in front of the pedals. “You want to start with your foot pressed firmly on the clutch, the one—yeah. There, to the left. Keep it pressed there. Is it pressed there?”

“Since you first told me to press it, yeah.” Y/N furrows her brow in concentration, which is caused both from learning how to drive manually, and the effort it takes to stop herself from laughing at the nervousness in Harry’s voice. “Now what?”

“Take off the parking brake.” Harry pulls the lever down himself, making sure Y/N is focused on her other movements. “And the car is in neutral, so you can turn the key in the ignition.” He holds out his keys towards her.

Y/N takes the cool metal from his hands, quickly finding the right key for the Impala and slipping it in. The car roars to life, a sound which is now familiar to her ears. “Okay. There.”

“Good.” Harry pauses for a moment before reaching across Y/N’s body and buckling her seatbelt, which she had forgotten in the excitement to drive. “Safety first.” He sits back in the passenger seat, fixing his seatbelt across his own body. “I have a feeling we’ll be needing these.”

“Oh, shut up.” Y/N sticks her tongue out at him, her eyebrows and nose wrinkling as she makes a face. “What do I do now?”

“Now…” Harry fidgets with his seatbelt again as he moves forward in the passenger seat, one hand bracing against the dash as he directs her. “Press the clutch and the brake at the same time, like that. Now move the gear shift into first gear.”

Y/N does as he says, pushing the gear shift over and up to the left. It takes much more pressure for her to move it without Harry’s help, she notes, but doesn’t let the effort show on her face. “Then?”

“Take your foot off the brake.” Harry instructs, caution laced through his voice. “And slowly—slowly! —release the clutch as you press down gently on the gas.”

“Okay…” Lifting her left foot first, Y/N does her best to match the motion with her right foot, pressing down at the same pace as she lifts the other. Her movement, however, isn’t as smooth as she wants it to be, and the car lunges forward in a choppy motion.

“Careful!” Harry says loudly, twisting his body to face Y/N as he continues bracing himself. His entire body is tense, his shoulders practically up by his ears as he appraises Y/N. “You have to do it at the same time!”

“Alright, alright—” Y/N tries again, focusing on matching her feet to each other. This time, the movement is smoother, and the car begins to drive forward slowly, moving faster as Y/N presses down more. “Is that—am I doing it?” Y/N asks nervously, navigating herself slowly through the parking lot. “Is that it?”

“That’s it. You’re doing good, yeah.” Harry nods slowly, but Y/N can see the strain in his jaw from the corner of her eye. “Now let’s try…let’s try shifting gears, so you can speed up.”

“Try not to sound so terrified.” Y/N mutters, turning the wheel to guide the car around a lamp post.

Harry ignores her comment. “You’re going to do the same motion, but this time release the gas while pressing down on the clutch. Then move the gear shifter to two, like before, and—”

Before Harry can finish speaking, Y/N attempts to change into second gear. The car lurches again as she releases the gas and presses on the clutch, and the jagged motion only gets worse after she shifts into second.

“Slowly, Y/N—” Agitation is clear in Harry’s voice, and his knuckles turn white as he grips the dash. “Slower!”

Another lunge of the car shifts Y/N to the side, and her foot slips off the clutch completely. With a sickening sound, the car lurches to a stop, despite Y/N’s foot still pressed on the gas. “What—?”

Harry, who’s been wincing throughout the entire ordeal, sucks in a sharp breath. “You stalled her.” He says, shaking his head with a quiet horror.

Y/N tugs on her bottom lip as she glances at him from the corner of her eye, her voice hesitant. “Is…that bad?”

“Is that—?” Harry’s green irises snap to meet hers, wide open and shocked. “Yeah, it’s bad. That’s enough practice for today, I think. I’m driving again.”

Y/N tries to protest. “But—”

“Nope! Out!” Harry shakes his head firmly, unbuckling his seatbelt and exiting the car in one swift motion. “Come on!”

With a defeated sigh, Y/N unbuckles herself, climbing out of the driver’s door that Harry’s just opened for her. “Sorry.” She mumbles, walking around to the passenger’s side and climbing back in.

Harry gives her a small smile, albeit a pained one, as he begins to move his feet over the brake and clutch, shifting the car into neutral. “It’s fine. That was pretty good for a first practice, really. Just…maybe it’s too soon for highway driving.”

Y/N buckles her seatbelt as Harry restarts the engine, and within a few minutes, he has his signal flipped back on to head back to the highway. “You know, mostly I wanted to drive so that I could pick the music.” She says casually, resting her chin in her hand after propping it up against the arm rest. “I’m getting a little tired of The Beatles on repeat.”

Harry laughs, raking his hand through his curls before shifting gears with ease. “Oh really? What would you put on, if you had a choice?”

“I don’t know.” Y/N shrugs, taking a moment to think. “We could listen to a nice sonata, maybe. Oh! Or Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I haven’t listened to it in full in a while.”

A sound of surprise and indignation leaves Harry’s mouth. “Tchaikovsky—? No! No, you can’t listen to classical music on a road trip! You need music that you can scream the lyrics to!”

“Is there a rulebook about what you can and can’t listen to on a road trip?” Y/N raises an eyebrow as she poses the sarcastic question. “I wasn’t aware.”

“There’s an unofficial rulebook, yes.” Harry risks a glance over at Y/N, his green eyes alight. “And one of the most important—if not the most important—rules is that any song you listen to has to be able to be sung loudly while driving down a highway. Everyone knows that.”

“My bad.” Y/N says sarcastically, toeing off her shoes to better cross her legs beneath herself. “So, in short, we’re stuck listening to your playlist, huh?”

“Now you get it.” Harry shoots her a cheeky grin, pointing with his free hand. “You can change the song, though. If you’d like.”

“Really?” Y/N reaches down to the small catch all tray between them, where Harry’s phone sits connected to a car charger. She picks it up carefully, raising an eyebrow in question. “May I?”

When Harry nods, Y/N clicks on the screen, which displays the controls to the Spotify playlist currently being projected through the car’s speakers. Unsurprisingly, a Beatles song is moving across the scene, causing Y/N to press the skip button immediately. The next song is by The Killers, called “Spaceman,” and while she likes it, it’s not really something she feels like listening to in the moment. She hits skip again, passing over “Night Moves,” “Piano Man,” and “Seven Wonders,” (the last skip earning a sound of protest from Harry) before a familiar album cover pops up on the screen.

“Hold on.” Y/N says, mouth agape as the 1990s Vocoder sound fills the car. “You listen to Cher?”

“Are you kidding?” Harry’s surprised expression matches hers. “Of course! She’s a treasure.” He taps his fingers to the beat of “Believe” while his head bops to the same pattern. “I love this song. It’s a good one.”

Making a sound of agreement, Y/N lets her gaze drift to the window, watching the agriculture fields that whiz by. “Yeah.” She murmurs, losing herself in the beat. “‘No matter how hard I try…you keep pushing me aside’…”

“‘And I can’t break through’…” Harry’s voice joins with hers, louder and surer of himself than hers had been. “‘There’s no talking to you’…”

Y/N’s head turns from the window, locking eyes with Harry for the split second he looks away from the road ahead of them. “‘It’s so sad that you’re leaving…it takes time to believe it’…”

“‘But after all is said and done’…” The grin playing on Harry’s pink lips grows, popping out his dimples as he continues to sing. “‘You’re gonna be the lonely one’…”

With a grin pasted across her own face, so big that her cheeks ache, Y/N joins Harry for the chorus, yelling the lyrics more than singing them. “‘Do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say…I really don’t think you’re strong enough’!” Harry’s hand drifts down to the volume dial, turning the music up until the bass thumps through the entire car. Y/N can feel it in her chest like a second heart beat.

“‘Do you believe in life after love?’” Encouraged by each other, Harry and Y/N scream the lyrics even louder on the repeat, straining their necks as much as their vocal cords. “‘I can feel something inside me say…I really don’t think you’re strong enough’!”

When Harry’s hand moves again, Y/N thinks that he’s reaching for the dial again, perhaps to turn it down, but then his hand makes a questioning motion, and Y/N realizes that Harry, ever the one for dramatics, is acting out the lines.

“‘What was I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you?’” Harry points at Y/N then, an exaggerated look on his face as his whole body moves to the beat. “‘Well I can’t do that! And there’s no turning back’…”

Not wanting to be one upped, Y/N pushes up the sleeve of her sweater, exposing her wrist enough that she can tap on it. “‘I need time to move on’…” A fit of giggles interrupt the next line as she and Harry both raise their arms to flex their muscles. “‘I need a love to feel strong’…” Y/N taps on her temple as she sways her body to the beat the best she can in the car. “‘Because I’ve got time to think it through’…” When she turns to point at Harry, she finds him already pointing at her, once again in sync with her thoughts. “‘And maybe I’m too good for you, oh’!”

They repeat the chorus in the same way as before, screaming the lyrics as loud as they can, pulling dramatic facial expressions and dance moves to match. Halfway through the repeat, Harry attempts to mimic the classic Cher move of pushing hair over the shoulder, and the ridiculous sight is enough to send Y/N into another fit of laughter. She almost misses the entrance for the bridge, but recovers just in time to yell the lyrics in sync with Harry.

Forming fists and dragging her arms towards her dramatically, and Harry doing the same with his free hand, the two of them screw their faces up as they sing passionately. “‘Well I know that I’ll get through this…because I know that I am strong’…” The flexing of arms returns for a moment before being replaced by impassioned pleading hand gestures. “‘I don’t need you anymore…I don’t need you anymore…no, I don’t need you anymore…no, I don’t need you anymore’…”

Although they’d been energetic in the previous choruses, Harry and Y/N give their all for the final chorus, bouncing and yelling and gesturing as much as they can as they drive down the interstate at sixty-five miles per hour. They quiet for a moment as the beat falls out, singing the lyrics at a slightly lower volume, but when the beat returns, they scream the lyrics one final time in unison before the music fades out.

The song changes to “Baby Driver,” and Harry reaches to lower the volume as he and Y/N both struggle to catch their breath. They laugh between pants, hands on chests as they rapidly rise and fall. Y/N lets her head fall back against the back of the seat, shifting her legs so only one rests on the seat beneath her thigh.

“That was a good one.” She admits, pushing her now-sweaty hair out of her face. “I’ll give you that. Cher was a good choice.”

“Do you see what I meant, now?” Harry asks breathlessly, his grin still plastered to his face. “Do you still want to listen to Tchaikovsky?”

In lieu of a reply, Y/N reaches for Harry’s phone again, skipping songs until “Jessie’s Girl” begins to drift through the speakers. “Turn it up again, Harry.”

There’s a twinkle in Harry’s eyes when he does as she says.

…

“I can sleep on the floor.” Harry volunteers, tugging his hand through his stretched out curls as his eyes scan the interior of the motel room. “Make a little bed out of pillows. Then you can have the bed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry.” Y/N shakes her head adamantly, setting her bag on the small table in front of the room’s mirror. “You can’t sleep on the floor!”

Harry purses his lips. “I’ll take the chair, then. I can stretch out on it—”

“Please, you have limbs like Gumby.” Rolling her eyes, Y/N unzips her bag and pulls out her toiletries. “You can’t sleep comfortably in a chair. We can deal with one bed for one night. It’s not the end of the world.”

Four days ago, Y/N might have considered having to share a bed with Harry the end of the world. If someone had told her about the lack of available motel rooms on the road, Y/N might have never left L.A. And that first night in Utah, she remembers, she would have rather smother Harry in his sleep than share a bed with him. Now, however, they’re in Iowa City, and for all her talk of how much she despised Harry before, she’s found herself quite fond of him in a short period of time.

There’s a list of reasons why that’s happened, she thinks, as she pulls out her charger to plug into the wall. Their forced close proximity in the car and motel rooms probably has something to do with it, as well as Harry being her only company for the last four days. And maybe, just maybe, a small part of it is due to the way Harry looks in the dim motel room light as he flops back on the bed, his red and black striped t-shirt riding up just the slightest bit to expose the fern tattoos lining the bottom of his stomach. The way his jade irises manage to sparkle in the light of the lamp, or how his chipped nail polish still manages to look elegant as his fingers dance along his chest and twist his rings over his knuckles. The way his lips, despite his constant habit of biting them, look so soft and so pink, and how Y/N thinks she could just—

Y/N clears her throat, stopping her thoughts in their tracks. It’s really been too long since she’s been around another human being, she thinks, keeping her back to Harry as she roots through her suitcase for her pajamas. Four days is too long for her to be with the same person, with hardly any alone time, and she’s wondering if she’ll be able to have alone time any time soon when her fingers brush over the familiar smooth silicone surface of her vibrator.

Y/N pauses, pulling her fingers back as if she’s been burned. Right. She’d tossed that in there just before leaving L.A., just in case she needed some stress relief. Glancing back over her shoulder subtly, Y/N sees that Harry has his phone out now, his nimble fingers tapping along the screen as he lays on the bed. Maybe some stress relief is exactly what she needs.

Grabbing the first articles of clothing she can get her hands on, Y/N carefully wraps her vibrator within the fabric, trying to fold it so that it doesn’t look like its hiding a small purple sex toy. Once that’s done to the best of her ability, she grabs her toiletry bag, tucking it under her arm as she quickly makes her way to the bathroom.

“I’m going to shower.” She mutters, closing the door behind her without waiting for Harry’s response.

Although the ritual of stripping from her clothes, starting the shower and adjusting the temperature settings, and relaxing her muscles underneath the (albeit low pressure) stream of water is familiar, it takes Y/N a few minutes to work up the courage to run her hands down the length of her body. She takes her time as her fingers dance over the planes of her breasts, down her stomach, fluttering over her hips before making their way to the crevice where her thighs flow into her core. Taking a deep breath, Y/N begins with just her fingers, running them through her wet folds slowly and carefully.

She allows herself the time to warm herself up, waiting until she can dip her index finger inside her slick entrance and circle its way around her clit before grabbing her vibrator from the shower ledge. She flicks it on to its lowest setting, making sure the electronic buzz is hidden beneath the sound of the shower before gently circling the tip around her clit.

The relief, Y/N finds, is instantaneous. A breathless sigh slips past her lips as she rubs the toy over her folds, delighting in the fluttering sensation it leaves behind. Without breaking contact, Y/N turns the toy up a level, biting her lip to keep from moaning as she presses it back to her clit.

Despite the tension building up in her body as Y/N works herself to an orgasm, this is the most relaxed she’s felt in days. The tension, she finds, is so much sweeter than the anxiety and stress she’s been experiencing throughout the road trip. Although her shoulders tense, it’s different than the knots worked into her muscles from hours in the car. Although her leg feels as though it may cramp from its position perched on the bath tub ledge, the burn is more welcome than the ache of being stuck in one seated position.

If someone were to ask her what crossed her mind when Y/N brought herself over the edge, what thoughts drifted into her head as she gripped the wall of the shower with one hand as her core convulsed in the most delightfully sinful way, Y/N would tell them that it was nothing specific. Strong hands, she’d say, smoothly and knowledgeably caressing her body. A low voice whispering dirty nothings in her ear. A deep breath flowing down her neck as cherry lips and white teeth nipped and kissed down her skin and across her collar bones. Nothing specific. And Y/N would believe it when she’d say it.

But if anyone were to be listening at the exact moment that she thrust the vibrator inside her, panting and whimpering as her index and middle finger worked over her clit and brought her to climax, they’d hear the breathless whisper of a name that Y/N herself didn’t even know she was saying.

The nice thing about getting off in the shower, Y/N thinks, once she’s regained enough function in her head to do so, is that cleanup is a breeze. Within fifteen more minutes, Y/N’s washed her body, shampooed and conditioned her hair, and is climbing out of the shower with the motel towel wrapped tightly around her body. Within another few minutes, she’s towel dried to the best of her ability, and finally realizing that the pajamas she’d grabbed in her quick bid for the washroom happened to be the pink silk set that she’d tucked at the bottom of her suitcase four days ago.

Cheeks burning, Y/N weighs her options. She could wrap the towel around herself, she thinks, and instruct Harry to look away as she snuck back to her suitcase and grabbed the sports bra and boxers she’d been sleeping in for the past few nights. Or…she runs her fingers over the lace trim of the set. These pajamas were quite comfortable, and the silk would feel so nice on her body after multiple nights of scratching motel sheets. And, if she’s being honest with herself, her other pajamas are quite dirty from a new nights of use. Now that her body feels completely relaxed and clean, she’d like to put on something to match.

When she steps out of the bathroom, Y/N does her best to seem casual and calm, still running her towel through her set hair, her clothes and toiletry bag (where she’s hidden her vibrator) tucked under one arm. “The shower’s free.” She says to Harry, barely glancing at him as she returns her items to her bag. “Although the water pressure is pretty shit.”

A low chuckle echoes from Harry’s mouth. “I expect nothing less.” He says, and Y/N thinks she may be in the clear when the laughter stops abruptly.

Biting back a sigh, Y/N straightens her back, knowing that she can’t avoid the conversation forever. “What?” She asks, tossing her towel on the motel room chair.

Harry is sitting up on the bed, his phone still held loosely in his right hand as his left props his body into an upright position. As his eyes scan over Y/N’s body, his tongue darts out of his mouth, wetting his lips without Harry being aware he’s doing it. “What—” His voice cracks, and a flush creeps up Harry’s pale neck as he clears his throat. “What are you wearing?”

Y/N begins to comb her fingers through her hair, sectioning it off before she begins to braid. “Pajamas.”

A scoff leaves Harry’s mouth. “No, no, those aren’t pajamas. That’s…lingerie.”

“Yeah, well…I brought them as pajamas.” Y/N mumbles, twisting her hair into the desired pattern before tying it off with the ponytail on her wrist. “Look, I—my other ones are dirty, and I didn’t want to put a sweaty sports bra back on right after showering. But…if it makes you uncomfortable, then I can—”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” Harry cuts over her, giving a quick shake of his head. “I just—we’re sharing the bed tonight, so I wasn’t sure—as long as you’re comfortable—”

“I am.” Y/N says quickly, cheeks beginning to burn as the conversation continues. “I’m comfortable.”

“Alright then.” If Harry’s cheeks are any indication, then he’s feeling the same thing Y/N is. “I’m…going to shower, then.”

And that’s how, two hours later, after watching a rerun of When Harry Met Sally, Y/N ends up in bed next to Harry Styles in lingerie that she’d bought to impress her ex-boyfriend.

Harry, to his credit, is doing his best to draw a line between them. His lanky body is practically hanging off the edge of the bed with how far he’s pulled himself from her, his defined back turned towards Y/N. Her own posture mimics his, back turned from Harry, clinging to the edge of the bed in an attempt to respect his personal space. The problem, Y/N thinks, exhaling hard as she shifts under the covers, is that she doesn’t like sleeping on her side like this, and she especially doesn’t like tensing up to make sure her limbs stay in their designated zone. It feels awkward and uncomfortable, and after laying in bed for over an hour, she finally huffs before turning onto her back, her hands settling down over the sheets.

“Harry.” She whispers, twisting her head to the side as she struggles to make out the shape of his body in the dark. “Are you awake?”

The bed creaks as Harry’s body shifts towards her, twisting on his hip to be able to meet Y/N’s eyes. “Yeah. Can’t sleep.”

“Me either.” Y/N rolls over again, propping herself up on her side to face him as he matches the motion. They’re closer now, their faces about six inches away as they rest their heads on their pillows. Y/N can smell the mint of Harry’s toothpaste on his breath. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Harry shrugs one shoulder as best he can while horizontal. “Dunno.” He mumbles, voice low in the quiet darkness. “Don’t think I’m used to sharing a bed with someone and not…being close to them.”

“Yeah.” Y/N matches the tone of her voice to his, as if speaking quietly and gently will preserve whatever it is hanging between them. “Feels weird.”

Moving his hands from his chest to tuck them under his pillow, Harry worries his bottom lip between his teeth, a nervous look apparent in his eyes even in the darkness. “Would it be okay if I moved closer?” He asks, caution written into every word. “It’s just—staying on the edge isn’t very comfortable.”

Four days ago, Y/N would have shoved him off the bed. Now, however, she finds herself nodding, pulling her top leg into a bent position, her bare knee brushing over Harry’s beneath the sheets. “That’s fine.”

Y/N watches the way Harry’s body visibly relaxes, the tension she didn’t even know he had leaving his body. Trying his best to move without disturbing her, Harry turns over to lay on his toned stomach, and the sheets pull down around his body enough that Y/N can see how his Rolling Stones t-shirt has ridden up his back. Without thinking, Y/N pulls one hand from beneath her pillow and reaches for the sheets, pulling them back around Harry to his mid back.

“Thanks.” His voice is raspy, half muffled by the pillow as he tucks his hands beneath his head, eyes still locked with hers with an intensity that, during daylight hours, would have made her cheeks burn.

But in the safety of the darkness, Y/N simply returns her hand to its previous position, allowing the lack of light to masquerade the concern written onto her face. “You’re welcome.”

…

“I’m not saying The Notebook is a bad movie, I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense!”

Harry gives Y/N an incredulous look as he flips on his turn signal, shifting gears in the car so he can exit the highway and head towards a gas station. “What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?” He demands, turning the car over the curve of the road. “They’re in love! Noah reads to Ally to help her remember that! What about that doesn’t make sense?”

“Well, the dialogue for one.” Y/N shrugs, tapping her fingers to the beat of “Heroes” that’s drifting through the speakers.

Harry scoffs as he pulls into an empty gas station, slowing the car to a gentle stop in front of a pump. “Give me one example of the dialogue not making sense!”

“‘If you’re a bird, I’m a bird’?” Y/N raises an eyebrow as she quotes the movie. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“What do you mean, what does it mean?” Harry demands, shifting the car into neutral and pulling the emergency brake before turning off the ignition. “It’s romantic! It’s talking about—about reincarnation, and past lives—”

“And what about how Noah and Ally first met, huh? She was on a date with someone else! She wasn’t interested in him!” As she rants, Y/N’s volume grows, almost drowning out David Bowie completely. “And then he climbed up a Ferris wheel, demanded that she go out with him, and said that if she didn’t, he was going to kill himself!”

Harry points an accusatory finger at her, his expression fierce. “Don’t! It was romantic—”

Y/N pushes his finger away, holding her stance adamantly. “It was creepy! And don’t even get me started on the arguments, and the lying, and—and she was engaged to someone else! Noah was a homewrecker!”

Harry takes a deep breath, squeezing his keys in his hand as his eyes close for a moment. “I’m going to fill Stevie with petrol.” He says, his tone careful and controlled. “And when I get back, I am going to give you a very long lecture on why you’re wrong.”

Y/N rolls her eyes as she grabs Harry’s sunglasses from the cupholder next to her, slipping them onto her face as she sticks her tongue out at him. “Whatever. Go pump the gas, Styles.”

With one last withering look, Harry climbs out of the car and slams the door behind him, turning his attention to the rusted gas pump in the middle of nowhere along the Illinois interstate. Y/N can’t help but laugh at the irritated look on his face, and how he flips her the bird when he catches her laughing. Small giggles still roll through her as she turns her attention to Harry’s phone, choosing a new song as David Bowie slowly begins to fade out. She’s just begun scrolling through her options when her own phone begins to vibrate from where she has it tucked underneath her leg.

Y/N sets Harry’s phone back down on his seat as she grabs her own, her eyes widening when she sees Brant’s name lighting up her screen. She should answer, she thinks, as she hasn’t spoken to him in person since their conversation in Colorado. That conversation seems like a lifetime ago, and Y/N’s thumb hovers over the “accept” icon, her teeth tugging her bottom lip over and over. She should answer. She should. Brant will probably want to discuss work, and find out when she’s coming back so they can plan another dinner, because he always likes to schedule things at least a week in advance. He’ll tell her about his coworkers, what the weather in L.A. has been like (as if it ever changes), and maybe, just maybe, if he has time, he’ll tell her about a new Netflix series he’s just starting to watch. Y/N should answer.

The driver’s side door opens with a creak, and Harry bends down to poke his head inside. “Alright, I’m going to go inside the petrol station and get us some snacks, and then I’m going to explain to you exactly how wrong you are.” He says firmly, mouth pressed into a flat line of determination. His expression falters for just a moment as he sees the conflicted look on Y/N’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Y/N says quickly, pressing “ignore” and tucking her phone back under her leg. “Just go get the snacks while I create my counterargument, alright?”

Harry rolls his eyes, reaching into the car and pulling his sunglasses off Y/N’s face. He slips them over his own eyes, his expression back to its determined look. “Fine. Do you want Cheezies?”

“Uh huh. The crunchy ones!” Y/N reminds him, grabbing his phone from the seat again to continue selecting a new song.

“Right. The crunchy ones.” Harry shoots her a finger gun as he shuts the car door. “You can eat them as I prove you wrong!”

“You wish!” Y/N yells back, the phone call all but forgotten as she watches Harry walk into the gas station.

…

“We should go out tonight.”

Y/N sets her duffel bag on the queen-sized bed situated in the center of the motel room, giving Harry a confused look as she registers his words. “Go out?” She asks, tugging on the zipper of the bag. “Go out where?”

“To a bar.” Harry flops down on the bed next to her bag, leaning back on his elbows as he speaks. “All we’ve done this entire trip is drive, and we’re getting to the Catskills tomorrow. We can have a bit of fun tonight, can’t we?”

Y/N snorts as she rifles through her bag, pulling out her phone charger and favourite book. “It’s a road trip; driving is the point, isn’t it? Besides, what kind of bars are in Cleveland, Ohio?”

Harry shrugs lightly. “We passed a sign for one on our way into town. And we haven’t had dinner yet, so we should go get something to eat anyways. And I haven’t had a pint in forever.”

“I doubt you’ll like the pints from a dive bar in Cleveland, Harry.” Y/N rolls her eyes as she plugs her charger into the wall. “I don’t think they’ll be up to your standards.”

“That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” Harry matches her eye roll with ease before turning his expression into something more endearing. “Please? We don’t have to stay too long if you don’t want to!”

Y/N sighs as she sits down on the bed next to him. “Harry—”

“Just one drink!” Harry pleads, pouting out his bottom lip. “Please? To celebrate not killing each other on this trip?”

In spite of herself, a small laugh falls from Y/N’s mouth. “The trip’s not over yet, Harry. Don’t count your eggs before they hatch.”

“Y/N…” Harry whines, turning onto his side as he looks up at her. “Come on!”

Y/N tugs her lip between her teeth as she looks down at Harry. It’s true, she thinks, that all they’ve done for the last five days is drive and sleep in motels. Maybe they could use a break before tomorrow’s final day. And they’ve been getting along so well today that Y/N would hate to put a damper on their moods now…

“Fine.” She relents, ignoring how there’s a turning feeling in her stomach when she sees Harry’s green eyes light up. “But just one drink!”

…

“I’ll take another Old Fashioned, please!” Y/N says to the waitress, raising her voice to be heard over the man singing a bad cover of “Take on Me” on the small bar stage. “And—Harry, do you want another?”

Harry bites back a laugh, barely managing to cover it with a cough as the waitress turns to him. “Uh, yes, please.” He smiles charmingly, flashing his eyes to Y/N between his words. “I’ll have another pint.”

With a quick nod, the waitress begins to work her way from their table to the bar, pushing through the crowds of people scattered around the bar.

Y/N leans over to Harry as she twirls her straw through the remnants of ice in her empty glass. “You picked a good bar!” She says loudly, gesturing to the people around them. “Who knew this would be the center of Cleveland’s drinking scene?”

“I did! I have good taste!” Harry replies with a laugh, lifting his pint glass to his lips to drain the remnants. “And here I was, thinking that you’d be whining to go home after the first drink!”

There’s something about the way Harry says “home” that turns Y/N’s stomach. Or maybe it’s the Old Fashioneds, she thinks, as she eyes the three empty glasses sitting in front of her. “Oh. Yeah. Maybe we should go…?”

Harry groans, waving off her suggestion without a second thought. “No! We’re having fun! When was the last time you went out?”

“Uh…” The alcohol makes it hard for Y/N to think back in her memory, but she does her best to focus for a few moments to search for the answer. “I think…a few months ago? Jo came to visit, and we went out for drinks…”

“That’s just sad.” Harry shakes his head, feigning disappointment. Or maybe not feigning it, Y/N thinks, because a deep sigh leaves his lips right after. “You live in L.A., a place with so much culture and so many opportunities, and you don’t take them!”

“I take opportunities just fine!” Y/N defends herself, a pout working its way onto her lips of its own volition. “I’m just busy—”

“You’re always going to be busy!” Harry argues as the waitress approaches them with their drinks. “You—thank you—” He says to her as she hands him his pint and Y/N her Old Fashioned. “You have to take time for yourself, to enjoy things! Or else life is just going to pass you by, and soon you’ll be old and grey in your apartment, with no cool stories to tell!”

Y/N takes the straw from her previous drink and slips it in her new one. “I have stories!” She argues hotly, a flush coming over her face from both the alcohol and the argument. “I have plenty of stories!”

Harry takes a gulp from his pint, wiping away the drop of beer that drips from the corner of his mouth. “Oh yeah? Tell me one.”

“Like—” Y/N takes a long sip of her drink. “Like now! The story of how I had to go on a road trip with a guy I hated to make it to my best friend’s wedding on time!”

“I’m not really a fan of that title, honestly.” Harry purses his lips, his brow furrowing as he sets his pint back down on the table. “How about we call it the story of how you had to go on a road trip with a guy you hated to make it to your best friend’s wedding on time, and along the way, you and the guy actually realized that you got along pretty well, and became friends?”

A small smile plays on Y/N’s lips, and she raises her glass towards Harry. “Sounds like a plan.” She says softly, barely audible over the noise of the crowd. Harry lifts his pint glass and clicks it against her drink.

They both take a sip of their drinks, and when Harry lowers his glass, there’s a mischievous glint in his eye that immediately makes Y/N uneasy. “I have another idea for a story.” He says, setting his glass down and pointing towards the stage. “How about the story of us singing karaoke at a bar in Cleveland, Ohio?”

Y/N snorts, half folding herself over their table as the snort turns into a full laugh. “Not a chance in hell, Styles!” She says through her laughter, tapping her fingers against the wood table top.

Harry pushes her shoulder, making her sit up again as he tries to convince her. “Come on! We’ve been singing in the car for two days straight! There’s tons of songs we could do—”

“The car is completely different than a stage!” Y/N argues, shaking her head firmly. “No way!”

“What, are you worried about making a fool of yourself?” Harry raises an eyebrow as he gestures around the bar. “Is there anyone you know in the audience? The audience that’s full of people who are pissed out of their minds?”

Biting her lip hard for a moment, Y/N gives a reluctant shake of her head. “No.” She mumbles, looking down. “But I just—I don’t sing karaoke.”

“And you didn’t spend five days in the car with me, either. Until you did, and we had fun.” Harry points a ringed pointer finger at her, and the annoying glint in his eye means he knows he has her trapped. “There is literally no better place to try it than right now, in this bar, where you know no one.”

Y/N glances around the bar, appraising her surroundings. She knows Harry has a point; besides himself, she knows not a single soul in the building. They’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, and she won’t ever find herself in this bar—or, honestly, Cleveland, Ohio—again. If there was ever a time to try karaoke, it would be now.

And hasn’t this trip been full of trying new things? New foods, new conversations, new ways of thinking…Y/N finds herself locking eyes with Harry, losing herself in his intense gaze. Y/N’s not sure what’s swirling around in his irises, whether it’s alcohol or something else entirely, but it’s intoxicating.

Y/N lets out a harsh exhale, pulling the straw out of her drink and downing it entirely in one swift motion. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand as she slams the glass back on the table before looking back at Harry to find a new grin pasted across his pink lips.

“Alright.” Y/N slips off her stool, stumbling for just a moment until Harry catches her elbow. “You go pick the song.” She says, pointing towards the DJ near the stage. “I-I’m going to run to the bathroom.”

Harry nods, catching his lip between his teeth as his hand squeezes her arm. “Are you alright? You stumbled there—”

“I’m fine! Perfect, actually.” Y/N assures him, pulling away and walking towards the washroom. She calls over her shoulder to him as she does. “Go pick the song! I’ll be back in a moment!”

When Y/N reaches the washroom, she’s surprised to find it empty, and she’s even more surprised when she catches her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Is that really her? She wonders, propping herself up on the counter as she leans closer to examine herself. Her skin is flushed from the alcohol, all across her cheeks and neck, and it only gets warmer as the heat of the bar finally hits her. Y/N undoes the top few buttons of her plaid shirt, exposing her chest to the air. Cocking her head to the side, Y/N studies herself for a moment before undoing the rest of the buttons and rolling up the sleeves to wear the shirt like a cardigan, leaving her bralette exposed. It’s a different look than anything she’s ever done, but…she likes it, she realizes, as her eyes scan over her reflection. She likes this. Being somewhere that no one knows her, somewhere filled with people that won’t judge her for drinking too much, somewhere that she doesn’t have to worry about stories getting back to her work. Y/N likes the wild look in her eyes, the breathlessness stirring inside her, the plumpness of her lips from the ice of her drinks. When she looks at herself, she sees a different person. Someone she doesn’t recognize. Someone who seems to know what they want.

Her phone vibrating in her back pocket pulls her from her thoughts, and it takes Y/N a moment for her intoxicated self to manage to pull it out. When she sees Brant’s name flashing on the screen, she only hesitates for one second before hitting decline. That one second of hesitation, however, is all it takes to make her contemplate herself in the mirror again, second guessing what she sees. She tucks her phone away before washing her hands, and splashes a little bit of cold water on her cheeks to help cool herself down. Giving herself one last look over, Y/N buttons the few bottom buttons of her shirt back together, tying it into a neat knot to cover her stomach. Even if no one here knows her…she can’t get too wild. She still has to be who she is.

After exiting the bathroom, Y/N returns to the table, expecting Harry to be waiting there for her. All she finds, however, is his jacket tossed over the back of his chair, and his now empty pint glass sitting on the table. Y/N turns in a small circle, wondering where he is in the crowd when she hears his slightly slurred voice magnified over the speakers.

“Y/N. Up here, love, c’mon.”

Y/N turns towards the stage, her eyes wide as she realizes Harry has a microphone in one hand and has the other hand wrapped around the microphone stand. His smile is practically glowing underneath the stage lights, and his eyes seem to be doing the same. He releases the mic stand to run a hand through his hair before beckoning her forward.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Cleveland, this—” Harry points towards Y/N, and she almost swears that every person in the bar turns towards her. “This is my very good friend Y/N. And five days ago, she hated my guts!” The crowd boos, and Y/N stares at Harry with incredulous eyes. What is he doing?

“No, no, don’t boo, it’s alright. I hated her guts too.” Harry says with a shrug, leaning against the mic stand again. “But everything’s alright now! We’re getting along, she’s stopped being such a control freak, and she even said she would let me pick a song for us to sing tonight, isn’t that nice?”

The crowd cheers as Y/N walks towards the stage, stopping just before it to stare up at Harry as he continues his drunken monologue. If she was sober, she’d probably pull him down from the stage, grab the front of his patterned button down shirt, and drag him back to their table. But the alcohol running through her system is making her bold, and with her head swimming in the amber liquid she’d been consuming, all she can do is laugh and stumble her way to the stairs to the stage.

Someone wearing a t-shirt with the bar’s logo on it helps her up the stairs, handing her a microphone once she makes it onto the stage. Harry, realizing she’s where she needs to be now, motions to the DJ behind her, and a familiar beat that Y/N can’t place begins to play.

“Harry—” Y/N speaks without raising the microphone to her lips. “What song—?”

“Don’t worry, you know it.” Harry assures her, his eyes flickering over her appearance quickly. “You look great. Just go with it!”

There’s really no choice but to go with it, she thinks, because within a moment, Harry has a simpering smile on his face as he lifts the microphone to his lips, his body turned towards the audience but his eyes flickering to you.

“‘I wasn’t jealous before we met…now every man I see is a potential threat’.” He sings in a confident voice, and Y/N watches the split second it takes for the crowd to realize he’s actually good. And it’s not just his voice, she thinks. It’s his demeanor. The part of Harry’s personality that had first irritated her, the part that lives for a spotlight, the part that can draw someone in with a snap of a finger…that part shines on a stage.

In contrast, all Y/N can do is stare with a shocked expression painted across her face as Harry continues to serenade the crowd. He makes eye contact with specific people as he croons the next lines, his hand confidently wrapped around the microphone “‘And I’m possessive, it isn’t nice…you’ve heard me say that smoking is my only voice’.”

It’s then that Harry’s attention turns back to Y/N, his eyelids hooded, half hiding his emerald eyes as he saunters back towards her. It’s like a switch has flipped in his head, because Y/N is certain that he’s never looked at her in this way before. “‘But now it isn’t true…now everything is new’…” The closer Harry gets to her, the less Y/N can breathe. By the time he’s a foot away from her, she feels like her breaths are stuttering in her chest, giving barely enough oxygen to her body to keep her going.

Harry, it seems, is unaware of the affect he’s having on her. His long limbs are loose and free as he continues to move closer, the smirk on his face intertwined with something deeper that Y/N’s drunken mind can’t quite put her finger on. “‘And all I’ve learned, has overturned…I beg of you’…”

The scent of cologne, alcohol, and sweat that emanates from Harry as he gets close enough to press his forehead to hers reminds Y/N exactly where she is, and what she’s supposed to be doing. Just managing to bring the microphone to her lips in time, Y/N shoves Harry on his shoulder, pushing him away enough that she can walk past him and distance herself. “‘Don’t go wasting your emotion’…” She sings, glancing at him over her shoulder as she moves away. Harry watches her with darkened eyes, a hungry look on his face as Y/N begins to sway her hips to the music. It’s fun, she realizes, being on stage like this, and playing the part with Harry as she sets down a challenge. “‘Lay all your love on me’.”

The crowd cheers as Harry begins to take measured steps towards Y/N again, looking like the cat who wants to catch the canary. Y/N, ever the competitive player, refuses to give in so easily, and quickly extends a hand to two people sitting in front of the stage. They give her support as she slides down from the platform, working her way through the tables without so much as a glance behind herself at Harry, who she knows is following her.

“‘It was like shooting a sitting duck…a little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck’.” Y/N finally turns around, pausing her walk to see Harry hopping down from the stage. She points at him slowly, giving a small shake of her head as she sings the next line. “‘I still don’t know what you’ve done to me…a grownup woman should never fall so easily’…”

Harry’s smirk only grows, and he runs a hand haphazardly through his sweaty curls. He’s enjoying playing the part too, and Y/N can tell by the way he allows her to cross the seating area, so that they’re walking parallel to each other towards the bar. He’s not chasing her down. He’s taking his time, knowing that he’ll get her in the end.

“‘I feel a kind of fear…when I don’t have you near’…” Y/N pauses at a table of two men and a woman, leaning down between the latter two. She only takes her eyes off Harry for a moment to give a questioning look to the man, who gives her a smile of permission. Y/N runs her fingers across his shoulder and down his arm, but keeps her eyes glued to Harry the entire time. “‘Unsatisfied, I skip my pride…I beg you dear’…”

When he sees Y/N’s fingers trace down the collar of someone else, Harry’s brow furrows in jealousy, his jade eyes shifting even darker than they were before. He keeps pace with Y/N as she begins to move again, but there’s an air of tension in his saunter that wasn’t there a moment ago. When he sings, it sounds like half plea, half demand. “‘Don’t go wasting your emotion…lay all your love on me’.” Harry rounds a table of people before beginning to close the distance between him and Y/N, each of them now standing in front of the bar. With the tension between them now palpable, the crowd is moving out of their way discreetly, watching as the two approach each other. Harry licks his red lips before singing the next line. “‘Don’t go sharing your devotion…lay all your love on me’.”

Y/N releases her bottom lip from between her teeth, running her fingers over the finished wood of the bar before pulling herself to sit atop it. She crosses her legs carefully before leaning her weight on one hand, giving a small shrug, knowing that Harry’s eyes are glued to her every motion as the bartender pours him a shot. “‘I’ve had a few little love affairs…they didn’t last very long and they’ve been pretty scarce’…”

Harry’s lips wrap around the shot glass, throwing it back just in time to sing the next line as tequila drips from the corner of his mouth. The drop of alcohol runs down his chin to trace the muscles of his neck, and as Harry pulls himself to sit next to Y/N on the bar, the only thing she wants to do is lean forward and lick the liquor from his skin.

“‘I used to think I was sensible’…” Harry passes a newly poured shot to Y/N, meaning for her to take it from him, and he nearly stutters over his next line as Y/N wraps her hand around his own, guiding him to guide the shot to her mouth. There’s a sharp intake of air into the microphone before Harry can sing again, and Y/N smirks at the small victory as she wipes her mouth doing her best to hide how the bitter taste of the tequila affects her. “‘It makes the truth even more incomprehensible’.”

Y/N brings her microphone to her mouth again to sing the next verse with Harry, their eyes locked together as they lean forward into each other. Despite the cheering of the crowd, Y/N can’t help but feel as though she and Harry are the only two in the bar, as if this—very public—performance were small and intimate and just between them.

“‘Because everything is new’…” Harry grips the knot in Y/N’s plaid shirt, easily pulling it undone with one hand. His eyes break away from hers for only a moment to canvas over her newly exposed midriff and lace bralette before snapping back to her gaze with a renewed vigor. He keeps the tails of the shirt clutched within his strong hand as he begins to lean back on the bar, pulling Y/N down with him.

“‘And everything is you’…” Y/N almost falls over before she catches herself, bracing one hand beside Harry’s head on the bar to support her weight as he lays down fully. She can feel how tightly he’s gripping her shirt by how the hem of it is pressing into her skin, and the pressure of the fabric cues another kind of pressure to begin to curl inside her stomach. When she sucks in a breath, she can taste tequila and Harry’s cologne on her tongue, and she struggles to bite back a whine while Harry wraps her shirt tighter around his hand.

“‘And all I’ve learned has overturned’…” Harry releases the wrinkled fabric of her shirt, his now freed hand trading the cloth for the skin of her exposed waist. The coolness of his rings against her flushed skin makes Y/N’s breath stutter, and she curls her body over him more in response. The taste of Harry’s touch has sparked a need to be closer, as well as a new fluttering in her core, and judging by the way Harry keeps licking his lips, he knows it.

Refusing to be the only one affected by their close proximity, Y/N moves her supporting hand from the bar to Harry’s hair, tugging on it harshly as Harry opens his mouth to sing the next line. As Y/N sings “‘I beg of you’…” with a pleading glance, Harry grunts deep in his throat, just managing to pull the microphone away from his lips so that Y/N is the only one to hear it.

Although getting a reaction out of Harry was her goal, actually hearing that reaction is another story entirely. Heat rushes to Y/N’s face as Harry grips her waist tighter, pressing her thighs and hips to his own as he guides the two of them to the beat of the music. The cheering and wolf whistles from the crowd are the only thing that keep Y/N grounded and in the moment, reminding her that—despite how it feels—there are people watching the two of them.

“‘Don’t go wasting your emotion…lay all your love on me’.” Harry grinds his hip against Y/N’s once more, moving them in a steady and consistent pace. Y/N repositions her body in return, spreading her legs so she can straddle Harry’s hips more easily. She knows, though, that she needs to start pulling back. She has to do something to get away from him, to break the trance that his touch has her in, before she does something she’ll regret.

“‘Don’t go sharing your devotion’…” Y/N slowly sits back up, letting go of Harry’s hair in order to trail her free hand down his chest. Although she knows that she’s supposed to be distancing herself from him, she can’t resist digging her nails in just the slightest bit, delighting in the hiss that leaves his mouth. “‘Lay all your love on me’…”

Harry sits up slowly as the key changes, his eyes glued to Y/N’s lips as she sings a line by herself, her voice growing ever so slightly fainter every time Harry tugs on his red lips with his teeth, soothing the mark with his tongue a moment after. “‘Don’t go wasting your emotion…lay all your love on me’…”

Now that they’re both sitting upright, Harry grips their bodies and turns them so that their legs once again dangle off the bar. Y/N can feel the blood rushing from her head as she drapes her arm over Harry’s shoulder, her eyelids fluttering as Harry digs his fingertips into her waist. “‘Don’t go sharing your devotion’…” Harry’s pupils are so blown that his irises practically look black. His chest is heaving with every breath, his exposed skin flushed and sweaty. His curls are a mess from Y/N tangling her fingers in them. If Y/N didn’t know any better, she’d say Harry looks freshly fucked, and then she wonders if she looks the same. By the way Harry’s looking at her, she thinks it’s safe to say that she does.

“‘Lay all your love on me’.” They finish together, hungry eyes locked with each other while the wolf whistles and clapping gets louder as the final notes of the song trail off. This is where they should break apart, Y/N thinks, her chest moving rapidly with every ragged breath she takes. This is where she should climb off Harry’s lap, climb down from the bar, return the microphones to the DJ, and gather her things and go. This is the end of whatever the hell just happened during that song. This is where she says “Harry, we have to be up early tomorrow to drive, so we should go back to the motel.”

To her credit, Y/N tries. She swallows hard, her mouth as dry as it’s ever been, and sucks in another breath, almost whimpering at the taste of his cologne in the back of her throat. Don’t, she tells herself. She needs to say what she needs to say. Their game is done. It’s over.

“Harry—” She begins, and that’s all she manages to say before Harry is kissing her.

Her body reacts before her mind does, but between the overwhelming sensations all around her and the copious amounts of liquor that her brain is swimming in, Y/N can only register every third movement. The microphone falling from her hand onto the bar as she tangles her fingers back in Harry’s curls, twisting and pulling and receiving the most delightful gasps from him in return. Harry’s teeth catching her bottom lip, just barely tugging on the tender flesh. Ringed hands keeping a firm grip on Y/N’s sides as Harry helps her down from the bar, his lips still pressed firmly against her own. The lingering taste of tequila on Harry’s skin as Y/N kisses down his jaw, unable to completely pull away as Harry struggles to settle their tab with the bartender.

She’s never felt like this before; Y/N didn’t even know it could feel like this. She didn’t know that she could feel an ache so deep inside her, both painful and pleasurable at the same time, and be so completely aware that the only cure for it is the touch of another person. Y/N had been convinced that this rush was something that was fiction, made up by steamy romance novels to entice lonely housewives to dive beneath their pages. And yet here she is, stumbling out of a bar in Cleveland, Ohio, with Harry Styles, someone that she swore up and down that she hated five days ago. Here she is with Harry’s jacket draped over her heated shoulders, his hands slipped underneath, rubbing at her exposed skin as he guides her back to the motel. Here she is with his lips connected to her neck the moment their motel room door is closed, his fingers fumbling with the locks on the door as he refuses to pull away from her.

Yes, Y/N thinks, as she grinds her hips against Harry’s, relishing in the strangled moan that he breathes into her mouth: it’s never felt like this.

“Y/N—” Each pant of her name from his lips sounds like a song. “Fuck, Y/N—” Harry pulls back from her just enough to suck in a full breath, the first in what feels like hours. “I—we—”

“Shut up.” Y/N uses her grip on his hair to pull his head back, trailing open mouthed kisses over his jugular. “Just shut up, Harry, I need—I just need—”

“Need what?” Harry demands, eyes dark as he pushes himself away from her. An involuntary whine at the loss of contact escapes from Y/N’s throat, and Harry has to steel himself again before he can continue. “What do you need?” He asks, struggling to keep his voice controlled. “You—you have to tell me, so that—I need you to be clear.”

Y/N licks over her swollen lips, eyes blown wide with lust as she stares up at Harry, struggling to find the words. “I need…” She swallows once more, inhaling sharply as he grips her shoulders to steady her. “I need you, Harry. Just fuck me. I-I need you to—”

Before she can finish her request, Harry has scooped her up into his arms, tossing her on the creaking motel bed as if she were a rag doll. A gasp of shock leaves Y/N’s mouth, and she’s barely managed to sit up before Harry is caging his body over hers, forcing her back down as he kisses her hard.

Y/N’s hands go straight to the hem of his shirt, tugging roughly on the fabric, shoving it up Harry’s body before he gets the clue to half sit up and pull it off himself. After that, it’s a rush to remove clothes, each of them blindly pulling off shirts and bras and pants. Everything is rushed, and that’s what Y/N wants. She doesn’t want time to lay down and explore, and allow herself space to second guess her decision. All she wants is Harry to do something about the ache in her core, to fill her up so completely that she’ll be feeling him for days. It’s that need that makes Y/N tug on his hair to get his attention as he begins to kiss her thighs.

“No.” She shakes her head haphazardly, and the room spins slightly when she finishes the motion. “No, I just—I just need you to fuck me. I’m ready, Harry—”

“But—” His teeth tug roughly on his bottom lip, mimicking Y/N’s actions from moments ago. “I want to taste—”

“Please, Harry.” Y/N whines, throwing her head back on the motel pillow. “It’s been so long since I’ve been full…please…”

The lewd admission catches Harry off guard. “Fucking hell—” He spits out, his hands tugging on his hair as he sits up. “Yeah, I—okay.” He closes his eyes for a moment to steady himself, the struggle to have a coherent thought clear on his face. “Okay, I need…”

Harry’s eyes begin to search the room, and the moment they settle on his bag in the corner, he rushes towards it. Y/N watches the muscles in his back shift beneath his smooth skin as he unzips the bag, rummaging through it before pulling out a tiny foil square. He tucks the package between his teeth as his hands fumble with his belt, undoing it quickly and pulling it off to toss to the floor. He undoes his button and fly as he climbs back onto the bed, doing his best to waste no time as he situates himself between Y/N’s still spread legs.

“Y’look so hot like this, y’know that?” He can’t stop himself from muttering the words as he pulls his pants down just enough to free his cock. Y/N stares hungrily at how swollen he is, only half listening to Harry’s words as she watches his hand stroke himself, the other lifting the condom package to his teeth. He tears the foil open, spitting the little tag from his mouth as he removes the condom from the foil. That foil is soon tossed to the ground before Harry gives himself one last stroke, quickly but carefully rolling the condom down the length of his shaft.

Placing his hands on either knee, Harry spreads Y/N’s legs even wider, his eyes greedily taking in the sight of her bare core. “You’re dripping.” Harry says in a low voice, and before Y/N can reply with anything, he runs a ringed finger over her folds and slips it into his mouth.

“Ah—!” Y/N gasps at the unexpected sensation, the minimal contact enough to send her reeling. Harry grins at the response, loving how the pleasure from the small action is clearly written across her face.

“Sorry.” He says with a small shrug, lining himself up with her entrance. “Just wanted a little taste, tha’s all. Couldn’t resist.” Harry drags the tip of his cock along Y/N’s slick core, a look of concentration overtaking his features. “I’ll go slow—”

A sound of protest leaves Y/N’s mouth. “No. Go fast. I need it, Harry, please—” Her plea is cut off by Harry thrusting inside her with one sharp movement, and then Y/N stops talking completely.

There’s a slight feeling of pain, as she wasn’t lying when she said it’s been a while since she’s been with someone, but underneath that pain, pleasure is quickly building as Harry begins to snap his hips towards hers, finding a rhythm within a few thrusts. Y/N knows immediately that Harry is probably one of the largest men—if not the largest man—she’s ever been with, but that’s exactly what she needs right now. The moment he filled her for the first time, there was a feeling of completeness that she’s been missing in her life for a long time. She needed this, she thinks. She needed to be stretched, to be filled, to be fucked, and Harry is the only one that could have fulfilled those needs this well. She’s convinced of it.

It’s far from the most romantic sex Y/N’s ever had; it’s all teeth clacking, biting, scratching, tugging, and growling. And she knows that she should be concerned about how Harry’s teeth biting down on her shoulder is going to leave marks, especially when she has to wear a bridesmaid dress in less than 48 hours. But all of that is exactly what she needs. She doesn’t want Harry to whisper how much he loves her, how close he feels to her, how happy he is to be with her. She doesn’t want to hear him say anything, except—

“Feel so fucking good around my cock.” He growls, his fingertips digging deeper into the flesh of her hips. “So bloody tight, Y/N…”

A sharp gasp tumbles out of Y/N’s throat as Harry swivels his hips, finding the exact spot she needs him the most. “Oh God, Harry, I—” Y/N scratches her nails down his back, surely leaving a trail of angry red marks in her place, as her other hand twists the sheets within her grip. “Fuck, right there, right there, right there—”

“Feels good, yeah? You like it?” Harry manages to bring a hand to her hair, tangling it within her locks and pulling hard. “Tell me.” His voice is so much lower than she’s ever heard it, his accent so much thicker, and the combination sends Y/N’s eyes rolling into the back of her head. “Tell me how much you love my cock, and—fuck—how much you love me fucking you.”

Y/N’s mouth falls open, a strangled whine echoing from the back of her throat as the head of Harry’s cock presses against her G-spot again. “I-I love it, Harry, I—your cock fills me so well—don’t stop, please don’t stop—!”

Using her moans as fuel, Harry begins to thrust faster, tugging on Y/N’s hair one last time before grasping her hips between his hands to gain more control. If his flushed skin and the sweat covering his entire body is any indication, Y/N can tell that Harry is just as close as she is. Her breathing quickens just as the sound of the bed creaking does, and she brings one hand down to her clit to rub fast circles, desperate to reach her release.

“Harry—” She gasps for what seems the millionth time that night, her body shuddering as she pushes closer and closer to the edge. “I’m so fucking close, Harry, please—”

The growl that falls from Harry’s mouth almost doesn’t sound like him. It’s deeper, more animalistic, and so unlike the careful and slow voice that she’s gotten used to over the last five days. Releasing one hand from her hip, he pushes her hand out of the way, replacing her fingers with his own to rub circles over her clit. “Cum for me, Y/N. I know you need it, baby, so just—” Harry groans as her walls squeeze his length. “Just cum.”

The command combined with his motions is all it takes to push Y/N over the edge. A breathless gasp falls from her open mouth, and she screws her eyes shut as pleasure courses through her body. It’s so much more intense than anything she’s felt before, so much more pleasurable, so much more dizzying, and just so much more. Small whimpers and Harry’s name are the only things she can think to say as her orgasm makes her movements stutter before falling limply back onto the bed.

“Fuck—” Harry moans roughly as he kisses her one more time, his mouth falling open against hers as her orgasm triggers his own. Although the rhythm of his thrusts stutters, they don’t completely stop, and he continues to slam his hips against her own as he rides out his orgasm. “That’s it, baby—squeeze me tight—” Harry pants into Y/N’s mouth, barely registering anything he’s saying, let alone the pet name that’s begun to fall from his lips. “Christ…”

Things become a blur after that. After Harry pulls out, all Y/N can focus on is how empty she feels without his thick cock filling her to the brim, and she doesn’t even realize that he’s gotten off the bed until he returns, his weight causing the whole bed frame to creak once more. With both of them so sweaty, Harry only pulls the top sheet over their panting bodies, pressing his head into the crook of Y/N’s neck as his eyes close.

Neither of them says anything, and for multiple reasons. What exactly is there to say? And, more pressing, what exactly is Y/N capable of saying right now? There are no words running through her mind. All she can do is think in terms of physical contact and needs, and those two things tell her everything she knows in this moment. She knows that Harry is in just his boxers now because she can’t feel the rough fabric of his pants against her bare skin. She knows that she needs his hands on her, cupping her breasts the way he is. She knows that if he were to move away from her, she’d go chasing after him. She knows that she’s completely worn out—completely fucked out, really—and above all else, she knows that whatever needs to be discussed between them can be discussed the next morning.

Harry, however, seems to have a different approach. His face still pressed into her neck, he mumbles something against her sweat soaked skin, low and deep and completely inaudible. Y/N feels an open mouthed kiss pressed to her neck, and then hears another mumble, this one even quieter than the last.

“Hm?” Y/N barely manages to hum the syllable in her exhaustion.

There’s no response, no repeat of the quiet phrases, and it takes Y/N a few minutes of feeling Harry’s breathing even out to realize that he’s fallen asleep. If she were sober and had the mental capacity to examine things, Y/N would wonder what it was that Harry whispered into her skin. But her brain is swimming in exhaustion and endorphins and tequila, and the only thing she can do is close her eyes and allow her breathing to sync up with the rise and fall of Harry’s chest.

…

The first thing Y/N registers the next morning is the shrill ringing of her cell phone, which somehow made its way to the bedside table in her drunken fervour the night before. The second thing she registers is the pounding of her head, like she can feel each pump of blood to her brain, and the uncomfortably dry feeling in her mouth, as if it’s been stuffed full of cotton. The third thing Y/N registers is—

“Christ.” Harry groans into her neck, his voice raspy from sleep and laced with irritation. “God, who is calling right now?”

Right. The third thing she registers, probably the most complicated of all, Y/N thinks, is just how much of Harry’s taut and tattooed bare skin is pressed against her own. His strong arms are thrown over her waist, clutching her tight to his chest. In the back of her mind, she’s vaguely aware of the chain of Harry’s cross pressing into her breast, probably leaving a small red indentation along with the other marks he left on her last night.

Last night.

Y/N lets out a small whine as the previous evening comes rushing back to her. It’s a blur of alcohol, ABBA, and Harry. Harry is everywhere, in every blurred picture her hungover brain can conjure. Laughing at her from across the table. Smirking at her on stage. Staring at her with a hungry look in his eyes as he pulled her down on top of him on the bar, grinding his hips into hers. Kissing her. Kissing her multiple times. Coming back to their room with his hands leaving scorching imprints over every inch of her. And now, him laying next to her, clutching the two of them together like they’ve always done this. Like it’s natural.

The phone rings again, louder than the last time, and Harry curses under his breath, the short exhale of air leaving goosebumps along Y/N’s neck. He lifts his head just barely as he reaches across Y/N’s body, grabbing her phone from the bedside table and not bothering to check the caller ID as he answers.

“Hello?” He says, the rasp of sleep still clear his voice. Within three seconds, Harry’s entire body tenses against Y/N, his arm constricting around her waist enough to shift her on the bed.

Y/N lifts her head up when she feels the change, finally opening her eyes just enough to read the change in Harry’s body language. What she finds are dark and stormy green eyes, a swollen red mouth pressed into a thin line, and a deep crease between his furrowed brow, all of it such a contrast from the hazy memories of him the night before.

“I—yeah, she’s right here.” Harry mutters, his eyes snapping to Y/N’s face for just a moment. “I’ll—oh. Yeah, no, the trip’s been…good. Yeah. Not too much traffic.” His arm moves off her waist as he pulls away from her, rolling onto his back as the bed creaks beneath them. With his newly freed hand, Harry covers his eyes, rubbing them for a moment as the irritation on his face grows. “Yeah, it was nice of me to give her a ride. Yeah.” He sucks in a breath. “Well, she’s—she’s awake now. Here. I’ll let you two talk.”

Y/N props herself up on one elbow, careful to keep the sheet pressed to her chest so that she’s not exposed. She knows that Harry’s already seen everything, touched everything, and kissed everything, but the sudden change in his demeanor is telling her that she needs to be guarded, even if she has no idea what caused it.

Harry holds out her phone for her, his face stony as Y/N slowly accepts it. “Harry—?” She begins, but he just gives a rough jerk of his head, and offers no other explanation.

Eyes still glued to Harry’s face, Y/N brings the phone to her ear, clearing the sleep from her voice. “Hello?”

“Hi.” The familiar cadence of Brant’s voice crackles through the phone speaker, an indication of how far away he is from her. “It’s good to finally hear your voice; I haven’t been able to catch you the last few days.”

Y/N keeps her eyes on Harry as her body goes cold, pressing the sheet tighter to her chest. “Brant.” She whispers his name unintentionally; her body won’t allow her to say it any louder. “Hi.”

At the sound of Brant’s voice leaving her lips, Harry throws the covers off of himself, jerkily pulling himself off of the low motel room bed. He snatches his jeans off the floor, and doesn’t give Y/N another glance as he walks to the small bathroom, slamming the door behind himself.

“Hi.” Brant says again, completely unaware of what’s happening on the other end of the telephone line. “I’ve missed you. Where are you now?”

“Uh, Cleveland.” Y/N says weakly, stumbling her way out of the bed to her duffel bag. She grabs a new bra and t-shirt, along with her comfiest pair of pants. Without Harry beside her, she’s freezing. “Today’s our last day of driving.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.” Brant replies easily. “The wedding is tomorrow, then?”

“Mhmm.” Y/N’s eyes flicker to the bathroom as the sound of the shower starting travels through the wood of the door. “And tonight is the rehearsal dinner.”

Brant makes a sound of acknowledgement on the other end of the phone. “That’ll be nice! Do you know if you’re flying back?”

“Uh—” Y/N pauses her movements, her pants half pulled up her legs. That, honestly, is a good question, and one which seems as though the answer is changing with every passing moment. “I guess I’ll call the airline and…see if I can fly back. Maybe the storms will have passed.”

“You must have driven through them, right? In Utah, or wherever they were?” Brant asks curiously. “Did they seem that bad? Honestly, I’ve always found thunder to be relaxing. I think most people do.”

Y/N tugs her t-shirt over her head with one hand, accidentally bumping her chin as she does so. The motion causes her to bite down on her tongue, and she lets out a curse under her breath, not even bothering to correct Brant. It doesn’t matter, she thinks. He probably wouldn’t remember. “Yeah. Relaxing.”

The sound of the shower turning off catches her attention, distracting her from what Brant says next. “I—sorry—” She mutters in a distracted tone, raking her fingers through her sleep and sex mussed hair. “What was that?”

“I said let me know when you’re on your way back from New York, so I’ll make us a dinner reservation.” Brant repeats himself without suspicion of Y/N’s distracted tone. “We just got some new files at work that I think you’ll be very interested in.”

The bathroom door creaks open, and Harry emerges from the cloud of shower steam. He’s dressed in just his pants, his marked chest still damp from the shower. Although he catches Y/N’s eye for a moment, he quickly looks away, rubbing his towel through his wet curls as he turns to search for a shirt. The red marks of Y/N’s nails are prominent on his otherwise unmarked back.

“Dinner?” Y/N repeats slowly, chewing on her cuticle as she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “Are you—you still want to get dinner?”

“Of course. I enjoy our weekly dinners, don’t you?” Brant asks, confusion finally slipping into his voice. “I’ve missed them.”

“I—” Y/N clears her throat, rubbing her thumb absentmindedly over her bottom lip. “Okay. Yeah. Dinner. I’ll, um, I’ll let you know when I book a flight home.”

“Sounds wonderful. Well, I’ll let you get on the road. Let me know when you’re available.” Brant’s voice already sounds more and more distant. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.” Y/N replies lamely, letting her phone drop to the crumpled bed sheets.

There’s a rustling behind her, the sound of a belt clicking, of the zipper on a duffel bag being pulled shut. Y/N waits for a moment, to give Harry the chance to say something to her, but nothing comes. Finally, she twists around on the bed, her nerves running on high.

Harry is completely dressed now, a black t-shirt covering his previously bare chest, and he’s tied his familiar green bandana into his damp chestnut locks. His sunglasses are hanging on the neck of his shirt, but even without them covering his emerald eyes, Y/N can’t decipher anything that’s swirling within them.

“That—that was Brant.” She says finally, scratching a nail over the palm of her hand.

Harry jerks his head in a nod as he shoulders his duffel bag. “Yeah. I heard.” Tapping his fingers against the leather strap, he finally spares a glance at Y/N. “He wants to take you to dinner, huh?”

Running her teeth along her bottom lip, Y/N takes a moment before she replies. “Harry, I—”

“I’ll be in the car.” He mutters, taking long strides to the door and unlocking it with a harsh turn of his hand. “Just hurry up, yeah? I want to get on the road soon, so we’re not late to the rehearsal dinner.”

When he slams the door behind him, Y/N breaks.

…

And just like that, it’s like they’re back at square one.

It really feels like the first day all over again, Y/N thinks, in every sense of the sentiment. From the way she and Harry sit in silence, each avoiding the other’s gaze, to how every single one of Harry’s movements is filled with a tight and tense irritation. Even the sound of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” is familiar, echoing through the speakers of the car like a soundtrack to an old memory.

After four hours, the silence is finally getting to her. She can’t stop shifting in her seat, her muscles seizing from hours on end in the same position—although, frankly, her soreness may partially be a result of her and Harry’s activities from the night before—and with every short and hard breath Harry sighs, Y/N gets more and more antsy.

“Harry.” She says finally, risking a glance at him from the corner of her eye. He has one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick shift, both grips tight enough to stretch his skin over the bones of his knuckles until it goes white. At the sound of Y/N’s voice, his jaw flexes, but he shows no other evidence that he heard her.

A frustrated sigh falls past Y/N’s lips. “Harry.” She says again, firmer this time. “Are you going to ignore me all the way to the Catskills?”

Realizing that he can’t feign deafness, Harry lets his shoulders lift once and drop down again in a quick motion. “’M not ignoring you.” He mutters, keeping his eyes glued to the road.

“We’re not talking. At all.” Y/N taps her fingers against her knee, just slightly off the beat of the music. “Shouldn’t we talk about what happened?”

“Why?” Harry asks, his voice flatter than she’s ever heard it. “What’s there to talk about?”

Y/N twists her body in her seat, her seat belt nearly cutting into her throat with how quickly she moves. “What the hell do you mean, what’s there to talk about? There’s plenty! Last night—”

Harry cuts over her with a sharp tone, still refusing to look away from the road. “Last night we got drunk, and we made a mistake.” His grip tightens even more on the gear shift as he moves it to accelerate the car. “And it shouldn’t have happened.”

It takes a few moment for the words to register in her brain, and Y/N blinks slowly as the process unfolds. “You think it was a mistake?” She tries to ask the question as nonchalantly as possible.

“I do.” Harry nods tightly, and while Y/N thinks that she can detect something else underneath his tone, his dark sunglasses hide the truth of his thoughts from her. “We got caught up with trying to—to pretend we’re not who we are. But we know who we are.”

If Y/N’s brain couldn’t process Harry’s words a moment ago, it’s working in overdrive now as she draws a million different conclusions from the conversation. What the fuck does “we know who we are” mean? Wasn’t the whole point of this trip—the long lesson they’d learned together—that both of them were different than the other had thought? Hadn’t Harry proved to her, over and over, how he was so much more considerate and empathetic than she’d previously imagined? Hadn’t she shown him that she wasn’t the Ice Queen he thought she was, wasn’t as controlling, wasn’t as perfect? Hadn’t that been a good thing? Hadn’t they bonded at roadside fruit stands, small souvenir shacks, ghost town gas stations, and dingy motel rooms?

But maybe…maybe she had imagined all of that, because the way that Harry is actively avoiding her gaze is telling her that he isn’t thinking the same thing. Everything from his body language, to his tone of voice, to his attitude, is telling her that he’s just as stubborn and closed off as he was when they first met. He hasn’t changed. If he had, he wouldn’t be refusing to do something as simple as look at her.

Still, something about the interaction doesn’t sit right with Y/N. Although she turns to face the windshield again, she keeps Harry in the corner of her gaze. “Is this…” She swallows hard. “Does this have something to do with Brant calling?”

A harsh snort is all the response she gets. “Christ, no. Trust me, nothing that prick can do has that much of an affect on me.” Even from behind his sunglasses, Y/N can tell that Harry is rolling his eyes. “Although I suppose it is a reminder of where you belong.”

A flash of irritation rips up Y/N’s spine. “A reminder of what?” She repeats, eyes narrowing.

“You heard me, Y/N, don’t make me say it again.” Harry taps a finger to the song, perfectly on the beat. They’re out of sync, Y/N realizes. Had they ever been in sync?

No, she decides. They hadn’t. She’d just been fooling herself. Being in the car for five days with only Harry for company had deluded her, but soon she’d be with Jo, and a million other people, and when she’s not in stuck in Harry’s car, smelling Harry’s cologne, listening to Harry’s music, she’ll have a clear head. She’ll be able to think straight.

“Fine.” Y/N crosses her arms firmly over her chest, leaning her head against the cool glass of the passenger window. A sign welcoming them to the state of New York whizzes past. “I won’t make you say it again. You don’t have to say anything.”

…

“So? What do you think?”

Y/N steps over the threshold of the cozy cabin, analyzing every little detail of the room as quickly as she can. The interior seems to be one open concept room, cleverly split up with small architectural dividers. The living room and kitchen flowed into each other smoothly, with a kitchen island dividing the space. To the left of the living room is a small reading nook, holding a comfortable looking wicker swing chair and a half-size bookshelf that seems to be well stocked. Separating the reading nook from the rest of the cabin is the staircase, which Y/N presumes leads up to the master bedroom and bathroom that’s lofted above on the halved second floor. Between the wall of windows giving a beautiful view of the forest, the fire quietly cracking in the living room, and the potted plants scattered around the cabin, Y/N has to admit that she thinks she could live in this space for the rest of her life.

“It’s beautiful, Jo.” She finally replies, setting down her suitcase and duffel bag as she continues to look around. She walks to the living room first, brushing her fingers over the cable knit blanket that’s draped over the back of the comfortable looking couch. “Is this for you and Laure?”

“Nope. It’s for me and you.” Jo replies, walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge. She pulls out a bottle of rosé, motioning over her shoulder to the cupboard. “Grab a couple wine glasses, would you?”

Y/N crosses to the kitchen, searching through the cupboards until she finds the glasses. Setting them down on the island, she gives Jo a confused look. “Me and you?”

Jo gives her a familiar grin as she uncorks the wine, and the sight of it lights a warm fire in Y/N’s chest. It feels like home. “It’s tradition for the bride not to see the bride before the wedding, isn’t it? So after the rehearsal dinner, Laure and I will say goodbye until the ceremony tomorrow, and you and I—” She fills Y/N’s glass liberally. “Will have one last night of single girl fun. And then you can have the cabin to yourself tomorrow night, because I will be on my honeymoon, and, hopefully, getting laid.”

Y/N smiles back at her as she lifts her glass, clinking it against Jo’s. “Sounds like a plan.” After taking a long sip, Y/N leans her elbows on the counter, propping her head in her hands. “I can’t believe you’re getting married tomorrow. Married!”

“Yeah, well, that’s old news.” Jo waves her hand as she lowers her wine glass from her lips, her inquisitive eyes alight with mischief. “I’d rather know how the trip with Harry was. Are you two finally getting along? The last time I called, you actually sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

Y/N pauses with her wine glass half lifted to her lips. Part of her wants to tell Jo everything, because she always tells Jo everything. It feels wrong to have a secret from her. But then again, she’s never had a reason to have a secret before. Right now, however…the last thing Jo and Laure need the night before their wedding—three hours before the rehearsal dinner—is to be stressed because the maid of honour and the best man had a drunken one night stand in Cleveland, Ohio.

“I wouldn’t say we’re getting along.” Y/N says diplomatically, taking a sip of wine between her words. “We’re…a bit better, I suppose. But we’re not that close.”

“Really?” When Jo raises an eyebrow, Y/N almost swears that she can detect a hint of disappointment in her voice. “But Harry said—”

“He said what?” Y/N asks quickly, the diplomatic tone disappearing immediately.

Jo tugs on her bottom lip as she gives a small shrug of her shoulders. “Nothing, I guess. I don’t know. I overheard him and Laure talking last night, but I couldn’t really make much of it out. It sounded like you two were at a bar.”

The new information makes Y/N pause. Harry had called Laure while they were at the bar last night. Harry had felt the need to call Laure while they were at the bar last night. What had been so urgent, so pressing, that he needed to speak to her right then and there?

“A bar, yeah.” Y/N finally replies after a moment. “It was alright. We just had a couple drinks to relax from being in the car.”

“Just drinks? That’s all? Nothing else?”

Y/N clears her throat, gulping down the rest of her wine before answering. “That’s it. Nothing else.”

…

“Here you go, Miss Bride.” Y/N grins at Jo as she tops off her mimosa, fixing the tie of her pink silk robe as she settles back down in her chair. “Something to relax you, yeah?”

Jo glances up at Y/N, her pen pausing over the page of her notebook. She’s careful when she moves her head, so as not to disturb the hairstylist that’s carefully curling her hair, but still manages to meet Y/N’s eye. “I’m relaxed.” She argues, but takes a sip of the drink nonetheless. “I just love mimosas. You can’t blame me for that.”

Y/N gives a slight shrug as she brushes a strand of her own carefully styled hair over her shoulder. Jo, being Jo, had insisted on sleeping in as much as she could that morning, so when the hair and makeup lady had arrived two hours ago, Y/N had been the first one to get made over. Which, honestly, she quite enjoyed, but the real feat would be remaining picture perfect until the ceremony, which is still two hours away.

“Will you do something for me?” Jo asks suddenly, her pen still scratching over her notebook. She finishes signing her name with a messy signature, waiting until the hairdresser has paused her movements to rip the page from the notebook and fold it up. She quickly writes Laure’s name on the front and extends the note to Y/N. “Will you bring this to Laure?”

Although Y/N accepts the note from her automatically, there’s a flicker of hesitation in her voice. “This isn’t an explanation of why you’re leaving her at the altar, is it?”

Jo flips Y/N off with an elegantly painted fingernail. “No, you jerk. We agreed to write letters to each other right before the wedding. As a little keepsake.”

A sudden lump develops in Y/N’s throat as she turns the note over in her hands, her mind flickering back to the last time she’d read something Jo wrote for Laure. How Harry’s voice had sounded reciting Laure’s words for Jo. “You two are sickeningly sweet, you know that?” Y/N finishes her mimosa before standing up, tightening her robe once again. “I’ll take it to her now. Where’s her cabin?”

“Just down the path towards the resort. Take a left when you reach the arrow sign.” Jo instructs her, setting her notebook down beside her before relaxing back into her chair. Her eyes close as the hairdresser continues styling her hair. “You’ll find it.”

Y/N nods, slipping on her scuffed up Vans before dashing outside. When the slight chill in the morning air hits her, she pulls her silk dressing gown around her tighter, and debates whether or not she should grab a proper jacket. She decides against it, however, and ignores the goosebumps popping up on her bare legs as she begins to walk down the path Jo mentioned.

It’s a quiet and calm morning, and Y/N can hear birds chirping and flittering through the pine trees around them. The trees themselves add a wonderful scent to the air, in addition to the faint smell that indicates it may rain later. Glancing up, Y/N can see that the sky is overcast, giving another indication of future weather patterns. A small sigh escapes her. A storm would be just the thing that’s needed today, she thinks wryly.

When Y/N reaches the arrow sign, which points towards the lake, the main resort building, and the cabins, she takes a sharp left. And practically slams into Harry’s chest.

On instinct, Harry’s strong hands grip her arms, steadying her as she stumbles back from him. Y/N’s eyes widen as she registers who she almost walked into, and she can tell Harry is just realizing it’s her. His grip on her tightens for just a moment before it releases, and he takes a step back from her, creating space between their bodies.

“Sorry.” Y/N says after a moment, clearing her throat. “I was just—”

“Yeah.” Harry holds up his hand, and for the first time Y/N realizes that he’s holding a note identical to hers. “You’re on messenger duty too, huh?”

Biting her lip, Y/N nods slowly, holding up her own note. “Mhmm.”

The two of them stare at each other for a moment, and Y/N doesn’t miss how Harry’s green irises pause during his scan of her bare legs. Crossing her ankles together, Y/N lets her eyes wander too, admiring for a moment how Harry’s grey sweatpants cling to his hips. But only for a moment.

“Well, here.” Y/N pushes the note towards him, taking the note that he trades her in return. “How’s Laure doing?”

Harry gives a half shrug, turning Jo’s note over and over in his fingers. “Pretty decent, except she won’t eat anything. Says she’s too nervous.”

Y/N cracks a small smile at the image of Laure, someone who is usually so self assured and confident, being too nervous about anything. “Tell her she can’t have a drink until she eats. That’s how I got some toast into Jo.”

“I’ll do that.” Harry says with a terse nod.

A beat of silence falls between the two of them, the only sounds audible being the chirping of birds and the wind in the trees. The latter sends a shiver through Y/N, and she wraps her arms around herself to rub her bare skin, trying to find a bit of warmth in the shade of the forest.

A crease appears between Harry’s brow as he registers the motion, and he quickly shrugs off his own jacket. Before Y/N can refuse, he’s draping the fabric around her shoulders, careful not to touch any bare skin.

Although Y/N fixes the drape of the jacket, her mouth opens to protest. “Harry—”

“I should go. I have to give this to Laure, and get her to eat something.” Harry’s voice is gruff as he takes a step back. “I suppose I’ll…see you at the wedding?”

Y/N nods slowly, her fingers still grazing over the hem of the jacket. “Yeah.” She should say more, she thinks. She should voice her anger, or her hurt, or whatever the hell it is that’s curdling like a hot ball of lead inside her stomach, but she can’t think of the words. “Yeah, I—” I’m sorry. I miss you. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could do things over. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”

…

“Uh, hello. Can everyone hear me?”

Y/N watches with expectant eyes as Harry leans forward over the podium, his pink lips brushing against the microphone for just a moment before he takes a step back. He looks so different than the last time she’d seen him with a microphone, she thinks. He’s dressed so much more formally, in a striking emerald suit that matches the colour palette of the wedding, along with Y/N’s dress. His cheeks are flushed from champagne, his eyes bright, but there’s a hint of nerves under his thick accent.

Harry raises his fist to his mouth, clearing his throat quietly as he unfolds a piece of paper and smooths it on the podium. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Harry Styles. I have had the honour of being Laure’s best man today, as well as her best friend since we were teenagers.” Harry pauses his speech to smile at Laure, the fondness for the bride apparent in his eyes. “We’ve been through a lot together—I’ve watched her go through a lot, too—and she’s always come out on the other side better than ever. An example of this is when she made the decision—after living in England her whole life, never leaving, living in the same small brownstone for eighteen years—to move to America for university.”

Y/N lifts her champagne to her lips, taking a small sip while keeping her eyes glued to Harry. The more he talks, the more relaxed he appears, as he naturally falls into the role of a performer again. Out of the corner of her eye, she can practically see him charming every woman in the room, and it takes all her concentration not to roll her eyes.

“She’d made the decision a bit impulsively, and—in true Laure fashion—stuck to it like the stubborn person she is.” Harry laughs lightly, shaking his head at the memory as Jo nods in agreement beside Y/N. “She was so certain that moving was what she wanted, so determined to do it—and then the night before her flight, she showed up at my house in tears, talking about how she couldn’t possibly go through with the move. She couldn’t leave behind everything she’d known.” Glancing down at his notes for a moment, Harry takes a deep breath before continuing. “It freaked me out a bit, I won’t lie. To see someone who’s usually so sure of themselves question such a big decision. But I assured her that everything would be fine, that moving forward was always scary, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do. Life always pushes us forward, whether we’re ready for it or not. So Laure left, and a month later, I decided to go visit her in America, expecting to find her incredibly homesick, in tears, a mess.” A small smile begins to play at the corner of Harry’s lip. “Instead, I arrived to find her adjusted, happy, and about to go on a date with a girl she had met named Jo.”

A laugh ripples through the wedding guests, and Y/N can’t help but smile in spite of herself.

“And I, uh…I was at a loss for words that day.” Harry’s eyes flicker to the head table, settling on the two brides with a happy smile, and yet…something in his eyes looks flatter, like he’s trapped in a deep thought. “I thought I was going to visit my friend, and comfort her, and instead I found her on a date, completely fine. She didn’t need me to comfort her. She was—and still is—so incredibly resilient. She always has been.”

Harry’s eyes travel again, but this time, they settle on Y/N. She shifts in her seat as he looks her over, his eyes phasing emotions again while his tongue swipes over his lips quickly. “So anyways—” Harry quickly looks away when he catches Y/N’s eye, turning his attention back to the audience of wedding guests. “I suppose I’m the one to thank for this marriage, because if I hadn’t pushed Laure to come to America, she would never have met Jo.” An easygoing smile pulls at his pink lips as the crowd laughs lightly. “And now, Laure…you’re at that same place again. A new beginning. Except this time, you’re not alone. You managed to find something that most of us…” Harry hesitates again. “Most of us spend our entire lives searching for, and when we find it, we manage to f—screw it up.” His eyes flicker to Laure’s grandmother when he catches the curse word, and Y/N hides a small laugh behind her champagne glass. “But you didn’t. You and Jo…you’re lucky. You figured out what you wanted, and you didn’t let anything—fear, anxiety, or your…your own pride—” Harry swallows hard, his eyes flickering to Y/N once more, and the glance makes her skin burn beneath her dress. “—stop you. You’re both an inspiration to all of us. I love you two. To Jo and Laure!”

Y/N murmurs the toast with the rest of the crowd, raising her glass of champagne and draining it as her head spins with Harry’s words. A waiter walks by and quickly refills the glass, grazing by Harry as he makes his way back to his seat on Laure’s right side. Y/N barely gives herself a moment to catch his unreadable emerald eyes before she stands, carefully picking up the hem of her dress as she walks to the podium. It’s her turn now.

Stepping up to the microphone, Y/N clears her throat, resting her free hand against the wood to steady herself. “Thank you, Harry, that was…lovely.” Y/N begins, allowing herself one more stolen look at him. His brow is furrowed, hands folded together over the cream tablecloth as his eyes focus on her.

“My name is Y/N, and I’m the maid of honour. Jo and I have been best friends since the first day of kindergarten, when she punched a boy in the nose for me, which, funnily enough, wasn’t the last time she’d have to do that.” A laugh rolls through the room, and Y/N gives an endeared look to Jo’s sheepish grin before turning to face the wedding guests again. “I’ve had the good fortune of having her on my side from day one, and…I know just how lucky that makes me. There’s so many times where I’d…I wouldn’t have been able to handle what life threw at me if I didn’t have Jo with me. She’s kind, and compassionate, and fiery, and just…the very best person I know. And if you know her, then I’m sure you’d agree.”

Y/N takes a moment to breathe, her parched tongue swiping quickly over her lips. “I’ve, um, I’ve never been a perfect person. I’ve never been very good at…articulating what I feel, or—or making a hard choice. I’ve always followed a safer path, out of…fear, I suppose.” Not for the first time since she began talking, Y/N’s eyes travel to Harry. He still has the same stoic expression over his features, but his eyes…she can tell he’s hanging on every word she’s saying, and is analyzing every syllable.

“But Jo has never done that.” Y/N continues, shaking her gaze from Harry to settle on her best friend. “Even when she’s been afraid, she’s pushed forward, usually dragging me along with her. And it’s a good thing she has, because I wouldn’t have half the stories I have now if not for her.” Y/N cracks a smile. “But she just—when Jo loves you, you know it. She never hesitates to tell anyone. She never worries about it being too much. She has the biggest heart, and if you’re lucky—really lucky—she’ll keep you inside it. And I used to worry about her, because in my mind, that was dangerous. Being so open was so terrifying to me, I was certain that it would backfire for Jo. And then she met Laure.”

Although it’s a struggle, Y/N manages to train her eyes on Laure without letting them travel to Harry. “Laure and Jo may seem different on the surface, but they both share giant hearts. And their differences balance each other out so perfectly. You two—I never really believed in soul mates until I saw the two of you together.” Y/N admits, biting down hard on her lip when she catches Harry shifting in his chair from the corner of her eye. “But the way you two know each other, and speak to each other, and love each other…anyone who sees it can’t help but know that you’re meant for each other. That you’ve been meant for each other since the beginning of time. Every choice you made, every path you took—all of it led you two to each other, because that’s what was destined to happen. You—” Y/N’s voice catches in her throat, and she takes a moment to compose herself before speaking again. “You’re going to be happy together, because you were meant to be. It’s as simple as that.”

Y/N knows that she can’t say anything else without beginning to unravel, so she simply raises her champagne glass in the air, deciding it’s best to leave it at that. “To Jo and Laure.”

Above the echoes of the wedding guests, Y/N can hear Harry’s unmistakable voice.

…

“‘She’s like the wind…through my tree’…”

With her champagne glass raised to her lips, Y/N pensively watches as Jo and Laure turn to the music in each other’s arms, holding one another close as the voice of Patrick Swayze drifts through the speakers. When the pair had originally told Y/N that they wanted to dance to a song from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack for their first dance, Y/N had laughed at the choice. Now, however, as she watches Laure brush back a strand of hair from Jo’s face, her lips drifting down to whisper something in her new wife’s ear, Y/N has to admit that the song is the perfect choice for them.

“They look happy, don’t they?”

Y/N recognizes Harry’s voice, not needing to turn her head away from the couple on the dance floor to know that he’s moved from his chair three seats down. Although the feeling of his warm breath on her neck is enough to make her shudder, as well as bring back memories of the nights they spent together, Y/N does her best to keep herself composed.

“They do.” She agrees after a moment, setting her fluted glass down on the table. She keeps her fingers around the base, gently gliding them over the smooth crystal absentmindedly as she finally turns her head just enough to catch a sight of Harry.

He’s moved himself to Jo’s chair, with one hand braced against the table and one hand lightly settled on the back of Y/N’s seat. He removed his suit jacket after his speech, but his waist coat is still buttoned properly, despite the sleeves of his dress shirt now being rolled to his elbows, exposing his tattoos. His face is just as pensive as it’s been all day, but there’s some sort of change that Y/N can’t quite put a finger on. There’s less of a guard in his emerald eyes, she thinks, before turning her attention back to the dance floor.

“Do you…” Harry licks his lips once, swiping a hand through his carefully styled curls before brushing over the back of his neck. “Would you like to dance? With me?”

Y/N’s movements against the crystal flute pause. That question was the last thing she expected him to ask. “I…” Clearing her throat, she keeps her eyes focused on the swaying of Jo and Laure. “I don’t know.”

A vibration on the back of Y/N’s chair lets her know that Harry’s tapping his fingers against it, the pattern familiar after watching him play the same rhythm on the steering wheel for five days. “You don’t have to, so—don’t feel like you have to say yes. But I just…I don’t know. I thought it would be nice.”

Yes, Y/N thinks wistfully, pursing her lips slightly at the nervous tone in Harry’s voice. It would be nice. To be wrapped in his arms again, his body close enough that she can feel the pounding of his heart beneath his formal clothing. To feel his calloused hands within her own again, and resting on her waist, pulling her closer to himself with every passing moment…

“It…” Y/N glances down for a moment, fixing a crease in her dress with careful attentiveness. “It would be nice, yeah. Until we try ripping each other’s throats out in the middle of the wedding.”

The joke is only half a joke, and Harry’s laugh is only half in amusement. “I didn’t really plan on that.”

“Well, it seems that things we don’t plan on keep happening, so…” As the music begins to fade out, Y/N finally turns her head to look at Harry straight on. “That’s not really a reassuring statement.”

A flicker of irritation flits through Harry’s eyes, a sight that’s become familiar in all her years of knowing him. “It was a simple question, Y/N. Do you want to dance or not?”

As Y/N’s own irritation escalates, she knows that she should say no. The best thing for her to do right now would be to distance herself from Harry, to get some space to clear her head, and to keep herself from making a scene. Whatever there is to talk about—if there even is something they need to talk about—can be done at a later date, preferably not in the middle of a wedding. And yet—

“Fine.” Y/N finished off her champagne glass, setting it back down on the table gingerly as a new song begins to drift through the speakers. “Let’s go.”

Harry stands from his seat first, extending a hand to Y/N to help her up. Although she’s wary, she takes it, the sensation of his cool rings against her own fingers growing more and more familiar with each moment she spends touching them.

A few more couples have joined Jo and Laure on the dance floor now, and Y/N and Harry fit right in as he leads her to the center, keeping her hand held firmly in his own as his free hand finds her waist. Y/N rests her own hand on his shoulder, gripping his sturdy frame carefully.

“‘Is love so fragile…and the heart so hollow’…”

The song, Y/N realizes, doing her best to focus on anything but the way Harry’s gaze is locked onto her with a frightening intensity, is one that she’s heard a few times over their road trip together. The beat of the song is as familiar as a memory as the two of them sway to it, their motions careful and controlled.

“‘You’re saying I’m fragile; I try not to be…I search only for something I can’t see’…”

Harry’s hand on her waist, Y/N can’t help but notice, is so much more unsure than it was a few nights ago, when he pulled her close on top of the bar. When he guided her movements in a way that was so much more frenzied than he’s doing now, and in a way that she misses. She’s missed it, that breathless feeling. The feeling of not knowing what’s coming next, and being enthralled by the unknown of it all.

“‘I need you to love me…I need you today…give to me your leather…take from me my lace’…”

The corner of Harry’s lips quirking up ever so slightly lets Y/N know that he’s listening just as intently to the lyrics as she is, and has the same events and memories floating through his head. His hand begins to get braver, tightening his grasp on her as his hand begins to rub gently over her hip.

“Harry…” His name slips from Y/N’s lips involuntarily as she meets his jade eyes in question. From the corner of her eye, she can see Laure and Jo watching the two of them as they dance, whispering into each other’s ears like girls gossiping in a school hallway. “What—?”

“Sh.” The sound is soft as it falls past Harry’s red lips, the crease between his brow slackening slightly as he sighs. “Just…don’t speak. Not right now.”

“‘You in the moonlight…with your sleepy eyes…could you ever love a man like me’…”

The request is easy enough, but Y/N can’t make herself listen to it as she cocks her head to the side, the furrow of her own brow matching Harry’s. “Why?”

“‘And you were right…when I walked into your house…I knew I’d never want to leave’…”

The breath that Harry sucks in is mostly taken through his teeth, his lips pursing immediately after as he contemplates his answer. “I just want to…remember this moment. Properly remember it, before tonight ends, and we…”

“‘Sometimes I’m a strong man…sometimes cold and scared’…”

“…We go our separate ways.” Harry finally finishes, his eyes shifting to the floor as he pulls Y/N even closer to his chest. Her elbow is completely bent to her body as her fingers drift further from his shoulder, moving closer to where the slope of his neck begins.

Although the explanation makes sense, the thought of going a separate way from Harry catches Y/N’s breath in her throat, so much so that she can barely choke out a reply. “Okay.” She manages, the lump in her throat growing with every passing second.

“‘Lovers forever face to face…my city your mountains…stay with me stay’…”

Eyes drifting closed of their own accord, Y/N leans her head forward, settling her cheek into the curve of Harry’s shoulder. The smell of his cologne lingers in the fabric of his emerald waistcoat, intoxicating her further with every breath she takes.

“‘I need you to love me…I need you today’…”

Something warm and soft presses against the top of Y/N’s head, and she knows that it’s Harry’s own cheek resting against her. A gentle sigh falls from his mouth, and Y/N feels every moment of it, from the rise and fall of his chest against hers to the breath of air that blows slowly from his lips. She memorizes the motions, something for her to play in her head again later when she’s alone on a plane back to L.A., where her regular life is waiting for her. Where Brant is waiting for her.

“‘Give to me your leather…take from me my lace’…”

Y/N quickly lifts a finger to her eye, wiping away the moisture that’s pooling on her lash line before returning her grip to Harry’s shoulder. “If I said…” She hesitates, taking the time to choose her words carefully. She needs to choose them carefully. “If I said that I loved every moment of the road trip…would you believe me?”

“‘Lovers forever face to face…my city your mountains…stay with me stay’…”

Harry squeezes her hand in his own, his entire body tightening in response to her words, and for a moment, Y/N fears that she’s overstepped. An apology is already forming in her mouth, about to spill from her tongue, when Harry’s response cuts her off, his voice hesitant and anxious and so quiet that she almost can’t make out the words.

“If I said that I loved every moment I’ve ever spent with you, and not just these last five days, would you believe me?”

“‘I need you to love me…I need you today’…”

Y/N’s eyes snap open, her head quickly lifting from Harry’s shoulder to look at him with wide and astonished eyes. Although the struggle is written clearly upon his face, he doesn’t shy his eyes away from hers, and instead holds her gaze as the voice of Stevie Nicks continues to croon over the speakers.

“‘Give to me your leather…take from me my lace’…”

As the music fades out, another song begins to fade in, increasing the tempo and causing the other couples around them to break apart and mill around the dance floor. Only Y/N and Harry stay pressed together, stuck in a bubble of all their own, frozen in a moment of change, and unable to move forward or back in the same way they once had.

Over the fabric of her dress, Y/N can feel Harry’s thumb brushing against her hip, sending electrifying pulses throughout her body. A loose curl has fallen from his styled hair into the path of his eyes, dusting over his eyelashes lightly as he blinks. Did she believe him, she wonders? Could she believe him?

“Can we…” Her mouth is dry when she tries to respond, and she licks her lips quickly, noticing how Harry’s eyes flicker to follow the motion. “Can we discuss this after the wedding? I just—I don’t want to take attention away from Jo and Laure—”

“Yeah.” Harry nods roughly, his hand squeezing hers one last time before he slowly drops it, stepping back from her with great care. Y/N has to bite her tongue to stop herself from whining in protest.

“Yeah.” Harry repeats the word as he fixes his hair, his eyes drifting from hers. “We can discuss it later.”

…

Later, after Jo and Laure cut the cake, after each of them danced with their parents; later, after the staff members began to clear the plates from every table, after everyone waved goodbye to Jo and Laure as their car drove off to the honeymoon cottage snuggled further up the mountain side; later, after guests began to depart in their own cars; later, after Harry snagged a bottle of merlot from the kitchen, after Y/N slipped off her heels during the walk back to her cabin, the feeling of the ground beneath her feet oddly comforting; later, after Y/N opened the door, allowing Harry to step in first before following…

Later is each of them standing in the kitchen, still in their formal clothes, more disheveled than they were at the start of the day, as Y/N opens the cupboard and reaches for the two largest wine glasses she can find.

“Here.” She sets them down on the counter, allowing Harry to fill them to the brim with the crimson liquid. He pushes a nearly full glass towards her before taking the other in his hand, each of them bringing the glasses to their lips for a long drink.

Harry is nervous, and Y/N can tell. She’s gotten a bit better at reading him over their journey together, and she can see the anxiety that’s running through him in his body language. However, although the tapping of his fingers, the rubbing of his lips, and the crease between his brow is a major indication, she knows the real reason she’s aware of Harry’s nerves is because she’s hyper aware of her own.

“You, uh—” Harry clears his throat quietly, the action half reflex, half habit. “You looked really pretty today. Beautiful, actually.”

A light flush heats Y/N’s cheeks, both from the wine and his compliment. “Thank you.” She murmurs, glancing down at her forest coloured dress. “I’m just glad the dress survived the car.”

A chuckle falls from Harry’s lips as he lifts his wine glass again. “Yeah. A real miracle, huh?”

Y/N taps her fingers anxiously against the kitchen island, the coolness of the countertop a nice contrast to her heated skin. “Well, considering all the things that didn’t survive…” She trails off, watching as Harry’s face falls when the meaning of her words washes over him.

Still, Harry steels his shoulders, resolve painting itself over his pained features. “You mean us, yeah?” His tone is blunt and to the point. “After we…?”

“I just—what the fuck was that, Harry?” Y/N asks, her voice every bit as exasperated and exhausted as she feels. “I thought we—and then you—and now, saying you—you’ve always…?”

“I know I’ve been—I know I fucked up.” Harry drops his head, shame clear in his voice as he twists a ring around one of his fingers. “I know that, Y/N. I’m so sorry—”

“I’m just so confused, Harry. Really, I—” The words spill out of her now, faster than they ever have. “I know we were drunk when we fucked, but I…I liked it. And the next morning felt so good, and so right, and then Brant called, and it was like…a switch flipped inside you. And you called us a mistake. So I just—I don’t understand how you could say that less than forty-eight hours ago, and then tell me you’ve always loved being around me tonight.”

Harry’s tongue swipes over his lips once before he inhales slowly, collecting and preparing himself for the conversation. “I’m sorry.” He says lowly, his accent thicker with remorse. “I didn’t want to—I felt like it was a mistake, but not because of anything you did. It was because I knew that I had feelings for you, and I knew that you didn’t have feelings for me.”

The admission of his feelings was clear in his speech before he actually spoke the words, but the verbal acknowledgement of them still leaves an ache in Y/N’s chest as she refutes the statement. “You didn’t know that!” She says hotly, her hand tightening around her glass with every breath. “You wouldn’t let us talk about it, so how could you know?”

“Because Brant called!” While Harry’s voice doesn’t raise in volume, it does in intensity. “Brant called, and asked you to dinner, and you said yes!”

“What, did you want me to break things off with him right then and there? Over the phone?” Y/N demands, an incredulous look on her face as she appraises Harry. “I’m not a bitch, Harry. That would be heartless, and I’m not—I don’t want to hurt anyone. And maybe, maybe, it would be different if I felt anything for Brant, anything that was even a fraction of what I’ve felt for you, the good and the bad, but I don’t!”

Y/N’s words hang heavy in the air between them, flickering through the room like the dim light of the light fixture above them. There’s just enough light, however, that she can watch as her words roll over Harry, sinking into every pore of his body until all the defiance rolls out of him.

“What—” His voice cracks with emotion, and he takes a moment to compose himself before he tries again. “What do you feel for me?”

Turning her eyes down to her wine, she raises the glass to her lips, draining more than half of it in one swift motion. When she speaks again, her voice is slick with the liquor. “What does it matter?” She asks softly. “If you couldn’t believe it enough to not try to push me away the moment I let myself be vulnerable?”

“It wasn’t—your vulnerability wasn’t apparent to me.” Harry lifts the wine bottle automatically, refilling Y/N’s glass with merlot. “It was mine that scared me. Brant called, and you spoke to him, and I felt like—it was like that first date all over again, when you gave your attention to that guy from your class. I felt…” Staring into his own wine, Harry mulls over his words as if the liquor can reveal the perfect thing to say. “I felt like a jealous teenager again, like a proper idiot. And I—you’ve always been so much more put together than me, and refined, and steady, and Brant clearly fits into your world neatly, so I—”

“Stop fucking doing that.” Y/N’s voice is as sharp as ice, as harsh as frostbite. “How many times can we prove to each other that we’re more than our projections of the last seven years? How many times until it sticks?”

Harry studies Y/N’s face, his emerald eyes scanning over every slope and curve of her expression before he replies. “I didn’t think you felt anything for me. I’m still not…sure…”

“Harry, I feel—I feel everything with you.” Y/N’s voice drops to a hushed whisper, as if what she’s admitting is top secret. “I feel like I can be myself. I can be as stupid or serious as I need to be, and you’ll just…accept it. The only person I’ve ever felt that with before is Jo. No one else. And it—it’s terrifying, but good, and then you pushed me away again, and that fucking hurt. You have the ability to hurt me now, and the moment you got it, you did.”

“I didn’t know.” Harry mumbles the words, rubbing his hand over his flushed cheeks slowly. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. If I’d known—”

“But you didn’t even ask. You can’t do that, okay?” When Y/N looks up at him, she can see the vulnerability on her face reflected in Harry’s eyes. “Please. I don’t care if you get jealous, or angry, or—or anything else that’s as irritating as I know you can be—” A soft snort echoes from Harry. “Just be honest with me. Tell me. Ask me.”

“What about…” Harry reaches across the kitchen island, taking Y/N’s hand in his own and rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “What I said to you earlier? I told you how I felt. And I asked what you feel for me. Can you be honest with me about that?”

“I can.” Y/N says carefully, pursing her lips for a moment. “I…I’m not sure if I’m ready to say something as…decisive as you do. I’ve never really—I know that I feel…more intensely for you than I ever have for anyone else. I just don’t know…how intense, or…I can’t describe it.”

“Maybe I can help.” Harry tugs gently on Y/N’s arm, bringing her around the kitchen island to his side of the room. With his hand still holding hers, he leads her to the couch, sitting down and pulling her with him. He’s mindful of the skirt of her dress, fixing it carefully so that it doesn’t get caught beneath her. “To me, love is…wanting to be near the other person. Do you want to be near me?”

Y/N nods softly. “I do.” She whispers into the darkness, the cabin quiet save for their breathing and the chirping of crickets outside.

“And what about…” Harry lifts a hand to caress her face, his calloused fingers gentle against her warm skin as he brushes over her cheekbone. “This? Do you like being touched by me?”

Y/N’s skin burns beneath his touch. “I do. A lot, actually.”

“And even when we were arguing…when we weren’t speaking to each other, and wouldn’t look at each other…” Harry worries his bottom lip between his teeth, the motion staining his lips an even darker pink than they were before. “Did you want me as badly as I wanted you?”

Harry’s other hand begins to rub Y/N’s thigh over her dress, still heating her skin even with the layers of fabric preventing actual contact. Y/N’s eyelids flutter at the sensation. “Yes.” She breathes, leaning her head against the back of the couch. “I did. I still do.”

“Obviously, I…I’d like it if you could know exactly how you feel, but…” Harry shrugs slightly, his hand drifting down to rest on the side of Y/N’s neck. “I know that it’s different for you. You’re not used to it. You don’t have to put a label on it, yeah? I just want you to be comfortable with me. As long as you’re mine, you can take as long as you need to express how you feel.”

Relief spreads through Y/N’s body at Harry’s words. The freedom to take her time, to feel like she doesn’t need to have all the answers right away, is something that none of her past partners have ever offered her, and a familiar sensation begins to curl itself around Y/N’s core as Harry caresses her neck. “Yours?” She repeats slowly, her senses feeling like they’re processing through molasses. “Am I yours?”

“I’d like you to be.” The corner of Harry’s pink lip pulls up, but there’s an air of anxiety in his words. “Are you?”

The fabric of her dress swishes beneath Y/N as she pulls herself into Harry’s, managing to settle one knee of either side of him beneath the layers of tulle. “I am.” She murmurs, her hands wrapping themselves around his sturdy shoulders. Their noses bump together as she moves closer, breath mingling in the small space between their lips. “I’ll be yours.”

Harry’s breath washes over her as he sighs gently, the fragrance of merlot and champagne settling on the back of her tongue. “Laure and Jo will be happy.”

A small laugh, mostly an exhale of breath more than anything else, sounds from Y/N as she twists the curls at the nape of Harry’s neck between her fingers. “Mmm. Probably because they won’t have to break up any more fights.”

“No, no, we’ll still fight. It keeps things interesting.” Harry’s lips curl into a satisfied smirk, his nose brushing over Y/N’s once more as he tilts his head to the side. “We’ll just have a lot more fun when we make up with each other.”

Harry’s fingers find the bare expanse of Y/N’s back between the straps of her dress, gliding his fingertips over her warm skin. The sensation of his cool touch against her sends a shiver up her spine, and she twists herself closer to him in return, but keeps the inch gap between their lips. There’s an anticipation between them, but also a stubbornness. A refusal to be the first one to break.

“A lot more fun?” Y/N questions, massaging the tips of her fingers into Harry’s scalp. She lets her painted nails scratch along him gently, just enough to make his eyelids flutter at the sensation. “What exactly do you mean?”

“I could tell you…” Harry purrs his words, pressing his head back into the palm of her hand. “Or I could show you. It’s up to you.”

His words offer Y/N a choice. Will she continue to push him? Or will she give in?

When her hands retreat from his hair, Harry whines quietly, his half lidded eyes staring up at her in confusion. Y/N braces herself against his shoulders as she carefully removes herself from his lap, picking up the fabric of her dress with one hand while grabbing the half empty bottle of wine with the other.

Harry watches as she takes a step backwards, her eyes glued to his as she appraises him. As comfortable—and as attractive—as he looks on the couch with his emerald slack covered legs spread, sleeves half rolled up, chest heaving from their close contact, Y/N needs him somewhere else.

Harry’s tongue glides slowly over his parted lips as Y/N raises the bottle of wine to her mouth, taking a small sip before turning on her heel and walking to the staircase that leads up to the master bedroom of the cabin. She only gets two steps up the stairs before she feels Harry’s hot breath on the back of her neck, his back and arms bracing against her as she climbs slowly. With one hand still holding her dress out of her way, Y/N steps over the summit of the stairs, not waiting for Harry before she makes her way to the bedroom.

The bedroom itself has been tidied by the hotel staff since Y/N last saw it, and she’s never been more thankful for it; she and Jo had left it in a mess in their efforts to get ready that morning. Instead, the staff have perfectly made the bed, complete with all the decorative pillows that Y/N had tossed onto the floor the night before, set fresh candles on the night tables and dresser, and left carefully rolled white towels on the edge of the bed.

A pair of tattooed arms wrap around Y/N’s waist, and a smile lights up her face as she falls back into Harry’s strong chest. “Your room is lovely. Much nicer than those motels.” He rasps in her ear, teeth just barely grazing her lobe as he speaks. “Do you have a lighter for the candles?”

“You want to light candles?” Y/N raises an eyebrow as she drops her dress from her hand in order to trail her fingers over Harry’s wrist. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Pressing a light kiss to her neck, Harry shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so.” He murmurs. “We were so rushed last time. I want to enjoy tonight.”

A smile creeps over Y/N’s face as she carefully unlaces Harry’s hands from her waist. “The lighter is in the bedside table, on the left.”

As Harry turns his attention to searching through the drawer, Y/N sets the wine down on the dresser, appraising her reflection in the mirror propped on top of it. She begins to unpin the hair that had been carefully styled that morning, her hair only a fraction as put together as it had been. Setting the pins down on the wood surface in front of her, she takes her time taking off her earrings and bracelets, her eyes following Harry’s movements in the mirror.

The broad expanse of his back is still covered by his green waistcoat, rumpled as it stretches over the slope of his body. With each movement, a new flicker of candlelight begins to glow in front of him, illuminating the silhouette of his body with soft flickers of orange and yellow.

“You’re a bit of a romantic, aren’t you?” The question slips from Y/N’s lips before she’s turned around completely to watch Harry’s actions without the aid of the mirror. “You like this sort of thing—the candles, the cabin in the forest, coming from a wedding…”

Harry’s body shakes as a laugh rolls through him, his side profile barely visible as he turns to light another candle next to the bed. “I suppose I am, yeah. Are you not?”

Y/N gives half a shrug, tucking her now loose hair behind her ears as best she can. “I don’t know. I’ve never really considered myself one…never saw the point in grand gestures. They’re not very realistic.”

“They don’t have to be realistic. That’s why it’s a grand gesture.” Harry says easily, sauntering towards her with a dimpled grin on his face. He reaches carefully behind Y/N, his thumb flicking the lighter to spark as he tilts the candle towards the flame. “And I’d hardly call candles a grand gesture. Haven’t you ever been properly romanced?”

Y/N tugs her bottom lip between her teeth as she contemplates the question. “Not…really? I mean, there’s been a few things, but nothing…I don’t know. We were always busy—”

“You can always make time for someone if you want to.” Harry sets the lit candle back down on the dresser, repeating the motion with two more before setting the lighter down as well. “Hasn’t Brant ever—well, I know he hasn’t, actually—” A snort leaves Harry’s mouth as he begins to run his hands over Y/N’s bare shoulders, massaging the skin gently. “Haven’t any of your exes asked you what you wanted, or…done something spontaneous for you, like a surprise gift, or trip, or…?”

Harry trails off as he registers the expression on Y/N’s face, and feels the tensing of her shoulders beneath his hands. “Um, not really.” She says, doing her best to keep her tone light. “We were always very…scheduled. A surprise trip wasn’t really feasible.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth tugs down into a frown, his hands continuing to work over the knots in Y/N’s shoulders as he turns her around. He presses himself behind her, moving her hair to one side of her neck before pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her spine. “The more we speak, the more I see why you’re so guarded, love.” He murmurs, his tone carefully controlled. “You don’t need to be like that with me. If you’re…afraid of what I’ll think, or…you know I tease you, but you’re always fine with me. We can be serious—”

“No.” Y/N shakes her head adamantly, glancing at Harry over the curve of her own shoulder as she rests one hand over his own. “I don’t want to be serious. I’m so sick of being serious.” She maneuvers Harry’s hand to her back as she speaks, guiding his fingers until they find the zipper of her dress. “I like that you tease me, and aren’t afraid to irritate me, and how you care enough to listen to what I say…”

The sound of her zipper slowly being tugged down pricks Y/N’s ears, and she watches Harry’s movement in the mirror. There’s a clear look of concentration painted onto his expression as he helps remove her dress, but the moment he catches her eye, he locks into her gaze. As he finishes pulling down the zipper, he keeps his emerald eyes glued to hers in the reflective surface, his stare becoming more and more hypnotic with every passing second.

“So what you’re saying is…” Harry’s lips brush against her ear as he leans closer to her, pressing a sensual kiss right over her pulse point. “You want me to romance you, but still annoy the shit out of you?”

Although it’s breathless, the sound that leaves Y/N’s mouth is unmistakably a laugh as Harry begins to trail kisses down her neck, slipping the strap of her dress down her shoulder. “Yes. It’s oddly endearing.”

“Oddly endearing is my middle name.” Harry’s laugh matches hers as his hands continue their task of removing her clothing. Once Y/N’s straps are free of her shoulders, Harry helps her step out of the hunter green dress, carefully maneuvering the full skirt to the corner chair without creasing it.

“Wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty dress, now would—” Harry freezes mid sentence as he turns back around, his mouth falling slack as if seeing Y/N for the first time.

Despite having been naked and underneath his body less than forty eight hours ago, Y/N crosses her arms over her body. The black teddy bodysuit she’d purchased to wear under her bridesmaid dress had, at the time of purchase, been more for practicality than anything. The underwire of the strapless bra supported by the corseted middle was comfortable enough to keep her properly situated in her dress without a wardrobe malfunction, as well as serving as a barrier between Y/N’s sensitive skin and the stitched seams of the gown. It’s not until this moment, with Harry staring at her with a hungry stupor in his eyes, does Y/N realize how racy the undergarment is.

“What?” She says after a moment, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice. “I—it’s not like you haven’t seen me before.”

The nerves woven into her tone are enough to snap Harry from his thoughts. “This is…different.” He approaches her again, his steps slow and measured as he lays a hand on her lace covered side. “I was pissed last time I had you…didn’t get to properly take in the sight of you…” Harry scratches his nails over one of the mesh panels, his jade eyes darkening another shade once more.

“I didn’t get to enjoy you, either. And yet you’re still fully clothed.” Y/N begins to fiddle with the buttons of Harry’s emerald waistcoat, working them open one by one as she forces herself to steady her breathing. “That’s not very fair, is it?”

“I suppose it’s not. Not fair at all.” Harry allows her to pull his waistcoat from his body, and it’s not until Y/N reaches the third button of his button down shirt that she realizes how much he’s enjoying her undressing him.

Every breath that Harry takes is ragged and shallow, his chest heaving with the effort to keep himself controlled as Y/N’s fingers trail down the exposed skin of his chest. The sight of Harry’s throat tightening as her nails scrape his skin is too much for her to resist, and she quickly attaches her lips to the base of his neck as she pulls the now unbuttoned shirt from his body.

Swiping her tongue over the new mark at the base of his throat, Y/N manages to pull a moan from Harry, and her lips pull back into a small smile against his hot skin at the sound. “You sound really nice when you do that.” She murmurs, her hand trailing down to his belt as she speaks.

She can feel Harry swallow again, and when he replies, his voice is as low as she’s ever heard it. “Then you’ll have to make me do it more, won’t you, pet?” His eyes are blown darker with lust as he grips Y/N’s hips tight, pressing the pads of his fingers into her flesh. “Are you going to give me moans that are just as pretty? Or am I going to have to pull them from your stubborn little mouth?”

Y/N’s breath hitches in her chest at his dominant tone, her mouth falling open in a gasp against Harry’s collar bones. She can feel the vibrations of his laugh in her lips, the tingle not unlike the burning she feels in her core, and Harry’s hand travels from her hips to her chin as the burning increases.

“Cat got your tongue, hm?” Harry grips Y/N’s chin between his thumb and forefinger as she fumbles with his belt, the action clumsier without her looking at her movements. “Don’t get all shy now, m’love. It’s just me. We’ve been here before.”

Pulling his belt from his dress pants, Y/N tosses it to the side, her fingers resting on the warm skin of Harry’s abdomen. “I know. It just feels different now, that’s all. After everything we said, and…” Her eyes are unable to hold his as she drifts off, and she drops her gaze to his swallow tattoos as her cheeks redden.

A gentle tap on her chin brings her eyes back to meet Harry’s intense gaze. “I know it feels different, but that’s not bad.” Harry’s voice softens as his thumb begins to stroke over her skin, the motion slow and gentle. “It can be really good, actually. I told you, I can properly enjoy you now. If you’ll let me, that is. It’s up to you.”

Y/N takes a deep breath, dragging her teeth over her bottom lip as she reaches behind her back. Her fingers quickly find the laces at the back of the garment, and she pulls the tie undone slowly, making sure to keep her eyes locked with Harry’s the entire time. “I want that. I want you, Harry. I want…all of you.”

She barely has her laces undone before Harry is grasping at her hips, pulling her body tight against his again for another desperate kiss. His lips glide between hers smoothly, fitting together like two pieces of a puzzle before he lets his teeth nip at her bottom lip, tugging at the flesh in a hungry way. With her lingerie hanging loosely off her body, Harry easily yanks the material down her body, fully exposing Y/N’s breasts and stomach.

The sight of her exposed skin is enough to grab Harry’s attention from the removal of clothing, and he leaves the lace bodysuit hanging at her hips as his kisses begin to travel down her jaw, her neck, her collar bones, to her breasts. A breathless gasp falls from Y/N’s mouth as Harry’s open mouthed kisses become wetter and longer, until his hot mouth is wrapped around her stiff nipple.

“Harry—” Y/N tangles a hand in his already ruined curls, yanking hard at his hair as his teeth scrape against her sensitive skin. “God, be careful—”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Harry murmurs the phrase against her breast, barely pulling his mouth off enough to speak. His eyes, although half lidded with lust, flicker up to her with a playful look. “Y’really want me to be careful, pet? Or do you want me to devour you?”

His words send another flood of heat to her core, and it takes all of Y/N’s focus to keep herself standing upright. “Shut up.” She mutters, voice pitched higher than normal as she tugs on Harry’s hair again, half in need and half to solicit a groan from him.

The groan he emits, however, just adds more sensation to his teasing as the sound causes a vibration against her nipple, and Y/N barely manages to pull Harry away from her before her knees buckle.

Harry, however, wastes no time, and it’s only the moment after Y/N pulls him off of her that he’s kissing her again, teeth clacking against teeth as he backs her up towards the bed. When the back of her legs hits the mattress, Y/N stumbles back, but Harry catches her in time to lower her gently to the bed.

There’s an unmistakable tenderness in the movement, and the action catches Y/N right in the throat. “Thought you weren’t being careful?” Despite her ribbing tone, Y/N’s voice is breathless as she settles back into the soft sheets. “Isn’t that what you just said, pet?”

A growl rips from the back of Harry’s throat as he cages himself over her shaking body, his mouth already reattached to her chest to leave a fresh trail of bruises from her sternum to her abdomen. “You’re such a bloody minx, y’know that?”

Although she opens her mouth to reply, the only sound that leaves Y/N’s lips is a gasp as Harry quickly lifts her hips to pull her teddy completely off, tossing it to the side without so much as a glance. He leaves one last bite on her lower abdomen, just hard enough to leave an imprint of his mouth, before soothing the mark with a wet swipe of his tongue over the red skin.

“Knees up, minx.” Harry’s accent is thick, dripping from his voice like honey as his hands rub her lower calves, helping to push them up on the bed until Y/N’s legs are bent and spread open in a position he likes. The way that Harry’s tongue swipes over his lips tells Y/N of his intentions right away, and she braces herself on her elbows on the bed before pulling back.

Harry, who had been leaving open mouthed kisses along Y/N’s knees, makes a disgruntled sound at the loss of contact. “Where do y’think you’re going?” He asks in frustration, pulling himself onto the bed and crawling after her. Gripping one of her ankles, he spreads her open again, resuming the path his mouth had been making to her core a moment ago. “Trying to get away from me?”

A breathless laugh falls from Y/N’s mouth. “More like trying to get comfortable. It’s been so long since I’ve had someone…” Despite Harry’s position between her legs, Y/N can’t bring herself to say the words.

“Had someone what? Eat your cunt?” Harry asks crudely, raising an eyebrow as he kisses her inner thigh. His hot breath rolls over her core, causing Y/N to sigh as she relaxes back into the sheets. “That’s a tragedy, love. Especially when you taste so sweet. I remember from a few nights ago…I just barely got a taste when we…”

She should know better, Y/N thinks. She should know, now that she knows Harry well enough, that something like this is coming, especially since it’s exactly what he did last time he was between her legs. Still, when his ringed index finger runs quickly between her folds, becoming coated in her wetness just for Harry to pop it into his mouth like a satisfied and smug ass, Y/N half jumps off the bed.

“Sensitive, are you?” Harry laughs around his finger, taking great care to lick off every bit of her wetness. “Just as sensitive as you are sweet.”

Y/N struggles to prop herself up on her elbows, doing her best to give him a scathing look. “You could’ve warned me, you—”

Her complaint is cut off abruptly by Harry licking over her slit with the flat of his tongue, collecting every drop of arousal before suctioning his lips over her clit. “What was that?” He mutters between his actions, flicking his tongue over Y/N’s clit as she grasps the sheets between her fingers. “I didn’t quite catch it, love.”

Falling back onto the pillows, Y/N allows her eyes to close for just a moment as she twists the cotton sheets between her hands. “Shut—shut up.” She moans, one hand releasing the sheets to latch onto Harry’s curls. She tugs harshly, and the moan he releases sends shivers from her core into her spine.

Although Harry laughs against her, his smirk detectable against her folds as his tongue continues to work over her, a silence falls between them as he continues to eat her out. It shouldn’t be surprising, she manages to think as she tugs on his curly locks, that Harry is giving her the best oral she’s ever received. Everything he does to her, from irritating her, making her laugh, to pleasuring her, is so intense that it only makes sense.

Harry’s tongue dips inside Y/N’s entrance, proving that thought to be true for what seems to be the millionth time that night. Y/N can’t help but writhe on the sheets now, her body unable to contain the pleasure that’s building inside her core like never before.

When a gasping whine echoes from Y/N, a sound she’s never even heard herself make before, one of Harry’s hands moves from its position on her thigh, where he’s been holding her open so he can continue to work. It travels up her leg to her pelvis, pressing flat on her lower abdomen and keeping her hips secure to the bed.

“You’re going to cum for me, aren’t you, pet?” Harry’s mouth is red, coated with her wetness when he glances at her. He begins to rub circles on her abdomen, both soothing her and creating an ache deep inside her that she knows can only be satisfied by his cock. “You’re going to be a good girl and cum on my mouth, yeah?”

Y/N whimpers in response, barely managing to keep her eyes open as she nods desperately. “I-I need—your fingers, or—”

“No, no, pet, you don’t need that.” Harry assures her between long licks over her clit. “I’ll fill you later, but you’re going to cum from my mouth. I know you can do it, love. I know you can.”

“I—” Harry’s hand pressed to her abdomen is the only thing keeping Y/N from rutting her hips into the air in desperation. “Please, Harry, I—”

“You can do it.” Breath hot against her entrance, Harry dips his tongue within her again, moving it in and out slowly as his nose brushes against her sensitive bundle of nerves. “You—fuck—you’re so ready, Y/N, I know you can do it…just relax, pet…let go…”

Let go. The command is so simple, and yet, isn’t that all Y/N’s ever wanted? Isn’t that exactly what Harry has managed to allow her to do this entire trip? No sooner does the thought cross her mind that Harry’s teeth graze over her clit, tweaking it ever so gently before pressing the flat of his tongue against it once more. He gives a harsh suck, mouthing something she can’t understand, and then Y/N is tugging on his chestnut curls with a renewed desperation as she falls over the brink of pleasure.

“Harry, Harry, Harry…” His name is the only thing Y/N can repeat as she orgasms, her head falling back against the pillows while the waves of her pleasure wash over her.

Harry untangles her hand from the sheets, weaving his fingers through her own to give her something solid to hold onto as she loses herself in the sensations. Although he keeps his mouth pressed to her, his actions are gentler, just licking the wetness that drips from her entrance as she rides out her orgasm.

It takes a few moment for the pleasure to recede enough that Y/N can become aware of her surroundings again. Chest heaving, she lolls her head to the side, her hand falling from Harry’s curls and onto the crumpled sheets.

Harry finally pulls away from her then, pulling himself from between her legs to the side of Y/N’s shaking body. He licks his wet lips, savouring the last drops of her arousal before pressing softer kisses to her stomach, her sternum, her collar bones, until he reaches her lips.

“You alright, love?” Harry asks, voice quiet in the hum of the night as he settles beside her. He brushes a sweaty strand of hair from her forehead, and the motion is so gentle that Y/N almost tears up. “Just take some deep breaths.”

“I—” Y/N sucks in another breath as Harry wraps an arm around her stomach. “I’m alright. Just…trying to catch my breath.” She laughs nervously as her cheeks redden in a post-orgasm haze. “You’re, uh, you’re really good at that.”

Harry’s laugh is much more amused than hers. “Thank you. I quite enjoy it, so it would be rather sad if I wasn’t good at it.”

“That’s true.” Y/N hums, rolling her head onto Harry’s shoulder. He rubs small circles on her waist, and the action gives her something to focus on as she evens her breathing.

Harry sighs in satisfaction. “You know, if you had shagged Brant, I doubt his cunnilingus skills would have been as good as mine.” He says thoughtfully, as if he’s been pondering the idea for a while.

Y/N groans, bracing her hand against is muscled chest to shove him away. “Do not mention Brant while I’m lying next to you naked! Christ, I shouldn’t have to say that!”

Harry laughs as he readjusts himself, pulling his body over hers while his lips work against her neck. “I’m sorry. I won’t bring him up again, I swear.”

Huffing slightly, Y/N settles herself back into the sheets. “Good.”

“But for the record—”

“If you keep speaking, I’m not giving you a blowjob.” Y/N warns, shooting Harry a warning glance. “Are you prepared to give that up?”

The speed at which Harry’s face falls is almost comical. His brow creases as his ruby lips pull down into a pout, his arms keeping himself suspended above Y/N as he relents. “Alright, I’m sorry. Truly, I am. I’ll stop.”

Y/N tugs her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes focus on Harry’s shining green irises. “Good, because I really want to blow you.”

The crude admission catches Harry by surprise, his eyebrows jumping up in shock as he rolls to the side. Propping himself up on his elbow, he rakes a hand through his messy curls as he answers with a measured tone. “You do?”

Y/N nods slowly, pushing herself up to sit on her knees as one of her hands begins to trace over the muscles of Harry’s chest. “I do. Like you said…I didn’t get to last time. And I bet you taste good.”

Harry sucks in a breath through his teeth as he gives a sharp nod. “Yeah. Okay. If you want to—”

“I do.” Y/N presses on Harry’s chest to push him back again, but this time she does it carefully, settling him back into the sheets like he did for her. Moving so that she’s on her knees beside him, she gives him a quick kiss, only letting herself enjoy his slightly chapped lips against hers for a moment before she directs her attention to the bulge in his Calvin Klein boxers.

Y/N trails a finger over the line of hair leading to the waistband, feeling the muscles of Harry’s abdomen contract under her finger. “Sensitive, huh?” She asks quietly, mimicking what he had said to her before earlier.

Harry inhales deeply, his eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. “Yeah. So don’t tease me.”

“I’m not. I’m just…warming you up.” Y/N continues the motion for a moment before her fingers drift to the elastic of his boxers. She dips a finger beneath it, continuing to tease his abdomen before leaning down and pressing a kiss to his clothed bulge.

Harry’s hips jerk in reaction, his mouth falling open as he spits out a curse. “Bloody hell…”

“Feel good?” Y/N only lifts her mouth enough so that the soft murmur can be heard. She can feel Harry’s cock twitching as her lips move over it, and the thought that she’s turning him on enough for him to twitch in his boxers sends a flood of heat between her thighs.

“Feels really good, yeah.” Harry’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and the effort it takes to keep his voice controlled is apparent on his face. “Keep going.”

Y/N hums in response, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his boxers and slowly pulling them down his legs as Harry lifts his hips. She waits until his boxers are completely removed to turn her attention back to his cock, and the sight of it makes her mouth water.

It’s just as big as she remembers, with a slight curve along the length leading to the red and leaking head. Y/N can practically see the heat radiating off of it, she thinks, and when she wraps her hand around the base, her suspicions are confirmed.

The weak groan that falls from Harry’s cherry red lips is the only thing that keeps Y/N from getting completely distracted by admiring him. She pumps him slowly a few times, and his length throbs in her hand as more blood floods to his pelvis. Licking her lips once, Y/N leans down and gives a small kitten lick to the leaking tip, collecting the precum on her tongue.

A garbled moan sounds from Harry’s chest, and Y/N watches from the corner of her eye as one hand tucks into his own curls before the other gathers her hair within his fist. Although he’s holding her, he doesn’t force her down, or try to guide her motions. He wants to see what she’s going to do of her own accord.

Y/N takes her time, licking slowly from the head of Harry’s cock to one of the pulsing veins that runs down his shaft. She traces the line with the tip of her tongue, enjoying the sounds that the action pulls from Harry before taking the head of his cock between her lips. Mindful of her teeth, she sucks slowly, pushing herself further and further down his length until her nose is just touching his pelvis.

“That’s it, minx.” Harry moans his words, his voice breathless and strained as he cards his fingers through her hair. His flushed chest is rising and falling prominently as Harry takes deep breath after deep breath. “Doing so well, aren’t you?”

The praise sends a wave of delight through Y/N, and she begins to bob her head faster, working what she can’t fit into her mouth with her hand. Harry, she learns, is extremely vocal during sex, which isn’t exactly surprising now that she knows him better. Still, his moans and whimpers are all the encouragement Y/N needs to keep her pace, slowing down only to tease him. And she loves to tease him.

“Fuck—” A groan rips from Harry’s chest as Y/N slows her motions again, trailing her tongue up his length before focusing on his tip with great interest. “C’mon, darling, don’t be mean to me. I wasn’t mean to you.”

“I’m just enjoying myself, Harry.” Y/N says innocently, batting her eyes at him as she kisses the head of his cock. “Don’t you want me to enjoy myself?”

The question is simple enough, but the sinful context makes Harry buck his hips into her hand. “Y’know I do, pet, but you’re torturing me…”

Y/N lifts her mouth from his length with a quiet pop as her strokes slow down. “Am I?”

“Fucking hell—” Another moan forces its way through Harry’s clenched teeth. “You won’t be laughing when I’m fucking you at the same pace you’re teasing me right now.”

Y/N’s movements stutter for the first time since she began. “What?”

“Didn’t think of that, did you, minx? Thought you could tease me, and I wouldn’t get you back?” Although Harry’s words are domineering, he pants through them, throwing his head back against the pillow. “That—Christ—That’s not how it works.”

Speeding up her stroking of his length, Y/N leans over Harry’s body, sponging a kiss just at the corner of his lips. “You don’t mean that, Harry. You need to fuck me just as badly as I need it.”

“You need it, do you?” Harry’s eyes snap open, lust completely clouding the jade green of his irises. “How badly? Tell me.”

Y/N kisses him once more, pulling back the moment his tongue tries to pull her in for more. She returns her mouth to the tip of his cock, letting her tongue flick over his slit before sucking on him again. “So badly, Harry. I’ve never felt as full as I did with you in me…”

“Oh fuck…” Harry’s words slip into drawn out moans as he tugs on his own hair, his hips stuttering up into her hand again. “Stop.”

The sudden command makes Y/N pause, and she pulls her mouth off of Harry’s length to stare up at him with wide eyes. “What?” Her hand pauses its motions, but stays wrapped loosely around his base. “Is—is everything okay? Did I hurt you?”

The concern and fear in Y/N’s voice is enough to snap Harry out whatever headspace he had been slipping into. “No, pet, you didn’t hurt me. I just need to be inside your tight cunt. Can’t stand another moment without it, if I’m honest.”

The twitch of his cock in her hands confirms his words, and Y/N gives one last lick to its biggest vein before releasing him. She keeps her mouth in use, however, by sponging kisses up Harry’s already marked chest, stopping only once she reaches his lips.

The kiss they share is passionate, with a rhythm finally established between the two of them as Harry slots his plump lips neatly between hers. There’s no awkward turning of their heads, trying to find a way to slip a tongue into a mouth, and no teeth clicking together. Already, each of them knows the best way to fit together, as if they were meant to all along.

“How do you—” Harry mutters the words against Y/N’s lips, his breath flowing into her own panting mouth with every gasp. “How do you want me, love?”

Y/N takes a moment to think, but only a moment. “On top. I like…” Her cheeks flush with even more heat. “I like feeling you over me. And holding your hands…”

Harry raises a surprised brow at the confession she spills into his mouth. “My hands?”

Forehead still pressed against his, Y/N nods, picking up one of his hands and lacing his ringed fingers through her own. “Mhmm. They’re strong, and…and they fit in mine so nicely.” Y/N glances at Harry through her lashes, shy despite having his cock in her mouth less than a minute ago. It’s the intimacy, she realizes. A sexual act is nothing new to her, but putting emotion behind it…

“They do fit together well, don’t they?” Harry agrees, squeezing her hand as he leans forward, pressing puckered lips to her forehead. “Alright, then. Lie down for me.”

After Harry grabs a condom from Y/N’s bag and rolls it on, it takes a moment for the two of them to get positioned comfortably. Y/N leans back on the rumpled sheets, fixing one of the pillows behind her head with Harry’s help. Once he knows that she’s comfortable, Harry spreads Y/N’s legs again, situating himself between them with his arms propped up on either side of her body.

Although it’s the same position as the last time they had sex, Y/N can’t help but feel like it’s entirely different in every single aspect. While the drunken need that she felt for Harry had been exciting, and while he had satisfied her incredibly, there’s something different about knowing that she has feelings for the man who’s so interested in pleasuring her, and that he has feelings for her in return.

Harry moves one hand to his length, rubbing the tip of it between Y/N’s soaked folds as his other hand grasps her own. “Are you ready?” He murmurs, his lips hovering just over her own.

Y/N nods quickly, squeezing his hand tightly. “Please, H. I need it.”

The first thrust into her is slow. Painstakingly slow. Y/N knows that she should be appreciative of the restrain Harry has, and that she needs a moment to adjust to his size, but the way he stretches her makes her feel so complete that she can’t help but whine for more.

“Faster, Harry.” She pants, squeezing her eyes shut as he continues to enter her slick entrance. “I…”

“Sh, love. Just spreading you open first, yeah?” The effort to control himself shows through the strain in his voice, but Harry still manages to sponge a quick kiss over her lips. “Besides…I warned you, didn’t I? Said I’d tease you if you teased me…”

Y/N whines loudly as Harry finally bottoms out, his hips pressing flush to hers and bringing a kind of euphoric fullness that she’s never felt before. “Oh God…” She drags out her speech, her eyes barely managing to flutter open in time to catch the look on Harry’s face as he feels her walls squeeze him.

His brows are drawn together, an all too familiar crease appearing between them. It’s a look of concentration, but the pull of his mouth and the quiet pants leaving it tell Y/N that it’s so much more than that. His pupils are blown out, dilated so much that she can barely see the green that she loves so much, and every few moments, Harry’s eyelids flutter, times perfectly with the contraction of Y/N’s pussy around his length.

“Move, Harry.” Y/N begs, grasping his free hand and squeezing it along with his other hand. “Please.”

Her pleading sends a shiver down Harry’s spine, and he begins to thrust in and out of her slowly, letting her adjust to each pace before gradually increasing his movements. “Like that, pet?” He asks, voice low and thick with pleasure. “Is that what you wanted?”

A whine is all the answer he gets, as Y/N is so far gone past the point of being able to reply with a coherent sentence. The only thing she can think of is how good it feels to have Harry fill her. How the feeling of his cock inside her is simultaneously too much for her, the most content she’s ever felt, and not enough to satisfy the ache deep within her. Every one of her senses is consumed with Harry—the touch of his skin to hers, at her pelvis, over her abdomen, his hands squeezing hers with desperation as he thrusts inside of her repeatedly. The scent of his cologne mingled with his sweat, so hot and all consuming that the air feels thick with it. The taste of that scent on the back of her tongue, along with his Merlot flavoured kisses that linger in her mouth. The sight of him caged over her, his sweaty curls and flushed skin being all that she can see. The sound of his moans, hot and low in her ear.

Everything is Harry. Had there every been a time where it wasn’t?

When Harry pulls his hands from Y/N’s, a small whimper stumbles out of her mouth, growing louder when his thrusts begin to slow and the ball of tension in her core begins to uncoil. “What—?” She begins, the question still half formed on her tongue when Harry moves his grip to her knees.

In one swift motion, Harry has her left knee over his shoulder, quickly repeating the movement with her right leg as he sponges stuttered kisses over the newly available skin. “Need to be deeper.” He mutters, pressing a wet and breathless kiss to Y/N’s lips before sitting up for more leverage. Weaving his fingers back through hers, Harry begins to thrust again, the head of his cock rubbing against new areas with every motion.

And oh. It’s like an entirely new feeling. The moans and whimpers are leaving Y/N’s mouth in a steady stream now, with any ability she had to filter her volume gone the moment Harry’s cock presses against her G-spot.

“Fuck, Harry, right there, baby—” Y/N releases one of his hands to throw her arm around his shoulder, digging her nails into the muscled skin as the words of pleasure slip past her lips. “That’s it, that’s so fucking good—”

“Yeah?” Harry grunts, bracing himself against the bed so that he can increase the speed of his movements. “You like how my cock fills you?”

Y/N nods desperately, the movement stuttered as she shakes from both her pleasure and the force of Harry driving his hips into her own. “Yeah, I—fuck, you’re going to make me cum…”

Harry’s face twists in concentration as he removes his braced hand from the bed and trails it down Y/N’s body, pausing just enough so that he can tweak her nipple as he passes by. He continues on until he reaches his destination, and settles his large thumb over her clit to rub fast and concise circles on the bundle of nerves.

“Oh—” Y/N’s back arches off the bed as her nails dig into the skin of Harry’s shoulder, as well as the back of his hand. She barely manages to pant through her whimpered words. “Fuck, I’m going to cum—”

“Please, baby.” Harry pleads with her, his expression desperate as he stipples more kisses to Y/N’s knees, the only inches of skin that he can get his mouth on as he drives himself harder into her. “Need you to cum for me, I—fuck, minx, I need it more than you know.”

A sharp gasp falls from Y/N’s slick mouth as Harry hits her G-spot again, and the sharp repeated motion combined with his stimulation of her clit is enough to send her barrelling headfirst over the edge. A desperate sound leaves her mouth, half moan, half whine, as the coil in Y/N’s core snaps, sending shockwaves of pleasure through every inch of her body.

The reaction is almost instantaneous. As her body shakes with pleasure, abdomen contracting and releasing over and over, Y/N feels Harry’s hips begin to stutter, his movement growing sloppier as the constriction of her core works Harry to an orgasm.

“Y/N—that’s it, pet, just—yes—” Harry’s words are more coherent than hers, but still just form a string of half put together phrases as he presses himself deep inside her, his eyes snapping shut as he spills inside the condom. A choked sound works its way out of his throat, pulling from deep within his chest, and the pads of his rough fingers dig into her thighs as he grounds himself throughout his orgasm.

Y/N’s shuddering climax finishes before Harry’s does, and all she can do is collapse back in the sheets, enjoying the feeling of his cock throbbing inside her one last time before he pulls out slowly to clean himself and throw away the condom. An involuntary whine, quiet but audible, falls from her lips at the empty feeling that’s left behind, but it’s soon satiated after Harry returns to the bed, wrapping his shaking arms around her and pulling her tight into his chest.

His chest, like her own, is soaked in sweat, covered in dark bruises, and heaving from the aftermath of the orgasm he’s just finished, but it’s the only place Y/N wants to be. She presses her ear into his skin, his racing heartbeat thumping beneath her head, and she focuses on the pounding pattern as she attempts to catch her breath.

Harry speaks first, clearing his throat before his wrecked voice fills her senses. “That was…that was so fucking good. I was worried that it wouldn’t be as good as the last time, because we were more sober, but…”

“It was better, yeah. I know.” Y/N agrees, her voice filled with exhaustion and contentment as she kisses over a purple bruise forming on Harry’s collar bone. “I think…I think knowing how we feel made it better.”

“I agree.” Harry’s hands move over her back, his fingertips tracing invisible patterns onto her sweaty skin. “Passionate sex with someone you care for with candles lit…all after the wedding of your best friend…was that romantic enough for you?” There’s a teasing edge to his voice, just barely audible beneath the rasp.

A tired smile lifts the corners of Y/N’s swollen lips. “I suppose so. But it’s not hard to be, in comparison to others…”

“Well, from now on, you’re going to be comparing to me, yeah?” Harry shifts his arms around her, tightening his grip before reaching for the crumpled sheet to pull it over their bodies. “This’ll be the marker, I suppose. And I’ll have to work on raising the bar with everything I do for you.”

“What about what I’ll do for you?” Y/N just barely manages to raise her head off Harry’s chest enough to look at him. “This is a two way street, you know. I have to romance you, too.”

“Mm. True.” Harry hums as he resumes tracing patterns on Y/N’s skin. “How about you stop making fun of my taste in romantic movies? I’d like to watch The Notebook without you poking fun at it. If you’re laughing at all the emotional scenes, it makes me feel pathetic when I cry at them.”

Y/N laughs quietly as she rakes her fingers through Harry’s sweaty curls. “That’s asking too much from me. How about…I can still make fun of your taste in romantic movies, but I’ll hold you and comfort you when you cry at the really dumb scenes?”

An exhausted snort rolls through Harry’s chest, but there’s a degree of tenderness hidden in the sound. “I suppose that’s the best offer I’ll get, isn’t it?”

“You suppose right.” Y/N sighs contently, her eyes drifting shut as she settles herself into Harry’s chest. The feeling of the subtle rise and fall of his muscles is enough to soothe her to sleep, and she’s just settling in for what she thinks may be the best sleep of her life when her head suddenly drops as Harry abruptly pulls away from her.

“Harry—” Y/N’s eyes snap open as she pulls herself into an upright position, any feeling of calm that she had a moment ago gone out the window. “What the fuck?”

A sheepish Harry smiles at her from the dresser. “We left the candles lit, love.” He says, blowing out the three lit candles on the wooden surface before walking to one of the bedside tables, where four more candles are lit. “It’s not safe.”

“No, you know what’s no safe? Jerking your girlfriend from her sleep when she’s exhausted, and has to be up early tomorrow.” Y/N rolls her eyes as she flops back into the pillows.

Harry blows out the last candle before sliding back into the bed. “Would you rather I let the cabin burn down? That wouldn’t be very romantic of me, now would it?”

Turning over on her side, Y/N faces the wall away from Harry. “You’re an asshole.”

“Don’t be mean.” Harry’s pout is tangible in the press of his lips to her bare shoulder. “We were having a moment!”

“Not anymore.”

“You don’t mean that.” Harry laughs as he wraps his arms around Y/N, pulling her to spoon into his chest. “Just go to sleep. You’ll be less grumpy in the morning.”

“Fuck off.” Y/N mutters, but she allows herself to be held against Harry as his breathing once again soothes her to sleep.

…

“Are you sure I can’t drive?”

Harry laughs as he shuts the loaded trunk of the Impala, the sound echoing off the trees around them and scaring a few birds that had settled in the branches. “After that disaster in Nebraska? No way.”

“Did you let her drive Stevie?” Laure asks, shock woven through her voice as her eyes flicker between Y/N and Harry. “Really?”

“No, I let her try to drive Stevie. And then she stalled her, and lost all driving privileges forever.” Harry replies with a snort, shrugging his jacket onto his shoulders as his keys jangle in his hands. “So I’ll be driving the forty-two hours back to L.A.”

Y/N crosses her arms with an irritated sigh. “Whatever. Don’t complain to me when you get stiff from being in one position for eight hours a day.”

As Harry rounds the back of the car, he shoots Y/N a smug grin, walking up behind her to wrap his warm arms around her waist. “But you’ll give me massages, won’t you, baby? I’d really appreciate them…”

“Okay, this is still weird for me.” Jo says slowly, shaking her head as her eyes flicker between their intertwined pose and Laure, who looks equally as bemused. “A week ago, we had to practically beg Harry to drive you, Y/N, and now you’re…?”

“It was bound to happen, wasn’t it?” Harry asks, resting his chin on Y/N’s shoulder with a smirk. “No woman could last five days with me while resisting the Styles charm…”

Y/N shrugs his chin off her shoulder with a snort. “Right.” She scoffs as she unravels his hands from her waist. “The Styles charm. We’ll pretend that’s a thing.”

Harry pouts as Y/N pulls away from him, his arms still outreached and trailing after her. “It is a thing!”

With a roll of her eyes, Y/N walks over to Jo, wrapping her arms around the girl tightly as the crisp morning air sends a shiver down her spine. “Congratulations, Jo. Have fun on your honeymoon.”

Although Jo hugs her back with a smile, there’s something lingering under the sweet expression. “Thank you.” She speaks in her normal tone, but waits until her lips are right by Y/N’s ear to lower her voice. “The moment you arrive back in L.A., I expect a three hour phone call explaining how all of this happened. Is that understood?”

“You’re so demanding. I would have thought you’d be more mature now that you’re married.” Y/N laughs as she pulls out of the hug, turning to Laure and giving her a tight squeeze before walking to the car. She leans against the cool metal of the passenger side as Harry rounds around to the driver’s side, having said his goodbyes right after she did.

“I’m serious! The last time we talked about Harry, you threatened to cut off his—”

Laure takes Jo’s hand, squeezing it hard as she bites her lip to keep from laughing. “Okay, darling, that’s enough. Just be thankful they’re not arguing anymore, yeah? Maybe we’ll finally be able to have a wine night that doesn’t end with someone flipping a charcuterie board.”

The memory of Laure and Jo’s four year anniversary party brings a sheepish smile to Y/N’s face, and she watches as the realization hits Jo, who gives a satisfied nod to Laure before the latter presses her lips to her cheek.

Harry, however, is less amused, and shoots a questioning glance at Y/N over the hood of the car. “Wait, when did you threaten to cut something of mine off?”

“Oh, it was just a joke, Harry.” Y/N waves off his concern as she opens the passenger door with a click. “It’s nothing you have to worry about, as long as you don’t piss me off too much.”

“Right.” Harry says slowly, climbing inside the car as Y/N does the same. “I’ll do my best.”

Harry starts the car with an easy and practiced motion, shifting it into reverse and pulling away from the mountainside resort as the two of them give one last wave to Jo and Laure through the passenger window. Once they’re back on the winding mountain road, Y/N grabs Harry’s phone from its usual spot in his cup holder, scrolling through his music library with interest.

“What do you feel like listening to?” She asks curiously, her eyes scanning over the now familiar titles indecisively. “Something fast? Something mellow?”

Harry shifts the car into second gear before grabbing Y/N’s free hand, brushing his pink lips over the back of her knuckles in a gentle motion. “I don’t really care.” He says with a shrug, winding his fingers through her own before lowering their hands between their seats. “Anything you want.”

The comment of free reign causes Y/N’s eyes to widen in disbelief. “Really?” She asks incredulously, and when Harry gives a confirming nod, she quickly settles on “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” leaning back in her seat as the familiar guitar riff fills the car.

From the corner of her eye, she watches Harry’s nose wrinkle as his eyebrows crease beneath his sunglasses. “Actually, I changed my mind.” He says lowly, swiping his thumb over her knuckles in a motion of apology. “Not this song.”

Y/N lets out a groan as she presses her head back into the head rest. “For fuck’s sake, H—”

“I’m not feeling it! It just doesn’t suit this time of day, or this scenery—”

“We have forty-two hours left in this trip, and you’re already pissing me off. Do you want something to get cut off?” Yanking her hand from his own, she grabs his phone again and opens it with a harsh sigh. “Okay, what do you want to listen to?”

“I told you.” Harry taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he risks a glance at her, gauging if the irritation in her voice matches the irritation on her face. “Whatever you want to listen to.”

Y/N allows herself a quiet snort, but makes no other comment on the contradictory statement. “Fine.” She says shortly, scrolling through his songs for another moment before clicking on “Strangers”. “How’s that?”

Harry raises his now empty hand defensively before finding her own again, squeezing it gently. “Good, love. It’s good.”

“Good.” Y/N gives a short sigh of relief, settling back into her seat again as a new guitar riff begins to sound through the car speakers.

The first verse of the song has barely finished when Harry clears his throat thickly, the corner of his lip just barely twitching up. “You know, actually—”

“Stop the car.”

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lincolnonline · 4 years

Text

a material world - self para

who?: lincoln clarington-smythe where?: wmhs / lima mall when?: monday, november 23rd about?: link completes his annual closet re-stock, just in time for gaga vs. madonna week. after all, he is a material girl.

Link had this day planned out for months. He had been counting down the days in his Lisa Frank calendar, waiting for the chance to march into the mall with his dads credit card in hand.

He had even gone as far as to ensure his outfit for the day was as lowkey as possible in order to gain more satisfaction from the new wardrobe, choosing an all-black ensemble and pairing it with a simple ( by Link’s standards ) belt with a few statement chains and some black boots.

The joy he felt that morning when his dad has offered to give Link his credit card and drop by the mall after class was unparalleled by anything save for the joy he felt when he was able to locate Swift the snake, going to down on a rat in the back of the school cafeteria. While Link knew his dads didn’t exactly get him, he had never felt judged by them either. They were aware that their son was a mix of their worst qualities and was a modern day homosexual Sharpay Evans and they had themselves to blame, there was no point in fighting or denying it.

Placing his books back into his locker following his last class of the day ( World Religions, total snooze-fest! ), Link couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face as the final bell of the day rung.

Quickly taking out his bag and closing the locker door behind him, Link felt a buzz from his back pocket. Fishing out his phone, he was greeted with a notification for a DM from some random sophomore at Dalton, reading; ‘u free tonite?? heard u were a good fuck lol’. With a displeased eye-roll, Link dug into his pocket once more, this time pulling out his headphones and pressing play on his ‘sex yeah!’ playlist. He was worth more than some one-off hook up with a guy who probably only heard about him through the Dalton Gay Grapevine.

Some boys kiss me, Some boys hug me, I think they're ok.

Making his way down the school hall, back-pack slung over his shoulder and the drum-machine beats of his favorite Madonna song playing, Link walked passed the choir room, not even giving a look in the general direction of the Glee club. He had his mind focused on bigger things today, and sectionals took a big ole’ backseat. He had already given his amazing song-list suggestions, he had fulfilled his team-work quota for the week as far as Link was concerned.

If they don't give me proper credit I just walk away.

As he pushed open the front doors of the school, Link was greeted with the sight of his fire-red Audi, parked in its usual spot in the staff carpark that he had been able to finesse his way into getting via some nicely worded emails from his lawyer dads. Going to public school wasn’t a dream come true by any means, but he was enjoying the perks that being rich, sexy and talented gave him among a sea of people who were…not so rich, sexy or talented.

Clicking the button on his car keys, Link slid into the driver’s seat and pulled out his favorite pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment before putting the car into reverse and making his way to the.

They can beg and they can plead But they can't see the light.

Link marched up to the check-out, throwing down racks upon racks of clothes onto the counter, giving the woman working the register a smirk before flashing his credit card and handing it over. He was prepared to up the sales numbers for every store the Lima Mall had to offer, and he was doing it happily. Capitalism be damned.

'Cause the boy with the cold hard cash Is always Mister Right.

As the woman scanned away and bagged up all the clothes, Link let his attention shift elsewhere, noting a group of teenage girls walking out of the change rooms at the back of the store, standing around and taking pictures. He recognized a few of the faces, they were from Crawford. Perfect.

“Hi, excuse me,” Link said with a faux warmth to the employee now attempting to fit a pair of shoes into a branded plastic shopping bag. “I was wondering if I could, ugh, how do I put this? Rent your change rooms for the next hour or so?”

The woman looked at Lincoln incredulously for a moment before Link cocked an eyebrow and looked back down at his credit card, making it clear he was more than happy to pay for her services.

“Hey ladies!” He called to the girls at the back, and they looked up, curious, before their eyes widening at the growing stack of bags in front of him. “Impromptu fashion show? What do you say?”

'Cause we are living in a material world And I am a material girl. You know that we are living in a material world And I am a material girl.

Dramatically whipping open the changing room curtain, revealing his first outfit, Link let himself fall into a few poses as a member of the group snapped a couple of photos per-his request.

“What next? Sexy teenage vampire or Bratz-Goes-Hollywood?” one of the girls enquired, holding up two hangers. He shrugged off the blazer and tossed it over to a girl in the group before pushing his sunglasses up onto his head and taking a hanger and turning back to the change rooms. “Ladies, the fangs are out tonight.”

Boys may come and boys may go And that's all right you see.

They went on like that for the allotted 45 minutes, taking pictures and blaring music from their phones in order to ‘feel the fantasy’ as Link put it. Looking at his phone gallery to check how a picture that had just been taken turned out, Link’s phone buzzed in his hand and he was greeted with a message from the boy who had DM’ed him earlier, reading; ‘u left me on read?? fuckin ugly ass bitch anyways u look like trash’.

Noticing Link’s sour expression, one of the girls looked up from her phone. “Who pissed in your Gucci? You okay?”

Shaking it off, Link gave a nod and tapped out of the message, picking up the last hanger. “I’m fine. The real question is will you be okay when I blow your fucking minds with this look?”

Experience has made me rich And now they're after me .

Link blew a kiss ( to the best his ability with how full his arms currently were ) towards the group of girls as they headed in opposite directions. “Snapchat me anytime babe!” He called out as they turned the corner and disappeared from view.

He headed down the escalator, feeling the eyes on him as he passed other customers. And how could he not? He looked and felt like a human disco ball, it was fucking fabulous.

As he headed out the doors and towards his awaiting car, Link froze and his smirk dropped, eyes wide. “Fuck, how am I gonna fit this shit in my car...”

'Cause everybody's living in a material world And I am a material girl!

#tag. self para

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kyber-kisses · 5 years

Text

Too Soon ( Part.7 )

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: angst- like so much angst. Spoilers for 15x01,15x02.

Summary: What if Jack had killed the reader instead of Mary? Y/n struggles with some news and Dean hears whispers of an unknown woman in town.

A/n: this bitch is going to drag this series out for as long as she can before she crumbles under the weight of all the angst. I’m trying to make longer chapters you guys but it’s hella hard. I also like feeding you cliffhangers so 🤷‍♀️. Get ready for some more.

You easily could have taken the easy route and just booked it into the woods behind the school, but instead your feet had guided you back to the parking lot. Why, why were you back here?

The final rays of sunlight were splitting through the tree line as if they were giving a last hurrah before letting darkness settle over the landscape. It was getting colder, a slight breeze picking up and sending the first fallen leaves of the year dancing across the pavement. You shivered, rubbing your hands across your biceps in a failed attempt to warm up.

A sudden thought popped into your head making you smile. Checking to make sure the parking lot was empty of people, you weaved through the collection of cars, headed towards a certain one in particular.

For as long as you could remember you had kept an extra flannel folded and tucked away in the impala in case you ever needed a clean one, or forgot to pack one in general. You prayed it was still in there.

You kept low as you walked around the car, padding your pockets and praying Billie had sent you down here with your key-chain. You let out a sigh of relief as your fingers hooked around the object in your pant pocket.

Dean had gifted you the extra set of keys years ago as a sign of how much he trusted you. If he could trust you with Baby he could trust you with anything. But it wasn’t like he let you drive or anything. Dean was the sole driver of Baby, everyone knew that. He always said that if anything ever happened to him, he wanted you to have her. You always argued, saying Sam should have the car, but Dean always countered with the fact that Sam would mess her up.

You let yourself get lost in the memory as you rolled the key-chains in your hand. There were exactly four of them. One for each member of your family. A set of wings for Cas, a dog for Sam, a little light-saber for Jack, and a cowboy boot for Dean.

Checking once more to make sure you were the only person in the parking lot, you squatted down, placing the key in the drivers side door and listening to the oh so familiar click of the door being unlocked. Easing the door open slowly, you ducked your head into the car, eyes scanning for your flannel. It was usually tucked away in the back underneath the rear window, but you were surprised to find it neatly folded and sitting in the center of the front seat.

Your eyebrows knitted together as you leaned over, plucking it off the leather seat. Weird. You quickly threw it on, pulling your arms through the sleeves. It somehow still smelled like your peach body wash and coconut lotion, which was definitely surprising, seeing as it had been sitting in the impala.

*. *. *. *.

Dean tugged on his jacket, reaching for the keys to Baby which lay idle on the table next to him.

“Sam, you ready to head back out?” His voice bouncing off the walls as he called across the hall for his brother. Sam shouted a response before appearing in the threshold, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “ you got the rock salt?”

“When do I ever forget the rock salt Dean?” Sam breathed, rolling his eyes as he adjusted the strap.

“ Right. Let’s just get going. Cas and Bel are busy working on another temporary solution for this whole ghost force field thingy.” Dean flipped his keys as he began walking down the hallway. He was stopped short as he rounded the corner, almost bumping into a woman.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Dean apologized, reaching a hand out to help steady her. The woman let out a light chuckle, placing a hand over her chest.

“You are the second person Ive bumped into today.” She laughed, “ did that woman ever find you?” She asked, a slight tilt to her head. Deans eyebrows knitted together in confusion, turning to share the same look with Sam.

“What woman?” He questioned, taking a step closer. She shrugged her shoulders, looking at the two men.

“ Never got a name. Short choppy hair? Looked like she went ten rounds with a block of cement? She asked me where she could find you guys, had some questions apparently.” She finished. Dean looked to Sam, who only shrugged his shoulders.

“Doesn’t sounds like anyone we know. But thank you for telling us.” Dean nodded, letting the woman pass. Once she was out of earshot, The two brothers turned to each other. “Little weird, but okay.”

Dean shrugged his shoulders for what felt like the hundredth time before continuing his walk down the hallway towards the parking lot. For just a moment he let his mind wander. Could it have been you?

No. No it wasn’t you. You were dead and gone and he just had to accept that.

*. *. *. *.

You were pulled from your thoughts as a set of voices echoed through the parking lot as whoever was talking walked out the front doors of the school.

“I’m telling you Man, I feel like I keep seeing her everywhere I look. It’s like I’m being haunted.” Shit. That was Dean. You pulled your body out of the car, keeping low as you eased the door shut and locked it once more.

“Dean, Cas told you she was in Heaven. Her spirit isn’t here. You're just grieving and it’s making your mind see things that aren't there.” Sam countered, their voices growing closer.

“Whatever, lets just go figure out this ghost problem.”

You had been so invested in their conversation you had failed to move or look for a hiding place. You quickly whipped your head around, searching desperately for a place to go. Not having much choice, you threw yourself to the pavement, rolling underneath the SUV parked next to Baby.

You sucked in a breath as you watched a set of familiar boots walk by, stopping inches from where you lay. A little further away, another set could be seen. The massive shoes could only belong to one Sam Winchester. Dean on the other hand, well he was so close you could reach out and grab his ankle if you wanted to. But you didn’t. You lay quiet, listening to Dean flip through the keys in his hand. You rolled your eyes as the jingling continued.

It’s the square one Dean you quietly thought, rolling your eyes.

The faint click of the lock told you he had found it, and you smiled to yourself. Dean Winchester, ever the klutz. As the two slid into the car you could hear Sam start to speak up, only to be cut off by Dean.

“Okay, that’s a bit weird.” Dean paused. Even though you couldn’t see it, Dean was swirling his head around, looking at every inch of the cars interior. Sam let out a huff, looking at his brother.

“What?”

“Y/Ns flannel. I swear I left it right here. . .” Deans voice faded as he mentally questioned himself. He had kept it close ever since you died. It was the only thing that calmed him. The only thing that smelled like you. He wanted to smack himself. God, he sounded like a toddler who had lost his blankie.

“And what? You think someone broke into the Impala and stole it?” Sam mused, the faintest traces of a smile on his lips. Dean rolled his eyes, as he stuck his keys into the ignition.

“No!— of course not! That would be stupid. Plus, Baby was locked, just like I left her.” The slam of the door stopped you from hearing anymore of his words, the engine purring as Dean started the car.

Shifting further underneath the massive SUV you watched as Baby reversed out of her parking space, silently praying that neither brother would see you. You knew your plan had worked when the sound of the engine slowly faded. Once you knew you wouldn’t be spotted you rolled out of your hiding spot, popping up on your heels in the now empty parking spot.

You could see the glow of the tail lights as Dean stopped at the edge of the lot before turning right and heading off down the road, further into Town.

In that moment you should have taken your chance and run in the opposite direction, gotten a far away from everyone as possible. But it was like you were tethered to Dean, being pulled towards him with almost a magnetic like force. Billie had brought you back for a reason. She had given you a chance to see Dean again- you had to take it.

Your mind was made up then and there. You had to follow them.

It took you mere minutes to pick the lock of the nearest car and hot wire it, and then you were peeling out of the parking lot at a breathe taking speed and going in the direction you had seen Baby go.

Being so occupied, you failed to notice the figure in the rear view mirror watching as you left the parking lot. A figure in sunglasses that wore the body of one Jack Kline.

*. *. *. *.

You followed at a safe distance behind the Impala, taking all precautions to make sure you were not spotted. It was a good ten minutes before Baby came to a stop outside a classic looking suburban neighborhood. Quickly putting your own vehicle in reverse, you pulled back into the next street just enough to where you could safety watch them. Lucky for you, the sun had gone down and you kept your headlights off as you followed them. You had gone perfectly undetected since you left the school.

Your breath caught in your throat as you watched the doors of the Impala open, two figures stepping out into the street light. This was the first time you were really seeing them. Seeing Dean.

Even from a distance you could still see he was as handsome as ever. The outline of his face almost glowing in the light given off from the street lamp, his bow legs carrying him to the boot of the impala.

He carried himself differently though, it was easy to tell. His shoulders were more slumped, and his face had a broken look to it, even from far away. He looked tired. He looked sad.

You let out a sigh, resting your chin on the steering wheel as you watched them venture across the street. It broke your heart to see him this way— and yet you were to afraid to actually face him. His voice echoing in your head.

Was any of it real?

You could feel tears stinging your eyes as you took a deep inhale. Now was not the time. Your eyes followed the brothers as they crept into one of the vacant homes, sawed off shotguns raised and ready to fire. Your mind quickly shot back to what you had heard Dean say earlier. There was a ghost problem, right.

You quietly slid out of the hijacked vehicle, silently closing the door behind you. The neighborhood was a ghost town. Pun intended. And you needed to help. (preferably from the shadows, where no one would notice you.)

Your eyes fell on the House next to the one Sam and Dean had just entered, its garage door slightly open. Quickly racing across the street, you rolled underneath the partially open door and into the dark space. The only light coming from a plug in on the wall next to what could only be a work bench. The small light bathing the room in a vibrant blue.

Crossing over to the work bench you looked for anything that could help you defend yourself. Hammers, screwdrivers, multiple drills. None of these would work. There had to be something.

Spinning around you let your eyes wander across the space, until finally settling on a crowbar propped against the opposite wall. There it was. The perfect weapon for defense against ghosts. Pure iron and great for swinging .

Taking quick but light steps, you crossed the garage. Your fingers wrapping around the crowbar, it’s metal cool against the scrapes on your palms. You spun it in your hand, a smile on your face.

It was good to be back doing what your good at. It would be better though once you were back with your family.

Soon. You thought. Soon

Taglist:

@my-proof-is-you @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @a-crowd-of-newsies @iluvyewman-blog @a-dorky-book-keeper @heyyy-hey-babyyy @orphiceseum @greenarrowhead @thevelvetseries @silver-winter-wolf @carryon-doctor-lock @ryansgirl5509

#dean winchester #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #supernatural #supernatural imagine #supernatural x reader #spn x reader #spn imagine

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

Text

Pluralistic: 07 Mar 2020 (audio from Canada Reads Kelowna, gig economy spreads Covid-19, Intel's security chip is insecure, Barnes and Noble gets a savior)

Today's links

Audio from last night's Canada Reads event in Kelowna: Thanks to Sarah Penton for being such a great interviewer!

Gig economy drivers won't get sick-pay if they have covid-19 symptoms: Your Instacart driver is being incentivized to handle your food through his fever-sweats.

Compromise threatens Intel's chip-within-a-chip: A bug in the Management Engine threatens five years' worth of Intel systems.

The savior of Waterstones will turn every B&N into an indie: James Daunt has opened 60 profitable stores in his career.

This day in history: 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Audio from last night's Canada Reads event in Kelowna (permalink)

Last night I sat down for an interview and lively Q&A at the Kelowna Public Library with the CBC's Sarah Penton as part of the Canada Reads national book prize, for which my book Radicalized is a finalist. Courtney Dickson was kind enough to send me raw audio from the board and to give me permission to post it. It was a genuinely wonderful night, with great and thoughtful questions, and I'm really glad that I get to share it with you!

https://archive.org/download/canadareadskelownadoctorowpenton/Canada_Reads_Kelowna_Doctorow_Penton.mp3

Gig economy drivers won't get sick-pay if they have covid-19 symptoms (permalink)

The gig economy workers who deliver your @amazon packages are not entitled to sick pay if they think they have covid-19 and want to stay home, rather than delivering contaminated boxes to you.

https://onezero.medium.com/keep-your-car-clean-gig-companies-offer-little-support-during-coronavirus-outbreak-cf6c55cca8a8

It's not just Amazon Flex drivers who are being tacitly incentivized by rapacious, giant corporations to show up for work sick. Your Lyft and Instacart drivers are all being given a stark choice: work sick or go broke.

As Sarah Emerson speculates in her One Zero piece, this depraved indifference is likely an epiphenomenon of gig economy companies' urge to preserve the fiction that their workers are contractors, not employees. Contractors don't get sick leave, after all.

"[Amazon is ] basically threatening that I'll be out of work if I have any symptoms of being sick, coronavirus or not, but no protections and no offers for help in the event it happens" – Jeff Perry, Amazon Flex/Uber driver, Sacramento

Lyft's advice to drivers: "disinfect your car" and avoid passengers who appear sick.

As outrage over this policy went viral, Uber reversed its earlier stance and announced that it would offer up to 14 days of "compensation" for some drivers.

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1236126626028507136

Compromise threatens Intel's chip-within-a-chip (permalink)

A new showstopper Intel bug compromises the Converged Security and Management Engine, the computer-within-a-computer that Intel uses for a variety of purposes, some beneficial (detecting malware), some terrible (shutting out free software).

https://blog.ptsecurity.com/2020/03/intelx86-root-of-trust-loss-of-trust.html

The Management Engine has long been controversial. It's designed to reach into your RAM and tinker with it in a way that, by design, the CPU can't detect or prevent. This is deliberate: it lets the management engine monitor and disrupt malware.

https://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html

But of course, if your Management Engine itself is compromised, then – by design – the part of the computer that you control can neither monitor it, nor prevent it from doing malicious work. In 2017, a ghastly ME bug showed how risky this was.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/intels-management-engine-security-hazard-and-users-need-way-disable-it

It's especially bad because ME security is, in part, security through obscurity: Intel barely documents ME function and doesn't permit outside auditing. To make everything worse, there's no way to fully disable it. So ME bugs keep on surfacing, each worse than the last. Here's 2018's:

https://press.f-secure.com/2018/01/12/intel-amt-security-issue-lets-attackers-bypass-login-credentials-in-corporate-laptops/

Which brings me to the new vuln: PT Security shows an early stage attack on the boot ROM, that allows for recovery of a master key that is used to generate all the other keys in the system. It's a deep bug that could potentially compromise all the downstream operations. It's only a partial attack (so far). The key needs to be decrypted to be usable, but the researchers say it's only a matter of time – and they point out that the key is shared across years' worth of Intel processors.

This compromise (when it comes) has profound implications for DRM, which is intrinsically brittle in that it's "break once, break everywhere." Once content is extracted from a DRM wrapper on a compromised system, it can be shared and played back on intact ones. DRM system designers try to address this with tactics like "renewability" and "selectable output control" that allows DRM systems to detect which systems they're running on and refuse to operate if they believe they might be compromised.

This is a thermonuclear option that could make DRM unviable forever. It means that if you had the misfortune to buy an Intel system during the five years that they were manufactured with this defect, you could lose the ability to play content you've already paid for.

Not because you hacked your system, but because you could. DRM is and always has been a timebomb, ticking down to the moment that execs in a distant boardroom decide to nerf or brick your property. The temptation to downgrade your customers' property to up your profits is irresistible.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/what-hp-must-do-make-amends-its-self-destructing-printers

But customers don't like getting punished for "doing the right thing." If media companies cancel playback for purchased content on affected Intel systems, they won't be targeting pirates (who get their media DRM-free), but people who deliberately chose to pay.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, we don't get fooled again." -GWB

Punishing legit customers to get at pirates is a surefire way to make more pirates.

"Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb."

The savior of Waterstones will turn every B&N into an indie (permalink)

A great hero of British bookselling is James Daunt, the founder of Daunt Books, whose flagship store is literally the most beautiful bookstore I've ever been to.

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shops/marylebone/

Daunt took over Waterstones in 2011 and rescued it. The chain now runs as a string of indies, with no co-op promotion – instead, the booksellers in each shop choose which books they promote based on local taste. Corporate HQ chooses a book of the month and a book every year for chainwide promotion, but they do so on the basis of their enjoyment of the book – not because a publisher pays them for promo.

The new Waterstones stores are spectacular. There were always some great ones (the Waterstones in Bradford rivals the main Daunt books for beauty), but the vibe and experience of shopping at a post-Daunt Waterstones is a million times better than before. And new shops like the one in Tottenham Court Road really embody what a bookstore can be. The event I did there in 2017 with Laurie Penny was one of the best I've ever done in the UK.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-laurie-penny/london-tottenham-court-road

The good news is that Daunt is now running Barnes & Noble, which has been struggling and worse – pulling desperate moves like laying off all their most experienced booksellers to lower payroll costs, which is obviously a catastrophic mistake. And Daunt's public plan for BN – America's last major chain bookstore – is to replicate what he did with Waterstones. Let the stores run like indies, with local control by experienced booksellers who know and care about their customers' tastes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-04/barnes-noble-wants-to-be-more-like-an-indie-bookseller

He's ending co-op promotion, featuring books that the booksellers choose, not books that publishers pay to promote. He's reversing the focus on non-bookstore SKUs (sunglasses, puzzles and scented candles) in favor of, you know…books. They're shrinking CDs and DVDs and expanding kids' books, laying the ground for a new generation of readers, and they're cleaning up, repainting, and generally repairing years of neglect that have given some of the stores the vibe of an abandoned K-Mart.

They're also opening new stores, targeting places that don't have any bookstores (as opposed to places where indie stores have kept the faith and continued to serve their communities). He's shooting for 1,500 stores nationwide. It's superb news for a nation where bookselling has been imperilled for decades. On every tour stop, I always insist that my media escort take me to every B&N in town to sign stock and meet the booksellers. As a recovering bookseller myself, it's one of the great pleasures of the tours. Bookstores are community hubs, and were key to my own literary upbringing. This is just delightful news.

(Image: RachelH_, CC BY-NC)

This day in history (permalink)

#5yrsago Improving the estimate of US police killings https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-new-estimate-of-killings-by-police-is-way-higher-and-still-too-low/

#1yrago Ajit Pai has been touting new broadband investment after he murdered Net Neutrality, but he's been relying on impossible data from a company called Barrierfree https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/ajit-pais-rosy-broadband-deployment-claim-may-be-based-on-gigantic-error/

#1yrago The EU hired a company that had been lobbying for the Copyright Directive to make a (completely batshit) video to sell the Copyright Directive https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1103582295523553280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

#1yrago The "Tragedy of the Commons" was invented by a white supremacist based on a false history, and it's toxic bullshit https://twitter.com/mmildenberger/status/1102604887223750657

#1yrago It's on: House Democrats introduce their promised Net Neutrality legislation https://www.cnet.com/news/democrats-introduce-save-the-internet-act-to-restore-net-neutrality/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: The Verge (https://www.theverge.com), Wired (https://wired.com), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Museums and the Web: March 31-April 4 2020, Los Angeles. https://mw20.museweb.net/

LA Times Festival of Books: 18 April 2020, Los Angeles. https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

Currently writing: I'm rewriting a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm also working on "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel afterwards.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopias: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/01/disasters-dont-have-to-end-in-dystopias/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

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your-iron-lung · 5 years

Text

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 10

aka ‘The House That Dripped Blood’; available to read on AO3 HERE

Story Synopsis: Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 7927

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Next Chapter: 11

Notes: if you follow me you may have noticed i havent posted in a while- this is bc i spend all my time playing ffxiv instead of setting aside determined amounts of time to spend on writing/drawing and i have a bunch of artist alleys coming up that im ill prepared for and im terrible at budgeting UH YEP bad excuse but WHAT CAN YA DO here we are

(ive also set up a ko-fi account if you want to give drop me some tippy tips if u enjoy the word things i do) ((no pressure tho))

"Bigfoot."

Hopper leaned back in his chair; let it creak and groan under his weight until he knew it was at its limit, and then pushed it a little more. He studied the no-nonsense expression on the hunter before him, and intrinsically knew that the man was speaking truth.

"Bigfoot," the old man said again, speaking a little sterner than he had before once he recognized Hopper's amiable expression of disbelief. "I seen't him out in the woods just the other day."

The aging man had lumbered into the police station almost immediately after Hopper came in, bundled in some worn hunting gear that looked almost as old as he was. The deputies had offered to speak with him after hearing his initial claim, but they'd been refused when Callahan couldn't stop smirking. The old hunter had insisted on speaking with Hopper, who leaned forward now, taking the stress off of his chair to take a sip of the coffee Florence had brought in for him. He didn't look at the old man as he drank.

"So let me get this straight," Hopper began, setting his coffee aside to rub at his forehead, "you came in first thing in the morning worried about a missing friend of yours, but now you're telling me you're worried about Bigfoot."

"You know me, Jim," the hunter said, a slight hint of pleading desperation edging out of his voice. "You know I ain't some crazy old coot. I ain't seen Lamm in a long while, and yessir I'm worried 'bout him, but when I went out to his cabin to check on him I seen it: I seen Bigfoot!"

As incredulous as the claim was, Hopper believed him- not about it being Bigfoot, exactly, but he believed that the man had seen something out there in the woods, and it had the possibility of being that something he'd spent the last two weeks fruitlessly searching for.

Regardless, he didn't want to let the old hunter know he was taking him seriously. The last thing he needed was for his community to think he believed in this sort of nonsense, but people in town were going missing, and people he knew were getting hurt: if his only lead should turn up in the form of an old man believing he'd caught sight of an urban legend, then so be it. He'd follow it through, but he'd be subtle about it.

"You sure it wasn't just a trick of the light or something, Wes? You know your eyes aren't what they used to be," Hopper remarked casually, softening his voice to let him down easy. "And this isn't the first time Lamm's gone missing; you know he's one of those types of shut ins. Remember those weeks he was gone hunting 'vampires'? He's the kind of guy who lives in his own head more than he lives out here, he'll turn up again on his own time."

The hunter's lips twitched into a frown. "Alright, maybe Lamm is a little off kilter," he relented, averting his eyes for a second, "and maybe it weren't Bigfoot, but the tracks it left were huge 'n mighty, by God, and I ain't seen nothin' else like it before. If it weren't Bigfoot, then at the very least it had big feet, Jim, and I ain't never seen feet quite like 'em."

Interest piqued, Hopper became more attentive. "How's that?"

"Well, they was stretched out lookin', for one." The hunter paused, tilting his head slightly as he tried to recall the details of what he'd seen out in the woods. He held his hands up, spaced apart in an approximation of how long the prints he'd found had been. "Human lookin', almost, which is what had me thinkin' it coulda been Bigfoot. They weren't the tracks of somethin' native 'round here, and I only caught but the barest glimpse of it, but it was tall, Jim; taller'n you or I."

That sounded right; the prints he'd found and unsuccessfully tracked were, as the hunter said, 'huge 'n mighty' and matched the description of what he'd just been told. It didn't take an expert's opinion (though he had consulted one) to discern that the markings just weren't natural. Hopper set his mug of coffee aside and pulled out a notepad from one of his desk drawers. He uncapped a pen and held it to the page for a moment before writing down a few preliminary notes for himself on the top line.

The hunter cocked his head and leaned forward to look at what he was writing and said, "That don't look official."

"Because it's not; this one's just gonna be between us, alright?" Hopper said, looking up to meet Wesley's blue, watery eyes. He held the stare long enough to get his point across, waiting for a sign of affirmation before looking back to the notepad and pressing the tip of the pen to the paper. "Tell me where and when exactly you saw this 'Bigfoot' of yours."

The day was cold and grey at its start, with harsh, biting winds ushering in thick clouds that blocked out any hope of the sun ever making an appearance. Steve eyed the sky apprehensively as he made his way back to his car, wary of the way the clouds looked as though they might start dropping hail on him at a moment's notice. Billy feigned disinterest as Steve opened the rear passenger door and leaned in to shove the box of things he'd bought at the Hunting & Camping store into the backseat. Even with his vision obscured in part by the sunglasses he'd elected to wear, he didn't miss the strong look of annoyance that graced Steve's features when he came around to the driver's seat and entered the car with a pout.

"That guy give you a hard time or something?" Billy asked as Steve buckled in and put the BMW into reverse, turning in his seat to hastily jerk the car out of the parking lot. "Why do you look like someone shit in your cereal?"

Steve clicked his tongue. "He just kept asking what a 'kid like me' needed with a bunch of chains and rope and shit. My god, he just would not let it go, like he thought I was trying to build my own sex dungeon or something. Fucking annoying."

"You mean that's not what we're doing?" Billy asked, grinning a bit at the way Steve's face pinched up in disgust. "What'd you say?"

"I told him the truth; said it was to tie up a werewolf. 'It's a full moon tonight, y'know? Gotta tie 'em down or they go all crazy on you', I said to him, and you know what he said to me then?" Steve asked, speeding out of the little downtown shopping area Hawkins played host to and sounding every bit as gossipy as Carol did when she caught wind of a scandal.

"How the fuck would I?" Billy drawled, turning away from the conversation to watch the scenery pass by disinterestedly.

"He said, 'Damn fool kids will never learn'," Steve said, ignoring him. "'Damn fool kids will never learn', like, what the hell does that mean?"

Billy shrugged. "Who knows? As long as he accepted daddy's plastic then what does it matter?"

Steve clicked his tongue again in annoyance and rolled his eyes. "Fuck you."

Feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on, Billy declined to retort. They rode on in silence, the chains in the box Steve had bought clinking together softly in the backseat before the radio was finally turned on to mask the sound.

Regardless of whether or not Steve actually believed something was going to happen to Billy that night, he couldn't deny that the whole day leading up to that evening just felt… off. From meeting up with Billy earlier that afternoon to go by the camping store, to grabbing lunch together before heading over to the Henderson's house, it all felt wrong.

It was something Steve had difficulty pinpointing the origins of, but as they began work on clearing out enough space in the cellar for Billy to do whatever it was he thought he was going to do, he soon came to realize that the feeling of wrongness seemed to stem from Billy himself.

Few words could better describe Billy than 'annoying' or 'smart-mouthed', but he'd been uncharacteristically tight-lipped all day. He'd become a remarkably dull version of himself, and Steve wasn't sure quite how to handle that.

Usually one to argue and bite back at everything Steve said, when he'd begun dishing out instructions on how best to clear out some floor space in the cellar, Billy hadn't talked back to him a single time; merely lit a cigarette and blinked at him slowly, silently acknowledging what had been asked of him before getting on with it.

It was unsettling. Steve could almost say that he hated how submissive Billy was because of how used he'd gotten to the back-talk and smart-ass remarks Billy usually had ready for him, and though, yes, there were times he had wished for this kind of attitude from him, the silence and absolute subordination coupled with all of the other behavioral changes Billy was exhibiting were enough to set Steve on edge.

Billy kept tonguing the gaps in his teeth where they'd fallen out over the course of the week, and he never seemed to realize he wasn't alone. Sometimes he'd jump at the sound of Steve's voice, or shake his head and crease his brow in confusion when he turned around to see Steve moving stuff somewhere behind him, but arguably the worst part of it all was that he stank.

He'd tried to mask it with an overabundance of cologne that had nearly suffocated Steve when they began working in closer quarters, but buried beneath that was a hint of something that smelled awfully rotten. If he had to, Steve could liken it to the stench of the monster they'd encountered in the woods, but he chose not to, instead chalking it up to a severe case of nervous b.o. or something. The implications that the scents could be related bothered him too deeply to believe, and even then he wasn't sure he really wanted to know what the source of the smell was.

The stench of decay emanating from Billy's person was worrisome enough on its own, but with so much to do in order to get ready before sunset, Steve had a hard time figuring out where to primarily apply his focus: there were simply too many things going on for him to worry about one thing more than another.

The giant hole in the wall that Dart made to tunnel out of the cellar was his immediate concern, but Dustin had done a good job of hiding it from his mother by placing a tall shelf in front of it, essentially blocking it off. That didn't mean it wasn't entirely inaccessible, but Steve wasn't sure what more he could do about it. In all honesty, he'd forgotten about it until he'd tried to move the shelf aside and then found himself peeking into the eerie tunnel. He'd knocked over several things in his haste to put the shelf back in place, but Billy hadn't seemed to notice it, and if he didn't, maybe he wouldn't think to use it if- or when- he lost himself to whatever supernatural effects he was experiencing.

"Big if, though," Steve muttered aloud to himself. Turning away from the shelf, he looked over to where Billy was inspecting some old power tools, turning a nail gun over in his hands before setting it back in the box he'd pulled it out of. "So, are we good or what? This baby-proofed enough for you?" Steve asked, startling Billy out of whatever ruminations he'd been lost to.

Billy looked at Steve blankly, face impassive and emotionless. He frowned, and then looked around himself as though he'd forgotten where he was. When he spoke, his voice was monotone and devoid of his usual arrogance as he said, "I don't know, Harrington; is it?"

"You tell me, man, this was your idea." Steve watched as Billy returned his focus on the box of tools he'd originally been rummaging through. Picking up a hammer, Billy balanced its weight in his hands before gripping the handle tightly. Steve distrusted the look in Billy's eye as he held it. "What are you, a child? Quit rifling through their shit, put it back," he said.

Billy didn't reply or even acknowledge that he'd heard him. Ignoring Steve's demand, he stepped up to the abandoned work bench to splay his left hand out over the wood and lifted the ballpeen up.

"What the fuck are you doing? Put it down," Steve said again, his voice rising slightly in pitch when he understood what Billy was doing. He started towards him in an effort to stop him, but halted when the hammer was brought crashing down.

It missed his hand, but the force of the impact splintered the wooden table's surface. Steve gaped as Billy turned around, a cocky little smile turning up his lips.

"Someone could get hurt real bad down here if they weren't careful, huh, Harrington?" he said, a fierceness that Steve hated to admit he'd missed charging his voice. "But we've been real careful cleaning this shithole out, haven't we, pally?"

"You sick piece of shit, give me that," Steve snapped, snatching the hammer away from Billy's pliant grip. "Fuck you, Hargrove; you could've just said you wanted to move this shit out of here."

"Had you pegged as being more of a visual learner," Billy sneered as Steve threw the hammer back into the box of tools. "Your concern was touching, though, really."

"You're the one who came asking me for help, fuckface. Begged me, almost, if I'm remembering right. 'Oh, Steve, help me, I'm so scared of fake movie monsters!'"

Steve hadn't meant to rise to the taunt, but Billy's insufferable attitude had him stooping to his level as he hoisted the hefty box of tools in his arms and lugged them over to the stairway. Billy laughed dryly at Steve's mocking tone.

"We both wish that fucking thing had been fake," he said as Steve placed the box on the ground at the foot of the stairs beside the box of supplies he'd bought earlier. They were both quiet for a moment, their attempt at a conversation dying as quickly as it had been brought on.

"Only one thing left to do then," Steve said morosely.

Billy blinked and turned to face the stairway, eyes rising slowly up to where the cellar doors were propped open wide. Steve felt the guilt of having to lock him in prematurely and had to remind himself that he wanted to be locked in.

"Better hop to it then, Harrington," Billy said lowly, lips curling back into a familiar grin, but without all his teeth in place to flesh it out, Steve found the display to be more unsettling than annoying. "Let's get this sex dungeon set up."

Steve grimaced. "Not even in your wildest dreams, Hargrove."

"Nothing's off the table in my dreams, pretty boy." Billy breathed out a small laugh at the disgusted look on Steve's face, but the grin he'd been displaying slowly fell away. "Is it getting dark yet?"

"Uh, kind of, but the sun hasn't set yet," Steve replied, stepping up into the stairwell to check the status of the sky. It was as dull and grey as it had been all day, the overcast weather acting as a harbinger for the snowfall the local meteorologist had foretold was coming. "If you took off those fucking sunglasses you'd be able to tell."

"These are for your benefit as much as mine," Billy snapped, frowning suddenly.

"Yeah, okay, whatever that means," Steve said dismissively as he began to fish out the cords of rope from the box, letting them spool out onto the ground before gathering them into his hands. "How do you uh, how do you want to do this?"

"Aw, is this kitten's first time tying someone up?" Billy purred, not moving from where he stood in the middle of the cellar, directly under the light. "Who knew 'King' Steve's favourite flavor was vanilla."

Steve rolled his eyes as he brought the ropes over, wrinkling his nose at the mixed smell of rot and cologne that got stronger with proximity. "I've dated girls kinkier than you'd know what to do with," he retorted as he gestured for Billy to hold out his hands.

"Oh please," Billy said with a snort, "there are no kinky girls in Hawkins or I would've found them by now."

"You're obviously not looking hard enough," Steve muttered in response, gesturing again for Billy to hold out his hands.

Shrugging out of his leather jacket and tossing it over the work table he'd splintered, Billy held his hands up obediently and watched stoically as Steve wound the rope around his wrists, binding his hands together roughly.

"What's should our safe word be?" Billy teased, smirking as Steve wound another, longer length of rope over the original knot.

"There is no safe word because this isn't a sex thing!" Steve insisted angrily.

Flustered, he sighed irritably as he wound the long part of the rope around Billy's waist, hating how close he had to get in order to make sure the rope was tight enough, though Billy seemed to be enjoying how close he'd gotten. He kept shifting his weight around, trying, it seemed, to get Steve into a more compromising position. Annoyed, but determined to finish, Steve did his best to ignore Billy's constant movement and the disgusting, rotten musk that was wafting off of his person to finish tying him up.

"Why do you fucking stink so goddamn badly?" Steve finally asked with a scowl, repressing the urge to gag as he tied the ropes off into a clumsy knot. He stumbled away from Billy, reaching up to pinch his nostrils shut so he wouldn't have to smell the rot anymore, but the rancid scent seemed to have lodged itself deep into his nose. "You smell like a dead Calvin Klein model or something, holy shit, did you use a whole fucking bottle?"

The amusement Billy had held while taunting Steve left his face. His smirk shrunk into an awkward grimace as he looked away in embarrassment.

"I don't know, alright?" he admitted bitterly. "It doesn't matter how much I bathe, and between that and my eyes I have no idea what the fuck's going on with me."

"What about your eyes?" Steve asked hesitantly, unsure if he really wanted to know the reasoning behind why Billy had insisted on wearing sunglasses all day.

Billy faltered for a moment, hesitating briefly before reaching up and plucking the sunglasses off his face. With both hands bound together, he awkwardly folded the legs against the lenses and tucked them into the collar of his button up. He turned his gaze to Steve, who couldn't help but suck in a slight breath of surprise.

His eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to start bleeding straight out of the sockets. There were hardly any whites left in the sclera to be seen as Billy winked at him, looking immensely uncomfortable at the way Steve was gaping openly at him.

"Do they- hurt? Or whatever?" Steve asked, unconsciously taking a few steps forward to get a better look. In the dim lighting of the basement, even the blues of Billy's eyes looked reddish.

"What's it to you if they do?" Billy snapped, suddenly irritable. He squared his jaw and looked away, unable to face the amount of concern Steve was showing him.

The worry Steve felt for the both of them in that moment grew stronger as he backed off, letting the matter of the changes in Billy's physicality drop, despite how alarming they were. "If I don't hear anything an hour after the sun goes down, I'll let you out," Steve said abruptly as he walked backwards towards the stairwell, grasping for the hand rail behind him blindly, unsure why he was so reluctant now to let Billy out of his sight. It was what they'd agreed upon earlier, and he said it meaning for it to sound reassuring, but the way Billy's lips twitched made it apparent he didn't interpret it that way.

Billy didn't respond.

"Well, uh, I guess that's it then," Steve said as he bent down, placing his box of chains atop the box of tools Billy had been messing around with before lifting them up together to carry them up and out of their man-made dungeon.

The cellar doors shrieked loudly as they were closed, a high pitched agony that erupted when the metal grinded against itself uncooperatively. Steve didn't mind that so much as he hated the sound the chains made as he wove them through the door handles, reminding him of what he was doing and who he was imprisoning as the steel rattled sharply against the doors. He winced at the commotion, but continued to loop them through the small door handles until no more could be fit between them. He tested their sturdiness by attempting to pull them open, and to his pleasure, they remained shut. The doors were secured; the cellar, as far as he was concerned, was now a suitable prison. All that was left of him now was to play the role of the jailor appropriately.

He stared down at his handiwork for a moment before the cold, blowing winds prompted him to seek shelter. Already a few snowflakes were fluttering out of the sky, flying into his cheeks as he turned away, re-gathering the box of tools in his arms and headed for the door Dustin promised he'd leave a key for.

Searching under the backdoor mat, Steve found the promised key, and true to the rest of Dustin's word, the entire home was empty, save for the cat that chirped a greeting for him from atop the kitchen counter. With a deep intake of breath Steve glanced at his watch, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him, wondering if he really was prepared for the worst. In the trunk of his car his bat waited for him, ready to be put to use just in case shit really did hit the fan, but he found himself questioning if he'd really be able to use it; bludgeoning monsters to death was one thing, but turning it on a boy he knew was only a monster figuratively was something else entirely.

For both his and Billy's sakes, he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Shrugging out of his thick coat, Steve set it down beside him as he took a seat on the Henderson's couch. He glanced at his watch again, dismayed by the fact that time wasn't progressing as fast as he wished it was and sat in anxious worry about what the rest of the night might have in store.

But at least he was comfortable and warm.

The cellar was not.

It wasn't the cold that Billy minded, so much as it was the anticipation: when would the transformation start? Exactly at sundown? A little before? A little after? Would he actually end up transforming? And why the fuck did the word 'transform' make him so damn uncomfortable? The unknown factors surrounding his circumstances were almost worse than any of the physical symptoms he'd been experiencing as of late, and he'd been experiencing a lot.

Anxiety wasn't something Billy had a lot of experience with, but it was the only thing he could think of that explained why his heart had been beating oddly all day. It was running at a notably higher rate, as though he'd been playing basketball or working out extraneously, and brought on palpitations he wasn't used to dealing with at the elevated speed.

In short he felt terrible. His whole body ached like it was going through puberty again. Both his arms and legs were sore in ways that mimicked the aches that came with growing pains when he'd had them, but he couldn't understand why he would begin to hurt in that way again. He hadn't had the energy to work out in two days despite eating practically anything he could get his hands on, so the soreness in his limbs was unwarranted. Either his body was preparing itself for the coming night, or he was having an incredibly drawn-out heart attack.

Standing at the foot of the stairwell, Billy felt the cold permeating in through the closed opening and moved away to find a better spot to wait. He wanted rub his arms to bring some warmth into them, but couldn't with the way they were bound. Already the ropes were beginning to dig into his wrists, rubbing uncomfortably against his skin as he realized he wasn't actually that cold anyway, despite the frigid weather; his body temperature had been on a steady incline leading up to now, leaving him with a rosy complexion and a near constant fever, the long-term effects of which left him feeling severely disoriented.

He could barely remember meeting up at Steve's house only a few hours ago to carpool to his kid friend's house, riding with the windows down in spite of the severe wind-chill as they went into town to get lunch and buy rope. Even though they'd ridden together, he couldn't remember now if they'd actually talked about anything or not. All he could remember were the low tones of the radio and the resonating throbs of the wind as it swooped in through the open windows, rushing to fill the audial space between them. It was as though his mind had been steeped in a fog, and he couldn't accurately think through it: everything was clouded over, incomprehensible, like waking up the morning after a bender and being unable to remember everything he'd done the night before, but knowing all the same that he'd taken part in some memorable shit.

Would there be pain, he wondered, and would it come on as suddenly as it had to the character in the movie he'd made Steve watch? Even though 'American Werewolf' was just a movie, stories like that had to spawn from some sort of truth, didn't they?

The dim little lightbulb that hung overhead flickered briefly, drawing Billy's attention to it as he took a seat at the work table's bench, wishing his eyes weren't a dry and sore as they were.

Coming from above, he could hear the muffled sounds of a TV show permeating through the cellar's ceiling. He couldn't help but think ill of Steve in that moment, but if their situations had been reversed, he probably would have been doing the same thing; he couldn't fault Harrington for finding a way to pass the time, though he wished he had something similar to do for himself. There was nothing interesting to hold his attention, and time passed at a dreadfully slow rate.

Stretching out on the bench, he laid himself down slowly, mindful of which parts of his back hurt the most, and gazed up at the cement overhead disinterestedly. He listened to the muffled sounds of the distant television, trying to conjure an image in his mind that corresponded with what little dialogue he could hear, but the rapid beating of his heart overpowered the noises coming from the TV. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing in an attempt to lower his heart rate, but it just kept going, pounding in a determined rhythm that seemed to be quickening with each passing minute. A bead of sweat trickled down from his scalp and over his ear as he wondered if the tingling he felt in the tips of his fingers was because of the cold or from the ropes being tied too tight.

He flexed his fingers, opening and closing his hands into a fist to try and bring sensation back into his fingertips, but to no avail. They remained numb, and the cause of which eluded him.

Frowning, Billy stiffly sat up and began to pinch at his skin, belatedly realizing that the numbness was spreading slowly down the lengths of his fingers, a sensation that sent a chill running down the length of his spine.

"Oh," he said. "Oh shit."

The pain, when he finally did begin to feel it, started in his feet. There were still thirty minutes before the sun went down.

Billy licked his lips nervously as he tried to get his boots off, his numb fingers and bound hands fumbling uselessly with the laces as the pain centralized in his toes and grew in sudden intensity. He was no stranger to pain, but this was unlike anything he'd ever felt before: it was sharp and stabbing, with each throb of pain stemming from the bones in his toes, as though they were growing more pointed in an attempt to pierce their way through his skin as they elongated. He could feel them cracking; each joint slowly popping free of itself as the bones began to push themselves forward.

"Oh, shit," he repeated, and could hear the muffled sounds of a laugh track from whatever sitcom Steve had turned on upstairs roaring in delight as he struggled to finally pull his boots off.

The stabbing sensation didn't relent, even once his shoes lay discarded by his feet. He peeled away his socks with shaking hands and stared down at his toes.

They'd turned a bright, beet red and were bulging like they might burst apart, his skin bubbling up around toenails that were already starting to peel off. He couldn't help the whimper as he tentatively felt them, a pain like touching a freshly popped, skinless blister causing him to draw his fingers back.

It was real. It was happening.

Sweating freely now, he reached away from his feet to brush his dampened hair away from his forehead as sweat rolled down the sides of his face. He paused when he felt his hair pull free from his scalp, clinging to the back of his hand stubbornly. Billy stared at the loose, curly strands with a horrified expression and reached up with a shaking hand to grab more. When he pulled, a handful of his hair came away easily, eliciting another whimper from deep within his throat. Disgusted and frightened, he threw his hair away to the floor.

Breathing quickly, he hastily rubbed his hands free of the loose strands in a panic and tried to calm himself. His whole body trembled as he breathed in deeply through his nose, wondering if he should try to call out to Steve to alert him that the worst case scenario was indeed unfolding. Another laugh track from upstairs came through the ceiling as he felt a sharp, sudden stab of pain in his ribs, prompting him to gasp loudly and curl forward over himself. He could actually feel some part of his ribcage shifting inside his torso as he tucked his arms in to his sides. Any lingering thoughts of trying to remain calm left him as he transitioned from panic to full on fear.

He stood up not knowing what he was going to do, but regretted it instantly: as soon as he put weight on his foot, his ankle collapsed in on itself and brought him to the floor. A shout almost came out with his fall, but he managed to internalize the pain as he was used to doing and grit his teeth as his foot essentially broke itself in half.

The central part of his foot that arched snapped without warning. Billy swore loudly and reached for his foot instinctively, wanting to hold the break in place, but he couldn't bear the agony that came with the contact. Warm tears leaked from his eyes, and when his other lateral arch also split in half, he couldn't help but cry out.

From up above, the noises coming from the television ceased. Steve must have heard him and was listening for him now, trying to gauge whether or not he should intervene. Billy clenched his jaw tighter, determined to keep quiet, but gasped loudly when two of his molars gave out under the pressure, snapping to the side and coming loose of his gumline. The copper taste of blood filled his mouth as he spat the teeth out, shuddering uncontrollably when he felt the vertebrae in his spine begin to pop, one by one, pushing up against his skin that was quickly beginning to feel too tight.

Huffing in great breaths of air, he panted heavily as the bones of his tones finally pierced through his skin, causing most of the flesh surrounding them to burst open like little balloons. Blood splattered across the floor in gruesome, miniature arcs and Billy finally, finally became undone. He shrieked, unable to keep silent any longer as new appendages could be seen inside the flayed bits of bloody skin, slowly growing outward, already a part of him.

Warm tears of pain streaked down his face in thick lines as the skin of his feet continued to be ripped apart, making way for more muscle, new flesh. He wiped at his eyes helplessly and thought he could hear Steve's voice distantly calling out his name, asking if everything was alright.

He blinked, his vision blurred by the tears that would not clear away as he pulled himself over to the stairway.

Shaking wildly all over, Billy stretched out on the floor, realizing belatedly that the waistband of his jeans was growing tighter and tighter. Hissing sharply, he cursed himself for not having the foresight to undress himself as he hastily tried to undo his belt. A pain similar to the initial agony he'd felt in his toes was beginning to manifest itself in his fingers as both of his hands slowly began to turn red, swelling up under the bonds of the rope as he fumbled with the buckle, desperately trying to get it to come free.

"Fuck!" he shouted in frustration, his clothing growing ever tighter as his body continued to bloat. He felt like he was being pinched in half with his belt acting as an unneeded tourniquet. "Fuck! Fuck!"

"Hey! Talk to me Hargrove, what's going on?"

Steve's worried voice trilled down through the cellar doors as he continued vocalizing his frustrations. Billy felt an organ in his abdomen shift out of place before popping, prompting him to groan and curl in on himself before he threw up. His couldn't undo his belt as his vision began to darken.

"Hargrove!" Steve shouted, banging a fist against the steel door. "What the hell's going on? Talk to me!"

"Fuck you!" Billy screamed, unable to articulate anything else as he tried to rub the blackness out of his eyes, but the more he pressed his fingers to them, they more they began to hurt.

A pressure was building up behind them the more he rubbed, and as it increased, his vision grew ever darker. He kept blinking, over and over, feeling his eyes bulge out of their sockets and against his eyelids, trying now to keep his eyeballs in place. He was hyperventilating when he finally went blind, the pressure behind his eyes becoming intolerable eyes before it finally came too much, and his eyes popped free.

He felt them slide out onto over his checks and onto the floor, the slimy, blood-slick nerves leaving tracks of blood on his face as he became totally and completely blind.

"No," he whispered to himself, retching again on the floor as he scrambled across the cement, trying to find the stairs, unable to see. "No, no! This isn't real!"

Beyond the cellar doors, Steve had his ear pressed against the slight crack between the panels, desperately trying to understand what was going on. He wasn't sure what to make of the noises he was hearing, unable to determine if Billy was just trying to mess with him or if he was in actual distress.

"Hargrove," he said impatiently, turning his head to try and peak in through the crack to get a glimpse of what was going on, "you gotta start talking to me, man; what the hell's going on down there?"

"I'm fucking blind," he heard Billy shout, his voice rife with fear. "I can't see anything!"

His voice was shaking as he spoke, and Steve knew then that whatever was happening was legitimate; Billy wasn't one to openly show weakness.

"Okay, stay calm," Steve stammered, but he wasn't sure if that was actually sound advice or not. "It's- it's going to be okay, okay?"

Billy howled, and Steve understood that the pain that carried with his voice must have been terrible to get him to shriek like that. He licked his lips anxiously, not knowing what support he could possibly offer him. He continuously opened and shut his mouth, words of encouragement dying on his tongue before he could manage to speak them.

And then, all at once, the cacophony of agony ceased.

Steve couldn't hear anything over the rapid sound of his breathing for a moment before he finally spoke: "Hargrove? Is… are you okay?"

"Hurts." Billy's voice, quiet, strained, and barely audible over the sounds of things (flesh, fabric) slowly tearing, sounded disconcertingly like he was speaking with a throat full of water. It was gargling and grotesque; completely unlike the smooth, honeyed voice he'd become known for.

"Okay, what, uh, what… what hurts?" Steve whispered in response, fear quieting his previously urgent tone.

"Everything."

"Shit," Steve said to himself, backing away from the cellar door panels as the sounds of something large and heavy being knocked over made him jump. "Just, uh, stay calm," he said, though he wasn't sure if he was saying it to himself or Billy. From down below, he heard Billy groan loudly before going silent again.

Steve's heart was pounding as he hesitated, unsure of what to do. All the details of Billy's haphazardly concocted plan fled his mind as he tried to think back on what they'd agreed to do if something ended up happening, and his first instinct was to open the doors to go down and check on him. He looked at the chains wrapped tightly around the door handles and bit his lip before crouching down and pressing his eye to the crack.

The overhead light wasn't bright enough to reveal much, but at the base of the stairwell there was a small circle of illumination. Steve squinted, ignoring the cold of the steel as he pressed his face against the door, trying to see all that he could.

Blood stains. Torn bits of… something he couldn't quite make out. Dark masses on the stairwell; lots of evidence that pointed towards Billy transforming, but no trace of Billy himself.

"Hargrove," Steve whispered, and then shook his head to clear himself of his cowardice. "Hargrove," he said again, louder and with more emphasis, "dude, you have to talk me through what's happening down there."

He waited, unconsciously holding his breath as he waited for a reply. It was steadily growing darker as the sun slowly sank, making it all the harder to see into the cellar from the tiny slit. Frowning and unable to see anything, Steve turned his head and pressed his ear against the door. From somewhere in the depths of the cellar he could hear something breathing heavily. It was moving, too; he could hear something shuffling, moving around the floor space cautiously.

When he turned his head again to see through the crack, he caught a glimpse of... something large and hulking cross under the light, tall enough to set the lightbulb swinging. He couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath of air, his lungs and throat burning with the sting of the cold weather. The thing- whatever Billy had become- halted just outside the rim of light. Entranced, Steve found he couldn't move as it emitted a low, threatening growl that sounded more like a man impersonating a dog than an actual beast.

From his limited viewpoint, he couldn't see the way the muscles in its legs were tightening, or how it had begun to crouch; he didn't have time to react as it sprang forward, jumping up the stairs in a single leap to ram itself against the doors.

The chains held the doors shut, but the sudden impact smashed the metal against Steve's nose and soon all he could smell was blood as it drained out of his nostrils. He fell backwards, holding his nose as the Billy-creature growled again. Horrified, Steve could only sit in the snow and watch as the doors lurched forward when Billy rammed against them again, trying to escape. The second impact loosened the restraints, and all Steve could do in that moment was watch as they rattled uselessly in place, beginning to slip through the handles as they hadn't been properly locked into place.

Cursing to himself, staggered to his feet and rushed to grab the chains, but as Billy threw his body against the doors again it soon became obvious that even if the doors stayed shut, they were about to pop free of their hinges entirely. Blood dripped down over his lips and onto the metal panels as he tried to think of what he could possibly do to counteract the damage Billy had done. In an act of desperation, he threw himself against the steel and hoped that his added bodyweight would be enough to keep them in place.

If it managed to do anything, he couldn't tell. Almost immediately Billy was throwing himself against the doors again, nearly bucking Steve off.

"Stop!" Steve cried out, grasping for the chains to hold them in place. His fingers scrabbled against the cold steel links even as Billy let out another deep, throaty growl. With the doors as loose as they were, Steve was almost certain the doors wouldn't survive another body-slam. "Give it up, Hargrove!" Steve said again, desperately. "Just- fuck, Billy, stop!"

He braced himself for another impact, but it never came. Eyes closed in anticipation, Steve blinked them open and exhaled shakily, his fingers trembling as he let the chains go. Crystalized air puffed out in front of his face over and over as he rolled off the doors and stood up unsteadily, trying to wipe away the blood that had already frozen over and turned to crust on his upper lip. Somehow, miraculously, his pleading had worked, but before he could take comfort in that fact, other disturbing sounds began to creep back up to him from down below.

Things were being tossed around; the metallic clang of old paint cans being bounced off the floors and walls mixed with the hoarse, angry vocalizations of the creature Billy had become made his blood run colder than the air currently was. The noises Billy was making were at once both animalistic and human, deep and throaty and more akin to the bellows of a moose than a man or wolf.

Steve stood in front of the cellar doors not knowing what to do. Already their plan was falling apart, and he was quickly becoming aware of how vastly unprepared he was to handle the situation. He wanted the security of the bat in his trunk, but didn't trust himself to leave the doors unattended for the length of time it would take him to run back inside and grab his keys to get it, but he felt so weak without it.

Another loud, crashing noise came from within and Steve stilled, listening intently. Faintly, he could hear Billy snuffling about, and after the sun finally completely descended, all was quiet. His nose was throbbing as he stood attentively, but when nothing more could be heard, his stomach sank.

With trembling hands and his mind screaming at him to stop, he knelt by the doors and slowly unwound the chains from the handles. The fact that he couldn't hear anything coming from within didn't sit well with him; he had to make sure Billy was still down there.

He tried to shift the chains as quietly as possible, but with how nervous he was, he had a hard time keeping his hands steady. They rattled noisily against the door, grating on his already frazzled nerves as they slid free. Heart pounding madly, Steve carefully pulled the doors open and took the first step down into the cellar.

It was silent. He couldn't hear anything as he hesitantly took a second step, mentally berating himself over and over for being stupid enough to walk defenseless into the lion's mouth. He had no idea what Billy was capable of now, or if he'd even recognize him enough to (hopefully) have enough sense to not harm him. The lightbulb that dangled freely from the ceiling was swaying, throwing its light around erratically, showing him glimpses of the gore that lined the steps.

Eyes wide, Steve gagged at the sight of the flayed strips of bloodied skin that were splattered near everywhere. He had to avert his eyes as he took another step, making slow progress as he was careful not to step in any of the mess. At the bottom of the stairs he warily peered around the walls, hoping he'd only stuck his head into the lion's mouth figuratively. To his immediate relief, but long-term dismay, there was no trace of Billy to be seen in the space of the cellar.

Exhaling deeply, Steve tried to even out his breathing as he came to stand in the middle of the room, looking around to assess the damage. As the swinging lightbulb steadied, he turned towards where the shelf that was hiding the tunnel had been and found it on the ground, knocked to its side and several feet away from where it had originally been positioned. His shoulders drooped at the realization of Billy's escape.

He went and stood before the opening of the tunnel and felt all hope of remedying the situation vanish. A numbness overtook him as he recognized his responsibilities of keeping Billy captive had changed; he was the only one who knew about Billy's circumstances, and he was the only one who could do anything about it now. Distantly, and much further away then he would've liked, he could hear the muted, labored sounds of Billy's breathing as he escaped confinement through the underground system.

The burden of his responsibilities threatened to overwhelm him in that instant, but instead of letting himself be overtaken by despair, Steve took a deep, steadying breath and rolled his shoulders back. He hesitated for only a minute before he took charge and ran in after him, disregarding his urgent need to turn back and get his bat out of the car. There was no time, he thought; no time to get a weapon, no time to get a flashlight. If Billy was now as the werewolf in the woods was, then he was capable of speeds greater than Steve could muster, and every second mattered. If he lost his trail now, then it would be lost to him entirely. There was no time; he had to go now or he wouldn't go at all.

Alone and unarmed Steve ran, chasing after Billy into the dark, cold tunnel, hoping he would be able to catch him in time, and dreading the repercussions that would come if he couldn't.

#harringrove #harringrove fic #billy hargrove/steve harrington #billy/steve #steve harrington #billy hargrove #werewolf!billy #slow burn #long fic #stranger things #stranger things fic

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ryfionline · 2 years

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iPhone Cases and Their Applications

Cases and cover, both planned and being utilized with a fundamental motivation behind giving security to the cell phones against harms, scratches, the climate and the dampness. There is a wide cluster of body covers and cases accessible nowadays which clients might utilize. Some of them are utilized generally with all cell phones while some are just intended for explicit mobiles. Here we'll talk about the sorts of iPhone cases and covers and how they are being utilized.

In current days there are many Apple Iphone 12 Case Mobile Phone accessible in changing in costs, material and use. Apple has sent off 3 ages of iPhone plowed now including Basic iPhone, iPhone 3Gs, and iPhone 4G. With these 3 send-offs, Apple has additionally presented some new, old, in vogue, costly and modest iPhone cases and body covers. However these are additionally planned by a few different organizations and are being utilized nowadays.

A portion of the sorts of iPhone and Macintosh iPad cases are examined beneath having distinction in the material utilized:

Delicate and Adaptable Silicone Cases:

The smooth completion of iPhone not just simply looks great and gives a style to the telephone yet it likewise makes the portable a piece dangerous. To give a simple and solid grasp, Silicone cases are planned which additionally keeps the portable protected from scratches. These silicone cases are accessible in enormous a wide range of varieties and clients of all iPhone form utilizes these beautiful cases to add magnificence to their portable and coordinate it with their dressing. These Silicon cases are likewise utilized with a blend of a screen defender that is a straightforward plastic cover which sticks on the screen and safeguards it from screen harms while giving a reasonable view and with this mix not exclusively is the telephone that is safeguarded against scratches and harms yet in addition is the screen. These are likewise here and there known as Mac iPod contact cases since they work with iPods as well!

Calfskin Cases:

Very much like silicon cases, Calfskin cases are additionally planned and made accessible to the telephone clients. These cases are simply practically like silicon cases however the thing that matters is in the material they are made with. There are various kinds of Cowhide Cases accessible differing in colors as well as in style from new crazy to a la mode rich.

Apple iPhone Aluminum cases:

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brett-buckner-the-dirt · 6 years

Text

The Flame made up with enthusiasm, what they lacked in wins.

SO … DAMN … CLOSE.

I could hear the excited gasp from everyone in the stands when the metallic thunk of the aluminum bat sent the ball sailing into the darkness like a giant yellow day glow comet on a reverse course toward destiny. The batter, who looked old and strong enough to be a forklift operator despite supposedly being only 11 years old, strutted around the bases, knowing she’d hit a home run.

Though, in her defense, given that it’s kid-pitch softball, I’ve seen bunts turn into triples, and since she hit this ball like she was Mark McGwire jacked up on Creatin, there was probably no need to rush.

But she didn’t count on Jellybean being.

It was the kind of moment that only parents of little league outfielders can appreciate. Since early March, Jellybean has spent hours during practice and 25 games waiting in the down-and-ready position, but that ball never comes.

Sometimes, I think the coaches even forget she and the other outfielders are even there. They become like lawn furniture as they hit endless grounders and pop flies to the infielders – generally the best players (AKA the Coaches Kids) – while my little princess feels the grass grow beneath her feet. Then they shout something like, “Look alive …” and wonder why the kids have the loafing reaction time of a Walking Dead zombie.

And in truth, the only actual game action the outfielders get comes from backing up the back-up and by the point the play’s pretty much over.

But not on this night, not with this batter.

It was the last game, in what’s been a long and frustrating season for our Flames. We weren’t very good, a reality made all the worse by the fact that we really should have been. We were the last seed in the tournament, down 13-7 to the dreaded, and seriously hated, Peaches. After four days of torrential rain – and three straight days of game cancellations – it was hot and muggy and gross, and everyone from the parents in the stands to the kids swatting mosquitoes in the field just wanted it all to be over.

Then Andrea the Giant stepped up to the plate and sent a moon shot hurtling toward my child, who, as always, was in the down-and-ready position. It was like a dream come true. When the ball left the bat, I left my seat. In that frozen moment, I remembered the hours we spent in the back yard, listening to Princess Rap Battles and tossing pop flies. Jellybean had gotten so good.

She held her glove right. She moved her feet. She kept her eye on the ball. She blocked out everything going on around her. One time, she caught 13 flies in a row, and I’m not talking easy ones either. I mean, I reared back like I was throwing a haymaker at God, and she shagged it with a flip of her hair and gleam in her eye (after I got smart enough to buy her sunglasses before she went blind from starting into the sun).

It was all about to pay off. She felt it too, running forward when all her fellow outfielders would have run the other way in terror. Jellybean WANTED the spotlight, the pressure. Sure the game was a blowout, but I could already hear the roar of the crowd and see her teammates running out to give her high-fives and maybe even hoist her on their shoulders and carry her off the field.

It would be a glorious triumph for every kid who’s every been spent more time applying bug spray and sunscreen than actually … ya … know … feeling like a part of the team. From here, Jellybean would be catapult to a position that didn’t require visiting grandparents to say, “now where is she? Oh, way out there.”

Down. Down. Down. The ball came, fire trailing behind as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. Other parents stood up for a better look. Bam-Bam shucked off his headphones and ignored the Shrek movie he was watching to see what all the excitement was about.

The entire stadium fell silent as Jellybean extended her glove while still running forward. It was so still, so quiet that I heard the gentle scratch of leather as the ball skipped off the tip of her glove and fell dead to the ground.

Disbelief and disappoint spread through the stands, like the seconds right after the fireworks have ended and the sky is still filled with smoke. It would have been the perfect ending. But instead, the Behemoth in a pink batter’s helmet ran around the bases as Jellybean picked up the ball and hit the relay throw to second.

I wanted to cry, to scream the unfairness to the heavens, but I had to be strong for my little girl, whom I knew would be devastated as the game and season were over.

After the obligatory “good game” handshakes and the “I’m so proud of you … never gave up … fought right up to the end …” speeches from the coaches, I hugged my little ballplayer, ready to offer words of wisdom, experience, encouragement, and, most of all love. She, in turn, looked up to me with those big blue eyes and said:

“Can we get a Frostie?”

So brave. So brave.

‘So Done’

When the game was over, I wasn’t exactly sad. Jellybean was downright elated.

It had been a long, season. The weather had gone from freezing to that kind of sticky hot that seems to fester around ball field. The Flames were the epitome of the “always played hard” but fell short in the win column.

I knew I’d grow to miss it all more than I do now. Jellybean vows she’s “so done” with softball. She promises we’ll keep tossing the ball around from time to time, but I know better. Pretty soon dance recitals will take the place of backyard pop flies, and that makes me sad. Softball was something we could do together. I could toss her grounders, show her how to watch the ball into her glove. It was something we could bond over. I cannot dance … unless the white boy prom sway is an actual dance move.

What I’ll miss most is how softball brought our weird little broken family together. Two or three days a week, we’d get to hang out a couple of hours and just enjoy each other’s company. It was like a family reunion but only with the family members you actually like.

She so little, and cute

Jase tries not to sleep, fails

The Diva, a great mom

Grandma gets some baby time.

All of Jellybean’s scattered grandparents made it to multiple games, but best of all was the visits with The Diva and her brood. Sure, I usually had to drive all the way to Phenix City then back to Midland to pick ‘em up, but were it not for those trips, I’d never have known that 2-year old Bam-Bam knows every word to the Scooby-Doo theme song.

After picking our spots right by the fence so we could sit in the shade and still see Jellybean in the outfield, I’d get Bam-Bam set up with his toys – brought over from my house. There was Han Solo and Chewbacca, a Hulk bobble head, the Xenomorph from Alien and a tiny key chain figure of GhostFace from the Scream movies, which he called, “Stabby” – all carried in a battered old KISS lunchbox along with some almonds.

Bam-Bam has loves KISS

Heeeer’s Stabby

Booty-Head the dinosaur

Once the game started, he’d climb up in my lap and using Jellybean’s iPad, watch episodes of Boss Baby or PJ Mask while trying not to fall asleep.

On the other side, The Lovely Mother of My Children, always dressed in scrubs after rushing to the field from the hospital, would sit by The Diva and just talk. Things haven’t always been great between those two over the last few years, but during those games, things were pretty good, and I’d like to think some of those good vibes carried over after the game.

But with her newest bundle of beautiful still not at the sitting-up phase, The Diva wants all the help and advice she can get, while her momma can’t help but love the baby, even if she still worries about her own child.

There are still problems and there always will be, but for a little while at least they don’t matter much. It’s just nice being together, being happy, and cheering. And even if there’s not another “next year,” at least we had this one.

But maybe … just maybe Jellybean will change her mind. I’d sure like to see her get another chance to catch a pop fly.

Take me out to the ballgame … one final time SO … DAMN … CLOSE. I could hear the excited gasp from everyone in the stands when the metallic…

#andreathegiant #grandparent #kids #princessrapbattle #softball

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diamantinemind · 6 years

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Risky Business

Summary: The Frosts practice risky corporate strategies while visiting an old wartime ally and business rival at his secret research facility in Flushing, Queens. Several days later, Emma and Elias decide to insure a potentially auspicious business asset as they inspect the aftermath of Natalia's visit to the great city of New York.

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Mutant!OC (Enemies to Friends)

Word Count: 10,374

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.

“I wonder what the homeowners insurance rates are like in the area?” Elias mused aloud to his mother as he drove his white Ferrari 275 GTS convertible northbound down Whitestone Expressway.

He glanced to where Emma sat in the leather passenger seat of his roadster. Her long ash blonde hair was piled atop the back of her head by a handful of hairpins and sheer willpower, and it was tucked behind a satiny white polka dotted headscarf that was baby blue on one side and canary yellow on the reverse. The sunlight glared off the reflective lenses of her 18 karat gold-plated Cartier sunglasses, danced down the sleek powder blue leather of her Tibetan lamb fur-trimmed coat, and reflected off her high-waisted dove-white palazzo pants. She idly thrummed her French manicured fingernails on the door panel as the clement mid-March breeze gently tugged at the fur of her coat and the ends of her hair.

“This munitions plant of Howard’s has not been officially operative since October of 1945, so I cannot believe it would be as exorbitant as you imagine it being,” she said as Elias steered onto Exit 14 and coasted along the off-ramp. Emma cast her attention down to Flushing Creek below them as they crossed it. “I remember when this place used to be beautiful. Marshes, water fit for swimming, greenery as far as the eye could see.”

“I only ever remember this part of New York, borrowing the language of Fitzgerald—damn the oleaginous toad and his puerile, psychologically vacant writing—being but a great valley of ashes,” Elias recalled, his pale eyes flickering along the industrial landscape. “I can still taste the bitterness of char on my tongue from when we used to go this way to visit clients and investors in Port Washington.”

“I should have had you a century sooner so that you could have seen this place before humanity ruined it, darling,” Emma sighed wistfully as she turned her focus back to the road upon the off-ramp’s termination on the other side of Flushing Creek. Elias merged onto a road that he drove along until he came to the turn lane for Linden Place. When the traffic light changed to green, he made a right onto Linden. “Did I ever tell you that, after we read it, I burned the signed copy of The Great Gatsby that Fitzgerald gave us?”

“What?” Elias snorted in delight, his gaze skimming over a bowling alley, an endless stream of brownstone apartments, a hotel painted one shade darker than his convertible, and aging townhouses as they traversed Linden Place. “Mother, you didn’t!”

“I did,” Emma grinned. Elias’s shoulders shook with laughter as he turned onto 32nd Avenue. “I packaged the ashes and had them shipped to his doorstep.”

Lined with rundown graffiti-littered red brick warehouses, grease-smudged automobile shops, and dirt-stained brownstone apartments, 32nd Avenue stretched on for several blocks before it culminated in the bustling intersection of 32nd and College Point Boulevard. Beyond the intersection lay a long strip of land along the eastern bank of Flushing Creek where the Queens-based Stark Industries munitions plant loomed like the carcass of an aged grey beast.

“Well,” Elias said after a beat of driving in silence. “That explains it.”

“Explains what, darling?”

“Why I could never find that bloody book when I tried to burn it myself.”

The sound of Emma’s laughter, so very much like the musical sound of frozen rain tapping on a windowpane or like the crystals of a ballroom chandelier tinkling above a grand ballroom, bubbled from her throat to rest upon her son’s ears. With a wry grin, Elias came to a stop at the intersection at the end of 32nd Avenue and flicked on his blinker. As he waited for the traffic light to change in his favor, Elias and Emma observed through a steady stream of traffic the seemingly abandoned Stark Industries plant where Howard’s people made munition, missiles, and napalm for the U.S. government during the Second World War. Unknown to virtually everyone, though, was the fact that life still teemed within what externally seemed but a carapace of a place that had seen far better days. Hell, Elias and his mother had only uncovered the hidden purpose of this low profile location of Howard’s through some good-natured corporate espionage.

“Can you feel the guards?” Emma leaned forward in her seat, tipping her sunglasses low and casting her icy eyes along the bank.

A long compound of connected buildings encircled in barbed wire and chain link fencing, the Stark Industries munitions plant stretched from 32nd Avenue to 34th Avenue under the shadow of Whitestone Expressway and alongside the brackish waters of Flushing Creek. Despite it being widely believed to have been left unused since the end of the war, as a neighbor, Elias personally felt that nothing would delight him more than to look out his window every morning as he listened to Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club on the radio and know that he was only a single deviant spark away from a conflagration of God knows what kind of explosive that could still be lying around in Howard’s old plant that would force all of Flushing to be evacuated and consequently send everyone’s property values plummeting.

Regardless, neither Elias nor his mother had to rely on their telepathic talents to grasp that if there was ever a reason for America’s middle-aged and infamously overt Mustachioed Casanova to operate with what scant subtlety he possessed and work out of what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a deserted factory instead of one of his more highbrow and cutting-edge locales around the world, it must have been a good one. Naturally, Elias and Emma could already confirm that what Howard was hiding behind the thick concrete walls of his plant did indeed necessitate a certain degree of… well, subtlety, especially considering the oft apocalyptic tensions between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that had only been exacerbated since Elias and his mother (and the rest of the Western World for that matter) had lost Kennedy to an assassin in Texas a year and four months ago. The last thing Howard would want the public hearing was that he had been working alongside a Soviet, let alone an authority on electromagnetism and fusion reaction that was formerly on the KGB’s payroll, since 1946.

“I can sense the guards,” Elias nodded as the light turned green and he made a left onto College Point Boulevard. “Twenty-five professionals hired from a private military company as well as a team of Stark Industries scientists.” Elias drifted into the lane closest to the razor-edged enclosure surrounding the munitions plant and eyed the locked gateway up ahead on the side of the road. “I do wonder why Howard chose to hire PMCs to serve as guards instead of capitalizing on his position as one of the directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. to staff this facility.”

“You can ask him soon enough, darling; he’s working alongside his boffins and the Soviet as we speak.”

“Splendid,” Elias’s irises silvered as they remained trained on the road before him.

He reached out with his mind and caressed the fragile psyches of every single one of Howard’s PMCs, his influence casting far and wide throughout the plant and shimmering in the atmosphere over the factory like a great steely net before ensnaring the pliant minds of the hired guards in his telepathic grasp. Twenty-five budlike brains burst into open-petaled blossoms for Elias, proffering to him all their knowledge and skills and secrets for his use. Twenty-five sets of eyes extended Elias’s sight to all reaches of the building, no dark corner left unseen, no act left unwitnessed. From the former warehouse-turned-state-of-the-art security and surveillance station to the long production lines remodeled into a number of high-tech laboratories, Elias saw it all. With hardly half a thought, he compelled two PMCs posted in the security and surveillance station to begin redirecting the incriminating gaze of any security camera onsite that even held a fraction of a chance of capturing Elias and his mother on film, and he urged another pair of guards to rush to the gate.

“Such a peculiar place for a weapons factory,” Elias said as he pulled off College Point Boulevard and drove up to the gateway just as the guards were so generously slipping loose the final lock and pushing the gate open. When Howard’s two PMCs were safely out of the way, Elias eased his Ferrari forward into the compound and parked it at one of the loading bays. “I suppose we cannot judge Howard too harshly, though; we do have that one electronics factory in the urban heart of Tehran.”

“Oh,” Emma sighed longingly while she slipped off her designer sunglasses and set them on the dash. “I miss Iran, darling—the cuisine is scrumptious.”

“Now that you mention it, Mother, I could go for some of the stew we had last time; you know, the one with poultry and pomegranate syrup that was served with white rice. Khoresh-e fesenjān?” A pair of guards jogged to Elias’s roadster, Heckler & Koch handguns holstered at their hips, and opened the driver’s and passenger’s side doors with all the grace of well-trained valets. Elias slid out his car, tossed his keys to the guard nearest him, and patted him on the chest. “Be a dear and make sure my baby does not get hurt while we are gone, sweetheart; I just waxed and detailed him all by hand this morning, and I swear that if someone so much as puts their oily finger on him, I will damn well but a bloody dent in them and you.”

“You and your cars,” Emma snorted at her son as the second guard offered her his hand. She took his help graciously and rose to her feet before eying the vacant loading dock. “I’ll give Howard this much: he’s committed to the act of making this facility appear too ignoble for use by one of America’s most illustrious billionaires since the likes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, or us.”

Elias’s mother was far from wrong. The concrete loading bay which had once been a continuous sheet of smooth grey was pocked with potholes and had been reduced to cracked rubble in spots, allowing weeds to grow up from the earth and color the dreary ground. Faded newspaper shreds were caught in the links of the fencing and waved like banners in the breeze, empty aluminum beer cans dotted the lot outside the munitions plant like curious metallic flowers, and shards of glass lay hidden in the dirt like jewels waiting to be polished. The metal loading dock doors were streaked with rust and decorated with the most sophisticated of urban artworks. Though he was being unfairly sarcastic, some of the graffiti actually impressed Elias, such as the hyperrealistic rendition of Rosa Parks and Dr. King standing hand-in-hand or the art-nouveau depiction of Erik Lehnsherr’s helmeted profile in shades of oxblood and aubergine with the phrase “No more hiding, no more suffering” arcing around the crown of his anti-telepathy headgear. Elias shook his head. To a degree, Erik was right, and Charles was no different, and yet… their philosophies were two vastly disparate kinds of extremism.

Turning away from the graffiti and walking to his mother, Elias nodded at a nondescript side door: “According to Howard’s watchdogs, that is one of the two entrances to the renovated laboratories. There is another around back. Both are heavily fortified, but I have guards ready to let us in on my command.”

Emma looped her arm through her son’s: “Shall we?”

With the minds of Howard’s PMCs at their disposal, Elias and his mother made quick work of navigating the plant, which was as slovenly and slipshod on the inside as it was on the outside for much of their trek through the mechanized wasteland that was the vast majority of Howard’s secret facility. Just when Elias had been beginning to feel like he was going to need at least three separate highly thorough showers to disinfect himself of the dirt and dust, he and Emma stumbled upon the portion of the plant which had been remodeled for scientific study. Hidden behind a set of biometrically locked blast-proof doors, stepping into Howard’s laboratories was like stepping into a different plane of reality where grey grittiness and squalor were but distant dreams of an epoch long lost to the sands of time. Elias actually had to squint against the fluorescent lighting reflecting off the blinding sterility and brilliant whiteness of the renovated assembly line-turned-research center.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath, uncertain himself of whether he was more stunned by the drastic change of scenery or the glaring lights.

Blinking as his eyes adjusted, Elias quickly scanned the former factory floor while his mother telepathically cloaked them from mortal sight, molding the multicolored psionic energy in the room into a frigid white dome of power that swirled and glittered about herself and her son like a localized snowstorm. Austere walls marked with windows of reinforced glass, diagram- and equation-littered chalkboards, and machinery of the highest caliber—well, in the United States and not owned by Frost International, anyway; Elias had seen better in some of his and his mother’s own facilities and in Wakanda, but that was another story. Men in lab coats buzzed and droned about like studious bees across the room, arguing and hypothesizing and collaborating. Some pointed fervently at schematics sketched upon the chalkboards. Elias followed their gaze to see repeated figures appearing at least once on each chalkboard in the room: an all too familiar crystalline, cube-shaped vessel of unimaginable power and limitless energy and some manner of largescale toric…thingamabob?

“Do you see this?” Elias telepathically queried his mother as he walked past several of Howard’s scientists to inspect an unmanned chalkboard. “These equations? The schematics? Howard’s finally using his research on the Tesseract.”

“A few of the finer details regarding the physics are off,” Emma paced after her son and narrowed her sapphire eyes in scrutiny at the chalkboard. “Are these people not supposed to be the best scientific minds Howard has to work with?”

“Well, yes,” Elias conceded. “But that wasn’t my point, Mum. This torus-shaped device, is this supposed to be a...” He examined the equations and chemical reactions plotted about the diagram, his mind processing the data far faster than any of Howard’s supercomputers. “God in Heaven, it’s a prototypical energy source based off the Tesseract.”

“Well, Howard did drunkenly confess at the international Hellfire Club soiree of 1953 in Los Angeles that he believed the Tesseract could be the key to indefinite sustainable energy,” Emma reminisced as she smudged out an incorrect coefficient, picked up a nearby piece of chalk, and corrected the error. “But this blueprint doesn’t make sense to me; if the core truly burns isotopes of palladium like it says, then he’s making a cold fusion reactor of some sort, one that depends upon a palladium-103 and palladium-107 radio-isotopic decay cell to produce an electrical current.” Emma traced the stream of chemical equations with the piece of chalk pinched between her fingers, and Elias did the same with his eyes. “But how is Howard reconciling the balancing of the protons between the isotopes? Palladium-107 releases an electron via beta decay when it turns into silver-107, therein causing a neutron to turn into a proton.”

“And palladium-103 produces rhodium-103 via electron capture, taking an inner electron into the nucleus, combining it with a proton, and creating a neutron,” Elias nodded eagerly, pointing to the reaction in question on the board. “The electrons would balance the resulting atomic nuclei. If he’s aiming to create energy, there would, in effect, be no net flow of electricity, which means—”

“Howard has found a way to utilize the beta decay of palladium-107 ions as an electron source for palladium-103—”

“Thereby producing an electric circuit between two different radioactive isotopes!” Elias pointed to the diagram of the torus-shaped reactor, taking note of the band-like segments sketched intermittently along the ring of the apparatus. “He must be using electromagnets in the actual reactor, then, to ionize, control the electron transfer, and manipulate the radioactive decay of the palladium-103.”

“I must admit that it’s an ingenious attempt to replicate the Tesseract without causing the kind of destruction that the Tesseract itself is capable of wreaking,” Emma canted her head in acknowledgement and set the chalk down after correcting another numerical error. “The use of palladium, of course, as Howard likely knows, is dreadfully subpar and causing most of the complications he’s running into. He may be limited by the technology of his time, but vibranium would do wonders had he the resources, although I suspect from this data that he has already crossed that bridge and considered it a fruitless path to follow. The poor man likely still thinks that he used the last of this world’s vibranium cache to build Captain Rogers’s shield.”

Turning his searching gaze to the laboratories once more, Elias spotted Howard across the room. Elias himself vaguely recalled being 47—the year was 1891, Benjamin Harrison was the President, the Gay Nineties were treating Frost International rather well, and the suffrage movement was picking up speed around the world—but unlike Howard, Elias’s 47 years had not looked so… timeworn. The nearly ebony hair on which Howard had prided himself in his youth had faded in color, having greyed at the temples, and had receded back from his creased forehead. Small lines likewise furrowed the once tight flesh at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and his tanned skin was beginning to show the telltale signs of a man who had spent his lengthy bachelor years lazing in the sun with a drink in hand and women queued up for his affections when he wasn’t tinkering in some lab or fleeing the United States on charges of selling weapons to Russians.

Some things had and would forever remain the same, however. He was still trim, wore his signature mustache, and refused to don a lab coat in his own facilities where he demanded everyone else be dressed to strict protocol. Despite his wife’s laboring to make an honest man of him, Howard Stark’s psyche also still reeked of lifelong duplicity and self-interest behind the showman-playboy persona he wore like a second skin and clung to like a lifeline.

Alas, the prices one must pay to climb the menacing American ladder as the son of immigrants, the son of Jews, in an increasingly xenophobic and intolerant country. Though Howard may not have been one of Elias’s favorite wartime allies or business rivals or people in general, he admired the man’s will to claw his way out of the oppression and baseness of his childhood and clamber to the acme of American society. For someone whose father had been a fruit vendor and whose mother had made shirtwaists in a factory, Howard had risen from rags to riches, a regular American Cinderella sans bespoke crystal footwear.

“Do we feel like extending an olive branch before we neglect to tell Howard that Natalia is on her way with another K.G.B. agent to snatch his ex-Soviet colleague?” Elias asked his mother.

“Personally?” Emma turned on her heel, wound her arm through her son’s again, and walked them back to the center of the room. “No. Do you feel the need to do so?”

“I’m indifferent.” Elias admitted, his eyes trained on the future abductee, a pale and dark-haired giant of a man—Anton Vanko, mid-forties, defected from the U.S.S.R. at the end of World War II and sought asylum in the United States thereafter—as he conversed with Howard. “Vanko is…” Elias narrowed his eyes and honed in on Vanko’s mind; the Russian was hiding something, something which had been weighing upon his psyche for years—“Vanko is—no, was a spy. He just went rogue on the U.S.S.R. a week ago.”

“That certainly explains why my better judgment barred me from trying to steal him from Stark Industries and employ him as a lead scientist at one of our labs the second he stepped foot on American soil.”

Elias nodded slowly: “That also explains why the K.G.B. is sending Natalia and another agent to abduct him, then; his original defection had been a ploy, but this time it was too authentic for their liking.”

“Fickle as cats, the K.G.B.,” Emma snorted, and with a dismissive flick of her wrist, the swirling psionic energy shrouding them from detection dissipated into the rafters high overhead.

As per custom to those who are unused to the tricks of telepaths or the talents of superpowered individuals in general, the sudden appearance of two natty blonds from seeming nothingness not only caught the attention of every single person in the room but also gave them each quite a start. One man flinched so hard that he tripped over his own feet and nearly fell upon a rather fragile and highly expensive apparatus beside him. A thunderous silence descended upon the factory floor for several fleeting moments as all eyes then turned from Elias and Emma to Howard, whose composure had slipped seconds prior and whose visage revealed an array of rapidly shifting emotions: astonishment melted into fury which chilled into leaden recognition that in turn grew buoyant and became a sort of curiosity tinged with tones of uneasy caution and an almost fond exasperation.

“How—?” Howard began, shattering the tense quiet.

“Your security team are gentlemen, Howard,” Emma offered the man a charming smile and little else. “They were only too happy to open any door we wanted.”

“They’re also getting fired,” Howard muttered before jamming his hands in his pockets and striding toward Elias and Emma. His scientists scrambled to return to their studies as he walked by. Vanko’s gaze lingered on the Frosts until Elias caught his eye and the alleged ex-Soviet turned his back to the unfolding scene in the center of the old assembly line. “This is private property, you know. It’s also a top-secret facility that I’ve gone to great lengths to secrete.”

“Truly?” Elias shifted his attention from Vanko to Howard, whose nostrils marginally flared as he came to a stop before the Frosts. “We had no idea, sweetheart, I assure you.”

“Glad to see you’ve still got your scintillating wit and suavity,” Howard sighed heavily through his nose. “Since I assume you have my security team firmly under your thumbs, there’s no point in throwing you both out, so how can I help you?”

“Oh, Howard, darling,” Emma unlinked her arm from her son’s and patted Howard’s cheek, “as if you could even think of tossing your two dearest corporate competitors and most valued S.H.I.E.L.D. consultants aside like they were nothing more to you than trifles.” A single fluting chuckle escaped her, and she shook her head, patting Howard’s cheek more sharply this time, the smack and suction of flesh audible with each strike. “Now, my dear, let us get down to the brass tacks; we have simply missed you and the wonderful brain housed in that skullcap of yours so dearly that we came on a social call. Indulge a pair of old friends, won’t you, Howard?”

“The day that Emma and Elias Frost swing by unannounced for a ‘social call’ without a hidden agenda or twenty is the day that I drop dead,” Howard snorted, shaking his head in amusement as Emma’s hand fell back to her side. “Why the hell not, though, I guess? We can gab—it’s bound to be more interesting than anything else I had planned for the day.”

~*~*~*~*~

“The bar is serving scotch on the rocks today, ladies and gents,” Howard cast a glance over his shoulder as he poured his drink into a crystal tumbler filled with ice chips. “Any takers?”

Elias examined the renovated foreman’s breakroom that Howard had made his personal office and all its ascetic décor: “More of a martini man, admittedly.”

“I too appreciate the offer, Howard dear, but I don’t drink that scotch,” Emma said as she idly inspected Howard’s cluttered desk before taking a seat in one of the man’s high-back leather chairs, conceivably the most extravagant furnishing in the room. Crossing one leg neatly over the other, she turned her wintery eyes then to Howard’s back.

“I think I recall you saying something like that at my first Hellfire Club party,” Howard hummed in thought as he capped his scotch decanter and set it aside on the bar behind his desk. He turned to face the Frosts as Elias moved to stand beside his mother, shifting his weight so that he leaned casually against the back of her chair. “Boston, spring of 1941, the New England branch’s annual gala. Sir John Braddock, Warren Worthington II, Sebastian Shaw, and I were there to be inducted. I was in the midst of speaking with a friend—”

“Hugh Jones, the head of Roxxon Oil Corporation and the man who you would later make a cuckold, you mean,” Elias reminded with a smirk. Without so much as a look in his mother’s direction, he accessed the psychic link between them and telepathically queried, “Are you ready?”

“I’m entering Vanko’s subconscious as we speak, darling.”

“Yes,” Howard cleared his throat, “thank you for jogging my memory, Frost.” Flicking his brown eyes between Elias and Emma, he continued: “And then all of a sudden, the real celebrities of the party show up—Club Royalty! Let’s see, Ned Buckman was the Black King at the time, and he introduced himself alongside you two and a pretty blonde piece of arm candy, his Black Queen. Paris Seville, I believe—”

“And then you revealed yourself to be highly intoxicated and a spoiled lothario riding into the Hellfire Club on a tide of entitlement if memory serves me correctly,” Emma smiled affably. Her glacial blue irises froze into a tundra white color defined from the off-white sclera of her eyes by a wire-thin ring of silver-cyan, and she telepathically said to her son, “The replication of Vanko’s knowledge on electromagnetism and fusion reaction has commenced.”

“Ah, yes, well…” Howard frowned, none the wiser to his sudden development of a case of something akin to acute induced visual agnosia thanks to Elias. With his parietal lobes temporarily impaired in such a way, Howard may have been able to see the piercing eyes of the two blonds visiting him, but he was ignorant to the fact that those eyes he beheld were no longer the jewel blue he was accustomed to observing; rather, they were psychically charged and colored in shades of white and silver. “Those were quite the days, weren’t they?” He took a long sip of his scotch and said, “Thank God people change.”

“People do change…” Emma said with a sigh, thrumming her manicured nails on the plush armrests of Howard’s chair in displeasure. Elias felt his mother sneer psychically before she said to him, “So, not only is Vanko an ex-spy, but he is also riding off of Howard’s coattails. For a so-called fusion reaction and electromagnetism genius, he certainly does not know much more than you or I, darling.”

“Does that then make us among the world’s foremost experts on fusion reaction and electromagnetism?” Elias asked his mother with a playful lilt. “I think it should.”

Emma offered her son a fond smirk before turning her attention back to Howard: “Despite the perhaps unwarranted verbal lashings, Howard, it is good to see you.”

“Yes,” Elias nodded his agreement even though it was not entirely the truth. Like Howard had earlier stated, the Frosts had possessed ulterior motives for their visit today prior to finding out Vanko was a largely hopeless resource for further scientific insights. Perhaps, though, he could still be of use; corporate intel and Stark secrets were just as desirable as knowledge of advanced physics and chemistry, after all. Of course, Elias and his mother could have mined it all direct from the source himself, but psionically parasitizing people who could be considered friends mayhap crossed the already tenuous and hazy ethical line all psychics perpetually toed due to the nature of their burdensome gift. “We missed you at the last three Hellfire Club annual galas.”

“Emma, Elias,” Howard’s eyes flickered to the drink in his hand, the ice clinking softly in his glass. “You know as well as I do that I’m trying to put my days of debauchery behind me. I’m not quite as young—or romantically available—as I used to be.” He chuckled, “And besides, the environment towards the end of my partying days with the Club was always so tense when I was sober enough to sense it.”

“In sooth?” Elias tilted his head as though ignorant to what Howard spoke of. It would be… beneficial to hear Howard’s perspective on the noted and dangerously authentic tensions within their Hellfire branch.

“Yes, in sooth, Shakespeare,” Howard scoffed. “I swore sometimes that you two were going to tear Shaw and his friends apart. Isn’t the Inner Circle supposed to get along? And also, what’s up with the Hellfire Club coordinating the Cuban Missile Crisis and trying to spark mutually assured destruction?”

“That was all Shaw’s sect,” Elias withheld a snarl. “Trust us; we had no idea the Black Court was going to do something so gauche and nihilistic behind our backs.”

“Moreover, Howard, don’t be daft,” Emma rolled her glittering snow-colored eyes. “From your time as a director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to your own experiences as creator and chief executive of Stark Industries, you know how it is to work alongside people just as headstrong as yourself. Also, when have you ever known the upper crust to ‘get along’?”

Though his mother was making generalizations to dissuade Howard from probing further into the dynamics of the New England Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, the man was not inherently wrong in his assessment. There had been a time when the Inner Circle had run like a well-oiled machine (with a little bit of psychic policing as the lubricant, admittedly, though that was beside the point). However, that era of esprit de corps had come to an abrupt and bloody conclusion at the onset of the Second World War when Elias and his mother had been called to Europe to assist the Strategic Scientific Reserve in their mission to combat the forces of HYDRA ravaging the European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern theatres.

While Emma and Elias had been offering their services in whatever manner best helped the S.S.R.’s early war efforts—whether that be telepathically spying on, psychically lobotomizing, and/or brutally assassinating Nazis and fascists—Edward Buckman, the Black King at the time, had been charmed by Sebastian Hiram Shaw’s ambition and ruthlessness between the sporadic home visits Elias and Emma were able to make. Naturally, it was while they were across the pond that Buckman had idiotically decided to mentor Shaw for a leadership position in the Club. Buckman, the heedless oaf, may as well have signed his and his lover’s own death warrants.

In August of 1943, Shaw, a closeted mutant and the CEO and founder of a weapons manufacturing company slightly less impressive than Stark Industries, had betrayed Buckman. Shaw had the Black King executed alongside his Black Queen and lover Paris Seville at her coastal Rhode Island estate and had the murders pinned on one of Seville’s maids with whom Buckman engaged in highly inappropriate relations on the side. With Buckman and Seville six feet under and Elias’s and Emma’s North American presence growing scarcer the longer the war raged on, Shaw had secured almost complete control over the New England branch of the Hellfire Club. It did not require an overly active imagination to grasp how unfortunate such a situation and the innumerable unseemly alterations to the Club Shaw was able to churn out in Elias’s and Emma’s absence turned out to be for all parties involved, save perhaps Shaw himself and his closest allies. Their time would come, though; in fact, it was coming, burgeoning on the horizon like a radiant dawn.

“So,” Elias felt the gears turning in Howard’s mind, felt him prepare to again press the issue of the Inner Circle, and cut him off. “How is Maria?”

“Good, good.” Howard accepted the conversational redirection. To a point. “She more or less banned me from ever attending one of your Club parties again.”

“A pity,” Emma remarked without much conviction. Howard, bullheaded as he was, was blatantly not letting talk of the Hellfire Club drop so easily. Emma heaved a prolonged psychic sigh, “I suppose this is the price we must pay for making an unannounced visit and lying about why we truly came.”

“We might as well let him jabber on,” Elias returned. “It will give you more time to root around in Vanko’s skull and see what kind of intel he had been sending the K.G.B. before he decided to quit and practically ask for them to send Natalia after him.”

Out of some quasi-Pavlovian reflex Elias occasionally acted upon at the mention of Natalia, he unconsciously glanced to his right arm. Beneath the silk sleeve of his dress shirt, the young woman’s Parisian parting gift remained on the far side of his bicep—a surprisingly clean silver-pink line spanning the muscle, the remnant of a wound bone-deep. He could have healed the scar much in the same manner he had psionically regenerated the damaged tissue and lost blood, but he had decided to keep it on a whim. Elias could not quite explain it, but in the moment and even now, it had felt and still feels wrong somehow to will it away with no more than a bat of his eyes.

It could be a result of his growing… fondness of Natalia. Receiving a live stream of updates on her without cessation through the psychic tag he had anchored deep in her psyche had certainly warmed Elias to a strange partiality from his initially scientific curiosity and pragmatic mindset concerning how the U.S.S.R.’s premier Black Widow might best operate as a pawn for him and his mother’s far-reaching ambitions. Though it was difficult to describe what exactly Elias felt for Natalia after she had unknowingly been a constant fixture in his mind for well over a year, he did hold for her a great deal of sympathy—or maybe empathy since he vicariously felt her suffering? Irrespective of sentiment, due to the bond that Elias had psionically forged with Natalia, he had gained a wealth of superliminal and subliminal knowledge from the young woman and likely knew her and the Red Room just as intimately as she herself did at the current moment.

Formally recognized in the U.S.S.R. as an invitation-only and little-known girl’s boarding school and ballet conservatoire named the Red Room Academy for the Advanced Education of Exceptional Young Women, the Red Room was in reality a remote espionage training facility for vulnerable and easily-acquired orphan girls across the vast U.S.S.R. As for the historical particulars of the facility and the Black Widow Ops Program instituted there, Natalia was not exactly well-versed. With a little digging and conversing with old former S.S.R. associates who had infiltrated the Red Room Academy in 1946, Elias and his mother were able to piece together some of the information beyond Natalia’s grasp. The Red Room itself was the brainchild of Russia’s Department X, a covert deep science and espionage government agency created by Joseph Stalin after the Great War to ensure that the Soviet Union would become the world’s leading superpower by having better weapons than both its enemies and allies combined. Despite founding the Red Room sometime in the 1920s and crafting the Russian Assassin Program—the Black Widow Ops Program’s precursor—to train young girls as elite spies and assassins who would grow up to hopefully be some of the U.S.S.R.’s greatest operatives, Department X produced rather unimpressive results. It was not until the final years of World War II when Department X experienced some form of smashing success—likely the replication or development of a variant of Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum paired with advancements in the field of psychotechnics or the acquisition of psionicially gifted assets—that inspired an overhaul of the previously middling Russian Assassin Program, thus birthing the Black Widow Ops Program which would go on to garner additional victories for the Soviet Union.

What Natalia did know about the Red Room, though, was all in lived experience, which was without a doubt just as crucial as the more historiographical information Elias and Emma had managed to uncover. At any rate, Natalia’s intel was by far more likely to be of immediate practical use. Located among the pine woods and swamps of northwestern Byelorussia, the Red Room was hidden well enough from public sight that evidence of its crimes against humanity could be buried in the winter snow or tossed into the nearby marshy lowlands for the forest’s resident scavengers to consume and thereby conceal. The facility’s inhuman abuses were many, though brainwashing, torture, murder, forced human experimentation, and the training of child soldiers certainly topped the list.

While Natalia’s childhood had been spent mastering the art of killing and weaponizing her budding femininity and learning the manifold ways to destabilize governments, other girls her age had been able to be carefree and happy in the summer years of childhood. Laughing, singing, playing, things that Natalia had never known, that she may never know. Such youthful innocence should not be a privilege for those able to afford it, and the fact that it indeed was an honor rather than a God-given right on this depraved chunk of rock floating in an unforgiving universe made Elias’s blood boil in his veins and gave him rash notions to astrally project his consciousness halfway across the world and psychically assassinate the monsters responsible for ruining the lives of little girls like Natalia.

“You doing fine over there, Elias?” Howard’s voice cut through the fog of fury that clouded Elias’s mind and brought him rushing back to reality. Howard’s gaze was wary, his hands wrapped carefully around his now empty tumbler.

“Lost in thought, Howard,” Elias forced a laugh and a tight-lipped smile. “Forgive me for my preoccupation.”

“No need for apologies,” Howard said with a much more reassuring smile than Elias’s. He cleared his throat awkwardly, his upturned lips slipping in mild concern. “Is it Rogers and… Barnes?”

“Uh…” Elias blinked, thrown. Emma tensed in Howard’s chair.

"Howard—” Emma warned at the same moment that Howard set his tumbler aside and said, “This month marks the 20th anniversary of Rogers’s flying the Valkyrie into the Arctic and Barnes’s—”

“I may be a centenarian, Stark, but my memory has yet to fail me,” Elias lightly quipped. He swallowed, his throat growing thick with the melancholy that had been intermittently afflicting him for days, though, admittedly had receded since he and his mother had decided to investigate Howard’s secret research facility. “James—” Elias frowned. No one had ever referred to James by his first name other than Elias himself, James’s second-generation immigrant mother Winifred, and his headstrong Romanian grandmother, and that is how the man had liked it. “Buck would have been 48 years old on March 10.”

Emma reached up for Elias’s hand, holding onto it tightly: “Why don’t we talk about something else, darling? Something like Howard’s laughably short-lived career as a film director or when Peggy knocked him into the Thames on V-E Day for trying to kiss her and how he would have drowned had he not been fished out by a group of frogmen.”

Elias squeezed his mother’s hand, grateful, but sighed instead, “I have missed him every day since 1945. Steve too; he was a remarkable man and one of the best friends I have ever had.”

“I…” Howard scowled, shaking his head. “I hate this time of the year. Reminds me of all the ways we could have done things differently back then. Reminds me of how the world lost some of the greatest men and left profiteers like me behind.”

“Howard, you are hardly to blame for anything that happened during that odious chapter in the text of human existence.” Emma massaged the bridge of her nose wearily. She always got weary when speaking of the war.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty for helping to produce weapons of mass destruction, Emma, for working on Project Manhattan and making that godforsaken atom bomb,” Howard admitted in a rare moment of incisive and brutal honesty. “You know, my greatest creation was Captain America; he was the only thing I made that genuinely saved lives, directly and indirectly, instead of outright claiming them.”

Elias, in an even rarer moment of empathy, pursed his brow: “Oh, Howard...”

“What do you think this Earth would be like had Barnes not fallen?” Howard asked, his gaze faraway. “Had Rogers found some way to save the day without sacrificing himself in the end?”

“Thinking like that will not bring them back,” Elias pushed himself upright from the back of the chair his mother sat in, feeling the need to put his body in motion to better occupy his mind and the darkness which eddied at its outskirts. “But if you want my God’s honest opinion, I would have dragged Buck home from the war after the Commandos came back from their mission to capture Zola and returned him to his family like he wanted the whole bloody time he was overseas. He would be safe, happy. Likely a mite more rotund and softer in spots, but still as handsome as ever.” Elias exhaled heavily through his nose as he felt his voice begin to falter. He paced across the room, examining the sparsely decorated walls to distract himself. “As for Steve, well, he and Peggy would have gone dancing. Courted. Maybe married and had a few kids as obstinate as both of them.”

Elias turned and saw that his mother’s eyes were on him. They were no longer glowing white with telepathic power. Instead, they were just their regular pretty blue and so profoundly sad. He averted his gaze.

Howard broke the silence: “You really loved Barnes, didn’t you?”

“With every aching fiber of my being.”

~*~*~*~*~

Shutting the passenger’s side door of his mother’s porcelain white Aston Martin DB5, Elias flipped up the wide collar of his Burberry peacoat against the frigid early morning drizzle sailing near-horizontal on the wind. The soft wool brushed the stubble of his jaw, reminding him that he needed to shave. Or maybe not—he could raise a neatly trimmed beard like he had in his twenties and thirties; full facial hair was slowly coming back into fashion since it had silently grown passé in the decades following the Civil War. He adjusted the brim of his beaver-fur fedora as a gust of wind tried to snag it from atop his head. He shoved his leather-gloved hands in his coat pockets, pushing all thoughts of grooming and haircare aside for the time being, and glanced around the lot surrounding Howard’s Queens-based research facility which had officially lost its top-secret status as of Natalia’s visit to it less than twelve hours ago.

Although he had remotely kept tabs on Natalia and her activities from the previous night via the psychic tag embedded in her psyche, Elias had to give his favorite Slavic spider a hand upon observing the physical aftermath of said nighttime activities. She had indubitably left a message. Grey plumes of smoke yet curled up into the cold rainy sky from the half-melted and warped remains of the warehouse where Howard’s security and surveillance station had once been located as well as from the ragged hole which had been blown in the graffiti-laden exterior wall outside the part of the factory where Howard’s laboratories had been. The smell of ash still hung heavy in the air, and a vaguely chemical odor slithered beneath the burnt scent, only detectable when the breeze happened to propel it in the right direction from the assembly line laboratories. Half-singed papers, broken lab equipment, and strips of metal rested upon the cracking concrete like fallen corpses before the plant’s newfound sharp-edged maw while literal blackened corpses littered the hard earth near the burnt warehouse. Picking through all the detritus as they slipped into and tramped out of the hole in the factory wall and the warehouse’s writhen skeleton was a team from Damage Control, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s official cleanup crew that assessed and controlled messes like the one the K.G.B. had left behind for Howard to find.

“What happened here?” Emma, in a dark trench tied loosely about her waist, a matching bucket hat, and white André Courrèges go-go boots, walked around her British grand tourer after locking it to stand beside her son.

“What you see before you is the result of the foolishness of another of the field chaperones the K.G.B. seems so insistent upon pairing Natalia with following the events which transpired in West Berlin and Paris.” Elias swept his gaze around the wrecked compound and inspected the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they went about their work with antlike efficiency. “While Natalia cleared the way for her K.G.B. babysitter, a veteran agent named Boris Turgenov, and then permanently took down the surveillance system by setting off high-grade explosives in the warehouse, Turgenov made his way to the labs. Howard was not onsite during the attack, but what PMCs remained from Natalia’s initial strike evacuated the other scientists and got them to safety by the time Turgenov broke through the lab doors—”

“And found Vanko still there?”

“Precisely,” Elias nodded. “Vanko refused to let Turgenov haul him back to the U.S.S.R. where he would be exterminated, tossed into the Siberian wilderness to fend for himself, or brainwashed into servitude, no doubt.”

“And the gaping hole in the factory wall comes in where?”

“Vanko and Tergenov scuffled. Vanko pulled out a highly unstable and untested ray gun of some sort that he and Howard had recently designed, fired it, and blew up not only Turgenov but also part of the factory wall and himself.”

“So Vanko is dead?”

The sound of wet concrete chips and glass crunching underfoot filled the silent compound as Elias and Emma impassively watched the Damage Control team clear the area, rolling charred corpses into body bags, sorting through seared and water-damaged classified research notes, and lugging damaged laboratory gear into S.H.I.E.L.D. cargo vans pulled up in the loading bay near where Emma had parked the GT she had fallen in love with after having seen it being driven by Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger last year.

“Vanko was admitted into the ICU at Queens Hospital Center when first responders found him pinned under a massive slab of the collapsed wall,” Elias said. “He’s in critical condition and is suffering from… a lot.”

Taking a moment to parse through the colorful threadlike psionic signatures and layers of psychic imprints left along the bank of Flushing Creek, Elias found a trace of Natalia’s psyche almost immediately. Claret red as the blood she spilled or the hair framing her pale face and redolent of new leather, spring lilacs in full bloom, and scouring soap, it was a thing to which he had become accustomed over the years. He knew it like the back of his hand, and it was because of this that Elias had to suppress a troubled sigh.

It was changing, displaying telltale signs that Natalia’s Black Widow conditioning was deteriorating and had been doing so in an insidious manner for some time now. As best as Elias could tell, the only perceptible effects of the conditional degradation were still relatively minor: implanted Red Room memories and obedience were grudgingly shifting like once-settled tectonic plates encrusting the slumbering superdense core that was all that the Soviets had attempted to repress within Natalia as it turned fitfully in its dwindling sleep. The vague sense of wrongness that she had experienced intermittently a month after Elias had first planted the anchor had now become something akin to her new understanding of personal normalcy, and the corrective switches wired into her programming which set Tchaikovsky to thundering in her skull whenever her psyche deviated from the preset Soviet standard held for Widows before righting the abnormality were so eroded that they only flipped once every week or two.

This provided Elias with only an infinitesimal amount of comfort despite the fact that these results were the slow-growing fruit of his psychic anchor and his mother’s further splintering of Natalia’s conditioning in the middle of Paris’s leading military museum as he had kept the Black Widow preoccupied with his testing of her potential as an asset to be added to the Frost’s arsenal. Verily, the Frosts had wanted this to happen, had caused this to happen, and yet… Elias could not shake the niggling concern that wormed in the pit of his stomach at the thought of how his and his mother’s manipulations might impact Natalia should the K.G.B.’s psy-ops agents or her brutal handlers finally discover that the U.S.S.R.’s best Widow was compromised in perhaps the most compromising of ways. It was a reality that would precipitately come about if Natalia’s conditioning continued to flag at the rate at which it had been and the Frosts did nothing to either stop it or further secrete it. Given the circumstances, though, secreting it was going to prove to be an increasingly difficult option that would call for a drastic decision should Elias and his mother wish to circumvent future resource-draining complications.

Emma reached out and touched her son’s arm, shaking him from his thoughts: “Where is she now?”

“Preparing to land in Moscow from a nine hour flight aboard a small Soviet jet,” Elias honed in on his psychic connection to Natalia, and he saw her piloting the private aircraft through the heavy steely clouds of the Russian countryside. “When she lands, she will refuel and rest for a few hours before returning to the K.G.B. outpost in Novosibirsk where the Widows are all stationed.”

“We’re not letting the K.G.B. realize what kind of state Natalia’s conditioning is in and losing nearly two years of work and a potential asset,” Emma reassuringly squeezed Elias’s arm through his thick peacoat with her gloved hand as the concealed front entrance of Howard’s facility opened and Howard himself stepped out into the gloomy morning weather. “What would you like to do?”

“Go over the specifics later,” Elias said as Howard’s eyes turned to the Frosts, his countenance inscrutable. He was in his shirtsleeves, the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and his tie was thrown about his neck more like a lariat than a necktie. “Summarily, to remove the Soviet psychics from the chessboard; they’re nothing but a nuisance at this point and present little reason to keep around any longer.”

Innocuous as it may seem when thusly phrased, that was the drastic decision: ridding the playing field and the K.G.B. of its psionically gifted agents. With them out of the picture, the risk of Natalia’s psychic developments and waning mental programming being discovered would be diminished by a factor of fifty. Bloody hell, maybe a hundred. However, what it really meant was the lobotomy or extermination of each and every agent under employ by the Soviet government who was in possession of a telepathic or empathic talent. To think that lobotomy would be the more merciful of the two practices was the misconception of a fool, though; the K.G.B. would kill the lobotomized psychics the instant the agency had no use for them.

As Howard approached Elias and Emma with a stack of crinkled schematics in his hands, Elias felt his mother give him an assenting telepathic nod. She understood quite well what he had meant. Neither of them were exactly strangers to dirtying their hands when the situation called for such direct action to be taken to protect their interests. Truthfully, they had dirtied their hands for much less. To do what Elias had in mind was not a delight nor would it be taken lightly, but it was going to occur regardless.

“You came,” Howard said as he paused before them.

“You called,” Emma replied. “Before I would typically even commence my morning toilette.”

“My apologies, Ems.”

Elias and Emma frowned in unison: “I beg your pardon?”

“Can we walk and talk?” Howard checked as he squinted up at the dreary sky, his upturned face collecting raindrops. Before either Emma or Elias could give their affirmation, Howard was on the move, brushing by them to hop into the back of a nearby black S.H.I.E.L.D. van. Emma and Elias shared a look before trailing after Howard, coming to stand outside the cargo van as his voice echoed out to them: “Were either of you responsible for exploding my warehouse, blasting my labs to bits, or hospitalizing my lead researcher by dealing him life-threatening injuries?”

“Howard,” Elias responded with equal parts cautionary deliberateness and affected woundedness. “You think so lowly of us.”

“Not at all,” came the man’s muffled reply and the sound of papers being shuffled from within the van. “I’ve always admired the both of you for your self-serving and scheming natures, really.” Elias blinked, uncertain how to interpret that comment, while Emma stared impassively at the vehicle. “I just want to know if this is some sort of corporate rivalry thing spurred by the sight of what my team was working on three days ago when you two stopped by for a visit.”

“As much as we would love to live up to your oh-so flattering expectations of us, Howard,” Emma rested her hands upon her hips as her stare crystallized into incisive ice, “it is with great regret that we must inform you that we are not the bombardiers for which you are looking.”

Howard was silent for a long moment, the only sound escaping the nondescript cargo van being that of the man’s sorting through salvaged materials and paperwork. The upturned collar of Elias’s coat tickled his cheek as a strong burst of wind whipped across the lot, carrying with it a storm of ashes. The knotted belt of his mother’s trench slipped loose and the long panels of fabric billowed around her in a most dramatic fashion, revealing the pleated white velvet mini dress she wore underneath. Arms still akimbo, Emma made no move to reclose her long coat.

Finally, footfalls. Howard stepped out of the back of the van and down to the concrete lot to eye the Frosts critically. Elias’s left eyebrow arced high on his forehead of its own volition, questioning and challenging and drolly entertained all at once.

“So,” Howard nodded tightly before crossing his arms over his chest, “the miscellaneous charred body parts scattered about Vanko’s lab don’t belong to an agent you hired to infiltrate my factory?”

“No, Howard,” Emma said coolly. “They do not.”

Silence. Rivulets of cold water trickled down Howard’s face. His pressed white button-up clung to his slender frame, dangerously close to being translucent if not transparent in some places.

Elias cleared his throat: “The man’s name was Boris Turgenov.”

“What?” Howard’s bushy eyebrows furrowed.

“The owner of the miscellaneous charred body parts,” Elias said. “His name was Boris Turgenov, a veteran agent of the K.G.B.”

“He was on a mission to procure his former Comrade—id est your ex-Soviet friend Dr. Anton Vanko,” Emma added. “Turgenov was to drag Vanko back to Rodina for cognitive recalibration.”

“How did you—?”

“We read the psychic imprints Turgenov left on this place in the short time he was here,” Elias explained, slipping a gloved hand out of his pocket to gesture to what Howard would perceive to be empty air. Of course, it was far from vacant; vibrant wisps of psionic energy drifted about, threadlike psychic signatures unspooled in the rain, and thoughts lapped like waves out from the ocean-deep or puddle-shallow minds of every sentient being surrounding them from Howard to the ant scurrying by his polished leather shoes. Sensing Howard’s confusion, Elias elaborated, “Yes, Turgenov may be dead, but he was not always. If you would like to cut straight to the pith, anything with a neuron produces psionic energy and leaves a nearly permanent residual trace of that energy wherever it goes. It is but a matter of tuning in to the proper frequency, I suppose, to be able to interact with it.”

“Huh,” Howard scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I always thought psychic mumbo-jumbo was more… well, mumbo-jumbo.”

“Yes, well, you would be wrong,” Emma said with a tap of her foot that suggested she was growing tired of the conversation. “Can we help you, Howard, or did you request our presence just to accuse us of arson and murder face-to-face?”

“That was actually about it,” Howard shrugged. “I appreciate the K.G.B. lead you two gave me, though.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked between the two blonds before him before asking, “While you’re both here, can I pick your brains?”

“It is much more likely for us to pick your brain, Howard,” Elias’s lips curled into a small smirk. “Ask whatever you would like.”

“Why do you two think the K.G.B. wants Vanko?”

“Why would they not?” Emma responded flatly. “Not only is he an expert in his scientific fields of study, but he has also worked alongside the famous Howard Stark, one of America’s brightest technological luminaries.”

“That must have tasted bitter on your tongue, Emma,” Howard chuckled without much enthusiasm.

“I did say ‘one of,’ my dear,” Emma flashed a feline grin.

Howard hummed in response, his forehead creased from the ponderous weight of his ponderings: “There’s not a snowflake’s chance in Hell that a single K.G.B. agent, no matter how much action he’s seen, could pull this op off. No human could have.”

Elias’s jaw clenched almost imperceptibly. Emma tilted her head slightly, her long hair spilling over her shoulder.

“Turgenov must have been some kind of metahuman,” Howard theorized. “A mutant or enhanced individual.”

“He got himself blown up, Howard,” Elias laughed dismissively. “He must not have been that good.”

“Fair enough,” Howard conceded. “I just thought… I don’t know. The Soviets have a history of metahumans.”

“I think that you mean they oppress and systematically murder mutants who fail to offer themselves up as tools and weapons to the government,” Emma said pointedly. “If that is indeed the Soviet history you are referencing.”

“That,” Howard nodded, “and Soviet attempts to make the perfect espionage agents and assassins. Black Widows, they call them now, but I thought they were an exclusively female force.”

“Your dream, I imagine,” Elias jabbed good-naturedly to keep Howard talking. As one of the three co-directors of S.H.I.E.L.D., it was possible that Howard may know something about the Widows that the Frosts had not yet picked up from the anchor in Natalia’s psyche.

“At one time, yes,” Howard snorted, shaking his head. “Now, not so much.” He paused, eying the Frosts briefly. “I admittedly don’t know much about these Widows. Intelligence gathering, spycraft, and espionage is more of Peggy’s area, but I do know that they’re out there and that they’ve got some kind of alternative Super Soldier Serum coursing through their veins.”

“Has S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to capture one of these Widows?” Emma asked. “Studied them to see how the U.S.S.R. miraculously created a strain of Erskine’s serum?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Howard’s shoulders fell as he sighed. “Widows are slippery and typically too dangerous for most of our agents to even attempt to tackle head-on, but Peggy and the Howling Commandos—” He paused, looking quickly between Emma and Elias before amending himself, “Dum Dum’s post-war Howling Commandos, that is, encountered a Black Widow in training back in 1946 in some Byelorussian boarding school-military base-mad scientist’s lair called the Krasnaya Komnata—”

“The Red Room,” Emma said under her breath.

“You know of it?” Howard was not surprised.

“Only in hushed whispers,” Elias lied. “We never knew what or where it was.”

“They apparently indoctrinate and desensitize girls from an early age to train them to be elite operatives,” Howard accepted Elias’s dishonesty and spoke on. “Peggy and the Howlies saw some disturbing stuff there despite it appearing to be abandoned. They found a girl, nine or so, supposedly left behind in the Soviets’ rush to save their skins from being discovered. Looked real sweet with her pigtails and alligator tears until she stabbed Dum Dum, snatched his revolver, and shot and killed one of the Commandos recruited after the war before she clambered into the ventilation ducts and got away. She popped out of the vents later in the mission, killed an S.S.R. agent, shot one of the other new Commandos in the leg, and still disappeared in the end.”

“Bloody hell,” Elias muttered in disbelief. Dum Dum had not exactly elaborated upon that information when the Frosts had inquired about the 1946 Red Room raid he had co-led with Peggy.

Elias wondered if the girl the S.S.R. and the Commandos had encountered could have been Natalia. No, the ages were wrong; Natalia would have only been four at the time of the S.S.R.’s storming of the Red Room. That fact, however, did not divorce the image of a young Natalia with her red hair twisted into pigtails hacking apart and shooting men over thrice her size and age from the mental picture of another orphaned Russian girl met during the S.S.R.’s 1946 Soviet raid doing just the same.

“Peggy and I ran into a proto-Widow on numerous occasions back in the late-40s who was trained in the Red Room before they developed their variant of the serum,” Howard confessed. “She was in her early twenties and absolutely stunning. Also extremely lethal. I can hardly imagine what she would have been capable of had she been hopped up on some knock-off Erskine biochemical treatments.”

“Anything,” Emma wrapped her coat about herself and knotted the dangling belt about her waist before looking over to her son. “She would have been capable of anything.”

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