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russellsppttemplates · 6 months

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Uh oh, I'm falling in love (Lando Norris)

Y/N and Lando both have jobs that require good sight and attention to detail and yet they're oblivious to their feelings for eachother

Note: english is not my first language. I'm in a very fluffy mood, so I got really excited when I got this request! This also makes my expectations even higher and calls me single in about seventeen different languages at once...

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Tw: mentions a needle (for sewing)

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

"Hey guys! How's everyone?", Max said to the camera as you made sure the set up was right, the screen showing his and Lando's faces on one screen and the table on the other like it was supposed to.

"As per your many, many requests, we have brought our graphic designer at Quadrant, Y/N", Lando announced as you appeared on camera, sending a very awkward first wave to the camera, "today's stream is little different than our usual programming, but it was the only way she agreed to be in one! You guys really wanted to see her, so we had to be creative!", Max said as he moved the friendship bracelets making kit into view on the table.

"Hey, Queen Taylor said we should make the friendship bracelets, so we're just following her!", you chuckled, looking at all the coloured threads and colourful beads, sorting them out and grabbing a pen and paper so you could draw your ideas.

"Since you guys wanted to get to know Y/N, can I tell them to send in questions?", Lando questioned you, "sure, I'll answer them to the best of mu ability", you smiled.

You were picking the letters you needed for the bracelet you were making when Max spoke up, "first one: how did you start working with Quadrant? I'd love to work on the team when I finish my degree!".

"I saw the job offer, and I must admit at first I didn't really know much about the company. I looked it up, looked cool enough and I sent my CV and portfolio in. So keep your eyes peeled for any offers, I guess? We have them now on the website, which was my doing, so you can check them out there if you want to be part of the team", you offered.

"I need help, guys", Lando said as he fiddled with his bracelet, the orange and grey beads with his initials sliding on the elasticated material, I can't do the closing knot on my own", he pouted as you placed your bracelet down.

"You have to flip it like this, here. Just put it on your wrist and I'll do the rest", you ushered him, your fingertips gingerly touching his hand and wrist as you quietly laced it, "this way we don't get frilly bits out and it looks pretty, see? Pretty!", you smiled, modelling his wrist for the camera.

Pretty, that's what he often thought about you. Not only pretty, but it was one of the first physical traits that came to mind.

"We should all have matching ones!", Max said as he completed his bracelet, impressively on his own, revealing the colourful beads with Quadrant spelled in white round beads with black letters, "I'll make one for each of you", he said as he watched you show your own, pink beads and a lyric he assumed was from a Taylor Swift song.

"I'll make Y/N's, she helped me after all", Lando said as one brave fan sent a comment into the chat.

He's so giddy to make Y/N a bracelet, it's a shame it will snap because of his lack of skills

Am I delusional if I say that they'd make a great couple?

If you're delusional, then what do I call myself? I still think they're making heart eyes at eachother whenever they catch the slightest glimpse!

We're joining forces, I think it's a noble pursuit!

He's a dork, Y/N, but you should give him a chance

Have you always known you wanted to be a graphic designer?

"I thought about different careers before I settled on this one, for now at least", you explained, "engineering was in the running up, but then I figured out that I was curious about how things worked, but that didn't mean that I wanted to be the one working on it. And this was a way to express my creativity, my strategy planning as well, and at the moment it's been quite good", you smiled as Lando grabbed your wrist softly, "I need to make sure this fits", he interrupted, "and it won't snap because I've learnt how to do it, thank you very much", he blushed. So he, too, was reading the comments, choosing not to dwell in them.

"Look, this way you always have a lucky charm with you everywhere you go, even if we're not together. We're eachothers lucky charms!", Lando announced as Max mafe a fake gagging noise.

"Are you all ready?", you said as you and Tara walked inside the room, clasping your watch on your wrist and hoping to find the boys ready.

Quadrant had been invited to a gala dinner that celebrated the companies in the same line of business, inviting five people to take part in the meal. After some team members politely declining the invitation since they had things booked already, the group ended up being Lando, Max, Callum, Tara and yourself.

The dress required everyone to up their usual style, hence the long dress you were wearing. Even though it was far from your usual everyday attire, you felt beautiful in the dress you ended up with after browsing the online shops for a while. The cut was simple, the skirt widening from your waist down and complimenting your curves as the sheen from the midnight blue fabric looked soft and sweet against your skin.

Lando seemed to think the same, trying his best to not let his mouth hang open when you and Tara walked inside their room, heels clicking on the wooden floor as you hurried them, "does it really take that long to put on a suit? I had to help Tara with the laces on her back and we still got ready faster than the three of you?", you asked, shaking your wrist to check if the dainty watch wasn't going to fall and that it wasn't too tight either.

Looking up to meet Lando's eyes, you were sure you physically and audibly gulped. No one should look that good in a plain white shirt. The cuffs were still unbuttoned, but the shirt itself was tucked in his black pants. He didn't have any jewellery, so his tanned skin caught your eye as it contrasted with his clothes.

"Lando has a problem with his shirt and we are trying to solve it", Max said, a little bit too antsy given that, at the naked eye, there didn't seem to be a big issue with the piece of clothing you had been inspecting quite closely.

"There was a loose button, and I tried to fix it, but I made it worse", Lando said as he pointed to the button on his hand, the slight movement showing you the place where it was supposed to he holding the piece together and closed.

"Three people in this room and no one thought about grabbing the sewing kit from the amenities?", Tara suggested, looking for it in the box that was the same as it was in your room, "see? Simple as that! Can you sew it, Y/N? My hand isn't fully healed yet, I can't quite grasp something that small yet".

Tara had injured herself earlier on in the week, prompting her to ask to tag out of the gala until you pleaded her to go so you wouldn't be alone, so she couldn't do it. None of the other guys seemed to even know how to pull the thread through the needle, so you grabbed the kit from Tara's hand, "sure, I'll do it", you said, "if that's okay with you, that is", you looked over at Lando.

"Sure, anything to solve this. Do I keep it on or should I take it off?", he questioned, wanting to slap himself straight after at his offer. Why would he volunteer to be shirtless in front of you? It certainly wasn't the way to go, shoving himself like that.

"On should be fine", you muttered, missing the snickers going on behind you as you wet the thread with your tongue, careful to not transfer any of the lipstick on it and ruining the piece without point of return for good, easily looping it through and adjusting the size of the ends.

"Button", you put your hand out so Lando could place it in your fingers, "I will do my best not to poke you, let me know if I do so accidentally", you mumbled at the closeness to him you found yourself in. It was the third button from the top, and as much as you loved the sight of the shirt slightly undone, the dinner required his shirt to be done up. Looping the thread on the button a few times, you moved to pierce the crisp white fabric so it would be secure, your hands dangerously close to his skin as you could hear his laboured breath. Lando still remembered and thought constantly about your fingers touching his hand and wrist when you did the friendship bracelets video for the YouTube channel, and right now, it only added to his predicament.

"It's done, all good!", you exclaimed, looking up as you cut the thread and seeing Lando's eyes on you. The intensity nearly threw you off of your balance as you stood the tiniest bit crouched down on your high heels.

Scrambling to further the distance between your bodies, you smoothed out the non existent wrinkles on your dress, storing the supplies back in the kit as Lando managed to utter out a thank you, too stunned and intoxicated by your scent to say anything else.

"I sewed a button as neither of you look any more ready that you were when we got here? We're going to be late!", you hurried, sitting next to Tara and ignoring her smirk as you scrolled through your phone.

"That shoot will have to wait since Lando won't be back here soon, then", you said, moving things around in the online shared calendar, "when did you say you could again? I'm sorry", you asked, rubbing your forehead and squeezing your eyes, adjusting your glasses and looking at him through the screen.

"The first weekend of the next month", Lando assured, "are you okay, Y/N?", he asked. The bags under your eyes didn't fool anyone and you looked tired. And sick, he guessed by the layers of clothing you had on.

"I had a pretty shit day, actually", you admitted, "I had to go with the guys from storage because there was an issue. The supplier sent the samples and we wanted to get things moving so I could have some ideas for the description and the social media team also wanted to prep the draft for the whole story telling, but it all went under. I also think I caught some bug, so it's been a fun day", you exaggeratingly smiled, mocking your own misery.

"You look like you need a hug, Y/N. Do you need a hug?", Lando asked as you nodded, "Actually, that would be pretty good, but I live alone. The neighbours would think I'm pretty weird if I went around like this asking for one, too", you reasoned.

Even though he wasn't next to you, Lando still managed to pull a smile out of you as he got up from the chair he was sitting in, hugging his laptop, "did you feel that hug?", he loudly wondered, "it's full of Get well soon fairy dust!", he smiled charmingly.

"Fairy dust, mate?", Callum wondered, reminding you of his presence in the videocall, "you try and spend more than a few hours with a little girl and you let me know. Mila has taught me all about fairy dust and princess magic", Lando added.

"How will we get out of here?", you wondered, starting to regret joining Lando, Max and Pietra when they said they were going to watch a football game. You loved the sport and you figured it would be a nice distraction after a work loaded week, but now, things were looking less than a distraction.

"We will let them space out once the game finishes, free up the roads as well because getting out of here will be a pain, too", Lando suggested.

The game granted your team a win and three points in the championship, the crowd going wild as they clapped, whistled and waved their scarfs, slowly leaving the stadium.

"Should we make a run for it now?", Pietra said, holding her boyfriend's hand as she allowed him to pull her away.

You followed Lando, thanking his choice of a colourful hoodie to wear today as it made it easier for you to spot him, "go in front of me, I'll back you up", he switched positions. You weren't having too much trouble until you were met with a ramp, people carelessly shoving others as they tried to leave as quick as they could, all with the same intent of avoiding traffic and crowded roads.

"Here, Y/N", you heard Lando as he grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers in his and pulling you along, excusing you two as you approached Max and Pietra again, "we're here", you tapped the blonde woman's shoulder with your free hand.

"Goodness, that was and adventure", she said once you reached the stadium car park, the crowd clearing up significantly as there was maybe another ten people headed the same way as you were now, "is everyone alright? I think someone stepped on my foot quite a few times, or many people stepped on it at various different times", you reasoned, walking alongside Lando still.

"Don't we need to hand the bracelets back?", Max said as he looked at the sign, taking his bracelet off and depositing it in the box in the booth, Pietra doing the same as you seemed distracted.

"Are you okay, Y/N?", Max asked, seeing you and Lando were still holding hands and, because of that, not taking off your bracelets.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?", you scrunched your eyebrows, "we need to hand the bracelets back in, so I kind of need to have yours, too", he teased, looking at your hand still entwined with Lando's.

Removing your hand from Lando's as if it har started burning all of a sudden, you removed the bracelet, apologising quietly to the stadium employee as you thanked him, "shall we go now?".

"Dinner out?", Lando gulped, getting into the driver's seat, "Good idea, yes", Max added, sitting in the passenger's seat as you and Pietra sat in the back, your hand rubbing your other hand that had been laced with Lando's own one for a long time. Uh oh, you were falling in love.

The launch was finally over after an amazing response from the fans, leaving your heart happy and warm with a sense of mission accomplished.

"Is everything packed into the van?", you asked Tara, "yes, it's just this box. It has fragile things, so do you think you guys can take it in the car with you? It probably only fits at the front, so you'll have to squeeze in with the boys on the back", she smiled apologetically, "it's fine, we'll keep eachother warm like penguins do", you chuckled, holding the door open as she set the box safely.

Saying goodbye to her and the rest of the team, Max and Lando joined you, "You sit in the middle seat", Max pointed at you, opening the door ao you could scoot closer to Lando and he could get in.

"Could you tell me how long we have until get back?", Lando asked the driver, "with traffic at this hour, I'd say around 90 minutes", he smiled, turning on the blinker so he could leave the car park.

"Plenty of time for me to catch up on sleep, then!", you cheered, making yourself comfortable in the space you had, folding your scarf into an impromptu travel pillow, closing your eyes.

"Are you a snorer?", Max asked, making you blindly swat his thigh, "only when I'm sick, and lucky for you, I'm in presteen health, no blocked nose", you grumbled.

It didn't take you long to fall asleep. In the last week, all of the nights combined, you probably slept less than thirty hours, so your body was indeed in need of rest.

"And there it goes", Max said as your pillow undid itself, Lando lifting his shoulder in reflex so your head wouldn't drop drastically, landing on top of him, "Good thing she isn't our engineer, hm?", he chuckled, looking at how his bestfriend was looking at you like you hung the stars and the moon.

"I think I'm in love with Y/N", Lando whispered after he took your appearance in. You had forgone wearing make-up today, so he could see all your moles and scars, your pouty lips and the darkened skin under your eyes. It took everything in him to not bend down and kiss your forehead.

"Congrats on being the last one to find out, mate", Max added, shaking his head, "I genuinely thought you had some issue processing information, I'm glad to find out you don't.

"Now you just have to act on it, which is going to take you, what? Two, three more months?".

#lando norris imagine #lando norris fluff #lando norris fanfic #lando norris x reader #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fluff

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lovejosephquinn · 2 years

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This is a requested sequel to my first angst imagine: Your First And Last Fight ◀ Read Part 1.

Tags: @chickennug90 @mybffjoe @sweet-villain @aysheashea @ali-r3n

(I'm sorry lmao, I got extremely carried away and 3.4k words later, it's finished. Enjoy the drama lovelies!)

Part 2.

It had been a whole month since you and Joe had parted ways that unforgettable night, regrettably that was the last time you'd seen him when you left him sobbing on the ground. You'd moped around both at home and work, not putting your all into anything, the memory of the whole event just repeating in your mind over and over again. Of course, he'd still tried messaging you in the first couple of weeks but that died down the more you ignored, you just simply couldn't move on from the hurtful words or painful gestures; even just the thought of his ex-girlfriend made you want to hurl your organs out of your mouth, it'd clearly broken your heart.

You'd got no plans this weekend, other than to lay in your own filth and watch a string of senseless romantic comedies, a thing you tended to hate to love right now. Your phone buzzed at the side of you, glancing down it was your best friend calling, putting your device up to your ear you took a deep breath in and put your brave voice on.

"Hey girl, you alright?"

"Yes, just wondering if you were, haven't heard from you in days and was making sure that you're still living."

"Just had a lot on my plate, you know this." The brave voice slowly disappearing.

"Well, I hate to drop this on you." She purely didn't hate to do anything. "But we're going out tonight and you can't say no, you need to let your hair down and forget that idiot for one night at least." The idiot comment was her insinuating Joe in a rather nice tone, just due to the fact she was holding in her rage for what he did and the other reason that was she just didn't want to give you any ammunition to decline.

"I don't know honey, I'm nowhere near the stages of getting ready."

"I'll be round in half an hour, and we'll get you looking hot."

She gave you no room to get a word in, hung up the phone and you scoffed, throwing your phone down to your feet where you laid and rubbed your hands over your face. Looks like you're going out tonight.

Your best friend did just as she said she would, you felt good about yourself for the first time in a while, the drinks you'd shared and the shots you knocked back at your flat gave you your initial new happier and confident feeling. She'd suggested your favourite nightclub whilst you got ready, it only took the name of it to prick up your ears and grab your attention; you were ready for tonight.

The booming of the music got closer as you got to the doors of the club and you could've jumped up and down like an excited child, you were ready to drink yourself silly, sing and dance with your main girl like a loon. You'd worry about the inevitable depression hangover tomorrow. The first point of call was tequila shots, the second was the buy one get one free offer on any cocktail of your choice from the menu, the thing with cocktails is that you don't feel it at first and then the next thing you know you're on the floor.

Little did you know that you were instantly sighted by Joe's best friend, he'd obviously had the same idea in taking him out whilst he had some free time to make him feel better also and it oh so happened that you were in the same place on the same damn night. Your friend dragged you to the dancefloor once you'd got your beverages. Your guilty pleasure Taylor Swift hit the speakers and the relatable lyrics of I knew you were trouble filled the entirety of your lungs, you sang your heart out to the song, feeling every moment of it.

Joe's best friend had done his best to keep him well away from seeing you but being at least 3 metres away from each other probably didn't help when he heard your friend yell your name laughing at the way you were dramatically yelling the song, she filmed the memory well and truly, your hand to your heart as you held your drink into the air, intentionally meaning every word. Joe whipped his head round to find you immediately, his chest was puffing in and out, heart ached excruciatingly, his lungs were in pain not able to get a proper breath out, his body had become stone, not moving his stance whilst he watched you with tears heavily filling his eyelids.

Not more than a moment later, he felt a sudden mild burst of anger hit him when he saw a guy attempting to dance behind you then leaning over to speak in your ear. Interrupting your dancing, you laughed it off and shook your head at the guy who'd asked you if he could buy you a drink. The male wouldn't leave well enough alone and wouldn't take no for an answer, you tried ignoring him to see if it'd make him give up, it didn't work.

The guy grabbed you by your waist and pulled you into him, trying to convince you further to let him do as he'd originally asked, his intentions clear as you felt that of a vulgar press of his crotch against your stomach. You gagged in his face on his purpose, you weren't out looking for a hook up and he knew that it just pursued his want further for you.

Joe was foaming at the mouth and the moment he heard you shout at him to fuck off was the moment Joe moved at a deadly pace through the few people between you and jumped the guy to the ground, punching him square in the jaw. You couldn't believe your eyes; you didn't want to believe what you were seeing was real. Joe had been positioned to the floor now, being dragged forcefully whilst the male took a swing at his face, a small circle forming in the middle of the dancefloor, egging them both on further. You yelled out Joe's name telling them both to stop, your instant reaction was to try and tear them apart, but Joe's best friend heaved for your arm bringing you back as the security guards dragged them to their feet by the scruffs of their neck.

The two heavily built men caught sight of your fearful face and asked what had happened, you pointed out at the stranger "He started it, he wouldn't leave me alone and my friend came into help me." Friend. You may as well had called him a stranger too, that might have made the suffering of the word easier. Calling him that almost felt good, a moment of succession for you in a way. You said it clear enough for Joe to hear you, a dagger to his heart just as it had been to you when he'd named you his close friend to her.

They let Joe go and took the other guy out of the club, warning him not to bother trying to get back in. Then there it was, you and Joe face to face properly after the first time in a month, the longest most torturing month of both your lives. Joe rubbed his hand under his nose where he bled slightly from, the darkness in his eyes from the rage of the moment was now returning to his soft brown stature. You heaved your chest, staring back at him, ignoring everything and everyone in your path as you walked away in a huff.

You sat on the ledge in the busy smoking area, pulling a cigarette to your lips and lighting it, puffing as hard as your lungs could bare. Your best friend gave Joe an earful but slowly calmed down when she declared for him to go out and attempt to talk to you, that was if you'd listen. You noticed the top of Joe's untamed curls emerging out of the double doors and at once you turned to the side, moving your head and whole body to the opposite side of the door; he still spotted you though hunched up on the ledge by yourself. Joe plucked up the courage to sit down next to you, leaning down slightly cupping his hands together between his spread thighs. All but silence between the two of you at first until he spoke up.

"Y/N, are you going to give me a chance to at least make my peace with you? I-"

You cut him off, swinging around to meet his gaze, almost crashing into his arm, you'd underestimated how close he already was sat next to you. "A chance to make peace? Are you fucking kidding me?" The question was almost laughable.

"I gathered you meant what you said about never speaking again when you ignored my calls and messages, but I can't just leave it where it ended, it's not in me to do that at all."

"I'm pretty sure it was in you when you outright called me a close friend to your ex, proceeded to tell me to stop being a bitch and basically caught her mouth with yours. Was all that an accident to? Or are you still blind to her bullshit." Joe furrowed his brows at you, his head internally screaming. Yes, he knew it was all his fault.

"I'm terrified of her Y/N. I said it because deep down I clearly knew her aim at the time and I just-"

A girl interrupted the two of yours now becoming heated debate, she looked really excited as she stared down at Joe. You looked up as she spoke out. "Oh my god, are you Joseph Quinn?" Joe put his best poker face on, his profession coming into full force as he pulled a toothy grin at the girl. "Yes, hi." She screeched at his answer. You folded your arms watching the two of them speak, not quite jealous but this wasn't the time for this to be happening. The girl looked at you "would you mind taking a photo of us please?" You squeezed your eyes shut and then put a fake smile onto the both of them, standing up to take her phone and took the photo she so solely desired in that moment. She thanked you both, hugging Joe and left, you both sat back in your original positions facing one another.

"As I was saying, you backed down to her like a submissive puppy. You're 28 years old, do you not think acting like you probably did as a teenager is a bit much?" Joe was highly defeated by your statement; he was at a loss for words.

"That's what I thought."

Yet another duo of fans stood before him, intruding once more. He didn't want to seem like a bad person, typical Joe, so he took his attention to them. You clearly weren't getting any further and you'd had enough of it all for one night, sure you still loved him with all your heart and that's what didn't help the situation, you wanted to forgive him and believe that it was a mistake, but Joe's lack of actions proved otherwise.

You got up and left him with the girls, not turning back and finding your friend with Joe's talking at a table. "I'm going to get a taxi home; I really just want to go to sleep and forget this whole night." Your best friend hugged you. "Do you want me to come with?"

"No stop out, I just want to be alone, I'll text you once I'm back." You exchanged your goodbyes giving all but a subtle wave and smile to Joe's friend before you left the club. You walked to the taxi rank, waiting for a vehicle to pull up to take you back to your safe place when you heard an unpleasant and familiar voice shout you from across the street.

"Aw hi Y/N." You looked around to meet the redhead, looking smug and highly unattractive in her body language. His. Fucking. Ex. Really? Could this night get any worse?

You slowly blinked at her, no response to her unwelcomed greeting at all. "What's up with you, you still bitter about last month?"

You snorted a laugh in her face. "How dare you even think you're worth a breath from my lungs, you silly cow." You pushed her slightly, squaring right up into her face; you weren't willing to take another word from the girl and she was shaken, probably down to the fact that any girl that she had been out to ruin with Joe never stood up to her. "A lowlife, disgusting little slut like you should've been taught a lesson a long time ago." You slapped her clean across her cheek and watched her grimace at the sting it caused. A small, fulfilled smile creeping onto your face. Joe had quickly caught up behind you, stopping in his tracks, watching as you struck her, he also noticed how she didn't hit you back. He made the effort to drag himself over, watching you eye each other back and forth like a pair ready to go to war.

Your eyes flitted over to Joe and so did hers, putting her best whiny voice on. "Oh my god Joe, she attacked me, she's an absolute psychopath, did you see it? Did you?"

Joe said nothing, eyeing between you both, proving your point again quite rightly, that was until she tried to embrace him into a hug, and he harshly shoved her away from him. "What the fuck is wrong with you? I've given you the benefit of the doubt maybe a couple of times in my life but then you just took it next level, I've always been afraid to be myself around you. Until now. I don't want anything more to do with you, you've ruined my life for the last time." He spoke his home truth like it had been a speech he'd been practicing for weeks. Your mouth gaped open; you couldn't believe what you'd just heard.

She did nothing but huff at Joe and turned back to you. "You'll leave if you know what's good for you." you stated before she could get a word in. "Is that a threat?" she barked nervous laughter, her confidence clearly belittled but still trying to remain intact. "It's a promise." Joe interrupted your final face off.

"She changed you Joe, you used to be so, so-"

"So, your little bitch? maybe. But this is the last time you'll put a foot in my relationship, do you not realise every time I got a girlfriend or even as much as looked at anyone other than you, you'd break it up without even a second thought, I've let you get away with it for 13 years too long, I should've cut you off the moment we broke up." He turned to you, "that's why I referred to you the way I did that night Y/N, purely because I wasn't blind to her intentions anymore." You looked to the ground, almost humiliated by your thoughts.

"So that's it, you cut me out completely?" she raised her voice at Joe, and he nodded vigorously back at her. "I might not get Y/N back from this, but at least she'll know that I got you out of my life for good, you're an absolute headache now get out of my sight."

She stomped her foot to the ground, nothing clearly more to be said and walked away as she should of long before. You took a glance at a proud Joe, and you must admit you were somewhat also elated for him for finally standing up for himself even if it was almost little too late for it. You turned and walked the other way.

"Y/N, where are you going?"

"Home." you shouted back. You took a curtsy at Joe and applauded. "Well done for being all done with her and shit but I don't know if that's enough for me to forgive you anymore."

Joe sped up his feet to grab your arm, swinging you round to look at him. "Do you still love me?"

"Joe."

His hands gripped into your arms now, holding you in place. "Do you still love me Y/N?"

Tears filled your eyes hard as they fell once you blinked, your lips trembled but you didn't try to escape his grasp, his touch was all too familiar and wonderful, you'd missed it.

With a sigh you admitted. "Yes."

"Then one last kiss, goodbye. Please, I know I'm not in a position to beg you for anything, but I need to feel it one last time." He was right, you owed him nothing, but you couldn't stop your feet from raising onto your tiptoes, holding onto his forearms for support as you leaned in to kiss him, it was short and forceful but desperate as your emotions clearly played on it.

You broke the kiss, watching as Joe's tears mirrored yours. "I love you too. I'm so sorry for everything I did and everything she did too. I'm sorry for hurting you, I'm sorry for not speaking my mind sooner. I'm sorry for ruining what we had in a few words, I'm sorry for giving her the ammunition to break what we had. Most of all, I'm sorry that we have to say goodbye." You couldn't deny his apologies were nothing short of admirable, he'd owned up to everything in one breath.

Your already broken heart could not fathom anymore pain that it already held. You were crazy for your next action, your arms finding the back of his neck as you pulled him back into a needy, open-mouthed kiss. His greedy hands pushed at the bottom of your back to keep you as close as he possibly could. If this truly was the last time, you'd feel one another then you'd make it something to remember.

You were by no means a pushover, but your thoughts overtook you whilst you shared the mutual enjoyment of the kiss, you wondered if giving him a last chance wasn't completely off the table. Your parents had taught you in your life to forgive but not forget until it was absolutely necessary too. You were in no state of mind to get over this man in a hurry and it seemed he wasn't either.

Your mouths parted, but you remained in position, your foreheads pressing together, out of breath from the heated smooch. "Y/N- I" you took a hand from his neck and placed it onto his lips, stopping him from saying another word until you had finished yours. "I'm not ready to say goodbye, it will take a lot of time and effort but if you're willing, there's a last chance being offered to you here and now. Take it or leave it, I just love you so much and I can't stand not having you around, even if it is as your 'close friend'."

Yet another stab at his heart as you brought up his once spoken words again, but he understood. He slowly nodded at you, removing your hand to see a small smile forming against his swollen pink lips. "I will do anything for that chance, my love. I can't lose you."

He pecked at your lips for the third time. "You've got a lot of work to do, Quinn." You edged a smile back to him.

"I've already started." He gestured his head backward to the place you were stood earlier with his ex-girlfriend, he let go of you and lifted you off your feet, carrying you in his arms.

"What are you doing?" you chuckled.

His eyes shut for a second, taking in the warmth of your voice.

"Giving you no reason to doubt me, yours or mine?"

"Yours." you arched the top of your head to rest in the crook of his neck as you held onto him. Your first and last fight truly ending.

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glcive · 2 months

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hey guys so i decided to share the google doc with all the taylor swift lyric parallels so here is some info about it!!

the sections/topics are organised alphabetically, so are the songs that the lyrics come from within the sections WITH THE EXCEPTION of the months section, thats just in the order of the months

you can put a lyric in more than one section!! many of them have more than one topic

ive made it so you can comment, as i think having editors would be very chaotic

if you have contributed to a lyric parallel feel free to post it to your own account (credit everyone who contributed please!!) /if you want me to post it im more than happy to credit you!! just give me ur tumblr url

im always working on it, its a constant work in progress

if this gets too stressful i might make it private again, but im excited and it should be fun!!

(i think @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies and @bookscorpion73 you were both very enthusiastic so i thought id tag you loll)

#juno.txt #have funn #taylor swift #lyric parallels #swifties

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changingplumbob · 1 month

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📩 Simblr question of the day: Shuffle your favorite playlist, whats your oc/sims' reaction to the first song that plays?

answer in whatever way is most comfortable for you and feel free to share this SQOTD around, make sure to use the hashtag SQOTD and tag me in separate posts ~ 💛

Why you gotta call me out on my favourite playlist? Fine, it's still the "Songs Taylor Owns" playlist. I mean on spotify I make a new playlist each month and- oh hey it's May here now! Need to make a new one- anyway I'll put songs I want to listen to in that but it's not my favourite at the moment because it's been a whole month. So Taylor Swift it is... we have Cruel Summer. Let me just check my files to see the Pancakes opinions on pop music...

Bob: Neither likes or dislikes pop BUT he likes summer strut music which I'm going to say this could be. He likes dancing so he'd probably have a dance around the kitchen to it.

Eliza: Neither likes or dislikes pop BUT she likes summer strut as well. She also likes singing so she's probably going to be singing along to this one!

Onyx: They like pop music! They'd probably have a little sing along just not with Eliza, but with their friends probably.

Fergus: Dude rolled some weird music taste. He likes winter holiday, R&B, Latin pop and Japanese folk... I'm guessing he would roll his eyes and ignore the song.

#SQOTD #Yes I randomise my sims likes and dislikes

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forjongseong · 2 years

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tag game! tagged by the lovely @drunkjaked I love u thank u for tagging me!!!

three fav solo artists?

if it has to be kpop, then IU, WOODZ, and Hyolyn

non kpop: Taylor Swift, Camilo, Camila Cabello

five favourite bgs/ggs?

ENHYPEN, BTS, TXT, ATEEZ, Golden Child

top 5 favourite mvs?

oh my god I can't even remember let me try

The Real by ATEEZ

0x1 LOVESONG by TXT

Future Perfect (Pass the Mic) by ENHYPEN

Blood, Sweat, Tears by BTS

Let Me by Golden Child

top 3 leaders?

Namjoon

Soobin

Hongjoong

how many albums do you have?

everything by ENHYPEN I own... I don't know how many that is

do you share/have a birthday close to an idol?

my birthday is exactly the same as BTS' Jimin and Golden Child's Seungmin

it is also two days before Heeseung's

fancy date w bias or at home date w bias wrecker?

fancy date with bias! yes Jay take me to the five star restaurants that you know

mvs or live performances?

live performances do hit different especially because you get to see their choreo!

fav album + song of your ult group?

ult group: ENHYPEN, fav album: BORDER: DAY ONE, fav song: Flicker

three fav maknaes?

Jungkook

Jongho

Ni-ki

rap or vocal line?

rap line... specifically BTS

what song got you into kpop?

I am old, get over it

album you have on repeat?

Golden Child's Game Changer!

if you were in a kpop group, what positions would you have?

I am subpar in terms of dancing and vocals but what I do know is that I am a great leader, so maybe that!

tagging @jayked @end-hyphen @hee-pster @jaylaxies if you haven't done it already and if you want to, anyone else who sees this and wants to do it, feel free!

#nana tag games #from.sax #Spotify

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magiaveneno · 2 years

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music game

thank u @gustingirl for tagging me :')

tagging: @delphis-oracle @manaosdeuwu @milfgeto @roxyandelsewhere @biwifeenergia @comeangelsofunknown @superhell etc etc

hola chiquis si quieren haganlo para no pensar en el partido de mañana <3

game #1: using your spotify top 100 playlist, shuffle 10 songs and tag 10 people

Tamagochi - Omar Apollo

wish i never - Kehlani

You're On Your Own Kid - Taylor Swift

The Weekend - SZA

No Love (with SZA) - Summer Walker

Crying Lightning - Arctic Monkeys

Valerie - Glee Cast Version (don't even mention it)

In My Room - Frank Ocean

Cardboard Box - FLO (these are my girls)

Bells In Santa Fe - Halsey

game #2: choose an artist you like and use the name of their songs to answer this as close to the truth as possible!

name of the artist: taylor swift

what is your gender: mirrorball

describe yourself: mean

how do you feel: bigger than the whole sky

if you could go anywhere, where would it be: back to december

describe your best friend: the 1

your favorite time of day: midnight rain (mentira odio la lluvia)

if your life was a tv show, what would it be called: i did something bad

what is life to you: delicate

relationship status: i bet you think about me

what do you fear: the way i loved you (perdon modo cornuda)

game #3: share your top 5 current songs

they're not my top 5, just songs i've been enjoying lately due to listening to them live ;-;

Bunny Is A Rider - Caroline Polachek (genuinely the nicest woman i've ever met, she's hypnotizing)

Body Paint - Arctic Monkeys (epic version under the rain at primavera sound, alex worried about us starting moshpits to the chillest song on the setlist. me almost dying and breaking my phone. best night of my life)

Two Slow Dancers - Mitski (i was NOT expecting her to play it, but it was at a smaller venue and the setlist was a bit longer. thank u mitski i cried)

Free Yourself - Jessie Ware (calling her MOTHER and this song a SLAY would be an understatement)

Scott Street - Phoebe Bridgers (i have zero proof but i swear she looked directly at my eyes at one point during this song. heavenly experience)

#aaaaaaaaa tengo unos nervios me voy a morir

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bellscansada · 11 months

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tagged by the lovely @heyspaghettihey to post the first ten songs after shuffling my on repeat playlist

The Loniest - Måneskin

Don't Go - Bring Me The Horizon

Get Over It - Avril Lavigne

Me and You (Live) - Jake Bugg

OWN MY MIND - Måneskin

Got So High - The Pretty Reckless

no body, no crime (feat. HAIM) - Taylor Swift

Welcome To My Life - Simple Plan

I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE - Måneskin

Broken - Jake Bugg

Not gonna tag anyone but feel free share your songs i guess <3

#game tags

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starcchild · 1 year

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5 Songs that Remind You of Your Muse

Tagged by: @thiscrimsonsoul Tagging: anyone!!

main verse

1) Bird Set Free - Keala Settle

And I don't care if I sing off key / I found myself in my melodies / I sing for love, I sing for me / I shout it out like a bird set free / No I don't care if I sing off key / I found myself in my melodies / I sing for love, I sing for me / I'll shout it out like a bird set free

2) You're On Your Own, Kid by Taylor Swift

From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes / I called a taxi to take me there / I search the party of better bodies / Just to learn that my dreams aren't rare / You're on your own, kid / You always have been

3) Colour My Heart by Charlotte OC

Don't colour my heart blues and greys / Don't tell me that I'm not ok / Don't colour me with all your shades / Don't colour my heart cause I'll make it through / Yeah, I'll make it through / No more tears for you / Don't colour my heart

4) King of Anything by Sara Bareilles

All my life I've tried (Tried) / To make everybody happy while I / Just hurt (Hurt) and hide / Waiting for someone to tell me it's my turn to decide

5) World's Smallest Violin by AJR

My grandpa fought in World War II / He was such a noble dude / I can't even finish school / Missed my mom and left too soon / His dad was a fireman / Who fought fires so violent / I think I bored my therapist / While playing him my violin

ikau

1) Eight by Sleeping At Last

I remember the minute / It was like a switch was flipped / I was just a kid who grew up strong enough to pick this armor up / And suddenly it fit / God, that was so long ago, long ago, long ago / I was little, I was weak and perfectly naive / And I grew up too quick

2) Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

It's me, hi / I'm the problem, it's me / At teatime, everybody agrees / I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

3) It's Alright by Mother Mother

Oh hey, I had a night I had a day / I did one million stupid things / I said one billion foolish things / I'm not okay, I got a baseball bat beside my bed / To fight off what's inside my head / To fight off what's behind my meds / I'm lonely; lost in pain / It's alright, it's okay, it's alright, it's okay / You're not a monster, just a human / And you made a few mistakes / It's alright, it's okay, it's alright, it's okay / You're not gruesome, just human / And you made a few mistakes / It's alright, oh, it's okay, oh

4) Oh No! by MARINA

I know exactly what I want and who I want to be / I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine / I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy / Oh! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no, oh! / One track mind, one track heart / If I fail, I'll fall apart / Maybe it is all a test / 'Cause I feel like I'm the worst / So I always act like I'm the best

5) Family Line by Conan Gray

Oh-oh / All that I did to try to undo it / All of my pain and all your excuses / I was a kid, but I wasn't clueless / (Someone who loves you wouldn't do this) / All of my past, I tried to erase it / But now I see, would I even change it? / Might share a face and share a last name but / (We are not the same, same) / Scattered 'cross my family line / I'm so good at telling lies / That came from my mother's side / Told a million to survive / Scattered 'cross my family line / God, I have my father's eyes / But my sister's when I cry / I can run, but I can't hide / From my family line

#((I had to do it for both her main verses sdfgjsfd))#audio; video

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greywindys · 2 years

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i’ve watched your murdoc anti-hero amv about a dozen times now. i love it so much! 💖💖as a person who’s a big taylor swift fan AND a big gorillaz fan, it’s fun to find someone else who shares a similar mindset. it makes we wanna share my own song analysis on this site too! (i love bts, and if i find a bts song that fits murdoc i will be annoying about it lmao)🤭

Thanks!! I was lmao’ing the entire time I was putting the clips together (out of love...it’ll never not be funny to me how well it fits...better than most actual Gorillaz songs). And woohoo! Ik I've said this before, but I'm always glad to meet other Taylor Swift fans in the Gorillaz fandom because we're rare (but also cool). It's good to have a diverse taste in music, and I think this fandom has a weird issue with any artist that's perceived as too popular (which is doubly weird since Gorillaz is, well, trying to be popular, too). I don't listen to much KPop, but I support your BTS stanning, and if you ever find a song that fits Murdoc that's even better. You definitely should do dong analyses if you feel inspired to! I don't check the Gorillaz tag much anymore, but if you ever do it, you're free to send it my way, and I'll check it out.

#asks.#ellameloetta

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charlieweasleysimp · 2 years

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🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favourite followers (positivity is cool)🎶✨

Oh, I love these games 💜✨ it’s been a minute since I’ve participated in one and talking about music is one of my favorite things to do 😌 Thank you!

Okay these might (definitely) be more than 5 but I have a few honorable mentions that I adore so, yeah 🙈 I’ll provide links to the songs in case y’all wanna listen 🎶

⬆️ This artist is stunning, she posted the cover of it on Tik Tok before releasing it, and it got me into listening to the actual version by Rainbow Kitten Surprise, who are totally phenomenal. ❤️

Aaaaand speaking of RKS, this is one of my favorites by them 🥰 - ⬇️

⬇️ I’ve been playing this song by Victoria Monét on repeat this week ✨ The video for it is so fucking cute, please give it a watch 💜🥰

And I’m in love with Stoop Kids (I’ve mentioned them before on here I think, they’re a band from New Orleans that just moved here near me and they perform in East Nashville all the time which is a huge treat. I got to see them last Halloween with my husband and some friends) 🎃 They are super entertaining and the lead singer is a cutie. The video that you can hear my husband singing along to is called ‘What We Do’ which is his favorite, but my fave is Average Joe 🤠 btw, I still haaaate that fucking pole, we were right up front but the pole was in the middle of all my videos 🙃😅🥲

⬆️ This October I get to see Noah Cyrus & PJ Harding! Their EP has been played weekly in my house lol, Cannonball is beautiful. Their voices together are flawless.

⬇️ Gotta mention Taylor Swift- Evermore is still my favorite album 🤠 The top songs alternate but this week it’s Coney Island 🥲

⬇️ I have H.E.R. & Daniel Caesar on the same playlist I play while cooking because of that one song they did together (they sound lovely as a duet), but two of my favorites from their own albums are these songs 💜😌

And lastly, I’ve been playing this one in the car a lot because Elie and I love listening to Rex Orange County together 💜

Sorry for being so extra and adding all of this but I truly love music and talking about it makes me happy 😌✨

I’ll tag some wonderful people below, feel free to share your favorites if you feel up to it ☀️🌈 Love you guys 💜 Have a great rest of your weekend! Thank you again @wisteria-blooms !

Tagging- @madelineorionswan @lifeofkaze @simply-ellas-stuff @the-al-chemist @kc-needs-coffee @whatwouldvalerydo @indigobackfire @inthemiddleofeverywhere @my-amazing-nerdyness @andy-blur

Editing this at the bottom bc I just remembered that it said to publish and send as an ask, my bad 🥴 look at me skipping important details again, I’m so sorry y’all 🙃

#thank you! 💜✨#music asks #asks

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hawkland · 2 years

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Greetings besties and beloveds! Next month, on May 18, I’ll be celebrating quite a personal milestone: my 50th birthday! (Yes, I am an old dinosaur. And yes, I share a birthday with Jack Kline, and I love that!)

I’ve spent over half my life active in media & music fandom and thought this would be a good excuse to hold a combination birthday/follower/content creator celebration, as I’ve also recently passed 700 followers for this ridiculous little blog. Getting into SPN after all these years has certainly been quite an experience, so now I want to do something to help share, promote and encourage more love from and within this wonderful community.

This event will run from May 18 - May 22. All forms of fannish creative content are welcome: art, fic, graphics, vids, poetry, rec lists on a theme…I’ll share it all! You do not have to follow me to participate. I’d just ask you to follow these rules:

Please @ me or use the tag #hawkland50th to make sure I see it so I can reblog it.

No w*ncest or underage content.

NSFW is okay if contained in an offsite link (ie, a Twitter link for art, an AO3 link for fic).

Content featuring (or even crossed over with) one of my other/past fandoms would be awesome, too! If we crossed paths first thanks to Law & Order SVU, Gorillaz, The Good Place, The A-Team, The Police or Foo Fighters fandom please feel free to participate as well and I’d love to see it!

Themes/prompts:

I want to keep this fairly open-ended and up for interpretation/as you will. Those of you who follow me know my favorite SPN things are Cas, Destiel, dadstiel, and angelnatural. So really, anything celebrating those things would be awesome! I’m always especially tickled when someone is inspired by my own fannish works, so if you feel inspired to create a “remix” or companion piece to any of my own fic or artwork, I’d be completely over the moon.

As someone who was a tremendous fan of Taylor Hawkins and given I’m still working through a lot of emotions from his recent passing, I’d also love to see some content inspired by his music and spirit. To that end I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of some of my favorite songs featuring Taylor, from both his solo projects and the Foo Fighters. If they may perhaps inspire an edit or serve as a fic prompt, that would be incredible. You can listen to the playlist here.

I’ve also put a few color palettes I like as inspiration for art or graphics edits, which you can find below the cut. Use any of them for any day of this celebration!

I can’t wait to see what you come up with, and thank you for your friendships, encouragement and inspiration!

Color palettes (if you work in traditional media like I do, don’t worry about exact matches or anything, just use the general feels if any of them inspire you!)

#hawkland50th #content creator celebration #follower celebration #birthday celebration #spn fandom #may 18 #please feel free to signal boost!#spn #dadstiel #destiel

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queen-breha-organa · 2 years

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OC Personality Sheet/Tag Game

I wanted to share a deeper insight into Ailani’s personality so I made a small little tag game/sheet!

Rules: Copy and paste these questions and make your own post, please do not add onto this one, it’ll get too long too fast. Mahalo. Then tag some of your friends to let them know you’d like to hear more about their ocs!

———

Name: Ailani Réillata

Pronouns: she/her

Nickname: Lani, Ca'tra

One Word To Sum Them Up: Unconventional

Noun to Describe Them: The Analyist

Temperament: Choleric/Melancholic (Short tempered and irritable yet analytical and quiet)

MBTI Type: INTJ

Enneagram Type: 8w7

Other’s First Impression of Them: Bold, reclusive, aloof, serious, stubborn, witty

General Likes: Snow, stars, oceans, rain, oranges, history, thinking outside the box, being understood, the truth, self discovery

General Dislikes: Authority, rules, crowds, contradictions to her core beliefs, being lonely, feeling left out, closed mindedness, the cold

Romantic Status: It’s Complicated™️

Love Interest (s): Commander Wolffe

Good Friend (s): Comet, Barriss Offee, Echo, Plo Koon, (This is only canon characters, I am friends with all my mutuals ocs/self inserts, its the law)

Enemy: Ventress, Bo-Katan

Hobbies: Reading Jedi history, studying, drawing, Having a secret love affair with a certain clone commander-

Songs They Relate To: Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo, Jigsaw - Conan Gray, The Archer - Taylor Swift

Fictional Characters Similar To Their Personality: Violet Baudelaire (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Sabé (Star Wars), Mai (Avatar The Last Airbender)

Fun Fact: Ailani means High Chief in ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i

Free Space/Ramble: Contradicting yet complimenting personality. Strong yet strange moral code. Easily angered yet compassionate. Bold yet quiet. Strong internal justice system. Strong dislike for authorities and rules, however thrives on internal/personal authority and rules. Dislikes people, yet craves approval. Intense feelings yet logical. Enjoys ‘outside the box’ thinking and ideas. Critical yet loving. Contradictory. Complicated relationship with family.

Tags: @milfplo-koon @arcjesse @certified-anakinfucker @clonehub @ollovae3 @purgills @thecyndimistuff and anyone who wants to! You don’t have to say who tagged you, so just go for it if you like these questions!

#ailani réillata #this is just a sheet about me tbh

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 3 years

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I have a theodicy-adjacent question if that's alright. How can I offer prayers of thanksgiving without implying that God "likes me better" than They like other people? For example, I often want to thank God for keeping my loved ones safe through this pandemic, but it feels weird when so many have lost dear ones. I've learned a lot about how to wrestle with God through your ministry, but how to bring your positive feelings to God without toeing the line of a prosperity gospel-esque mindset?

Anon, I feel you! Some point a few years ago I had a similar unsettling realization. I knew that gratitude is important not only for our relationship with God, but for our psychological wellbeing — yet I felt so guilty for thanking God for things i knew others didn’t have. Did attributing the good things in my life to God imply that God wasn’t with those who lacked those good things?

I brought that guilt and discomfort to God (and still do, whenever it arises anew). asked Them to help me sit with it, accept it, and then transform it into something more fruitful.

guilt transformed to motivation. discomfort transformed to commitment. what i was left with was an understanding that i did not need to stop my prayers of thanksgiving, but to expand them.

i take time to really feel and express my gratitude for the abundance i experience. and then i ask God to help my gratitude move me to a desire for others to experience that abundance too. I ask for guidance in how i can help make that abundance happen in the the lives of those around me and far from me.

___

i also make time for lament. many of us are taught how to ask God for things and how to thank God for things, but grief and lament are not taught. however, thanksgiving and lament are not opposites, but work together. they enrich one another. we need to take time for both.

a book that helped me embrace lament was Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark. You can read quotes and whole passages from it in my tag over here.

one of my favorite songs/psalms to sing/pray in lament is this one. The psalmist empowers us to question God, to ask why and how and when? and then the psalmist leads us to praise God anyway — to praise in spite of and with our doubts and our questions.

when we look at all the pain in the world — in our own lives, the lives of loved ones, the lives of those we don’t even know, and in the struggling pulse of all Creation — we feel all sorts of things. Distress, despair, anger, grief. But some of us are afraid to bring those feelings to God. We’d rather avoid the feelings in general, repress them, not sit inside them for a while. (And certainly, we should not wallow in the bad all the time.) Bt when we dare to assign intentional time to sit in those feelings, God sits in them with us.

And there is a strange thanksgiving in there, too — that we aren’t alone in the lament. We come to see that it is true that God does not will suffering upon any one of us — that the fact that sometimes i experience blessing while you struggle, or you find success while i go without, is not because God is choosing which happy few to bless that day. God really does will abundant life for all, and grieves when sin (individual, systemic, the rot that eats at this world) blocks that abundance for anyone.

___

in continuing to make time to feel and express gratitude, and then to make time to lament and to both desire and participate in abundance for others, thanksgiving does not elevate me above others as “better” or “more blessed” than they are. instead, gratitude reminds me of how interconnected we are with one another. In the Body we all share, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor 12:26).

___

When abundance wins out in spite of sin, we rejoice! When it is we who enjoy that abundance, our gratitude should not lead to smugness or self-congratulations, but to humility. it should shape us, move us to bring similar abundance to others.

A book that has really helped me understand that concept is Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass (which you can read online for free).

Christian texts have told me that the appropriate response to all God’s gifts is gratitude, but it’s Kimmerer’s book that helped me digest and embody just what that means. We acknowledge abundance, and we use that gratitude to connect us to the giver, and to others to whom that giver would also share Their gift.

Here’s one passage from her chapter “The Gift of Strawberries,” starting on page 33 of the webpage linked above:

Even now, after more than fifty Strawberry Moons, finding a patch of wild strawberries still touches me with a sensation of surprise, a feeling of unworthiness and gratitude for the generosity and kindness that comes with an unexpected gift all wrapped in red and green. “Really? For me? Oh, you shouldn’t have.” After fifty years they still raise the question of how to respond to their generosity. Sometimes it feels like a silly question with a very simple answer: eat them.

But I know that someone else has wondered these same things. In our Creation stories the origin of strawberries is important. Skywoman’s beautiful daughter, whom she carried in her womb from Skyworld, grew on the good green earth, loving and loved by all the other beings. But tragedy befell her when she died giving birth to her twins, Flint and Sapling. Heartbroken, Skywoman buried her beloved daughter in the earth. Her final gifts, our most revered plants, grew from her body. The strawberry arose from her heart.

In Potawatomi, the strawberry is ode min, the heart berry. We recognize them as the leaders of the berries, the first to bear fruit.

Strawberries first shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery—as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source.

...Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. The field gave to us, we gave to my dad, and we tried to give back to the strawberries. When the berry season was done, the plants would send out slender red runners to make new plants.

Because I was fascinated by the way they would travel over the ground looking for good places to take root, I would weed out little patches of bare ground where the runners touched down. Sure enough, tiny little roots would emerge from the runner and by the end of the season there were even more plants, ready to bloom under the next Strawberry Moon. No person taught us this—the strawberries showed us. Because they had given us a gift, an ongoing relationship opened between us.

...It’s funny how the nature of an object—let’s say a strawberry or a pair of socks—is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity. The pair of wool socks that I buy at the store, red and gray striped, are warm and cozy. I might feel grateful for the sheep that made the wool and the worker who ran the knitting machine. I hope so. But I have no inherentobligation to those socks as a commodity, as private property. There is no bond beyond the politely exchanged “thank yous” with the clerk. I have paid for them and our reciprocity ended the minute I handed her the money. The exchange ends once parity has been established, an equal exchange. They become my property. I don’t write a thank-you note to JCPenney.

But what if those very same socks, red and gray striped, were knitted by my grandmother and given to me as a gift? That changes everything. A gift creates ongoing relationship. I will write a thank-you note. I will take good care of them and if I am a very gracious grandchild I’ll wear them when she visits even if I don’t like them. When it’s her birthday, I will surely make her a gift in return. As the scholar and writer Lewis Hyde notes, “It is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people.”

That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage. The fields made a gift of berries to us and we made a gift of them to our father. The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. This is hard to grasp for societies steeped in notions of private property, where others are, by definition, excluded from sharing. Practices such as posting land against trespass, for example, are expected and accepted in a property economy but are unacceptable in an economy where land is seen as a gift to all.

Lewis Hyde wonderfully illustrates this dissonance in his exploration of the “Indian giver.” This expression, used negatively today as a pejorative for someone who gives something and then wants to have it back, actually derives from a fascinating cross- cultural misinterpretation between an indigenous culture operating in a gift economy and a colonial culture predicated on the concept of private property. When gifts were given to the settlers by the Native inhabitants, the recipients understood that they were valuable and were intended to be retained. Giving them away would have been an affront. But the indigenous people understood the value of the gift to be based in reciprocity and would be affronted if the gifts did not circulate back to them.

Many of our ancient teachings counsel that whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again. From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the “gift” is deemed to be “free” because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a “bundle of rights,” whereas in a gift economy property has a “bundle of responsibilities” attached.

...

In material fact, Strawberries belong only to themselves. The exchange relationships we choose determine whether we share them as a common gift or sell them as a private commodity. A great deal rests on that choice.

For the greater part of human history, and in places in the world today, common resources were the rule. But some invented a different story, a social construct in which everything is a commodity to be bought and sold. The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one.

One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the world. One of these stories asks us to bestow our own gifts in kind, to celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.

#gratitude #prayer tag #prayers of thanksgiving #prayers of lament #thanksgiving #lament #pandemic mention #braiding sweetgrass

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twelve-kinds-of-trouble · 3 years

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Pride Month Book Recs!

This month is Pride Month! To celebrate, I though I’d share a collection of LGBTQIA+ biographies, novels, graphic novels, and poems! (I’ve also starred my personal favourites, or book I think everyone should read!) Remember to check trigger warnings before buying a book, and to support LGBTQIA+ and POC authors! I’ll be tagging a few people who gave me some of these recs at the bottom of this post. If there’s anything incorrect or offensive featured on this list, let me know and I’ll remove it! Enjoy! Also, I made the header myself! I’m very proud.

Now is also a good time to mention that if you’re an exclusionist, a ‘super straight’, a MAP, or a homophobe/transphobe of any shape or form, I hope you choke on glass. You are not welcome on this blog. Leave, and never interact with me again.

(Feel free to ask me about any of the starred books, or to add your own recommendation! It’s a little short, so additions are very much welcomed!)

Young Adult

Aristotle and Dante discover the Secrets of the Universe— Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Contemporary, MLM)*

Crier’s War— Nina Varela (Fantasy, WLW)

Felix Ever After— Karen Callender (Contemporary, Romance, MLM)

They Both Die at The End— Adam Silvera (Contemporary, Romance, MLM)*

The Girls I’ve Been— Tess Sharpe (Con-artist MC, Con-artist MC... WLW)***

Loveless— Alice Oseman (Asexual and Aromantic MC, Contemporary, Please Read It)***

Cinderella is Dead— Kalynn Bayron (WLW)

Red, White and Royal Blue— Casey McQuinston (Contemporary, MLM)

Hani and Ishu’s Guide To Fake Dating— Adiba Jaigirdar (Contemporary, Realistic)

Serás— Anna K. Franco

Simon Versus the Homo Sapien’s Agenda— Becky Albertalli (MLM)

Cemetery Boys—Aiden Thomas (Trans, MLM)

Wilder Girls— Rory Power (WLW, Boarding School, Survival, Sci- Fi)*

Girls of Paper and Fire— Natasha Ngan (Fantasy, WLW)***

Only Mostly Devastated— Sophie Gonzales (MLM, Grease Inspired)

Carry On— Rainbow Rowell (MLM, Fantasy)

Queen of Coin and Whispers— Helen Corcoran (WLW)

Six of Crows— Leigh Bardugo (MLM, Bisexual Character, AMAZINGLY CRAFTED PLEASE READ, Fantasy)***

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender— Leslye Walton

Adult

The Song of Achilles— Madeline Miller (Greek Mythology, MLM, Made Me Cry A Little)***

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo— Taylor Jenkins (WLW, 60s, Historical Fiction)

The Huntress— Kate Quinn (Historical Fiction, Mystery, Bisexual MC)

The Picture of Dorian Gray— Oscar Wilde

This is How You Lose the Time War— Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Fantasy, Time-Travel, Sci-Fi)

Graphic Novels

Mooncakes— Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu (Sapphic Witch, Sapphic Witch!! AND A NON-BINARY WEREWOLF THEY FALL IN LOVEEE EEEEEK)***

Heartstopper— Alice Oseman (MLM)

Wonder Woman: Year One— Greg Rucka

The Witch Boy— Molly Ostertag (Middlegrade)

Poetry

Have Some Pride— Courtney Carola (Collection of LGBTQIA+ Poetry)

Walking The Tightrope— Abayomi Animashaun, Irwin Iradukunda, Timothy Kimutai, Tatenda Muranda and Spectra Speaks (Collection of LGBTQIA+ Poetry from African Writers)

Fragile Goods— Drew Song (Collection of LGBTQIA+ Poetry)

Finding Her— Kamari Talley (Collection of WLW Poetry)

Biographies/Autobiographies

Continuum— Chella Man (Transgender, Genderqueer)

Queer Heroes— Arabelle Sicardi, Sarah Tanat-Jones (Children’s, 53 stories of LGBTQIA+ icons)

Queer Inentions— Amelia Abraham (Autobiographical journey through queer culture)

50 Queers Who Changed The World— Dan Jones, Michael Rosenthal

——————————————————————————————————

I hope you all enjoy this! I had so much fun making it! This is my first Pride Month as someone who has realised (?) their sexuality, so I’m very excited. And remember, whether you label yourself or not, whether you’re in the closet or you’re out, if you’re questioning or have a firm grasp on your sexuality; no matter your identity, you are valid. You are loved, and you are welcome here, always. Happy Pride Month! Stay Safe! <3

——————————————————————————————————

I’ll tag a few people here who gave me recommendations or I think would like this!

@introvertedscarecrow @crackerboxart @the-fridge-is-on-fire @aheartfullofquestions @kazoo-the-demjin @im-a-dragon-cawcaw @ketterdamkid @adorablyy-chaotic @peachy-saladlover @neonified @harlowreads @bianavacker-is-bi-as-hell @completekeefitztrash

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tpwkay · 3 years

Text

Medicine (h.s.)

You’re finally given permission to cover the song you’ve wanted to perform for years and a special surprise during your performance sweeps you off of your feet.

Word count: 11.5k

Rating/warnings: NSFW - A lot of this is plot but there is smut as well. Contains explicit language and consensual sex acts between a man and woman. This is a story written in the 2nd person (“self insert"). This isn’t written to be exclusionary, it’s just my preferred style! Author’s note can be found at the end!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot thank you enough for coming out tonight to listen to me and the band. We've got a couple more songs coming up for you but I just wanted to take a minute to tell y'all how much we appreciate you." You gesture to yourself and the band behind you as the lights on stage come up a bit. "We wouldn't be where we are without your support. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!"

The crowd cheers and you can't help but experience an insurmountable feeling of joy. It never gets old. You'd been in the spotlight for a few years now, already at the end of touring your second album, though the size and scope of venues this time around was much, much larger. There was nothing that compared to being able to sing your own songs and have a crowd of thousands scream them right back at you.

Being an up-and-coming singer and songwriter in the genre of country music hadn't been easy. Girls your type had been a dime a dozen, hoards of Taylor Swift-wannabes covering "Teardrops on My Guitar" during open mic night. You held nothing against them; there was a path to success for everyone, but yours had been, well, different.

It was a karaoke cover of Brooks & Dunn's "Boot Scootin' Boogie", a song that you'd been singing since you were a toddler, that had gotten you noticed by a recording artist one night while out with your girlfriends, which led you to where you stand now, performing in front of thousands. You were liked for the range of your voice, with it's easy easy transitions from the sounds of pop to country and rock, in addition to the way you performed, and your take-no-shit attitude towards the entirety of the industry. People liked that you were forward and left nothing on the table, though you had to admit that it was mostly an act, a means of coping with the pressure of working your way to the top.

///

"It's refreshing!" Jax, your manager, had shouted one day, arms flailing as you had argued that maybe your attitude was going to get you into trouble one of these days.

"Aren't you, as, you know, my manager, supposed to be the one keeps me in line?"

"You aren't out doing coke, killing anyone, public indecency and all that," he had shrugged. "Far as I'm concerned, you are in line. People talk about you because of your attitude. They like it! They like you. Why is that so hard for you to accept sometimes?"

"Maybe I just haven't been caught doing those things," you grinned, effectively dodging his question. Fame hadn't helped break down the walls that you'd long ago built around yourself. If anything, you had done some reinforcing, built a moat even, in an effort to ensure that you protected yourself from getting too close to anyone that would only end up using you in the end. You had seen the way people in life had been used, and what it ultimately led them to, and you had promised yourself long ago that even if it meant being known as the Boot Scootin' Bitch, you would protect yourself and your heart at all costs.

"Your momma would tan your hide for much less than any of those, you know. Hell, you should be more afraid of her than you are of me or anyone else… 'cept maybe God."

///

You shake your head, working the memories free from your mind as you grab a bottle of water from the platform on which the drum set rests.

There's one more song of yours to sing before you performed a new cover, the one you had been looking forward to for months. Although you'd gotten permission to perform it not long into the start of your tour, the set list had been rehearsed already and every other detail ironed out around it. You'd convinced Jax and the crew to let you slot it into the last concert of the tour, Austin, Texas. These folks knew their music and for some reason, they liked you so you were thrilled to be able to share something new with the crowd that had welcomed you to their city with open arms.

You grab your guitar off its stand and slide the strap over your shoulders, adjusting it as you step forwards to the mic stand. A shimmering blue shirt catches your eye in the crowd and you do a double take because surely it can't be Harry because he's—

And it's not him, of course, though the fashion of the gentleman in the pit area would surely catch his eye as well as it's right up his alley. It's not him - it can't be him - because you know exactly where he is right now and it's not in the pit of your Austin performance.

A grin stretches over your face as you think of him. You strum the first chord of the first song you'd ever written about him, although there had been many more since. He probably knew this one was about him, having come just after your first meeting.

///

A friend of yours was good friends with Kacey, who had been the guest artist that night. Her name had been added to the VIP list and in the summer of 2018, just as you were hitting your own stride in your career, you tagged along with her to Harry Styles' live tour performance in your hometown of Nashville.

If you were being honest, prior to his concert, you hadn't heard much of his solo work, apart from the various huge hits like his Kiwi or Watermelon Sugar and a few other ballads. You liked his sound, seemingly influenced heavily by rock stars of days past, but you'd had other influences to worry about in your own side of the industry.

Sure, he had country music connections through the likes of Kacey Musgraves and Cam, and legends like Stevie Nicks, but his pop and soft rock style was pretty far removed from most country playlists that you yourself had graced. Your genres just didn't cross paths and the two of you seemingly operated in different realms of the music industry, topping your own charts and breaking your own peer's records.

Of course, you hadn't been completely oblivious to The Harry Styles. One Direction had been too big of a deal to ignore and you'd often found yourself bopping along to their old hits, singing along as they played amongst the other nostalgic pop hits to which you listened.

The concert had been in June, a hot sunny day followed by a perfect breezy evening. Downtown Nashville was always busy, but that night the city seemed to buzz, bright with music and life. After meeting for drinks at Acme on the River, you allowed yourself to luxuriate in getting lost in the crowd that milled about on Broadway. It was a surprising thing to not be recognized in your hometown, but you weren't one to complain about it. It was one reason that you value your time in Nashville over other music-centric cities like Los Angeles - it seemed that people here respected the private lives of musicians. There was an odd fan here and there, but you'd lived a majority of your "famous" life in Nashville in relative peace.

You were early to the venue, your friend having wanted to have a chance to see Kacey backstage. You were excited to finally meet the star - though you'd been around the block of fame a bit already, there would always be people that you never had an opportunity to meet in passing. You had been greeted at will call and had been led backstage.

The arena was alive with excitement. At that point, you yourself had never toured a venue that large, so the experience of being backstage and seeing the operations first hand were thrilling and a bit overwhelming. In her dressing room, Kacey pulled you straight into a hug, gushing about how excited she was to watch your career take off. She insisted on sharing her personal cell phone number with you, urging you to call her to get together on a collaboration. You were in shock leaving her room, blown away by her kindness and the way the music industry worked in the most bizarre of ways, when you turned a corner and ran smack into a tall, solid, smiling Harry Styles. His arms had come out quickly to steady you on your heels boots.

"Fuck," you swore, shaking your head at your clumsiness. "I am so sorry. What a great way to introduce myself."

He laughed and the sound flowed through you, warm and sweet like a cup of tea with honey. "Y'alright?" His eyes looked you over, and you couldn't help but notice the way they lingered.

Your cheeks blushed and a wave of embarrassment washed over you. "I'm the one that should be asking you that. I don't think your adoring fans would be very happy if I took you out with a textbook tackle right before you're due to go on stage." You took a moment to give him the same appreciative glance he had already given you, admiring the way his deep blue custom-beaded suit jacket fell open to reveal a black dress shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his chest.

"Ah, 'm fine. Lil' thing like you couldn't do too much damage to me, even in those heels. Don't think they'd be very happy though," he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement of the already-rowdy crowd while offering his hand. "I'm Harry."

You laughed as you introduced yourself, shaking his hand.

"I've heard that name before, but I'm sorry to say that I don't recognize you. You don't seem like one that's easy to forget."

"I sing, write music," you shrugged, not sure how to explain to a superstar that you were on the way up, yet still somewhere much farther down the fame totem pole than him. "Country, mostly. Not sure if that's on your radar."

"The new stuff's not, but I may have to change that." He was tapped by one of the event producers, needed for another pre-show procedure. "Where will you be tonight?"

"To your right, in the pit."

He smiled and you had almost immediately fallen in love with the crinkles that appeared under the corners of his eyes. "I'll look out for you. It was wonderful meeting you. Oh, shit, wait, just remembered— may I?" he gestured for the phone that was in your hand and you unlocked it before passing it to him.

You watched as he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. He paused for a moment before he grinned. "Hi Harry, it's you from before the show. This is a message to remind you to text this number and ask the owner of it out on a date. She's the one with the beautiful smile and great tackling skills. You won"t have forgotten her. 'Kay, bye!"

You laughed at an almost embarrassing volume, blown away by his cheek.

"Why not ask 'her' out now?" you pondered to him as he handed the phone back.

"What, and risk getting shot down? Wouldn't want to be sad and disappointed through my whole show, now would I?"

"It would make the ballads a bit more emotional," you had reasoned with a grin.

"Ouch! They're already filled with emotion, love. You'll see, I'll sing 'em right to you if I have to. Gotta run, thank you for letting me use your phone, that was a very important message!"

You laughed again as he took off. "Harry!" you had shouted to get his attention in the busy hall. He turned quickly, a small smile on his face. "She definitely won't say no, but you can wait until later to ask if you want to."

His grin stretched wider and he'd pumped a fist in the air before turning and jogging down the hallway.

You liked to joke with anyone who knew the story that your life had changed that day all because you met Kacey. Which wasn't a complete lie - it had been her dressing room you'd come out of before slamming into Harry in the hallway.

///

Singing the last lines of one of your songs, your stomach began to flutter in a bit of nervousness and a lot of excitement. Performing the next cover was something you had been looking forward to for months, and the moment that you got to share it with your fans was finally here.

You retreat from the mic stand to pass your guitar off to a stagehand, taking another sip of water to settle yourself.

"Doing alright?" Wyatt, your drummer, shouts over the pounding bass drum and you give him a thumbs up before turning back to face the crowd.

"I've got one more cover to play for y'all tonight," you say, grasping the mic stand to keep your hands from shaking. "I've been working on getting permission to play this one for quite awhile now. I fell in love with it the first time I heard it played and now here I am, performing it for you all. It's an unreleased piece by a very, very good friend of mine, but his performances of it are all over the internet so some of you may know the words. This song is called Medicine."

The song starts out with a steady bass line and the rhythm centers you a bit, steadying any nerves that still linger. The intro gives you a minute to shake out your shoulders and get comfortable at the mic stand once more like Harry does at each performance. You catch yourself having fun mimicking him and feel thankful that you're able to perform one of your favorite songs of his. When the bass drops in pitch and the electric guitar riffs, you slide in close to the mic stand.

"Here to take my medicine, take my medicine," you sang the opening lines, already settling into the sexy rock sound of the song you and the band had rehearsed relentlessly over the last few weeks. No, the genre wasn't one you normally dabbled in, but part of the fun of performing was taking chances, risks. You had to admit, you liked the sound a lot. It tempted you to branch out a bit more on your upcoming album.

The opening lines of the first verse throw you back into thoughts of meeting Harry that first night. You hadn't imagined what would follow the concert, let alone have the foresight to see it bringing you to this very moment in time.

///

You had been standing outside the arena after the concert, ears buzzing and heart thumping still from the incredible show Harry had put on. As soon as he disappeared from the backstage hall earlier, you had immediately saved his number to your phone, still in disbelief over the night's events.

Your heart had soared when your phone began to vibrate, not in a text message but in a voice call. Harry's name appeared on the screen and your friend had nudged you, clearly approving of the night's turn of events.

"Harry," you answered, ready to praise him halfway to Sunday on his performance.

"Let me take you out," he interrupted you. "Right now. Please? Anywhere you want to go."

You laughed and paused. "Yeah, okay. I might know of a place."

There was a lot of shuffling on his end before his voice came back on the line. "Might've had to do another fist pump."

"Told you she wouldn't say no."

"Where are you?" You heard the smile in his voice, already familiar with it.

"Demonbreun and John Lewis, headed towards the park."

"Give me 10, I'll pick you up." He paused. "Be careful, okay?"

"I'll stick with the hoards of your fans milling about, maybe ask some of them for the hot gossip on you while I wait."

"Don't believe anything they say," he said, and you could tell he was still smiling as he hung up.

He and his driver arrived shortly after, Harry's hair damp and covered with a baseball cap, dressed down in black pants and a simple loose white shirt, tattoos peeking out everywhere you looked. He exited the car and opened the back door for you, helping you balance as you stepped up into the large Suburban.

"We'll go to Pecker's," you said to his driver, laughing as Harry snorted next to you. "Shut up, it's just a bar. Take a right up here onto 24 and it'll take us all the way to Fairfield. It'll be on the right."

He looked at you and smiled before reaching out to hold your hand in the middle seat between you.

Taking Harry to Pecker's had just felt right. It was where you'd been discovered, where all of your adventures had started, and you weren't sure why but you wanted to share that small part of you with him after watching him up on stage that night.

"Won't people recognize you? I looked you up before the show, you're apparently a pretty big deal around here." He had asked, smirking, sipping on the locally-brewed beer that Clint, the regular bartender, was serving that night.

"Locals are pretty good about not interrupting our normal lives. Pecker's isn't as well known to tourists either, so it's a good hideout. This is where a lot of producers, executives and all the other professionals come to unwind." You ignored his comment on your fame and had taken a sip of your margarita instead. "Unless, of course, there's a drag show scheduled, then it's a bit of a madhouse."

Harry laughs into his drink and you grin. "So," he started after a pause, twiddling with the rings on his right hand. "What'd you think?"

"It was incredible," you said without hesitation. "Truly one of the best live shows I've seen in a long time, country acts included. You've got such a magnetism about you that people can't help but want to watch." You blushed a bit, alcohol and the quick comfort of him loosening your lips. "The whole water spraying trick was hot," you admit, making him blush. "And don't tell Stevie, but I think I might prefer your version of The Chain."

"Sacrilege! That's some incredibly high praise," he said, a small smile teasing at the corners of his mouth.

"Earned and deserved," you said, tilting your glass to his. "Honestly, Harry, you're an incredible musician. There aren't many out there that have the whole package like that."

"What about you? You seem like the whole package."

"I don't know if I'd say that. If you looked me up, you've likely seen what they say about me. 'My attitude won't get me far' and all. But I don't think it's my attitude, so much as it is my willingness to take the risks that others won't. I'm not out here to make music that's just there to be sold. Hell, I couldn't care less about the money. All I want is to create music that makes me feel fulfilled, and I think that honesty scares them." You twirled your finger in the condensation of the glass in front of you. You glanced up to his face finding his eyes already on yours, holding your gaze steadily. "It doesn't scare you, does it?"

"It's the most refreshing thing I've heard in a while. Not many people in the industry are fearless in the face of failure like that."

"I'm definitely not fearless; I just refuse to change who I am to make a buck."

"Who are you then?" Harry had asked, and telling him your story was easy. You couldn't understand how it was so natural, opening up to a stranger, but as the conversation wore on, you realized how similar you and Harry were in terms of the way you conducted your professional lives and that was without apology.

And you also realized, as the evening continued and you and Harry crept your bar stools closer and closer to one another, feet and knees bumping, his fingers tracing the ridges of your knuckles as you shared life stories like long lost friends, that you didn't want it to end.

///

"He's acting like a gentleman," you continue, changing up the lyrics slightly as you finish the first verse. The line always made you smile and you let yourself briefly flash back into your reminiscing about the night you'd met Harry, and how, even though he had acted gentlemanly upon dropping you off for the evening, you wanted to be anything but a gentlewoman.

///

After enjoying drinks late into the evening at Pecker's, Harry had insisted on having his driver take you home rather than allowing you to call an Uber.

"Such a gentleman," you commented as he opened the car door for you once again.

"Maybe my gentlemanly actions have motives," he said, sliding his hand along your lower back as you step past him and into the car. Your grin matched his smirk as he shut the door and you decided that he'd been right - not calling an Uber was the right thing to do.

The car ride back to your apartment building was too quick and before you knew it, he was at your door again, offering a hand for you to hold for balance as you exited the car. Neither of you let go as you walked through the lobby towards the elevators.

"You're uh— You're welcome to come up, if you'd like," you said, suddenly shy but not wanting to chicken out on asking for what you wanted, asking for some continuation of this sweet but likely brief meeting between you two. "For a drink, I mean, or to keep chatting, you know."

Harry smiled and glanced around the empty lobby. His hand in yours smoothed up the length of your arm, over your shoulder, and came to rest at your jaw. "I'd love to, believe me. You have no idea how much I want to." He leaned towards you, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead and your skin burned at the contact of his lips. "But I want to do this the right way. Don't want you to get the wrong idea of me."

"What if I want the wrong idea of you?"

He laughed, the sound open and honest and it had given you hope. "You called me a gentleman earlier and I have to admit that I liked it, coming from you. Would like to keep up the facade that I am, even if it's just for a bit." His face searched yours, each of you trying to read the thoughts that were flying through one another's minds. "You have beautiful lips," he whispered suddenly, his accent thicker than it had been all night.

Your mouth quirked into a smile, unable to do anything but preen at his compliment. "You do too," you replied, just as softly.

"Can I kiss you?"

"Please, yes." Before the words had settled he was kissing you, slowly and with too much care, like you would break if he wasn't gentle enough. It was over much too quick but you knew you would remember every moment of it for the rest of your life.

"Christ, I'd wanted to do that all night." His thumb smoothed over your cheekbone, smiling when you leaned into the touch. He glanced up as the elevator doors swung open and gently nudged you towards them. "Thank you, truly, for a wonderful evening. I promise to give you a call soon."

"I'll send Kacey after you if you don't!" you laughed, stepping into the lift.

"Good night darling." He winked and the doors slid shut, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the delicious ghost of his lips on yours.

///

"Give me that adrenaline, that adrenaline, think I'm gonna stick with you," you finish the first verse as Ryann rips through the chords on her guitar. You loved that the song built slowly, and even though that meant a quieter beginning, it promised an explosive end.

Though the crowd had been hesitant at first, you can see that the first few rows of them are nodding along, countless phones out recording the performance. You know that somewhere out there at your request is a member of your press team, professionally filming the cover. You may only be doing it once, but you were determined to make sure you would never forget it.

///

You had enough time at home to check some of your social media accounts, shower and get comfortable in bed before your phone rang again. For the second time that day, your heart soared seeing Harry's name light up your screen.

"If you're going to say that you're downstairs because you've reconsidered my offer for that nightcap, I'll need a few moments to prepare as I'm currently in my pajamas," you said as a greeting and you were met with his warm laughter once again.

"No, no, I had to go back to the arena for a bit anyways, pack up and all of that," he said, still chuckling. "I just— I wanted to make sure you weren't offended by me declining your offer. Because I wanted to— I didn't want the night to end there. There's something about you that's… Transfixing. And I don't want to ruin that and make you think you're just a fling."

"That's quite a compliment," you said, a bit awed by his words.

"What was it you said earlier, "earned and deserved", yeah?" He said, quoting your toast to him at the bar, making you grin. "I want you to be more than that. I'd like to get to know you, the gentlemanly way."

"Okay. Will we have a chaperone at our next date then?" He laughed but didn't correct your referral to that evening as a date. You had snuggled a bit deeper into the sheets, still disbelieving that all of this had been the result of being dragged along to a concert.

"No chaperones," he chuckled, "but yes, I do want to take you out again, if you'd let me."

"Hmm," you jokingly pondered aloud, as if answering with anything other than a resounding "yes" was on your mind. "I suppose I could fit something into my schedule."

"I hope that's a yes."

"Of course it's a yes! I didn't want the night to end either. And don't you dare say that you just did another fist pump," you had laughed, hearing the familiar shuffling of the phone on his end of the line.

"Me? Never!"

"You're adorable," you had said, a smile stuck on your face.

"And you're beautiful. Two can play this game."

There had been a comforting silence between you for a moment before you had spoken up again. "Harry?"

"Yeah, love?"

You had blushed at the pet name but loved the way it sounded being directed your way. "Thank you," you had whispered.

"Should be me thanking you. Sleep well sweetheart." You'd fallen asleep with your phone in hand, hopeful that you wouldn't wake up the next morning to realize it had all been a dream.

///

It hadn't been a dream, and here you were, nearly two years later, performing one of the songs that Harry himself had sung the night that you'd begun falling for him.

The second verse continued quickly and you let the lyrics wash over you as you sang, loving the way the rock energy of the song sounded with a bit of your band's country influence.

"Here to take my medicine, take my medicine, rest it on your fingertips," you sang, holding your pointer finger in the air much like Harry did every time he performed the song before bringing it to your lips as you sang the next line. "Up to your mouth, feeling it out, feeling it out."

///

Beginning to date Harry - properly date him too, not just make FaceTime calls to one another from across the world and sending texts back and forth until the wee hours of the morning thanks to the differences in time zones, sharing everything and more with one another as best you could digitally - had been the most exhilarating experience of your life, and you had performed in front of sold out crowds and accepted awards on live television. His tour was due to stretch on for almost another month throughout North America and the next time you saw him was when you'd been invited as Harry's guest to his show in Chicago just a few weeks after you'd met.

While he had put on an incredible show for the United Center, there had been moments that felt like he was performing just for you, glancing over to where you stood in the Friends and Family area, meeting your eyes and grinning. By that point, you could sing along to every song of his and you knew he loved it, loved watching you dance along to the music that he had created and was performing.

In a moment where you were thankful for the differences between the genres in which you two performed, you hadn't been recognized at all by his fans. You'd both talked about wanting to keep things quiet as you got to know one another, and you hadn't wanted a relationship with him, an already incredibly famous artist, to somehow influence the trajectory of yours. While it had been easy when you were apart, being together without seemingly being together was difficult. Especially in that moment, when all you wanted to do was curl up into him and soak in the post-show bliss with him. Instead, you sat on the couch with him, a cushion apart from one another, holding his hand tightly while you chatted about the concert.

"Someone is gonna notice that you looked to my side of the pit constantly all night," you said and he grinned guiltily.

"I like knowing you're in the crowd," he shrugged. "Besides," he scooted closer and threw his arm around you before dragging you in close, "you look incredible, how could I not want to stare at you all night?"

"Anyone could walk in," you pointed out, watching as his eyes followed your lips.

"Just want a little taste," he said, moving in closer, "Haven't I earned a kiss from my girlfriend after all of that work up on stage?"

Your eyebrows raised in surprise as you looked at him and he seemingly realized his slip-up.

"I mean— What I meant was— Shit," he scrubbed a hand over his face but you could tell he was hiding a grin. "Wasn't exactly how I wanted to ask you, but… Will you officially be my girlfriend?"

"Yes, H. I'm all yours."

"Love it when you call me H." He pulled you in for a kiss that you both lost yourselves in, finally able to experience the feeling of one another after being denied it for so long. When a knock at the dressing room door came, Harry had to all but drag himself away from you, hair disheveled and lips swollen, scowling at the door.

You threw your head back and laughed as he stalked over and pulled it open with a flourish.

"What?"

"The hell's your issue?" you heard Mitch ask before Harry widened the door so he could see you laughing on the couch. You raised a hand in greeting and Harry's scowl deepened as Mitch chuckled, taking in both of your disheveled appearances. "Oh, shit, hey, sorry. Uh, car's ready when you are. See you tomorrow bud."

"Harry!" you chided once he'd closed the door in Mitch's face, giggles still bubbling out of your mouth. "He was just being polite."

"Interrupting arse is what he is," Harry said, sitting down and pulling you into his lap. "Where were we?"

You threw your arms around his neck and pressed your body as close to his as possible, hoping that he'd thought to lock the door before returning to your embrace. "Right about here, I think." With a hand on your hip, sliding under your shirt to reach warm skin and one at the back of your neck, Harry kissed you until you were breathless and not only wanting more but very seriously needing it.

"Come back to the hotel with me," he murmured against your lips as you ground your body down on him, reveling in the way the action made him throw his head against the back of the couch and exhale sharply.

"You sure?" Your hands smoothed over the chest of his skin, tracing the dark swallows with your fingertips as you rolled your hips.

He shuddered at the light touch and gripped your hips tightly, pressing his up as you pressed yours down and the action made you sigh, the pressure a delicious tease of what was hopefully to come. "Absolutely," he said, his grin telling you he was pleased with the noises he was causing you to make. "Want you so bad, like I won't be able to breathe right until I properly have you."

You leaned in to kiss at his neck, his shower-damp curls tickling your cheek. "The feeling is mutual. Adored watching you up on stage tonight. Have I told you yet how much I love seeing you perform?" You nuzzle at his neck, urging him to tilt his head back farther, exposing more of his skin to you.

"Yeah, you have, but tell me again," he sighed, his hands running up and down your back.

"It's like when you get on stage no one else before or after you matters," you said honestly, letting your lips against his skin hide how truthful you were really being, spilling all of your thoughts about seeing Harry up on stage. It was scary, feeling so deeply for him already. But you wanted him to know, at least in part, what it meant to be able to watch him perform. "Something about your live voice just makes my breath catch in my throat, I can't get enough of it."

Harry breathed deeply for a moment, working to center himself while you nosed at the curls around his ear and heaped praise upon him.

"It's like you connect with every person out in the crowd, like you're singing just for them. You can tell that you're having fun and people want to join you in that. They know you love the attention," you whispered and he hummed in appreciation (or agreement), the sound low in his throat. "They'd stay out there all night for if they could, screaming about how much they love you."

"And you feed into it, playing it up for them. You know exactly what you're doing when you get to act a little bit naughty up there, driving them all mad," you said with a smile.

He chuckled and you could hear and feel the sound rumble through him. "Played it up for you tonight. Did it work?"

"You mean did it make me want to jump your bones the second you came off stage? Yeah, it worked."

"Fucking hell," he said, holding you close with his hands on your butt as he stood up. "Our first time is not going to be in a dressing room so we need to go now."

He let you slide down his body and held you steady as you balanced on your legs. "Would be pretty fitting though, don't you think, given how we met and what we do?"

"Yeah, but then I'd think about it every time I was in one. You wanna torture me relentlessly?" He pulled you tight against him, kissing you once more before separating to grab his bags.

"Yeah, relentless torture sounds like something I might be into."

He glanced up at your words, eyes dark and hungry, a smirk on his lips. "Careful what you wish for, love."

///

The bass line increased behind the riff of Ryann's guitar and you leaned into the mic stand, eyes closing as you continued singing the first bridge. "I had a few, got drunk on you and now I'm wasted, and when I sleep I'm gonna dream of how you…"

There were a few fans of yours and Harry's who apparently knew the words as they helped you out, screaming the unwritten word that finished the sentence: "tasted."

///

Harry was quick to say goodbye to everyone on the team before pulling you quickly through back hallways and down quiet staircases, sneaking quick kisses when he was sure there was no one around. You were both out of breath when you finally climbed into the car, grinning like kids getting away with sneaking around.

The hotel ride was quick, mercifully, but Harry had been anything but patient, his hand at your knee creeping up slowly, closer and closer to the hem of your dress, toying with the hem while he chatted with the driver.

"I'm gonna head in first with Martin and Eric will loop around and drop you off at the side entrance. I would wait in the lobby for you but this hotel hasn't been the best in the past with uh— containing sensitive information, we'll say, so Martin will meet you on your floor to get your stuff, then bring you up. Is that okay?"

"You sound like you've done this before, Styles," you said with a wink, using humor to cover the nerves that had settled in the pit of your stomach.

He blushed and you loved knowing you got under his skin so easily. "The band used to stay here when we toured… and I was young and dumb once, yes."

"Just giving you a hard time, H."

His grin stretched as he leaned over to peck your lips once more. "See you in a minute, love."

Harry climbed out and the driver took off once again, slowly circling the block. "He's quite taken with you, you know," he said, glancing up in the rear view mirror as he parked the car at the curb. He got out and opened the door for you in the empty street then used his keycard to unlock the heavy side door of the hotel.

"Thank you," you said, both for his actions and his omission about Harry. Sure, you had talked to him as often as possible over the last weeks and had yourself been on the receiving end of his attention, but it felt validating to hear that Harry's feelings for you may have gone a bit farther than just a small crush if people around him had also noticed his behavior.

Harry's bodyguard was waiting by the elevators and escorted you to your room to gather your luggage, then led you to Harry's door.

"Car'll be around about 9 tomorrow morning, H. Flight's at 10:30." He turned to you. "I understand you have business to continue here in Chicago?"

"Yes, meetings tomorrow and then I fly back to Nashville in the evening."

"There'll be a driver ready for you tomorrow as well. He's been instructed to take you wherever you need to go and he'll stay until you depart. Have a nice evening," he nodded at Harry, who was smiling in the doorway, before departing.

"You didn't have to do that for me, I could've managed by getting an Uber," you said, stepping into the room past Harry to set your bags down and kick your shoes off.

"I didn't, was Martin's idea; says he doesn't want anything to happen to the one thing that's made me so happy these last few weeks."

"Oh yeah? I'm the one thing, huh?"

"You're everything, honestly," he replied a bit sheepishly, taking your hands in his. "Think I might like you a bit more than I already should. Lettin' my heart get a bit ahead of my head, I suppose."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," you said softly and he beamed.

He moved his hands up to cup your face, pulling you close for a sweet kiss that quickly turned insistent, heat rising between the two of you. Harry slid his hands under the hem of your shirt to rest where your spin ended and yours wrapped around his neck, dragging him down to you as you stepped behind you towards the bed. His long legs tangled with yours and you tumbled backwards, laughing as you hit the plush bed and Harry collapsed on top of you.

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at you with a smile, pushing the hair that had fallen into your face aside. "Hi baby," he said softly.

"Hi."

"Missed you," he said, leaning down for another sweet kiss.

"We were apart for like, eight minutes," you giggled between his kisses, your laughter giving way to a sigh as he moved to press a kiss to your nose, your cheek, your chin.

"Doesn't matter," he breathed into the crook of your neck, pressing small open mouth kisses to the soft skin there, "Any time apart is too long."

"The two weeks left of the tour will fly by. You should enjoy them while you can."

"Wish you could come with me, love performing for you." He kissed his way across the base of your neck, collarbone to collarbone as his fingers trailed to the small straps on your shoulders. "Would you like to take this off?"

"Please," you sighed, desperate and aching for the feeling of his skin against yours.

Your first time sleeping with Harry had been exactly what you'd wanted and expected - hot and fast, admittedly over a bit more quickly than either of you had wanted, but worth the weeks of wait.

Harry's skill set hadn't ended at singing and playing instruments. If anything, his vast experience using his hands and mouth only helped him excel in other pastimes that also utilized those parts of his body. To both of your delights, he had proven his adeptness in all areas multiple times that night, and once again in the morning before he had to rush into the shower, dragging you along with him simply to get more time together before you were forced apart once again.

///

You had spent the next two months away from one another, Harry having wrapped his tour and immediately beginning work on his next album. You'd spent your own time mixed between writing and recording an upcoming single. You had already written a handful of songs that were inspired by him and you'd wondered, albeit a bit nervously, if the sentiment was shared. When he stopped in Nashville on a long layover, pushing his flight back even longer to stay with you for another night, you'd tried to pry the information out of him. Unfortunately, no amount of sexual teasing or denial had convinced him — he, however, had you singing like a canary almost immediately, teasing you in the best way about how easily you opened up for him, telling him all about the music that he had already inspired.

You had been FaceTiming him late one night weeks later, both tired from long days spent in the studio. He had suddenly gotten shy, biting at the skin around his fingernails.

"Hey, stop that. What's the matter H?"

"Wanna ask you something," he mumbled, but a smile was peeking through where his fingers were still at his lips. "Jus' don't know how to."

"Baby," you sighed, "you can ask me anything. Y'know that."

"I know, I know." He paused and took a deep breath before a wide smile stretched across his face. "Would you maybe want to come home with me this Christmas? To London? Wouldn't be for long, maybe just a couple nights, I just wanna introduce you to my mum already, she's been pestering me nonstop lately 'bout meetin' you and Gem's joined in on it now too, so it's two against one when they call and I've told them that—"

"Harry," you said chucking, trying to interrupt his nervous rambling.

"—and she actually called me Harold last time she told me to bring you 'round and that got me a bit worried so I—"

"Harry! Of course I'll come with you. I'd absolutely love to."

You met him at the airport weeks later, desperate to pull him close and kiss him silly in the confines of his darkly tinted car, but you refrained, knowing how seriously Harry took the protection of your relationship from the press. You may not have been able to see anyone straining to capture pictures of you two, but you knew there was always the chance.

It was an entirely different story, however, when he'd finally pulled the car past the mechanical gate and into his private drive. You both reached for each other immediately, arms tangled and shifter knob pressed uncomfortably against your side, but perfectly content so long as his lips were against yours.

"Fuck— I missed you— so much," he muttered between kisses. He pulled away, forehead resting against yours, sly smirk pulling at his lips. "Mum won't expect us for a few hours at least."

"What is it that you're insinuating, Mr. Styles?"

"That there's plenty of time to give you a tour around the house, that's all," he said innocently. He gave you a sweet smile before hopping out of the car and coming to the passenger side where he helped you out and picked up your bags.

You were eager to be given a house tour, more than keen to learn all of the things you could about his London life. The house was decorated in a way that made you smile - eclectic but with a definitive air of cohesive taste. It suited Harry to an absolute tee. From the artwork that decorated the walls to the mismatched but homey furniture, you could tell immediately that this was Harry's sanctuary - every inch of the home screamed his name.

"It's incredible," you said as he led you into the largest room, the master. He walked over to the dresser that sat under the window and pulled open the top two drawers.

"I know we won't be here long, this time around, but I cleaned out a few drawers for you here, if you want to unpack some things. And there's space in the closet for you too," he nodded towards the door on the other side of the room, dragging a hand through his hair as he talked, "I had too much in there anyways and some of it needed to go and I wanted you to be able to leave some things, if you felt comfortable, of if Mum drags us out shopping and you don't want to take it all home now you can leave it here and-"

"You- you cleared out a drawer for me?"

"Well, yeah," he said, resting his hand on the back of his neck. "Made some space for you in the bathroom too, though I doubt it'll be enough, with all that you bring along to fix yourself up." He paused and thought for a moment. "I know how our lives are. I just wanted you to have some of your own space here; want you to feel as comfortable in my home as I do. Is that too much?"

"H," you said with a sigh, your lips curling into a smile, "it's perfect, and so thoughtful. I'm sorry I haven't done the same for you in Nashville yet."

"'s alright, love. I've already got a toothbrush there at least. I can take some time when we fly back to come and help if you'd like me to. As long as you don't end up wearing all the clothes that I leave there," he chuckled.

"You know me too well," you said, reaching for his hand. He lifted your entwined fingers to his lips to brush a kiss over your knuckles.

"You do look good in my clothes," he confessed, pulling you close to face him. "Look good in my house. But you always look good anyways."

"Said the pot to the kettle," you said with a smile. "I like being here already," you shrug, hands resting on his shoulders. "It feels like you, like home. Thank you for inviting me," you add, as though the measly voicing of your appreciation is enough to convey what you truly feel.

"You're welcome anytime, if I'm here or not."

"You trust me that much?"

"Yeah, I do. I'll get you a key and everything." He leaned down to kiss you slowly, relearning the map of your lips and mouth, before pulling away. He laughed when you made a noise of protest.

"The bathroom's over here if you'd like to freshen up." He had pulled at your hand, stepping towards the other open door in the room. "Figured a shower might sound nice after a long day in an airplane. Besides, I've gotta clean up before we go to Mum's anyways."

"Gonna join me?"

"Yeah, thought I might, if that's okay." His smirk had been wicked as he pushed you the rest of the way into the bathroom. He dropped your hand to reach for the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head quickly. As he reached for the buckle of his pants, he had met your staring eyes. "See something you like, love?"

You definitely had, though you didn't think your attraction — physically or emotionally — for Harry had stopped at something that was as weak as "like." Getting to know him over the last six months had made you worry that there wasn't ever going to be anyone else like him, anyone that made you feel like he did. You had fallen for him, desperately hard, and the realization of it as you stood in front of his half-naked self almost embarrassed you.

"Babe? You alright?" he asked as he stripped down to his boxers.

"Yeah, you just got me all distracted," you had grinned, pulling your sweatshirt and remaining clothes off quickly before joining Harry under the warm spray of the water.

Meeting Harry's mom that evening went better than you could've ever dreamt it would. The two of you got on like old friends, and Harry had stared, almost in wonder, at how easily you seemed to bond with her. And then he had stared in horror as Anne offered to pull out the photo albums filled with pictures from Harry's childhood, particularly when Anne offered up the album filled with photos from Harry's and Gemma's emo phases.

As the evening wore on, you caught Harry on more than one occasion glancing your way, cheeks bright from the red wine he was sipping on and eyes warmly reflecting the bright Christmas lights. He always looked like he was a split second away from saying something, only to shake his head and look away with a small smile.

Later, in bed, Harry pulled you close to him. He was laying on his back, you on your side, and you threw a leg over his waist, soaking in all of the cuddles you could get on this short trip together. The room was only illuminated by the ambient light coming in through the blinds.

"Mum liked you a lot," he murmured, gently stroking the skin at the base of your spine, "said I should hang onto you".

You returned the gesture, running your fingertips along the lines of ink that make up his many tattoos. "I liked her too. She's wonderful, I see where you get it from now."

"Hey now, 'm wonderful all on my own!" He tickled your side and you couldn"t help but arch towards him, shrieking and laughing at the touch.

"Stop that! You are an absolute pest, you know that?" you said, grinning up at him.

"Ah, you love me," he whispered, and his joking tone made you smile but the way he pulled you tighter as he said it made you brave.

You let the weight what you were about to say wash over you, aware that things were going to change forever with just a few words. "I do love you, Harry," you whispered, moving up his body to press a kiss to his lips.

"Thank God," he had said, wrapping his arms back around you and pulling you on top of him. "Cause I love you too."

Leaving Harry after that had been even more difficult. All you wanted to do was be with him, but you had too much coming up with the future release of your album and Harry was still in the midst of doing his own writing and recording.

It was your professions, along with the desire to keep your relationship private, that kept you apart. You weren't sure how you did it, but your relationship had withstood the distance and odd-hours. The only step now would be deciding if, when, and how to confirm the suspicions to tabloids and fans alike that you were an item.

The wait was killing you. All you wanted was to show off to the world that Harry was yours.

///

The bridge of the song was followed quickly by the chorus and the heavy guitar and pounding drums had you rocking on your feet, body swaying into the mic stand as you let yourself get lost in the lyrics. "If you go out tonight, I'm going out 'cause I know you're persuasive."

The crowd was even more into the song now, many picking up on the words quickly and screaming them along with your singing. The rock and roll vibe of the song was coursing through you and the crowd, the arena electric with energy already.

"You got that something, I got me an appetite, now I can taste it."

You remove the mic from the stand and dance towards one end of the stage, singing as you move to the beat. "We're getting dizzy, oh, we're getting dizzy, oh! La da da da da! You get me dizzy, oh, you get me dizzy, oh!"

///

You had been on the phone with Harry one day in July, nearly five months after the release of your album, having him help you decide what the setlist of your tour would be when it began in November.

"I wish I could cover one of your songs."

He had laughed and slurped his tea, the sounds comforting to you, even over the phone. "That'd be a bit obvious, wouldn't it love?"

"I don't mean cover Golden or Kiwi," you said, tapping your pen against the pad of paper in front of you. "What about one you wrote for 1D? What about Perfect? Or Stockholm Syndrome! That was always one of my favorites."

"Getting permission on those might be a bit more difficult, s'not just me that's gotta sign off on it. Besides, do you really wanna be the artist that covers a One Direction song on her own headlining tour?"

"Guess I'll stick with singing along to them in the shower then."

You were both quiet for a moment, lost in your own thoughts.

"What if I covered Medicine?" you asked suddenly, realizing it was the perfect compromise, not to mention your favorite song that Harry himself performed oh his own tour. The rock sound wasn't a far cry from the roots that country music had and you knew it would sound great. "Even if it was just for one stop!"

"Hmm," Harry mused. "It would sound great with the band, I'll give you that. But videos will go around, people will know it's my song you're singing and they'll connect the dots about us."

"H, I'm ready for that if you are. I love you, and I'm ready to be able to share that love that I have for you with the world. Sneaking around has been fun but I want people to know how proud of you I am and how much you're loved and appreciated. Half of our fans know already, it's just a matter of us confirming it. I think that we could really-"

Harry was laughing at your rambling on the other end of the line. "Alright, alright, you drive a hard bargain, love. I think you're right, maybe it is time we stopped sneaking around. I'll try, but Jax and everyone else still have to agree to it too. It might be easier to convince everyone if it's just a one time thing. Pick another cover, something you'd normally do, in case it takes some time to work things out."

"I'll ask him right now! Thank you Harry!"

"I just have one condition," he said, and you could hear the grin that was surely pulling at the corners of his lips.

"What's that?"

"I get to perform it with you," he had said, and the smile already on your face widened exponentially. "If we're finally gonna make "us" public, may as well do it with a bang."

///

In the moment after the chorus, an 8 count beat is carried by the drummer and guitarist. For this performance, and the only performance you'd put on of this song, you had rehearsed the 8 count repeating once between the chorus and the next verse, as you needed a bit of extra time to announce your guest performer.

"Ladies and gentlemen," you shout into the mic, grin wide and face beaming already at what was about to take place. "To help me finish this performance, please help me welcome my very good friend, Harry Styles!"

Harry emerges from behind the stage holding his own wireless mic as much of the crowd screams - he may not be a country artist, but he was absolutely known worldwide. You step back with a wave of your arm, smiling as he begins the next chorus. His performance is for the crowd but he's singing the words directly to you.

"Tingle running through my bones, fingers to my toes, tingle running through my bones," he sings, voice smooth like whiskey, and the crowd adores him, eating out of the palm of his hand. "The boys and the girls are in, I mess around with them, and I'm OK with it."

You can't help but dance as he sings, his voice and the energy of the crowd propelling you to move. He watches you, eyes no longer on the crowd, as he sings the next lines. Immediately, heat pools low in your belly at his glance and the words.

"I'm coming down, I figured out I kinda like it. And when I sleep I'm gonna dream of how you…"

You gyrate your hips at the unsung line of "ride it", listening with a sly grin as some in the crowd scream the two words that go unsung.

///

After giving him a key, Harry had moved some of his clothes to your apartment in Nashville some time while you were away on the first leg of your tour. He had found the city to be incredibly welcoming and inspirational for his upcoming album and had decided to stay there for a spell while you continued to tour around the country.

You had scheduled a short break between your concerts over New Years, wanting to be able to grab at least one or two nights at home with him to celebrate the holiday before you were back on the road again.

"So fucking glad you're home," Harry panted, pulling your shirt over your head before attaching his lips to yours once again. "Missed you like crazy."

"Missed you too," you moaned as his lips moved downwards, across your neck and over your collarbones, down the valley between your breasts. Before he could reach around to unhook your bra, you reached for his shirt, as desperate as he was to see and touch what you'd been missing.

As he pulled the half-unbuttoned blouse over his head, you pulled your leggings off and reached for him, pushing him back onto the bed behind him. He unbuttoned his pants as he scooted up towards the middle of the bed, shoving them and his boxers off in one swoop.

You climbed on top of him, hurriedly reaching to kiss him as you rubbed your clothed center along the length of his hard cock.

"Fuck," he hissed, throwing his head back to allow you room to kiss his neck. "Desperate aren't you, darling?"

"Want you so bad it hurts," you whispered, sucking a bright hickey right where it would absolutely be seen by anyone.

You moved to continue kissing down his chest but he stopped you with a hand under your arm. "Not gonna last long, love. Wanna be inside you."

His cheeks and chest were flushed bright red, lips puffy and pupils blown wide. This was when you loved him most, being able to have him like no one else did. The same feeling always hit you at certain moments, particularly ones of domesticity, like when you watched him back the car out of the driveway or when he stood in the kitchen in the morning in nothing but socks, boxers, and his ratty old robe, singing along to old big band jazz as he waited for the coffee to brew. There was Harry Styles the musician, Harry Styles the actor, and Harry Styles the performer, but then there was your Harry.

"Yeah, okay," you sighed, moving off of him quickly to remove your bra and panties. You climbed back onto the bed and threw your leg over his hips, straddling him. He immediately reached for you and pulled you flush against his chest, his lips capturing yours in a bruising kiss.

You rocked your hips against him as he held you, your slick arousal gliding along his length, drawing a moan from both of you.

"Baby, please," he panted, and you could only mod in agreement, lost already to the sweeping feeling of your close release.

His hands rested on your hips as you positioned him at the entrance between your legs. You groaned in harmony as you worked down him slowly, the only sound in the room was your shared heavy breathing and gasps.

"Fuck me," he sighed as you set a slow pace, rocking on top of him to reach each spot that you know will get you there.

"Workin' on it," you grin. A quick swivel of your hips hit at just the right angle and you tossed your head back, repeating the movement over and over again until you shuddered with a final snap of tension, your orgasm rolling over you as Harry helped you move, hands tight on your hips, to wring all you could from the release.

"You look so beautiful right now, like a fuckin' angel," Harry said, voice low and gravely, accent thick with need.

"How's that line go?" you said as you slowed down, smirking when a harsh rock of your hips caused Harry to moan. "'Turns out she's a devil in between the sheets'?"

"Fuck," he groaned again, eyes closed tightly. "Can't just go reciting my own lyrics to me while I"m buried in ya like this, love."

"And there's nothing you can do about it," you continued, singing the line of his song this time, and his hips buck up into yours harshly.

"You're gonna pay for that," he had said, quoting another of his songs, before he had flipped you over onto your back and set his own brutal pace.

///

Like he can read your thoughts, Harry beams and wags a finger in your direction and the crowd screams at your chemistry together. You grab your mic from its stand and take a step towards Harry to sing the chorus together.

"If you go out tonight, I'm going out 'cause I know you're persuasive." Harry dances off to the side of the stage, performing once again for the crowd.

You dance at center stage with your wireless mic, too excited about performing with Harry that you can't stand in one spot. The music and Harry's energy make you want to move. "You got that something, I got me an appetite, now I can taste it."

"We're getting dizzy, oh, we're getting dizzy, oh! La da da da da!" Harry throws his head back, singing along in his own world and you can't look away from him. He really was a rockstar and getting to share the stage with him like this was an experience you'd never forget.

"You get me dizzy, oh, you get me dizzy, oh!"

There's a great pause in the lyrics where the guitar, keyboard, and drums play together, increasing the tension of the song. You and Harry take off towards opposite ends of the stage, both reveling in the performance for the crowd as you dance and stomp to the beat. Eventually, with a slide down the keys of the keyboard, the instrumental quiets into just the steady beat of the bass line joined by the hi-hats.

You and Harry urge the crowd to clap along as you both return to the middle of the stage to sing together once again. He always said that this portion of the song was one of his favorites to perform, the repeated line from the bridge ending abruptly with the lights going out before flashing back on, the added theatrics of the performance elevating the climax of the song completely. Having rehearsed that Harry would sing the following chorus alone, you let yourself get lost in his gaze as it settles on you.

You stand facing one another behind the mic stand, once again singing more to one another rather than to the crowd. You step closer towards him as the lyrics progress, nearly chest to chest now with your voices sharing one another's mics. "I had a few, got drunk on you and now I'm—"

Before you can sing the last word of the line and the lights can blink out as rehearsed, Harry leans forwards and captures your mouth in a hungry kiss. The crowd erupts with screams as the lights above the stage go dark.

You can feel rather than hear him say the words "I love you" against your lips and you have just enough time to repeat them back to him before the drums and guitar pick the beat up once again, the lights flashing back on brightly. He moves away and continues to sing the chorus that follows as if nothing had happened. You're a bit stunned, not having prepared for his relationship-revealing public display of affection to happen during your performance of his song but it was perfect and he knows it. Your smile is wide and you can't help but stand rooted where you are and laugh at what has just finally happened.

"If you go out tonight, I'm going out 'cause I know you're persuasive," he sings, smirking at you while you blush across from him.

You join him in singing the last lines, your right hand joining his left hand where everyone can see your fingers entwine.

"You got that something, I got me an appetite, now I can taste it. We're getting dizzy, oh, we're getting dizzy, oh!"

You urge the crowd with a waving hand to join in and they do, singing along with you and Harry. "La da da da da! You get me dizzy, oh, you get me dizzy, oh!"

The drums and guitar end the song on five quick beats and the crowd erupts once again in screams. You immediately jump towards Harry, throwing your arms around his neck in a close embrace. His hands wrap around your waist to hold you close, and you can feel him smile where his face is pressed close to your jaw.

"How was that?" he asks, chuckling against you.

"It was perfect, you're perfect. Thank you, H. For everything."

"Can take you on a proper date now, yeah? Wanna show my girl off to the world."

"Yes, please!" You can't wipe the smile from your face as he sets you down and Harry continues to beam at you as the crowd continues screaming, reeling from your shared performance.

Harry nudges you gently before turning back to them, lifting his and your arms high in the air and leading you in bending for a bow. He steps away from you and turns, opening his arms wide to you for the crowd to praise and you laugh, tearing up at his gesture and the overwhelming emotions of the performance while you take another bow just for yourself.

He pulls you into another hug and you can't help but angle your face up towards him, wordlessly asking for another very quick, very public kiss.

He glances down at you, smiling. "You're gonna love this now, aren't you?"

"Course I am. love showing them you're mine."

He leans down to peck your forehead, your nose, and finally, your lips, as the crowd goes wild. "Love showing them you're mine. You've got a show to finish, love. Go kill it."

///

Ahh! So much fun! This has been such a joy to write and I appreciate you taking the time to give it a chance! It’s my first (of hopefully many) Harry fics - reading all of the stories here has been immensely inspiring, and I’m so looking forward to writing more!

Tagging my love @morganlatte who is a wonderful hype woman and beta reader. Thanks buddy!

Anyways! Thank you for reading! My love language is words of affirmation (aka I have a praise kink) so leave me a comment here if you feel so inclined!

#harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles story #harry styles smut #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #one direction fanfiction #harry styles x you #reader insert fic #my writing #wow!#that was so much fun #i'm so in love with it

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