#i realize like film and stage are wildly different

[heyfagbutt]

Poof, a powerful wizard is offering you an archive of art...

(it's magical don't worry about logistics of How but safe to assume you can enjoy everything on offer to it's fullest)

...that contains everything ever made under that medium* and auto updates when new things are created,

*for the purposes of this thought exercise things can be broken down, for instance music does include soundtracks for video games and film and written word includes scripts and meta media etc. We're playing fast and loose here because none of these so perfectly are separated from all the others and the lines blur easily. This is a question about preferences not classification which better students than I have tried to define. Play with me in this space.

**including digital

[fbks1105]

OK OK OK!!!

I don’t know if anyone else realizes this but NPMD is EXTREMELY Heathers coded!!! The costumes, the lighting, the NAMES…. I’m freakin out man! And I’ve been listening to the soundtrack like a maniac (we all have probably) and I realized that when Max is alive the music has a very 70’s/80’s vibe to it, and the vocabulary used by the rest of the “students” is all 80’s lingo. But when he dies it WILDLY switches to 90’s/00’s/10’s! And you’re like “yeah so what they changed the style cause he dies. A lot of musicals do” BUT IM NOT DONE REALIZING SHIT YET!!!

When we see Max on stage, everyone is not only terrified, but they change their way of speaking instinctively/ immediately. And when he dies, everyone relaxes and speaks like real people in the modern age. When his ghost is rumored to be haunting Hatchetfeild, everyone switches again.

Max has psychology trained all of Hatchetfeild to be sub-characters in HIS 80’s high school musical cliché!

But why? Because he was probably trained by his parents (more than likely divorced) to think that “the 80’s were a better time”, or “things were easier back then. Jocks rule, and everyone else was a literal loser”. Max isn’t just a monster, he’s a trained monster.

But, Max isn’t always a monster, especially when talking to Grace. Because she probably reminds him of his mother in old pictures (not to mention that Grace is the only girl in school that gives him pushback, but that’s a conversation for a different day). And in the Waylon house, when Max’s entire ideology is questioned, he backs down and his vocabulary modernizes. However when he dies and goes into the black and white, the Lords in Black make that 80’s main character personality consume him. His “movie” is no longer an 80’s rom-com, it’s an 80’s horror film, BUT HE STILL HAS TO BE THE MAIN CHARACTER.

All this to say, I love this addition to Hatchfield and I can’t wait to see when happens next 😍

[aces-and-angels]

Title: Dancing Queen

A/N: happy belated valentine's day gang- @jerzwriter tagged me in a fun, impromptu game where you list what songs your otp would be listening to this feb 14. i took a different approach to the prompt, as i often find myself doing lol- plus i had this hc in mind already- so here we are (but the short answer: enid's song would be get ur freak on by missy elliot); the long answer: this blurb🖤

Character(s): Enid Mendoza (she/her), Will Thomson (they/them), Zahir Saidi (he/him)

Summary: Will and Zahir discover a very special dance video. @choicesficwriterscreations

Word Count: 701

---

Another day at Park & Davis…

The file room- Zahir's newest home away from home. He eyed the pile of precariously stacked boxes with trepidation. “Okay. You can do this, Zahir. Just grab the files for Morrison.” 

The pep talk did little to assuage his nerves, but he pressed on, carefully pulling from the middle of the stack like he was playing a high-stakes version of Jenga. One hand on the handle, the other protectively hovering over the pile. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Just a little more-

“Zahir! You gotta see this!” Will’s voice boomed through the quiet expanse of shelves. An unbecoming shriek tore through his throat as he scrambled to steady the boxes. Only when he was sure he wouldn't literally be buried in paperwork did he take a breath.

“Will- you can't just creep up on me like that,” he huffed, still trying to calm his heart rate.

Unbothered, Will pushed their phone towards him. A paused video lit up the screen. “Trust me, this is important.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just watch it,” they insisted, practically bouncing on their heels.

“Alright- alright-” 

A simple, yet rhythmic melody played through the speakers. Dancers stood on stage in V-formation, heads dawned with oversized bucket hats. They swayed lazily to the beat- then the song truly began. 

“Missy be puttin’ it down- I'm the hottest ‘round- I told y'all mother-- y'all can't stop me now-” 

Everything broke loose. The crowd came alive with raucous cheers as the performers dropped down to their knees in sync. Zahir’s brows shot up at the sheer intensity of the routine- his heart pumping wildly just watching them move. “They’re really good. Are they from your college team?” 

Will shook his head, minimizing the video. “Nah. Check out the date in the description. This was over ten years ago.” 

“Then why are we watching this?”

“Notice anything special about the one in the center?” 

“Uh… they're talented?” 

“Oh, you sweet summer child-”

“My birthday is in November.” 

“I'd take another hard look if I were you,” Will hummed knowingly.  

“Can't you just tell me?”

“And take the joy of realizing it for yourself from you? Never.” 

“Will-” 

“Zahir,” they mocked.

“I really need to get back to work.” 

“This won’t take long.”

Zahir sighed, but resumed the video anyway. His frustration grew as he tried to catch a glimpse of the lead dancer’s face- their movements too fast for the camera to get a clear shot. The quality maxing out at 360p didn’t help either. Luckily, whoever was filming decided to zoom in at the exact moment their- her- head popped up. “No way- is that-”

“Yup.”

“But she’s-”

“I know.” 

"How'd you even find this?"

Will grinned smugly. "I have my ways. And a lot of downtime between meetings."

Her hair was much longer, falling just over her lower back. In the time he’s worked at Park & Davis, he’d never seen her with straight hair. Forget about the carefree expression plastered on her face- which admittedly hadn’t changed much. But there was no mistaking it, that was-

“What are you two doing?” Enid’s commanding tone disrupted the peace between them. Will slammed the power button, shutting off the video before pocketing their phone. 

“Uh- nothing?” Zahir answered meekly. 

She crossed her arms. “Did you get the files for Morrison?”

“Well- not yet-”

“So not only have you not done the one task I gave you, you’re choosing to hide out in the file room. Is that right?”

“N-no,” he stammered, his brain on the fritz at Enid’s piercing stare. “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

Words poured out of him like a running faucet. Babbling tended to be his default coping mechanism. “We represent some of the world’s biggest tech moguls. Blaire Hall, Khaan Mousavi, a third person I can’t name right now but I’m sure exists, yet we’re still slaves to this archaic form of documentation. Paper. Isn’t that ironic? The fact that we haven’t digitized all this is insane. We’d save space, time, trees-”

“Zahir,” Enid interrupted. 

“Yeah?”

“Get the files.” 

“Right away, Ms. Mendoza,” he squeaked out, spinning on his heels to get back to his game of Jenga.

---

tag list: @ascindio, @choicesmc, @win-chan, @brycesgirl, @stars-are-within-me, @inlocusmads

[aegisgrey]

I need to scream about the Kenobi show and well what else is tumblr for.

I’m not happy lads. Long post and spoiler warning.

I’m really not sure why I kept watching it. I think it’s because I felt a sense of obligation to see this one out because like, I don’t know I guess this felt like a last chance for Disney Star Wars for me. Book of Boba Fett was a wildly mixed bag of weird mostly for the worse of the overall storyline we seem to be getting, but more to the point doing a show about the time Kenobi is hanging out on tatooine felt like such a blatant, souless cash grab of a show concept, I guess I just wanted to see if they actually had inspiration for a character study.

They did not.

Ok, let’s just get started with the things this show does well so I can maintain a nuance of fairness before I fire the death star into this thing.

The Leia stuff is good. The Leia Obi-wan stuff is good. Does it in any way inform my overall view of the main saga films and characters in the same way Rogue One managed to do? Absolutely not. It’s cute it’s fluffy and it’s fun. The child actor for Leia does a remarkable job considering her age and Leia gets a lot of the best lines. It does nothing to develop the characters meaningfully, it doesn’t really attempt to. It’s there to make you go aw and it works.

Reva is an interesting idea played by a compelling actress. Moses Ingram carries on the proud tradition of phenomenal star wars actors attempting to breath life into garbage dialog and characterization, and when she’s given literally anything to work with, the character feels like they are from a different, better show. She is not given much to work with.

OK here we go. I’m gonna go through my points starting with the most basic problems that feed into the nuances of why this show makes me want to drive down to burbank and stage a coup.

1. The writing is bad.

It’s really, really bad. It’s embarrassingly bad. It’s Rise of Skywalker bad at points. This script feels like a low effort fan fic someone made casually on a friday afternoon.

What do I mean by that? Well let’s break it down into a few sections so I can talk about the core issues here.

a) The plot makes no goddamn sense.

The wheels that have to spin here to simultaneously bring you all those sweet sweet cameos and character interactions you pay your D+ subscription to see are kicking up so much mud, you can no longer even see what you paid for. One of the biggest issues is that this series has absolutely no choice except to end more or less exactly where it begins. Nothing can happen in this plot and we the audience know that. Star Wars is huge. This show could have been about anything. But instead it’s centered around the skywalker twins and Obi wan and Darth vader and the grand inquisitor NONE OF THESE PEOPLE CAN DIE AND ANY VIEWER KNOWS THAT.

This story is built on the idea that Obi-Wan has trauma from Vader’s fall and that’s blocking him off from the force. While I buy the trauma fine the idea that it cuts him off from the force actively contradicts any other version of the character from this time period we have ever seen. In fact Obi-Wan is canonically (this is DISNEY CANON I’m not using legends) at his strongest after Vader falls in large part because he’s closed himself off so completely from his emotions that he’s lethally focused and driven. This is the same man who will one-shot Maul shortly after the events of the series, and beat Vader in the climactic event of the prequel trilogy.

I realize this might sound like I’m just some anime nerd complaining about power scaling but that’s really not my issue, star wars has perpetually had bizarre power scaling that makes very little sense this isn’t new. My issue is that they essentially invented this version of Obi-Wan. We have nothing to show us why exactly it got so bad on Tatooine and the series DOES NOT SHOW US. 

Later on, he overcomes this and once again we are given incredibly little information as to WHY he is suddenly better out side of the power of love and friendship which is a WILD interpretation of Obi-Wan as a character. See above. This show seems to think Obi-Wan is this like, nice polite loving figure who’s never done anything wrong in his life and not THE LITERAL REASON THAT DARTH VADER EXISTS AT ALL.

And THAT is what this show fundamentally misses in it’s very premise, right out the gate before it ever starts. This show thinks Obi-Wan is Right and Good and has Feelings about how he failed Vader, and that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the source material this is desperately riding a unicycle while juggling around.  Obi-Wan is a Flawed Mentor who doesn’t understand that he played a huge role in Vader’s fall. He is not a Good Person. Luke is a Good Person and he actively does not do what Obi-wan told him to do and that LITERALLY SAVES THE GALAXY AND THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. This show had the chance to dive into the depths of a deeply troubled and flawed space wizard and it turned him into a fluffy marshmellow. Obi-wan in every other incarnation we have including the literal children’s cartoon is a hypocritical, conniving, scheming, preachy, arrogant, and even narcissistic dude and he’s literally one of my favorite characters in any media BECAUSE OF THESE FLAWS. I’m not saying Obi-wan is always a bastard he’s not at all and a portrayal of him as a purely bad dude would be just as wrong but you can’t just wipe away all the things that make Obi-Wan a flawed Jedi or the story just does not work.

b) The Fake Out Deaths

This show has an obscene amount of this. I would be offended by how many fake out deaths there are if I didn’t already know that all the characters survive. The fact that I do makes it nearly unbearable. The worst example of this is the grand inquisitor who literally serves no purpose in this show and could have been removed entirely and nothing would have changed. Reva is a close second because while her final appearances do a lot to help the character it’s frankly absurd that she’s survived Vader like 3 times at this point and manages to carry a child across the desert with a hole in her spine. The violence in this show is bizzare and doesn’t add up and continually contradicts itself. There’s not much more to say about this but if the writers are expecting me to feel tension because obi wan might have died under all those rocks I don’t know what the hell they think I’ve been watching all these years. They kill off exactly two named characters in this show. Both are characters we have never seen before. One is literally only named so he can be killed off (Rip my man Wade you were my favorite character) and this is treated with weight in the shows narrative. We spend more time mourning Wade than Wade gets on camera screentime.

c) The dialogue

It’s a spiritual successor to the prequels I don’t know what I expected but this feels more like Rise of Skywalker than prequels. A lot the interactions are bizzare. Reva gets such rotten lines I genuinely feel so bad for the actress who’s clearly working this as best she can. Some of the stuff in her leia interrogation is somehow palpatine has returned levels of cringe. Her arc is genuinely interesting it’s just horrendously served by her actual lines. Vader has either great lines or terrible ones no in between and they are actively worse around Reva because of the weird plot armor around her character that tbh doesn’t need to be there because you could have just written things so that she doesn’t fuck up around vader and then not die so much.

So yeah pretty much everything this show does on it’s own doesn’t work very well outside of just having Obi-wan and Leia be cute. I’ll balance that by saying that when they do good Vader lines they do REALLY good Vader lines, I’ll give them that. Obi-Wan gets absolutely no new material to work with outside the Leia stuff that’s good even if Ewan is great as always. In fact he has surprisingly few actual lines period, considering the show is named after him. I’m serious look for places where he’s not talking about someone else but reflecting what he’s actually doing and feeling and going through. For a show that’s ostensibly a character study there is very little study of his character.

2. Everything that’s good comes from something else.

The level of self plagiarism  this show is genuinely bizarre I don’t even know what to make of it. The Inquisitor fortress and obi-wan vader fight are literally lifted directly out of other media. Jedi Fallen Order has the exact same inquisitor fortress, which is broken into the exact same way, and features the exact same hallway breaking. It’s wild. And frankly, Reva is just second sister done worse. The vader obi-wan fight, arguably the highlight of this show, is also lifted directly from Rebels to the point where VADER’S HELMET BREAKS IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE. It’s genuinely embarrassing and I don’t know how they think people won’t notice this, and more to the point it proves that this show has absolutely nothing new to bring to the table. No new perspective on vader or obi-wan, no new and interesting characters, absolutely nothing we don’t already have in a better version.

3. Oh dear god what happened to Deborah Chow’s direction.

Here’s the thing. Deborah Chow is not a bad director. We know this because her mandalorian episodes are some of the best in the whole show. I was genuinely interested to see what she did with this show. The thing is: This show literally feels like it was directed by a different person.

If I am up to it maybe I will do a full scene breakdown of something from this and something from mando to showcase what I mean but all I need to say for this is that the way this is shot, the way scene’s are set and characters are followed and action is portrayed and environments are built is Terrible. The most egregious examples include: Leia outrunning four adults who are clearly slowling themselves down in full view of the camera, overuse of dark environments at critical moments in the action, Obi-wan hacking a fence while a clear way around the fence is VISIBLE IN THE BACKGROUND. The firepit that vader is suddenly barred by despite him controlling it moments before. The second ship leaving despite him stopping another ship moments before. The trench-coat. My god the trench-coat. The rebel ship with shields that can apparently withstand a star destroyer for hours. It’s immensely sloppy. There are moments where this show looks like a youtube fan project and I really am not exaggerating. Some of these shots shouldn’t have been in any final product a major media company is putting out. The dialogue is all talking heads, the action is shaky cam with no sense of environment or space building. This is the sloppiest cgi and effects work in any star wars media I’m aware of. The direction is just fundamentally terrible in ways I would expect any film maker with Chow’s resume to catch and I have no idea what the hell happened because once again, we KNOW she can do great stuff. I’m flabbergasted. Out of all the flaws of this show, this is the one I find the most inexcusable. I expected the script to be a mess, I was surprised by the self plagiarism, I am shocked and horrified by the poor directing and production on this show. I don’t even know who to blame for it. I sense meddling here but I have no idea what kind or to what degree.

4. The Anti-Clone wars.

The Clone Wars cartoon is much beloved because of all the ways in which it expanded on and breathed life into the characters of the prequel era. I would argue it single-handedly saved Anakin as a character. This show not only makes Obi-Wan a worse character by removing all of the attributes needed for drama and for the events of a New Hope to happen, but actively contradicts everything that happens in the OT. Obi-Wan’s insistence that Luke destroy Vader is now borderline insane considering he let Vader go on purpose this time. The organa’s apparently have obi on speed dial and just forgot to give him a transmitter when he shows up again, completely unnecessarily and wildly out of character. Leia having no reaction to his death in a New Hope is now extremely weird. Vader not realizing Leia is his kid is literally impossible in the events of this show.

Clone Wars gave us much needed character and theme development for the prequel era. This show actively undercuts theming, character arcs, and basic plot structure with wanton abandon.

Final thoughts:

There are any number of individual scenes you can tear apart in this show. I could type pages more material about how awful the directing is alone.

This is technically a review so here’s a score: I’m giving this show five dumpsters full of copies of Jedi Fallen Order and Rebels dvd’s, set on fire by Darth Vader himself so that Obi-Wan can escape to better media.

[signalwatch]

Noir Watch: I Died a Thousand Times (1955) Watched:  01/21/2024 Format:  TCM Viewing:  First Director:  Stuart Heisler Selection:  Me Uh...  I don't know why this movie exists other than the fact money is a good thing to have.   TCM's Noir Alley host, Eddie Muller, forewarned this was a remake of a personal fave of mine, High Sierra, from 1940.  That film stars Bogart and a very young Ida Lupino, is directed by Raoul Walsh, and generally kicks ass.   A mere fifteen years later, the studio decided to remake the movie, but not in the way I'm used to remakes on Noir Alley.  Generally, studios would use the skeleton of the plot, relationships and conflicts, but reset the movie in a different place, changing circumstances, combining characters, etc...  You might have to squint, but you can tell.   This movie is a straight remake, beat for beat, scene for scene.  It would be like someone deciding "let's remake Iron Man now, but with Andy Samberg and call it Super Suit".   And then you'd roll through all the same scenes with different dialog, etc...  Which is an amazing academic exercise, but - if you've seen Iron Man, not exactly thrilling.   Rather than Humphrey Bogart, we get Jack Palance.  And, rather than Lupino, we get Shelley Winters.  Which, look, I don't think I can hurt Winters' feelings many years after her passing, but she just isn't my cup of tea.   Palance is an iffy enough choice himself.  In my limited viewing, and certainly in this film, he lacks the vulnerability that Bogart had beneath his version's surface - or at least some level of empathy.  You don't think he's helping the poor farmer's from Illinois because he feels kinship, he just wants to bang Velma, the 19 year old.  He doesn't soften for the dog, he just doesn't know what else to do with the dog. Winters, in my limited viewing, is a product of her time.  Apparently an award-winning actor on the stage, in this movie, she's basically hitting one note, and it's wildly different from the strong but desperate young woman Lupino plays, but using basically the same sort of dialog.  Lupino played it as flattering to Bogart, appealing to him as a big, strong man, when she was pretty tough herself.  Winters is just a hopeless mess who really does need Palance to tell her what to do.  She makes the same face of sad confusion through 85% of the movie, and you just... can't really pull for the character.  And you *have* to.  That's the heart of the story - the chance that this crook will maybe get away and he's realized this girl actually matters to him. But in those 15 years that passed between 1940 and 1955, a lot had changed with how women could be seen in media - and while there are innumerable instances of tough, smart women in 1950's movies and media, the tomboyish tough guy girl of the 1930's and 40's had been replaced with the idea of maybe someone might make a good little wifey who would let the man tell her what to do. Bleh. It doesn't help that one of the movies I associate with Winters is He Ran All the Way, in which she also plays a kind of weepy sap for the wrong guy.   The Velma in this version - the crippled 19 year old that Roy (Palance) helps out is... a lot worse and less sympathetic than the one in High Sierra, and the relationship seems doomed from the start.   https://ift.tt/L9jKDUX via The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/kbtelSO January 21, 2024 at 11:26PM

[perihelionicarus]

tagged by: @cantando-siempre thank you sm!!

rules: tag 9 people you’d like to know better/catch up with

last song: Kissaphobic by Make Out Monday

last movie: The Boys in the Band (2020)

currently watching: Marathonned a bunch of Star Trek TNG this weekend

currently reading: Les Mis....again......,

currently craving: more ginger ale. I had a glass and finished it way too fast

tagging: anyone who wants to my brain is too fried for this

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[mypoisonedvine]

Seeing Red | bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x actress!reader (part 3)

(part 1) (part 2) 

series summary: bucky used to brag that he didn’t have a celebrity crush, or really care about famous people at all, which is what made him the perfect person to start working for a celebrity like yourself.  except, of course, it’s just his luck that he’d fall for you.  

word count: 3k

chapter warnings: mention of past sexual harassment, very mature karaoke (lol), mention of pornography

Day 63 and you still hadn’t talked about it.  He’d actually gotten to know you a lot better over the past two months, even almost confessing his feelings for you with that stupid half-asleep storybook thing he’d done way back when, but you still hadn’t talked about the night you saw him looking in the rearview mirror.

Tonight actually reminded him of that night; this time was a premiere, for a movie you hadn’t actually been in but apparently you were supposed to go anyways?  He didn’t get it but he figured he didn’t need to.  As long as you came back alone this time, he’d be happy.

Of course, when he saw you step out to the car to leave for the venue, he was confident that would be impossible— not that you ever looked bad on a red carpet or anything, but wow… this was different.

“It’s not too slutty, is it?” you asked him nervously, spinning around to show him the back.  Don’t look at her ass don’t look at her ass don’t look at her ass—   

“Just slutty enough,” he responded with a gloved thumbs up.

“Perfect,” you smiled, and he opened the door for you to get in the back.  He took a moment to catch his breath before circling around to the driver’s side.

You actually chatted with him on the way, which was a new thing you two had started doing when he drove you.  He looked forward to your talks a lot— especially the ones where you ranted about whatever was on your mind.  You would usually apologize for rambling but he liked it; and, you were cute when you got really worked up about something, even if he thought it was kind of trivial.

As he pulled up to the red carpet, with cameras flashing and the indistinguishable yelling of reporters and fans, you shot him a look as if you didn’t want to go.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” you shook your head incredulously, “I just… I wish you would’ve come and seen it.”

He recalled a few weeks back when you offered him a ticket to the premiere showing, but he’d insisted on just sticking to what he knew and letting your assistant have the spare ticket.  “I’ll catch it on Netflix,” he dismissed.

“No, I mean, I wish you were coming with me,” you explained.

Was it hot in here, all of a sudden?  Because his cheeks felt warm.  “Uh, you don’t want me in there.  I always fall asleep in theaters anyways.  Just go have fun and I’ll catch you after.”

“Okay,” you nodded with an adorable little smile.

So he waited, wondering if he should’ve taken you up on it all those weeks ago, but decided he probably made the right call.  He would just embarrass you in a place like that, more than likely, and you had enough to deal with already.  He felt more useful waiting in the wings than being in the spotlight, to use a fittingly-timed theater metaphor.

It was a few hours of him killing time in the car, but he got to relax a little more since the event already had pretty good security on its own.  You’d recommended a book called Flowers for Algernon to him, even lending him your copy for the time being, and so he leaned his seat back and picked up where he’d left off from this morning.  Of course, if he had known that you’d be gone long enough for him to finish, and that the ending was going to make him cry, he probably wouldn’t have read it.  WIth his luck, it was inevitable that he’d be all but sobbing when you texted him to pull the car around.

Wiping his tears and hoping his eyes wouldn’t be too red, he tossed the book into the glovebox and started the engine.  You waved cheerily when you saw him from the entrance, and he attempted to navigate through all the other cars pulling up so he could reach you.  Thankfully, you didn’t have a new friend with you this time— or an old friend.  Jealousy crisis averted, for now.

“How was it?” he asked with a smile as you opened the door and slipped in, unable to hide how happy he was to see you.

“The premiere itself was a lot of fun, I got to see some people I hadn’t seen in ages; the movie, though?  Sort of pretentious,” you admitted as you shut the door and he got the car moving again.  “And way too long!  I could watch movies all day, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch a movie all day!”

“Fair enough,” he laughed.

“What did you do?” you asked innocently.

“I finished your book,” he frowned, trying not to think about it so he wouldn’t get emotional again.  

“Ah, I can tell you’re still a little hurt about it,” you smiled mischievously.  “Should’ve warned you about the ending.”

“No, no,” he disagreed, “it’s not a bad ending just because it’s a sad one… it was a good book.”

You’d already been smiling, but your smile undeniably changed as he watched it in the rearview mirror.  Something softer, something more sensitive.  He liked this one better.  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Just in time to interrupt the moment, you saw something on the passing street outside that caught your attention.

“Ooh, karaoke!” you piped up, pressing your face against the inside of the window excitedly.  “Pull over!”

He chuckled at how easily distracted you were, but did as you’d asked.  He barely found time to slow down to a stop before you were opening the door and running out, flashing your ID to get inside.

He groaned as he realized how completely unsafe it was for you to be in a bar… especially now, when you were at your most recognizable and literally still wearing what you’d had on at the premiere.  Thankfully, he managed to pull the car around and park in the closest spot he could find, jogging to join you inside the bar and hoping you hadn’t already made too much of a scene.  His hopes were dashed the moment he pushed through the door, however.

“Is she perverted like me?  Would she go down on you in a theater?” you sang along with the grungy backing track of Alanis Morrisette’s You Oughta Know; your lips were curled into a faux snarl as you stood on stage with your heels in one hand and the microphone in the other.

Bucky’s head fell into his hands, looking around to see hundreds of bar patrons, nearly all of them with their phones out filming you.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Bucky mumbled to himself, hoping you would somehow hear it and take his advice.  Instead, you pantomimed sucking a dick with a cute little wink and everyone cheered.  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“And I’m here, to remind you,” you continued, jumping around wildly; you looked like you were having the time of your life, honestly.  If he wasn’t so worried about you, he would’ve let himself smile seeing you so happy.

During the bridge, you stole someone’s water off their table and poured a bit on your head, slicking your hair back and shivering from the cold.  There was something about the water dripping down your face, starting to soak your clothes and make your skin glisten...

Bucky glanced around to make sure no one was looking at him before subtly adjusting his jeans.

He watched you sing the entire song, making most of the notes and definitely capturing the anger of the original song— if clearly having a lot more fun with it than most would.  The entire bar cheered when you finished, and you took a moment to take some pictures with people and meet a few fans, which he thought was sweet even if his bodyguard instincts forced him to interrupt after a moment.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he guided you away gently.

“Goodnight!” you waved goodbye to someone who was already buried in her phone and posting the photo you’d taken with her.

“Have a good time?” he asked sarcastically as the two of you began to walk out together.

“Would’ve been better if you hadn’t been glaring at me the whole time,” you smirked.

“I wasn’t glaring, I was just… watching.  You have a good voice, you know.”

You seemed surprised by the compliment.  “Oh.  Thanks.”

“And your stage presence is certainly… energetic,” he grinned.  “I bet your little charade is already trending.”

“I checked, and it is,” you giggled, showing him your phone for a moment where Twitter was open and you were the #7 topic in the United States and climbing.  “And the part where I poured that water on myself is pretty gif-able, don’t you think?”

He raised a brow as he held the back door of the bar open as you slipped back on your heels and walked past him.  “Is that why you did it?  For the reaction?”

“I did it cause it was fun,” you corrected.  “You wouldn’t know anything about that.  And the water thing was just practical, I was getting hot in this dress.”

That didn’t seem to be a problem anymore with the way you shivered in the night air as he walked you through the parking lot.  “Want my jacket?” he offered.

“No,” you frowned, but you eyed the leather with a hungry stare.  He chuckled and took it off, draping it over your shoulders anyways.  “How far is the car?” 

“Uh, a block?  Not much parking this time of night,” he explained.

“Ugh, these heels,” you groaned, “they hurt so bad.  I don’t know if I can make it.”  You began to slip them off but he stopped you.

“You can’t go barefoot out here, god knows what’s on the ground,” he shuddered; what if there was broken glass or something?

“Well, I can’t wear these,” you frowned, “and I probably shouldn’t be walking on asphalt in red bottoms anyway…”

He probably should’ve warned you before he scooped you up into his arms, but it was sort of instinct and he kinda forgot to say anything first.  You squealed a little but then went lax in his grip.

“You’re gonna carry me the whole way?” you asked incredulously.

“It’s only a block,” he shrugged, adjusting you in his arms a bit before starting the walk. 

It got quiet after that, the cool night air rustling the trees and blowing through his hair— frankly, he was a little chilly without his jacket, but it looked better on you anyhow.  The drive home was quiet, too, or at least quieter than usual, but it didn’t feel awkward, necessarily.  It didn’t feel like a lull in the conversation; it felt more like the conversation had just changed from verbal to non-verbal.  You both looked around at the city lights surrounding you on the drive, silent because there was nothing that needed to be said.  It wasn’t nervous, or tense, or anxiety-inducing like most of his interactions with you (or with anyone) could be.

It felt like time spent with an old friend.  He hadn’t known you long enough for that to be accurate, but he was happy to think of you as a new friend.  He just hoped you thought the same.

Arriving at the house, he dropped you off at the front and watched you make a mad dash for the stairs and presumably your bedroom, smiling to himself as he parked the car and came in to follow you.  He saw his jacket tossed onto the couch and your expensive shoes discarded right by the door.  Going upstairs and peeking into your room, he saw your limp form flopped onto the bed, your back exposed from the low cut of the dress.

“You’d better not get comfortable, you’ll kill me if I let you fall asleep with all that makeup on,” he frowned, leaning against the doorway.

"I couldn't fall asleep yet, anyways.  I'm wired."

“Any plans to burn off all that energy?” he pressed.

You groaned a little as you sat up, starting to unclasp all the jewelry on your wrists, around your neck, and on your ears.  “It’ll take me a while to get out of all of this— but not as long as it took me to get into it,” you laughed.  “Then I’m thinking TV and beers.”

“Beers?” he questioned, emphasizing the plural.  “You plannin’ to get toasted right before you go to sleep?”

“No, it’s plural because there’s one beer for me and one beer for you,” you explained with the slightest air of condescension, but he couldn’t really think of it as rude since it was an invitation.

“I don’t want to intrude on your chill evening,” he refuted.

“No, really, you’re not intruding!” you insisted, standing up and setting the jewelry on a nightstand before approaching him and turning to face away from him.  “Will you unzip me please?”

He stammered a little.  “I don’t… see a zipper,” he admitted with a weak voice.

“It’s on the side here, see?” you lifted your arm a bit, and pointed to it.  

Reaching out to touch your zipper was reminiscent of that old boardgame Operation: he needed to touch the zipper and only the zipper, cause if he bumped into anything else nearby, he got the feeling he’d get zapped.

His breath caught a bit as he watched more and more of your skin become exposed, the zipper ending up so low that he could just barely see the top of something lacy around your hips— and he had to stop there because anything more could induce cardiac arrest.  

“Thanks!” you piped up happily, slipping away to your closet to do the rest in private.  “Will you get the beers while I take my makeup off?” you requested through the shut door.

“Sure,’ he replied, turning to leave but realizing he should ask first: “Shiner or Pabst?” 

“Don’t patronize me,” you grumbled, and he laughed because it was a stupid question.  Trodding downstairs, he grabbed the Shiners from the fridge, stopping to check his phone only to see that it had started to automatically send him headlines pertaining to you.

‘Touch of Blood’ star gives impromptu karaoke performance at Queens dive bar!

He laughed at the picture of you onstage, even though he thought it was kind of reductive to describe you by a movie you’d been in so long ago when you had so much great new stuff coming out.  Jumping back up the stairs, beers in hand, he found you makeup-free (aside from some leftover mascara and eyeliner that hadn’t really made it all the way off) and in a robe, laying on the bed as you pointed the remote at your TV.  He thought you looked almost more beautiful like this than you did on the red carpet; of course, objectively, everybody looks better when they’ve been painted to the point of perfection, but he liked the domesticity of this.  When you were casual and relaxed like this, he could almost, almost pretend you were his girlfriend or something.  And not, you know, a global superstar and his employer.

“Beer me,” you requested as he sat down next to you, handing you a bottle and trying to ignore the thorough view of your legs he was getting in that robe.

“Anything good on?” he prompted as he watched you scroll through the channels on the guide.

“Uh, not particularly,” you frowned.  

“They’re showing a game,” he pointed out as you passed the sports channels.

“I’d rather watch this pay-per-view porn,” you rolled your eyes.

He cleared his throat but said nothing because he was confident there was no good response to that.

“Hey, I’m in this!” you beamed, changing the channel quickly.  He nearly had a heart attack until he realized you weren’t scrolling through the porn channels anymore.

He recognized the film instantly as the one of yours that he’d seen the most, for one very embarrassing and slightly sinister reason; looking down to the corner, he saw the HBO logo and realized it wasn’t going to be edited.  His palms got a little clammy but he tried not to worry about it too much.

“Oh, this girl was super nice,” you remembered as you pointed to a character on-screen.  “She had a bigger role but most of it got edited out.”

“That must be a bummer,” he imagined.

“Eh, it happens,” you shrugged.  “Beats getting fired, or recast in the sequel.”

“Have you ever been fired during filming?” he pressed, morbidly curious.

“Once,” you nodded.  “We were only a few days into it so they had no trouble finding somebody new and redoing my scenes.  Just think: I could’ve been a Bond girl if I’d slept with that producer.”

“You— what?!” he squawked.  “You got fired because you wouldn’t have sex with a film exec?”

“I got fired because of ‘creative differences,’” you explained with exaggerated air quotes, “and, unrelatedly, those creative differences surfaced the morning after I refused to get down and dirty with the EP.”

“Jesus,” he shook his head, “that’s… I hope you told someone.”

“Yeah, anonymously.  Somebody will care someday, but not yet.  He’s still too profitable, and not enough people have come forward.”

He glanced over at you, admiring your profile as you kept your eyes on the TV and took a sip of your beer.  When you turned your head and looked back at him, he realized he’d been staring a bit too long.

“What?” you asked, quirking your brow a bit. 

“What?” he repeated.

“You’re staring at me,” you frowned.

“Sorry, I was just… sorry,” he shook his head and looked back ahead.  What he found there wasn’t much less embarrassing, though: he knew all too well that this was the scene right before THE scene.  The scene he’d watched over and over until his arousal overpowered his shame.  The scene that he’d used to try to satisfy his crush on you, but it only made it worse.  The scene that had burrowed into his mind and deepened his obsession even as he fought it with everything he had…

You know, that scene.  And he was about to watch it with you.  

Bucky was completely, entirely, and supremely fucked.

[jawllines]

He’s too far in thought, he realizes, when Ellie comes and waves her hand in his face, “Are you okay?” She asks quietly, eyes wide as saucers, “Maisey said you look like her aunt when she zones out and she’s depressed.” 

Harry huffs out a laugh, one that expels the air from his lungs as he nods, “Yes, Ellie, I’m okay. What’ve you painted, hm? Can I see it?” She grins, her cheeks pudgy and rosy as she runs back to her seat and picks up the canvas she’d been working on. It’s a sun and a moon, both with rather cryptic looking faces on them, and Harry had never so perfectly had to manage his poker face, “Whoa!” 

“I think that might just be the coolest thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” Y/N appears behind him, Oliver more or less clung to her pant leg as she’s reaching over his body to set a box of juice down on the oak table for him to disperse among his campers, while holding her hand out for the canvas, “May I see it, Miss. Ellie Bellie?” 

Ellie smiles shyly at her — she always got so shy around Y/N, but never in the way where you would think she’s nervous. No, she gets shy the way you might when meeting an older sibling’s friend and wanting to desperately try to impress them. Harry knew as much, considering he would attempt to perform for each and every single one of his sister’s friends growing up (and each time, Gemma would make a few colorful threats to deter him). No matter how quiet Ellie gets with her though, she’s always the first to ask if they got to play with Y/N that day. 

or

Harry still doesn’t like the other camp counsellors but Y/N’s an exception 

part 1

(tw: mentions of suicide) 

ii.

Psst. 

Harry was typically a heavy sleeper. When he was younger his mum used to joke that he could sleep through an earthquake-induced tsunami if someone allowed him to. An alarm would have to be pretty loud to stir him from his slumber, and unless he was on edge, a mere call of his name would not drag him from whatever dreamland he’d submerged himself within.

Psst. 

There had only been two things before that could notably wake him. His mum, who was the sweetest person on this planet yet managed to be the cruelest being on earth when he needed to be up for something, and his childhood cat Molly, who sits on his chest and makes it hard to breathe (which, from what he’s learned, encourages his brain to panic and wake him up so he could fix it). Other than that, he was blissfully unaware of the world for hours at a time. 

Yet, there was something stirring him now.  A low sound that puzzles him as he toes the line between consciousness and his dreams, aware of the blankets that cover him but still dancing on a stage with his limbs thrashing wildly and people shouting his name. 

Psst. 

Was it an insect? Maybe he was performing outside then -- a crowd of thousands in an outdoor field to see him for... .what was it that he did again?

Psst. 

Oh, he’s dreaming, isn’t he? How deep in his dream is he? He thinks this is the first time he’s ever been asleep and realized that he was asleep...he could probably conjure something up, right? Manifest something that he’s always wanted, try his hand in lucid dreaming. If only he could focus apart from the insect zipping past his eardrum. 

Harry, please wake up, we’re being haunted -- or murdered, or something. 

Harry’s eyelids flutter like swallowtail wings, his gaze blurry and unfocused as he comes to. He’s confused, piecing together the puzzle that always presents to him when he’s just woken up and has to readjust to the world around him. The whole process of it took nothing more than 10 seconds, maybe 15 if he’s really out of it, but that’s only because thoughts run through his mind at a hundred miles a minute. 

 What time is it? The room around him his pitch-black apart from a very small amount of light illuminating beneath the curtain covering the window he’s beneath, so it couldn’t be morning. Potentially early morning, but he would say that would be 3-4 AM. Did he need to be up? He didn’t think so, actually, because there’s no alarm buzzing him awake and as far as he’s concerned, he hadn’t signed up for any early morning shifts at the bookstore as of late. The last time he went in at 5 to open up shop while the owner was on vacation and Harry was more or less ran down by a mother raccoon when he’d stumbled upon her babies after getting out of his car -- Harry had been reluctant to go before sunrise since. 

Where was he? He knows he’s not at home, that’s for sure. The sheets smell like him but not him enough to be at his own place -- and the bedding isn’t as soft either. He knows he hasn’t passed out at someone’s house because he only does that if the person is close enough to him that he would recognize their scent, or if he was too drunk to get home, but that was usually accompanied by a wicked headache and a sour stomach. No, where he was smelled like wood and generic fabric softener. There was an air conditioning unit that rattled and rumbled from where it was fixed to the wall, he felt a tension in his neck that he only experienced at one place and, yeah, he was at the camp. 

He was at camp, in a cabin with Y/N, who slept with the lamp on because she hated the dark, was the owner of the voice that had woken him up in the inky black room. 

“Hm?” He hums, brows pinching as he lets his eyes shut again, only to open them a few seconds later, “Wha’s wrong? Why is your light off?” 

“I don’t know,” her voice is still just a bit over a whisper, and Harry wonders why she doesn’t just speak up now that she knows he’s awake, “I woke up a little bit ago and thought maybe there was a storm that knocked the power out or something, but I checked the weather and it’s been clear skies all night. I think our power line was cut which is like -- straight out of a horror film.” 

Harry sighs, a bit of him regretting the number of horror movies they’ve been watching once they finally got to watch Midsommar (in three days, they’d sifted through six different movies -- two movies a night and each one managed to horrify Y/N more than the last). He begins to press himself from the bed, his eyes adjusting to the dark around them, making out slivers of shadows, “I’ll go check --” 

“No! Are you crazy?” He hears her bed frameshift with her as she moves, “That’s just asking for a maniac to come for us. Plus I keep hearing noises and I can’t tell if it’s like...like little raccoon feet or a one-armed hook man.” 

“Alright, then go back to bed.” Harry begins to lower back down to the mattress but a sharp whine leaves her throat, “It’s dark when you close your eyes.” It’s silent for a moment, but then Harry feels a bead of guilt dribble through his body. He sighs, reaching up and wiping his hand down his face, “What do you want to do, yeah? If you don’t want me to go out there. Do you want to stay up?” 

She’s quiet, Harry is straying further and further from the state he would’ve been in to fall right back into his dreams but he tries to wipe away the irritation the best he could. What he reminds himself is that four days prior, Y/N had trekked out in the forest toward a lake despite her unremitting distaste for the woods in the dark and slapped Jack clean across the face because he was being rude to him. And he was going to ignore her? Fall asleep while she’s frightened? Harry could be a prick, but he wasn’t the bleeding antichrist. 

“I...um, well, I don’t want us to stay up, no, we’ll be so cranky tomorrow,” she shuffles in the sheets, “I dunno’, I’m sorry, you can go back to bed, I’ll be okay.” 

Harry isn’t sure what to do but in his half-awake state, the next few words that leave his mouth seem like just the temporary fix necessary for them to get the last few hours of sleep that they can, “Do you want me to read you a story or summat?” 

She giggles quietly, “No, it’s okay, really, go back to sleep, okay?” 

What Harry could have said was I can’t now, knowing that you’re awake and scared, but instead he utters a simple, “No.” He sits back up, patting blindly for his phone in his sheets, slipping his fingers around it, and tapping it awake. His screen blinds him with its brightness, so he lowers it before finding the flashlight. It lights up the floor at his feet and subsequently at its edges, he can make out Y/N’s shadowy figure. She’s sat up, curled in her blanket, wrapped around her head, and giving her a pseudo-nun appearance. She waves at him lamely and he struggles not to roll his eyes, “Maniac be damned, I’m gonna go out there and look for the breaker. Maybe the arseholes broke their vow of integrity.” 

He wouldn’t be surprised if Jack or one of the others came around and switched the breaker off, just to be inconvenient for the morning. They’d left them alone for four days sure, but Harry figures that it’s not so much four days of silent reflection and questioning why they feel the need to be such pricks to him, and more so four days for their anger to fester and brew. If not for the fact that Y/N slapped him then made him find laundry detergent and commanded the others to go get his clothes, then for the way she acted like nothing had happened the day prior. Jack’s cheek was still a stingy, red splotch, Oliver and Brandon were straight-faced looking irritated, and Y/N -- well, Y/N had never been more content with her day. She was having a blast with her kids playing bean bag toss, they did their little dance when one of them got it in the hole of the board, and when they were all getting drinks, Y/N offered to grab Harry his. He watched as she went to the cooler around the same time Jack did, they both reached for the last Dr. Pepper, and Y/N plucked it up and handed it to him before grabbing both her, Harry, and Mitch’s lemonades. 

He thinks it’s the sincerity that she holds, that would aggravate him had he been in their shoes. Y/N was completely unbothered by the night prior and Harry could tell, just like when he doesn’t reciprocate their maleficent tendencies towards them -- it was digging under their skin.

(She makes Harry laugh when she comes back with their lemonades, handing him one and uttering, “I let the prick have the last Dr. Pepper, and I’m regretting it.”) 

And while he’s hoping that they haven’t turned their target to her out of spite, he wouldn’t change what had happened for the world. It had made the two of them that much closer, and in the following day’s Harry had poked and prodded Y/N’s brain a bit more. Especially after what he’d seen on her page, he was intrigued by her. Intrigued by how she saw life, why she came at things the way she did, what built her up to be the person that she was in these very moments that he’s speaking to her. Harry hasn’t asked her about her old college roommate and he doesn’t plan on it either -- he doesn’t feel like he could, or he should. 

Harry has lost people before and he thinks the worst thing someone could do was to bring it up unprompted. He knows that it’s probably always on her mind but even then, maybe it isn’t at the forefront of it. Maybe she’s just trying to have a good few weeks, separate herself from the real world for a while, and he would be cruel to dig up something that she may not be ready to just up and chat about. No matter how curious he is about the whole situation, and no matter how much he wonders if she treats him the way she does because of what happened. If the topic was brought up by her he would openly and freely discuss it as long as she was comfortable, but he wouldn’t give her the third degree. 

So he minds his business and focuses on trying to get to know her better instead. 

He can’t say that it doesn’t change how he treats her a bit though. Harry is much. . .gentler, than he had been. He tries to be less critical of her unwavering optimism and seeks to understand where it was coming from instead. If he’s in the right mood he’ll attempt to match it, which makes for a good day with their groups, who he finds -- despite the small age gap -- have begun to kindle very close friendships. Mrs. Graham had even commented on it one of the days after they had a riveting game of balloon tennis. 

“You two make a good team -- putting all these other counselors to shame. And to think you were pouty about having to share a cabin.” 

It was true, they did make a good team. Harry thinks that them sparking a friendship had made the whole experience much more enjoyable for everyone involved. 

All of this together gives insight into why Harry is willing to stuff on his shoes at 3 AM and go out in the dark, muggy night to check and potentially fix a breaker. And no matter the number of times he assures her she does not have to come out there with him, she keeps hold of her ‘no man left behind’ mentality, pulls on a pair of flip flops, and pads out after him. 

Had they been in any other cabin, finding the breaker would have been much easier. They’re typically on the backside in the upper right corner, surrounded by a little cage with a lock similar to that of an animal crate. The struggle with their cabin was that the backside was basically in the woods, so he had to dodge low hanging branches and tangles of ivy to get even remotely near it. He hands Y/N his phone and she shines the light over the metal box, her hand steady despite how she looks back and forth and all around them like she’s making sure there are no red eyes glowing at them. The world around them is silent apart from the chirp and groan of insects, the scutter of an animal somewhere in the far distance makes Y/N huff a weary sigh but otherwise, nothing comes out to attack them. Harry restarts the breaker, they go back inside, and the lamp on its dimmest setting is switched on how they had fallen asleep with it. 

They both breath out in relief, Y/N dives back into her bed and Harry flops down atop of his covers, giving himself a second to feel the cool air from the conditioner fan over him. 

“Theoretically,” Y/N begins as Harry lets his eyes fall shut, “If there were some creature in the forest --”

“There’s no creature in the forest.” 

“I know, but theoretically --” She continues again, but Harry is quick to cut her off once more. 

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he tells her, “Go to sleep.”  

Once more, Y/N falls silent, but a quiet, “Thank you,” was the only thing to leave her mouth. 

                                                      .                               .                              .

A summer thunderstorm wasn’t abnormal during camp, which is why the recreation center and the art building are beneficial. It keeps everyone preoccupied and entertained with well-insulated walls to mute whatever carnage is taking place outside, which makes for less frightened children and an easier time for everyone involved. Harry liked being active and running around with his campers, sure, but he also really enjoyed a nice, calm, relaxing day trying his hand at DIY projects and abstract paintings. Plus it gave him the chance to wear the camp hoodie that he had spent a pretty penny purchasing, which was made of the softest fabric he’s ever felt and was far more comfortable than the t-shirts that they normally wear.

Y/N had also bought the hoodie, Harry saw as she stepped out in it after her shower this morning, and she seemed to be drowning in it but in the best way. The fabric pools off of her, but she looks cozy, and well-rested despite them waking in the middle of the night. He thinks she looks pretty cute, but he kept the thought to himself and instead asked her if she wanted his extra granola bar for breakfast. 

They alternate throughout the day, between the rec center and art building, and on the schedule, it appears that most the day he would be with Y/N’s group (which he prefers) and a few times he’s even with Mitch as well, which is nice. Mitch doesn’t grow to like many people, but he liked Y/N well enough -- he thought she was oddly entertaining (or so he’s told, Harry) and good for a chat. The only times he and Y/N were not with each other were when the activities were age-specific, but even then, it wasn’t like anyone was in a different room. They were all just at different stations within a big room in the art building and the recreation center was more or less free for all. 

Harry wondered when he started basing whether or not a day was going to be good by whether or not he and Y/N were able to be around each other, but he decided not to think about it too much. Lately, he’d been a little more on edge with whether they were together, simply because of Jack and the others. He didn’t want them fucking with her, and even though she’d proven that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, he still worried, especially knowing he would be the cause of it. 

Y/N doesn’t seem the least bit distressed about it, or as far as she was letting on -- she’d not expressed any thoughts or concerns that they would be spiteful towards her. Hell, the only thing she had told him the night after was that she hoped she didn’t make things worse for him. For him. Why was she so willing to defend him? What did she get out of being so kind? 

He’s too far in thought, he realizes, when Ellie comes and waves her hand in his face, “Are you okay?” She asks quietly, eyes wide as saucers, “Maisey said you look like her aunt when she zones out and she’s depressed.” 

Harry huffs out a laugh, one that expels the air from his lungs as he nods, “Yes, Ellie, I’m okay. What’ve you painted, hm? Can I see it?” She grins, her cheeks pudgy and rosy as she runs back to her seat and picks up the canvas she’d been working on. It’s a sun and a moon, both with rather cryptic looking faces on them, and Harry had never so perfectly had to manage his poker face, “Whoa!” 

“I think that might just be the coolest thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” Y/N appears behind him, Oliver more or less clung to her pant leg as she’s reaching over his body to set a box of juice down on the oak table for him to disperse among his campers, while holding her hand out for the canvas, “May I see it, Miss. Ellie Bellie?” 

Ellie smiles shyly at her — she always got so shy around Y/N, but never in the way where you would think she’s nervous. No, she gets shy the way you might when meeting an older sibling’s friend and wanting to desperately try to impress them. Harry knew as much, considering he would attempt to perform for each and every single one of his sister’s friends growing up (and each time, Gemma would make a few colorful threats to deter him). No matter how quiet Ellie gets with her though, she’s always the first to ask if they got to play with Y/N that day. 

“I especially like how multidimensional it is — purple and pink stars? Beautiful, I love those two colors together,” she places her hand on Oliver’s head, and it’s then that Harry notices he’s holding something, “Harry, Oliver here wanted you to see the flower he drew because I told him how much you like lilies.” As bashful as he always is, he holds out the paper toward Harry. It was cute — a singular, yellow lily and he could tell that Y/N helped him draw it, but the paint and crayon marks all over the page suggested she left the color duties up to him. 

“Oh my goodness,” Harry gasps, looking at the painting, flipping it to Oliver and pointing at it, “You did this?” Oliver nodded excitedly, “It’s gorgeous.” 

“I think our groups are the best artists,” Y/N motions to her table, only a meter away from them all working diligently on their projects, “Charlotte is over there doing an artistic interpretation of the both of us, we are not allowed to see it until she’s finished. Mikey is doing his own rendition of Disney world, I see Maisey is creating a beautiful tree  -- Noah is that a cowboy you’re drawing?” 

Noah barely looks up from his paper, very carefully dragging the tip of the marker in a circle, “Yes.” 

“And Noah is drawing a cowboy! Modern-day Van Gogh’s, all of them.” Harry smiles as Y/N drags a stool up beside him, positioning it in a way so that she could watch both her kids and speak with him, “I heard they’re having one of them party things tonight, I didn’t know if you wanted to go or not.” 

“Hm, I dunno,” his brows knit together as he lightly scratches a mosquito bite on the inside of his forearm, “Do you feel comfortable with going after what happened last time?” 

She suckles her bottom lip into her mouth, gnawing on it as she nods her head, “Mhm,” she looks around them for a second, making sure that none of the kids are paying attention to them before she lowers her voice, “Mitch said that you used to go to all of them last year, and would like -- have a good time. I hope that I’m not ruining that for you.” 

“How would you be ruining it for me?” It’s true, Harry hasn’t gone to any of the parties that they’ve been doing since the very first one he’d escorted Y/N away from. Not for any other reason apart from he was just spending time and hanging out with Y/N, or he’d be too knackered to even think about leaving the nice, cool setting of their cabin to be in the muggy heat with drunk college students. He had much more fun not attending, and other nights Mitch would come around and chill with them too. . .he had all he needed then. Didn’t need the booze for a good time. 

“I don’t know, I just didn’t know if you weren’t going ‘cos of what happened the first time and you felt like you couldn’t leave me out or. . or something like that.” 

Harry shook his head, “No,” he answers, “We can go tonight if you would like, but it’s unnecessary for me. I’m good either way.” 

Although Y/N appears unconvinced, they have little time to go further into the topic because Charlotte is running up to them, a big grin on her face, “I finished!” 

“Well give it here,” Harry holds out his hand, waving her over, “Let’s see it.” 

On the paper are stick figure versions of he and Y/N, with big grins and 12 other little stick figures surrounding them. Above Harry’s stick figure, there’s a pink arrow and a very five-year-old esque writing of HUSBAD (Harry presumes it’s supposed to be husband), and above Y/N’s in the same fashion, she’s written WYFE. It’s then Harry realizes that Y/N’s figure has a veil on and Harry’s has a bowtie, “This is for you twos wedding! So thens when they take pictures you can has this one.” Charlotte chirps brightly and Y/N and Harry both cast each other a disbelieving glance. 

“Whoaaaaa,” Y/N is the first to break their silence, a smile pulling at her lips, “This is really good Charlotte! I didn’t know Harry and I were getting married, though.” 

Charlotte nods quickly, still grinning at them, her bottom canine missing as she gleams, “Me n’ Mikey thinks you should!” 

Y/N turns toward him, nodding toward Charlotte, “Well, the god’s have spoken. Where’s my ring?”

Harry coughs on a laugh as he hands the paper back to Charlotte, “This is really good, Bug. Why don’t you and Oliver go help Josie finish her coloring pages, hm?” 

The both of them head the short way back to their table, hiking up on the small stools and Harry makes sure they’re all settled before he turned back to face Y/N, who was biting down on a grin, “Don’t start --” he began but she’s already started, shaking her head. 

“Listen, it’s okay to be in love with me, but you should really try to tone it down. . .the kids are starting to notice.” 

Harry scoffs before he proceeds to tease her,, “How d’ya know they aren’t basing it off your actions, huh? Giving me love eyes every couple minutes like nobody would see.” 

Y/N mocks offense to his words and he tries to keep up the facade, but his sheer delight for getting in a teasing match with her overcomes him and he can’t help his smile. Harry loved teasing people -- loved making them flustered or reducing them to a bashful mess by his words alone. Y/N, however, was much less into flustered gazes and sheepish tendencies, and more so ready and willing to give him it right back. He’d met his match -- if he teases her she’s teasing right back (if she hadn’t started it in the first place), and both of them found mutual pleasure in it. 

“You can’t use my love eyes against me, I can’t help but give them to everyone I’ve ever met” she tells him, feigning sincerity before an additional anecdote, “You know my college roomie always told me they’d get me in trouble one day, and she had never been more right, ‘cos they did once at a party. She wouldn’t shut up about it weeks after it’d happened.” 

Harry feels his body tense just a bit at the mention of her, and he tries not to let it show on his face that he’s surprised how she so casually brought her up, “Yeah? What’s the story?” 

“The little ears around us suggest that I tell that story later,” she checks her watch, before looking back up at him, “Oi, we’ve got five minutes until we’re in the rec center. You get to pick what we all do since I picked the last rotation.” 

                                                             .                           .                          .

This time when they’re on their way to the party, Harry lets Y/N walk in front of him as he directs where she was to go. Opposed to when they had first made this journey together, Harry feels far more protective of her than he originally had. Plus, he’d seen how clumsy she could be and after the earlier storm, the softened dirt and broken off tree branches from the billows of wind made for a much harder terrain to navigate, so he felt more comfortable being able to reach out to catch her if need be. 

Harry was wary of going to the party tonight but Y/N had been borderline insistent that they attend, “Mitch says he misses you at these things and Niall told me he could only stand Shaun theorizing about the universe and us not being the only life form so many times before he snaps. I say we’re needed.” Harry never minded free drinks, and a potential fuck at the end of the night, so he wasn’t all too worried that he would be having a good time. He just hoped that the others would allow Y/N to have a good time. And he knows he’s being paranoid, because they hadn’t necessarily targeted her for anything prior to or after the lake incident, but he still worries. . .he can’t help but worry.  

But he wouldn’t hover. Once they got to the clearing, he helped Y/N get her drink and she sought off after Niall while Harry went over to Mitch, the two of them promising to meet up again in a little bit. He didn’t hover, but he did watch semi-closely, eyeballing Jack and the others, making sure they were staying away from her. Apart from a few less than friendly looks thrown in his direction though, they seemed to be keeping to themselves which Harry was ultimately very thankful for. 

The night goes by as these nights usually do -- he and Mitch drank, had a laugh, gabbed about music for a while, some of the drama going on around the camp (Y/N had an ear for gossip and eyes that could make anyone tell her anything, so Harry’s had a door to all the melodramatic events happening throughout the counsellors). It was a bit weird when Stacey -- one of the counsellors he’d only ever briefly spoken to --  had come up to them, and a little weirder when she borderline propositioned him for something more than a chat in the woods, but Harry politely declined. Told her that he was pretty exhausted after a long day and was probably just going to have a few more beers and retreat back to his cabin. 

He passes it off as a fluke. . .maybe he’d been making eyes at her and hadn’t realized it. But then Mia makes her way toward him and Mitch, and this time Harry’s brows furrow when she starts chatting him up. This one he entertains for a little while before eventually ebbs away from the conversation, because he and Mia had a fling once, but Jack convinced her and the free world that he was a prick, so she called it off. He didn’t necessarily understand why she would want to start that up again, or what “little birdie” put a bug in her ear that he still thought about her (as she said one did). 

It was after Cara had finally left after coming around to chat with him, that Mitch began to chuckle lowly at his side, shaking his head slowly, “Jesus Christ,” he tilts the nozzle of his beer against his mouth, and when he pulls it away, his lips are shiny from the liquid, “She really is working hard.” 

“Huh?” Harry feels desperate for an explanation as to why three times he felt as if he were being propositioned for a romp in the woods when he was not actively pursuing one. He had a feeling that it was the others trying to get him alone so they could enact some sort of piss poor attempt at fucking with him without Y/N spotting and tearing them a new one over it, “Are you in on something that I’m not, ‘cos m’feeling pretty fucking lost here, man.” 

Mitch nods his head, and Harry follows his gaze to Y/N, who is speaking with her brows dipped inward to Cara, “A few days ago she’d been asking me and Niall what you were like last year, and we told her just the same, jus’ a lot more ‘fornication’ is how Niall put it,” he smirks softly with a shake of his head, “And she seemed all concerned, asking us if we thought she was holdin’ you back or something. Personally, I told her if you wanted to sleep with someone you would have whether she were around or not but she didn’t seem very convinced.” A snort leaves him as he motions towards her again, still as amused by her ideas as he had been when she’d first explained them,  “Guess she’s trying to set you up.” 

“Oh fuck me,”  he exhales so forcefully, it whips the delicate plumes of smoke from Mitch’s cigarette into a misshapen huff. Why was she so concerned with it? Harry hadn’t once expressed any avidity in needing to spend time with someone in that manner -- he could go without sex for three weeks. . .did she not think he could? Was he exuding nymphomaniac tendencies? He surely hadn’t thought he was -- a few quick handies in his nightly showers typically tide him over just nicely for a bit of a dry spell. And what was her business that he hadn’t slept with anyone since they’ve gotten here? Why was she speaking about him with the others what she could as easily ask him? What she had as easily spoken with him about, albeit leaving out a pretty large portion of it. 

For the first time since they had begun getting along, Harry was irritated with her. He’d never been one to brood, however. He liked things to be up front and honest as soon as possible if the situation allowed for it, to stop his mind from taking an idea and running away with it. He held little interest in playing mind games with people. 

Which is why he hands Mitch the rest of his drink, fixes his heavy cardigan around his shoulder, and sets off in her direction. He dodges many bodies, avoids an empty cup on the ground beside what he could only presume to be a sticky puddle of liquor, and narrowly makes it past a playful fight between Oliver and Brandon who were wrestling one another. Y/N doesn’t realize that he’s making his way to her until he’s just a meter or so away, when Niall catches a glimpse of him and attempts to be inconspicuous in the way he pinches her side. She gasps from the way his nails had accidentally bit into her skin, flinching from the pain before her gaze had settled on him, “Harry!” She cheered but his face doesn’t soften as it usually does when they see one another, which alerts her to his disapproving gaze, “Oh, what’s wrong?” 

“Can I speak with you for a moment?” He inquires, motioning out past the trees. Enough trust had been built into the foundation of their friendship for her to not question him. Instead, she passes her drink off to Niall and follows Harry into the woods -- he wouldn’t go so far that they wouldn’t be able to see one another from beneath the curtain of leaves shielding away the moon, but just far enough that nobody would be eavesdropping. In any other situation he might wait to bring this up until they’ve made it back to the cabin, but Y/N’s intentions had been clear that the person he was taking home tonight wasn't supposed to be her. 

She pauses with him at a particularly thick tree trunk, and places the arch of her foot against one of the jagged roots that carved its way through the earth, “Is everything okay?” She balances herself with a hand against the bark, wincing when it jabs into her skin, “I was keeping an eye on Jack n’ them I thought so they wouldn’t try messing with you, but did they say something?” 

That does melt him some, Harry was strong enough to admit that. Just as he had been concerned with her wellbeing, she was just as much concerned for him, and he appreciated that. And while it does threaten to soften him down to his core, he still had questions that needed answers, and he wouldn’t let up until she responded to them. 

“Why are you sending girls over to me?” 

Her brows raise, but less in shock of learning the information, and more so with wonder how he’d found out she was the one sending them their way. The surprise dissolves into embarrassment quickly, her shoulders slump and she casts her gaze deeper into the forest, “Dammit,” she doesn’t hide her disappointment from being caught, or even feign confusion to try and pass the blame off coincidence that every girl who had come up to him had subsequently talked to her prior, “I was hoping you would be less observant.” 

“Y/N.” He says her name sternly, and her shoulders drop dramatically further as she steps down from the tree root. 

“Listen, in my defense I just felt awful!” She admits, waving her hand toward the party, “Jack had tried telling me a few times about how you just fuck people and leave them, blah, blah, blah, right? And I wasn’t paying any attention to him, but it made me curious to what you were like last year, so I asked Mitch and Niall. You came to these things all the time and you had fun -- then I come ‘round, ruin the first one, and you’ve been hanging out with me since. I just. . . I wanted you to be able to have fun and not feel like you have to worry about me, y’know?” 

A ‘v’ sits between Harry’s brows, “What is it your business what I’m doing, hm?” He fixes his cardigan from where it slumps off his shoulder once more, “If I wanted to sleep with someone then I would. Do you think I can’t set something up myself?” 

“No, of course not, I just thought --” 

“You didn’t think,” he cuts her off, and Y/N’s arms curl over herself instinctively when a cold brush of air rolls past them, “You should have just came to speak with me about it, I could have told you that I didn’t need anything like that, and that would have been that. Don’t go behind my back trying to orchestrate things for me, okay?” 

He wanted to say it -- he needed to say it, because Harry wasn’t some sex driven lecher that everyone at this camp tried to make him out as. He thought Y/N had known that too, but he guesses he was wrong. 

But he wasn’t expecting her to look so fucking defeated by it. A guilt weighs on his being when she nods, tipping her head down, “Okay, yes, I won’t anymore. I’m sorry,” her fingers dig into her bicep, as she breathes out, a shiver rattles through her that she tries to be inconspicuous about it, “I wasn’t thinking -- I wasn’t thinking how it would look.” 

Harry sighs, peeling his cardigan off of his arms, revealing his bare arms to the chill but he ignores it in favor of holding it out to her, “Put this on,” he wiggles it some, “I know you’re cold.” She takes it from him carefully, looking up, brows raised slightly as if to ask if he’s sure, “Go ahead.” 

“I really am sorry,” she tells him, pulling the patchwork cardigan over her arms, it hangs off of her, and Harry swallowed thickly. She’s. . .cute -- Harry had always been able to admit that. Her face is sweet, her eyes exudes nothing but understanding, kindness, and such a soft glow that Harry couldn’t quite explain. He finds that those eyes give him great comfort and warmth, because now when they’re tinged with the contrition she feels and Harry feels cold. 

“I know,” he murmurs, he holds out his hand for her, and very carefully Y/N slides her hand into his own, “Do you want to go get pudding?” 

A small smile pulls at her mouth. 

“Yes please.” 

                                                          .                          .                         .

Niall lets them use the key after a few dozen promises to be careful with it. They trek the familiar way, mindless chatter fills the air around them until they get to the cafeteria and their voices quiet in case the security guard is looping around. Y/N reveals her hand from the shield of his cardigan sleeve, Harry watches as the fabric pools around her arm, toward her elbow, and produces the key (that Niall only trusted her with). They creeped into the kitchen, pulled open the large refrigerator door, and the pudding sat in rows on the bottom shelf. 

They both choose vanilla this time, having tired themselves out on chocolate, and they sit at the spot they had last time, across from one another. He can tell, despite his peace offering, that Y/N still feels upset about what had happened earlier and it sullies his mood. She’s still chatting but not with as much heart as she typically has, and Harry couldn’t stand it. He just wanted her to giggle as she teases him again, without feeling like she’s tip toeing on eggshells around him. 

“Hey,” Harry starts, dragging her attention towards him where it had previously been scooping the sides of her pudding container, “Would you stop being so. . .tense? Is this about earlier?” 

Y/N clears her throat, opening her mouth and furrowing her brows like she was about to deny it, but she relents, shoulders dropping, “A little. I still feel bad about everything,” she shakes her head, dragging the edge of the spoon around the plastic, “About everything, not just that you aren’t able to sleep with someone. I came in late, ruined you having your own cabin, woke you up with my alarm, made you get out of bed ‘cos I’m afraid of the dark and -- I just feel like this massive burden. I feel like this massive burden on everyone.” 

Harry is alarmed by this sudden confession, but his body ultimately rejects the notion that she could ever be a bother, “How are you a burden to anyone?” He inquires, shaking his head, “You’re such a ball of light that just swarms through rooms. The thought of you being a burden is akin to the thought of Satan being a saint. . .it doesn’t sound right.” Harry sets his pudding down, though he keeps his hands fixed around the cup and the spoon, “Don’t know what gave you that idea, but the last thing you are is a burden. Who gave you the impression that you were?” 

She wipes tiredly at her eyes, “Nobody in particular, it's just,” she shakes her head, “Even now, I wanted to make your night good, and then I fucked it, and now you’re here with me instead of having fun at the party. I just feel silly.” 

“Don’t.” Harry tells her simply, “I like to spend time with you, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” 

The tension in her shoulder releases, “Thank you for this, I’m sorry m’just saying the same thing again and again. Back at home it feels like everyone is just. . .so hyper aware of me -- they’re always being so careful, or overly concerned and I always wonder if it feels like a heavy weight on their shoulders, like I’m forcing a piggyback ride.” She shrugs her own, reaching for the second pudding cup, “It’s just shit, so I overthink everything all the time to try not to be a burden, but I keep making it worse. Or at least that’s how it feels.” 

Harry tilts his head to the side some. He’s not usually someone who pries and probes people for information, but he’s never been more curious about Y/N than in this moment. When he thinks of Y/N at home, he thinks of sunshine pooling in the hallways through casement windows, her spinning around the kitchen in a dainty floral dress that billows around her as she stirs homemade jam. Harry imagines her amongst woodland creatures who coax her to the forest with songs, escorting her there as she gambols freely. 

He could not imagine her going home and feeling like a burden. Hell, he would have thought that she considered everyone else a burden -- that maybe it was draining to be the absolute light of everyone’s life. Yet here she stood, seeming worn, and broken. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why is everyone hyper aware of you at home? You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable.” He says it delicately -- he means it. . .if she didn’t want to share this with him, then he wouldn’t force her, but he wants to open up the possibility. He wants her to know that he’s an open ear if she so chose to utilize him. 

“Um,” her gaze does shift downward -- she suddenly appears so small, “Are you sure?” 

Harry nods. 

“I just -- it's not that I don’t like bringing it up, I just don’t want you to treat me any differently than you would knowing it, yeah? I think that’s what I hate the most.” She notes, “So do you promise that you won’t -- you won’t start tiptoeing around me?” 

“You’ve got my word.” Harry vows, but he has a feeling he knows what she is to say.

The sleeve of his cardigan covers her hand as she brushes the hair from her face, “In freshman year of UNI, my roommate was Mrs. Graham’s daughter, Penelope.” She straightens out in her seat, “We didn’t like each other much at first but we had grown very close -- um, once she threw away my fruit snacks and so I dunked her toothbrush in the toilet, but I felt guilty and went out to buy her a new toothbrush,” a laugh leaves her at the memory, as she rolls her eyes at herself, “That was what we had going for a while, but a late night heart to heart kind of made us closer. She told me things that. . .she’d been through a lot that nobody should have to go through, you know? She was bullied a lot growing up—in high school it was bad, people used to always gang up on her over stupid shit.” Harry hums, encouraging her to continue, and she stirs the pudding around mindlessly, “And we were just close after that. We had a flat together sophomore year and most of junior year, she’s my best friend,” she swallows thickly, “I didn’t realize how sad she was. . .I didn’t realize what she was still holding onto, and she -- we went home for Christmas break, and she never came back.” 

Harry feels his stomach sour as her eyes bead with unshed tears, “Oh, Y/N,” 

“It’s alright. I’m okay, I’m fine as I can be --  I’ve -- I’m mourning and I miss her, but I’m trying to be strong. Most days I am, but everyone at home just expects me to be this fragile thing, y’know? The days I’m happy, and chatty, they think I’m faking it. And some days I do, yeah, but. . .it’s just disheartening when everyone pretends to know what’s going on in my head.” She plants the pudding directly in the center, leaving it there and retreating her hands to her lap, “Mrs. Graham told me she felt the same. That’s why I came in last minute -- I’ve got all my volunteer hours settled and everything but she said it might be nice to get away.” A slow, easy sigh leaves her lips as she blinks the tears away, not one drop trickled down her cheek, “It is nice, but I still worry that I’m a strain on people around me, even if not for the reason I am at home. And I’m sorry to like, info dump all this on you,” she laughs a little in spite of herself, “You can’t ask me things, unless you want an hour long explanation.”

Harry reaches out his hand for her, for the second time that night, and once again she slowly slips their fingers together, “Thank you for sharing that with me, I know it must have been hard,” he squeezes her hand, “But I understand you a bit more now. I’ll keep my promise, I won’t treat you any differently, but before that --” she blinks at him, waiting, “I think you might just be one of the kindest, strongest, most caring people that I have ever meant. I know you would never do anything to intentionally hurt me or add stress onto my life, so you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to try with me. We can just exist together, yeah? We’ll exist without burdens and without worry.”

The look in her eyes, was one that Harry had never seen before. One that makes him melt in her touch. 

“I would like that.” 

                                                             .                                    .                                  .

 “I can’t swim.” 

Harry was crouched down to Maisey’s height, fixing purple mermaid floaties around her arms. The day was not unusually muggy, but there was an additional itch to jump belly first into the cool watered lake. He had woken with a revitalized need to pry a star from the morning sky as it shifted from an inky purple to an early, dusky morning blue -- and give it to Y/N. He had decided after their conversation last night -- after they’d gone to bed and Y/N fell asleep cuddled in his cardigan -- he had an overwhelming, and an all encompassing want to hold her. 

Which made it hard to part ways this morning, but he managed. And maybe he played out an image in his head where he pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek before they went to wake their respective cabins, or maybe he didn’t (but if he did that’s his own problem). He is quick to convince himself it was because she’d shared a piece of herself with him that he doesn’t think she lets many people see, and Harry always develops a bit of a platonic crush on his friends at some point or another. He questioned whether or not he was in love with Mitch for a solid four days once. . .sometimes he just let his heart get carried away. 

He had been enmeshed in these thoughts as he got his campers ready for their time in the lake. At first glance, a ton of children in the lake seemed like a horrible, and faulty idea, but they took precautions so that everyone was safe. Every child wore floaties and/or life jackets no matter how proficient their swimming abilities. There was netting about ten meters out so that the children and counsellors couldn’t float out toward the middle, and they worked it so that only three children could be in per counsellor at a time, so that they could keep an eye on everyone. Harry wasn’t so nervous because he was a strong swimmer, and his kids were a little older, but he could tell Y/N had been a little jittery about it. It’s why Harry told her that while she was out in the lake with her little ones to let him know, he would come out with her to bring her some additional comfort that even the floaties could not provide. 

Harry had been pretty sure all of his kids were excited to go to the lake and he was grateful for that, until he looked up to see the nervous, large blue eyes of Jackson, downcast after he had spoken the words. The unprompted admittance confused him as he turned to face him, “That’s okay, buddy, we’ve got floaties for that.” 

Jackson did not seem convinced, shaking his head fiercely, “No, I -- I can’t swim.” 

“J.J. is afraid of the water,” Noah exposes the truth just as easy as he takes a sip from his juice box, equipped with his own blue arm floaties, “He didn’t want to say though ‘cos --” 

“Noah!” Jackson cuts him off, betrayal laced within his features. 

“--’cos he didn’t want to seem like a wimp, but he almost drowned when he was little.” 

Jackson looked as if he could cry, and Harry shook his head quickly, “Hey, hey, hey, c’mere buddy,” he motions him over, and he comes easily, stepping before Harry who had not bothered to leave his already crouched position, “Explain to me what’s going on, yeah?” 

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, a frown prevalent on his mouth, even as he speaks, “When I was little little, my big brother pushed me into the pool and I went under the water and my mom had to come in and get me because I can’t swim good.” 

Harry pulls his lips back, reaching out to squeeze Jackson’s shoulder, “I’m sorry to hear that buddy. I won’t force you to get in the water if you don’t want to, but I do want to tell you that if you feel more comfortable, we could try a life jacket instead of the floaties? It’ll keep you more buoyant -- more bouncy in the water.” 

“Aren’t those for little kids?” Jackson inquires, brows pinched, but Harry shakes his head and points toward Y/N, never more glad in that moment that she had the age group she did, along with her views on not making them do, wear, or say anything that she wouldn’t herself. She’s got the life jacket swung around her arm as she clips Oliver into his own. 

“Y/N’s going to wear one too, and she’s not a little kid. I’ll wear one as well if you’d like.” He promised him. Albeit looking reserved, Jackson nods softly with his hands in little fists, worrying his lip between his teeth. The poor thing, Harry thinks -- he used to be afraid of water too. Nobody wants to conquer that fear suddenly, let alone with a group of people that may or may not poke fun because they’re kids and kids are jerks sometimes. 

Harry finds him a life jacket -- a cute one with a shark on it, that he helps him clip on, and fits it to his body with the straps. Next, he needed to find one for himself, but he wasn’t entirely sure where they kept the counsellor life jackets, so he called for Y/N where she’d been a few meters away and she popped her head up from where she was like a meerkat. Her eyes softened when she realized who had called her, and a gentle smile pulled at her mouth, “Hey hubby,” she greets him, much to the delight of Charlotte, who claps giddily, “What d’ya need?” 

“A life jacket, please. Where’d you get yours?” Harry tries to be decent -- tries desperately to keep his eyes to himself, but he finds that this is surprisingly difficult when Y/N is in her swimsuit. It wasn’t obscene in any sense of the word -- in the pamphlet they get when they sign up, it is very clear that speedos and bikinis were not appropriate, and therefore not allowed. If a child couldn’t wear it, then you shouldn’t bring it -- was the apothegm that they chose to live by in reference to dress code. 

This, however, doesn’t mean that Y/N’s swimsuit didn’t suit her well. It was fitted in a way that wasn’t too tight, yet wasn’t too loose -- like it might have just been made with her in mind. A simple one piece of nylon and lycra colored a powder blue, that barely showed off that much more of what she wears to bed, and yet his mind still flutters elsewhere. To unwise places, that he drags himself from before clearing his throat and forcing himself to look around the lake so it appeared his eyes were just scanning everything. 

“You’re in luck,” Y/N jogged the short way from where they stood, back to where her kids were all gathered, playing happily in the sand. Beneath what Harry had assumed was just a cluster of towels, another life jacket was hidden beneath the fabric. She hands it toward him with a triumphant grin, “This was the last one. I grabbed it for you in case you just wanted to float rather than keep your legs kicking -- you had a big lunch, didn’t want you to get a cramp.” 

Harry hates how his heart balloons in his chest. There was no reason to be a melt because she had thought of him -- that she had him in mind, so she snatched the last life jacket, and hid it beneath towels so nobody else could have it. No reason to feel all mushy from the way that she unfolds it for him, a silent prompt that she’s going to help him pull it on. And there was certainly, absolutely no good reason for how stupidly affectionate he feels when she strokes her finger along the heart tattoo on his forearm mindlessly, before murmuring, “You make me wanna get covered in them. Maybe I’ll just go and get all of yours.” She looks down at the ground, “Maybe not the toe, my feet are ticklish -- think I would kick the artist.” 

He recruits Y/N for the process of easing Jackson into the water -- Noah and Elinor are floating and bobbing about happily at their sides, while Charlotte and Mikey playfully kick and float close to their older counterparts (if not practically on top of them). There was a chill bite to the water when they had first stepped in, but as they walked out further and sunk a bit deeper, the cold eases up. The cool air soothes them from the sharp bite of the scorching sun, Jackson holds his hand so tightly Harry thinks his fingers may go numb, and he figures Y/N is feeling the same way, if her soft, “Loosen your grip up a bit, Sweetheart, you’re gonna take off my hand.” 

Eventually, Jackson relaxes. He finally understands that the life jacket will keep him afloat and holding onto Y/N and Harry wasn’t a necessity. Once the idea of this settles in his brain, he is more willing to let go and enjoy himself. It feels wonderful to see that he’s having fun, and even better when he sees the smile on Y/N’s face from this small victory. Last year, he hadn’t felt this parental over the children last summer, but something had changed. . .something that made him feel like he was a bit of a parent. 

It has to be Y/N. There was something about her that just oozes mother figure for these kids, even if she wasn’t intending to do so. She kissed the bandages over their wounds to take away the hurt, she praised the ground they walked on, picked them up if they asked, danced with them, encouraged them, treated every single child as if they were her own. Harry believes she’ll be a beautiful mother one day, if that’s what she’d like, and whoever the father or mother was she had chosen to spend her life with, they were unbelievably lucky. He just hoped they would understand that. 

Y/N floats into his line of sight, “Are you okay? Ellie said you look like Maisey’s aunt again, whatever that means.” 

Harry snorts, before nodding, “Yeah, I’m fine. A bit tired.” 

An understanding gleam overtakes her, “Y’know, I did think you seemed a bit snoozy,” she reaches out for him, squeezing his shoulder softly, “D’ya want to have a sneaky nap? I could watch the kids.” 

“But I like having you both,” Jackson whined, shaking his head quickly, finding their hands once more, reassuring that his grip was tight as ever, “Please stay.” 

“Yeah,” Noah splashes over to them, sliding his arms around Harry’s neck, wetting his hair with the water clinging to his life jacket, “You two are fun together! We always have so much fun -- Brittany said her counsellor always yells at them when they ask her to play with them.” 

Elinor was quick to add, “And Ro’s counsellor falls asleep during art days! He doesn’t even help them stay in the lines, and they’re little like Oli, and Charlotte.” 

Y/N’s bottom lip juts out in the prettiest little pout -- Harry finds himself wanting to pluck it with the pad of his thumb, “That’s silly, isn’t it? I have so much fun with you guys, I couldn’t imagine not playing. Right Harry?” 

Nodding his assent, he reaches up, settling his hands around Noah’s arms and bring him along with him as he kicks them closer to Y/N and the other three, “It is silly. Some people just aren’t as fun as Y/N and I, Bug, it’s proven fact. They did the scientific method and everything.” 

Oliver gleefully pushes himself up on Y/N’s shoulders, flopping back into the water and bobbing, “I love yous!” He chirped brightly, “Yous guys are my favorites! I love yous.” 

The sight is adorable, especially as Y/N wriggles around and holds her arms out so they could hug, which Oliver happily accepts, “I love yous too, button.” 

They have fun -- for hours, as they switch out which kids are in the water, spend time on the beach with all of them, making sandcastles, burying one another, chatting and playing. It was very freeing; Harry could easily tell that he and the others were having far more fun than any of the other groups were -- Mitch and Niall had gravitated their groups closer to them when Y/N and the kids began to pour sand over the top of him. Even Cassidy came around with her kids after they had heard them all giggling and laughing and wanted to know what was going on. Harry was having fun, and maybe he was just mushy, but he credited it to the joy Y/N was exuding. It was hard not to be in a good mood when he was around her. 

By the time the sun sat a little lower in the sky, casting the shadows of trees over the sand and cooling them to the point of chilling. The kids washed their feet and hands beneath the rush of water from a yard hydrant, wrapped up in towels, and headed toward the dining hall for their dinner. There was a taco bar today, and Harry found that Y/N and he had a mutual love of tacos as a whole. She showed him how she adds feta crumbles, even let him have a bite of hers to see if he would like it so he could decide whether or not to put it on his own (it was delicious, she was right). 

Once dinner was finished, everyone was exhausted. They all gathered around the campfire, one of the counsellors strummed a song on his guitar, they all had s'mores and then they dispersed. Not even the rush of sugar from the chocolate and marshmallow gave any of the children an umph in their step; they were all so sluggish and slow, dragging their feet through the dirt on their way to their cabins. Harry’s group barely kept their eyes open as they stalked to the showers, washing off the lake water and sand that had been clinging to their bodies. After they brushed their teeth, they all but face planted in their beds and snores soon filled the quiet air of the cabin. They only made him realize how exhausted he was from the day spent baking in the sun, floating and kicking in the water. 

He trudges back to his cabin, where he finds Y/N had already showered off. She was face down in her pillow, her back slowly rising and falling with each gentle breath she took. She hadn’t covered in her blankets -- no, instead she used his cardigan as a makeshift cover over her body, and Harry thinks it might just be the cutest thing he’s ever seen. The patchwork swallows a good portion of her body, the sleeve flopped limply by her head. . .he could imagine her crawling into bed. Could imagine her putting her knee up first, dragging the cardigan that had been lying limply over the post with her and just letting it drape over her body. She probably wasn’t thinking she would fall asleep. . .probably thought she would just lay there for a minute before gathering the strength to get beneath her covers. 

It’s adorable -- Harry hates how adorable he finds it, actually. If he could crawl in beside her he would, but instead he ambles to the bathroom, starts up the shower, and climbs in. 

The water his hot -- boiling drops pelt his skin, washing away the grime and sweat that felt as if it’d been caked onto his skin. It felt good; to cleanse and scrub himself free of the lake, massage shampoo into his scalp, soften his curls with the conditioner, and just allow himself to revel in the feeling. Showers feel wonderful - a renewal that he deemed necessary by the end of the day. And when he gets the temperature just right, it soothes the aches and soreness in his bones, turning his muscles to softened jello. By the time he slipped out of the shower, he was practically boneless and thought he’d be lucky if he made it to his bed before dropping to the floor and falling asleep. 

He expects Y/N to still be asleep when he leaves the bathroom, but he’s surprised to find her sat up in her bed, his cardigan pooled around her body and a deep frown on her face. 

“Oh!” He’s started some -- he really thought she was out for the night, “Good morning, sleepyhead.” 

“It’s morning?” Her face further turns to that of distress and Harry bites down hard on a chuckle. 

“No,” he responds, “It’s not morning. Only about 10PM, so you’ve got plenty of time to rest still.” She looks around groggily, rubbing at her cheek with one hand while she fisted his cardigan in the other, pulling it closer around her body, “Why don’t you get beneath the covers, Babe?” He asks her, and she’s quiet for a little while. The only inkling Harry receives that she even heard him was how she tries to shuffle and wriggle the covers down with her still stretched out on the bed, stuffing her legs into the blankets first, then sliding the rest of the way smoothly. All the while she clings to the cardigan, holding it tightly, resting her cheek on it. Harry doesn’t know if Y/N’s just far more affectionate than he had even thought prior, or if she was just half awake and doing things she wouldn’t do if she was fully conscious. Vaguely does he remember her saying something about typically cuddling with a teddy at night -- how she stuffs her face against it because it always smells like her fabric softener. 

He wonders if that’s why she snuggles with it -- he wonders if she likes the smell of him, so she buries her nose in the fabric and breathes it in as she rests. 

Harry hates this. He hates how inconceivably soft he’s been feeling, but he can’t help it. Y/N had found him worthy enough to poke inside her brain -- she opened up to him in a way she expressed she’d not been opening up to many people about.  It made him feel closer to her.

But he told her he wouldn’t treat her any differently after finding out. And if he suddenly started expressing more affection, he fears she would think he was only doing it because of what she told him. He just wants to be. . .he just wants to be gentle with her. Doesn’t want her to ever think that she’s a burden to him, because the anecdote had made him question and second guess how he’d been treating her their entire time here. Of course, he was never intentionally cruel, but some of the situations he thinks about the two of them in, and how he responded, makes him cringe. 

He switches off the overhead light, her dimmed bedside lamp and muscle memory guide him to his bed. Harry climbs in, shivers as he adjusts to the warmth beneath his covers, and breathes a soft sigh of relief to have finished with the day. 

“Harry?” Y/N’s voice startles his eyes open, which he’d not been aware he’d closed. 

“Hm?” He hums -- he had thought she’d fallen back asleep already. 

“You’re okay?” 

A soft smile plays at his mouth -- she asks him every night before bed, he’s noticed. 

“Yes, I’m okay. Are you okay?” 

She nods, “You did really good today,” her voice is muffled from her cheek mushed against his cardigan, “The kids had a lot of fun, they were telling me. I had a lot of fun too.” 

“Yeah? Me too,” he reaches to thumb the hairs of his eyebrow down, “And thank you. You always do really well with the kids.” 

She’s quiet for a minute, and once more, Harry thinks she must have fallen asleep, but the shift of the mattress tells him she’s changing position and Harry notices once more that his eyes have closed, “I’m glad you’re my roomie.” 

Harry utters the words, that two weeks ago he thinks he would have spit at. 

“Yeah, I’m glad you’re my roomie too.” 

                                                     .                                   .                              .

Harry was drunk. 

Typically, he didn’t allow himself to get very drunk at these little parties. He trusted the others so little, he had no doubt in his mind that any moment he was slightly impaired in some way they would take it upon themselves to prey on his weakness. This means he only ever gets mildly tipsy -- drinks enough to feel good but caps himself when he thinks he might start stumbling. 

But he just didn’t cap himself today. Not for any reason in particular -- their day hadn’t been difficult. They helped their kids through a mildly strenuous obstacle course throughout the morning, cooled down with them drinking juice boxes and eating popsicles and by 2PM they were inside doing little DIY projects. Harry burned his finger with some hot glue, but otherwise it was a pretty easy smooth kind of day that they didn’t get often. He and Y/N hadn’t gotten to spend much time together, which he wouldn’t admit loudly was a disappointment, but he and his kids had all agreed that they missed her. 

(And when they had seen her and her group walking into the art room, the lot of them had erupted in cheers, Noah, Eli, Maisey being the loudest of them.) 

They had a pasta dinner that was surprisingly filling, they told “spooky” campfire stories and ate s’mores, he got his kids ready for bed and he went off to the cabin. He and Y/N were going to one of the parties tonight, not because they had such spectacular luck with a good time before, but because they were coming up on some of their last nights here at camp. It was a bittersweet feeling -- Harry remembered being more than ready to flee last year, counting down each day, each hour dragging on longer than the last. This time, it felt like it was coming too quick. He would miss the kids, he would miss the busy days some. . .and sure, he was happy to go home and take a shower that stays hot longer than five minutes and rest on his soft, cozy bed, but he would miss not having Y/N right across from him. 

That was what he was having the most trouble coming to terms with, he thinks. The idea of them not having to spend every moment of every day with one another after doing it for three weeks almost sounds wrong. It's the same feeling he gets when  he knew he and Mitch wouldn’t have such easy access to one another once they went back home. Being at this camp sort of felt like being stuck in a time loop where the outside world doesn’t exist, so it’s very easy to forget that they all have lives outside of here. They all go to class, go to work, go home, study, eat and sleep. 

He and Y/N live relatively close to one another -- only about a ten minute drive up the street with only one turn and it's into her apartment building -- but he wonders if they’ll utilize it. He wonders if their friendship is tied to this camp and if that’s where it will remain, or if she even wants to be friendly with him after. Harry hadn’t considered that maybe she was only putting up with him because they had to live together and she didn’t want it to be miserable. Had he questioned if he was even enjoyable to be around? How does he ask her that without sounding entirely too desperate or needy?                   

So partially, he drinks to ease some of the worry in his mind. Harry doesn’t think he would “break down” or something like it if they weren’t able to continue being friends -- like a forgotten summer love that he might think about throughout the fall, and message her to see how she was doing -- but he certainly wouldn’t be delighted if that’s how it ended up. Harry thinks there’s so much more to Y/N that he would like to see, and know, and hear. Three weeks isn’t enough time, Harry decided, but in the same breath he wondered if she had thought it was more than enough. 

Harry knows she cares for him, at least a little bit. He knows that he cares for her and her wellbeing; he was fond of her. From what he knew of who she was fundamentally, down to her core, Harry knew she was selfless and kind -- it was hard to find people like that, who were that, without it being cakey or clouded by something else. She was transparent in who she was and her feelings regarding most things, and Harry valued her honesty. 

And she was just so damn fun. Every moment with her he spent, the air filled with laughter; she brought a slice of sun in her pocket wherever she went and Harry was consistently being warmed beneath it. 

The fact of the matter is, Harry doesn’t know how he could meet someone like Y/N, and get used to the idea of her not being in his life after three weeks. If he could refuse it he would, but what was he going to do? Kidnap her and take her home with him? 

He’s sat on the tree root, opposed to standing beside it like he usually is, with his back pressed against the bark of the tree and he ignores the jagged, uneven trunk against his skin. Mitch was beside him, leaning lower than he was with his jacket bundled up and stuffed behind his head, his legs kicked out as far as they would go and because of this, his foot rested against Niall’s lap. Niall was pleasantly gone himself, a bit louder than normal but also zoning out every so often. 

He was a good guy, Niall -- he had good opinions, and he chatted him and Mitch up about guitars often (he was typically the camp’s go to for an acoustic guy if they ever wanted campfire songs). Harry thinks they could probably be really good friends, if not for the fact that Niall was so barefaced in his crush on Y/N. 

It was obvious, Harry thought. He’d thought it was obvious from the first moment he spent a prolonged period of time with both he and Y/N -- his cheeks got rosy when she touched him, he stuttered over his gratitude if she complimented him, and if she went out of her way to do something (like when she’d stuffed her hand into a thorn-bush for his guitar pick that had flung from his fingers, and subsequently got all scratched up), he would look at her how someone might stargaze. 

Harry doesn’t know why he doesn’t just ask her out, if he likes her so much. It almost irritates him how skittish Niall seems to get at the prospect of it; to run away from those warm, nice feelings that she provides is silly. It reminds him entirely too much of himself and he loathes it. 

Tonight had been no different, only Y/N was dancing back and forth between them and a few other counsellors (Harry only recognized one of them , who was called Rosie and had been in his first year maths). Harry watched her most of the night, in the least obnoxious and creepy way he could, just because. . .well, she was nice to look at. He liked how her body animated as she spoke, or how she nodded her head as someone was speaking to her -- it was an encouraging nod, and her eyes locked onto theirs like they might be telling her where the fountain of youth might be located, or the secrets to the universe. 

She was cozy today -- it was cooler out than most of the nights that they had experienced, with a chill breeze that had even stirred goosebumps on Harry’s arms (and he was all but swaddled in his hoodie). Y/N had a light fitted sweater that she sometimes slept in -- not heavy enough to shield her from the icy terrain that winter would provide, but enough to fight past the harsh summer night breeze that threatened to help a storm roll in within the next few hours. Loosely, he let the images of her cuddled close to him invade his brain. What it might feel like, how the knit would brush against his skin, if she would hide her face in his neck or spider around him as the big spoon and burrow against his hair. Y/N struck him as someone who liked to do more of the cuddling than being cuddled herself.

He would miss her when they had to leave. Harry worried who would just exist with her, like they had been doing. He worried about her going back to a place where she felt like a burden -- he would be around, wouldn’t he? If she allowed him to, he could be there for her, but he doesn’t want to seem pushy. By all definitions, they had really just met -- Harry had known Y/N for approximately 17 days, but it felt like so much longer. He wonders if he had known her in a past life, or if it was the fact that they spent almost every day all day with one another for at least 15 of those 17 day -- he finally understands how everyone in the Love Island villa always goes on about how a day in the outside world feels like a week where they are. 

It’s not like he’s professing his love to her, for fuck sake. He just likes her -- whether it be platonic or not, Harry thinks Y/N is just delightful. 

“Your little girlfriend’s not with you?” 

Harry had forgotten how Jack’s voice sounded how grating nails against iron pipes might make someone feel, mostly because they hadn’t spoken in quite a while. After Y/N had slapped him, he had kept to himself, resorting more to disgruntled glares and probably pissy comments he was murmuring to his mates about him. If someone asked Harry, he would say that him and his friends were afraid of Y/N -- she posed a good threat to them. Sure, they hadn’t understood the extent of her words that night (like how and why she knew Miss. Graham), but they were enough to rattle them. No matter being in university, or within the range of 20-23 years old, nobody wanted to be scolded by a woman in her 40s, nor did they want to be kicked out of a camp counsellor position, or to have their volunteer hours revoked. 

So they had left him alone, which Harry thinks may have been such a strain for them he would be surprised if they hadn’t popped a blood vessel. Even if they wanted to, he was always with Y/N -- they never really had the chance, and if they did, they didn’t really take it. 

Which is why he is both surprised and incredibly annoyed with Jack’s sudden appearance. 

“Piss off.” Harry responds, nursing his beer bottle closer to him. 

“You’re always so ill-tempered,” Jack leans up against the tree, “Just wanted to have a chat. Like why Cassidy suddenly wants to break things off after chatting with you and Y/N. Got any ideas?” 

Harry’s brows dipped in confusion, “What? What are you on about?” 

“Don’t act like you don’t fucking know,” Jack rolls his eyes, “Cassidy and I are doing just fucking fine for six months, but we come here, she starts chatting with you and now all the sudden she’s ready to break up. What the fuck did you say, hm?” He nudged Harry’s side with his foot, “Fucking Y/N wasn’t enough, you had to fuck Cassidy too?” He kicked him this time, harder than before.

Harry, who did not take too kindly to being kicked, rolled his eyes and pushed himself to a stand, “Dunno why you’re so fucking insecure that you think me being around has anything to do with Cassidy finally seeing what a prick you are, but this needs to stop,” he handed his bottle to Mitch who took it wordlessly, “I’m not fucking Cassidy, I’ve never fucked Cassidy, so if you could just grow the fuck up and recognize that maybe she broke up with you, because you’re awful to be around, that would be great.”            

Jack, which Harry had expected, took more of a physical approach, giving a shove to Harry’s shoulders, and Harry’s back slams against the tree behind him, “Fuck you,” he spit, “You all holier than thou ‘cos you’re dipping your dick in Miss. Rainbow Bright? What do you know about me, hm? You’re just a dumb fuck who has to be here because you’re a no good druggy fuck with anger issues. How does it feel knowing you’ll amount to nothing after UNI?” 

There isn’t a lot that could get under Harry’s skin. A lot of people could say a lot of shit that he brushes off and lets go, but there are two things that he really just can’t. One of them is when people try to speak poorly of his mum, and the other, was when someone pretends to know his situation when they don’t have a fucking clue. Who was this trust fund bastard to tell him he was a druggy fuck? That he would amount to nothing after UNI? Harry worked two jobs to set himself through school and keep himself fed, with a roof over his head, just so that he could live the life he wanted to after university. 

Maybe it was silly to punch him, but it felt good to. Harry reared back his fist and it collided with his jaw, making Jack stumble backward, his hand flying to his face, “You fucking --” he swung in return, only he catches Harry’s shoulder because Harry moved out of the way in anticipation. Niall narrowly dodged being caught in the crossfire as he rolled out of the way. 

The fight didn’t get too far, however, because when Jack was gearing up to swing again, Y/N appeared and easily wormed her way in between them, “Are you serious right now?” Her brows were furrowed -- she looked legitimately pissed off, and, well. . .it made Harry take a step back at least, “Thought we had a chat about this, hm? You were going to leave him the fuck alone -- no, look at me, not him,” she grabbed at his collar, giving a sharp tug when his angry gaze had flittered back toward Harry, “I’m not an angry person, Jack, I don’t like being mean, or cruel like you seem to be so fond of, but I can and will be if I need to and I promise you that. Don’t you ever speak to someone like that again, yeah? What you were saying was just awful.” She lets go of his collar, taking a step back and sighing in a sharp huff, “I can’t speak for Cassidy, but if I had to guess she probably cut things off because you’re a jealous bastard who questions every interaction with another person and try this alpha male persona to scare other people away. It must be exhausting.” 

Jack shook his head, “We were fine --”

“You thought you were fine. Things aren’t always what they look like, alright? The sooner you understand that, the easier your life will be.” She nods toward the center of the clearing they were in,  “Go get some ice from the cooler, and go the hell back to your cabin. You’re not a fun drunk.” 

Albeit reluctantly, Jack follows her orders and slinks his way to the cooler. The others around them had grown quiet as they had watched the confrontation unfold, but they soon all lost interest once they realized nothing more would happen. Y/N turned to face Harry, the anger on her face immediately dissolving, as she shakes her head, “What a dick. I’m so sorry he spoke to you like that,” she takes ahold of his wrist, the hand that he had punched Jack with, running her thumbs over his reddened knuckles, “I told him -- after the lake, I told him that he needed to leave you alone or I’d do something about it. Dunno what I was gonna do, but I was going to do something -- I will --” 

“Hey, hey,” he cuts her off, “It’s okay -- it’s okay, come on, let’s. . .let’s go to the cabin, yeah? Should we go back to the cabin?” 

Y/N looks at him like he was batty, “No shit we’re going back to the cabin! I’ve got to give you like a full medical look over. He slammed you into the tree, and honestly, you bruise like a peach.” 

They make the trek back to the cabin, relatively quiet, Harry still attempting to process what had happened and what Y/N had said. Had she really spoken to Jack after the fact and threatened him if he messed with Harry again? The softest, probably sweetest person he knows, had taken Jack off to the side and told him if he didn’t leave Harry alone she was going to do something about it. Not only that, she grabbed him by his collar and told him off in front of everyone. It made his heart race, the thought of it, and his cock twitches in his pants at the moment on repeat in his mind. 

Once they get back to the cabin, Y/N has him take his hoodie off with her in the bathroom so she could visualize his back and shoulder. Jack may be short-tempered and smaller than Harry, but his punches still packed a great deal, so a nice, reddening bruise was forming quickly around his shoulder. On his back there were scrapes from the tree bark, Y/N tells him, and a ton of little bruises that had begun to form as well. She makes him stay still as she retrieves the first aid kit from their medicine cabinet. 

“Y/N,” he started, and she hummed to encourage him to continue, “When did you speak with Jack privately?” 

She clears her throat, plopping the first aid kit down on the sink counter and unclipping it open, “The morning after the lake,” she answers without hesitation, “I wasn’t trying to like, fight your battles or anything, but I needed him to know I wasn’t bluffing when I told them I would rat them out, and worse if the situation allowed it. I hate bullies,” she pulls out a small tube of bacitracin, tutting her tongue as she squeezes it out on the tip of her finger, “And I hate how they treat you. I’m sorry if I overstepped.” 

“You didn’t at all,” Harry remarks softly, jolting when her fingers very carefully graze over one of the tender areas on his back, “Thank you, actually, for sticking up for me again.” 

“You don’t have to thank me. I think I’m pretty scrappy when I need to be,” she giggles to herself, “Like, if need be, I would take on the Queen for you. Might be an uneven match though, she’s pushing 100.” 

Harry spins around to face her though, “Y/N, I mean it,” he tells her seriously, their gazes locking, “Thank you for everything. For dealing with my attitude, for sticking up for me, for helping with the kids, for making this experience bearable, for being such a positive light,” he sighs, “You’re amazing, you deserve amazing things.” 

Y/N looks taken by his words -- he wonders if she’s as lost in his eyes as he is in hers. Her mouth falls open gently, like she may be searching for what to say back to him but can’t come up with anything. He worries that he’d said too much -- that he freaked her out or something. He wasn’t trying to, he was just so grateful for her, he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to express it. 

He is about to apologize for being too forward, when Y/N pushes the short distance and connects their lips together. 

Harry’s confused for a moment as his brain registers what’s happening, but when he feels that she might pull away, his body finally seems to wake up. His hands find her face, cradling her jaw in his hands as he reaffirms the kiss and lets the butterflies in his body take over in hoards. He’d given thought to kissing Y/N, sure, but he’d never thought it would happen. Not only that, he’d never thought it would feel this nice. She tastes like the pineapple wine coolers she’d been sipping on that night, her lips still a bit sticky from the residue of the alcohol on her soft lips.

She’s gentle in how she kisses, like Harry would have guessed -- careful too, and cautious with how her lips parted from him only to fix back together. A pool of heat had formed in Harry’s lower belly and rose to his chest, stirring his heart in flutters when her tongue slid into his mouth and met her own. Harry hadn’t realized just how badly he wanted to kiss her until their tongues are sliding against one another, and his hands are slipping down from her jaw,  caressing the delicate skin of her throat, skating down her chest to her hips. He squeezes her sides and pulls her closer to him, feeling the knit of her top rub against his bare torso. It was as soft as he’d imagined it’d be. 

Had she been wanting to kiss him for as long as he wanted to kiss her? Normally, Harry could tell how badly someone wanted to kiss him by the act alone, but with Y/N he was so caught up he couldn’t focus. She was calm and soft, but the longer they kissed, the more ardent she became. It was the tiny moan that had left from her mouth into his own, that made him lightheaded. He had to pull away to breathe but his forehead pressed against hers as he breathed in, “Harry?” Her voice is low, she says his name like a secret, “Was that okay?” 

His response is to press their lips back together, but this time only for a moment, before he withdraws. Harry loops his fingers around her wrist and brings her with him back into the main room, flopping onto her bed since it was the closest and urging her to climb into his lap. She straddles him, and just as soon as she’s within reach, he slides his fingers at the nape of her neck and pulls her back to his mouth. 

It was good -- it felt so fucking good, Harry couldn’t begin to describe it. He held her close, and tried as he might to stave off his cock from ruining the moment, the longer they kissed the harder he got. How she was positioned at first made it so she couldn’t really feel him, but when she tried to get closer to him, she scooted her hips forward and rubbed up right against him. A gasp leaves her as she parts from him, looking down, having lifted her hips, “I’m sorry,” she apologizes and Harry gives a startled laugh. 

“I’ve got a stiffy, and you’re apologizing?” He chuckles with a shake of his head, “I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I’ve got a pretty girl in my lap kissing me, s’kind of hard not to get hard. We can stop if you want.” 

“I don’t want to stop,” she answers with no delay nor doubt, as she lowers back down, resting her front on his prick and with this she gives an experimental roll of her hips. Harry hisses in a breath as she does it again, her own little moan slipping from her mouth. She was only in a thin little pair of shorts, and Harry had chosen sweatpants for the night, so there was little fabric truly separating them. Harry was thankful for it as she continued to roll her hips against him, sponging kisses from his mouth, down his jawline, to the curve of his throat. She fixed her lips there, lulling her tongue over the skin before she started suckling at him and Harry’s hands danced along her back, stroking up and down it, feeling her, holding her closer. Each roll of her hips made him harder, and he was desperate to know if she was wet. If he pushed his fingers into her shorts, would they come back slick from her arousal? Would she watch him as he slid them into his mouth to taste her? Would she let him split her thighs and lick straight from the source. 

His mind was overcome with filth, smutty images entangle once innocent thoughts as she brought the blood to the surface of his skin. When one of his hands left where it had latched onto her hip and slowly maneuvered around to her front, she paused, but left her face dipped in his throat, “Are you wet for me?” He asks her quietly and she nods through a little shiver, “Yeah? Bet you soaked through your little panties,” he murmurs as he slides his fingers past the elastic bands of her shorts and underwear, but left his fingers just past them, “Answer me.” 

“Yes,” her voice trembles, she swallows thickly and the muscles in her abdomen contract beneath his fingers. 

Harry hums low, slipping his fingers down further and he dips between her slick folds, “Oh, Sweetheart,” he presses a chaste kiss to the side of her head, “Is this your first time getting wet for me?” She shakes her head, “Hm, really? So you’re like this often? Do you take care of it?” 

“I -- yeah,” she stutters over a moan as the pads of his fingers roll over her swollen clit slowly, feeling it flick beneath them, “At night, sometimes I will in the shower if I can’t. . .if I can’t wait anymore.” 

He feigns a gasp, “Oh my goodness,” he speeds up the slow lull of his fingers, “Your showers are always so fast, doll, you’re really that quick to cum?” 

Harry may not be able to see her face, but he can hear the pout clear in her voice, “It usually isn’t that fast! Just with you, it is -- when I think of you, it’s always quick.” 

He thought it would be impossible for his cock to be harder than it already was, but her words make pre-cum bubble at the tip, and when he dips his fingers back into her slick little hole, he gets even harder. Gliding his fingers from her panties, he draws them up to his mouth and presses them past his lips as he’d wanted to. Y/N has withdrawn from his throat, watching him do it with glassy eyes, her hands resting on his shoulders, digging her fingers into grape sized dents at the muscle. Her mouth falls open as he sucks her juices away, his eyes fluttering and a groan torn from his throat. 

“Get on the bed,” he instructed and Y/N followed without question, crawling from his lap and lying her head on her pillow as Harry stood, and repositioned himself. He takes a hold of shorts and drags them down her legs, wriggling them off her ankle and tossing them elsewhere. His lips finds her ankle first, before he’s peppering and sponging kisses down her leg, the parts that he had tended to throw over his shoulder. When he gets to her thighs, he makes the kisses slower, softer -- he suckles and nips at the supple skin until he’s right before her center, only to switch to her other thigh and push kisses up and down the length of it. 

Y/N’s whole body trembles with each shaky breath she gives. She’d spoken no words until he was positioned right in front of her core, looping his fingers in the waistband of the little cotton pair she had on, pulling them up toward her hips so the fabric stretched out over her. He could see her pussy beneath it, made out the outline of her swollen lips and engorged clit -- it made his mouth water. 

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want,” she tells him, and his gaze is pulled back up to her -- she looks apprehensive. 

“What?” 

She shrugs, “I know some guys don’t really like to so --” 

“Do you want me to eat your pussy?” Harry asks her bluntly, and he revels in the way her eyes widen, and how bashful her face turns as she looks away, “It’s a yes or no question, honey, if you don’t want me to, I can come back up and kiss you while I make you feel good with my fingers. If you do want me to, I’m g’na pull those panties to the side and make you cum on my tongue -- either I’m good with.” 

“I -- yes,” she answers, her voice meek, “Yes I want you to.” 

Harry smiles softly, “Poor thing, How many stupid boys were refusing to eat this sweet little peach?” He runs his thumb up and down her slit, visualizing where the wet spot had grown and soaked her panties so that the fabric thinned. Leaning in, he nosed at her clit and she inhales, “God, I’m so excited — you’re okay with this? You’re okay with me eating this little pussy out? Need you to let me know because once I start sweet girl, I’ll be in heaven.”

“Yes, please, please lick me.”

“So polite,” he suckles a kiss at the very innermost part of her thigh, before licking one, long stripe up her center through the fabric. She moans, pushing her hips down toward his mouth as he drags his tongue over it again, and again, and again. He soaks it with his spit, teasing her — he wanted to pull her panties to the side and suckle and slurp between her lips until she came — but he wants her to beg for him. Wants to hear that she wants him just as much as he wants her. 

He smiles against her as he hears her getting impatient, little huffs between each moan. She whines, her hips bucking up against his tongue — he looks up to her, watching as her chest rises and falls quickly. The fingers of one hand are dug into the sheets beside her, while the others rest between her teeth. Her brows were tilted, lips pouted, whimpers come more frequently the longer he suckles and laps on the fabric, drenching it. 

“Harry,” she finally works out, shivering when he pauses just over her clit and flickers his tongue over the top of it, “Oh, please just -- please.”

“Hm?” He hums against her, jolts, inhaling sharply, “What is it, baby? You’ve got to use your words.” 

“Please stop teasing me,” she tells him, “Please take them off.” 

And Harry may love to tease, but he wasn’t cruel. Wasn’t a bloody monster, was he? So he slides his index and middle finger in between the fabric and her core and tugs them over to the side -- he didn’t want to waste any time wiggling them down her legs. No, instead he dips his tongue in between her lips and slides it flat and straight up to her swollen clit. The groan that leaves her is sinful -- it makes his cock twitch in his pants, his heart slamming against his sternum as he suckles and her fingers find his curls. She digs her fingers within the strands, rocking her hips up to meet his mouth, and for a moment, Harry just leaves his tongue out and flat for her to grind against. Harry thinks, if he could spend the day just strapped to Y/N’s bed, willing, ready, and waiting for her to come use his mouth how she pleased -- he would be inconceivable happy. 

Eventually he wiggles his face back into her, sliding his tongue back and forth before he latches his lips back around her silky folds. The swollen little button crying desperately for his attention was where he spent most of his time, lapping, or lulling his tongue in circles around it. She keens, her heel digs into the mattress and begins to slide down but Harry grabs a hold of her thighs and pushes both of them up, so her knees are to her chest. The new position makes her cry out his name raggedly, and Harry was teeming with carnal desire, and so horny he thinks he would barely have to hump against the mattress to cum. 

“I’m close,” she warns him, mewling, “I’m g’na cum, I’m -- oh, please don’t stop, please don’t stop.” 

Harry doesn’t think he’d stop if he was paid to do it. He doubles his efforts, sucking harder, sliding down to tongue at her hole while his fingers wrapped around and spun little circles into her clit. His other hand he reaches up with and slides his thumb into her mouth and she accepts it graciously, as it muted her moans that grew louder and louder the closer she got. 

When she cums, it’s beautiful -- Harry wishes he would be able to see it on repeat, how her back arched upward and her hips bucked loosely as she pulsated around his tongue. Her mouth hangs open around his thumb, her eyes squeezed shut, the fingers in his hair tighten and her other hand wraps around his wrists and holds him tightly. The initial lurch of it subsides and she melts into the mattress, trying to catch her breath, her chest heaving beneath her sweater. 

After he thoroughly cleans her (until she’s twitching and jumping away from his tongue), he crawls up her body, pushing her sweater up over her breasts, “Can I fuck you, Darling?” He asks her, a small smile on his mouth when she leans her chest closer to him so he can reach behind her and unclip her bra. Tugging the cups away, he grabs them carefully, thumbing over her nipple, “If you don’t want to, that’s okay, don’t feel bad about it, just let me know.” 

“I want you to,” she rushes to tell him, nodding, “Do you have a condom?” 

He dips his head against her chest, breathing out a sigh, “Fuck me,” he utters, shaking his head, “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.” 

He usually does -- Harry always keeps a few on him, but he remembers very vividly he and Y/N had blown his last one up just a few nights prior and drawn a face on it. For a moment he feels hopeless, a sad pit forming in his stomach because the thought of fucking Y/N sounded like paradise and he only brought one bloody condom that he wasted. 

“It’s okay, we’ll do it next time then,” she tells him, and Harry feels a joyful spike in his overall demeanor. Next time -- she wanted there to be a next time? And if she wanted there to be a next time, then they would have to see each other after the camp. . .they would spend time together, Harry could learn what she was like in her normal day to day. He was eager and delighted, and not even just at the prospect of pushing into her (which he was also pretty damn excited for), “I mean, if you wanted to do this again, then, yeah -- right? We’ll hang out after camp is through?”

A smile threatens to split his cheeks, “Of course we will,” he tells her, nosing at her jawline, “And not just ‘cos you promised to let me fuck you. I was hoping we would see each other still but was worried that you might be sick of me.” 

Her brows pinch, “Sick of you? Dummy, I thought you would be sick of me!” She shakes her head, rolling her eyes at the both of them, “We’re so stupid, we ought’a communicate better.” Y/N presses at his abdomen, “C’mon then, I’ll spin around and you can fuck between my thighs. I did it once with a boy -- I just shaved in the shower last night too so it should be soft.” 

Y/N flips over, scooting her bum in the air for him as she cuddles a pillow to her face, her ankles locked in place and her thighs squeezed together. Harry wiggles out of his pants and boxers before he lets a glob of spit fall onto his stiff cock that had soundly slapped up against his stomach, slicking it up nice and wet so the glide between her thighs wouldn’t be too dry. One hand he lays palm flat to her bum, stroking the skin there with his thumb while the other hand navigates his prick, tipping it down and fitting it between her warm, soft thighs. 

It felt good; Harry groans wantonly as he pulls out and sinks back in, watching himself disappear between them. She wiggles her bum at him and Harry playfully swats it, chuckling when she squeals and giggles, “You’re so fucking cute,” he coos before bending over, stretching himself over her so his chest was pressed to her back as he started steadily fucking in between her thighs. One hand he uses to cup her breast and tweak at her nipple while the other he slides down to her pussy, finding her swollen little button and rubbing it. 

Harry’s skin prickles as she moans, her legs falling open just slightly but he tuts his tongue, “Keep them nice and tight for me, baby,” he murmurs, and she nods, tightening the channel for him once more. He won’t last long, he knows it -- he can feel that pool of heat crackling in his lower belly. His blood buzzes in his ears as he fucks his hips forward, their skin slapping together sound in their little cabin. Her breasts bounce with each thrust he gives, she’s beginning to cum again from the ministration of his fingers, and Harry’s nearing the end of his rope. 

“You feel so fucking good,” he’s just a breath away from her ear, “You’re gonna make me cum.” 

He nibbles at the shell of her ear and lets his eyes flutter closed, his senses on overload. All he can hear, and taste, and smell, and feel is her. Dizzy and overwhelmed, Harry feels as if he may burst at the seams. 

“Cum,” she murmurs, “Please, I want you to feel good -- I want you to cum.” 

That’s all it takes -- the little push of her words has his hips stuttering as he cums, spurting long stripes between her thighs, some catching her skin, some landing on her sheets below them. His world fizzles out, static splinters through his body as warmth rushes through his veins, and his toes curl hard enough to lock up. As he comes back to, he giggles, the last of his orgasm drooling from the tip as he pushes a kiss to the back of Y/N’s head, “Stay still, lemme go get us a rag.” 

His legs feel like jelly when he stands, fleeing arse naked to the bathroom and returning moments later with warm, wet rags. He cleans her first, careful in how he works her underwear down her legs before he pats gently around her thighs and at her center. She’s sensitive, so a few times she twitches and flinches from him but eventually relaxes as she holds tightly to the pillow. He wipes himself off a bit haphazardly, more concerned with getting Y/N somewhere to lie down as he gently tugs on her arms, “C’mere, poor thing, I came all over your bed.” 

“Yeah, you jerk,” she says puckishly, letting him guide her over to his bed, climbing in and immediately snuggling beneath his covers. Harry is not too far behind her, and at first she snuggles up close to him, she hisses and squeals before trying to shuffle away, “Why are your feet like ice?” She asks him, her words accusing, like he’d come in the bed with intent to freeze her. 

Harry shrugs, “I dunno’ I usually wear socks to bed to keep them warm.” 

“Socks? To sleep?” She slowly wiggles her way closer to him, despite the words that follow, “I don’t think we can share a bed, you’re batty.” 

“Guess you’ll have to go sleep on the jizzy bed then.” 

Y/N laughs, and Harry feels it vibrate through his body as he holds her close to his chest, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. They’re quiet for a moment, as they both settle, taking deep, slow breaths, allowing themselves to slip towards sleep. 

Before Harry could get there, Y/N murmured his name. 

“Thanks for being my camp ‘husbad’.” 

Harry smiled to himself, and held her a little closer before he teased her. 

“You can say thank you next time with an 18 carat diamond.”  

[ill-skillsgard]

Another goth out here - Can I ask for hc's of all the Bill boys you write for with a goth girl, please?

Why, yes! I’d love to. After all... Everyone needs a cute goth GF, right? You know it’s true.

Axel Cluney

He steals her fishnets. They just look good on him. Axel likes to show some skin and he’s not a fan of real shirts. Only garments with holes in them, and she happens to have a lot of those. Axel will convince her to do a clothing swap with him until she gets fed up sacrificing her clothes and brings him to a goth market where he can buy his own stuff.

They compare tattoos. She has some meaningful and dark tattoos and Axel is covered in ink he let his friend put on him as “practice”...That friend is now in jail tattooing convicts, but Axel insists they’re not prison tats.

He shows her new music. Everything she loves, Axel loved when he was a  kid, and makes it a point to remind her of his refined taste by bringing her mix CDs which she can’t play because who even owns a CD-player anymore? (He buys her one from the local pawn shop so they can listen to Smashing Pumpkins together.)

Axel contemplates dying his hair black. He loves hers, so why not his?

Roman Godfrey

She has a crush on him first, thinking he’s the closest thing to the local “goth” boy, then realizes he’s not goth at all. She might think he’s a poser. After much back and forth, she decides he’s just a fashion guy, but he already has his sights set on her. He wears all the black in his closet and then buys more to assimilate.

Roman’s idea of a first date is bringing her to a forest where he smokes cigarettes and talks about being an outcast. She makes fun of him only a little bit, then steals his scarf. He lets her keep it, saying it looks better on her anyway.

He asks her if she knows any witchcraft or spells; if she believes in spirits and all that. It surprises her to hear these questions and she answers, “why? You wanna put a hex on someone?”

Roman has found a match for his attitude. He thought he was the world’s biggest brat until he meets her. It’s a huge turn-on for him to have a girl that doesn’t put up with bullshit.

Henry Deaver

She scares him. Like a lot. But it’s hot...Right? He doesn’t know if she hates him or not, but he’ll find out once he summons the courage to talk to her.

He’s wildly afraid of coming off as unimpressive, but he doesn’t know what these kinds of girls like. So he buys up a bunch of old-school horror movies, some of them truly god-awful, and hopes she’ll want to watch one of them. Oh, and he has to keep the lights on, and no, he won’t explain why. He just likes to watch movies with the light on. Yes, there’s a glare on the screen, and no, it doesn’t bother him.

She figures out Henry is jumpy and will lurk in the shadows to pop out at him at any chance. He screams and clutches his chest the first couple of times, then spends the rest of their time together peering around corners and assessing where she is at all times.

He will not make the first move. She kisses him first, under a full moon, and Henry practically melts.

The Kid

He’s the only man that kind of freaks her out. He’s tall, dark, quiet, and not in the typecast way. This guy looks like a dead tree. He kind of sits there all stiff and wide-eyed like ghosts are talking to him. Until he cracks his first gentle smile, she’s not even sure he has a pulse.

The Kid knows all the best scary movies, and we’re not talking Friday the  Thirteenth and A Nightmare on Elm Street. He has a stash of the freakiest underground film that makes even her feel uncomfortable watching, and she grew up on this shit.

She likes to wear dark lipstick, and he’s the only one who doesn’t make snide or “clever” comments. He likes the way she dresses and does herself up. It reminds him of a little porcelain doll. A cursed doll, but cute nonetheless.

To her surprise, he kisses her first. He’s not the most vocal guy, but he can read body language, and he knows it’s the right time. When he pulls away, the smile on her face turns his icy insides to liquid.

Henry Pearl

They meet at a midnight art showing in the middle of the town’s square. Her booth is set up with her spooky dolls and sinister paintings, sculptures and metaphysical crafts of bone and crystals. Henry gravitates toward her when he hears people whispering about her weird art.

She begs him to teach her some painting techniques, as she’s intrigued by his skill, and he obliges, but only later at night.

He makes her breakfast at night, explaining that nine PM is the perfect time for pancakes. She doesn’t mind since she’s a night owl by nature.

After they see each other for a few weeks, Henry paints a portrait of her and gets his first kiss as a result. It rocks his entire world. After the kiss, all he ever wants to paint is her face.

Mickey

He tries a little too hard to get her attention at first. She doesn’t know whether she finds him pathetic or if it’s kiiinda cute how he follows her around like a puppy.

They bond over music one day in Mickey’s car, which is NOT the car she first saw him driving. He lights up when metal plays, croons to power ballads, gets emotional over the break-up songs. She can see he’s a genuine dude who wears his emotions on his sleeve.

Mickey brings her flowers he stole from various gardens. He had a vision of buying her a bouquet of black roses, but they wanted 60 bucks at the store, so he improvises by prowling the garden district with a pair of shears.

Her black collars excite him. He asks if they mean anything or if they’re just fashion. She teases him and tells him if he wants to find out, he’ll have to prove himself. So he spends the rest of the week acting like the perfect boyfriend, though they’re not “official”, they are in his mind and he doesn’t have eyes for anyone else.

Merkel

Maybe the only guy who might be more goth than her. He likes black, wearing make-up and knows all the best underground clubs where they play dark industrial and everyone dresses like her.

He asks if he can dress her one day. To her surprise, Merkel has trunks of clothes he’s taken from fashion shoots. He styles her and stages his own photoshoot with her as his muse. The pictures are strikingly editorial, and she has the best time.

Merkel talks about hanging out with all her idols. She listens with heart-eyes and a smile to rival a sunrise to the stories of Gordon’s travels through Europe.

Invites her over to his place one night for wine and black-and-white movies, but all she wants to do is check out his handcuff collection and put them to use. With a coy look, he escorts her to his studio apartment, asking, “do you have your own safeword, or should we decide on one now?”

Willard Russell

He doesn’t understand all the black, but he wants to because he thinks she looks beautiful. He’s never seen a girl like her before. Maybe she’s an angel, maybe she’s the opposite... All Willard knows is he wants to talk to her.

She understands his melancholy, and he doesn’t feel like he needs to put on a happy mask when she’s around. It’s a breath of fresh air to feel like he can be himself in front of someone who doesn’t try to change him.

Her intelligence baffles him, and she doesn’t speak like the folks he grew up with. She’s different in every way, and he falls in love with her quickly.

Willard makes her a tree swing in the forest where they like to go to be alone. She finds this incredibly sweet and kisses him on the cheek before taking a seat on the wooden plank. His skin heats from where her lips touched, and he spends the rest of the evening with her in a lovestruck daze.

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

anyway now that a Tom Holland and Tom Hardy movie seems unavoidable, we need to make Peter Parker a photographer again, so we can reintroduce the Workplace Rivalry dynamic between him and Eddie Brock, which will be a MILLION times funnier with the actors' age gap.

End of the movie Venom, Eddie was getting back on his feet and judging from the post credit scene had his reporter job back. Can you imagine, he's feeling great, he's feeling like a star again, and then here comes this 17 year old asshole hotshot crazy talented photographer who is stealing the hearts of everyone in the office. Peter is being his usual sweetheart self to everyone BUT Eddie because Eddie sets his spidey sense off and he can't figure out why. So there can be a running gag of Eddie trying to convince people Peter is a total brat and then they cut to him offering to help 3 different coworkers at the same time while also handing out cupcakes. Eddie's trying to convince Anne something is up with the kid and then they pass him on the street walking 10 dogs and offering to carry a woman's groceries for her so Anne thinks he's crazy again.

Meanwhile Peter IS being weird around Eddie, mostly because of the spidey sense issue. But also because Eddie has been trying to undermine all his work since the moment he started there- like, SURE, he's TECHNICALLY cheating with the great pictures of Spider-Man, but Eddie doesn't know that!! And he takes other pictures too!! So he starts taking advantage of his super hearing so he'll know what story Eddie is planning on doing and he can get the scoop first lmao. This just drives Eddie crazier because he's SURE this means the kid is spying on him but he can't PROVE IT!! He keeps complaining about it to his boss and the boss is like Eddie my man,,,,,he's a teenager,,,,you've won a Pulitzer before,,,,focus your energy elsewhere,,,,

but he DOESN'T.

So the boss gets wind of some crazy main plot shit going down and he's like alright, I need my two best workers on this case, yes they hate each other but maybe this will force them to Get Along.

That's right folks, I AM demanding a Spidey and Venom buddy-cop type film.

Anyway while they're working on the story they both realize this is something their vigilante alter-egos should be dealing with- so both Eddie&Venom and Spider-Man are trying to investigate the story for Work, Where They Make Money To Not Be Homeless, but they're also trying to do their hero job, and they're both also trying to figure out how to go about that without revealing their identities to each other. Whacky hijinks ensues.

Things that will definitely happen in this movie:

The flash on Peter's camera going off at a Terrible moment and giving away their hiding place

Eddie and Peter keep wildly getting each other's ages wrong- Eddie insisting Peter's prepubescent and Peter insisting Eddie must be in his 70s. At one point when someone asks them who they are while they're undercover, Peter says Eddie is his grandfather. After they realize each other's identities, there's a scene where they're arguing with a guy, doing Good Cop Bad Cop, and Venom snaps and bites his head off, and Peter's like 'I fucking KNEW you were a Boomer'

At the end of the film after they stagger home after a very cinematic superhero fight, they find Anne and Aunt May drinking wine and having a ladies night

Somewhere around the third act after they stop hating each other Eddie is going to have a 'fuck am I a father figure' moment, but Peter has moved on from his daddy issues and is now in a Men Are Trash stage and refuses to let it happen. Eddie like tries to give him some advice or something like he's trying to have a #moment and Peter shuts it down so fast lmao. So by the end of the film, even though they don't hate each other anymore, their comical dynamic hasn't actually changed which is Great

They're either going to spend Too Much time having Peter deal with Venom eating people, or they'll just brush over it altogether

After they do get past the cannibal thing, Venom is going to LOVE Peter just like everyone else and it'll drive Eddie even crazier

Since both their previous movies leaned heavily into comedy, the identity reveal scene is going to be way more humorous than dramatic or climactic. I'd imagine Tom Hardy doing his whole unhinged thing as he's finally Validated after being told he's crazy the whole movie, and Tom Holland could easily match that energy since Peter would obviously be freaking out about Venom. Like the fight ends and they're both freaking the fuck out on each other lmao

Eddie and Peter will have insulting nicknames for each other but by the end of the film you can tell they mean them affectionately and everyone watching will be Soft about it

This movie...writes itself. And something light-hearted and not done before would be the easiest way to bring back Spidey after the mcu split. Both actors have a great range and with how Unhinged Hardy's Eddie and how Anxious Holland's Peter are, it could be hilarious to see then bounce off each other as a team rather than as enemies...Sony. Please. Do what the cowards at Marvel won't and Call Me.

[princesssarisa]

Cinderella September-through-November: "Cinderella," silent film starring Mary Pickford, 1914

I first learned about this silent Cinderella from J.B. Kaufman's book The Fairest One of All, the definitive guide to the making of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Kaufmann mentions it because it was made by Famous Players, the same company that later produced the 1916 Snow White starring Marguerite Clark which made such a strong impression on the teenage Walt Disney. While less famous than the 1916 Snow White because it didn't influence Disney in the same way, it's still a sweet, pretty and enjoyable Cinderella, definitely worth seeing. Not least because it stars the silent era's "Queen of the Movies," Mary Pickford.

The screenwriters seem to have assumed that all the filmgoers would have already known the story of Cinderella (which was probably true), so the tale is told in fairly simple strokes. The intertitles are kept to a minimum too, letting the onscreen action speak for itself. Still, the film doesn't lack creative choices. Sometimes this version seems to borrow elements from both of the two opera adaptations, La Cenerentola and Cendrillon, or possibly from stage plays that either influenced or were influenced by them. The Fairy Godmother first appears as an old beggar woman, scorned by the Stepmother and Stepsisters, but treated kindly by Cinderella. In response, after secretly returning to her true form (a beautiful, youthful fairy in a long flowing gown), she sends a bevy of little girl-like fairies to help Cinderella find firewood in the forest. During this same forest errand, Cinderella and Prince Charming meet for the first time, as he happens to be there with a hunting party of noblemen, and is kind and gallant even as his friends laugh at her clumsiness and rags.

In another inventive scene that doesn't advance the plot but does add color, the Stepsisters (uglied up with long, crooked putty noses, as has often been done in stage productions) visit an old woman fortune teller, who looks more like a Halloween witch with a pointed black hat, a cauldron, and a bevy of sinister dwarfs to assist her. She foretells that a member of their family will marry the prince, which naturally delights them. But that night, their guilt at having consulted the occult causes them to have a nightmare about the old hag and her dwarfs. This is contrasted with Cinderella's peace of mind and sweet dream of dancing fairies after she prays before bed, trusting in God rather than superstition. (This is all spelled out in the intertitles, which tend to be very preachy about the story's morals.) But later, after Cinderella's frantic run home from the ball, she has a surrealistic nightmare sequence of her own, in which the palace clock spins wildly and its numbers jumble while two dwarfs pound out the chimes of midnight.

The finale is a bit different than usual too. As in the opera Cendrillon, all the ladies gather at the palace to try on the glass slipper, rather than the slipper being taken from house to house. (I wonder if this was a standard choice in stage adaptations at the time, to condense the slipper-fitting and the happily-ever-after ending into a single, grand final scene?) Just when all seem to have tried it, a courtier looks at the list of all the maidens in the kingdom, sees Cinderella's name and realizes she's not there. The Prince goes straight to her house to find her, recognizes her instantly, and brings her back to the palace to confirm her identity with the slipper.

Even though the film's surviving print is unsurprisingly fuzzy, given its age, it's still a pretty movie. The settings of woodland and magnificent mansions create a good atmosphere of fantasy and elegance. The costumes are generally in the 18th century rococo style, which suits the haughty Stepmother and Stepsisters especially well, but the Prince wears a Renaissance-style costume, giving him more of a classic Prince Charming look, while Cinderella's slender ballgown looks straight out of the Napoleonic era, but with a Renaissance-esque hairnet crowning Pickford's signature ringlets. It's an odd mix of styles, but it does evoke "once upon a time." The special effects are predictably simple by modern standards, but still convey the right sense of magic.

22-year-old Pickford is an appropriately sweet, vulnerable and winsome Cinderella: it's no wonder that she was the most popular movie ingenue of her era. Her then-husband Owen Moore is a handsome, decently charming Prince, although his acting is slightly more stagy than hers. (And the knowledge of their unhappy marriage and eventual ugly divorce does make their love scenes less easy to watch.) Inez Marcel's lovely Fairy Godmother and the appropriately mean, caricatured yet not overplayed Stepmother and Stepsisters of Isabel Vernon, Georgia Wilson and Lucille Carney nicely round out the main cast.

Cinderella completists and lovers of silent film definitely shouldn't pass this version by. Of course compared to later films it feels antique and primitive, but it's still a charming little Cinderella that undoubtedly paved the way for the more famous later adaptations, and an excellent vehicle for silent Hollywood's most legendary ingenue actress.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock

[roseytoesy]

paws and claws 2

WARNING: this set of mini stories contain soft, safe vore. Also this is a really long post... I got carried away. sorry!

A/N: So this was a bit difficult to write out but hopefully it worked out. Also please send any feedback on what you liked! Also left out lucifer and Asmo cause I couldn’t think of anything really for him. Also Satan cause it would end up a lot like @dine-on-darling ‘s Satan story. I left out any non carnivorous characters.

context: It was the last day of filming and Rose was sitting around in the stage area wondering where the others were. It was hard to tell if the others were putting on costumes or rehearsing, but with the effects and feeling of each costume Rose was starting to think that those weren't costumes. But if they weren’t, Then what were they using to change into these animals? Some searching later while the others decided how the ending should go she wandered into the backroom she was told not to go in. After the filming of the different endings the others were chatting and looking over the footage, Rose slipped off into that backroom looking around. There wasn’t much other than racks of costumes, seats, and a strange little crystal in a pedestal. She grabbed the crystal and felt a rush of power flow from the crystal into her body. She quickly dropped it back into its spot doubling over as her skin burned and her vision blurred. Her eyes opened after a few seconds of nausea, the room was a lot bigger all of a sudden and with a twitch of her new ears and tail she realized what had happened. Before she could mumble to herself about how this has gone wrong, she hears footsteps approaching. New instincts guided her to climb the cloths and onto the shelves above the racks of costumes. She looked around from her new view point, her eyes widened as they made contact with someone else standing in the doorway ...

Mammon

He stood there stunned for a few seconds, then a smirk stretched across his face as he started making his way towards the now squirlified Rose. 

“look at what we hav’ here.” he said her tail swishing behind him with anticipation. her eyes widened as she scrambled to climb higher on a wardrobe towards the exit. He quickly moved to intercept her leap from he shelves to the wardrobe. “ well hello there little squirrel~” he said as she struggled in his grasp.

“hi, mammon. quick question could you not mention this to anyone else? please. its embarrassing enough to be so small. I touched that strange crystal thing... I’m sorry.” she said her tail twitching anxiously. He hummed as she told her story and explained that the effects wear off in a few hours, they were just waiting for it to wear off so then they could go home. 

as he explained the situation the rose she couldn’t hep but hear his stomach growl under her as she was held against his chest as he sat down. He then lifted her up to his face noticing how much she looked at his mouth. He smirked again showing off his fangs.

“what's wrong Rose? scared of a big bad cat?” he teased as he brought her closer to his face. he teasingly dragged his tongue against her face and chuckled as she sputtered and struggled. This was far from the first time he has eaten her and he was more than happy to listen to the small instinct whispering in his mind to eat such a small creature. 

“maybe.” she said glaring at him for the lick. “But don’t underestimate this squirrel I’ll give quite the fight!” she said wriggling in his grasp. 

he smiled and opened his mouth causing her to let out a small eep! as he dropped her onto his rough tongue. He purred as she thrashed in his mouth, her tail twitching wildly past his lips. He tasted her and enjoyed the seemingly endless energy she seamed to have in this small form. He tilted his head back and swallowed with a loud GLK. 

She was pulled and pushed down his throat and he followed her decent with a finger, his tail twitching in pleasure as she slipped past his collar. She was shoved into the tight space of his stomach and started to stretch out and push and kick the walls around her. His purr increased as he sat back, enjoying the squirms and watched small little bumps push out from the small lump on his middle. Barely noticeable to anyone. 

“heh, my little squirrel sure has some fight, but don’t worry, the Great Mammon will spare you for such a nice filling snack.” he chuckled as he rubbed his belly smiling fondly. “I’ll let you out when we get home.”

“what?! but the others will get suspicious! and I highly doubt that you of all people would be able to smuggle me in. Even if I am this small.” she said slowing her struggles. now just moving to get comfortable in the constricting space. 

“eh? ya have no faith in me! Well I’ll prove you wrong!” he said squishing his belly with a hand. “ ‘sides we aren’t leaving for at least another hour, so I get to have you all to myself till then.” he said laying back on the couch and gently rubbing his happily gurgling belly as rose grumbled but relaxed into his gentle touch. 

Beelzebub

His eyes winded then he started moving forward. Rose quickly started scampering up the shelves as he approached.

 “Rose?” he asked. stunned to see the human had grown a squirrel tail and ears. 

“h-hi Beel.” she said stopping on a high shelf. “I, uh,” she sighed,“ ya, I’m a squirrel. I’m sorry I touched the crystal. I was just curious about this back room.” she said trying to defend her situation. 

“That's ok, the effect wear off after a few hours.” he said. He held ut his hand for her to hop onto, she happily excepted the ride to the couch. She happily snuggled into his large palm. 

GRRRGGGGG

Beelzebub blushed as his stomach growled loudly. He started to look around for any snacks the others might have left, but found nothing. “everything alright Beel? Rose asked 

“can’t find anything to eat, and I’m hungry.” he mumbled as he lifted his hand up to his face. His pupils dilated as he watched her tail twitch, his eyes shined with hunger and drool started to form in his mouth. She noticed the change in him instantly and leapt off of his palm but was grabbed  by her tail before she could grab onto the couch to get away from the hungry predator. 

He then lifted her small form above his head, opening his mouth in anticipation. She was slowly lowered past his sharpened canines and onto his rough sandpaper like tongue. his lips closed around her tail and he started drenching and moving her around in his mouth, careful to avoid his teeth. He slurped up her tail and sent her down his throat with a strong GULP.

She struggled against the constricting muscles but her efforts didn’t slow her incredibly fast trip to the avatar of gluttony’s stomach. He purred as he felt her shift. His hands gently rubbing at his now slightly rounded stomach. Rose squirmed and kicked, agitated that he ate her without her permission. 

Beel happily sat on the couch rubbing at Rose’s form. “mmmmm, thanks for helping me out. Sorry to eat you so quickly but I was so hungry.” he apologized and explained that once they get home he will let them out. 

“its fine, just give me more of a warning next time if you can.” rose grumbled as she made herself comfortable in the warm and soft environment. She rubbed the stomach around her as he rubbed back, both content with the situation. 

Solomon

“well, well, well, look at what I found.” Solomon said with a smirk, closing and locking the door behind himself. “looks like someone touched something they weren't supposed to.” he added as he walked closer and pulled out his star wand as Rose started to scurry up the shelves. She let out a yelp when gravity seemed to increase on her and fell to the floor where Solomon just missed catching her. she landed with a thud and scurried to the racks of cloths. He gave chase his snow leopard instincts activating that the thrill of the chase. rose wove and climbed the clothing to her best ability with what felt like a 30lb weight holding down her entire body. Solomon was able to get a successful pounce and pinned down Rose to the rug carpet. She let out a squeak as she struggled to get out of his hold.

“well that was fun.” he panted sitting back against the nearby wall. He was holding her with both hands as his tail moved the wand and gravity seemed to return to normal for Rose. 

“I’m sorry! please don’t tell the others!” she said horrified at the punishment lucifer would put on her and the chaos that the others would make to pull her new little form into. He chuckled as he held her, bringing her up to his face and taking a deep breath. The snow leopard instincts were whispering for him to eat her. of course she will be safe with another flick of his wand and a few whispered phrases. He hummed after secretly casting the spell closing his eyes in pretend thought. 

“how about we make a little deal,” he smiled showing his sharpened teeth, “I wont tell the others if you do a little something for me.” he said in a teasing tone.

“what is it?” she asked

“I don’t have to tell you yet, i just need you to agree right now.” he said smiling not so innocently.

“well that's shady as heck Solomon. No.” she stated with a frown, somewhat insulted he thought her to be that naïve. 

“well then guess I’ll go tell lucifer that you disobeyed his order to not go into this back room.” he said looking her in her eyes, challenging her to try again. “Oh Luci-” he started with his voice raised. 

“OK! ok! fine you win!” she cried more scared of lucifers’ punishments than the wicked intent of the sorcerer holding her captive.

“great glad we could come to an arrangement,” he said happily as if he didn’t just threaten and chase her down a few seconds before hand. “snack.” he added. Her eyes widened as he lifted her up above his face. She struggled and was even tempted to scream for the others, Solomon didn’t have a pact with her, he was human, he didn’t have the magical restrictions that protected her when the others ate her. 

“wait! I don’t have any protection! Solomon! solo-mhmph!” she yelled at him until he engulphed her head in his mouth not wasting any time getting her taste. He surprised himself when he felt a small purr rise in his chest at the salty and savory flavor blossomed across his taste buds. His tail waved back and forth with pleasure as she wiggled. He swallowed again and again, slowly dragging her down his eager throat and tasting as much of her as he could. With one last swallow he sent her feet down his throat into his rounded stomach. She thrashed and squirmed shouting at him that she wasn’t safe, he of course knew otherwise but those squirms felt so nice. 

After a good five minutes enjoying her squirms he could tell she was starting to become distressed, so with a sigh he explained his little trick as he rubbed his belly. 

“you, YOU! you suck Solomon! I was really scared...” she kicked at the pressure that was gently pushing against her. 

He sighed “I know, I’m sorry but you’re just to easy to tick and you give the best reactions I just couldn’t help myself, but do understand I would never really want to bring you unnecessary harm.” he gently patted his belly and shifted to lay on his side, his tail gently laying across the small bump on his middle. “for now just rest. i’ll let you out and clean you up when its time to go.” he added leting himself relax as he opened his D.D.D to pass the time, along with some small chats with Rose as she sat within him. 

Belphegor

He slowly blinked his eyes, wondering if this was another walking dream he was having. Once rose started scrambling up the shelves, something in his mind gave him a boost of energy for a hunt. He mostly awaited for rose to slip as he didn’t want to climb anything, he felt active but not that active. just watching that energetic tail was making him tired. 

As she jumped over him towards the exit that's when he pounced, grabbing her by her tail and lifting her off of the carpeted ground.” well hello there little creature.” he said blandly with a mischievous look in his eyes. “now what is something like you doing in a place like this. Don’t you know there are dangerous predators around?” he said vaguely gesturing towards the door way he had left open. He walked over and let his tail close the door as he made himself comfortable on the couch. He watched her quietly wondering how he wanted to lead up to having a nice snack, but feeling tired and a bit hungry, he just decided to poke some fun then get on with it. 

“well i was just trying to explore a bit and I uhh touched that crystal and got turned into this.” Rose explained honestly, not able to look him in his eyes as they bore into her. He rose his eyebrows a bit, once again surprised that this human didn’t change much with how honest she always was. His stomach then let out a low growl and he smirked a bit.

“heh sounds like a nice time to have a little curious snack. Teach them to be careful in a place full of animals.” he snatched her in his hand as she started to turn away, ready to run. “nuh, uh, uhhhh,” he tutted. “never trust a fox that takes you to his den.” he said. He then rolled onto his back and lifted her struggling form above his face. Dropping her in without much care. She landed on his tongue and tried to scramble out of his mouth but his lips and teeth gently but securely kept her in place, despite her struggles and voiced protests. He hummed around her, enjoying her taste, but his stomach growled again and he wanted to get to his nap. He swallowed and smirked around her shoulders as her legs slipped into his throat. He swallowed again and one last time feeling her wriggling down to his slightly protruding middle. 

“belph! what the heck dude! let me out!” rose said, more upset at being restricted of exploration than being eaten. 

he hummed for a bit and yawned into his hand, “no. I like sleeping with a full belly, so you’re not going anywhere. Besides you’ll need a shower ,so you’ll have to wait till we go home anyway.” he replied poking his belly as it wiggled with her movements. 

“youre so mean!” She said with a kick at his hand as it rubbed at her form.

“ya, ya, but you know you like me.” he replied teasingly. He let his heavy eyelids droop as he curled up on his side to sleep. “now shut up I’m going to nap.” he said with a yawn. She went to say more but a small sigh of sleep from belphagor was all it took for her to bite her tongue and relax into her holding place. 

[thosekidswhohuntmonsters]

Playing With Fire

Summary: Sure Tom is twice the readers age, but she's tired of being treated as some naive little thing. When she finally confronts Tom she soon finds out that she's playing with fire.

Word Count: 2780

Rating: v spicy, deff 18+

Authors note: almost finished reposting all my tom stories! woohoo! 

♡if you enjoy this fic you’re welcome to leave a reblog/like/comment! feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged!♡

The interviewer was nearly beaming, “So in the last trailer, there was quite the scene between you and Tom”. Instantly you smiled, knowing exactly what scene she was referencing. Without answering the question you teased, “That was in there for like a split second, how did you all pick up on it?”.

Anthony intervened, “Because it was you and Hiddleston getting it on...that’s all the world could ask for!”. The crowd ate up Anthony’s response, cheering wildly for him. Finally Tom spoke up, “I didn’t know our kiss had the ability to save an entire planet (y/n)”.

Turning to him you nodded your head, “I don’t know, it was a pretty good kiss”. While Tom tried to hide a blush, all the fans went wild again. Unable to resist you added, “I mean..am I wrong here or?”.

That caused you and all of your castmates to erupt with laughter. Evans shimmied a little bit, “Ohh (y/n) I think his inability to answer the question means it was”. You didn’t know who was more excited, the audience or the interviewer.

Quickly she added, “ I think the chemistry between your characters is quite prevolevent, we see sort of a build up in the last film and now it seems to be exploding”. Hoping you weren’t alone with the millions of dirty jokes filling your mind you turned to Sebastian, and the look on his face made you realize you weren’t the only one.

Anthony was more blunt, “Y’all are getting very creative with phrasing nowadays…”. The interviewer smiled, and she was nearly blushing herself. You laughed a little, “I was afraid I’d been the only one picking up on the double meanings here”.

Reeling you all back in as if you were children Tom finally spoke up. His voice was soft, “No other character has had an immediate effect on Loki in the way (y/n)’s character has. I think Taiki did a wonderful job in the last film not only introducing her, but almost showing her through Loki’s eyes at some points”.

He finished his sentence with a warm smile as he held your gaze. You smiled too, “Working with Taiki was amazing, I think he’s the reason why my character was able to flourish in the way she did. The response I’ve gotten from fans is just incredible”.

Evans made a face, “That was sweet, but neither of you answered the question. Let’s be real, Loki wants to smash”. Once again the entire room, the stage included, was filled with laughter.

Chris patted Tom’s shoulder, “I mean sorry bro but I’m right aren’t I?”. As if on cue the entire audience shouted back “yes” to Chris, only encouraging him. An eager hush fell over the room as everyone waited to see how you and Tom would respond.

Tom adjusted his glasses, “I mean..that’s one way to put it Chris. I’d much prefer to say that the desire from Loki’s side  is definitely there, but he’s trying to keep it hidden. It’s another internal battle Loki has with himself; to indulge in his feelings or remain closed off”.

Chris rolled his eyes at Tom’s nearly poetic response, but soon found himself smiling. All eyes turned to you, waiting to see your take on things. You saw hundreds of phones in the audience, all recording your next words.

“While I feel that my character is complex, and still developing on screen, I think she has more freedom. While she shares having a rough past with Loki, she uses hers as motivation to not waste any of her present. Chris put it beautifully, she wants to smash”.

It was so entertaining to see everyone's faces during your heartfelt answer, and the watch their reactions change completely. Tom was shaking his head but there was a clear smirk across his face.

The panel went on and you and your castmates continued to enjoy yourselves. With the movie coming out in a couple days, everyone was less stressed about having to keep secrets. You loved teasing Tom Holland about his spoiling, but you could relate to his stress.

After the panel had finally finished you were all moved to a waiting room. Instantly Evans asked, “So what are we all doing later?”. Everyone began throwing out different plans, naming certain bars and clubs, but Tom was silent.

Quietly you asked, “Are you seriously not going out with the group?”. He laughed softly before turning his head towards you. He whispered back, “Love I hate to disappoint but-”. Maybe it was because of his last breakup, but he’d been in a funk.

You didn’t even let him continue, “Fine if you’re not going out then I’m at least not letting you stay in alone”. Before he could protest Chris repeated over the final plans for tonight, the group reaching their consensus.

You smiled, “I’d love to see what drunk shenanigans you all get into, especially you Chris, but I think I’m tapping out tonight. Rain Check on making horrible decisions we’ll all regret in the morning?”.

Chris raised one of his eyebrows as he tried to figure out why you’d say no, sure you weren’t the biggest drinker but you’d always been down to come along. After finally putting things together he grinned, “Sure thing kid, I have a feeling you’re gonna enjoy yourself anyways”.

While the group continued to talk about what tonight would entail, you continued to hold Chris’s gaze. When he knew no one else was looking he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and mouthed, “finally”.

Knowing exactly what he’d meant you rolled your eyes overdramatically mouthing back, “Fuck off”. Chris laughed it off, knowing full well that you were just joking. He was one of your closest friends, and he knew nearly everything about you.

Mundane things like your favorite color and time of the year, but more interesting things like your turn offs’ and ons’, and especially the fact that you had a major crush on Tom Hiddleston.

Preparing for tonight everyone went their separate ways, different security guards escorting everyone to their rooms and such. As the room became empty Tom turned to you, “Love are you sure you don’t want to go out with the rest of the group?”.

You smiled, “One can always get drunk, but spending a night discovering what the Tom Hiddleston thinks is fun is a once in a lifetime opportunity”. Once again he tried to hold back a smirk, but couldn’t.

“Hate to disappoint but my night is going to begin in my hotel room”. You didn’t back down, infact Tom had no idea how that was all you’d ever wanted to hear. Boldly you teased, “Normally that's where a night ends”.

It felt good to see him laugh, especially if it was from something you’d said. As the guards let you both to the elevators he softly said, “Darling you are trouble”. You watched him bite his lip, and you thought you were going to explode right then and there.

Within a minute or two you were in his room, a huge fucking bundle of nerves but trying to mask it. As he closed the door you asked, “So let me guess, we start the night off with some tea?”.

He chuckled softly, “I was thinking wine”. You gasped while placing a hand over your heart, causing him to laugh once again from your teasing. Tom sat down on the bed and began calling room service.

While you waited you continued to look around the room, well really it was more of like a mini apartment. Something you’d never get used to was the rooms marvel put you all up in, it was much more luxurious than needed.

Tom’s drink choice only made your nerves only worse. He’d been acting as if this was going to be some boring night, but here you were dressed to the nines in his hotel room about to order a bottle of wine.

After you heard him hang up the phone you turned back around to face him. With fake casualness you asked, “What's next on the agenda?”. You were starting to think you had no idea where this night was going to go.

Tom began taking off his tie, “First I’m getting out of this bloody suit”. For a moment you blinked, pretty sure you were just dreaming at this point. After realizing you were staring you nodded your head.

“Oh you don’t know the half of it hun”. With that you stepped out of your heels and began taking off your jewelry. By now his button up was hanging loosely from his body, “Well you look ravishing”.

You were leaning against one of the bureaus, while he still sat down on the bed. You felt lighter now with most of your outfit off, “I’m on to you Tom, and your whole gentleman act”. He raised his eyebrows at you, still playing dumb.

“Anything leaving that pretty mouth of yours is trouble, but the word ravishing? Makes a girl feel all kinds of things”.

Slowly Tom’s tongue ran over his lips, before he bit his bottom lip altogether. You heard a knock on the door but before you answered it you repeated, “Trouble”. Tom never felt more connected to Loki than in this exact moment.

He was having his own internal struggle right now; to finally let you know how he feels, or to fight back the most intense feelings of desire he’s ever experienced. Throughout this entire night he’d slowly been losing; inviting you up to his room, ordering wine for you both, eyeing you like you were a meal, but he couldn’t help himself.

It didn’t help either that you’d been teasing him nonstop, it was like you were begging him to make a move. Leaning forward while taking off your shoes giving him a perfect look at your cleavage, teasing him about where a good night ends, it was all getting to him.

After tipping the hotel staff you entered back into the room, “Alright Hiddleston, let’s get down to it”. You’d pulled him out of his thoughts, causing him to finally look back up at you. Walking towards him you placed down the two glasses on the nightstand, still holding the bottle in your hands.

Tom was apprehensive, “And what exactly is it?”. You wiggled your eyebrows making him smile. After you both laughed you got serious, “This funk you’ve been in. Is it because your last rela-”.

He shook his head, his ex was the last thing he’d been thinking about. She’s left his mind months ago, and hadn’t entered his thoughts since. You on the other hand had nearly consumed him.

The only thing that stopped him was that he was nearly twice your age, you were only twenty-three. You were young, playful, a complete tease, but the worst part was that your qualities weren’t just skin deep.

You were also everything he’d ever wanted emotionally; always so concerned about your friends well being, empathetic, incredibly funny, so wonderful to your fans, and somehow much wiser than most people his age.

Getting up from the bed you began to pour yourself a glass, “Look, you can get tipsy and tell me what’s wrong or you can tell me when you’re sober and skip all the awkwardness of the morning after”. He shook his head, if you wanted honesty he’d give it to you.

“You sure you want the truth (y/n)?”. You nearly spit out your wine, was he being serious? Sarcastically you asked, “What can I not handle the truth?”. Your reaction caused Tom to shake his head.

“Darling, I think you’re being a little naive. You still have some-”. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing, he was playing the age card. Sure you were younger, but hey you were older than Tom Holland!

You shook your head, “Oh so I’m too young and innocent now? What could you possibly have to say that my fragile little ears can’t handle?”. You could feel the moment escalating, especially with the look in his eyes.

His voice was sultry, “Oh love you’d be surprised”. You wanted to doubt him but the current look on his face sent shivers down your spine. Trying to regain your confidence you said, “Then surprise me”.

Tom got off of the bed completely, and started walking around the room. His tie had been loosely hanging around his neck but now he’d gripped it in his hands. It was like a prop, “For starters, you’re too seductive for your own good”.

God how did he make sex sound like shakespeare? Your eyes widened, “Tom what does that even mean?”. Sighing he ran his hands through his hair, he was trying to find the words. He looked to you again, “Do you have any idea of your affect on me? How flustered you make me in front of thousands?”.

As he continued he groaned, “God it just makes me want too-”. He stopped himself mid-sentence, knowing that he was going to shift the entire mood if he continued. By now he was standing in front of you, only inches away physically by a sea away mentally.

You looked up at him, “Makes you want to want? What does it make you want to do to me?”. He’d told you that you were playing with fire but you were calling his bluff. His voice was deeper now, “Little girls shouldn't play with fire”.

That sentence went right to your core. The thing was that Tom looked like he was enjoying himself while saying it, it was the most blissful he’d been in months. You licked your lips, “Are you afraid you’re going to take advantage of me somehow? I’m twenty-three years old Tom”.

As you continued you let one of your hands trail up your body, “You treat me like I’m some innocent fragile little girl, but I’m not as vanilla as you think”. Your response only seemed to amuse him more.

“Have you ever considered that I like that you’re older than me? I don’t want some little boy, I want a man. I want someone to take control, and satisfy my needs”.

His breathing was deeper now, any control he’d been clinging on to had now vanished. Leaning forward he placed his hands on either side of you, almost trapping your body. His voice was much deeper now, “Why don’t you really tell me what you want me to do”.

You leaned forward, “What? That I want you to fuck me like a real man? Pin me down and take me? I don’t know Tom, I’m so fragile and innocent I might break”. Your smirk was the largest it had been all night.

He let his hand trail softly down your cheek before gripping your chin tightly. Tom used his grip to tilt your head up and hold it firmly in place, “You little minx”. You licked your lips, you desire showing now more than ever.

“Look at you now, licking your lips inches from my throbbing cock. Is that what you want love, my cock wrapped around those pretty lips?”.

You nodded your head, convinced that if you tried to speak you’d just moan. Shaking his head he groaned again, he couldn’t believe how beautiful you looked. He’d never had someone look up at him so intoxicated before, and he imagined he’d been looking the same way at you.

Tom was letting himself go, finally indulging in ways he’d wanted too ever since your first scene together. He clicked his tongue, “As much as I’d love to see that, I think some payback is in order”.

To your surprise Tom got down on his knees before you, his face now level with yours. Slowly his hands ran up your thighs and pushed back your skirt, “Well darling, let’s hope you’re not this quiete for much longer”.

As you watched the smirk form upon his lips you knew his whole gentlemen act had finally been through completely out the door. You started to pull your dress off completely, “Be careful what you wish for babe”.

Using his grip on your thighs he pulled you closer to his mouth. His tongue darted out of his mouth and swept across his bottom lip, “And I’m trouble?”. Together you laughed for a moment, thankful for how effortless this all felt.

Tom was amazed how you could so easily flow from making him smile and laugh to wanting to rip your clothes off and pin you against the nearest wall. He decided that he didn’t want to waste anymore time thinking, and finally start doing.

♡ thank you for taking the time to read this, you’re a babe♡

Forever tags: aka some amazing people: @moonlessnight14 @sexyvixen7 @angieptt​ @painkiller80 @becca-dolan @team-heichou @thatpeachybandgirl​ @allthesesonsobitches @buckybarneshairpullingkink @couldabeenamermaid​ @taeeemin@littleredstarfish @nali67​ @only4wakingup​ @mcenziehughes​

*if there is a line through your name that means that for some reason it won’t allow me to tag you*

*forever tags are always open*

[theemptyquarto]

Abandoned WIP

This is a melancholy little entry that I stopped working on back in 2015, apparently, since Mary and John’s daughter is an “Amelia” rather than a “Rosie,” and Mary’s real name is “Angela” not “Rosamund”  During the period in which I was writing it they announced, filmed, and released the film “Mr. Holmes” which deals with some similar subjects but which I did NOT rip off. I ripped off a Mitchell and Webb sketch:)

Age, eventually, makes mockeries of all of us.  When I was in my sixties and seventies, I discovered that I did in fact have a heart. And a pancreas.  And many joints, none of which seemed to want to work together properly anymore.  And several other failing body parts that required me to take a dozen pills every single day of my life.

None of this happened to Sherlock.  He remained more or less exactly as he’d always been, just craggier.  He kept his hair, and when it changed color it started in elegant wings over his temples then became a flattering overall silver. Meanwhile I discovered that even once I gave up on blonde, I would have to keep coloring my hair, since it was an unattractive yellowish grey when left to its own devices.

Despite my array of minor ailments, our life together was… good.  We split our time between the Sussex downs, where his bees were, and London, where our grandchildren were.  He took cases, but only the most interesting ones.  I wrote my novels, but only every three years, instead of the annual volumes I’d churned out in my prime.  Sherlock wrote a practical handbook on beekeeping and was furious that nobody wished to buy it.

It was a snowy winter afternoon in Baker Street, and he’d just come in from the cold.  He was flushed and excited to tell me all about what he’d been up to since he’d been gone for a week: a commonplace-seeming garroting that had led to the discovery of an active human-sacrifice cult with multiple sites across Europe.  I vaguely considered putting it into a story but decided it was so wildly implausible that even my extremely patient readers wouldn’t believe it.

“Oh, you should have seen it, Mary!” he exclaimed, “There I was, tied to the altar below the statue of Czernobog, and the priest was saying the chant and holding the rope over my head, when all at once the door burst open and-“

He paused, then, and said, “Oh, hell.  What’s his name?  The detective inspector?  Amelia’s boss?  Black, muscular, gay?”

“Ted Gregson.”

“Yes.  Right.  Him.”

He didn’t continue on, but flung himself into chair and stared into the fireplace.  I prodded, “So then what happened?”

“I believe something’s gone wrong with my mind, Mary.”

I rolled my eyes at that. For someone who was always as healthy as a horse he was a terrible hypochondriac.

“You had a senior moment. Anyway you never used to remember Greg’s name either… you may have some sort of block for DIs.”

“No.  This is something different.  And it’s been going on for a while.”

Sherlock was right. He mostly was.  Like a lot of intelligent people, he’d been able to compensate for the earliest stages, but he was right.  After that, the progression seemed terribly fast.  We spent several months in a haze of scans and therapy, and he accumulated enough prescription bottles to rival my own collection.  Some of them were highly experimental and provided by his brother’s network of mysterious scientists.  None of them really seemed to do much.

Amelia, being the dear that she is, volunteered to take us in when it all started getting too much for me to handle by myself.  But she had three young children and a husband to look after, a hugely busy career with the Met, plus far too many stairs for me to manage every day.  Therefore I sold the house at Baker Street for an obscene amount of money to a city stockbroker, and we moved out to the downs for what I knew would be the last time.

I’ve spent my life moving on and leaving things behind me.  I’d dropped the original version of myself with no real regrets.  I’d quit my first two careers, both of which I’d been proud of and enjoyed.  I’d managed to get through the death of a husband who I had loved so much that even thirty years later it still hurt to think of him.  So it’s silly how many tears I shed over that dingy Georgian money pit.  

But the cash I got for the place was very helpful.  Despite the continuing success of the Jim Winston novels and the fact that Sherlock had softened up on taking dull cases for money as he aged, we weren’t exactly rich. Then, too, we had new expenses.  I had to hire a nice young woman to help me look after the house, and a large young man to keep an eye on Sherlock in the evenings, since he tended to want to wander after dark.

Then I had to hire another nice young woman because Sherlock had deduced that the original one was unfaithful to her husband, and had of course done it to her face.  Then another large young man since Sherlock, who took a while to experience any of the physical debility that comes with Alzheimer’s, got confused and shoulder-threw the first one across the lounge one evening. At a certain point I arranged for a local hippie couple to come by and look after the bees in exchange for the honey.

We carried on for a few years.  He had his good days and his bad ones.  On his good days he’d still consult, by email, since he had a rock-hard certainty that England couldn’t get by without him.  I published “The Mountain of Fear,” which sold as well as any of my books but as always was savaged by the critics for popularist dreck.  

I started work on my next novel and got about a quarter of the way through it.  Then one day I realized that it was likely that it would be the last one I ever had time to write, and that after it was done, there would be no more Jim Winston stories.  I could face not writing it, but I couldn’t face a world where John, even a fictionalized and imaginary John, wasn’t around, and so I put the MS in a drawer in my desk and turned the key.  “Caught in transition from imagination to life” was the best epitaph I could have written for him, with my limited abilities.

We had fewer and fewer good days.

On a brilliant indian summer day, I went to London to have a new and complicated type of bone scan that couldn’t be done locally.  This was mostly uneventful, although we incidentally discovered that I had finally shrunk to the point where I was less than five feet tall.  The nurse said the radiologist would look over the films and be in touch in the next few weeks.  I took Amelia to lunch and we talked about the grandchildren, mostly, and she promised to bring them out for a visit at the weekend.  Then I took the train back home- I still drove, but didn’t care to do it in the city any more.  

When I got back from the station, there was a long black town car parked on the gravel drive in front of our house.  The driver, a lovely young woman and obviously a Secret Service agent, was leaning on the hood smoking a cigarette.  She nodded politely to me as I passed by.  I therefore was not surprised to see Sherlock’s brother sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea.  He shared the Holmes tendency for turning up where he wasn’t expected.  

Or wanted.  

Like his brother, he was well-preserved physically, though in the case of Mycroft the adjective “mummified” always seemed more appropriate.  He had to be nearly ninety but his eyes were as bright and judgmental as they ever had been.  He nodded to me as Vithnya, the second housekeeper, helped me out of my coat.  

“Mycroft.”

“Mary.”

We weren’t ever particularly friendly.  He’d never trusted me, and had verbally disapproved of my relationship with Sherlock until it was so well-established that it had become a pointless gesture on his part.  For my part, I despised the constant needling that was his preferred method of interaction with his younger brother.  To the best of my knowledge he and Sherlock hadn’t met in person for nearly three years.

Even with all that, it was oddly relaxing to talk to him.  We were both such skilled and professional liars that we never bothered trying it out with one another.

“How’s he done since I was out?” I asked Vithnya.

“Pretty well.  He had a nice chat with Mr. Holmes – with Mr. Mycroft Holmes, that is - and now he’s out with his bees.  But he was a little agitated this morning.  He kept walking around looking for someone called Angela.”

I could feel Mycroft’s eyes boring in to me over the rim of his teacup.  I smiled at the girl and said, “He was looking for me.  It’s an old joke we used to have.”

She giggled, and I realized abruptly that she was relieved, that she’d worried I’d be hurt that my husband, in his confusion, wanted to see another woman.  This was a thought that was so ridiculous on so many levels that I could have giggled myself.

Vithnya grinned, white teeth in her red lips, and said, “I don’t know about that.  This Angela sounds like a most desperate character!”

“I was quite the firecracker when I was younger, my girl.  Can you keep an eye on him while I chat with Mycroft, please?”

She poured me a cup of tea of my own and went off to do just that.

Mycroft said, “You don’t seem at all nervous of discovery now that Sherlock has lost what - minimal filters - he ever had.”

“I’m not.”

“No statute of limitations on murder.”

I rolled my eyes at him. He was the one, after all, who had replaced my rather half-assed false identity with something that could stand up to any scrutiny.

“She won’t think about it for more than thirty seconds after leaving this room.  I am a little old lady.  In the mind of a twenty-two year old, not only am I obviously harmless now but it is inconceivable I ever would have been otherwise.  You ought to consider hiring some of us on at MI-6. We’re practically invisible.”

“Perhaps I ought.”

I took a biscuit, damn my blood sugar, and dunked it into my tea.  

“Did you and Sherlock have a nice chat?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away.

“We did,” he said, eventually, “For seventy-eight minutes.  Not once in that period did he recognize me.  I could tell he was making his best deductions.  Sometimes he thought I was John Watson.  Sometimes Greg Lestrade, sometimes Victor Trevor.  I didn’t realize-”

“Didn’t realize what?”

“That he had become so debilitated.  That he was so far gone.”

I sighed.  

“He’s dying, Mycroft. What did you think it would be like?”

He took another biscuit from the packet on the table and put it into his mouth.  Chewed.

“I never thought that he would be the first to go.  I always assumed that I wouldn’t be the one left standing.  When he’s gone-”

He trailed off.  But I could read his thoughts as clearly as if they’d been my own.  When Sherlock was gone there would be no one left with the same sort of mind that Mycroft had… except the departure had already happened, and he’d missed it.

I had some sympathetic pangs – for Mycroft Holmes, of all people – and I said, “He generally perks up a bit in the evenings.  I’m happy to put you up, if you’d like.  Perhaps you could… try again?”

The British Government responded as I should have expected.  He rose, brushed nonexistent crumbs off his lapels, and took up his hat and umbrella.  

“I think that my presence is of no help to him any longer, Mary.  I expect that I will see you again.  At least once.”

He actually bowed to me on his way out.

I finished my tea, and looked out of the window.  Vithnya was sitting in the grass, folding a basket of laundry.  Sherlock was sitting on the bench that looked out over the garden. Both of them seemed contented, at least as far as one could tell from that distance.  The sun was at a deep angle, and so I picked up a blanket and left for the outdoors.

I was glad I had done, as it was starting to get chilly outside and he was in shirtsleeves.  Had I married any other man but this one I would have thought that his indifference to the elements was a sign of his decay, but frankly he’d done the exact same thing when he was forty.  “Just transport,” is the motto he maintained, in far worse weather than this.

At some point in his life someone, presumably his mother, drilled some basic forms of politeness into Sherlock Holmes.  He was terrifyingly, frankly rude in ordinary conversation but when you handed him a cup of tea or tucked a blanket around his body you would inevitably receive a gracious, “Ah, thank you.”  It’d be in the tone of a king addressing his subjects, but you’d get it.  I got just that as I settled the afghan around his knees, and sat down next to him to look over the hives.  

“I’m expecting John and Mary to turn up.  Have you seen them?” he asked me.

When he’d first become ill, he’d asked me to always correct him when he had his lapses.  I’d agreed, but, again, I was such a natural liar that it didn’t much trouble me to say now that, “I believe they’ll be along shortly.” Awful, I know, but sometimes I just wanted not to see him upset.

“Ah,” he replied.

A drone, a late survivor of the autumnal purges, buzzed up and landed on the blanket over his knee. He gently nudged it onto his hand and raised it to eye level before setting it down on the ground.

“I’m a bit worried,” he said, conversationally.

“About what?” I asked.

“Occasionally John’s wife lets me shag her.  And I’m not sure that’s right.”

I blinked. Occasionally?  Thirty-odd years, and I’m not going to go into details about our sex life but it was really very acceptable, and occasionally is what he remembered?  And that I ‘let him’?   But all I said was, “I’m sure Mary wouldn’t do that if John objected. So it’s all right.”

“Ah, good.  You know Mary, then?”

“I do, yes.”

He squinted at me, which, Gawd-help-us, was still terribly cute.

“You’re… one of her relatives,” he said, hesitantly.

I smiled.  “I am,” I said, “How did you know that?”

He grinned at me.  No matter what he’d ever said or how much he’d griped about the unobservant nature of most people, I knew that he loved to explain his deductions.  

“It’s the ears,” he said, setting the pads of his fingers on my chin and turning my face to the side, “Not quite as uniquely identifying as a fingerprint but with a strong genetic component.  The pendulosity of the lobes, the position of the pinnae… clearly you and Mary are closely connected.  You’re too old to be the younger sister, and the mother is dead, but..”

He took hold of my hand and looked at my fingers.  “There’s other things.  You and Mary both have a minor congenital deformity of the smallest finger.  It angles slightly outward.  Not enough to disable either of you, but distinctive, and…”

He turned my hands in his. I have nearly perfectly matched scars on my palms… on my right hand, the souvenir of a Caracas knife fight when I was twenty-seven.  On my left, the souvenir of reaching into a sink filled with dishwater and one broken glass when I was forty.  

And then he stopped, still staring at my hands, and said, “Oh.  Oh Mary.  How could I have forgotten you?  I had you off by heart.”

I lifted a hand and stroked his grizzled chin.  

“It’s fine,” I said, “You have me back.”

He just tangled his fingers in mine and stared.

“That’s my mother’s ring,” he said.  “Did I give that to you?”

I looked at the amethyst on my right ring finger and said, “Yes.  When we got married.”

“I remember that.  You were beautiful in your dress.”

I laughed, unwittingly. “That was my first wedding.  You and I just went to a registry office at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.”

“Really?”

“We did. There wasn’t much time to plan a wedding.  The exact words of your proposal were, “If I have to be Sir Sherlock you can damn well be Lady Mary.”  It was the day before you got your KCBE.”

“By God.  What a rubbish proposal.”

I smiled.

“Unconventional, definitely.  But I wouldn’t have had you any other way.”

[luna-whiskers]

Can you talk about Ace/Danburite? I personally always found him really fascinating. Here we have a person so removed and outside of this whole royal conflict (cause that's essentially what this war was based on) and yet he's the one before any of the main players who awakens first and remembers everything? Such an interesting concept, he offers such a unique prospective as a regular civilian in both lifetimes caught up in all this political intrigue I kinda wish more had been done with him?

Ace is a fascinating character! I think fandom tends to discount him because there is this perception that liking/being interested in Ace and what he brings to the story means shipping him with Minako, which I’m not on board with at all. If anything, respecting Ace as a full complex character lends weight to the level of trauma that Minako endures through him.

It’s interesting that Ace was set up as a sort of AU Tuxedo Kamen. Not only is he a mysterious masked man who sometimes appears to assist Minako in fights, but he occupies that shady third party zone that Mamoru appeared to hold in the early Dark Kingdom arc–not quite a good guy, but seemingly not quite a bad guy either. This both primed audiences to expect him to be good in the end despite questionable moments along the way, and once again pushed Minako’s story to run parallel to Usagi’s, with wildly different results.

It’s no surprise that this played with Minako’s emotions. Just the fact that he’s a hot teenager would have been enough to attract her to him immediately, but Ace repeatedly showing up to assist her just continued to validate her emotions. And Minako Aino, particularly the Minako Aino of her Sailor V days, desperately craves validation. One of her very first actions in this manga is putting a ribbon in her hair because her crush told her it would look nice. Ace showed up enough to make her believe he really cared about her specifically.

Ace’s approach to selling himself as a girl’s ultimate dream is exceptionally Minako-like. He makes Kaitou Ace into a TV character, just as Sailor V became a video game character. A TV character who not only fights crime as she does, but who lavishes gifts on girls and does their homework for them.

Ace is set up in direct conflict with Venus’s loyalty to Princess Serenity. He has fashioned himself to be Minako’s ideal boyfriend in every way – handsome, famous, with eyes only for her – and to be with him would mean living Minako’s dream life as an idol herself. And yet still, she hears Princess Serenity calling for her.

What’s murky is how much of a villain Ace really was.

The Kaitou Ace persona was so distant from his identity as the Dark Kingdom soldier Danburite that his own underlings did not realize that they were the same person. Much like brainwashed Prince Endymion in the first season of the anime continuously undid his own plots, Danburite set up situations to attack Sailor V, only to stage a public rescue of her as Ace. He urged her to indulge in a life of stardom, only to give her a film script designed to make her remember her life as Princess Venus. He made declarations of love but refused to believe her sincerity when she tried to do the same.

Was Danburite himself waffling on how he felt about Minako? He had everything he wanted already. The princess he had always pined over was head-over-heels for him. But she still wasn’t Venus. She still wasn’t really the princess he remembered. And there is something very bitter about his refusal to accept her love declaration, like he already expects her to reject him in the end, and is self-destructing the relationship before she can.

He rejected her first declaration of love, but accepted her second one. Why the second one? Because that is when she rescued him. This is what makes me think that Danburite was pulled in two different directions, that the part of him that was a Dark Kingdom soldier was at odds with the part of him that was Adonis. Danburite should have accepted Minako‘s sentiment the first time if he really wanted to manipulate her into staying with him. It’s only when she protects him, the way that Venus once protected Serenity, that he can let himself get carried away with his own feelings for her.

Danburite is fascinating because he is, as far as we’re aware, the only completely non-royal perspective that we have of the Silver Millennium. The cats, while not royalty themselves, were part of the queen’s inner circle. Beryl, while possibly coming from humble origins, was at the center of the final conflict.

Danburite – Adonis – was outside of it all entirely. He was a humble soldier. He never knew Venus, or Serenity, or Prince Endymion. He did not even serve any of them directly–the closest he may have come to any of them was Kunzite. And what Adonis tells us of this world from his perspective is fascinating.

For example, Adonis tells us that Venus lived in Magellan Castle until she was sent to live on the Moon, something that has long been a source of discussion in fandom (did the senshi always live on the Moon with Serenity or did they live on their home planets?).

He tells us that there was a war on Earth, and that the Venusian soldiers were sent to help. Not against Earth, but allied with it. This is a huge shift from what was previously understood in Sailor Moon canon–either Venus alone, or all of the Silver Millennium planets, were allied with Earth at least for this particular war. Who were they fighting? Did the fight with Metallia begin on Earth?

His memories show Venus and Kunzite together, and present-day Danburite served the Dark Kingdom under Kunzite. Did all the armies of Venus fall under Metallia’s influence along with Earth’s? Did Venus watch with horror as her own people attacked the Moon?

More than anything, it is clear that Venus’s status was unreachable to Adonis. She was this distant goddess to him.

Ace’s ending is ultimately bleak. He thought he could have changed destiny to allow him to be with the princess he always dreamed of. Realizing she still will choose her duty to Serenity over everything he hoped to offer, he completely reverts back to Danburite, and attacking her. His final love fortune is telling her that her love will always be hopeless, because she will always choose to fight instead. This is Adonis’ legacy: hardening Minako to battle, making her no longer question her priorities.

Good or bad, Adonis left a mark on Minako that she never really got over. Was he manipulative? Undoubtedly. Evil? Probably. But there was a lot going on with him, and he fleshed out the world in a huge way.