#i will have to take another look at this in daylight and probably fix some things

[hellenhighwater]

I've realized that I got caught up in everything and sort of forgot to eat, so I've got some pop tube cinnamon rolls in the oven, because I am unsupervised. So, while I wait, a ten minute pastel scribble!

[cottonlemonade]

A large mocha latte for here. Kindly put Matsukawa Issei on the cup, please and thank you! 🌲

Celebrating An Anniversary

word count: 774 || avg. reading time: 3 mins.

pairing: post-time skip husband!Matsukawa x chubby!Reader

genre: suggestive fluff

warnings: mdni, nsfw

request: fluffy spicy, celebrating an anniversary with your husband Mattsun

____________________________________________

“Are they closed?“

“Yes!“, you laughed, feeling your husband‘s hand on the small of your back guiding you forward.

“Still closed?“

“Yes!“

“Okay, there is a step here, babe. - That‘s it. Almost there.“

“I swear, if you prank me somehow…“

Issei‘s smile turned to indignation - you didn‘t need to open your eyes, you heard the pout in his voice, “When have I ever-“

“Choose a different wording.“, you scoffed.

“You know what?“ In the next moment you felt yourself being lifted off your feet and thrown over his shoulder. “You asked for it.“

“Ah, set me down before you hurt yourself!“

“Never.“

“Issei!“

“Ahem… Good evening!“, he called to someone you couldn‘t see, then he chuckled nervously, “Thi-this is not what it looks like!“, adding quietly, “Honey, please confirm I‘m not kidnapping you against your will.“

“I‘m fine! We‘re married! - Happily!“, you announced loudly, probably rather unconvincingly the way you hung blindfolded over his shoulder but Issei let out a sigh of relief and kept moving, eventually setting you carefully down again, holding your chubby waist to keep you steady.

“Can I take it off now? - Oh my god, Issei, the blindfold, stop unzipping my dress!“

He chuckled and returned the zipper to the top, helping you take off the eye mask.

You had no idea where you were. It looked like a rather rundown living room of an abandoned house but Issei had clearly put a lot of effort into making it cozy. Electric candles flickered all around the large space, surrounding a picnic blanket in the middle of a massive amount of snuggly pillows. A bottle stuck out of an ice bucket next to a large bouquet of your favorite flowers and a delicious smell wafted over from a basket right next to it.

“Oh, honey… This is beautiful!“

Issei grinned and hugged you from behind.

“Do you recognize it?“

“Uhm… surprisingly enough, I feel like this particular run down house slipped my mind.“, you said apologetically.

He let go and pouted again, “You mean you don‘t remember?“

“Remember what…?“

Your husband pointed to a cluster of candles somewhere off to the left, “It was right there. I confessed to you.“

Your face brightened, finally catching up.

“Oh my god!“ You recalled how nervous he had been and how he had offered a little roughly picked bouquet of wildflowers to you. At first you were convinced he was joking. There was no way the tall, handsome volleyball player actually meant it when he promised not to leave your side as long as you‘d let him. But well, it was ten years later and he had kept his promise. Back then, the house was newly abandoned and frequently used by students sneaking around.

“It’s on the market.“, he noted and walked excitedly over to a door hanging off its hinges, “Look, this room could be your office. It‘s nice and spacious and has a view of the backyard and over here-“, three long strides took him to what looked to have been the kitchen, “we can even put an island and right there“, a few more steps past you led to a double door, “is the master bedroom. There is enough space in the front yard to plant a cherry tree like you always wanted and-“

You joined him and pulled him down by his tie for a kiss.

When you parted, he continued, “The landlord said he‘d fix it up for us and it would even be within our budget and-“, another pull on his tie and this time you deepened the kiss.

“So is that a yes?“, he asked with an unsure squinty sort of smile.

“We can look at it again in the daylight.“, you laughed and he beamed, leaning down to kiss you some more.

“Who did we talk to earlier?“

“Possibly our new neighbors.“, he snickered and the thought of the memorable first impression you must have left made you snort.

Taking your hand he pulled you over to the picnic blanket and once you got comfortable, got started on pouring you each a glass of wine.

He laid down on his side next to you while you sat cross legged with a pillow in your lap.

“You know what else we did here?“, you smirked.

“Well, I know what we definitely didn‘t do here.“

“Because you were too chicken to even go near my bra.“

“Keep joking, wifey, see where that gets ya.“

He opened the picnic basket and revealed what appeared to be a fruit platter at first but was actually just a bunch of colorful condoms arranged like fruit slices. And you burst out laughing.

____________________________________________

a/n: ngl I snorted while writing that last bit 😅 thank you for the request! Please enjoy 🌟

[pedgito]

Hey! I'm very awkward when it comes to requesting stuff but I'm shooting my idea and if you decide to write it, awesome, if not, I'll still adore you and your work. Anyway, what about a reader that's always been kinda there and around but Eddie never noticed her. Maybe she lives in the trailer park as well and one day Wayne orders Eddie to help out neighbors with something and Eddie gets surprised by her existence or something...

I dunno, I just like the "falling for someone who was already there all the time" trope...

Thanks xx

author’s note: this has full fic potential and i love it, but enjoy what little drabble my brain could handle. <3

cw: sfw, neighbors/meet-cutes, set in 86, reader and eddie run in different circles, wayne is such a dad he can’t help it, this isn’t really fluffy exactly, but it’s very sweet

word count: 2k

Living near the Munson’s had always been, for a better lack of words, eventful. You move in six years prior, the world being ushered into a new era of the 80s, a quaint but rundown neighborhood that looked normal, and a new school to throw yourself into, again—your parents were also never really home.

So, as a result, you’d learn to care for yourself. It wasn’t their fault—things were tough, money needed to be made, and you were at the perfect age to manage keeping yourself alive and fed, regardless if it was done in a justifiable or acceptable manner. And the neighbors were nice—most of them, at least.

You’d learned pretty quickly that it was a place for the older residents of Hawkins, men and women in their late 50s alongside a couple small families—a young woman with a small toddler, another family of four, and right next door; an older gentleman and his son.

You never spoke to him, not once. Wayne, the older man in question, only finally spoke to you when he caught you outside on an early morning taking out the trash, parents having already left for the day.

He worked nights, so he had just come home from a very long shift, a cigarette perched upon his lips. He was nice, polite—but obviously exhausted.

“You alright, kid?” He asks suddenly, though his voice is calm.

He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that you were almost always on your own, driveway empty of cars or even a bike, leaving you chasing down the bus or walking to school most mornings.

You shrug honestly, offering a small smile.

“I’m managing.” You tell him, meaning it. “Thanks for asking.”

After that, it becomes a regular thing. Wayne checks up on you when he can, quick and fleeting conversations in the early mornings when the sun is just starting to come up.

You learn that his son isn’t actually his son, rather his nephew. He’s a couple years older then, trudging his way through the beginnings of a tumultuous freshman year—and you don’t see him often, only by coincidence in the halls where he doesn’t even glance your way.

He’s awkward, tall and lanky, hair in the weird stage of being too long and too short all at once—he’s probably growing it out, you think. It’s a wild next of curls that is nothing a brush couldn’t fix, but it didn’t seem like he owned one. Eddie, that is.

Wayne calls him Edward when he’s mad, coming home too late, being loud when he’s so desperately trying to sleep—you can hear all of it, the walls of your trailer are so thin that nothing is safe.

And life is busy; those six years pass in a breeze, but things are still the same. You’ve never spoken a word to Eddie, your parents are still gone most of the time, if not more now that you’re of age, and Wayne still looks as tired as before, though less buried under the weight of scourging for cash.

Eddie must have some type of job, or something—and he’s extremely loud, always playing with his guitar on the weekends when he’s home, amp placed under the bedroom window adjacent to yours. It’s not like you can really complain, it’s broad daylight, most people are out living their lives, but you’re stuck at home.

He can sing, you’ll give him that. So, it’s not all bad.

He drives too, a clunky piece of junk as Wayne calls it, but to Eddie, it’s his beloved. Wayne almost offers to ask Eddie if he’ll give you lifts to school, but you’re adamant in your refusal.

“I like walking, it’s fine.” You assure him. “I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

“Boy’s like my son, he’ll do it if I ask.” Wayne says, eyes flicking up toward Eddie’s bedroom, his shadow crossing the window. “You two would get along, you know.”

“I dunno,” You disagree, “we don’t exactly run in similar crowds.”

Wayne makes a noise, a small huff of acknowledgment.

“He’s struggling,” Wayne admits, “on his third try at graduating and I’m starting to think it’d be easier to pull him out and help him get his GED.”

You knew that much—Eddie should’ve graduated already, yet he was still stuck at the same lunch table for those following years, preaching to young minds of the susceptible D&D nerds.

“Maybe—“ You agree, but Wayne quickly cuts you off.

“Hey, you’re smart,” Wayne assumes, but he’s seen the textbooks you’ve brought home, levels above the classes Eddie takes, “got good grades?”

“Mostly A’s,” You admit, “m’trying to get into a good college and AP classes look good on paper.”

Wayne thinks for a moment, falling silent as he flicks the ashes away from his cigarette, “Think you can do me a solid?”

And Wayne’s never steered you wrong, even offering you dinner when your parents forget to buy groceries for the week, making sure your belly is just as full as his. He constantly grumbles about how careless you parents were, similar to Eddie’s—you never pried on that matter, feeling like it was none of your business.

“I can try.”

“How do you feel about tutoring Eddie?” He asks curiously, “He’s a good kid, I swear—he just can’t focus for shit.”

“I…don’t know.” You reply wearily, “I don’t think he wants to take that stuff seriously—“

“He does, he does,” Wayne insists, “it’s hard for him to learn in that type of setting, I think he needs the one on one. I understand if you don’t want to, I just think it might be worth tryin’.”

Wayne senses your hesitance.

“I’m sorry for asking, you don’t have to—“

“I will,” You respond quickly, not harping on it any longer, “I mean, I can.”

And maybe this was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made, but you wouldn’t know if you didn’t try.

You knock on the trailer door a couple days later, in the earlier hours on a Saturday morning, a book clutched to your chest and a tired smile on your face—but when the door opens, you’re not met with the same expression.

If anything, it’s surprise that’s riddling his face.

Wayne must not have said anything, which is just as mortifying.

“Who—“ Eddie stops himself, eyeing you carefully, “are you—don’t I have a class with you?”

You nod slowly, “Econ, yeah.”

“How do you know where I live?” Eddie asks, though he doesn’t sound offended, more amused if anything. “Did Dustin put you up to this?”

Henderson was a little shit, you knew that much—but you’d never spoken a word to him either.

“Eddie,” He’s just as shocked you know his name, eyes raking over your carefully, “I live next door.”

Eddie’s brows furrow, door cleaning open to peek at the trailer beside him, gaze quickly flicking back toward you. And suddenly it’s all clicking in his head, though slowly.

“You must be the reason I have to make an extra plate of dinner, right?” Eddie asks with a soft smile.

Whatever earlier assumptions you had about him dissipated into nothing, melted by the grin on his face and the subtle dimple in his cheek.

“It’s not my doing—Wayne worries about me.” You tell him, hoping he’ll understand. “Food’s good though, better than what I could make.”

Eddie widens the door silently, without question really, allowing you to step inside. It’s as barren as it is cluttered, random knick knacks on the shelves, counters, but devoid of trash.

“Wait, holy shit—you’re friend’s with Buckley, aren’t you?”

It’s startling, but you nod. You were—also in band with her, along with a long list of extracurriculars—why that one stood out the most to him, you’d never understand. You weren’t even aware Eddie knew you existed.

“Sort of,” You land on, “We’ve got a lot of classes together.”

And as if you weren’t already taken off-guard, Eddie speaks again.

“You play…trumpet?” He asks, snapping his fingers in celebration when you nod. “And piano?”

“How do you—no one knows that.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, genuinely confused, “I saw you playing a couple months ago—I was on the way to Hellfire and you were by yourself, I thought you were practicing for something—“

“You watched me play?” You ask curiously.

“Yeah, yeah—you’re really fuckin’ good.” Eddie admits, “It’s not really my style but I love music, so—“

And he’s mentally beating himself up over not recognizing you sooner, feeling like a complete ass.

“Well, I don’t know if Wayne told you, but he asked me to help tutor you.” You explain, “I get it you want to kick me out, I’m just trying to do good by your uncle, you know?”

Eddie shrugs carelessly, “We can try, but I’m not promising it’ll help.”

“Are you sure you have the time?” You ask, knowing his weekends were usually occupied by something a lot more distracting and loud. “No guitar practice today?”

Eddie snorts at that, “Shit, yeah—I’m sorry about that.”

“I’ve listened to it for six years, I’m used to it.”

Eddie gawks at that, feeling even worse.

“Hey, it’s fine—I wouldn’t notice me either.”

He smiles slightly, “It’s not that.”

You plead with him silently, following him to the small table tucked in the corner of his trailer, two chairs on either side.

“Kinda thought you were a ghost, honestly—“ Eddie admits, “or just like, figment of my imagination.”

You scrunch your nose in confusion, taking a seat across from him.

“I swear I’ve never seen you around here—that’s mostly my fault, I’m not home often.” Eddie tells you, “but I remembered your face when I’d see you at school, didn’t know your name—I mean, I still don’t but—“

You snort softly, offering him your name with a quiet interjection. He nods knowingly, grin growing wider.

“I feel like an asshole for not realizing you’ve been my neighbor for that long—Wayne always talked about you, kind of in passing, but I never thought anything of it.”

“I’m not offended, Eddie.” You tell him, hoping he’d understand.

And it’s not that Eddie didn’t remember your face, he just couldn’t believe it was real, that you were real. He could’ve sworn you didn’t exist at all, like he’s been making you up in his mind.

“Can we make a deal?” Eddie asks suddenly.

“Depends.” You counter, smile pulling at your face.

“If this works, will you teach me some stuff on the piano?”

Eddie was the definition of never judging someone at first glance, his interesting style contrasting his personality in the best ways. He’s always came off as dark, pensive, similar to his uncle in the way he always had a cigarette between his lips or a scowl on his face.

“If this works—sure.” You agree with ease.

“God, I feel like a total ass.” Eddie admits, slamming his fist against the table softly, “Six years, are you sure?”

“It’s not for lack of trying, Eddie.” You tell him, “If I wanted to be noticed you would’ve known. I’m really good at blending in, unfortunately.”

It still doesn’t change how he feels.

“Besides, you never realize how much people reveal about themselves when they don’t know you’re around.” You add shyly, eyes connecting with him briefly.

Eddie laughs slightly, leaning forward to flip the textbook open.

“We can circle back to that,” Eddie teases, “I won’t forget.”

There’s not a day that passes following where Eddie hasn’t wedged himself into your existence, determined to discover everything that he’s missed out on.

And it’s startling how much you like him, the fact of him being right out of reach for so long—it’s bittersweet.

Please consider a reblog if you enjoyed this fic! It’s makes a huge difference. ♡

[hannahssimblr]

The crying is relentless. All morning and well into the afternoon. It's not constant, but it is consistent, a cycle of heavy, self pitying sobs followed by these silences where I imagine she forgets what she's so sad about, or curses Evan out instead, which, if it were me, is what I would be doing. I can't understand why any person is really worth this much anguish, especially ones that don't wash their hair.

“Ah, Shell,” Jen mutters under her breath, “he’s just a stupid fucking boy, enough already.” 

The brilliant sunlight of early May streaks through the windows and over the pages of our textbooks and notebooks strewn all over the carpet. With the summer exams approaching I have accepted that it’s going to be like this all month, study, revising, shovelling snacks into our mouths and then studying some more until our eyes feel like shrivelled little raisins in their sockets. But I have nowhere else to be these days, so I am happy to spend them on my stomach in the sun with Jen, writing flashcards and highlighting entire pages about chemical erosion and igneous rock.

“Did you see him at school this week?” I ask around the pen jammed between my teeth. 

“Who? Evan?”

“Yep.”

“Unfortunately. With Carlie.”

“Oh, crazy. He moved on quickly.”

She tuts and shakes her head in disgust, “He’s horrible. He has no shame, full on knowing that Michelle can see him shoving his foul slug tongue into Carlie’s mouth, in broad daylight.”

“Mm, nothing good ever happens in broad daylight, does it?”

 There is a bang, crash and wallop as Michelle comes down the stairs and straight into the room. I steel myself defensively, waiting for, I don't know what, maybe for her to start giving out to me or screaming that I need to get the hell out, not that she’s done that yet, but there’s always a chance. I bet she would if she was feeling crazy enough.

But maybe we've caught her at a good time, because instead she looks startled to see me, while also appearing different, more vulnerable than I'm used to seeing her now that the makeup she usually rings her eyes with is absent for the first time since she was about fourteen. It feels risky to look directly in her eyes, but I can't really help myself. It's like some layer has been peeled away, and she's the girl who used to be my friend.

“Um,” she utters, voice cracked and hoarse from crying, and drags the heel of her hand beneath her still dripping nose, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I can go.”

She hesitates. 

“Let him stay,” Jen grumbles, “He’s just studying, he’s not going to bite you, is he?” 

“Okay,” Michelle says in a voice just above a whisper, and hovers there for another few moments as Jen goes back to flipping through her geography book, no doubt taking nothing in.

“Did you need something?”

“Not really.”

“Alright.”

Flip.

Flip.

Michelle gently clears her throat, “Is it… is it for the summer exams? All the study, like.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll probably fail mine,” a feeble laugh, “and dad will be thrilled with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand, given the circumstances.”

“I don’t think so,” she comes a bit closer, her stockinged feet padding over the carpet, and I don’t move a muscle as she approaches us, afraid to make a nuisance of myself. She perches on the edge of the sofa and folds her hands in her lap. “I think I should probably study,” she comments absently.

“If you want to,” Jen says. 

“I have so much work to catch up on…”

“Well,” Jen spreads out her fingers and gestures to the mess of paper and books on the floor like she’s presenting a gourmet meal, “you’re welcome to join us any time, babe.”

I sense Michelle’s eyes on me but I deliberately keep mine fixed on my book. The last thing I want to do is put her off the idea and then, God knows, get blamed for any and all fail grades she ends up getting.

“Hm, maybe,” she says, and leans to pluck at the corner of one of the English book covers, “I honestly know nothing, I can’t remember any of King Lear, never mind the poetry…”

“All that Shakespeare stuff is Jude’s domain, actually all of it is his, I'm clearly the idiot in the room…”

I pipe up sheepishly, “If you need help going through stuff, you know, I can, but if not it’s obviously fine too.”

“Hm,” she says, and slides to the floor with us, “Maybe. I’ll see.”

Jen gives me a secret smirk. “She'll see,” she mouths, and just like the sneaky wink she follows it with, I have absolutely no idea what she means.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[kabie-whump]

✧･ﾟ Magic User Whump ✧･ﾟ

Featuring my favorite oc Ventis (air genasi draconic lightning sorcerer) and his adventuring party (a half-elf fighter named Onthyes and an orc barbarian named Shayah).

The party is captured by bandits, and the bandits take extreme measures to ensure Ventis can’t use his magic.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

“This one’s a magic user for sure. Doesn’t look to be good for much else.”

Onthyes watched, helpless, as the bandits pinned a struggling Ventis to the ground, blindfolded him, and forced a gag into his mouth, muffling his cries. He was turned over, face pressed into the mud by a heavy boot, and chains bound his wrists tightly behind his back. As soon as the metal made contact with his skin he let out a scream through the gag and the chains began to glow with red runes. The air went deathly still, but he continued to fight even as he was forced to his feet and shoved over to stand next to Shayah.

“Those chains are hurting him!” Onthyes shouted.

The bandit that had walked Ventis over stopped, considering Onthyes. Then he turned and struck Ventis across the face. The sorcerer stumbled, clearly not expecting the hit, and probably would have fallen if he hadn’t been caught by another bandit.

“Another comment like that and he’ll get worse than a slap,” the bandit promised.

Onthyes’s own hands were tied behind his back with rope and his weapons and armor had been taken, but otherwise he and Shayah weren’t bound as thoroughly as Ventis was. He could probably break the ropes if he used all of his strength, but what would he do next? He wouldn't be able to get to Ventis before they hurt him again.

The group began to move with Onthyes and Shayah in the middle and Ventis being guided by a rope around his neck. He was clearly struggling to keep up, whimpering through the gag in his mouth, but every time he lost his footing he’d be forced back up by a bandit.

Onthyes wasn’t sure how long they walked before Ventis’s body finally gave out. The constant torture from the chains became too much and the genasi crumpled to the ground, leaves crunching under his limp body. A bandit lifted him to his feet and he didn’t stay up.

“Boss, the mage’s eatin’ dirt.”

The lead bandit halted the group, turning around to stalk over to where Ventis was lying on the ground, trembling with exhaustion.

“This is why I always prefer to snatch soldiers,” he said, his voice gruff and detached. “Always so much melodrama with magic users. The boy’s lucky his blood’s worth so much, or he’d have a hole in his pretty throat already.”

“It’s those chains,” Onthyes interjected. “I told you they’re hurting him.”

The leader rolled his eyes, then drove his boot into Ventis’s stomach. Ventis curled into himself with a groan.

“Get him on a horse. We’re losing daylight. And someone gag blondie over there.”

Onthyes kept his attention on Ventis as a gag was forced into his own mouth. As Ventis was unceremoniously lifted onto a horse Onthyes caught sight of the angry red marks that had formed on his wrists where the chains touched him. His blindfold was wet with tears, and mud caked the side of his face.

Hang in there, Onthyes thought, fully aware that Ventis’s telepathy wouldn’t work with his magic suppressed. I’ll get us out of this.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Part 2 —> is this link going to some random other blog for y’all too? anyone know how to fix it?

[yaut-jaknowit]

You say you’re open to ideas. Well there’s a daydream I have and I’d really like your interpretation of if.

Somehow a lone Yautja ship and a modern day airplane collide as the Yautja ship is flying low in earth’s atmosphere. There is only only survivor and they wash up on a small island. As the survivor makes fire and shelter and fishes for themself the Yautja watches them silently from the trees. Eventually the survivor realizes there is another survivor (or so they think) and begins to leave fish out for them and clean water. Eventually the survivor realizes that whatever is out there isn’t human but they continue to take the food and water. The survivor names them Prizrak aka “ghost” in Russian. After running into and subsequently killing a leopard with great difficulty Ghost begins to see the survivor as more than just s fragile human…

I have the whole story mapped in my head but do with that what you like.

Collision

Pairing: Yautja x Reader

Word Count: 4460

Summary: You had no recollection of what had occurred. All you saw the night sky and twinkling stars peering down at you. Questions popped inside of your head but a headache rose to stop you. Why did everything hurt? Cuts and bruises. You were on the forest's ground. In some place. You had no clue where. Cold. A bitter cold nipped at your exposed sky. You shivered and sat there. Where were you?

Author Note: I really like this idea! You should write out, wink-wonk. If you do, let me know. I would love to read it! Hope you enjoy. This is heavily focused on the reader. I went with be more horror style, kind of. This reminded me of my story 'In Alone, Out Together.' With this one, I feel like its more of a rough draft than anything. I didn't like fixing any issues or rewriting parts.

Masterlist

Ao3

Falling. Falling. Your body thrashed roughly, eyes peeling open. For a few moments, the molasses in your brain didn’t allow anything to be processed. Where? Huh? What? Then, it felt like your soul was slammed back into your body.

Pain exploded from every nerve in your body. It left you to pathetically writhe around. Leaves crunched underneath you. Sticks and rocks dug into your sensitive skin. It shocked you enough to sit up. Nausea washed over you. The former food churning inside of your stomach almost painted the ground. But, you held strong and swallowed down the extra spit that pooled in your mouth.

For a moment, you went to shake your head. When the pain doubled the second you did, you gasped. It tore at your dry throat and made you start to hack up a lung. Once you were able to get that under control, you start to take in the surrounding area. Puzzlement growing over your dirty features.

A forest. A chilly forest. It had to be below fifty degrees currently. Large patches of goosebumps covered parts of your body. You trembled, despite the pain that shocked you at the action. What happened? Why were you in the forest? What’s the last thing you remembered?

Shit. What was the last thing you remembered? Your brain raked through memories, going through the cold honey in your mind. People. Lots of people. Were you going somewhere? Why had you been around a lot of people? Traveling. You had a bag. A suitcase. You were travelling somewhere with a lot of people.

Where to? And what were you traveling in to end up in the middle of a chilly forest? With daylight that looked to be ending soon. Double shit. If it was already cold… you probably won’t survive the night with the type of clothes you were wearing. The winter weather would sap up your heat and kill you slowly over the course of the night. Not fun.

If there were lots of people, where had they gone? Plane! You were traveling on a plane, somewhere. But it was a commercial flight so that’s why there had been others. You had to go find them. More the marrier. And it meant a higher chance of survival. Someone had to know more about surviving out in the wild than yourself. Those documentaries are going to come in handy just about now.

Yourself. Your eyes narrowed down onto the limbs stretched out in front of you. Cuts, bruises. Nothing was broken. Possibly fractured but you didn’t have a way to know just yet. Your jeans had blood stains on them. Not an alarming amount though, thankfully. Just enough to make you groan.

Next, your hands skirted over part of your torso, feeling up your arms and up to your face. About the same. Just cuts and bruises. Nothing was broken. Relief flooded your aching body. You placed your hands at either side of your body before pushing up.

Alarms went off inside of your mind at attempt. They screamed to stop. But you couldn’t just lie there until rescue. If you were truly stuck out here for the time being, you had to find other people. You could be the first person to wake. And you didn’t know what these forests contained. Either prey or predator. You weren’t going to wait around to find out. Instead, you make it to your feet.

Your vision swam with the forest of typhoon smacking around inside of your head. It left you feeling unbalanced like a newborn foal. Your legs trembled with the newly added weight. Everything hurt. Down to the atoms that made up your body. But, now you had a mission to carry out.

Afternoon soon became dusk. Then, that turned into night. And the night sprung to life with noises. Stars shone above you. The moon with half of its energy, light up your path. It aided you some as you trekked slowly through the dark forest. A chilling cold biting at your heels. The only thing that kept you upright, kept you pushing forwards.

To make it a hundred yards in a short span of time was horrible. You made the estimate once you found a piece of white metal laying on the forest floor. This had to be part of the plane you once rode. That would mean you were getting closer to where you needed to be.

Not long after that discovery, you found more debris, more signs of the aircraft. As you limped along, a question came to form inside of your mind. What had caused the crash? Planes just don’t fall out of the sky willy-nilly. When you try to think of the plane ride, a blinding pain stopped you. Okay, thinking wasn’t a good. Your hand touched to your forehead. A shiver raked through your body. It’s getting too cold for your liking.

Further along, you found the wing and engine still attached and cringed. Not much of the side of planed was with it, so you continued.

Through the trees that were mowed down from the leftovers from the plane, you could see an empty vast area. Due to the fact it was dark, it was hard to make out what it was. The fact you could see the glimmering stars reach the horizon, down below the tops of the trees surrounding you. You hadn’t found much besides more metal and a couple of small fires. It was a head scratcher. That didn’t stop you from marching through the forest.

At the edge of your hearing, you picked up on the crashing of waves. Water. It hit you then how thirsty you were. Your mouth was bone dry and filled with cotton. Crap. There was nothing you had to boil the water with and clean it. You didn’t want your first night to be spent puking up your guts until rescue. But, when you find the rest of the plane, maybe there was something you could use.

With a newfound hope, you hobbled quicker towards the sound. The only thing on your brain was water. Sweet, cold, refreshing wa…

You stumbled past the threshold of the trees and found yourself staring. It wasn’t a meadow or plains that allowed to see the trees at the horizon. Water. A vast body of water as far as the eye could see in the darkness of night. Dread. A horrible dread filled your senses and left you frozen in the cold.

An ocean. Waves lapped the at the shore less than fifteen feet away from you. The noise was soothing, like it wanted to lull you to sleep. Yet, you couldn’t but stare and stare and stare.

Where was the plane? The horrible realization struck your heart deep, making it stutter in its bony cage. No. No! If… if the main part of the plane was in the water… that would mean you were alone. All by yourself. Stuck. Thirsty, hungry, and hurt. And you couldn’t even drink the water in front of you. That was an ocean before you – wherever you are. It couldn’t be used for your benefit. Not right now at least.

From your knowledge and what stuck from high school science class, you could boil saltwater. Then collect the condensation and it should be safe enough to drink. Any water that wasn’t clean needs to be boiled, for the most part. Some water is far too contaminated.

Hope. Even if it’s just a little bit. There was a little more chance of survival added to your planet now. Maybe if you retrace your steps, you might be able to find something of use. Anything with a bowl shape to it to hold water. Then, use another sheet of metal to catch the condensation. You might actually survive longer than three days out here.

One problem was solved with an idea. There was still the slightly pressing matter of food. That was important as well. First off: water. You turned yourself back around started to retrace your steps back towards the other part of debris that had fallen off in the crash.

The moon was close to the horizon once more. At this point in the night, you’ve found enough metal pieces in the right shapes to create a salt distillery. Thankfully, the fires that the crash had created hadn’t gone out. You used those to your advantage and transferred it to a patch of foliage you had formed together. A small fire flickered to life, eating away at the fuel given to it.

Due to the many trees that had been mowed down, you were able to find plenty of sticks, big ones as well to create a fire and the salt distillery. You stood back to admire the work with your hands on your hips. A bright smile gracing your dirty, moist face.

An uneasy feeling began to crawl up the length of your spine the longer you stood there. The once proud position you stood in was dropped as your head swiveled around. Through the darkness and light flickering on the trees around you, you had found nothing to quell your anxiety. Something was watching with a predator gaze.

And you had no weapon to defend yourself.

If you were going to hunt, you needed a weapon of sorts. Plus, you didn’t know what was out here with you. Your whole body trembled at the realization, not the due to cold. Like prey, your eyes flickered all over the place. Yet, you found nothing of concern.

You couldn’t tell if that terrified you more or offer relief. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, stuck in a forest by yourself, or thirst and hunger catching up. To be honest, it was a possible for all of those to be the problem. So many things happening all at once. The human body could only take so much before it starts to crumble.

It hasn’t even been a day! How could you be this weak? You groaned and tilted your head up towards the sky. Stars greeted you, twinkling high above. Maybe if you slept… just for a little bit. Let your distillery do its job. Then once you wake, you’ll have water to drink. Sounds like a plan.

The ground didn’t offer much in comfort. Stick and pine needles dug into the feeble skin of your side. There wasn’t much you could do in this situation. The plane was gone, straight into the drink. All those people… dead. Yet, here you are. Somehow alive and mostly uninjured. If only that luck could carry you out of here and back home.

Before your mind could drag into the depths of uncertainty, you threw extra wood on the fire and settled back down. Warmth fell over you like a blanket. It swaddled you with solace and helped draw you to sleep.

.

Early morning, the birds sung high above you. What they were saying, you had no clue. You sat posed with a handmade spear in hand. It had been created with metal from the plane, a sturdy stick, and strong, long leaves from a plant. Though the weapon looked dinky, it had proven to work well with the pressure you put it through.

After creating the spear, you had to test it out before going out. There was no sure way of knowing what was out here with you. No phone to find out exactly where you had crashed. Same with no way of calling for help. With all of those unknowns, you didn’t want to take the chance without a weapon that didn’t have durability.

Throughout the tests, the weapon had help up with little give. That made you damn proud for the first time doing this. The fiber/plant part made you fret though. It’s the weak link in the design. Unfortunately, you didn’t have anything to trade it out with. The cold was still biting at you in the middle of the day. You couldn’t use your clothes, despite them being stronger than the leaves. While you’re out, in search for food, you’ll keep an eye out on for something better.

A mile or so from your camp, you had hobbled up the shoreline. Fish would be easiest to hunt for in your opinion, compared to everything else. If there’s rabbits’ out there, they would be far too difficult to kill. Same with deer. All of the prey out here was too quick for you. And over your dead body if you had to bugs or an unknown plant. For all you know was if could a poisonous berry and you die. What a way to go. At least you knew meat was safe, if you cooked it properly. Something was better than nothing, you guess.

Trekking all that way proved worthy after almost twenty minutes. You found yourself with a river running into the ocean. Perfect. Even if you don’t find fish. Crabs, lobsters, or even crawdads will do just fine. You have enough metal to form a pot to boil them. Anything for food to fill your growling stomach.

To help ensure you don’t get lost while away from your camp of operations, you stated with the river. You hiked away from the shore and kept the rushing water to your right. Then, when you head back to camp, you can have it on your left. The last thing you wanted was to get mixed up on your direction.

If you were to get lost, you were more than sure you would die. With nothing to make a salt distillery or something to boil this water, death could surely come to you.

The sun rose high above you, beating down on your moving form. With all of your movement and the heat from the sun, you were staying pleasantly warm. As much as you wanted to fall into the comfort, you kept your head on a swivel. You were away from the safety of your camp, with only a spear, and in an unknown place. And whatever that was last night. What would you do if it came back…?

Truly, you won’t be able to do anything. A bear or wolf could easily tear you apart. All you could hope was the fact they won’t like the taste of human. To be brutely honest, at the point they realize human blood wasn’t good, you would be bleeding out to your death. You shivered, not due to the cold.

Some more time past before you reached an area you decided to stop at. Even though the rock was bitterly cold, you sat onto of a large boulder and gaze down at the water. With the light sky, it was difficult to see past the reflection staring back at you. Yet, you still saw movement and smiled. Perfect. Food.

The river wasn’t wide, more like a creek that ran through the forest. It looked to be four feet deep, worrying in this kind of weather. Yet, you knew you couldn’t just throw your spear in. You didn’t have bait, let alone a fishing pole and hook to fish for them. The best you could do was possibly herd them towards a swallow area of the creek. Your spear would come in handy then.

And that’s what you did until the sun was close to touching the horizon. The heat it produced falling away from your wet, shivering body. It was time to retreat and leave. You shivered, goosebumps running along your skin. That didn’t stop you from bending over and scooping up the three fish you were to get. By the looks of it, they were all trout. A type of fish you hated due to the amount of bones they have. But, you would have to suffice with the catch. Anything to feed yourself.

As you took a step towards the shoreline of the ocean, creaking bark startled you. Your eyes snapped into the direction, scanning over something out of line. Anything that could alert you to a predator. Yet, there was nothing in your line of sight. You continued the march home but kept an ear open in that general direction. If something was hunting you, you didn’t want to stay around and find out. On that same hand, you didn’t want to be completely oblivious to whatever created that noise. Something, big or small, prey or predator, was out there. And you didn’t want to find out what it was.

Your steps weren’t light or careful or mindful of where they fell. Sticks and pine needles cracked underneath you. You didn’t know how to be quiet in this situation. What you wanted was to be back at camp where there was some semblance of safety. Even if it was a façade. At least it was there.

Throughout the trek back, your head was on a swivel, constantly watching for anything that could mean danger. That feeling didn’t fall away. It continued to churn deep inside of your stomach and disturb the pride you had for yourself. You should be celebrating, you caught dinner. You had something to be excited about. A position in the negative that had you drowning.

That damn feeling refused to leave, even in the safety of your camp. It crawled up from the pits of stomach and settled in the back of your throat. It made you sick. Something was watching you. You couldn’t put down your guard as you sat on a log next to your salt distillery.

With the edge of your spear, you sliced open the bellies of the fish and scooped out the guts. It was a horrible feeling to do so. You tossed them as far as possible away from you into the growing darkness of the forest. They made a squelch noise you absolutely hated.

Once all three had been clean, you used a few sticks to put the fish on and held them over the fire. Enough water had been collected that you put the setup to the side. You took a sip of said distilled liquid and hummed in content. Good old water. It was still warm from the fire but it still was refreshing, nevertheless.

More fuel was added to the fire after you set up the spit fire. The smell of cooking fish wavered into the air, settling around you. Delicious. Your stomach growled loudly in a hungry call, desperate for food. After at least a day of no food, you were starving for something.

Those eyes didn’t go away.

A shiver raked your body. You scanned the area once more. A horrible, bone chilling feeling ran up the length of your limbs to settle like a tick in your chest. It had you frozen in your spot. Was there someone out there? The gaze… it felt weird. It was heavy, like it doubled the gravity that held you to earth.

Not something. Someone was watching you. That’s what your brain was telling you.

“Hello?” you hesitantly called out against your better judgement. Whatever was observing already knew where you were. There wasn’t a point in hiding or being stealthy. Your cover has been blown for a while if it’s the same thing from yesterday. It felt like it was.

You prayed this was another survivor. It had to. That gaze… There was something about it that made it feel human.

No one or thing answered you back. Just the awakening of the forest, yourself, and whatever was watching you.

Abruptly, to stop yourself from regretting your decisions, you stood up and grabbed a half-cooked piece of fish. “If you’re hungry, I have food. Is that what you want?” you offered to the unknown being in the darkness. The fire’s light flickering to expose what it could touch.

All that returned was a bird cooing, cutting through the sounds of the forest. You weren’t going to give up so easily. You knew there was something out there. Something watching you. Something hunting you. Someone possibly needing food. If you offer them food, maybe they’ll come out to greet you. Maybe they’re really hurt and confused. You don’t blame them after everything you’ve experienced in less than forty-eight hours. You were still reeling on the fact this couldn’t be reel. This had to be all a dream. That didn’t stop you from still surviving.

“I’ll leave this out for you. If you want it, you can take it.” You stepped towards the direction you believed they were watching you. The fish in hand was placed where the orange light barely licked at. Then, you returned back to your original spot and turned the fish on the stick around. You had to make sure it was fully cooked. You didn’t want to get sick. That’s the last thing you wanted.

The moment you took your eyes off the fish in the distance to grab at the – hopefully – done meat, a snap noise had your attention. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw… something… reach out from the darkness and it snatched the gutted fish. Your eyes grew wide at what you saw but didn’t at the same time.

It was a human hand, that was all you could tell from the spilt second you spotted it. Nothing more, nothing less. The moment afterwards, the gaze fell away from you. The whole world was swept off of your shoulders at the feeling. Now, you could breath and take a lung full of air in. Relief flooded you the second it had happened. What in the hell is that?

For days, you stayed near the crash site. Hope still swollen in your chest. They have to be searching for the plane. Why haven’t they found it yet? Were they even searching for it? They had to be. Your family was probably worried about you. Friends begging to know where you were. If you were dead.

With those thoughts, your shoulders dropped…  The brutal, harsh, truth was sinking into the depths of your bones. Everyone you knew. What were they thinking right now? How many people were searching for the plane? All their families and friends, they might find them. Yet, not in the state you are in. Possibly, if you are able to survive long enough for rescue.

Day after day, like clock work at this point, you went back to that same fishing spot. Some days better than others. For every catch though, you either gave one fish or half of one for whoever was out there. Water was offered as well. It was just the fish they stole every night. And every night, you watched as that hand swiped from the darkness and grabbed the offered food. Then, the heavy gaze would disappear until morning.

Prizrak – Ghost – is what you decided to name them. Without a face or trace to follow, you pick a designation that seems to fight the unknown person. They liked to come and go. The only way you knew they were around was from their heavy gaze. When it disappears, you could relax for the night. They wouldn’t come back until the morning. For the most part.

This morning, Prizrak wasn’t here. There was a shift in the air that set you on edge. Your spear was held tightly in your hand. Another small piece of metal that had been crafted into a knife was grasped your other limb.

That’s when you felt it. Eyes. Predatory eyes. Foliage crunched through the quiet, cool forest. Your gaze snapped over to the origin and found nothing. This wasn’t Prizrak. It was all wrong. Did this predator kill Prizrak? Is that why they weren’t here this morning? Now, it was coming for you. You had to defend yourself from it.

You stood up, weapons poised, ready to be used. Your mind was racing with wild, last thoughts. What haunted you was the fact this thing could kill you? This could be your last day on earth after surviving a plane crash.

Through the foliage that crowded your camp, you spotted sharp, deadly eyes pinned on you. Shit! A cougar. When your eyes met, it snarled and lunged without warning. You gasped at the sudden move and dove to the side. Both weapons almost dropped in the quick movement.

You twisted around to face the predator and held out your spear. It spun around as well, eyes bright in the morning light. Its jaw lowered to show its fatal teeth, ready to pierce your feeble hide. You snarled back at it with your spear pointed at it. “Come on! I’m right here!” you spat and jabbed at the cougar. It wasn’t deterred and swiped at you in retaliation.

It felt like hours as the two of you circled each other. Sizing the other up. You didn’t want to be the first attack. You didn’t know what you were doing! How were you going to survive this? This was a born predator that had most likely killed your friend and was coming for you. it was a death sentence all in its own.

The cougar lunged once more, claws and arms stretched out towards you. Fear and adrenaline drove you. The spear’s butt was rammed into the ground. It all happened in slow motion. The animal came down with gravity. Blood spurted out from its back, coating the spear’s tip heavily. Yet, the cougar was still alive and made its dying move at you.

Sharp claws teared through the thin shirt and skin on your chest. Red blood soaked into the fabric and dribbled down your torso. You gasped at the sudden, sharp pain that struck you. Your feet stumbled back. The spear and knife dropping from your gasp. The cougar fell with its own weight and laid dying off to the side.

Curses flew from your mouth as you brought up a hand to touch the new wound. Your gaze returned to the animal. Its breathing was labored and wet. A small part of yourself felt remorse for killing it. But what had to be done was done.

The fallen knife was picked back up from the ground. With a quick swipe, the blade had sliced through the neck of the cougar. It attempted to get revenge with its own deadly weapon. Yet, it couldn’t.

As you stood there, you felt it again. Those eyes you’ve come to know. They were back. “Did you see that, Prizrak? Got some meat for us. Hopefully, I can make it last us awhile,” you spoke into the quiet air of the cool forest. And the pelt. If you could figure out how to dry it, it could be used for yourself.

You’ll survive another night with him.

[mistressoftherant-blog]

TMNT Crossover Fics and Trauma

Something I find really weird about some writers in the TMNT fandom is the absolute insistence that if a bunch of different iterations met up, they would all be horrified at what happened in Rise, being shocked that they've gone through such terrible things at their age, and then would coddle the living daylights out of the 18 boys after learning about their Krang/Shredder. Warning, spoilers ahead.

Don't get me wrong, the Rise boys do go through a lot of traumatising incidents at a young age, and if you consider the other turtles to be older than them when they meet they probably would try to help out. It's just, every iteration of the turtles goes through a lot of traumatising events at a young age, and most crossover fics just seem to sweep these under the rug to prioritise Rise.

I guess this is fine if Rise is your fave version and that's all you want to look at, but it always comes across as weird to me when you have characters from 12 for instance being like oh no, 'one of you got possessed and forced to fight the others, one of you got melded with a piece of tech, one of you almost got locked in a prison dimension, and your city was invaded by Krang, etc, I can't even imagine the suffering you have been through', when all of these things have happened to the 12 boys before, some even multiple times.

They've all been possessed/mind controlled and used against their brothers, Donnie merged with the Speed Demon, the Krang have invaded their city, their entire world was destroyed! Same with 03, they've been possessed/mind controlled, their city was taken over by the Demon Shredder (and Don saw the SAINW Shredder controlled world), they had to fight at least five Shredders, one of whom was also a demon, etc etc Also, as most of the other series ran for longer than Rise (trust me, I am also annoyed that we didn't get more of the 18 boys as 18 was the first show to properly get me into TMNT and I do love it), they also went through more traumatic events than the 18 boys.

Again, I am not trying to say that what the 18 boys went through isn't traumatic, because they definitely had a lot of bad stuff happen to them. But it does feel so weird to dimish everything that the other turtles went through when they were pretty much the same age as the Rise boys.

Take, Donnie: In 03 he's double mutated at least twice, tortured by an invasive mind probe that also electrocuted him, lost a friend to another dimension, got sent to an alternative future and learns that another of his friend and his father are dead before he watched his brothers get killed in front of him, believed himself to be responsible for the loss of his father and went through his own mini depression arc trying to cope with thlle guikt whilst working to bring him back, and that's all off the top of my head.

Poor 12 Donnie... he has died multiple times one of which was beinh literally torn apart on a molecular level by a possessed version of the girl he loves, has also been double mutated and/or possessed multiple times (not sure whether being turned into a vampire counts more as death or mutation), has immense guilt over a variety of things that aren't actually his fault (Leo's coma, when they thought Splinter died during the first invasion, everything that happened with Pulverizer), has also been tortured via electrocution to the head, spent an episode being beaten up by his mind controlled brothers only for them to be snapped out of it pizza, is constantly pressured to be able to fix/solve everything and is frequently told he isnt good enough etc etc

Again, these are examples for just 03 and 12 Donnie that come from the top of my head. Looking at other iterations and characters would make this post even longer than it already is, but I think the Donnie examples alone are enough to prove my point.

In conclusion, if you are writing a crossover fic with Rise as the central point of focus, that is completely fine! If you want to mainly prioritise looking at their trauma because the others are older than that is valid. I just wanted to point out that it can come across a little weirdly if you have some of the characters being completely horrified by the events of Rise, and acting like they could never even begin to understand what they have been through when they've all had similar trauma in their own pasts. Or when you have a bunch of characters being like, 'Oh you almost died, you are turning my scales grey', when they have all almost or actually died multiple times.

It's just a little funny to me for example to have any of the 12 sibling act like, 'I can't even imagine how much you must have suffered when you thought Leo was lost in the prison dimension' when their Donnie has legitimately been killed in a horrific way in front of them, their dad has been 'killed' in front of them multiple times, their own Leo pulls self sacrificial stunts, their entire world was destroyed in front of them, etc

This may just be me coming across as a little bitter but, if you are doing a crossover, it doesn't make sense to me why you would just ignore all the events of the other shows completely in order to make it sound like Rise had it the absolute worst. It seems like it would make more sense to have the characters relating to one another around shared or similar traumas 🤷‍♀️

[ordonianhero]

Forks and chop sticks

Authors note: I have been in training like this where I was corrected for my speech, to how to “properly” hold your pencil. Then later on it became about how you hold a fork or spoon. Recently I saw a post making fun of people who hold their utensils weirdly and that effected me and I feel like I was back there again. There is no wrong or right way to do things folks. You do you. ❤️

Characters: Time & Twilight.

Genre: hurt/comfort/fluff.

————————————————-

The chain sat in their make shift camp for the night. Wild went about working on dinner. As others went about arranged their bed rolls, polishing their weapons, or fixing their chainmail is needed.

Time took a seat beside the Rancher and watches as the pup (as he endearingly calls him) makes quick work of patching up a broken chink in his chainmail. Rancher feeling the gaze of his mentor watching him. Stiffens. Not unnoticed by the elder hero.

Why is he stiffening up?

Time hesitates to place a hand on the shoulder to say “relax”. He decides to place his hand on the youth’s back and giving it a slight rub, in a soothing manner.

Twilight relax, tension all but gone now.

What made his react like that?

Dinner then was finally served up as the champion has manges to make cuccoo Alfredo pasta. Time was amazed at their cook’s ability in his cooking. Taking his flora and swivels the past onto the fork and taking a bite. There was caked in a sweet creamy sauce with hints of seasoning to it. He hummed in approve. As did several other members. Wild smiling that he once again nailed another great meal.

Rancher took small bites of his. Stabbing, swiveling and then bring the bundle of pasta to his mouth and doing his best to eat quietly. He would look up every once in a while noticing how every held their utensils. The Captain had a very (in his mind) proper way to hold his fork. Where as Hyrule used held it like a spoon and scooping up the noodles. Not as elegant. Where as Wind would stab the living daylights out and making a mess of it. Then he returned his eyes to how he held his. He felt ashamed. Like his way of holding it was wrong.

At this point he was about to go dig in his bag and use a pair of chopsticks to hide how improper he held his fork. His way of holding it was gently at the top, with the back of the facing up. As he swivels up some of the pasta and then taking a bite. He attempted to his his insecure feeling of his eating style. His ears drooping.

The elder noticed a slump to their shoulders and a droop of their ears. He looked down as now the Pup was just poking at his food and not really making anymore advances to eating it. He took note of that. Twilight let out a shaky sigh.

Though everyone was so far happily chattering away as their spirits had been improved by the Champion’s meal tonight. A harmless banter breaking out between the Veteran and the Captain. Throwing bets at each other. Twilight shoulder trembles.

He set his plate down and says quietly that only the eldest could hear, “I am going to go patrol.” Time wanted say something but the Rancher got up, threw the wolf pelt hood over his head and walking off into the forest.

What was that about?

—————————————-

As the evening wore on the Ordonian hadn’t returned yet. Warriors and four were busy cleaning dishes as wild was setting up water for tea. Time sat there mulling over what he had noticed. His finger rolling across his ring.

“Think someone should go check that the Rancher falling off a cliff or something. He’s been gone for an awfully long time.” Spoke up The skyloftian.

“Eh, he probably off you know ‘alone time’ “ joked the Captain.

He received a stern look from the elder. He then stood up, “I shall go. Captain,”

“Yes sir?”

“You’re in charge.”

“Why is he in charge?” Barked the Veteran.

“Cause I am the most reliable to watch over a bunch of young Heroes.” Warriors replied with a smirk. The veteran flipped him off.

Time didn’t want to be bothered with their spat. He didn’t respond but instead made his way toward where the Rancher had headed off.

—————————-

Some were deep in the lushes forest. Twilight was sitting against a tree. Knees drawn up as one grasped tightly to his side. The other clamped in his hair. Curled into him. Sobbing. The constant thoughts ambushing him.

Hold your quill right! No, no, no, that is all wrong. You are a disgrace.

That’s is not how you hold a fork, try again. No! That is wrong. *smack*

You are an embarrassment. Everyone will see how uneducated and class you are. A lowly nobody. A fuck up. A failure. You will amount to nothing.

Tears streamed down his face. As he gasped for air. Like he was being downed. His sob were quiet. He learned to be quiet. He was so consumed by the returning negative comments in his head. He had not even noticed the Old man.

Time rushed to the pup’s side, hesitated to put his hand on the young man. He rest his hand over the pups hand grasping at his hair. Getting them to loosen the grip, pulling them into a gentle and comforting embrace. He could feel the Rancher buddy tremble and shake with each gasping sob. Taking his hand he rubbed soothing circles on the Ranchers back.

“Breathe Link. It’s okay. Everything will be okay.” He softly spoke int the young man’s ears. Gently rocking them. The young man breathing staggering as a few more tears feel from their face. Dampening a bit of the Elder’s under tunic.

It took some time, but eventually the shaking halted. Breathing eases up. Time stopped his humming of a soft tune. Rancher’s voice came out small and quiet.

“What song is that?”

Time brushed his thumb gently back and forth on the pup’s upper back. “It was a song a friend of mine taught me. If ever I was in need of her, I would play it and she would speak to me.”

There was silence after a bit. The Rancher finally pulled away and wiped his face. Letting out a soft chuckle. “What a mess I am.” He stated in a raspy tone.

“I don’t think you’re a mess.” The elder replied. Taking a seat next to him. “Clearly something has you on edge.”

More silence. He would wait and not press. He had seen some of the chain members go through their anxiety or panic attacks before. All from trauma from their adventures. He just rested a hand on the Rancher’s back and still continuing to offer a comforting rub.

He watched closely as the Rancher eased into it after one last anxious rub of his chest.

Hm. Must be how he often soothes himself.

“Back. When I was in school. I was just a kid. There was a class on etiquettes. Your basic how to hold a quill properly, how to write properly, to how to eat or drink correctly. They were strict and I often couldn’t catch on to it. Because I didn’t see what was wrong how I held something. Said something or even ate something. They drill it into you hard. I was 15. I was basically punished for it. Bless Rusl and Uli noticing the class was basically punishing me for the silliest of things. They suspected the teacher just didn���t like me. I was pulled out. But the damage was done. I second guess how I look towards other when in formal situations. I am not great with words. So I don’t always speak. I think the only time you catch on I went through said class is when addressing the queen herself. I often choke on the way of the speech.”

Time stayed quiet before finally speaking, “so the tension and lack of wanting to eat is because of that?”

“Well, yeah. Captain holds his fork on a way you know he dines with the royals. Real proper. Four is a skilled in best penmanship. Legend as sassy he can be can pull out perfect way of formally speaking. Sky manges to do all that. I am just a lowly rancher who shouldn’t be taken seriously. Even though I have a heroes title to me name.”

“That’s must be hard. To be basing your self worth based on others. You are who you are and sure formalities are a pain. Trust me. I hate it myself. The yes sir and no ma’am. Society puts way too much pressure on perfection. The truth is pup,”

He took his other hand and gently lift the pups face up to look him in the eye. “Nobody is perfect. Even the Captain or some royal person. I think you do a mighty fine job in all your area. We are all unique and different and we should never feel like we need to be someone else.” He continued with a snort smile on his face.

The rancher gently smiled back. He hugged him tightly. Before they both went back to be silent again.

“Well we should head back before they think we became bukoblin food.” The elder said with a chuckle. The Rancher just snorts. “That’ll be the day.”

Rancher getting up and lending a hand to the elder. Helping him off the ground. They then made their way back to camp.

“Thanks.”

Time squeezes the young man’s shoulder and smiled, “any time pup.”

Fin.

[easypeasylindyvesey]

APRIL 2027- PART 21

The elevator doors open and we make our way out and into the lobby, looking for the doors. We’re met with the chilly morning air. I should be lucky that I decided to wear something somewhat warm. We find our Uber parallel parked right in front of the hotel. The driver lifts the trunk for us to store our suitcases. I shut it and both of us make our way into the backseat.

I take a few seconds to observe our driver. He’s a man, of course, with brunette hair and scruffy facial hair. He’s wearing a baseball cap and is evidently enjoying the music playing on the radio. He looks at the rear-view mirror and smiles. “Morning,” he says. “I’m Ryan. Where to?”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

“Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, please,” Jimmy requests, as he buckles his seatbelt into place.

“You got it,” the driver says. “If there’s any pit stops I gotta make, just let me know.” He looks over the seat. “You okay, miss?”

I’m zoning out on the seat in front of me. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” I say, reaching my seatbelt over my body. 

“Alrighty, then,” Ryan replies. “Buckle up and we’ll be on our way.”

Once I click it, he reverses out of his parking spot, and down through the parking lot, before finding the exit. We merge onto the highway, the hotel occurrences becoming more of an unsettling memory.

I stare out of my window, watching the early morning sky show off to the world. The sun is still low in the sky, but I can focus on the light blue intermingling with the high thin clouds. It’s a pretty sight, I’ll admit. I have never been a morning person by any means, but I guess it’s not so bad when you have a nice view.

I side-eye my way toward Jimmy. He’s on his phone, doing I-don’t-know what because I can’t get a good look. He’s probably texting Lavi about how I’ve been quiet for a little bit, and oh, should I be worried? Should I try to talk to her? God, why does he feel the need to feel like he has to fix everything?

I lean my head back on the seat and shut my eyes, listening to the tires drive on the road and the sound of the music coming through the back speakers. It makes me relax. I feel as if I’m being transported into another universe, where it’s calmer and nothing has changed and the people that I love love me back. Well, at least I can confirm two of those things were true. 

I hold onto my purse for dear life, feeling the bulges and bumps. I can feel the outline of my wallet, my phone, hand sanitizer, pen.

Pen.

The pen I wrote my speech with.

The speech I forgot for the funeral.

The same speech I forgot in the nightstand drawer.

The same speech I forgot to put in my suitcase.

This can’t be some sort of sign, can it? Leaving everything here and letting it go once we get back? I don’t know if I can fathom that. It’s not like I would take that well. I guess it was a blessing in disguise.

I take my hands and separate my fingers from each other, stretching them out, as a way to silently express my frustration. I don’t want to talk right now. Hell, I don’t think I should ever talk again. It’s not the end of the world, Abby. We’ve already reached that.

My eyes slowly squint open when I see the sun has started to rise, absolutely blinding me through the cracks of the front passenger seat. Guess I won’t be able to fall back into my previous state now.

We’re still on the highway, it looks like, as I concentrate on the Uber driver. I silently thank him for not being a huge talker. I’ve never been a fan of people who constantly suck the daylights out of you by continuously running their mouth. I get if they’re talking about something they’re passionate about; that’s one thing. On the other hand, if it’s constant bitching and moaning about the same old thing, I’m immediately over it. Of course, no one wants to be brave and tell them to be quiet because we want to avoid hurting their feelings, but a good reality check isn’t always the worst idea. Just like what Jim got.

I can feel him looking at me. I focus on the rising of the sun. It hurts my eyes, but it’s a better distraction than having to look into his. The silence is somewhat comfortable, but it’s giving the idea of the person that opens their mouth will regret it. And it’s sure as hell not going to be me.

“I forgot to ask this, but what brought you folks to Minnesota?” Ryan pipes up from the driver’s seat. “It’s a beautiful state to be in this time of year.”

“We, uh, we attended a funeral,” Jimmy says, his voice doing a good job at conveying the dissatisfaction with having to say that sentence out loud.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ryan replies. “DId you know the person well?”

“We did,” Jimmy responds back. “He was, uh, he was a very important person in our lives.”

Very important? He was everything.

“At least you got to offer your condolences. I’m sure he was happy both of you showed up.”

I mean, I’d be happier if he was riding along in the car with us right now, but okay.

“Yeah, we, uh, we could definitely feel that he was in the room with us,” Jimmy admits. “His family lives here, so that’s why they decided to hold the services in a different state.”

“Where you folks from?”

“I’m uh, I’m from Boston, and she’s from Long Island. We both live in Manhattan right now. We’re taking a flight back to the city.”

“Hey, both of you share those East Coast roots!” Ryan realizes. “I gotta tell you, some East Coasters are so, so nice, and some of them can be incredibly nasty. I’ve driven a lot of people from there, and you could just tell by their demeanor if they were up for a conversation or didn’t want to be bothered. Y’all are quiet, but definitely on the nice list. Now, I understand the quiet given the circumstances. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy replies.

The car falls quiet again. There’s no perfect way to deter the topic of conversation after mentioning death. I’m not pouring out my heart and soul to some stranger who just happens to share his name.

We seem to be halfway through our drive already. I’m becoming more eager to get on this plane. I just need to go home. Should I even consider the apartment home yet? It still feels a little unfamiliar to me. I’ve adjusted to my room and the living space, but the only vast difference is that there’s someone in the next room. My privacy has been limited in so many ways. So far, he’s not doing a good job at maintaining it. Of course, it’s too early to confront him, both literally and logically, but he better take the hint soon. Or maybe he already has and I just don’t know it.

I close my eyes again and listen to the music buzzing in the background. The chilly morning air starts to infiltrate its way through the car, making me shiver.

“You cold?” Jimmy asks.

I stare straight at the passenger seat in front of me. “No.”

“Do you want my jacket?”

“I literally just said I’m fine,” I hiss.

“Alright, then,” he remarks. “Suit yourself.”

I roll my eyes, biting my lip to prevent myself from saying something I might regret. There’s already a good amount of stuff that I wish I never did with him right there.

After what feels like an infinite amount of time, we finally merge off the highway and take the exit to the airport. I’m so close to unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door while the car’s still moving. Hell, if an Uber can’t get there quick enough, I think walking would serve as a more advantageous alternative. Sure, the car would chase after me, but at least he wasn’t going to follow me around like he always does. Even being trapped in the backseat with him makes me feel confined and unable to get my own space. I thought he, out of all people, would understand that. We didn’t have to take the flight to Minnesota together. We didn’t have to share a hotel room. We didn’t have to share an Uber. I didn’t even need to call him.

But I did. I guess this is what I get in return.

Of course, life can never continuously be kind to us, because the road leading up to the airport entrance is at a complete deadlock. I check my phone. It’s 7:20. The flight’s not until 8:30, but they tend to start boarding around half an hour beforehand. God knows how long when, or if, we’ll move at all.

I can see the faintest image of the runway peaking out from behind the airport. There’s a plane sitting there, perhaps getting ready to take off. It’s in that moment when I realize that I am probably never going to come back here with intent ever again. I guess you could count me visiting his family if I so wish, but what’s the point of doing that when he’s not even there?

I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach for a $20, reaching forward and dropping it in the front cup holder. “Thank you,” I elicit, and open my door, shutting it before I even get to hear a response. The trunk pops open and I reach for my suitcases, motioning over to the sidewalk and beginning my journey inside.

There’s the sound of another car door shutting. “Abb!” a familiar voice yells. “Where are you going?”

“Can’t fucking sit in there forever!” I yell back. “If we miss the flight, then, oh, well. We saw that coming.”

“The traffic will move! You gotta be patient!”

“I don’t have any more patience left in me! Either sit there or get your ass up and walk! I really don’t care!”

I respond to him without even looking back. I’m surprised he could hear me all the way from back there. Heck, I’m surprised I could even hear him. It was more of a shout than a yell. I do know there will be a time in the future where he will yell and it will sure scare the hell out of me.

There’s another sound of the trunk shutting. Of course. I mean, what were the odds, right?

I cherish this time without him by my side to finally breathe. I can walk into that airport and feel as if I’ve been traveling alone, like I’m embarking on a solo expedition around the country. I can walk in there and for a few moments, no one will recognize me or know my name. Maybe I should hide in the bathroom so that he doesn’t come and find me. However, he’ll probably be able to pick up on the fact that I’m purposefully avoiding him. One thing’s for certain: I want him to be done asking me questions. I don’t have the answers.

It looks to be a blessing in disguise when I walk through those double doors because there’s not as many people as I would’ve thought. I guess I got lucky in terms of flight time. Yeah, you can thank me for scheduling it in the early part of the day. I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I needed to. Of course, Jimmy would think that’s ‘rushing.’ I call it ‘logical reasoning.’

I approach the TSA line and scan my ticket while letting my suitcases run through security before they make their way to the baggage claim. I receive a card with my gate number and walk over to baggage claim, watching the suitcases spin round and round on the conveyor belt. I look around and see all of these strangers making their way through. Isn’t it weird to think that everyone you see at an airport is here for a different reason? Some people might be going on vacation, others are studying abroad. Heck, there’s a 1% chance someone had to watch their loved ones be laid to rest. Oh wait, that’s me.

Still waiting, feeling a little bit annoyed, because really, how long does it take for bags to go through baggage claim? When we travel to away games, we take a private flight immediately to the nearest airport and go straight to the hotel. We don’t get our bags checked. Of course, that would take too much time, and we’d be stuck there longer than we need to be. This is one of the times where I don’t get that luxury. But hey, curiosity killed the cat, right?

I hear the faintest footsteps approach from behind me. I already know it’s him, I don’t even need to look. I keep my eyes on the baggage claim. I’m starting to think it destroyed my suitcases because where the hell are they?

“Just wanted to say you took my things out of the trunk,” Jimmy pipes up. It’s quiet, but he gets his point across.

Oh. That’s why.

He steps out into my peripheral vision and grabs two navy blue suitcases with the manufacturing logo ingrained at the top. “Your stuff’s just about to make its way around.”

I give him a quick nod. “Sorry.” Even I feel brave for mentioning that five letter word I don’t even seem to believe.

“No worries,” he replies. “It was an accident.”

Was it, though?

“You wanna get breakfast real quick before we board?” he asks.

I ponder the idea of having to spend another meal with him. I ponder another idea of starving for the next 2 and a half hours in the air, where I’d have to resort to crappy airline food. Then again, airport food isn’t even much better.

“Yeah,” I mutter, finally seeing my belongings make their way to the front and reaching out to grab them. I lift the handles and roll the suitcases down the airport floor, looking like a lost puppy trying to find its way home. I look further down and notice a Starbucks located in its own little area. Bingo.

Surprisingly, there’s not a long wait. I order a spinach, feta, and egg white wrap with a grande cold brew with cream, and Jimmy’s sticking to his Boston roots with a plain bagel and grande black coffee. With nothing else. No cream, no sugar, no espresso shot, no cold foam. Damn, he really is bland with his food and drink choices as he is with his nonstop presence.

We find a table to sit at and quickly munch on our overpriced breakfast. Not much conversation ensues, but that’s not necessarily an uncommon factor. I can tell that if he attempts to start something with me, he’ll be met with an attitude, or straight-up ignored. You’d think he’d know better. 

“Oh, uh, just to let you know, we’re taking a commercial flight back to the city, so we’re gonna be with other passengers,” he pipes up after sipping his coffee. “Also, there’s not enough space for the entire team to take just one flight, so there’s gonna be two. Both are scheduled for 8:30. So if you don’t see everyone right away, then that’s why.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You comin with me?”

“Why wouldn’t I come with you?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

I don’t answer.

“Abb?”

I don’t answer again.

“Do you actually want me to take the other flight? If that’s what you want, that’s fine with me. You gotta tell me, though.”

My brain wants to say yes, but my heart’s telling me no.

“You can stay with me,” I let out. “It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Jim, I’m sure.”

“I mean, if you really-”

“Just don’t piss me off and we’ll be fine.”

“Haven’t I done that already?” 

I look up at him. His lips are moist from his coffee. His eyes tell me that he was sincere when he asked that. Crap. He actually meant that.

I guess I don’t need to answer for the third time. Maybe he’s not as oblivious as I make him out to be.

We finish our breakfast and make our way to our gate. We wait in line until we make our way outside and onto the plane. I find my seat and store my purse in the overhead compartment. I expect Jimmy to move in right next to me, but instead, he shuffles into the row behind him, occupying the middle seat. Is that the seat he was assigned on the plane? Did he purchase that one on his own? I thought it was paid as a group flight.

And then I remember that it was.

And then I remember again that there are no assigned seating arrangements on a group flight.

I would totally thank him right now, but my space is taken up by Goody and Braden, who take the seats on my left. We exchange our facial gestures before we sit down. I see Vinny and Jacob surround Jimmy. A little more room to breathe is nice. Of course, it can’t last forever.

I turn my body to face them. “How are you?” I start the conversation.

“Good,” Braden says. “Tired, but good.”

“What did you think of everything?”

Braden opens his mouth again. “I thought it was nice. They really did a great job organizing everything. I mean, yeah, it’s obviously very sad, but it was a good way to honor him.”

“You got that right,” I agree.

“Yeah, you had a great speech, Abb,” Goody chimes in. “It really came from the heart. We all knew that when it came to you, we wouldn’t have thought to find it anywhere else. Truly, it was one that you could tell everyone had to listen to. They’d see it as one of the most important ones.”

I smile. “I mean, I don’t know if it was the most important one, but I’ll take it. Thanks.”

“Of course. How are you holding up?”

I shrug. “Well, I’m still here. That should count for something.”

“Are you okay? You know, after what happened last night?”

Oh my fucking God. 

I play dumb. “What, uh, what happened last night?”

“Oh, sorry, I, uh, I meant to say earlier this morning. Jimmy told us you woke up panicking, like screaming for help and stuff. I wasn’t sure if he told you that he told us. I wanted to wait until I saw you to ask if you were okay in case you didn’t know.”

I didn’t.

I’m gonna fucking kill him.

“I’m fine,” I say with my voice lowered so that he doesn’t hear me. “Just a one time thing. That’s all.”

“I know you see Jim on a regular basis, but if you ever want to talk to us about anything if you don’t feel like opening up to him, you know we’re always here.” Goody gives me a sympathetic look. I can see it in his eyes.

“I know,” I remind him. “Thank you.”

“He’s not busting your balls, is he?”

“More like imploding them, but same equivalent.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“You seriously didn’t pick up on that?”

Goody laughs. “No, I did not. You still got that sense of humor.”

I playfully roll my eyes. “I learned it from the best.”

Oh, what a good thing he didn’t pick up on it. Because it’s a lie.

The sound of an intercom makes its way across the plane. It makes announcements about safety procedures and basic rules before the voice tells everyone we’re about to take off. I stare down at my shoes, dangling my feet on the floor of the plane. My heart rate is a little elevated, but steady. When I first joined the team, I had so much anxiety about away games because we’d have to board a plane and be stuck on there for God knows how many hours. I was only on a plane twice in my life as a kid, so I was incredibly nervous about the long flights. Luckily, it got easier with time. It was also easy when your boyfriend would distract you with cards and conversation. I will say that one of my favorite parts about pregame flights is playing UNO with some of the guys. Not to brag, but most times, I reign victorious, even if we’ve played for 7 rounds. Everyone thinks I’m cheating, and I swear that I’m not, but they seem to think that I have a trick up my sleeve. I do have a trick: it’s called luck. As for postgame flights, everyone is completely exhausted, so the majority of the team sleeps or quietly plays cards. I’d use Ryan’s shoulder as a pillow, which I felt bad about because he wouldn’t have been able to move, but I wonder what I’m gonna do now once preseason rolls around. Maybe I’ll have to buy my own.

As the plane ascends into the air and off the ground, leaving Minnesota, I clench my hands on the armrests. Of course, I’m extremely sad, but I have to remind myself that he can rest now. He is free from any harm, any danger, any uncertainty about the future. According to my “dream,” he wasn’t free from it at all. It’s just my mind distracting me from the actual reality that is even more extreme and consequential than I thought it would’ve ever been. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I’ll see you later. I love you.

[tumbleassbitch]

another lost soul (letting my instinct take control) | The Quarry | TravisxLaura

Characters: Laura Kearney, Travis Hackett, The Hackett family Summary: Max dies in the cellar. This changes everything. Chapter 4/? | Chapter 3

July 1st, 2022

“Are you fucking insane?” He meets her frantic gaze unaffected. “Shit. You are insane.”

Science. He wants to fix this with science.

“I’ve been out hunting for that goddamn white wolf every full moon for the last six years. If I hadn’t seen the evidence myself, I’d think he didn’t exist. If you were me, you'd be looking for other ways to end this, too."

“I can help you,” she emphasizes. “I want to stop Silas, too. I’m not some- some fragile fucking daisy that needs to stay locked up.”

“You don’t get it,” he says firmly, slowly approaching the cell bars. “I’m not doing this for another six years. I’m too damn old.”

“Yeah, and I’m twenty-four. Nice to meet you,” she says sarcastically. “You don’t have to do any of this. You could let me join you out there, get a fresh pair of eyes-”

He hooks his thumbs in his belt. “The worst thing for either of us would be if my family caught wind of this. We don’t need more guns. We need brains.”

“I’m not even a veterinarian yet!” she practically screams.

“Hey! You have almost four years of college under your belt,” he asserts with a pointed finger, “and you’ve already been accepted into that vet school on the West Coast.”

Am I really getting a pep talk right now? “That's so not the same,” she laments into her hands, collapsing on the bed. 

It’s true that she was accepted into vet school after applying to almost every one in the country, and yeah, she’s smart. She’d just been waiting to tell Max until he heard back from St. Lawrence… which, he did. And didn’t tell her.

Not that it matters, now.

But this backwater cop apparently took one look at her college resume and thought, Gee, she could probably cure lycanthropy! If this is their only solid plan, they were genuinely fucked.

“You’re the best we’ve got,” he confirms her worst fears with controlled, steady conviction. His eyes tell a different story, though; there’s something barely holding on within those dark pits. Pure desperation.

God, this was his big plan? After taking her back to her cell last night so that she could cramp in peace, for the first time since everything happened, Laura honestly felt that thing’s were finally starting to look up.

But… maybe they still are. Laura’s nothing if not an opportunist. 

“Fine,” she says briskly. Hope dawns on his face, and she shoves down the foreign tinge of guilt that intumesces. “But I’ll need research.”

-

July 2nd, 2022

A thick stack of werewolf legends and fairytales sits beside her bed, each book spine labeled “North Kill Library” on grimy stickers lined up like dominos. The amount of grubby twelve-year-old fingers that have thumbed through these books must be staggering. Because, honestly, who else would be reading about werewolf legends?

Laura wouldn’t. She never had the time for it.

The other paper he gave her, the only thing he initially handed over before she asked for additional reading, sits folded up on her pillow. 

Don’t get bit, cut off your limb if you do, or kill the werewolf that turned you when it’s a full moon in order to break the curse. Scary stories to tell around the campfire, except it’s daylight and painfully real.

Its weakness, however, froths in the recesses of her mind: silver. If she can get her hands on some, maybe bullets, or a knife…? Hell, she's even willing to try and make him eat it.

That is, if she can find Silas. 

Not 'if.' When.

And once she gets out, she will find him.

A phone ringing somewhere in the precinct snatches her attention. In all the time she’s been here, a phone hasn’t rang once. 

She holds her breath, straining to hear a voice, but no luck. He must've gone immediately to his office before answering it.

Time passes long enough until she hears the most faint sound of a door shutting, and then moments later, another.

Did he leave the building? It would make sense. She assumes he is an actual cop, having access to this strange, derelict building and the whole flashing lights and badge business on the night they met when he shouldn’t have needed to go the extra mile to masquerade.

He could be checking in on a disturbance of the peace, or maybe a drunk and disorderly. Something that isn’t hovering near his captor while also tracking down a mythical creature. 

It’s odd to think about. All of her experiences with him have been past the point of bizarre. The thought of him doing something as dull as normal, something expected of him , was just as weird.

The hours pass by slowly, and she keeps her mind occupied by studying, taking notes in the journal of whatever comes to mind as potentially important. It’s a lot like her high school world history class, except this has a lot more riding on it and the only way to double-check her answers is by solving a curse. 

No biggie, she can practically hear Max say. Her heart convulses painfully. She’d do anything to have him here. Hell, she’d do anything to have anybody else here.

Just as her stomach begins to rumble for dinner, the soft shut of a door rings out not once, but twice.

Travis comes a bit later, and before she even sees him, she can tell he’s upset. There’s a little bit of hate that accompanies the fact that she's spent enough time with him to see it.

Polished shoes slap harshly against tile, his gait brisk and heavy. The lines in his forehead are drawn, and sections of hair stick out of place as if too many fingers have passed through. 

He sets down the unappetizing tray of meatloaf and an apple with two pills without a word, turning to leave.

“Hey,” she says quickly. “Can I get a clock?”

He appraises her, impatience oozing out of his pores. “What do you need a clock for?”

“So that I can tell the time.”

“Again, why do you need a clock?” he asks smartly. 

You have such a terrible personality. “Please,” she says, voice straining to hold the soft tone. “I need something to anchor my days by. Something beyond the daylight.”

Some of the fight bleeds out of him, and he purses his lips. “I’ll see what I can do,” is the noncommittal answer she gets, but it’s enough.

Travis turns to leave, and she steps closer to the bars. “I also have some ideas.”

He exhales through his nose slowly, but despite the impatient exterior, he regards her with something close to hope.

“You said you’ve been tracking Silas for six years, right? Have you noticed any seasonal patterns?” At his confused look, she elaborates. “Is he migrating to the south in the winter?”

He nods slowly, considering her with an expression she has a hard time placing. “He does, but not in any single place for long.”

“We know he was in town just a few days ago,” she says. “He could still be here.”

“Could,” he replies evasively.

“And what about your niece?” she presses. 

He narrows his eyes. “What the hell do you mean?”

Laura shrugs. “She’s a werewolf. Are there any, I don’t know, characteristics that you’ve observed in her? Anything that might be helpful for predicting what another werewolf might do throughout the moon cycle?”

He gives off an air of silent bewilderment, and she swallows back her irritation. No use in pushing a man with a gun.

“Is that a … no?” she asks.

“No, it’s not. It’s,” he starts, then stops. “I’m just surprised you caught on to that.”

Her ego preens at the unintentional complement. “Imagine what I could catch onto if you trusted me more,” she says, and the way his face immediately closes off, it's obvious she pushed for too much, too soon.

“You told your mom that you’d let your niece come around more. How are you going to explain this,” she gestures widely, “to her?”

“Here’s an idea— you let me worry about that, and you can go ahead and forget it.”

“Even now, you’re still hiding things from me.” 

The look she gets is so full and dripping with condescension that she grits her teeth. “We could be a team .”

Travis curses under his breath, rolling his eyes. “Look, ma’am- Laura ,” he emphasizes her name, holding up a hand placatingly. “Just because you know, doesn’t mean you know.”

“What… the fuck does that even mean?” she mutters.

“It means I can’t trust you,” he says, “just like you don’t trust me.”

“Yeah, well. It sounds like you can’t trust your family, either,” she says, harkening back to his words from earlier today.

The worst thing for either of us would be if my family caught wind of this.

“That’s a whole world of difference.”

“Is it?” she presses. “How many people has your family killed?”

“How many has yours?” he tosses back flippantly. 

A strange heady current pulses between them. Overhead, the faint wash of summer rain patters on stone.

“Don’t,” she says quietly. Deadly.

His jaw twitches. The air feels thick and alive in her lungs, threatening to erupt in a swarm of locusts, and if she were to open her mouth again, something as deadly as a plague would slip through her chapped lips.

“My family never meant to hurt anybody,” Travis finally says, voice low and strained. The unsaid words are pointed enough that she turns her head to the stone wall.

It’s a clear dismissal. She’s done with him tonight.

He lingers, fidgeting in polyester and scuffed shoes. He’s working himself up to saying something, but whatever it is stays hidden away. A secret.

Just like her.

-

July 3rd, 2022

A girlishly pink, plastic watch is delivered with breakfast, along with a pair of small pills. It’s painfully out of place amongst the werewolf-and-prison theme she’s got going on, but it’ll do. 

He asks if she wants to take a shower, and after a few moments of resolutely staring at the faded cover of The Man-Wolf, he finally leaves with a huff.

She slips on the watch after the door shuts with an echoing creak. 

The early summer sunrises have been deceptive. It’s Sunday, a little after seven o'clock in the morning. As far as her biological clock can tell, Travis has been delivering meals at a consistent time every day for the past week or so.

Three meals a day, plus a shower. How often does he leave this place? If he actually does have a family of his own, which she doubts given the pure stalker vibe he effortlessly gives off, then how the hell is he explaining being at work so much?

Maybe it’s a cop thing, she ponders, digging into her oatmeal. Apple cinnamon today.

-

Travis lingers for lunch. 

Laura tears into a plain ham sandwich, eyes peeling back the absolutely, totally fascinating tome of The Biology, Ecology, and Behavior of Canis Lupus. Seriously, it’s incredible stuff.

“Have you found anything?” he says haltingly, breaking the silence.

She debates icing him out, but self-preservation kicks in. It’s so, so clear that she can’t. She can’t afford to lose whatever ground she’s gained with him.

“Depends on how you classify ‘anything,’” she drawls, not missing the way his shoulders ease ever so minutely. The observation bolsters her to continue. “Did you know that a wolf pack’s territory can be anywhere from thirty-one to over 1,200 square miles?”

“Nothing else?”

Laura sits up, book abandoned on the bed. “Look, I’m trying. It’s not like I have a lot to work with from the huge North Kill library. If I had other resources, then maybe it would be a different story.”

“Keep digging,” he says lamely. The disappointment settles in his voice with easy acceptance. 

She thinks that’s it, but he’s just… staring at her, and though she’s long-since gotten used to his natural creepiness, the weight of his scrutiny causes her to squirm.

“What?” she asks exasperatedly.

“My family is at the bottom of a well.” 

It’s said so quietly, she almost doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Travis exhales deeply, fixing her a solemn look as if she’s a priest that will exonerate him for his sins. “They’re… stuck. And I’m the only one at the top that’s holding the rope.”

“So?”

His baffled face turns towards her, and his stupid expression infuriates her for reasons she can’t begin to dive into. “What do you mean, ‘so?’”

“I mean, so what?”

He scoffs, shaking his head, but she’s already standing up and walking as much into his space as she can. Though the bars separate them, it’s the closest she’s gotten to him since the night she tried to escape.

The way Travis doesn’t move an inch at her approach speaks of a predator’s confidence. “Family,” he says slowly, “is the most important thing in the world.”

“Bull,” she matches his tone, “shit.”

Travis glares down at her, but there’s a tinge of curiosity in his narrowed eyes. It isn’t clear what he thinks she’s trying to do. She’s not really sure, either. The words just pour out.

“Family doesn’t mean shit if you’re living like shit,” she says harshly. “What kind of life is this?”

He grits his teeth. Already, he’s shutting her out.

“I’m serious, Travis,” something flickers on his face at the sound of his name. “Family is meant to, to build you up or whatever. Not threaten you.”

“That’s not what’s going on,” he denies with a scoff.

“No, you said we’re both in trouble, here. Right?”

"Yeah, spot on,” he says unimpressed. “But what I meant by that is that they’ll kill you, and hate me. Just because I can't tell them you exist doesn't mean I can't fucking trust them."

“That sounds toxic,” she replies.

His quirks a brow. “Really? Coming from your home life?”

“God, would you just stop already,” Laura snaps. “You don’t have to keep bringing it up. Fuck you, man.”

Travis actually has the decency to look somewhat chastised. “What I mean to say is- I’m only saying it because of… of the two of us. In comparison. I’d imagine you’d much rather have a family like mine.”

“Yeah, well. Not all of us got so lucky,” she bites out sarcastically. “Doesn’t mean that other families are perfect. It’s not a comparison.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, opting to study the space over her shoulder. The break in eye contact hits her like a bucket of cold water.

She swallows. “And yet your mom would put a bullet in my skull?”

Travis’ eyes flash, and he chuckles low, a grim, humorless breath that barely skims the surface. “You and me both."

"And what about Kaylee?” she brusquely asks, and his eyes snap back to hers. “The girl who turns into a fucking monster every month?" 

“Kaylee?” he repeats incredulously, then visually wrestles with his next words. “No, Kaylee is the sweetest, most, most kind-hearted soul on earth. This curse is what’s hurting people, not her. She’d never hurt a fly if she could help it.”

" If she could help it?" Laura repeats pointedly.

Travis' hackles rise, and he leans so close that if she wanted to, she could easily wrap her hands around his throat. "My niece would be heartbroken if she knew the kind of rot our family has brought on this town."

They're at a stalemate. 

“I know you’re tired of hunting Silas,” she says, softer this time. “And I won’t stop trying to find other ways to stop this curse. At least give me the locations you’ve managed to track him to, see if I can find more of a correlation. I work with animals, remember?”

It’s bullshit, frankly, but for him to think she can do any of this in the first place tells her that he really doesn’t know what veterinarians do.

She can’t deny that the idea of finding a cure for lycanthropy fascinates her. Being a research veterinarian one day has always been the plan— studying animals in a lab environment, looking for ways to prevent and cure diseases. But that’s something… way off in the future. Way above her current pay grade.

Laura’s only interned at a vet clinic, much less gone to actual vet school! The most she’s done is read books and prep surgical sites, sometimes having the exciting job of preparing intravenous lines for anesthetics. Nothing that’s prepared her for what he expects her to do.

But if he ever realizes that she can’t help him find a cure, what then? What happens to her?

“I really do need the information you have about him,” she pleads. “Not the fairy tales. At least, not at first.”

His eyes dart past hers, then back up. This close, she can see the amber curls in his irises, like sunlight shining through a bottle of whiskey.

"Finish your damn lunch,” he says.

And that’s that.

-

Somewhere in the precinct, a door shuts not once, but twice.

It’s three o’clock.

At six o’clock, it happens again.

-

July 4th, 2022

The map Travis gives her is comically large, and not for the first time, Laura is thankful for existing in a time where GPS and Google exist. 

She tapes the map of the East Coast's major roads and cities to one of the walls of her cell, and it easily swallows up the stone. Little red stickers march across Maine to Virginia, conglomerating within upstate New York and branching out as far down as Georgia.

And, that? That’s the problem.

For as much as Silas was confirmed to still be within the state, he was also apparently gallivanting amongst peach orchards and just barely skimming the top of Jacksonville. Talk about ‘Florida Man.’ 

How many deaths is he responsible for? How many others are out there looking for Silas, trying desperately to end their own curse?

The questions consume her from within.

The dark swatch of nothingness has always been there for as long as she can remember, threatening to burn up each carefully laid thought and good intention. But now, as she considers each pin on the map, each one the center of a bullseye, that same nothingness purrs in hunger. 

It electrifies her. It disturbs her.

Laura’s ears perk. The familiar chords of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. are carried down the hallway, and her heart gives a little tug.

“Could you turn it up?” she calls down the hallway. Though it strains her neck, she’s able to just barely see him appear in the gloom cast down a ways. Late sunset paints the walls. He’s probably going to head home soon, if he ever leaves.

He fixes her with something akin to amusement. “I didn’t take you for a Springsteen fan.”

“My mom used to listen to him all the time,” she says, and instantly imagines swallowing her own tongue. The song, the burgeoning sense of hope today; all of it brings on a false sense of security.

Travis stills, and in the space of a breath, he moves. She watches him scoop up the radio, casually walking into her line of sight, and place it right next to the old chair that’s become a staple of the decor.

You end up like a dog that's been beat too much 

'Til you spend half your life just coverin' up

The words rush over her like a familiar friend, bringing with them memories of wide-mouth smiles, her mom’s blonde hair whipping freely in the wind, both of them singing with abandon. She leans her head back against the wall, shutting out the rest of the world for just a little while.

Aerosmith, Journey, Bon Jovi. Laura was raised on classic 80’s rock, but nothing reminded her of her mom more than the slightly cheesy, ‘total powerhouse of a man’ that was Bruce Springsteen. 

Whenever it was a particularly bad day, and they needed to get away from the house just long enough for the caustic bitterness to settle into a slow ache, her mom would take her to get ice cream.

They’d get in the old Honda Civic and dash down to the local ice cream shop with the windows down, regardless of the time of year, and blast the radio. Her mom would ask her about school, talk about the latest crazy headline she’d seen- anything surface level.

It was never safe to go far from the neighborhood; most often, they’d circle the block several times over, always keeping an eye out in case another car returned to the driveway before them.

Most of the time, they made it back before. 

But not always.

And when they didn’t, Laura wished they never returned in the first place. That they’d have just kept driving, on and on, staying on the highway till the gas tank ran on fumes and hitchhike from there.

God, she had envisioned all of it so clearly: ditch the car, get out of the state. Laura had no aunts or uncles on her mom’s side, but there was a cousin in Oregon that would probably spot them the emergency funds for a flight.

Of course, her mom would never leave.

Travis’ phone vibrates.

She jolts back to awareness. He doesn’t so much as look at her before brusquely leaving, clutching his pocket as if he could smother the sound. The radio stays behind. 

“Damn,” she mutters to no one. Her wrist reads three o’clock.

Travis isn’t treating her like… before , and this observation sinks in more than it should. 

She thinks about the extra berth he gave her that morning when delivering her breakfast. The avoidance in his gaze, never straying too long in her direction. At first, she thought he was being more wary because of her escape attempt. But it feels like more than that.

Laura scowls at the thought. It shouldn’t bother her. 

It shouldn’t, but it does.

-

When he returns with a dinner tray, Laura is laying on her stomach in bed, nose buried in a book on German werewolf fairy tales.

“Who called?” she asks him.

No response.

“Was it your niece?”

The door at the end of the hallway closes with finality.

-

July 5th, 2022

"Hey! Travis!" she calls. 

A moment later, the devil himself appears. Privately, she relishes in the fact that even as a prisoner, she still holds some modicum of command.

“Let’s stick with Sheriff Hackett,” he says with a wilting glare over her shoulder.

Let’s not. She blinks when a hand is unceremoniously shoved in front of the cell bars. Long, faintly scarred fingers uncurl to reveal two little pills. 

“Take ‘em,” he says impatiently. 

“What?”

“I- Uh,” he falters. “They’re for your,” he waves his hand in the general direction of her pelvis, and her brow raises of its own accord.

Oh. Her period cramps. Because he knows she’s on her period. Because she totally bled all over the floor-

“That’s what you’ve been giving me this whole time?” she asks over the absolutely mortifying train of thought.

He blinks. “Yeah. I thought that was obvious.”

“Um, no. I had no idea what they were.”

“Huh,” he says. She gets the faintest impression that he’s embarrassed. “They’ve been missing from the trays.”

“I’ve been flushing them down the toilet,” Laura says bluntly. “But, uh. Thanks.” 

Her fingers brush the skin of his palm when she takes the pills, and his fingers twitch, then curl as if to hide the gesture. The residual tension in the room prompts her to clear her throat before the silence threatens to swallow them whole.

“That’s not what I called you here for.”

“I gathered that,” he says drily. 

She nods towards the map. “Have you actually left town for any of these sightings?” 

Travis clicks his tongue, effectively changing the conversation. “I’ve tracked him with my own connections, but I can’t exactly leave town. Anything outside of a few hours has been undoable.”

“For six years?” she asks incredulously. This guy hasn’t left the area for over half a decade, at least?

“You heard me.”

That’s… not exactly hopeful. “Is anyone else checking up on these sightings?”

He huffs. “At times. But the moment we’re able to follow up on one lead, he’s already long gone. It’s not like we can go through a formal process, here. The only description we have is a feral albino boy.”

“That sounds pretty specific to me,” she says.

He snorts, but it sounds hollow. “You’d think so.”

She grills him about the other leads he’s followed up on, and though he surprisingly answers at least half of them more or less directly, despondency steadily descends upon her shoulders like a familiar shawl.

For one man, he has looked everywhere. 

From keyword filters on local newspaper headlines to online hunting chat rooms, he’s set up enough of a system to generate an up-to-date database of where Silas might be. His entire family, apparently, also goes out every full moon to hunt for him and other werewolves that may have been bit. Well, aside from his niece, who they lock up in a fucking basement.

“What the fuck? You keep a werewolf under your living room?”

“It's once a month. And, it’s the family home, not mine, so no.”

The more she digs out of him, the more it sits in. If she has any hope of finding and stopping Silas, it lies with Travis Hackett. 

For now.

-

At three o’clock, she’s alone.

Two doors shut.

At six o’clock, two doors shut again.

He brings her dinner.

-

“You know,” she says around a mouth of meat-y pasta that was most definitely microwaved, “we could work together better if you let me out.”

He eyes her shrewdly. “I think this setup works great.”

“Of course you do,” she snaps, then reigns it back in. “But I could actually help you gather resources, rather than review everything you’ve already read a million times.”

“Gather?” he repeats. “Hell no, in your wildest dreams, not happening. Take your pick.”

"So, what? You're going to keep me locked up in here forever? That's the plan?" His silence makes her gut churn. Her voice is small when she says, "People are going to start looking for me."

'People' meaning Max's parents and sister. Maybe a college professor or two will wonder why she isn't coming back to finish her degree, but her social circle hasn't exactly been thriving since senior year of high school. 

But he doesn't need to know that.

"I can't trust you," he stresses. There's almost a hint of apologetic sympathy on his face. "Once Silas is out of the equation, I don't care what happens to me. Hell, you can lock me up yourself. But I can't risk this secret coming back on my family." 

“C’mon, Travis,” she says, leaning forward. “Of the two of us, which one of us has more experience with the internet?”

“Sheriff Hackett,” he repeats as if he’s helping a foreigner with the phonetics of his name, “and if you really think I’m going to give you access to the internet, you’re goddamn insane.”

“You think I'm insane?” she shoots back. He sneers at her attitude, and they fall into an uneasy stalemate.

She doesn’t get why he stuck around for dinner. Instead of his usual drop-off and leave, he went against every pattern she’s built up of him and took a seat in the old chair outside of her cell and produced a bottle of bourbon from his pocket, taking sips occasionally in the silence.

Despite being the only free one here, he must be desperate for the company, not that she’s complaining. It's a testament to how lonely she is that she’ll take even the ill-tempered, slightly manic cop over the darkness of her own thoughts.

“Happy fourth,” she says, apropos of nothing. She forgot to say it yesterday.

It’s already July. Her and Max would be toasting s’mores with kids right now, probably not lighting off any fireworks due to fire hazards in the middle of the woods.

Travis leans back with a soft exhale, jostling the bottle against his thigh.

“Happy fourth,” he replies. 

It sounds like an agreement, coming from him.

-

July 6th, 2022

The day starts like every other.

Breakfast, handcuffs, shower. Reading more tales, jotting down notes. 

Lunch. Notes. Doors.

The last one causes her heartbeat to pick up, but she tampers it down as best she can. Sweat gathers on her palms, and she keeps wiping her hands on the sweatpants he’s given her, biding her time with tidying up.

Maybe it’s a dumb idea. 

Actually, it’s most definitely a dumb idea. But Laura can’t spend another hour locked up knowing that this might be the answer. If she’s played her cards right, read the situation correctly, then everything should be fine. Right?

‘Don’t play stupid games,’ her mom’s voice, warm but raspy from years of smoking, chastises her. ‘You need to just be careful and wait. Who knows? It might work itself out.’

No, I can’t, she thinks morosely. We’ve seen how that worked out for you.

She’s not going to be like her mom. If Laura’s ever going to get out of here and fix this mess, it’s going to have to be by her own hands. 

One door shuts. She checks her wrist: six o’ clock. 

There’s no turning back now.

“Boss! Hey, Travis!” she calls out. 

She screams louder, cupping her hands. “Hey! The door shut behind me! Could you let me out?”

“...’s that?” a faint woman’s voice carries down the hall.

“...orry about her.”

“Hey!” Laura calls again louder, injecting some cheer into her voice that hopefully doesn’t come off as deranged. “This stupid thing shut on me again.”

“...Um, Uncle T? It sounds like she’s stuck.”

A woman about her age sporting cropped dark hair and a pink hoodie hesitantly walks through the door, and Laura grins widely, chuckling self-deprecatingly.

“Hey! Kaylee, right?” she asks, casually leaning against the bars. 

The woman’s eyes widen, and she approaches with a tentative smile. “Yeah…?”

Travis watches from the doorway.

“Nice to meet you, my name’s Jess. I’m the new intern,” she lies earnestly. Kaylee glances past her, no doubt eyeing the perfectly straightened bed, map and books hidden from sight beneath the mattress and within the pillow.

To her, it would look like the cell hasn’t been in use for the past ten days. 

“Sorry, Sheriff Hackett,” she says, voice as sweet as syrup. “I was just finishing up in here when I thought I saw a brick loose, and the door shut on me. The stupid thing's stuck again.”

Travis’ teeth grind together, lips twitching like a live snake. If he doesn’t kill her right here, she imagines he’ll do it once his niece leaves.

"Travis has told me a lot about you!” she says brightly, turning her attention back on the totally oblivious girl. “He can't stop bragging. You’re thinking of applying for college, right?"

Kaylee beams, and if Laura weren’t so desperate in this moment, she’d almost feel guilty for laying the false foundation. 

“Yeah!” She tosses a curious look at her uncle, no doubt picking up on the murderous vibes coming off in waves. “I mean, I’ve totally been thinking about it. I’ve just had a hard time convincing my family,” she backtracks slowly.

“Well, if you’re able to convince them, I’ve been attending St. Lawrence and I love it. I’m studying to be a vet, and they’ve got great professors for the sciences.”

Kaylee gives her a smaller smile. “That’s great. I’m, uh, looking to study the arts.”

“Oh!” Laura leans in, effectively avoiding eye contact with the shadow behind her. “What arts?”

“Um, honestly?” Kaylee gives a little self-deprecating laugh, and something about it is so familiar, yet she can’t put a finger on why. “I really love to paint… and sculpt, but I’m not that great at that. Which is why I’d like to get a degree, maybe learn how to paint on something that isn’t a flat canvas.”

“That’d be cool! I’ve never taken a pottery class, but it looks like fun.” Small talk has never before held such a weight. There’s no sign that it isn’t working to endear her to his niece, but Travis is still eerily silent, and this whole situation is a tad too ridiculous to not be skeptical of.

A slight frown perches on Kaylee’s lips, and she casts a look to the man behind her. “Uncle T, why aren’t you letting her out already?”

Because I know you’re a werewolf, and if your family finds out, we're screwed. Kaylee’s eyes dart between the two of them.

Like a magnet, Laura locks onto Travis, and he tilts his head ever so slightly. She holds her breath.

He steps forward, slowly unclipping the ring from his belt. 

The key slips in with a soft click—

—and he lets her out.

[msommers]

i have the horror genre brainrot and have been playing dead by daylight nonstop lately, so here’s a bunch of fun concepts for a few ocs as survivors. for elide and maeve i like to imagine they were plucked from their fantasy worlds~ just because it brings to mind some funny imagery while putting them next to regular ass modern folk. (tagging @carminasolis bc of the recent ask you sent! here are half of the requested thoughts 😂)

ELIDE.

perk #1 — perpetual calculations. you always think multiple steps ahead, preparing for success and failure alike. for each successful great skill check you gain a token, storing a total of 3/4/5 per trial. when you fail a skill check you expend one of your tokens, granting you the chance to immediately attempt the skill check once more with a 15%/20%/25% better chance at success. only one token can be expended per failed skill check. 

perk #2 — trick shot. you've scrounged for materials over the course of your last few trials, giving you enough to craft a single shot for the arbiter (the scattergun elide invented in andaria). once per trial you can activate the second ability button while standing still, pulling out the arbiter and taking aim. you can shoot at a range of up to 8/12/16 meters, stunning the killer for 4 seconds if you successfully hit them. 

perk #3 — rapid repair. you know how to quickly fix damaged machinery. you can see the auras of incomplete generators within a 8/16/24meter range. you gain a 8%/10%/12% bonus to repair speed while repairing generators below 60% progress.

outfits — would probably be her outfits from this art line-up! syllerian would be the default, casual a rare and orothelli the very rare. another very rare could be one of her modern outfits. a deep green teddy bodysuit under a pair of tight-fitting black jeans and a red cardigan. half-up crown braid styled hair.

MAEVE.

perk #1 — damsel in distress. physical fights aren't your strong suit, but you have faith that your friends will always come to your aid. other survivors gain 10%/15%/20% speed while healing and rescuing you from a hook. when a survivor takes a protection hit for you while you're being chased, you both gain a 7% haste status effect for 4/5/6 seconds.

perk #2 — historical accounts. from the grim journals of maeve sommers, you recognize the details of your next trial’s setting. at the start of the trial, auras of generators, chests, hooks and totems are revealed to all survivors for 8/10/12 seconds within a 32 meter range.

perk #3 — the bard's muse. there's nothing wrong with a bit of idolization every once in a while. at the start of the trial, one other survivor is chosen at random to be your muse. the aura of your muse is revealed to you when you are within 8/16/24 meters of them. while your muse’s aura is revealed to you, they gain 8%/10%/12% action speed while repairing generators, unhooking survivors and healing.

default outfit — her outfit in the art here! prolly with pink and blue recolor options uwu

rare outfit — prolly a cute and more casual outfit, something she’d be found wearing at her estate. a dark purple long-sleeved top with ruffles around the edges and a floor-length black ruffled skirt to match, then a corset over the top which has flowers embroidered on it purely for the aesthetic bc who needs function. honestly could look good in a roughed up state.

very rare outfit — mayhaps just a modern maeve outfit bc why not. hair in half-up space buns. a lace heavy shirt worn underneath a flower patterned elbow length button-up, both tucked into a pair of light jeans. bi pride patch stitched onto one of the back pockets and wearing a bunch of jewelry plus pink heart-shaped glasses.

SPENCER.

perk #1 — seeker’s study. your deductive and perceptive skills can aid your allies. perks that allow you to reveal the aura of the killer last 3/4/6 seconds longer. whenever you reveal the killer’s aura, other survivors within range can also see their aura.  

perk #2 — rogue’s evasion. outrunning dangers seems to be a family inherited trait. gain a token for each successful pallet stun and rushed vault while being chased, up to a maximum of 3/5/7 tokens. for each token you gain a 1% haste effect while being chased by the killer. being put into the dying state or being hooked removes all tokens.

perk #3 — cosmic resistance. you are less afraid of the eldritch and arcane after accepting the harsh truths of the universe. killer perks effects that affect you within their terror radius are reduced by 8%/12%/18%. you recover from status and passive effects 4%/7%/10% faster and reduce the remaining duration of exhaustion by 6/8/10 seconds when you escape a chase.

default outfit — a denim jacket worn over a stripe patterned t-shirt, accompanied by dark blue jean leggings and a messenger bag slung across her shoulder. variants change the pattern of her shirt and shade of her jacket/pants. loose hair.

rare skin — a knee-length brown, wool double-breasted trench coat worn over a green sweater and light blue pair of jeans. her hair is up in a messy bun.

very rare skin — mandy thompson morph (like the stranger things/resident evil specials). she wears a yellow tweed jacket over top a dark brown shirt with a belt around her middle, with a below-the-knee box-pleated red skirt and plain dark knee stockings underneath. her glasses and pearl necklace are pristine baybee.

map — velma’s diner in arkham city, though from way back when in the 1930s~ when eldritch cult activity was at its peak in the city and investigators needed a space to relax and grab some food. and then, y’know, make it extremely fucked up. kind of as if the old cult had succeeded in summoning a great one and the city got screwed as a result, the entity pulled that universe’s version of it. the main building is the diner which has broken windows, doors and walls opened as vaults. the inside has a load of retro decorations and electronics, and in some places amidst all the random clutter there can be seen notes and gear of investigators that were still working to fight the good fight. the long countertop and rearranged barricades made out of the tables/booths are your classic loops. the outside is the parking lot and a small bit of the forest behind the diner, a killer’s shack replacing what was probably a utility shack of some kind just a small bit off to the side of the diner, and a road that you can cross. the other side has a handful of storefronts with signs so dilapidated that you can’t make out what they once were, but who cares bc there’s probably some generator spawns there.

killer — leader of the cult of atlach-nacha, aka the cult spencer was working against in her home realm. a humanoid man that has started to morph from his time spent devoted to and communicating with eldritch beings, able to call upon their powers for his machinations. probably that classic of having one tentacle-eqsue growth on one arm that has overtaken half the chest, making him a bit lopsided in stature but incredibly strong with that arm. not too sure about his ability. could be a case of calling on the power of the eldritch “deity” he worships to summon a tangible circle of the cosmos in a certain radius, triggering a countdown that leads to the survivors being confronted with the absolute horrors of reality and becoming afflicted by manifestations of that deity which could slow/injure them. ways to rid themselves of the effects could perhaps be reading one of mandy’s journals that are scattered throughout the map because her sensible, clinical ass notes can clear the mind lmao. i DO know that it’d be dope to have a perk  about conflicting loyalties, where he can displease his eldritch deity by instead working with the entity to alter smth in the trial. i don’t know what but it sounds cool from a character perspective.

i don’t know exactly Why it would have happened, but i know the When of spencer and the cult leader being brought into the entity’s realm would have been right in the middle of spencer and her friends attempting to disrupt the cult’s big ritual. two of the biggest players on that board being yoinked would have been really sucky so who knows what happened after that (i mean, i do. in this fake scenario her friends would have 100% won because she has really skilled allies lol)

[aemondtargaryenonlyfans]

OBJECT OF DESIRE (4/4)

Aemond Targaryen x female!Reader

Are you just a political ploy to Aemond? Or is there more to him rushing your wedding?

WARNINGS: SEXUAL CONTENT—MINORS DNI; canon typical incest/targcest, p in v, table sex, handjob, fingering, slight humiliation, praise kink, breeding kink, somewhat darkish and possessive Aemond (?), he might be an asshole and the king of gaslighting in this, Valyrian wedding, mentions of blood

WORDS: 5.5 K

NOTES: part 4 is finally here! Ty @zaldritzosrose 🤍

❗️𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭! ✨ 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

The way from the outer yard into the castle passes in a blurr with your heart thrumming in your chest, drowning out the sounds of your footsteps. It’s so deep in the night that the castle is mostly deserted, but a few guards and servants cross your path from time to time, some giving you a curious glance, others not bothering much. 

Aemond’s movements are swift and quick as he guides you through the eerily silence of the castle of Dragonstone, leading you through a labyrinth of passageways that comes close to the one you’ve conquered not many hours before. 

You try to marvel at the architecture of the ancient seat, but the dim light of sparsely placed torches and candles doesn’t allow you to indulge in it too much. 

The man in front of you is determined, and your presence seems to be not more than an accessory to him with his attention fixed on something entirely different. 

“Where do you take me?” your voice is low as you speak, the hesitance palpable.

Aemond chuckles. “Patience.” His voice is soft, but not low enough to whisper, and still manages to make you aware of how eager you probably have to sound. “We are nearly there.” 

From what you gather, the chambers he brings you to are located deep within the bowels of the castle, requiring some time and knowledge of the place to reach it. You tackle another set of corridors and narrow staircases until you eventually arrive and stand in front of a thick, wooden door. 

Knocking raptly at the door, it takes a few seconds for an older man to open it, woken from his slumber. When your eyes dart to the collar he wears, you grow aware that he led you to the maester’s study. 

The man squints his eyes in the dim light, assessing who disturbs him at this hour. “Prince Aemond,” he eventually says, more surprised than matter-of-factly, and opens his door a little further. “How may I help you?”

“Maester Gerardys,” Aemond says, a firm tone underlying his words, despite keeping his voice at a low volume. “I require your assistance in officiating a marriage ceremony.” 

Gerardys now gazes at the two of you for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly and his brow furrowing as he realizes the unusual nature of the request. “You intend to wed?” he questions. 

Nervousness flutters in your belly, more so as you process the skeptical tone laced within his voice, and you expect it all to fail miserably. But you didn’t count on Aemond’s stubbornness. 

“Yes, I do,” he affirms, his determination not faltering at the maester’s tone and gaze. “My wife-to-be and I ask you to officiate a ceremony that should take place immediately… in the traditions of our House.”

“You mean to marry at this hour, my prince?” Gerardys questions. “Well, I am no septon, and a marriage ceremony is not something that you do just on a whim. There are certain rituals involved that have to be observed. I am afraid that I cannot simply officiate a wedding on demand just because the prince asks me to…”

You tug at Aemond’s hand, mumbling a ‘perhaps ‘tis not meant to be’ but he doesn’t even turn to look at you. 

“I understand that, Maester Gerardys, I do. However, this matter is of utmost urgency. It has to be fulfilled tonight, as it can’t wait until daylight.” Aemond explains it calmly but assertively, his patience clearly running thin. There is a lilt of desperation in his voice, as if something bad will happen if the marriage ceremony is not performed at once. “We both wish for this to be done tonight. I am well-aware of the rituals involved in the tradition, and we are ready to complete them.”

It should concern you just how pressed he is on the matter, but all you can focus on is the fact that you will be a married woman in no less than two hours at last. 

Gerardys seems to be torn by the prince’s request, his brow furrowing again as he thinks over the situation. This clearly is no usual business for him, yet he does not feel as though he can refuse Aemond who insists on seeing the ceremony performed immediately. “Very well, Prince Aemond,” the old man sighs, “I will see to the arrangements.”

Despite the maester’s agreement, Aemond doesn‘t release a sigh of relief. He stands as still and composed as before, although you can spot his shoulders drop slightly. “We shall meet in the Chamber of the Painted Table,” his voice remains firm and serious. “Do not let us wait for too long.”

You briefly hear Gerardys starting to scramble to gather the items necessary for the ceremony before you’re led back the same path you’ve come. Suddenly, it feels all too serious, and your belly starts to flutter, more so as Aemond squeezes your hand. 

“I-I am not aware of the rituals involved?” you question, looking at the ground to watch your steps. 

As he notices the nervousness in your voice, Aemond turns around and smiles in a reassuring manner, his eye twinkling. “There is nothing to be concerned about,” he says. “I assume you are confident in the tongue of our ancestors?” 

You almost bump into him as he stops so abruptly, craning your neck to meet his eye. “I-yes, probably not as confident as you are, but my scholar has taught me everything within his capabilities.” 

“Very well. I shall tell you what to do, but you must trust me, my lady.” 

“Very well,” you echo his words, accompanied by a gulp. As you set up towards the spacious and opulent Chamber of the Painted Table, the room is dimly lit by several torches and candles. Servants scurry around the place, more than you’ve seen on your whole way through the dark pathways, and seem to take care of everything around you. 

Aemond’s steps bounce off the wall as he approaches a servant, and the ‘see to the table’ he commands is hardly audible to you. 

You walk around the chamber, taking in the decor, and drag your fingers over the large table standing in the center of it, following its carvings. The shadows of carved mountains and rivers dance in the dim light of the few candles standing on it, capturing all your attention. You marvel at the intricate design, but are quick to pull your fingers away when it suddenly lits up, the carvings glowing like lava running through molten rock. 

With wide eyes, you look towards the head of the table, and spot Aemond standing there with a smirk on his lips as servants emerge from under it. He leans against it with one hand splayed out on its surface, indicating that there’s no threatening heat radiating off of it. And indeed, when your fingers trail over the Vale of Arryn, you don’t burn them. 

“Are you sure this all is not going a little too fast? That we should not wait just a few more days?” you eventually ask, your doubts knocking the smirk right off of his face. 

Aemond walks around the table, coming closer to you, but keeps a fair distance. “There is no need to wait,” he retorts. “I see no reason to drag this out, unless you want to wed one of the men ordered by your father?” 

You flinch at his words, remembering the queue of men presented to you by your father. A few moments pass as you hesitantly raise your head, locking your eyes with Aemond’s good one. “Do you wish that I did?”

“No,” he replies, sternness lingering in his voice. “I do not wish that at all. I wish for the privilege of having you all to myself.”

While his words cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand, a shiver following in their wake, you can’t suppress the doubts. ”Then why hurry?”

“Why wait?” Aemond retorts. "I have helped you obtain your dragon, your bloodright, and now it is your turn to see through on the promise made." 

"Am I a political ploy and nothing else?"

His expression darkens with your words. For the first time, the veneer of his composure and politeness towards you begins to slip slightly, his patience running thin. “I did not say that.”

Not giving him a reply, your eyes dart down to the table. You know you’re getting too bold, that you should not have said it, but you can’t help but feel as though the marriage being rushed is simply another political gambit. As your eyes flicker back up to meet his, a faint twinkle of anger and fire can be seen within them. “Do not pretend as though you are not getting anything out of this.”

“Now why are you so concerned with what I am getting out of this?” Aemond asks bluntly, voice as sharp as the edge of a knife. “Do you not trust my intentions? Or is it that you are not happy with the arrangements seeing that you’ve finally got your dragon?”

The change of tone prompts you to take a step back from him, a faint pout appearing on your lips as you feel your anger and defiance slipping away, replaced by a certain amount of apprehension. 

“Please, do not misunderstand me,” you say swiftly, softening your tone and lowering your voice to calm the situation. “I simply… I feel a little unsure of rushing into this. It is only… I have heard many tales, both from court and from my own father. Men are not known to be the most trustworthy, and I have no idea what to make out of someone so eager to wed me when I do not know his thoughts behind it.”

"You silly girl, do you not yet understand your role goes beyond the political agenda of the seven realms?" He reaches to grab you, holding your attention. "It goes beyond what your father or my father says. The gods made you for me, you have always been fated for me and me alone."

Your heart feels as though it might leap from your chest at his words. You’ve never been looked at the way he does now, never been treated that way. Your nerves and anxiety don’t vanish completely, but a part of you starts to calm down; he easily manages to put you at ease with just a few words. 

You lower your head, melting under his touch and words. “I–That is…” you trail off. 

The footsteps of Maester Gerardys approaching fill the large chamber, catching you off guard and causing you to pull away from Aemond. He’s unfazed, despite Gerardys staring at you and taking in the scene. 

Clearing his throat, he steps further into the chamber, carrying a great deal of utensils with him. “We shall commence, then?”

Aemond’s shoulders drop slightly with relief as the maester finally joins you. “By the blessings of the Gods, we shall indeed,” he says, walking around the table to the end that faces the hearth. You follow silently, and watch the older man prepare everything. 

“You stay here,” Aemond barks at two servants just shy of your age as they make their way towards the door. “We shall need every witness to our union we can get.” Both women nod their heads once, and stand rooted to the spot. 

Turning around, Aemond faces you now with Gerardys standing in front of the pair of you. The maester smiles warmly, albeit it also seems a bit forced, and glances at you as he begins with the most important question of it all. “Do you two come to this union free and willing, without prior coercion or undue influence?”

While Aemond’s answer comes quick and determined, a brief moment of silence passes as you process the question. “Yes, I do,” you speak softly yet hesitant. 

Maester Gerardys nods silently at both your confirmations, and hands Aemond what appears to be a shard of dragonglass. Your eyes widen when he brings it up to your lips, and the ‘let me just…’ he mumbles is little comfort as the sharp knife pierces your lip. You wince at the stinging pain and taste of copper that soon fills your mouth, clearly coming with the cut, but a part of you is grateful he’s done it without so much preparation. 

“Now ‘tis your turn,” he says, handing you the shard. You briefly glance down to where your hands meet, before your gaze is fixed with his again. 

The shard is lighter than anticipated, which makes the trembling of your hands more apparent. You’re skilled with a bow and arrow, but have yet to hurt anyone seriously. Bringing the shard up to Aemond’s mouth, the tremors don’t ease with you dragging it over his bottom lip. 

Blood amasses at the cut, and you mirror his gesture as he gathers yours with the pad of his thumb. The touch is so intimate, heat crawls up your spine, making you almost miss out on his next instructions. “I shall draw the glyph for blood over your forehead, and you do the same with the one for fire. Are you familiar with how to draw it?”

You nod. It’s one of the few glyphs you’re more than familiar with as Maester Lomys has always insisted for you to learn how to spell your House’s words; even though you’re only half Targaryen. 

Aemond uses your blood to draw said glyph on your forehead, and you’re quick to follow his instructions with the supplementary glyph. 

But that moment of peace doesn’t last long, not when Aemond takes the shard from your hand to cut the palm of his own without any sign of pain or discomfort to cross his features. 

You have hurt yourself plenty of times before, merely counting how often you fell off your horses as you learnt how to ride, but it has rarely happened on purpose and most definitely not with something as sharp as the dragonglass. And that is the moment you find yourself unable to move, unable to take it from his hand. 

“The pain disappears quickly,” Aemond tries to reassure you, sensing your hesitation; a stark contrast to how stern and annoyed he was mere moments ago. 

The coldness of the fragment nestles into your open palm as he places it into it, and Aemond bows his head once in a way to encourage you. 

His words bring you not much comfort, but the prospect of your future does. You have claimed a dragon, you’re meant to be the future Lady of Runestone and close to be married to the man that’s riding the largest dragon alive; there’s no place for you to think of the things that could possibly cause your downfall. 

A deep breath is exhaled the moment the dragonglass pierces the palm of your hand, opening your skin with a clean cut. The pain is delayed, and for a brief moment all that clouds your mind is the rush of your warm blood, and the sight of it so quickly filling the hollow of your palm. 

“Hen lantoti… ānogar,” Maester Gerardys cites, a thick accent and hesitance weaving itself through the otherwise smooth tongue. It makes it difficult for you to fully understand what’s being said. “Va s ȳndroti v āedroma.” Blood of two, joined as one. 

As Aemond unites your hands in a firm grip, you tilt your head up to look at him, taking him in wholly as the worst part has passed. You don’t dare to break the intense eye contact to look at where your hands meet.

The sensation of your blood trickling out of the cut has already been very adamant, but with Aemond’s blood combined, several droplets all but seep out from your joined hands, gathered in a goblet he holds underneath. 

Aemond squeezes your hand gently as the maester ties a red ribbon around them, binding you to one another and sealing the pact. 

“Mēro perzot g īhoti, el ēdroma iārza s īr. Izulī amp ā perzī, pr ūm ī lanti s ēteksi,” Gerardys mumbles in the background, but your attention is captured by Aemond bringing the goblet full of your blood up to his lips. Ghostly flame, and song of shadows. Two hearts as embers, forged in fourteen fires. 

He does not hesitate one moment and takes a generous sip of the goblet, crimson tinting his chiseled lips as he lowers it again and hands it to you. You capture it between your fingers, raising it to your lips and following suit. The very adamant taste of copper lingers on your tongue, and it’s hard to swallow without grimacing. A smirk tugs on the corners of Aemond’s lips at that, making you blush and mouthing ‘my apologies’ at him. 

Although the goblet is lowered by you, you two do not move otherwise. There’s a thick tension between you, fueled by you gazing longingly into each other's eyes. Neither of you smiles or grins, just taking in the moment and its significance. 

“Hen jenȳ māz īlarion, q ēlossa oz ūndesi.” A future promised in glass, the stars stand witness. 

Both of Aemond’s hands come up to cup your face, the pad of his thumb dragging gently over your nicked bottom lip. You stare at him with wide eyes and heavy breaths falling past your parted lips, every fiber of your body filled with heat that makes the waiting unbearable. And with his hands holding you, you can’t even bring your face even closer to his. 

“S ȳndroro ōñō jēdo, rȳk k īvia mazvestraksi.” The vow spoken through time, of darkness and light.

Time stretches on as Aemond slowly dips his head toward yours, finally, holding it firmly in place as his lips collide with yours. The taste of blood on your tongues and lips doesn’t seem to subside at all, very much prominent and bringing a certain tint to it all. There is no gentleness in this kiss, the passion underlined by hunger and longing for more. 

Maester Gerardys clears his throat and inevitably catches your attention again, causing you to pull back from each other. “The marriage is now complete,” he states matter-of-factly. “If you’ll excuse me now, Prince Aemond,” he bows his head once before turning to you. “Princess. I shall retire to my chambers once more.”

“You may leave, too,” Aemond commands the servants, who quickly make a beeline for the doors. Watching the master depart after that, a faint sense of relief washes over the both of you. 

As soon as the doors shut behind him, Aemond’s eye flickers back to yours. He steps toward you, closing the distance between you until you can feel the warmth of his breath fan over your skin. “Well now, little princess,” he teases. “Are you familiar with the privileges a husband expects from his wife?” 

The blood rushes to your face as you realize what he implies, your heart starting to beat faster, though you cannot deny that it has piqued your interest. Your face remains neutral, however. “Oh, what are they?” you ask, deciding upon acting more innocent than you truly are just to mess with him. 

Aemond’s lips quirk up into a slight smirk as he notices your feigned innocence. It’s obvious that you’re aware of the true nature of a marriage, but he decides upon playing this game, at least for just a bit longer. “There are many,” he says teasingly, bringing his hand to the small of your back to draw your body closer to his. “And I am certain that you’re well aware of what some of those expectations might be.”

“Hm… some,” you whisper in reply, your tone getting flustered. A smile tugs at your lips as you try to hide the growing excitement his proximity is causing inside of you. 

He’s amused by you trying to act as though you’re not tempted, as though you both don‘t desire the same thing. “Shall I tell you or show you?”

You try to keep your composure at his words, but it’s obvious they are starting to have an effect on you. “Show me,” you whisper, the words slipping out between your trembling lips. 

While one of his hands comes up to rest at the back of your neck, the other grazes over your side down to grasp at your hip, and your body melts into his touch as his lips find yours once again. The tip of his nose presses against your cheek as you tilt your head in response to his tongue dragging over the curve of your lips, silently asking you to part them for him. And you do, prompting him to deepen the kiss. 

Aemond deliberately backs you up against the Painted Table, its edge pressing firmly against your rear, and splays his hand over the small of your back. He gives you no chance to escape his lips to catch your breath; when you pull away, his lips chase yours, eager to capture them again. 

A spark of something familiar ignites in the pit of your belly, something that has you pulling back just slightly to gasp against his kiss-swollen lips. You were so lost in the kiss, that you haven’t paid any mind to him herding you like a sheep, keening at the proximity and attention.  

But Aemond doesn’t stop at that. 

The laces of your breeches are undone swiftly by him merely using one hand, clearly experienced with it being his everyday attire. He pushes the thick fabric and your undergarments down to pool around your knees, exposing your soaked cunt to the chill air of the chamber. 

You, however, don’t give his fingers time to drag through your swollen folds. Catching him off guard and coaxing a grunt to escape his throat, your hand trails over the hardness in the front of his breeches, cupping it over the fabric and squeezing it slightly, before your fingers unravel the laces just as skilled as his did yours before. 

You can tell by the way he finally breaks the kiss as your hand slips inside of his breeches, wrapping around his hard, throbbing cock, that he’s taken by surprise. He instinctively bucks his hips against your hand, and releases a gasp as the cold air hits him with you freeing his length from its confines, pulling it out and stroking it deliberately slowly. 

Aemond’s fingers dig into your hip as a means to steady himself, a breathy ‘fuck’ spilling past his lips. 

“Is this one of these… privileges?” you tease, although it’s more of a whine with two of his nimble fingers easing into your cunt without a warning, pumping in and out of you in the rhythm of your hand tugging on him. It encourages you to move your hand quicker along his shaft in hopes of him doing the same, but when that doesn’t happen, you start rocking your hips against his hand to which he just tsks in disapproval. 

His lips find the side of your neck, and you’re quick to tilt your head to the side to grant him even more access. When his hot breath fans over your skin as he speaks, words laced thickly with arousal, a shiver runs through you. “It certainly is,” he groans. There’s a wry smile on his lips as he pulls back, meeting your half-lidded gaze. “But that is not all.”

The implication of his words causes your heartbeat to quicken, your walls tightening around his fingers in response. He draws in a sharp breath at that. “And… what else is there?” you ask, breathily. “Are you just talking or will you show me?”

“My my, what an eager, little wife I got myself here,” he taunts with a scoff, bucking his hips into your hand once. Your cheeks lit up at his words and the tone of his voice, but there’s no chance for you to cower under his piercing gaze when he peels your hand off of him and turns you around; his patience seemingly not infinite.  

He pushes you flatly onto the table, the warmth radiating off of it seeping into your cheek. Towering over you with one hand buried in your hair, the length of his hard cock presses into the crevice of your arse and makes you whimper; your body aching for more. “Are you not satisfied with what I’ve shown you so far?” he mocks, his slick coated fingers trailing over your hip. 

Pushing your lips into a pout, you try to catch a glimpse of him from over your shoulder, but not without shoving your hips back against him to rile him up even more. “I just… I just wish to indulge in what my husband has to offer,” you whimper. Using that term of endearment feels unfamiliar, yet it just manages to spark more desire inside of you. 

“Oh, is that so?” he drawls. “What luck that it’s an option which lies open to you.”

He rises back to his full height, and grabs both of your hands to pin them behind your back, locking the wrists with one of his large hand and rendering you immobile. There’s no need for him to tug himself to full hardness, as just the sight of your cunt slick with your arousal is enough to get him rock hard. 

“That perfect cunt of yours is weeping for me.” You don’t have to look at him to see the smirk draped across his lips, the smugness very much prominent in the raspy drawl of his voice. 

Aligning the tip with your entrance, he’s met with little resistance, your soaked and swollen folds embracing him in one, swift thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. You moan in unison at the intrusion, your walls fluttering and clenching around him to fully accommodate his size. 

He pulls out of you almost completely with merely the tip of his cock remaining buried inside, the lack of his fullness already driving you insane. With his hand around your wrists, he proceeds to pull you back onto his cock while he thrusts his hips forward, meeting you halfway and resulting in his heavy balls slapping against your sensitive pearl. 

He pounds into you with reckless abandon in the following, the tip of his cock brushing the spot inside of you that has your vision grow blurry over and over again. 

With your face pressed against the table, you aren’t able to spot the desire blazing in his eye. The only thing that makes you aware of the excitement he finds in your unison is the tone of his husky voice. “When I am done with you,” he rasps, bowing forward to put more of his weight onto your small frame beneath his. “You will never desire another cock but mine.” 

Being in a stupor because of his cock, you’re not able to whine and whimper more than a string of yesses, the last one interrupted with a hard, percussive thrust. Then follows another, and another, until you can’t focus on anything else but the delicious pressure inside your cunt. 

You push your hips back against him, and he rears up to pull you back with each of his thrusts, meeting him halfway which results in the lewd sounds of skin slapping on skin bouncing off the walls.

The ‘gods’ he mumbles is hardly audible over both your moans and pants, but still doesn’t go unnoticed by you. You find it extremely pleasing to know that you’re able to coax him out of his composure more easily than you’ve first assumed; the highest praise he could ever give you. 

With one hand on your hip, he hoists you further onto the table, your feet leaving the cold ground beneath and dangling in the air. The edge of the table cuts into your hips in a way that slowly but surely becomes uncomfortable with the force of his thrusts, but it also ruts so perfectly against your pearl each time; juxtaposing pain and pleasure, making your mind hazy and your body go limp. 

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly your peak builds in the pit of your stomach with the right stimulation, taking over your body and rippling through you with soaring pleasure. 

Each time the sac of his stones slaps your little bud, your body tries to jerk away from him – but to no avail with your hands still pinned behind your back. Your body trembles in his grasp, and the tremors grow more and more apparent with each second he doesn’t pull out of you, prolonging your peak. 

“I shall breed you until you’re round with my seed,” Aemond rambles behind you, his own mind scrambling from pleasure. “To show everyone that you’re mine.” 

“S-Seven hells, yes!” It’s the overstimulation making yourself more desperate for his release, begging for his seed. “Please, please… please.”

Your walls tremble around him, choking him so tightly your husband has to take a deep breath to keep his composure. But all effort is fruitless when his pulsing cock spends itself inside of your quivering walls. His grunts and groans fan into the chilly air of the chamber, and you’d love nothing more than to feel them fanning over your lips instead. 

Out of instinct, you start to roll your hips against his, prolonging his own peak as you milk him for every drop of his seed. Aemond is out of breath by the time his movements come to a stop, staying buried inside of you as if he means to make sure his efforts bear fruit after the first try. And you relish in it, despite the vulnerable position it brings you in.

Releasing your wrists, his hands proceed to grope at your arse while he considers your trembling, satisfied frame. He can’t help but feel somewhat proud of himself. 

Being the first one to break the silence, you flush as you hear his raspy voice ring out. “Well, I see you were certainly eager to engage in those privileges,” he says, his voice laced with mischief. “Very eager.”

You chuckle softly, and when you move to push yourself off the table, Aemond takes that as his cue to pull out of you. Marveling at the sight of his seed slowly oozing out of your swollen cunt, he’s quick to stuff it back inside using his thumb. The gesture brings another wave of heat to your cheeks, more so when you feel his chest press flush against your back and the warmth radiating off of him with his finger still inside of you. 

Taking in a deep breath, you hold onto the table for support. “You certainly did not waste any time in… indulging either,” you reply. Not just your body is trembling with the after-effects of your intimacy, but also your voice still shakes. 

With a chuckle, Aemond dips his head down and presses a kiss to your shoulder. “We only have a few more hours before our absence is called into question by the court. We must return promptly.”

Your husband is the one fixing your attire, pulling up your smallclothes and breeches before he tugs himself back into his own. And it makes you well aware that the semblance of calm and freedom is very much over now. “They will realize where we have been anyways once they see me arriving on dragon back,” you counter with a pout on your lips. Perhaps that would coax him into staying just a little longer. 

He brings his hand up to cup your face, his thumb tugging on your bottom lip to free it from its position. “Yes, they may very well come to such a conclusion, but at least we shall preserve some of our dignity if we do return after a reasonable time. The last thing we need now is the whole court speculating on our whereabouts. It is already scandalous enough as it is.”

At his words, you let out a soft, grumbled noise of frustration, although you can’t deny that he has a point. “And what do we do then? We cannot just return to court and pretend as if nothing has happened.”

“No, I suppose not,” he replies. “We shall confront our fathers.”

Though you know your own father won’t take kindly to the news, you’re certain that your uncle won’t bat an eye upon hearing of it. Still, your demeanor shifts at hearing the notion that you’ll be facing your father, your eyes flickering with a hint of worry. “That will be just as bad as not returning to court at all.” 

Truth is, you haven’t spent a second thinking of the consequences, always pushing the thoughts aside for a later time. And with that time being now, a tiny amount of sweat appears at the back of your neck. 

“It won’t,” Aemond says firmly, his tone taking over a sudden sharpness. “At least then we shall be the ones defining our own fate. They will have no chance than to listen to us, rather than making an assumption based on hearsay.”

You exhale a deep breath. “Back to King’s Landing, then.”

[dayinthelifeofadragon]

Day 2, Part 2, Far from Home.

Continuing down stream, the pain in my leg where I was stabbed was throbbing. I'd never been stabbed before, not in my past life at least. Who knew it could be so painful. I had to rest every so often and at this rate, there was no way I'd find humans. Even if I did, they'd probably try and kill me. I couldn't exactly talk to them, but I guess I could try and act harmless.

Taking a look at my status, I had a minor bleeding de-buff under my health. Even tho I had wrapped up my wound, things weren't looking good. My health wasn't dropping yet, but I knew eventually it'd start to if I didn't do something. I remembered watching old war movies in my past life and sometimes when a soldier would get shot, they would rub dirt on the wound. I couldn't help but think that this would just give me some type of infection though.

I guess I should try and find something other then the goblins loin cloth to wrap this thing with. Look around the forest but staying close to the river, I used my appraisal skill to see whats around me. Hopefully this will also help level up my appraisal. Maybe if I could learn to communicate again and have a high appraisal skill, humans could see that I'm a cultured Dragon and not an enemy. I couldn't help but try and find the positive in the negative.

Little flowers were scattered here and there, but nothing that could be used to wrap up my leg. I couldn't exactly press down on my leg while walking either. Walking on all fours had it's upsides but not having opposable thumbs was incredibly frustrating. Picking at the flowers and grass was a challenge in itself. I decided to sit down and consider my options again. It seems that pressing dirt in the wound as a temporary fix was my best option. Either that or sit and wait for the bleeding to stop, but if I wait too long then daylight will pass me fast.

Grabbing a claw full of dirt and pressing it into the open wound, I winced a little as I really pressed it in. I kept my eye on my status while I did so, waiting for the minor bleeding to disappear. It didn't take long after I re-wrapped the cloth around it for it to go away. Once it did I continued on my way down the river. Sipping the water from the river every now and then, I couldn't help but wonder if I ever would find a town or city but as I thought this I heard distant ramblings of Goblins.

I stopped in my tracks and lowered myself to the ground. Crawling up to a tree I peaked around, but wasn't able to see anything. I dug my two front talons into the tree and attempted to climb it. I couldn't use my injured leg, but thankfully I didn't need it. Albeit it was much more difficult with only three limbs. Once at the top, I could somewhat see what was around me and immediately the sight of five Goblins appeared. One of them was the one that I allowed to escape.

I can't say I'm too surprised, but it seemed as though it was frantically explaining to the others what had happened earlier. As the Goblin was blabbing on, a slight whistle then a 'THOK' sound startled me as a Goblin on the far left had an arrow pierce it's neck and it crumpled to the ground. I almost fell out of the tree in shock. The other Goblins must have been more startled then I as one of them let out a shriek.

A human wielding a short sword popped out from the tree line and dug his blade into the back of the Goblin that had once escaped me. A human! My excitement for a human was overtook my shock of a Goblin being sniped from afar.

"Wait up!" A female voice made itself known, but I couldn't understand what she had said.

"You've gotta keep yer head in the game if you wanna hang with the big dogs!" Another man jumped out from the bushes followed by a girl who was huffing and puffing behind them. The man had a scruffy beard with brown pulled back hair. He had a bow in his right hand and an arrow drawn back while a quiver adorned his back.

The girl had medium length blonde hair and shortened bangs. She was carrying a book and adorning long white robes that had symbols sewed on them. She was also carrying a backpack which seemed quite heavy.

The Bowman let loose a few more arrows that found their targets in the legs and arms of Goblins while the Swordsman followed up, cutting down his targets with a disturbing grin. The girl just sat back and watched. She must have been either a Mage or a Healer. I looked closely at her and tried using view status. The little black box popped open with all of her stats. Her name was Elena and she was a level 5 Cleric. She had 40/40 HP and 60/60 MP. Her abilities were Protection, Lesser Heal and Remove De-buff. She was quite useful it seemed.

The other two had cleaned up the rest while I was inspecting her. They started talking again while looting their kills, to which they didn't really find anything of use. I used my view status on them as well while they were busy. The Swordsman was Desmond. He was level 10 with 100 HP and 30 MP. He seemed quite strong. The Bowman was named Rell, level 6 with 50 HP and 40 MP. I didn't get the time to view their abilities as they had already started walking away causing the menu to close.

I waited a second before scrambling down, digging in my front claws to ease the speed. Keeping my body low I stalked the adventurers through the forest. Elena stayed in the back while the two men lead the group. I couldn't understand what they were talking about but it seemed like Elena was just the pack mule for them.

The Bowman was observing the grass and markings on the trees while they moved. After a few minutes of that, they discovered a small cave and suddenly it clicked. They're looking for the Goblins den! and it seemed that they found it. A small wooden totem sat outside, almost as if a warning to those who came near. The two men hollered in excitement while Elena just looked more nervous.

"This is it, let's exterminate these pests and collect out reward. You just stay close behind us and carry any valuables." The Swordsman waved at Elena, who just sighed in response.

The two men lead the way in, not hesitating even for a moment. I peaked over a bush, watching them disappear into the darkness of the cave. I decided to camp out up in another tree until they came back out. I needed to discover where they lived and concoct a plan to befriend them. Being up here will also help keep me out of sight from predators.

I found a comfy position to lay in up in this tree while waiting for them. I couldn't hear any fighting of the sort, so the cave must of been quite deep for how small the entrance was. Time seemed to pass by slowly and the injury in my leg was bothering me more and more. I couldn't exactly tell what time it was, but if I had to guess it was a little past noon. Meaning that they'd been in that cave for almost two hours.

Maybe I should take a peak inside... If something happens to them, I'll be that much further from getting help. I guess I could always retrace their steps from where I first saw them, but who knows if that would work. I waited a few more minutes before stumbling down the tree again.

I won't go too deep and at the first sign of trouble, I'll leave. Nodding to myself, I took my first step inside. I was only a couple feet tall, so I didn't have to duck inside like they did. However, I could hardly see what was in front of me. The air was stale and smelled of dried blood. The ground of the cave was cold and unforgiving. Clutching the wall, I only took a few small steps at a time. Thankfully, I spotted a lit torch on the wall ahead of me. I guess even Goblins needed to see. I made my way towards it and grabbed it between my teeth and continued on. My bare talons slapped against the rocky floor until a small clang caused me to halt.

In what seemed like an instant, I heard a man yell out in pain and a woman's scream. I stopped in my tracks for a minute out of fear until the clashing of metal snapped me out of it. They were close and sounded like they were in danger. I sped up my movement, the cold wet floors no longer bothering me. Turning a corner I came upon a sizeable room. There laid the Bowman in front of Elena who was trying to cast something on him. There was a ton of blood pouring out of him and the Swordsman didn't seem to be fairing well either. They were surrounded by at least ten Goblins. They were all wielding an assortment of weapons, from daggers to clubs to pickaxes and shovels.

There was one however, in the background who was adorned in robs and wielded a staff like a Mage. I used my view status on him to see that he was a level 5 Shaman who could cast buffs on his allies. I looked over to see the Swordsman who only had a sliver of HP left. The Bowman had died and Elena had a few cuts on her as well, but still past half HP but almost no Mana. Every other Goblin in the room was level 1 or 2, but their numbers were too much.

I realized I was kind of standing out here with the torch in my mouth, so I placed it behind me around the corner. When I did, the Swordsman cried out, causing me to rush back around. Multiple Goblins were stabbing him in the back while Elena watched in horror. The moment he was done for, the other goblins started to slowly surround Elena.

I had to do something, I have to move now. My legs were trembling and I could feel acid in my throat. I took a deep breath in through my nose and out my mouth. Looking one more time at my own status, I saw that I still had enough MP for two more casts of Dragons Breath. Alright, let's do this. I charged in using Intimidating Shout, causing everything in the room to look at me...

| Authors Note: I need to review these before I post, but I usually don't have time due to work. I'll get on that when I can. Thanks for reading. |

[yamagucji]

Embarrassing moments

warnings. just for shits n giggles, 14+ readers preferably, mentions of vomit, poop, choking, etc.

HINATA was extremely constipated and needed to use the bathroom quick. but there’s a long line to the mens bathroom (what’s the occasion anyway??) and he’s standing all the way at the back. poor hinata felt a fart coming so he just couldn’t... hold it in. mans SHARTED. shitted and farted at the same time. it stunk so bad that the guys in front of him said, “damn, you need the toilet more than me,” and let him cut in line.

USHIJIMA and tendou stopped to pet this dog during their walk. tendou’s conversing with the owner while toshi’s petting the dog. dog likes it, it’s all good. until... it got bored and decided that toshi’s butt smelled good. dog just wouldn’t stop sniffing his ass. “please, stop smelling me,” toshi says with desperation, which now catches the others’ attention. the owner has to pry their dog away from toshi’s ass cheeks, please. the awkward tension kinda dies down until tendou utters, “so, what’s your secret? what product are you using?”

YAMAGUCHI drank water in the middle of silent class reading. this boy started choking— and i mean choking on his water. you can hear his muffled coughs in the distance and when you turn around to look at him, his face is all red and his cheeks are puffy. none of his classmates say anything but you can practically feel second-hand embarrassment oozing around. the assistant teacher even has the audacity to say, “drink some water.”

KENMA’s calling this one his last try. he sticks his remaining coins into the slot and tries to get the brand new nintendo box thats in the machine. mf has been going at this for over twenty minutes now. his pouch is empty and there’s a crowd of kids waiting for him. no miracle happens in his last try (shit got stuck!!) so he has to move away only to watch in horror— as the kid after him manages to get it. you’re gonna have to hold kenma down before he hunts that kid with every bit of his soul.

DAICHI had a fat one coming in, that’s for sure. thought it was a free real estate just because everyone else in the camp seemed asleep. so he let that monster fart come out (even partly stuck out his thigh for better airway). whole team was awake in a matter of seconds. nishinoya’s jumped off his sleeping bag and asking everyone if they heard that “loud bang.” tanaka’s over here sniffing around because he knows that no one has got some kind of bomb that stinks.

SAKUSA’s not gonna admit to this one. but one time he opened a bathroom stall (it was unlocked) only to find that it was occupied. there are no words to accurately describe just how horried the sight was. sitting on the toilet was a man taking a shit, with his dick on full boner mode, staring back at sakusa. they only made eye contact for just 2 seconds but sakusa’s seen enough. he’s heard enough too, when said stranger asked him, “you wanna join me?”

ASAHI projectile vomited at the theaters. you should’ve known it was a bad idea to take him out to dinner before going to watch a scary movie. man had no courage to tell you he had an upset stomach nor tell you he’s not a fan of horror. it’s twenty minutes into the movie and he’s poking your arm— but you don’t notice because you’re too engrossed. another twenty minutes, and a jumpscare comes on. man beside you vomits like there’s no tomorrow. ya’ll spend the rest of the movie secretly trying to clean his throw-up.

TENDOU was watching anime in his dorm peacefully. until... the whole shiratorizawa team opened the door just in time for the show to switch up to an inappropriate scene. out of all the times they could’ve walked in, they really had to come when 2d clown man was moaning and fighting a kid? tendou scrambled to close his laptop but now he’s just staring back at his teammates; silent, except for the fact that his show is still playing and you can still hearing moaning in the background.

TSUKISHIMA turned his house upside down and still couldn’t find his glasses, nor his extra pair. he was about to leave bare eyed until his mom caught him and forced him to wear his sports glasses. yeah, the one with the whole strap and everything. mans looked like a fool coming to school with it on. people who didn’t know it was his sports glasses mistook it for swimming goggles. he’s so utterly humiliated now, he can’t even bite back when hinata or kageyama says something.

GOSHIKI... i don’t even know what to tell you. who let this kid go further into the lake by himself? it’s all fun and games for everyone until you hear an ear-defeaning shriek by your one and only goshiki. he’s yelling out, “help me! please! help!!” the lifeguards start kicking in and everyone’s trying to make way. is he drowning? is there something there? no for god’s sake. you find out he just made it 5 ft deep and happened to swim over a bunch of seaweed. never take him swimming again.

ATSUMU decided to check himself out using someone’s car window. he’s fixing his hair, picking at his teeth, and even checking to see if he has any boogers. all of a sudden the window rolls down and there’s a senior citizen staring back at him. “boy do you think my car is your mirror?” the man says in a gruffy voice. atsumu’s knees nearly buckle from how scary this man is and how embarrassed he is of all the four minutes he probably spent with this stranger.

SACHIRO’s job as a vet sometimes makes him do really questionable shit (from an outsider perspective). once he had to ejaculate someone’s dog in front of their owner. uh huh... jack them off, for the sole purpose of examining the dog’s semen. he’s never felt such a wave of regret wash through his body during that whole procedure. it didn’t help when the owner was looking at him mortified, nor the fact that it took such a long time.

OIKAWA does this thing were he shows up unexpectedly behind iwaizumi and slaps his ass. everytime he does it iwa always hits him back (but not the ass). today he learnt his lesson when he mistook a stranger for iwa and slapped the guys ass from the moon and back. when i tell you just how quick all the blood drained from oikawa’s body when the man turned around— you can hear a bag of chips fall at the other end of the aisle and it’s the iwa, who had to witness that whole ass-slap event.

ARAN is gonna knock the shit of the miya twins one day, he swears to god. they sent him a mysterious video during his morning walk, where he stopped at a busy street. it starts off quiet, so he goes to turn the volume up full blast. damn video suddenly started blaring ‘lick my pussy and my-’ please... he’s shaking. passerby’s are looking at him with distaste. aran’s now flushed from embarrassment and running towards the miya house. you can guess what happens next.

BOKUTO walked into the wrong house. spent a whole ten minutes rummaging around the kitchen because his friend said to “make yourself comfortable, i’ll be on my way.” little did this man know that there’s a whole family upstairs waiting for the cops to arrive because they think it’s a robbery. poor bokuto, dragged out of the house by some cops but had no idea what was going on. man was literally just vibing— thinking he was in his friends house.

OSAMU swore this size pants still fit him (hint: it doesn’t). he’s walking through the snack section of the store, lightly limping because damn his dick can’t breath. his truth is tested when he goes to pick something off the lowest shelf and his pants literally go, ‘let er rip.’ fabric tore, and what’s worse is that he was wearing onigiri undies. osamu goes to check if there’s anyone else in the aisle and there is— a group of underclassmen girls from his high school.

KUROO tried to make his chemistry presentation more interesting by putting in jokes. he thought they were funny; kenma even huffed a breath. kuroo’s at his third joke by now and literally no one has laughed. not a single one. except for kuroo himself, who’s awkwardly laughing in a dead-silent room. man was embarrassed. other people are getting second-hand embarrassment by the way they avoided eye contact with him. he vented to kenma later only for kenma to say, “it wasn’t funny. it was just stupid.” poor kuroo.

SUNA accidentally connected his bluetooth to the bus. you know, the one that drives all of inarizaki to their games. wanna guess what the fuck he might’ve been listening to? it’s porn. he’s watching porn in broad daylight. suna doesn’t realize what the issue is until he goes to turn up the volume and notices that the sound is off. he take his airpods off and that’s when he hears pure moaning sounds blaring inside the bus. everyone’s laughing— except for kita and their coach who’s still outside. mf calls himself lucky for that.

[eddiemunsonsbedroom]

20 Somethings - Part 1

--------------------------------------------------

Eddie Munson x afab!reader/Joyce’sSister!reader

Summary: Joyce’s sister works at a record store and plays guitar in a band with some local pot-heads. When her coworker/bandmate invites his friend Eddie and his band to jam with them, she quickly becomes intrigued. (I suck at summaries).

Warnings: Smoking a joint while driving (don’t do this?!), Slight (legal) age gap, drug use (weed), sexual undertones, flirting, hella swearing.

Hopper and the Byers are in Hawkins for the sake of this fic, and I may have ripped off reader’s band name from an actual band on accident? Sorry it’s so short for a part 1! Nothing too exciting yet, just laying the ground-work and testing the waters. This is my first real fanfic that I’d count, and first multi-part fic, so please be gentle. Let me know if there are any errors that you see, and feedback is greatly appreciated! -H

 ————-

“Christ alive,” you mutter, giving your car radio a less-than-gentle smack. Driving with your knees while smacking your radio like a madman to jostle the tape and ashing the joint in your other hand all over your lap is probably not the safest way to drive. Actually, you’re breaking multiple laws right now, if you add in speeding.

Quickly glancing up you see Hopper, Sheriff of Hawkins, driving past you with a disgruntled, knowing look on his face. He gives you a small beep of his horn with an exasperated pointed look, warning you to put the damn joint out before another cop happens to drive by.

Knowing Hop since you were a kid and him being close with your sister, Joyce, means he has a little bit of a soft spot for you and looks the other way on a lot of things (which he’d deny outright if directly asked). Besides the time when you were 16 and he found you by Lover’s Lake with Tommy Lane’s hand up your shirt… He put the fear of god into that kid and you never saw him again.

You were an Oops! Baby, significantly younger than your sister. Joyce in her 40s, while you’re sitting at only 24 years of age. Your parents had you in their mid-40s, which means people were always surprised when you told them that your parents were pushing 70. Joyce always made it a point to form a bond with you, even with her being just about out of the house when you were born, and soon after that having Jonathan and Will. They were almost like cousins to you, or even brothers, when in reality, they were your nephews. In high school, your parents allowed you to move in with Joyce, as they couldn’t really relate to you with such an age difference, and you were always with Joyce and the boys anyway. You just moved out of her house a year or so ago into your own shitty apartment near Hawkins High.

Taking one last drag and not-so-discretely tossing your roach out the window, you finally approached your bandmate, Al’s house. You met Al while working at the record shop, and when he found out that you knew how to play guitar, he almost shit himself, asking you to try out for his band immediately. Which is how you ended up playing lead guitar for The Living Daylights. You cannot imagine that Al, stoner of the universe, who almost sets his house on fire weekly by forgetting frozen pizzas in the oven, is the only one to think of that band name, but hey, it’s not like you’re Metallica. No one at The Hideout is going to give a shit.

Your car groans to a stop next to a big black van you can’t recall seeing before, when it hits you: tonight is the night that Al’s friend’s band was going to jam with you guys and drink some beer. What the hell was their name? Corrupted Casket?

Lugging your guitar case out of the back seat, you swear at your car when the case gets caught between the seat and the floor. “Come, on, Betsy, you old bitch, let her GO!” you whisper-yell before it finally breaks free of Betsy’s clutches. You hope she doesn’t make you pay for that comment later, as you don’t have any extra cash to fix her if she breaks down out of spite.

“Yelling at inanimate objects now, y/n?” You look for the source of the voice only to see Jerry, your ridiculously long-haired bassist, holding the outside door to the basement open, cigarette in hand. His blond hair was prettier than any girl’s you’d ever seen, but when you told him that, he held your guitar over his head until you took your comment back.

“Spying on unsuspecting women now, Jer?” you quip, swinging the strap to your guitar case over your shoulder and starting down the stairs.

“Had to grab my smokes,” he shakes the cigarette pack, “not my fault you’re outside screaming loud enough to scare the birds.”

“That’s a hyperbole if I’ve ever heard one,” you reply, stepping into the basement.

“A what?”

You roll your eyes and make your way around the washer and dryer to the dirty old rug that holds Rob’s drum set and all of your amps. Next to the rug are the ratty orange couch and matching old chairs that you’ve spent way too much time in over the last year, and filling them are three guys you’ve never met before. You stop short, having somehow already forgotten between fighting your bitch car and the banter with Jerry, that you’d be having company. Corrupted Casket? Right?? Shit.

Al whips his dark, curly-haired head toward you, shit-eating grin on his face while ashing his joint. You internally groan in anticipation of his smart-ass remark.

“Hey, look what the cat finally dragged in! Forgot that Hawkins is located in the lesser-known time zone, ‘WheneverTheHellY/NFeelsLikeIt!’” he yells, smirking at his own shitty joke. Seeing each other at work and in most of your free-time, you’re used to Al’s stupid humor and banter, and actually look forward to the back and forth.

Withholding the mirth from your eyes, you deadpan, “Aw, did you get lost? Nurse, he’s awake!”

Listening to the snickers and setting your guitar down, you hear a single sharp laugh from Al as he flips you off with a grin.

With your own smirk on your face, you glance over the three new faces, landing on the guy with long, wavy dark hair and huge brown eyes looking at you with a piercing gaze. You hold his stare for a beat too long, feeling like a rabbit caught in a snare, before clearing your throat and blinking away. He seems to snap out of it as well, shifting in his seat and taking a drink from his beer. Good Lord that’s a beautiful man.

Act natural, you horny wench, you scold yourself internally. You wonder why you haven’t seen him around before. It was slim-pickings in Hawkins, you’d have known if you saw a dream-boat such as this man out and around town.

You casually sit in the empty lawn chair across the coffee table from him and now the basement is suddenly sweltering.

Pushing your denim jacket down your shoulders, you blindly throw it over the couch, hearing a “jeez!” from Al who is swatting it off of his lap. Ignoring him, you decide to say, “fuck it” and make the first introduction before the tension in the room becomes too awkward.

“Hi. I’m the looks of the group, clearly,” you joke to the three new guys, but mostly to the hot man directly in front of you. Your bandmates roll their eyes and huff at your comment.

“Uh, I’m Gareth,” one boy says, seeming a bit nervous.

“Jeff,” the other says, shaking your hand.

Letting it go, you look to the guy whose name you’re really after. If you’d have blinked you’d have missed it, but a flash of awe and uncertainty goes through his eyes at he looks at you before a confident smirk graces his lips. “Eddie,” he says, shaking your hand. You guys shake hands for longer than is necessary before you remember he’s probably waiting for your name.

“Y/N, which you may have gathered from Al’s shitty joke earlier.”

“Woooow,” you faintly hear Al snark in response, but you’re so far from listening to him right now; not while Eddie’s eyes are boring into yours. He’s not used to a woman who doesn’t take shit from men and can dish it out just as well as she can take it. He wonders if that applies to more than just wordplay, but swallows down those thoughts. He’s getting way ahead of himself.

Forcing yourself to let go of his hand before you give yourself away completely, you settle back into your chair. Jerry breaks the new bout of silence by asking you if you want a beer on his way to the fridge.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Rob quips, pushing his bangs away from his eyes and winking at you. You roll your eyes. If you’d have grown up with slightly older brothers, this is exactly what it’d have been like.

“You make me sound like an alcoholic,” you say, unamused.

“Hey, if the shoe fits.”

“Dick!” you laugh. Cracking your beer by hitting it between your palm and the edge of the coffee table, you take a sip, seeing Eddie’s eyes flash a little. He’s very quickly become intrigued by you. A woman who’s funny, can kick back with the guys fully at ease, and who plays in a band? And she’s hot? Where have you been hiding?

Relaxing for a bit, a few different conversations kick up around you. As the joint is passed your way, you take a hit, holding it in for a long beat before slowly blowing the smoke out. Eddie fidgets with his beer, then moves onto playing with the many rings adorning his fingers. You subconsciously bite your lip while watching his fingers move, unbeknownst to him. He appears nervous, like he doesn’t know how to completely insert himself into this environment with new people.

Observing him slyly, you can see the moment he seems to make up his mind about something. He stops fidgeting and straightens his shoulders, getting to his feet. To your surprise he makes his way to sit in the empty folding chair next to you. You’re trying to appear nonchalant, when all you want to do is squirm in your seat.

He clears his throat, “So, how do you know Al then?” Fuck! He internally curses at himself. They’re in a band together, dumb ass. That’s how they know each other.

To his surprise you just smile and say, “Well, we met working at the record store together, and he needed a guitarist. I figured, hell, I’ve been meaning to do some charity work anyway,” you respond.

He lets out a surprised laugh at your quick wit. But inside you’re worried you’re coming off arrogant, which is so far from how you actually feel in this moment that it’s comical. But it’s either this humor or self-deprecating. You can’t tell which is worse.

“How about you?” you ask him, sipping your beer. At some point you crossed your legs towards him without realizing and bumped his knee with yours. He inhales sharply, but it’s so quiet that you can’t tell if you imagined it.

“Uh…” he gets his supply of weed from Al now that Reefer Rick’s locked up again, but he doesn’t want to seem like a drug dealer by saying that. Dude, you are a drug dealer, he tells himself. Oh yeah, he responds to himself. Why am I talking to myself? Fuck, maybe I am high. Shit, she’s looking at me, how long has it been?

Not trying to hide your smirk at the fact that you can almost see literal cogs turning in his head to produce a sentence, you say, “uh…?” to help him push his thought along.

“He supplies me with weed that I, uh, sell. To others. For cash. And I smoke it. And stuff,” he blurts out.

You burst out laughing, your eyes twinkling. You’re looking at him like you genuinely find him funny, and he quietly sighs in relief.

Somehow, the ice has been broken, and you guys settle into a surprisingly easy back and forth. He tells you that he lives in a trailer with his uncle, Wayne, a few miles from Al’s. He seems a little embarrassed, but you quickly reassure him that you only moved out a year ago, and into a crappy apartment, no less. He says that he has no siblings, and you tell him that you have an older sister.

Eddie’s eyes light up as a thought dawns on him, “wait! You work at The Screaming Owl! I go in there all the time!” he chirps excitedly, referencing the record shop.

“You do?! How have we never seen each other?” you ask, racking your brain. You cannot imagine you missed each other.

“I go in every Saturday.”

Ah. “Okay, that makes sense. I only work weekdays,” you say.

“Do you go to school?” he asks off-handedly, not at all expecting the way you’re about to respond.

“Nah, I haven’t gotten around to college yet. Graduated from Hawkins High in ’80 though,” you say, stubbing out your cigarette. While you’re looking down, Eddie’s eyes bug out of his head as he tries to do mental gymnastics to figure out your age. 24?! He takes a drink of his beer and looks away, trying to be casual. There’s no way in hell you’re going to want to be with a 20-year-old super senior in fucking high school.

Swiveling back his way, you ask, “So what about you?”

“Huh?” he sputters, ungracefully.

You laugh. “Are you in school?”

Fuck! He swallows thickly, mind-racing, trying to figure out how he’s going to respond. “Yeah-“ he starts, and, thank fuck, Al interrupts with, “Yo! Are we gonna jam or what?”

@sublimecatgalaxy​ @bethii1

[watchmegetobsessed]

Floating Through Space - Harry Styles

a/n: im literally bursting from excitement over this, i’ve been working on this fic for so long and im pretty satisfied with how it turned out so i hope you’ll like it too! pleas please PLEASE don’t let this flop bc it means a lot to me 🥺 the song featured in the fic is obviously an existing one, i linked it into the right place so you can listen to it and get the vibe of it, that song is what inspired the whole story so i recommend giving it a listen! leave your thoughts and reactions, i can’t wait to read what you thought about the fic!!

pairing: Harry x Famous!Reader

warning: drug use, smut and everything thats wrong with patriarchy lmao

word count: 25.7k

masterlist

This dressing room is no different than the other one thousand you’ve been to. The plaster on the wall is all cracked up, the red bricks peeking from under it in the corner, the dusty couch looks like it’s been through hell and just sitting on it would probably give you STDs. The mirror on the wall is cracked, the few water bottles you’ve gotten are not even cooled, they’re a warm room temperature. The glorious life of a musician, right?

Moments like this you question why you didn’t just choose to be the obedient daughter and became a surgeon like your parents always wanted you to be. You’d have a steady future and a nice income, a decent career instead of having to perform at a different bar every other night for nicks and pennies that barely cover your rent at the end of the month. But that wouldn’t be you. Wearing scrubs, smiling at patients, throwing out your dignity along with your dreams, you wouldn’t have been true to yourself if you chose that life. Besides, you’d still be in school, barely nearing the halfpoint of your education if you decided to go along with your parents’ plan and it’s clearer than daylight that the school system is just not for you. It would be pure torture if you had to sit in classes for a decade just to work a job you never even wanted.

Looking around the small dressing room you cast your eyes over your band that consists of three people. It’s a temporary set up from three guys you met along your way, all of the struggling musicians as you and you saw the as opportunities. Places would rather have a band play with several men in it than just put one single woman on stage and pray for the best. It’s the sexist part of the industry not enough people talk about. You can’t even count how many pitying stares you’ve gotten through the years when you stated that you want to make a career as a solo female singer.

“Honey, you ain’t making it without at least one man behind you,” is what they’ve always told you. So you’ve gotten yourself three until you could stand on your own two feet without a male backup. You’re using them just as much as they are using you. They were already a band when you joined them, the lead singer just disappeared to thin air with her boyfriend and left them incomplete, so you joined forces to navigate your way together in the depth of the music industry, looking for that big jump everyone is dreaming about.

Standing in front of the cracked mirror you fix your eyeliner, checking yourself once again. Your thrifted checkered suit looks radiant on you especially with the neon green see-through top underneath, showing off a black bralette. It’s a male suit, hanging a little baggy on you at places, but you still feel like you’re pulling off the look. Your thick eyeliner makes your eyes appear even bigger than they already are and your hair is in an unruly mop of curls, making your appearance complete.

You’ve received tons of critiques over your outfits, but they are the only thing you are not changing on yourself.

“Don’t wear men’s pants.”

“You’d look better in a dress.”

“Why do you look like a guy?”

“What a shame to hide such a gorgeous body in clothes that weren’t meant for girls.”

Each and every comment is burned into your mind forever and you’ll never stop fighting against the judgment women has to face for not being the conventional beauty all females are expected to be.

There’s a knock on the door and the person behind it barges in without waiting for an answer. The tall, bald guy rushes in, looking a little stressed, but that’s kind of the normal for the owner.

“I’m not sure how to say it, but… you are not performing tonight,” he simply states and your anger sets in faster than ever. You’ve had gigs get cancelled, but not minutes before going on stage. However, he is still not done with his little informative speech. “And your instruments need to be used by another band tonight.”

“What the fuck?” Trey, the drummer jumps to his feet. “No way I’m letting someone else play my drum set!”

“You’ll get half the money if you let it happen,” the owner answers.

“Wait, what band did you find minutes before start?” you ask in complete shock.

“There’s this group celebrating a birthday in the VIP section and some boy band is apparently with them. Birthday girl requested to have the stage for them.”

“And you’re just cancelling on us that easily?” you snap.

“Not that I have a choice. If I don’t do it they are leaving and I’m losing a big amount from the night. Sorry guys, but this is strictly business.”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” you laugh bitterly, staring up at the ceiling. This would have been a great chance for all of you, you’ve been trying to get a gig here for months, knowing that a lot of people from the industry fancies it, you might have caught someone’s eyes, but it’s definitely not happening now.

“Are you letting them use your stuff or not?” he urges, hands on his hips as he looks at the four of you impatiently.

“But what about our gig? We’ve been on the waiting list for months, when can we actually perform?”

“Uh, I don’t know. We’re pretty booked, maybe sometime in the summer?”

“Summer?” you gasp in disbelief. “It’s fucking February!”

“Are you lending them your stuff or not? I don’t have the time for your little tantrum!”

“Yeah, if we get the money they can use it,” Connor, the bass guitarist answers before you explode right then and there. The owner walks out with that, leaving the four of you behind, forgotten and humiliated.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Trey groans, plopping down on the couch, covering his eyes with his tattooed arm.

“This is fucking bullshit,” you scoff under your breath, reaching for your bag to grab your pack of cigarettes you keep in it especially for cases like this, whenever you are about to go around and punch every living thing in the face in your reach.

Kicking the backdoor open you lean against the cold brick wall as you light the cigarette and start puffing vigorously, trying to get as much nicotine into your system as possible. You notice a group of guys standing near you in the alleyway, laughing on something, having a great time, oblivious to how hurt and angry you are feeling just a few feet away. You hear frictions of their conversation and it’s clear they are British judging from the accents that are hitting your ears. You finish your cigarette pretty fast and immediately reach for another one even though you know you shouldn’t have even smoked that first one, but you just can’t help it. It’s either the smoking or you’re going after the owner and kick him in the balls for being a bitch.

“Oi, can I ask for one?”

Glancing to the side you see that one of the guys has approached you, smiling at you warmly he nods towards the pack in your hands. Nodding you hold it out for him and he takes one. Before he could even ask for the lighter, you throw it at him and he catches it easily.

“Thanks,” he nods, holding the cigarette between his lips before lighting it and passing the lighter back to you.

“Lou, you really shouldn’t smoke,” you hear one of the others speak up as the rest of the group slowly joins you and the one you just helped out.

“S’fine, don’t act like me motha’,” he shrugs, taking a drag from the cigarette.

“At least not before we go on stage,” the blonde one shakes his head at his friend and your eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, so you’re the band that’s gonna play?” you ask with a forced smile, already feeling your blood boiling. Who the fuck they are and why do they deserve to steal your gig?!

“We’re just playing a couple of songs,” another speaks up shrugging his shoulders. “No big deal.”

“Glad it’s no big deal to you, because it would have been to the band that was robbed from tonight because of you,” you spat at them, clearly surprising them with your harsh reply.

“I assume you are part of that band, right?” the on with the curly hair speaks up, his green eyes burning down at you.

“Nice job, Sherlock,” you groan, taking another drag from your cigarette.

“You could play with us,” he offers, the others nodding in agreement.

“I don’t need your pity,” you scowl at them. “Bringing me on stage to try to make yourselves look like the good guys is not necessary. I’m just fed up with people like you.” The truth is coming out of you easier than ever. All the years on injustice is seemingly erupting from you, pouring down on these five.

“People like us?” the dark haired one asks with a confused look.

“Yeah,” you nod with a bitter chuckle. “Five conventionally hot guys grouped together for a band, making every girl between the age of ten and thirty scream just by a wink. I don’t know where you came from, but I’m betting my head that you’ve had it easier than others.”

“It’s not nice to assume things when you don’t know anything about us,” Curly speaks up, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh, I’ve seen enough not to care about what’s nice and what’s not,” you chuckle shaking your head as you take another long puff from your cigarette and throw the butt to the ground, stepping on it. “Who are you even? Some Back Street Boys 2.0?” you ask, folding your arms on your chest, earning a heartfelt laugh from the blondie.

“I kinda like her,” he smirks around his friends. “We’re called One Direction, you haven’t heard of us?”

“Not even once,” you shake your head.

“That’s kinda humbling,” the one with the cigarette smiles. “We’re from the UK. I’m Louis, that’s Liam, Niall, Zayn and Harry.”

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but it would be nicer if you guys didn’t just take my gig and lessen me with half my paycheck,” you smile at them sweetly before rolling your eyes.

“Wait, what? They’re not paying you because of us?” Liam asks.

“We only get half the money for lending you our instruments.”

“Let us pay the other half then,” Harry offers right away, but you just laugh at him.

“It’s not about the money, Prince Harry,” you smirk at him, tilting your head to the side. “It’s about justice. How is that air that you just waltz in here and take our time and chance? What if there’s a producer out there who would have liked our music and offered a record deal? What if someone would have taken a video of us performing, put it up to YouTube and it would have gone viral? I assume you never had to go through this phase where you have to beg for every minute on stage so you can at least earn enough money to pay rent. You don’t seem like the type of band who had to perform in smelly bars four times a week for a ridiculous amount of money.”

They stay silent and you know you were right.

“I’m not saying you had it easy, but I’m sure you have no idea what it could have been. And I’m fed up with men walking over others just to have what they want.”

“Look, it wasn’t our intention to ruin your gig. Have your set with your band and then we’ll play a few songs too after that,” Liam offers, but you shake your head.

“No, we weren’t supposed to be just your opening act and it’ll turn into that. So have a nice evening, enjoy your showtime, I’m out.”

Pushing yourself away from the wall you walk back into the building and grabbing your stuff from the dressing room you move out to the bar area, desperately needing a drink.

Sitting on the last stool at the bar you ask for straight tequila and two vodka shots knowing it’ll do the job for the evening and pulling your phone out of your bag, you open up Google. Searching the name One Direction you’re met with quite a few hits and you start scrolling through them, reading about the five boys you just had an encounter with. Just as you thought, they didn’t start off as a traditional band, having put together at a talent show just three years ago, getting such a major push so early in their career, they have no idea how struggling it is to make it in the industry. They surely had their fair share of ups and downs, but they will never know what it’s like to sweat blood and tears for your dream when everyone just wants to drag you down and tell you you’ll never make it.

The shots and half of the tequila is gone, your band joined you to at least get wasted as you watch the technicians set the stage for a band that’s not you, but gonna play with your stuff. Sitting on the stool you’re having a fairly good time thanks to the alcohol when you spot Harry making his way towards you in the crowd.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready backstage?” you ask with an eyeroll as he joins your little circle, the guys eyeing him curiously. Ignoring your comment he pulls out a piece of paper handing it to you. As you unfold it you almost want to throw it back at him.

“This is to make up for what you lost tonight,” he says nodding down at the check in your hands.

“I told you I don’t need your money,” you firmly answer, but Trey grabs the check from your hands.

“But I do!” he snorts. He is such a pig.

“Let us do at least this one thing for you. We really do feel bad for taking your time and the offer to come on stage with us still stands.”

“No thank you,” you shoot him a fake smile before downing the rest of your tequila, the drink burning down your throat. Looking back at Harry you keep your eye locked on him as he watches you intently. He is a good-looking guy, you have to give that to him, but the circumstances you’ve met under just made it impossible for you not to hate him for the privileges he is being handed every day while you fight your way through life.

Harry sighs in defeat nodding as he licks his lips. For a split second, guilt takes over you for the way you’ve been acting towards him and the other boys, but then you remember that you don’t even know him. For all you know, he can be a royal asshole with the face of an angel. You can’t let guilt chew you and spit you out, you have to keep your guards up.

“Alright. We really are sorry. I’ll… see you around,” he nods before turning around to walk away.

You watch them perform their biggest hits, the whole place going crazy over the impromptu One Direction concert they just got for basically free. The VIP area is going crazy over the boys and with each sang song, you feel yourself getting more and more hopeless about your future as a musician. Here you are on a Saturday night, robbed from a job you’ve worked hard for, watching five British boys take your place on the stage that’s supposed to be yours tonight. You catch Harry’s eyes quite often while he is on stage, he keeps glancing in your way, a hint of guilt glistening in his green irises as he sings their songs with perfect vocals. You can tell he feels bad for the situation and you didn’t make it any easier on him or any of the boys, but you’re not really one to beat around the bush. They deserved to know what others in the industry below them have to deal with every day. It’s not always as glamorous as people might think and you’re the living example of that.

You don’t stick around for long after the boys are done on stage, you help your bandmates pack their stuff and head home before Harry or any other members of One Direction can find you.

Walking past the news stand that’s on the corner of your street, you stop upon seeing your own face smiling back at you from the cover of People Magazine, the title catching your attention.

“Grammy nominee Y/N Y/L/N shares her secret to her one of a kind fashion style.”

Grabbing the magazine off the stand you pay for it and continue your way home, holding the copy to your chest with a warm feeling in your heart.

It’s been only a week since the nominations have come out, but it still feels like a dream. You didn’t just get nominated in the category of Best New Artist, but your album Hands of Power got nominated as Best Album and your biggest hit of last year, Sleepless is running for the title of Best song. Three nominations the first time earning a spot on the list. Not bad.

Just as you walk into your place, your phone buzzes, the ever so smiling face of your manager staring back at you from the screen.

“Hey!” you sing into the phone, holding it to your ear with your shoulder, taking off your boots as you walk further down the hallway.

“Are you home already?”

“Yes, just arrived.”

“Great, I’ll be there in ten,” she announces and ends the call. Chuckling you just shake your head, dropping the phone to the coffee table before you move to the bedroom and change into something more comfortable. The flared jeans looked fire on you today, but you rather wear something looser when you’re at home.

You barely have the time to start the water for a tea when Taylor storms through your door using her keys you’ve given her some time ago. She is wearing all white that looks fantastic with her almond skin tone, a knitted sweater tucked into a maxi skirt, paired with strappy heels, she is always so elegant and perfectly dressed for whatever occasion.

“I have knee-shaking news, girl!” she announces as she throws her purse to the couch before joining you in the kitchen.

“I’m going to be the next Bond girl?” you joke smiling to yourself as you get two mugs from the cupboard.

“Better than that!” she cheers. “You are going to perform at the Grammy’s, baby!” she screams throwing her hands into the air as your jaw drops to the floor.

“You’re not just kidding with me, right?!”

“I would never play such a dirty joke with you. It’s one hundred percent true, I had an hour long phone call with some bloke today and they want you.”

“Yes!” you scream in excitement, jumping up and down like a child that just got a pack of candy. “I’ll make the Grammy’s my bitch!” you cheer, making Taylor laugh.

“Alright, Miss Dominatrix. We still have a lot of things to discuss and there’s one more thing about the performance.”

“Oh God, is this the part where you say something that ruins it completely?” you sigh in defeat as you take the kettle and pour the water into the mugs, dropping a filter into each.

“I don’t think it ruins it,” she shakes her head, but you have a feeling you won’t like what she has to say. “They want it to be like a… joined performance. You’d start off with Sleepless, then it would kind of mesh into your partner’s song and they would end it with one of their own songs.”

“Okay, that doesn’t sound bad,” you nod.

“See?” she smiles warmly.

“Do we know who I’m going to perform with?”

“Harry Styles.”

You almost drop both mugs the moment the name is mentioned, but you manage to get them to the kitchen island and slip them to the counter, Taylor giving you a questioning look at your wide-eyed expression.

“Uh, I’m not sure that’s… gonna work,” you clear your throat.

“You’re not sure your duet with the biggest male artist can work? Why is that?”

Licking your lips you try to find the right words to say it, but you’re not even sure why you got so shocked over it. Probably because the last time you saw him, you were still nobody, playing gigs at no name bars and he took your spot on the stage with One Direction. It’s weird, but since you’ve finally made it in the industry, you haven’t crossed paths with him and this would be the first time you meet after seven years.

“I’m not sure if he remembers it, but we’ve met before.”

“You and Harry?”

“Yes. I was playing with The Gambits years ago, it was before I started putting out covers on my own. We were supposed to play at this bar but they cancelled on us, because One Direction was there that night and someone wanted them to play instead of us, so we lost the gig. I had a pretty… harsh conversation with him and the band, basically telling them that their pretty man privilege is what ruins the careers of talented women.” “Oh Jesus, Y/N. Why haven’t I heard of this before?” Taylor sighs leaning on her elbows on the countertop.

“Not that it’s something that would just come up in a conversation,” you shrug. “And as I said, he might not even remember it. It was a long time ago.”

“I know you are all about your rebellious past, good for you, but sometimes you’re making my job really fucking hard,” she sighs, grabbing her phone, already typing a message to God knows who. “Starting beef with Harry Styles before you even made a name for yourself? Who does that?”

“It’s not beef!” you protest. “I just gave them my piece of mind.”

“We’ll see what he thinks about it. I have to make a few calls,” she announces before walking out, already on the phone with someone.

Sitting on a stool, staring into your mug you think back at the time you met him. It feels like a lifetime ago when you were fighting to stay afloat, trying to make through the days, barely hanging on a thread. You didn’t know that five years later you’d sign your first record deal as a solo artist and seven years from that night, you’d be a Grammy nominee. It was a long and challenging time for sure with way more downs than ups until you finally got on track and you’ll never forget where you came from. Not when even as an acknowledged artist, you still face judgment and hatred no matter what you do. Being a solo female singer sometimes feels like harder than being president of the country and there are just so many things that need to change in the world of music, you will never stop fighting for girls that are in the same shoe you once were.

Through the years you’ve followed the career of the boys, especially Harry’s. You read about Zayn’s parting, their so-called hiatus and how they all went solo soon after. Genre-wise Harry’s work is what stands the closest to you, and you’ve witnessed all the backlash he has faced during his time in the spotlight. The shaming for whatever women he chose to date, his choice to get into acting and the way he has been dressing. People just don’t seem to understand they can’t have control over any of these and they’ve tried to bring him down one too many times, but he has been thriving lately, anyone can see that.

Your mug empties out by the time Taylor returns, taking her previous stop at the kitchen island.

“Alright, I set up a meeting with Harry and his manager for tomorrow. They still haven’t decided on the performance and apparently, Harry would like to meet you before giving his answer.”

“Oh God, he remembers me,” you growl under your breath.

“Or maybe he doesn’t and just wants to meet the person he is supposed to perform with. We can never know. We’re meeting them at his manager’s office at eleven tomorrow.”

One night is enough to make you go crazy over such a small thing as meeting someone. It’s not like you are nervous to see him because of who he is, it’s more about knowing what he thinks about you after all these years, in case he remembers you. He saw you as a struggling artist at rock bottom and though your encounter didn’t last long and he didn’t know you on a deeper, personal level, you still fear that he remembers and thinks that you’ve lost yourself over the years.

Authenticity has been a huge issue in your life. Early in your career, everyone wanted to change you. The way you dress, your hair, the style of music you write, nothing was good enough as it was, they wanted you to become someone else, someone who was not you. You fought all attempts until the right person came through and accepted you as yourself, but a tiny voice in the back of your mind kept telling you that they succeeded, that somewhere along the fight you did lose yourself and became what you always feared to be.

Meeting Harry is like meeting a piece of your past and having to face what you’ve become. It’s going to be like a mirror right in front of you and what you’ll see might not be what you expect.

Wearing your bright red dungaree with an oversized vintage shirt and a pair of white sneakers, you definitely don’t look like you’re dressed for a business meeting, but when did you ever? Pushing your hair back with a pair of cat eye shades, you leave a little earlier, knowing well traffic is horrible in these hours. You arrive to the office building just minutes before eleven, Taylor has already texted that she has arrived and which office you should come to. When you finally find the door you’ve been looking for, you take a moment to yourself before knocking.

“Come in!” a male voice calls out and you walk in. Taylor is sitting on the sofa that’s pushed against the wall on the left, a man is sitting behind the enormous desk and then there is Harry, standing by the window, his hands hidden in the pockets of his black slacks, and old Rolling Stones t-shirt hanging loosely on his frame as his eyes meet yours upon your arrival.

“Hey, I would say I’m sorry for being late, but I’m actually exactly on time,” you smirk, closing the door behind you. The man stands from the desk and walking around he meets at the front, holding a hand out for you.

“Perfectly on time,” he smiles warmly. “I’m Jeffrey Azoff, nice to meet you.”

“Y/N Y/L/N. Nice to meet you too.”

“And this here is Harry,” he motions towards the man who has stepped closer and as you look back at him, you’re met with a blank expression for a moment so you can’t figure out if he remembers you or not. But then, a tiny smile tugs on his lips as he holds his hand out for you.

“We’ve met before, right?” he simply questions, and your eyes flicker over to Taylor in a kind of “See? I told you!” manner before you look back at Harry and shake his hand.

“Yeah, we have,” you nod. “A long time ago.”

“Congrats for your nominations,” he smirks, his hand letting go of yours and your let out a soft chuckle.

“Well, thank you. Back at you.”

“Alright, why don’t we start this discussion? We have a lot to go over,” Jeff suggests and you sit beside Taylor while Harry stays near the window, as if he is trying to soak up the sunshine coming through it that’s painting his skin a golden shade.

The concept is simple. The performance would be a mashup from Sleepless and Harry’s song Golden with an exciting and fresh way of mixing the two songs together in the middle, making your song flow into his in a smooth and effortless way. The songs sound compatible and you already have an idea how to mash them together for the transition, but you can’t help but feel doubts over the performance.

“What are your concerns exactly?” Jeff questions.

“Not to come off too harsh, but why is my song the first one?” you ask, earning a few puzzled looks. “If Harry finishes it off, he is going to be the one people will remember more and he’ll get the applause as well. The riffs in the songs allow them to be switched, how come it’s not me who comes second?”

You can see the shock on Jeffrey’s face at how straight-forward you were about your concern and that you even dared to speak up about the issue. He clearly hasn’t had to face anything similar before and when he glances at Harry you follow his gaze as well, but instead of shock, what you see on his face is amusement. He is smirking, tapping his fingers against his chin as he stares back at you.

“She has a point,” he nods and you take a deep breath. For a moment, you really thought this is going to be the part where you are thrown off and Harry makes the performance only his.

“I, uhh—this is what’s been requested,” Jeff answers and you tilt your head.

“Okay, can we make a request to change it?” you simply ask, eyeing Taylor next to you who is typing on her iPad vigorously, taking notes of everything that’s said. She is already used to what you’re like, she is not even surprised you came up with the prompt to change.

“Hold on, so just because you want to be second, you get to be?” Harry questions, but he doesn’t come off as harsh, it seems like he is entertained by the conversation. “Does this mean I don’t deserve to be the second one?”

“That’s-That’s not what I meant,” you answer, taken aback from his accusation and you hate to admit, but he is right. You addressed the issue, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the spot either.

“Alright, so then we need to seek a solution that benefits the both of us,” he offers, walking closer from the sunlight and you follow his every movement.

“We could do some kind of medley? Do an ultimate mashup from more songs and have more smaller parts split between us, finishing it together,” you suggest and he nods.

“That could work, but I have something else on my mind.”

“And what would that be?” Jeff asks, a little lost about the situation as he watches the two of you exchange ideas.

“We could write a song together, a duet, and perform that instead of our solo stuff.”

“What?” you snap right away. “You want to write a whole new song just for the Grammy’s?”

“Why not?” he smiles carefreely. “We have almost two entire months to do it, albums have been written in shorter periods, I’m sure we can handle just one song. And I think a collaboration would be a hit for the both of us now.”

You look at Taylor who just stares back at you, ignoring the panic in your eyes.

“Don’t look at me,” she tells you. “I can see the collaboration working, it could be a huge hit.”

“And what, we’re gonna release it as a single after the show? Whose song is it going to be? I don’t have an album coming up until next year, do you get to have it on your third one then?”

“We can put it out as just a single. No one has to have it on any albums,” Harry replies. “If we released it after the show, it would be just the right timing. Neither of us had any new songs out in a while.” Clenching your jaw you’re trying to find a way out of this collaboration, though you’re not even sure yourself why. Taylor sees right through you, knowing well you’re planning your escape, but she has other plans apparently.

“Y/N, let’s have a few words outside,” she pushes herself up and pulls you with her. Once the door is shut behind the two of you she starts right away. “What the fuck is your problem? The song is a huge thing, it would be an instant hit with him on it!”

“Why do I need a song with him to stay relevant?” you question, folding your arms on your chest.

“No one said it’s about that. But we both know it would be a great push to your name that Jordan has stomped over not so long ago, calling you a Feminist Nazi.”

“Don’t even fucking mention him!” you whisper yell, refusing to even think about that trashbag of a man that ruined your life with his fake accusations.

“Look, I know what you are thinking, that you’ll be seen as just an object next to him, a pair of boobs and nice legs, but that’s not his brand. He doesn’t need you to be sexy next to him, he is known for his honest and real works that go farther than just twerking and being a hoe. We both know he produces meaningful music, so why are you so against it?”

“I just… I-I’m scared to work with him,” you finally admit and it’s the first thing today that surprises Taylor.

“Scared? Thought you’re not scared of anything,” she huffs.

“I never said that,” you give her a look. “Harry met me when I was nobody, it was just me and my big mouth, trying to find my breakout. What if we start working together and he sees that I completely lost that version of myself? I would feel like a liar, an impostor.”

“You are overreacting,” Taylor sighs. “You’ve changed on your way here, but I doubt you are that far from the girl he met before. I know we didn’t meet just a few years after, but I can assure you, you’re still that big-mouthed pain in the ass who fights every norm in the industry like no one else.”

You know she is right, she is always right. Taylor knows you too well, that’s why you love working with her, but sometimes, her honesty throws you way off, especially when she is stating the truth.

The two of you rejoin the two men in the office and they both look at you with anticipation as you fold your arms on your chest and move your gaze over to Harry.

“I would… love to work on a song with you.”

When you agreed to work with Harry you didn’t think you’d find yourself heading over to his house a few days later to have a writing session, but he offered right away that day in the office and Taylor accepted it before you could protest. You’ve had a day filled with meetings and fittings and now you’re rolling up his driveway after punching the security code in that he shared with you over text.

You’ve exchanged numbers on the spot and just like that, you’ve become one of the few people on this world that could contact Harry Styles anytime they want to.

You chose to be casual for the occasion, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a white hoodie, you like to be comfortable whenever you’re working on new music and Harry’s presence won’t change your ways about that. You’re not sure what to expect, if you’re being honest you’re still afraid of being alone with Harry and do such an emotional thing together as writing a song.

The front door opens just as you get out of your car, grabbing your bag from the passenger seat. Harry walks out wearing a pair of shorts and a green hoodie, looking like he hasn’t left the house all day.

“Hey, you found the address easily?” he asks smiling as you walk up to him.

“Yeah, everything went fine.”

“Do you want something to drink or eat maybe?” he offers as the two of you walk inside. If you’re being honest, you’re starving, the last time you had anything to eat was between two meetings around ten, but nothing since then, just a granola bar. But you’re a first time guest, you can’t just eat up his fridge, like you’re old pals, right?

However, Harry can see right through you.

“You haven’t had anything in a long time, right?” he softly asks and you purse your lips, feeling awkward already and you haven’t been here for more than two minutes. “I can make you a sandwich, if you’d like.” “Harry, no need, I—“ “No need, but I want to. Come on,” he nods at you, making you follow him into the kitchen. “So, who would have thought we would be here now, huh?” he smirks at you as he gathers the ingredients and starts working on your food while you sit on one of the stools at his kitchen island.

“Not me,” you admit chuckling. “I kind of didn’t think I would see you again, I mean, personally. I was seeing you a lot on TV after that.”

“Now might be a good time to confess that, that night wasn’t the last time I saw you.”

“What?”

“I went to one of your gigs a few weeks later. Stayed at the back, I just really wanted to see you play.”

“And what did you think?” you ask tilting your head to the side. Harry smirks, his eyes meeting yours before they return to the food under his hands.

“You absolutely smashed it. And I felt even worse for taking your time away that night. The people were robbed from a mind-blowing performance and had to see five annoying guys clown on the stage,” he laughs making you chuckle too. “I wasn’t surprised when your name surfaced a few years later. Knew you’d make it at one point.” He joins you at the island and slides the plate in front of you with a warm smile.

“Thank you,” you mumble smiling shyly before you start eating and only after the first bite you feel just how hungry you’ve been. “Now that we are at it, I want to apologize for the way I talked to you guys back then. I feel like I was a bigger asshole than I should have been and the whole situation wasn’t entirely your fault.”

“No need to apologize,” he shakes his head. “You were absolutely right. We had no business being on stage that night and what you said actually made us think about where we came from and appreciate our career more. You were right about having it easy at the beginning. We never had the phase where we had to push our way to the top like other artists, our first days were broadcasted on TV, giving us the biggest push ever.”

It’s good to hear he is not holding grudges against you for whatever went down in the past. You eat in silence while Harry types a response to a message on his phone before turning it with the screen down to pay his full attention to you.

“I actually just messaged Niall that we are working together and he is losing his shit over it,” he chuckles softly.

“You guys still talk?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Not all of us thought,” he adds, pressing his lips together.

“You miss being with the band?”

“It’s… good to rely on someone in certain situations. As a solo artist, you only have yourself and that’s about it. But I think you already know that.”

“I never really liked being in a band,” you admit.

“How come? I think you fit in well with The Gambits.”

You shrug, chewing on your bite slowly. It’s probably not the best time to admit that you prefer working on your own, when you’re about to get into a duet with him.

“I uhh… I always imagined myself being a solo artist and I just couldn’t stay with the guys too long, especially when I got my record deal.”

“Why?” Letting out a long breath you lick your lips looking at him.

“I would have never made it in a band with three guys. It would have always been about which one I’m sleeping with, who am I having an affair with or if I’m lesbian because I’m not hooking up with any of them. This is just how it goes for women.”

Harry stays quiet, taking your words in as you finish the sandwich that was literally lifesaving. You wash the plate even when he tells you to just leave it in the sink, and once that’s done, the two of you move over to his little home studio in the basement of his house.

“So, where do we start?” you ask, making yourself comfortable in one of the armchairs while he grabs an acoustic guitar and sits on the one next to you.

“How do you usually start writing?” he asks scratching his chin before he rests his hands on the body of the guitar.

“Well, most of the times I write when I’m pissed about something,” you huff and Harry smirks at you.

“Nothing pissed you off lately?”

“Not enough to make me write a song,” you point out. “See, this is one of the reasons why I was hesitant to write a song with you. It doesn’t come that easily for me.”

“And what were the other reasons?” You shut your mouth at his question, you weren’t expecting him to pick it up, but apparently, he listens more than you thought.

“It’s… a long story.”

“And we have all the time,” he smiles slyly. “But of course, don’t feel pressured to share. I just thought it would be nice to get to know each other more so we can work together easier.”

Harry starts strumming his guitar gently, playing random riffs as you watch him, chewing on your bottom lip. Taylor asked you to try and be more open than you usually are and though part of you wants to keep the wall high between you and him, something is telling you to try and reach out to him.

“I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t want to be seen as just a pretty face next to you. In duets between a man and a woman, females are often seen as just an object, a sight for the eyes but not as serious artists. I worked hard to be taken seriously and I was hesitant about collaborating with you even though your music is not necessarily what I should fear.”

Harry looks back at you with an unreadable expression and you feel like he is judging you for standing up for yourself. Your fight for yourself is often mistaken as “being a bitch” or “being too sensitive” and the amount of times you’ve been told to just chill is upsetting.

“Well, good thing then that I won’t write music about twerking,” he then finally speaks up, a smile breaking his blank expression.

“But you do write a lot about sex,” you point out with a smirk.

“That I do, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be sexist at the same time.”

“You’re right,” you nod smiling.

 The writing process turns out to be harder than you thought. You’re not specifically inspired and Harry is the person to just throw things around until he finds something he likes. The two of you put together is kind of chaotic as you try to come up with something useful.

Two hours later you have a raw version of a melody that could serve as a chorus, but nothing else, no full melody, no lyrics. And if you’re being honest, you don’t like that chorus that much either.

“It’ll be fun to just stand on stage for three minutes and do absolutely nothing, because we couldn’t write anything,” you groan, sliding lower in your seat, rubbing your face with your hands.

“It’s literally our first session and we have plenty of time, Y/N. Don’t stress about it.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“You don’t know how not to stress?”

“I literally haven’t had a stressfree day since about 2007, so no, I don’t know.”

“You can’t chill even when you smoke?” he asks and you give him a puzzled look. “What, you smoke, don’t you?”

“Cigarettes? I put it down in 2015.”

“No, I’m not talking about cigarettes,” Harry chuckles softly. “You don’t smoke weed?” You shyly shake your head. “Really? I would have sworn you’re the type to relax with a good joint. Want to try it?”

“What? Now?” you ask with wide eyes.

“Why not?” he shrugs and walks over to the little side table in the corner of the room and reaching into it he simply pulls a little plastic bag out with three joints in them.

“Are you just casually keeping joints around your house?”

“I don’t really smoke them, they make me feel sleepy. But some of my friends like it so I keep a few around,” he explains as he takes one out and puts the rest back. “You want to try?”

“I-I’m not sure… I have to drive back home.”

“You can stay for the night, I have three guest bedrooms,” he shrugs before his eyes meet yours. “Again, not trying to pressure you, I’m just offering.”

“Are you gonna smoke?”

“We can share one if you want. I would recommend smoking one by yourself for the first time.”

“Okay,” you nod shortly as you watch him tip-tap the joint a little, rolling it between his fingers before he takes it between his lips and reaches for a lighter. “Wait, shouldn’t we do it somewhere outside? The smoke is gonna get stuck in here.”

Harry stops, thinking about what you said and he nods. Grabbing the guitar he asks you to follow him and the two of you move up and out to the terrace, sinking into his lounge chairs. You bring your knees up to your chest, hugging them tightly as you watch Harry light the joint and take the first few puffs. As he exhales the smoke he holds the joint out for you and you take it, hesitantly putting it between your lips as you inhale for the first time. You can’t help but scowl at the taste, the whole act of smoking feeling strange after years of smoking your last cigarette. You keep it down a little before puffing the smoke out and passing the joint back to Harry.

You keep switching until you make it past half of it and you finally start to feel the effect of it. You feel light, like you’re floating in the pool that’s in front of you, you can almost feel the water touching your skin yet you’re still dry.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asks, blinking at you with hooded eyes.

“I’m feeling… fine,” you chuckle softly as you take the joint from him and drag from it again. “Do you do other drugs?”

“I’ve done shrooms a few times, not often though. I’m not trying to pick up an addiction,” he smiles softly, running a hand through his hair. “Have you done anything?”

“No,” you shake your head. “Didn’t have the money for it before and then didn’t have time later. But I never really felt the need either.”

“And you said you put down the cigarette as well?”

“Yeah. I knew I had to do that sooner or later, it was starting to change my voice and I couldn’t have that.”

“That’s what we always told Louis, that his voice will turn to shit if he keeps smoking,” Harry chuckles softly, dragging from the joint before he passes it over to you, not much left of it.

“Did he ever stop?”

“I think he put it down when his son was born, but I don’t know if he started again.”

You give the joint back for him to finish it and you watch him put it out in the ashtray before he sinks down in the lounge chair, closing his eye for a bit, breathing steadily. You find it amusing how you can still see the guy that handed you a check years ago at that bar, trying to make things right, but he also looks like a completely different person at the same time. He is more mature and open in his mindset and just the way he approaches things in general. The Harry you met seven years ago was still searching his way, but the version lying next to you now is a lot more confident in who he really is.

“Want to take a picture?” he hums keeping his eyes closed.

“What?”

His eyes peel open and turn to face you, a smug smirk on his lips.

“You’ve been staring at me. Take a picture, it lasts longer.”

“You are way too full of yourself,” you scoff and pushing yourself up from the lounge chair you walk over to the edge of the pool, mesmerized by the way the light is dancing on the surface.

You never really thought about what weed would feel like in your system, but it feels oddly tranquil and relaxing. In a way your body feels a little strange, like it’s not even yours, but you also sense everything very… loudly.

“You alright?” you hear Harry’s voice coming from behind, the tapping on his feet signaling that he is walking closer to you.

“Yeah,” you nod without taking your eyes off of the water.

“Do you want to go for a swim?”

“What?” you breathe out turning to face him.

“Do you want to go in?” he rephrases his question with a small smile.

“I don’t… have a bathing suit,” you answer and the moment the words leave your mouth they feel so ridiculous even when you were just stating the truth.

“Okay, but you are wearing underwear, aren’t you?” he smirks. “Or I’m completely fine if you want to go in naked,” he adds smugly.

“Shut up,” you chuckle. “Can you… maybe give me a pair of shorts? I’m fine without a bra when I come out but I would rather have my underwear on dry.”

“Sure,” he hums and turning around he jogs back into the house while you stay right there, staring at the water again.

With each passing moment you get calmer, the outside world and everything in life that’s not happening right in this moment eases into nothingness, your mind numbs in the best way possible.

When Harry returns he is wearing a pair of yellow swimming shorts, two towels are thrown over his shoulders and he has a pair of white shorts in his hands.

“This is the smallest thing I have, I think it’ll be fine,” he comments handing you the shorts.

“Thanks,” you nod before he shows you the way to the closest bathroom where you change out of your clothes leaving them in a neatly folded pile on the counter, you put on the shorts that are a little big on you, but once you’ve tied the strings it seems to be staying up steadily. Your simple black bra is not showing more than what a bikini top would, so you feel fine walking out in your attire.

Harry is sitting at the edge of the pool, his legs moving around in the water. His head lifts hearing your steps and he smiles at you, standing up when you arrive.

“Fits fine,” he nods, taking a look at the shorts.

“Yeah,” you chuckle.

Walking over to the steps you dip your feet in first, testing the temperature before you start going in further, Harry following you right behind. Just as you expected, the water feels smooth against your skin, warmly caressing and swallowing your body as you get in, the surface reaching your chest. You let your arms move around, feel how the water runs through your fingers, it’s amusing and you enjoy it probably more than you should. It’s just water, but right now it feels like a pile of clouds.

“I know I suggested to smoke and then swim, but please don’t drown into my pool, I won’t be able to talk myself out of that,” he chuckles, easing him into the water until it reaches his neck.

“My life is in your hands, Harry,” you smirk at him before you follow him and let the water swallow your whole body up to your neck.  “This feels so nice.”

“Yeah? You like it?” he smirks.

“Mm, like I’m… floating through space.”

“In a sense, you are floating in the water,” he chuckles. “You don’t feel sick, right?”

“No, I’m fine,” you smile at him shortly.

You move over to the edge of the pool, laying your arms to the side, holding yourself up so your legs could float in the water. You watch Harry dive under and swim across the pool, reaching the far end before he pushes himself over to you.

“When I went to see you perform there was a song I really liked, but I never found it anywhere later.”

“Which one?”

“The chorus went like… Crashing and crumbling, I’m fighting for my breath, Today won’t be the day I’m meeting death…”

You suck on your breath, surprised how well he remembered the lines even after so many years. He recalled them perfectly, even singing the melody a little with them.

“I never recorded it in studio,” you admit quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because it felt too emotional and I didn’t want it to be just out there.”

“What was the name of the song?”

“It’s called Till I Die. I wrote it when…” You take a deep breath, feeling heavy just by talking about it, but something is urging you to share it with him. “I left from home right after I graduated high school, broke contact with my parents completely and I had a few very rough years, trying to just… keep myself alive, I guess.”

“Can I ask why you left your parents?”

“We had very different visions of what I should become. And I didn’t intend to live the life they imagined for me. My parents are very… traditional, my career in their eyes is just some kind of circus when I’m the clown on the stage. They don’t take any of it seriously and they made it very clear at the beginning that they don’t want me to become a musician. I was supposed to become a surgeon, my dad is one and my mom is in criminal law, they both worked very hard to get to where they are, but they don’t think that’s exactly what I’m doing as well.”

The last person you shared it with was Taylor and though it feels odd to open up about these old wounds again, but having Harry as the one listening to you just feels right.

“You haven’t talked to them since you left?”

“No,” you shake your head.

“And they didn’t even try to contact you?”

“Well, I made sure they couldn't. Changed my number first thing I set my feet outside the house and I never left them any of my addresses. I know it sounds cruel, but I didn’t want to do anything with them after the shaming they put me through when I told them I don’t want to become their perfect little daughter. They told me that I could consider myself disowned from the family if I dare to even write a song.”

“Woah, that sounds really tough.”

“It was,” you nod. “I wasn’t asking them to support me in any other way apart from just being there for me. It’s not like I wanted to spend the money the put aside for my tuition to buy guitars and tour the country, I just wanted them to… accept who I am, but apparently, I asked for too much.”

You feel tears forming in your eyes, but you wipe them quickly. It’s been long since the last time you let the thought of your parents, you’ve been good at keeping these feelings bottled up and in the deepest end of your mind. It’s not like you’re going around and just share your trauma with anyone you meet, but it felt comfortable to share it with Harry.

“I’m sorry about that. Everyone should have a support, especially in our job.”

“I had… myself,” you chuckle bitterly. “Became pretty good at relying only on myself.”

“I’m guessing it’s another reason why you prefer working alone, right?” he smiles at you softly.

“You could say that,” you nod into the water.

“I know it’ll sound cheesy, but… if you ever want to talk, I’m here,” he offers.

“Oh, are we becoming friends?” you ask chuckling.

“We’ve known each other for long enough to be friends, am I right?” he smirks, splashing some water in your way.

“We met a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean we know each other. Everything I know about you is from articles and gossip sites and I think you can only say the same thing,” you point out.

“Okay, then let’s get to know each other.”

“What, do you want to play 21 questions now or something?” you huff.

“Damn right,” he smirks.

And that’s exactly what you do. Swimming around in the pool you ask each other questions, some are funny, some are more serious and you slowly start to get to know each other, seven years after meeting for the first time, but in a way it feels like it’s been just last week when you were talking in the alleyway.

The weed soon dies down in your system, leaving you incredibly tired and it’s only then you realize it’s already past one am. Pulling out of the pool, you both grab a towel drying yourselves up before making your way back into the house.

“The guest bedroom next to mine has a bathroom so I think that’s the best one. I can give you something to sleep in if you’d like,” Harry offers as you follow him down the hallway.

“I think I’m fine in my sweats, but thank you.” He shows you the room, tells you how to change the AC if you feel too cold or hot and then bidding goodbye he is about to go to his own room when you stop him.

“Thank you for… today. I know we didn’t get far with the song, but… I liked hanging out with you,” you admit with a shy smile, leaning against the doorframe.

“Don’t worry about the song, it’ll be fine. And I liked it too. We can make it a regular thing, if you want. You can come over, we’d chill and try to cook up something for the song.”

“I, uhh… Yeah, that sounds good,” you nod, he shoots you a smile before turning around and disappearing in his room.

The morning doesn’t turn out at all any awkward, especially because you don’t get to stay around too long. You have a meeting at eleven so you have to leave in time to go home and get changed before that. Harry makes you coffee, which is lifesaving, the two of you sit at the terrace as you drink it and you arrange to meet in two days to try and have another, hopefully more successful session for the song.

You genuinely enjoyed your time with Harry and to think that you didn’t only smoked weed for the first time with him, but also opened up about your parents, you feel a kind of connection forming and you can only hope you’re not gonna regret it later.

You move on with work after leaving from Harry’s that morning, you have some fittings for upcoming photoshoots and an interview scheduled, so there’s not much time for you to sit around. Tonight you’re supposed to meet Harry again at his place for another session and you feel buzzed about it. You meet Taylor for lunch, sitting on the terrace of your usual place she is talking you through everything that’s coming up the next week, just like you always do so then you can put work aside and have a real chat.

“So how did the writing session go?” she asks, digging into her salad that she always asks with extra chicken.

“The writing? Not so well. But we had a good time,” you truthfully admit.

“Good, good! You’re finally making friends!” Taylor grins, satisfied with the news. You just roll your eyes at her, turning back to your food right when you notice that your phone has been blowing up with notifications.

Huffing you grab it from the table with the pure intention of muting it down completely, but then you see that several people have texted you the same link and it bugs your curiosity so you open one of the messages and tap on the link.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you groan, feeling your rage already pushing up your spine, clouding your vision in red.

“What?” Taylor snaps, reaching for her phone out of reflex.

“That fucking asshole dragged my name again!”

“Who? Jordan? That fucker never learns?” Taylor hisses, her thumbs vigorously typing on the screen immediately.

“Someone asked him about me on Twitter and he dared to call me a lying bitch! I can’t fucking believe this man!”

You and Jordan worked together on a project a while ago. You were supposed to write lyrics to a song he was composing and it was meant for an upcoming popular Netflix show, so the anticipation around the song was huge, especially when word got out that Ariana Grande might end up singing it. During your time working together he very blatantly tried to hit on you, which you politely shut down, because one, you didn’t intend to date someone you were working so close with and two, you just simply weren’t into him. However, he couldn’t take rejection the way a mature, almost thirty years old man should. It started off very subtly, but once you’ve had a chat with him to stop posting obnoxious and suggesting things about you on his social media, because it’s making it hard for you to be taken seriously as an artist and that people will just see you as another celeb which you don’t want to be, he just completely lost his shit. He called you different names on Twitter a few times, the worst were Feminist Nazi and a cock teasing slut, and he just somehow never fails to mention that you lied about your intentions with him, when you were clearer than daylight that you didn’t want a thing from him other than work.

When you realized he isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon, you took him to court, dragged his ass in front of the judge and won the case, which ended with him having to pay you thirty thousand dollars and he was ordered to clear all his platforms from your name for good. You really thought that taught him a lesson, especially because against your will, the case got some publicity and he ended up making headlines about the fault accusations he made about you, but it seems like he didn’t have enough.

You wouldn’t worry that much about his new tweet, knowing that he is the one lying, but the trials took a toll on you. It was at the beginning of the time when you were making yourself a name and even though you won, his accusations stung for some people and some even thought him to be the victim. You fell out of two brand deals and an important interview in the upcoming months which was a major setback and all for what? Because a man couldn’t accept rejection? The sad part is that if it would have happened the other way around, he wouldn’t have had to suffer any effect of it, people don’t tend to question a man’s words when he is showing this charming and nice persona to the public. If you accused him the same way you would have been dragged and titled as a sour crybaby and Jordan’s life would have carried on the same way.

The peaceful lunch soon falls through as Taylor turns on her beast mode to at least get the tweet down as soon as possible, already contacting the legal team you worked with before. It has to be against what you agreed on at the end of the trials, he can’t just go around and drag you again without any consequences.

In just about twenty minutes, the tweets disappear from Jordan’s feed, but you know it was already late the moment he posted it. If something gets out on the internet it never goes away, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of screenshots floating around that will preserve his words forever.

You part ways Taylor as he heads to an immediate meeting with the lawyers you worked together previously, she tells you to try not to worry about it, but you can’t just turn it off in you, that’s not how it works.

Making your way home you keep riling yourself up about it, thinking about what it’s gonna cause you this time, what opportunity is going to be taken because a man has called you a lying bitch, even after winning the previous trial against him that proves how big of an asshole he really is.

Changing into a casual attire you head to Harry’s place a little earlier, hoping it’s not a problem you get there an hour before you were supposed to. Arriving you’re a little taken aback seeing that there is another car parking on the driveway that’s not his and you immediately regret coming here, but before you could leave, the front door opens and Harry walks out. You couldn’t have left without noticing, the security system must have signaled your arrival when you punched the opening code in.

“Hey, everything alright?” he asks instead of questioning your early arrival.

“I uhh—I’m sorry for being early, I could go—“

“Don’t be silly, come on in!” he waves at you and you walk up the stairs. “Two friends are here but they were just about to leave soon,” he explains as you walk in.

“Sorry for crashing the party,” you let out a soft chuckle.

“The more the merrier,” he smiles. “You seem a little stressed, everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just… It’s nothing,” you shake your head.

“Oh my God, is that who I think it is?” you hear a woman’s voice from behind and turning around you see a smiley brunette walking towards you, a shy looking guy following behind her.

“Sarah, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Sarah, my drummer, and that wanker over there is Mitch, my guitarist.”

“Nice to meet you.” Shaking hands with both of them you realize they look familiar from pictures you’ve seen from Harry’s tour.

“I saw that ugly tweet today, that guy needs to be kicked in the balls,” Sarah sighs with a sympathetic smile, Harry’s ears perking up.

“What tweet?” he asks, eyes switching between you and Sarah.

“Oh, just… Jordan Wells thinks it’s fine to drag people with absolutely no truth behind his words,” you answer with a tight-lipped smile.

“Jordan Wells? The name rings a bell,” Harry hums.

“He is a music producer,” Mitch chimes in.

“I think he was supposed to write for 1D one time, but the deal fell through. Guess we didn’t miss out on anything,” he jokes and it brings a genuine smile to your face.

“You surely didn’t,” you comment under your breath.

You chat with Sarah and Mitch for a bit before they decide to head out, but Sarah asks you to come around sometime they are hanging out and you gladly say yes, wanting to know her and Mitch better, they seem like great company and even greater musicians, it’s always good to meet people who are like you.

As Harry walks his friends out you make yourself comfortable on the couch, reading Taylor’s texts about the update on the recent actions, she has gotten in contact with Jordan’s team and legal steps will be taken if Jordan doesn’t show any sign of improvement in the very near future.

“Hey, want something to drink? Wine or beer maybe?” Harry walks in as you look up from your phone.

“Wine sounds fucking fantastic,” you breathe out earning a soft chuckle from him. You follow him into the kitchen and watch him get a bottle of white wine with two glasses. “I hope Sarah and Mitch didn’t leave early because of me.”

“Oh, not at all. They knew you’d be coming over and would have left around this time, so don’t worry about it.”

He joins you at the kitchen island with the two glasses handing you one and you take a sip from it with a satisfied hum.

“So, want to talk about this Jordan ordeal?”

“There’s not much to talk, really,” you shrug. “He is a jerk and I just can’t seem to get rid of him and I didn’t even date the guy…”

“What did he do this time?”

“Oh, he just casually called me a lying bitch on Twitter, so that’s fun,” you let out a fake laugh, raising your glass before taking a big swig from it.

“Not that creative, if you’re asking me,” he jokes making you laugh. “It’s a very plain choice of words.”

“Yeah, not as good as his best which was calling me a feminist nazi.”

Harry almost chokes on his wine as you say the words, coughing a little while you watch him with an entertained smirk.

“That’s… an interesting way to express his opinion about you,” he answers diplomatically.

“Right? I was thinking about getting a sign of it, like a Live, Love, Laugh one, in the middle of my living room.”

“Would be a wonderful touch of décor,” he smirks. “Alright, I have a proposal for today’s session.”

“Shoot it.”

“You seemed to enjoy your weed experience the last time, I thought we could give it a try again, but we would try to write this time as well.”

“You want to write while smoking?” you ask raising your eyebrows at him.

“Only if you want to. I just thought it would relax you a bit, might even come up with some interesting ideas for the song.”

“Are you trying to turn me into an addict?” you narrow your eyes at him and he just holds his hands up innocently.

“Told you, no pressure,” he smirks angelically.

“I feel like I’m not even coming here to work but to meet with my new dealer,” you chuckle making him laugh. “Okay, we can… give it a try.”

 An hour and one joint per person later the two of you are lounging in his living room, he is sprawled out on the loveseat with a guitar on his arms while you are curled upon the sectional, fumbling with the strings of your hoodie.

“We should just… fucking steal a song,” you snort, finding your comment hilarious.

“Which one were you thinking about?” Harry smirks your way, his fingers gently strumming some random melody on the instrument.

“I really want to have a Madonna song to be mine,” you sigh dreamily.

“You’re a fan?”

“Oh, I grew up on her. I have an elaborate choreography for Hung Up,” you snort.

“You need to perform it for me.”

“No fucking way,” you laugh shaking your head. “Not even weed can make me dance for you.”

“Come on, I need to see that choreography, you can’t just hint it and then never show it to me!”

“Nah, not happening,” you laugh, sliding lower down in your seat, your head resting against the armrest of the couch.

You listen to him play the same melody over and over again with your eyes closed and though you really like what you are hearing, no words are forming in your mind that could serve as lyrics. Your phone buzzes on the cushion next to you and grabbing it you see a text from Taylor.

Taylor: Lawyers are on the case, we’ll have more tomorrow, don’t stress about it too much. Night! Xx

Sighing you drop the device back next to you, covering your eyes with your arms.

“You alright?” Harry softly asks.

“Nah, I just want to… disappear,” you sigh, tired of this fight you’ve been fighting for way too long.

“Is this about Jordan? He is a fucking ass, most people know it.”

“But not everyone!” you snap throwing your hands up. “And that fraction that still believes that he is saying the truth is enough to ruin my life. I’m fucking fed up with the injustice women have to face because of the patriarchy we are forced to live in!” Pushing yourself up you run a hand through your hair, hugging your knees to your chest. “It’s so fucking upsetting, like everything I do goes straight down the drain because of one little thing and I’m stuck with trying to rebuild my whole future plan.”

From a sudden urge, you move down to the floor, lying down on the fluffy rug that runs under the couches and the glass coffee table. It feels nice, kind of grounding to lie flat on the floor, especially because your senses are all messed up again because of the weed, but in a good kind of way.

“You worry way too much on longterm things. Try to stay in the moment a little more,” Harry tells you, putting the guitar to the side so he can move his feet to the floor, leaning onto his knees. “You can’t control this much what happens in the future, you should only care about today. And today, you’ve done good, you made it through another day, you did what you had to do and that’s it. Stressing about tomorrow or the next week or next year is just way too much to deal with all the time, twenty-four-seven, three-six-five, that’s just no way to live.”

Lying on the floor you stare up at the ceiling seemingly blankly, but your mind starts to swirl over what he just told you. The worlds are running around, mixing and mingling until something starts to form, making you gasp.

“Grab the guitar,” you tell him, sitting up abruptly. He pulls his eyebrows together, but does as you told him to, holding the instrument on his lap as he waits for you to instruct him more. “Play that… that melody you’ve been playing, but a little faster.”

He turns his attention at the guitar, trying the strings out a few times, feeling the melody under his fingers before he starts playing it just how you asked as you slowly start to sing the lines you have just thought about.

“You made it through… another day, you made it through another day… You did it, let’s celebrate…”

The lines fit perfectly with the melody he has come up with and the more you sing, the wider his smile grows as you move along in the forming song.

“Some days you feel you’ll break, but you made it through another day, yeah, you did it, let’s celebrate…”

“Don’t fucking stop!” he chimes in, never stopping the riffs, trying out new things as you go, slowly perfecting it together with the lyrics.

“Twenty-four-seven and three-six-five, you made another day, you made it alive! Made another day made it alive!” You sing loud and clear, completely lost in the melody Harry is playing, the lines just flowing out of you, like a dam has been taken down and now everything washes over you at once.

When the chorus is about to come up however you run out of ideas, your eyes meet Harry’s and he sees that you’re stuck. His eyebrows knit together, tongue runs along his lips before he starts playing the melody of the chorus and takes over the singing as well.

“So today, baby, remember it’s okay! We’re all floating through space, today, baby, remember you’re okay! We’re all floating through space…”

He plays a little with the lines, repeats them, tries a few times before he stops singing, you are now standing up, watching him end the melody, neither of you saying a word as he room grows silent. A sudden urge drives you to go closer and you sit back down to the floor in front of him, your eyes casting over the now silent instrument on his lap. Looking up your eyes meet his and you feel like the air is kicked out of your lungs.

You’ve heard so much about moments when you feel yourself pulling towards someone, when it’s like a magnetic field but you never actually experienced it until now. Staring back at Harry you feel that pull everyone has talked about and you finally understand what they were trying to say. It’s like there’s a string coming from your chest that’s connected to him and he is tugging it without even doing anything.

Reaching forward he tugs a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers dancing down the side of your face as you catch his eyes wander down to your lips. Sucking on your breath you feel the moment, you know what he is thinking about because you think about the exact same thing. Kissing him. You are desperate to find out what his lips feel against yours, what he tastes like, what it’s like to have him so close to you.

“You want to kiss me,” you whisper and it’s not a question, more like an observation.

“I do,” he admits with a soft smile, but doesn’t move closer. “Can I?”

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to do in our situation,” you breathe out, though you don’t agree with the statement fully.

“You think too much,” he chuckles softly, leaning closer just a tad bit, but there are still a few inches between the two of you. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“Yes,” you admit.

“Then we should just do what we want to,” he suggests with a small smirk and he looks ridiculously handsome with his dimples and shining green eyes that are glued to you.

“And then what? We’ll just go on like it never happened or there’s going to be more happening? How are we supposed to—“

You don’t get to finish, because Harry closes the distance between you and him and presses his lips against yours, swallowing the rest of your stammering speech. Whatever doubts and hesitation you felt just a moment ago, it all vanishes into nothing as you melt into his kiss, his lips caressing yours gently, softly capturing them, savoring and tasting you with caution, giving you the chance to pull back anytime, but nothing in your body can make you stop kissing him in this moment.

His palms cup your jaw as you push yourself up, slowly making your way to straddle his lap after he has blindly put the guitar to the side, hands coming to rest on his shoulder for leverage. His other hand grips your waist, pulling you close until your chest is pressed up against his, lips never disconnecting in the kiss.

Kissing him feels like second nature, like it’s not even the first but the hundredth time, but on the other hand, every touch and tiny sparkle is so new and unusual, you’ve never felt like this before.

Harry slowly pulls back, pecking your lips a few more times before he stops, nuzzling his nose against you in an adorable and innocent way that brings a smile to your lips.

“Doesn’t it feel good to just do whatever you feel like doing?” he asks with a soft smile, making you laugh.

“Kind of.”

“Nothing has to change. Or something can, it’s up to you.”

“You are so upsettingly cool and respectful,” you blurt out chuckling and it makes him laugh, his head falling back against the back of the couch.

“I’m sorry, I guess?” he smirks with a shrug.

“See? Respectful!” you grin, your hands moving up to cup his face. The pad of your thumbs gently tap against his dimples that are showing thanks to the wide smile on his lips right now. You can’t stop yourself from leaning down and kissing him again, even though your rational side is trying to make you stop. You just can’t, his lips are screaming to be kissed and who are you to deny that?

You’ve been running errands all day. Following an early meeting you ran to your favorite vintage store to get another armchair for your living room. Then you went grocery shopping because your fridge has been ridiculously empty the past two days and later you had a quick fitting for a few outfits you are supposed to wear in the near future. You’ve ran into a few fans too, having small chit-chats with them, taking photos, so it’s been a busy day.

It’s been a week since you and Harry have kissed and despite your fears, it hasn’t been awkward at all. He didn’t bring it up, but you don’t feel like he is pretending it never happened, which is kind of a great balance. He is giving you just enough time and space to figure out what it really meant to you, because quite frankly, you have no idea.

Obviously, you find him attractive. You’d have to be completely blind to say that he is not handsome and just simply good to look at. You’re attracted to him and not just to his looks, but to his whole persona.

It’s just you’re not sure it’s a smart idea to start anything with the man you’re working with and though you know Harry is nothing like Jordan, part of you is still scared the whole thing will happen all over again if you get involved with another man from the industry.

Workwise, everything is going well. You’ve successfully finished the song you started that ominous evening and have started recording it in Harry’s home studio, working some more on the melody, bringing a lot more into it than just a single guitar. What more, you’ve been coming up with new ideas for other songs, lyrics popping up in either your or Harry’s head and you just keep sharing them with each other, saving them for later once the song for the Grammy’s is done.

Heading back to your place you get a call from Harry, his smiley face appearing on the screen of your face as you accept the call and his accent fills the car through the speakers that are connected to your phone through Bluetooth.

“Hey, hope I’m not calling in the middle of a meeting,” he greets you and you can tell he is smiling.

“No, I’m just on my way home. What’s up?”

“I’m meeting with Sarah and Mitch for dinner tonight, thought you’d like to join us.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on your time with your friends, I feel like you’ve been spending all your time with me.”

“But I like spending time with you,” he chuckles softly, a blush making its way to your cheeks at his words.

“Are you sure you want me there? What about Sarah and Mitch? I crashed your last meeting with them as well.”

“You didn’t crash anything, Y/N. And I’m positive I want you there, I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. And just so you know, Sarah asked if you’d be joining us, so I assume they wouldn’t mind it either.”

“Oh, well, okay then. Send me the time and place.”

“Wonderful!” he beams, his enthusiasm making your chest warm.

By the time you arrive home he has already texted you the details and you have just one hour to spare before you have to head out. You opt for a quick shower and an outfit change, switching up your ripped mom jeans and simple t-shirt to one of your favorite jumpsuits. It’s a little baggy, but the waist is cinched in with an inbuilt corset, giving the whole fit a very interesting twist.

Arriving at the restaurant Harry has texted you the address of, the waiter escorts you to the terrace at the back that’s a lot more secluded and you feel yourself relaxing that you probably won’t get photographed. Harry is the only one who is already at the table, sitting with his eyes fixed on his phone, but he immediately puts it aside when he sees you approaching, a wide smile stretching across his face.

“Hey! You look amazing!” he greets you pulling you into a quick hug.

“Thank you,” you smile shyly. He is wearing a pair of brown slacks, a simple white shirt tucked into it, a knitted cardigan thrown on, a typical Harry outfit. “And thanks for the invite,” you add as you take the seat next to him, assuming Sarah and Mitch would like to sit next to each other.

“Don’t even mention it. We’re friends, it’s really nothing. I’m glad you could make it.”

The way he called you friends is giving you mixed feelings. Part of you is happily jumping up and down at the fact that he considers you as a friend, given how you don’t have many of those. It’s been hard opening up to anyone since you’ve made a name for yourself, you’ve ran into occasions a lot when people wanted more than just your friendship from you and it made you rather closed off when it comes to making friends.

On the other hand, you can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Is that all you are? Just friends? More importantly, is that all you want to be, or more?

Sarah and Mitch arrive soon after, joining you at the table and the waiter takes the orders before leaving the four of you alone. It seems like they genuinely like it that you’ve joined, so you can enjoy the evening a little more relieved.

Sipping on some amazing wine, you eat and talk and you feel like you’ve known these people your whole life. You especially like Sarah, she is so open-minded and funny and you think they make a great couple with Mitch who is obviously more closed off, but it’s obvious how much he worships his girlfriend.

Sometime in the evening, when you’ve already had two glasses of Chardonnay and you’re feeling a lot more relaxed and comfortable, you move closer to Harry without even noticing, leaning against him gently and his hand rests on your knee, giving it a soft squeeze under the table, making you want to move even closer to him to feel more of his touch, to get more of him.

Neither Sarah, nor Mitch questions the two of you being a little cozier and you’re thankful for the safe and stressfree environment they are providing, not making you overthink what you do, just letting you enjoy the moment.

At the end of the evening, you can’t shake the thought that you don’t want to say goodbye to Harry just yet. He pays for everyone’s dinner, leaving a generous tip for the waiter and you stay back at the table while Sarah runs out to the restroom and Mitch takes a quick call from his father, leaving you alone with Harry. His hand is still resting on your leg, a little farther up, but still in a very safe zone in the middle of your thigh.

Turning to face him your eyes meet his, his green irises glistening in the soft lighting and he looks so beautiful, you just want to kiss him again.

“Do you have plans after this?” you find yourself asking.

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you want to come over to my place?”

“That sounds like a nice plan,” he smiles at you warmly and you just know that if you weren’t out in the public, he would have leant in for a kiss and you wouldn’t have stopped him.

When Sarah and Mitch return all four of you head out and they don’t question when you follow Harry to his car. They say goodbye and Sarah makes you promise to join them some other time too and you happily say yes to the invitation.

Not much is being said on the way back to your place, he plays some music quietly as you navigate him through the streets.  

“Welcome to mi casa,” you smile as you key the two of you into your apartment you’ve been living in for the past few years.

It’s nothing luxurious, just a tad bit bigger than what one person would need as a home. You would have been fine living in your previous home you lived in before you’ve gained fame, but you needed a much bigger closet so you were forced to move. It’s a two bedroom apartment with one big bathroom, an open concept kitchen and a spacious living room. And of course, a closet as big as your bedroom. It’s the perfect size and you haven’t even thought about buying a bigger place just because you can, it would be a waste of money and space. The interior is very much vintage with all your mismatched furniture and colorful walls, but you think it’s quite cozy and just the ideal space for you.

“Would you like something to drink?” you ask, walking into the kitchen to get yourself some water.

“Some water would be great, thank you.”

Filling up two glasses you hand him one as you lean against the counter, silently eyeing each other. It should be clear to him that you had intentions with asking him to come over, especially after being your cozy with each other during dinner, but you’re a little lost in what you should or even want to do. You just know you want him close.

He drinks up his water, his eyes meeting your gaze as a small smirk tugs on his cherry lips.

“You want to kiss me,” he states, using the exact same words you used the night when you kissed for the first time.

“I do,” you nod, feeling a little breathless.

“Then do it,” he simply answers, making you smile.

“Cool and respectful, as always,” you grin at him as he moves closer, stopping just a few inches away from you, your feet almost touching. Reaching up his fingers gently caress the side of your face and you feel yourself already melting under his touch.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, a shiver running down your spine at his words. You close your eyes for a moment, giving yourself the chance to pull out of it, but you realize you don’t want that, not even the tiniest bit. Opening your eyes they meet with his gaze before you move closer, closing the distance between you and him, lips meeting in a warm and chaste kiss.

Though it grows a little hungrier, you can tell he is still holding back a little, giving you the chance to stop whenever you want to, but you don’t intend to. Pushing yourself closer to him, your arms curl around his neck as his hands grip your waist, your tongue meeting his as you deepen the kiss and melt into his embrace.

Pulling back you grab his hand and head to the bedroom, going back to kissing him the moment you reach it. You easily slide his cardigan off his broad shoulders, pulling his t-shirt out of his pants before taking it completely off, throwing it somewhere to the side. You smirk against his lips, hands wandering down his naked chest and you can’t push down a moan as you feel the warmth of his chest muscles under your touch.

When you feel him try to blindly figure out how to get you out of your jumpsuit with not much luck and this clears your head for a moment to realize what is about to happen. Pulling back your gaze meets his and he stares back at you with caution, ready to stop whenever you tell him to, but that’s not what made you pull back.

“Harry, I…” “We don’t have to do anything,” he softly tells you, his fingers dancing down the side of your face until they reach your chin and he pulls you in for a delicate and slow kiss.

“I want to,” you whisper. “It’s just that… I want you to know that I’ve never… I’ve never been with a man before.”

Searching in his eyes you look for any sign of what’s going on in his head wishing you could just simply read his thoughts.

“You’ve never been with a man?” he asks, seemingly not as surprised as you expected him to be. You nod, licking your lips, waiting for any kind of reaction, a part of you expecting to be upset, though you know he has no right to be mad at you for any of it. “Do you want me to be the first man?” he then asks, with a loving and warm smile as his hand on your hip pulls you against him playfully.

“Yes.”

“Then help me get you out of this jumpsuit, because I can’t figure it out for my life,” he chuckles making you laugh too.

You show him where the corset opens and then get you out of it with joined forces, finally leaving you standing in just your underwear. Harry’s gaze runs down your body, a look of hunger and passion shining through his green irises as he pulls you close again, kissing you with a lot more vigor this time.

Soon enough, his slacks slip to the floor and you climb to your bed, Harry following closely, climbing on top of you before rejoining your lips. Your knees open up wide for him, allowing him to sink his hips between your thighs, his crotch meeting your heated center, a moan slipping out your lips when you feel his erection rubbing against you through the material of your underwear. He kisses his way down your jawline and neck, gently sucking on the soft skin, peppering kisses along your collarbones before he reaches your chest. He easily unclasps your bra and slips the straps down your arms before getting rid of the barrier that’s been keeping him away from your naked chest.

“Fuck, Y/N, you are so damn beautiful,” he breathes out shakily, before his lips wrap around your right nipple, his hand cupping your other breast. You keep whining and whimpering as you feel his tongue swirl around your nipple before his mouth moves over to the other breast, giving it just the same amount of attention.

He kisses down your stomach, glancing up at you as he hooks his fingers into the elastic of your panties silently asking for your permission to go further, still so respectfully looking out for you. As an answer, you lift your hips up so he can easily slide the material down your legs and throw it to the side.

“Oh fuck!” you moan when his tongue and lips press against your bud, playing with it oh so perfectly, making you shudder. If you didn’t think Harry was perfect, his tongue work is now surely making a statement on that.

With every lick, kiss and suck he pushes you closer to your release that’s nearing in a fast pace like never before. Reaching down you lace your fingers through his chocolate curls, tugging on the lightly, making him moan against your core. You’re not sure how long you’ll last, but you want to cum with him inside you, so you pull him up, lips meeting again as you still taste your own juice on him. It’s heavenly.

Without breaking the kiss you reach down and into his underwear, palming his fully hard cock, earning a satisfied growl when you wrap your hand around him. The feeling is quite unknown, you’ve only once had to face a penis before, it happened back in high school when you were still figuring out what sexuality meant to you. Gave a wobbly and quite short handjob to a guy from the grade above you, never even talked to him again. The experience left a major effect on you, never even got close to being intimate with a man, but being with Harry now is putting everything into a whole new light.

“Do you have a condom?” he mumbles against your lips, clearly just as excited to carry on as you are.

“Yeah,” you nod and let go of him, rolling to the edge of the bed so you can dig into the drawer of your nightstand, successfully finding the little silver packet. Tearing it open you hand it over to Harry and get back to your previous position as you watch him kneeling up, rolling the condom on carefully. Your lips part when your eyes fall on his cock, seeing now how big he really is. Harry catches your eyes and leaning down he kisses you softly.

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop, okay?” he kindly tells you, but you smile at him coyly.

“You might be the first man I’m with, but your dick won’t be the first thing to be inside me,” you answer with a smug smirk and it brings an amused look to his face.

“You are so fucking hot,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against yours in a hard kiss as he settles himself back between your legs.

Though you really tried to sound confident the other moment, you still feel a little nervous about it and Harry senses it right away. Holding himself up on one arm he cups your face in his other, kissing you slowly, taking his time with his lips, as if he is trying to make you forget about everything else but his lips.

“Are you still sure about this?” he softly asks, looking for any sign of hesitation in your eyes, but there’s none.

“Yeah, I want this. I want you,” you nod and reaching down between your bodies, you take him in your hands again, positioning him to your center.

Harry captures your lips in another passionate kiss as he pushes into you slowly, filling you up inch by inch. You gasp at the sensation, feeling a little tight around him, but not in an uncomfortable way.

“You alright?” he asks once he is almost fully in.

“Yeah, go ahead,” you breathe out with a small nod. He pecks your lips and slowly pushes all the way in before he starts to move out and then slide in again, picking up a not too fast but still firm pace with his movements.

You gradually get used to the feeling of him sliding in and out of you, it’s surely a whole different experience than using a dildo or any kind of toy you are used to. The thought that it belongs to him is bringing you a sense of intimacy you haven’t felt in a long time.

Wrapping your arms around his shoulders you dig your fingers into his hot skin that’s coated with a thin layer of sweat as he keeps moving, slowly picking up his pace as you both get closer to the endgame.

“Harry, faster, please!” you plead, legs coming to wrap around his waist so he can thrust in deeper, making you go completely nuts from the way your orgasm is already forming in the pit of your tummy.

He obeys without a second thought, slamming into you faster and harder, making you continuously moan his name, the room is filled with moans and panting, the slapping noise of his hips meeting yours.

Harry buries his face into the crook of your neck, kissing and sucking on the soft skin, definitely leaving a mark, but you couldn’t care less. You just grab a handful of his hair, shutting your eyes closed as you feel yourself nearing the end.

“Harry, I’m gonna cum,” you pant, barely hanging on.

Instead of stretching it out and trying to play with you, Harry clearly wants you to combust. Reaching down between your bodies his index and middle fingers find your clit and he starts circling on it, adding that little extra you needed to fall over the edge.

Moaning and whimpering under his massive body, your orgasm washes over you in waves, bringing you such an intense satisfaction you’ve never felt before. He keeps up his thrusting and just a few moments later his movements fall out of his rhythm and mumbling your name over and over again, he gasps as he rides his high while you’re still trying to catch your breath following your own.

With a heaving chest Harry rolls off of you, gets rid of the condom and throws it to the small bin you keep next to your night stand and then lies flat beside you as you both just silently stare up at the ceiling, very much in the best kind of after sex haze.

“How are you feeling?” he then asks, rolling to his side, his hand coming to rest on your bare stomach. Turning your head to the side you crack a smile at him.

“I feel like I’ve just been properly fucked,” you bluntly answer, making him laugh wholeheartedly. Rolling to your side his arm falls to your waist as you scoot closer, your face only a few inches from his. He is so pretty up close, his features never fail to amuse you, hard to believe he is a real human, lying right next to you.

He closes his eyes a little, letting his head sink into the pillow as his fingers delicately dance up and down your side and back. You feel like you owe him to say something, dropping a major detail about yourself in a heated moment.

“I had two girlfriends,” you speak up, his eyes fluttering open to your words. “The first one was when I was eighteen, we dated for almost a year, then I briefly dated a guy, but it was barely just a month. And I had my second girlfriend when I was twenty. We were together for two years.”

“Are you still friends with them?”

“I still talk to the second one. Her name is Mila. We broke up because she moved to Spain for a job for a year and we didn’t want to do long-distance. Then we just… grew apart, but we still talk sometimes. She lives in Atlanta now, she has a girlfriend and she told me that she is planning to propose soon.”

A soft smile tugs on your lips as you talk about her. She was an important person in your life in a time that was truly challenging. Mila supported your dreams, she went to a lot of your concerts and she was the first one you called when you got your record deal even though you weren’t together anymore. She has seen you go from performing in dodgy bars to rocking the stage of arenas.

“Congrats to her,” Harry smiles through tired eyes. Reaching up he tucks your hair behind your ear before leaning closer he envelopes your lips in a soft kiss.

“We really shouldn’t have done this,” you hum, though you can’t wipe the satisfied smile off your lips.

“Why not?”

“Because we work together.”

“So what? We aren’t allowed to like each other?” he smirks cockily.

“You like me?”

“Thought I made that pretty clear,” he chuckles rubbing his eyes. “But yeah, I do like you, Y/N. A lot.”

“I… like you too,” you admit shyly. Leaning in he kisses you again before pulling you to his chest as he lies on his back.

“Can I stay the night or you want to throw me out?” he hums closing his eyes. Chuckling your snuggle to him, making yourself comfortable, enjoying the warmth of his body after so spending so many nights alone in this bed.

“You can stay, but you have to behave.”

“Oh I will behave my best, don’t worry.” A chuckle rumbles through his chest as you both fall silent and soon enough, drift off to sleep.

You wake up tangled in the sheets, but no one else is lying in bed with you. Blinking the sleep out of your eyes you look around and though there’s no sign of Harry in the room you spot his clothes on the floor. That’s when you hear the pots and pans clinking somewhere outside and you smile to yourself. You pull a t-shirt on with a pair of clean panties before heading out, finding Harry in your kitchen, wearing your pink fluffy robe and nothing else as he is making what seems to be pancakes.

“I don’t remember hiring a chef,” you joke walking closer, sliding a hand down his back as you lean against the counter next to the stove.

“Good morning,” he smiles. “I really wanted for you to wake up but I was afraid my growling stomach might wake you up,” he chuckles as he flips the pancakes in the pan with the spatula.

“Found everything you needed?” you ask, walking over the fridge to grab the orange juice.

“Yeah, you have a neatly organized kitchen,” he hums. “Sorry for snooping around though.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Pouring the juice to two glasses you hand one to him which he thanks softly before placing the golden pancakes to the plate on the counter and pours another bunch into the pan.

Sipping on your juice you watch him move around, making breakfast in your robe and you can’t help but smile at the sight of this fine man in your kitchen. Harry catches you eyeing him and he cocks an eyebrow at you.

“What’s gotten you so smiley?” he asks, his voice still a little groggy and husky.

“I just… really want to kiss you,” you shrug placing the glass to the counter.

“I think we are over this whole asking for permission thing,” he smirks, stepping closer he leans down and kisses you gently, tasting like orange juice and something sweet, he has probably ate one of the pancakes. His hand that���s not holding the spatula finds your waist, the t-shirt bunches up on your side as he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss before you hear sizzling coming from the stove.

“Whoops, not trying to burn the place down,” he chuckles as he turns to the pan and flips the pancakes. You wrap your arms around his waist and kiss his jawline before stepping away from him to set the table for breakfast.

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” he asks over breakfast.

“I have a meeting with my label on Saturday, but nothing else.”

“I’m having a few friends over Saturday evening, kind of a late Grammy nomination celebration. Want to come over?”

“Yeah, that… sounds good,” you nod smiling.

“I was thinking that maybe you could spend the night and then we can finish recording on Sunday.”

“Alright, I’m in.”

Harry takes a quick shower after breakfast before heading out, promising to call you later and though it still feels a little odd that he says goodbye with a kiss, you very much like this new setup between the two of you.

Friday evening Taylor is over at your place, she loves helping you sort out promo stuff you get sent all the time, especially because you let her take whatever you don’t want, half her closet was meant to be worn by you.

Sitting on the floor with boxes surrounding the both of you, you’re digging through them with a bottle of wine, some 90’s music playing in the background, it’s a nice and relaxing evening.

Your phone lights up with a text on the coffee table and you already know it’s from Harry. You haven’t stopped texting since he left from your place just a few days ago.

Harry: Do you think it’s a look for the Grammy’s?

He attached a photo of himself in all denim, looking very much like 2001 Justin Timberlake at the AMA.

Y/N: Should I match and pull a Britney?

Harry: Is that even a question?!

“Okay, who’s the girl?” Taylor asks, making you tear your eyes away from the phone’s screen.

“Huh?”

“Last time I saw you smiling like this at your phone you were talking to that girl you met at that award show. So who is it this time?”

“It’s… not a girl,” you admit, placing your phone back to the coffee table.

“Oh, did a guy finally manage to sweep you off your feet?” Taylor gives you an amused look, genuinely surprised to hear that this time it’s a guy that has you wrapped around his finger. “What is his name?”

“Harry,” you shortly answer and see her eyes widen.

“Wait, is it… Harry as in Harry Styles?”

“Yeah,” you admit with a soft chuckle.

“Oh my God, I knew I could feel some sexual tension between you two at Jeff’s office!”

“There wasn’t any, what are you talking about?”

“You didn’t see it because you were too busy trying to blow off the duet, but it was radiating from him.” She gives you a look, putting the sweater she’s been examining to the side. “So, how are things? Are you guys an item, or…?”

“We didn’t label anything, he just said he likes me and I like him too. And he… spent the night the other day.”

“Wait, what? Spent the night as in—“

“Yes, we had sex,” you confirm blushing.

“That’s like huge! The first man you’ve been with!”

“I know,” you chuckle.

“How was it?”

“Fucking amazing,” you truthfully admit with a sigh. “I didn’t think it could be this good with a guy. Maybe it’s just because it was with him.”

“He surely looks like a guy that takes good care of his girl. So what’s gonna happen? Are you guys together?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to care about names and labels, he just likes to do whatever he wants and if I’m being honest it’s kind of refreshing. We are just… enjoying whatever we have.”

“That sounds very liberal,” Taylor chuckles. “But I’m happy for you. You’ve been alone for way too long, I think he might do good to you.”

“I really hope,” you nod with a sigh.

“How is the song writing going?”

“We’re finishing up recording on Sunday. I’ll send it to you when it’s done and we can start all the paperwork and everything.”

“Amazing, you are doing great, Y/N, I’m proud of you,” she smiles and climbing over she wraps you in a tight hug.

“Thanks, Tay,” you smile at her. “Alright, now do you want these lace socks or should I burn them?” you ask holding up a whole pack of them, making her laugh.

Harry said it’s just a chill get together, nothing fancy so you decide to wear a khaki maxi skirt with a shirt tucked into it that was a gift from a fan, your first album’s name embroidered to the front. It’s one of your favorite pieces and you like wearing things your fans make you, gives the whole fit a plus.

Arriving to Harry’s place you spot that there are a few cars already parking on the driveway. You leave your overnight bag in the trunk, grab the bottle of wine you’ve brought and head inside. Unlike every time you’ve been here, the silence is now switched up with soft music and chatters, quite a few people lingering around the house already.

Just as you walk farther inside, Harry appears on the stairs and his face lights up at the sight of you.

“Hey! Did you just arrive?” He jogs down the rest of the stairs and walking up to you he pulls you close for a quick kiss without hesitation.

“Yeah. I know you said not to bring anything, but I hate coming to parties empty handed,” you chuckle softly, holding the wine bottle up.

“Thanks. Have you eaten? Jeff is grilling outside, but help yourself with anything.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

“Sarah and Mitch are already here, but come on, let me introduce you to a few people.”

Harry takes your hand, lacing your fingers together with his. He drops the wine off in the kitchen before joining all the other guests. It’s really not that many people, just about thirty of his close circle. Musicians, people he has worked with and stayed close with, people he has known for long. Everyone seems welcoming and open, many already know who you are and it’s always a good conversation start, so there are not many awkward silences, especially because Harry is always near you, making sure you feel comfortable around his friends and it means a lot to you.

“Hey, everything alright?” Harry asks, when he finds you in the kitchen, refilling your glass. He walks up to you, placing a hand to your waist as he kisses into your hair.

“Yeah, your friends are nice,” you smile at him.

“I know, that’s why they are my friends,” he smirks, so full of himself. “Want to hear something interesting?”

“Always.”

“I was talking to Adam and our song came up and then out of nowhere I referred to you as my girlfriend.”

Seemingly he is testing the waters, trying to see how you react to the title, even a little afraid of what you might say, but it doesn’t scare you.

“Yeah? That’s interesting indeed.”

“Are you okay with it? I wasn’t really thinking about it, just slipped out.”

“It’s fine,” you smile at him softly.

“You don’t have to call me your boyfriend, call me whatever you want. It’s just a habit of mine, I guess,” he explains, popping some nuts into his mouth from the little jar on the counter.

“Alright,” you nod. Harry stares back at you for a moment before a smile stretches across his face and leaning down he kisses you shortly before taking your hand and walking back to the living room with you.

The last guests leave around midnight. After bringing your bag up to his bedroom you start cleaning up while Harry walks out the last couple leaving. You start loading the washer and put away things you’ve cleaned before.

“Oh, thank you for cleaning, but you don’t have to. I can take care of it later.”

“It’s nothing, I want to make myself useful,” you chuckle softly as you start the washer. Harry comes up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist as he kisses into your neck.

“I have other ideas for that,” he murmurs, his nose nudging the side of your face.

“Yeah? What kind of ideas?” you teasingly ask, closing your eyes when you feel his hand slide under the waist of your skirt, moving down your abdomen until it reaches your core.

“Fun kinds,” he chuckles lowly. His other hand turns your head so his lips could meet yours, you’re still pressed up against him, melting against his chest with your back just right, like you’re two puzzle pieces.

“Fuck,” you breathe out when his fingers wander into your underwear and they start doing their magic. “Harry!” you whine, reacting intensely to his actions.

“I fucking love hearing my name from your pretty mouth,” he growls, kissing you hard before his lips part from yours and he starts bunching up your skirt.

You don’t protest, in fact, you lean forward, grabbing onto the edge of the counter as he pulls down your panties and you hear the zipper of his pants. Glancing over your shoulders you see him pull out a condom from his pocket and you can’t push down a laughter.

“Did you keep that in your pocket all evening?”

“Wanted to be ready when I finally got you all for myself,” he smirks, pulling his cock out of his boxer briefs, rolling on the condom.

His hands come in contact with your hips and ass cheeks, giving them a light squeeze before you feel him lining himself up with you. His palm slides up your back as he pushes into you, both of you moaning at the fulfilling sensation.

“Fuck, baby, you feel so good,” he breathes out as he pushes all the way inside before starting to pull out.

“Go hard, Harry. Please!” you whimper as he starts thrusting into you. Harry lets out a growl and slams into you, making you gasp at the harshness of the movement, but that’s exactly what you wanted.

The kitchen is filled with the noises coming from the washer next to you and the slapping noise of Harry’s hips meeting your ass with every forceful thrust he makes. His ring clad fingers dig into your hips, probably already making them red, but you couldn’t care less. You hold onto the edge of the counter, but then you move one hand to cover his on you, needing to touch him in some kind of way.

Leaning forward Harry kisses your back between your shoulder blades through the thin material of your shirt and you moan his name when he hits the perfect spot inside you.

��Shit, Harry! I’m g-gonna cum!” you gasp, perking your ass up more so he can go as deep as possible.

“Let go for me, baby. Come on!”

“I want to cum with you.”

“Yeah? Then hold on for a little longer, I’m almost there.”

You try your best to keep everything inside you under control, your orgasm is really on the edge and you can only hope he is nearing his end too.

“Harry! Please!”

“Fuck, okay, okay, cum for me! Let me feel you!” he moans and his words bring you the release.

You clench around him, moaning and whimpering and it finally pushes you into his bliss too. His thrusts slow down but they are hard and go deep, helping you ride the last bits of your high.

He pulls out and gets rid of the condom before wrapping his arms around you, pulling you up from your position so he can kiss your lips.

“How about we take a shower while the washer finishes?” he suggests, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Mm, good idea.”

Once the song is fully finished you submit it to your label after an agreement that it should come out through yours, but it wouldn’t be tied to your or Harry’s upcoming album. Everyone seems to love it, Taylor is over the moon when you show her the final version and Jeff is just as happy about it. Having only three more weeks left until the Grammy’s, you send them your request to perform the duet instead of the medley they asked. Their answer comes the next day and they are more than happy to have you premiere your new duet at the show. Everything seems to be on track.

Following a rehearsal for the Grammy performance, you’re staying over at Harry’s, just eating takeout and having a lazy evening after a whole day of working. You’ve put on a new Netflix movie, but every time you look at Harry you feel like his mind is somewhere far away.

“Want to share what’s on your mind?” you ask softly, not wanting to be pushy, you’re just trying to be there for him.

“I’ve just been thinking.”

“About what?” He looks up at you, clearly hesitant whether he should share it with you or not.

“About what you said about your parents.”

“Oh,” is all you can say. Pausing the movie you turn all your attention to him. “What about it?”

“I was just talking to my mom the other day, she is coming here for the Grammy’s and I thought about how you… won’t have your parents there with you.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Yeah, but then I thought about how you said you haven’t even let them contact you since then and that maybe they’ve changed their mind about the whole situation. You’ve clearly proved them wrong with building yourself a career, maybe they can now see that what they did was wrong.”

You remain silent, chewing on his words. You’ve been great at not thinking about your parents these past years, it feels weird to have a conversation about them out of nowhere. Harry takes your silence as a warning sign, though that’s not the case.

“You know what? I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s not really my business, I shouldn’t have brought it up, sorry,” he shakes his head.

“What… would you do if you were in my place?”

Harry looks at you, surprised you are willing to continue the conversation. His hand finds your thigh and he gives it a gentle squeeze.

“I think it might worth a shot to just… contact them. See if they want to maybe get in touch again.”

“And what if they don’t?”

“Then… you know you made the right decision leaving. I know it’s scary, but I think you should take a chance.”

“I’ll… think about it,” you nod shortly.

“Take your time, do whatever you feel comfortable with.” He pulls you into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as you get comfortable in his embrace before starting the movie again.

Two weeks before the show you are headed to a fitting with Harry, your matching sets are nearly done, but they needed you to try them on and make sure they fit just perfectly. True to your and Harry’s extravagant fashion, this performance won’t lack any over the top fits either. It was clear from the beginning that you would be matching, but you made it clear that you want to bring it to the level where you’d be wearing the exact same outfit, so now there are two sets of suits in the making, the pattern of the whole two piece is recalling a kind of space vibe, blues, purples and black meeting in the colors with hundreds of embroidered stars and planets littering the fabric with additional crystal stars to make it even more extra. It’s truly one of a kind, especially paired with the sheer, tulle shirt you both will be wearing underneath.

“We look fucking great, babe,” Harry smirks as the two of you stand next to each other, examining yourself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the small podium.

“We really do,” you smirk, satisfied with how the performance is coming together. It’s gonna be the perfect way to celebrate both your first Grammy nominations, a huge milestone in your and Harry’s career as well.

Grabbing his phone he quickly takes a picture in the mirror of the two of you, pulling you to his side as you smile into the camera through the mirror. Then you leave him alone on the podium as they are pinning his pants to make it the perfect size. Stepping to your bag you fish your phone out and reading just the first few words of Taylor’s last message she sent about ten minutes ago, you feel all blood rushing out of your face. Tapping on the notification you start reading.

Taylor: Please don’t lose your head, but we are dealing with this.

She attached several articles and you start digging through them.

“Is Harry Styles dating his new duet partner?”

“Harry Styles cozied up with Y/N Y/L/N at dinner with friends.”

“Can we expect some hot make out sessions at the Grammy’s from Harry and his new beau?”

And then there’s the absolute worst.

“Is Y/N Y/L/N going to take Harry Styles to court too?”

“Shit, shit, shit,” you mumble under your breath, vigorously typing back to Taylor to take them down. Two pictures have been leaked from the time you had dinner with Sarah and Mitch, it’s so odd because it’s been weeks since then, where were these pictures all along? Not that it matters, all you want is for them to be gone.

Against your better judgment, you go online and check your social media even though you know you shouldn’t snoop around now that it’s out there. No surprise, you and Harry are trending, but the reactions are very much mixed.

The impact of your case with Jordan is still major. It doesn’t matter that you won, people are still questioning whether he said the truth or not and now they are afraid you might drag Harry down just like you did with Jordan. That you are just trying to use his fame to get more attention and then ruin his career, making a victim out of yourself again, because apparently that’s what you’ve been doing.

You’re not only being dragged, but all of a sudden, nothing is about the music and the art you are making, people just want to know if you’re fucking Harry Styles or not. A lot of the times you’re not even named, only referred to Harry’s new lover or what’s worse, his hookup. You’ve lost all the credit you worked so hard for and for what? Because you dared to have dinner with a man?

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Harry asks walking up to you. Your eyes snap up at him and he immediately sees the shock and anger in them, setting panic in him as well. “What is it?”

“The fucking… pictures,” you hiss handing him your phone so he can see the articles for himself. He scrolls through them with furrowed eyebrows, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip before handing the phone back once he has gotten to the end of it.

“Let’s finish this up and head home, okay? We’ll figure it all out.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and you nod, trying your best to keep your anger at bay while the designers finish up on the outfits.

An hour later you walk into your place, talking on the phone with Taylor, discussing the situation though there’s not much you can do at this point. It’s all out, the pictures can’t be taken down. She suggests to just keep quiet for now, she’ll call Jeff to see what could be done as damage control.

Throwing your phone to the bed you feel your whole body shaking from the anger, it’s agonizing to know there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll figure it out,” Harry speaks up, trying his best to calm you down, but it’s not really working this time.

“Stop saying it, you don’t know that for sure. I can’t believe this bullshit is happening all over again,” you breathe out shaking your head.

“Again?”

“Yes! I’m being fucking dragged for something I shouldn’t be.”

“People will always have controversial opinion on everything, you can’t get them all to like you.”

“It’s not about liking, Harry!” you snap. “I couldn’t give a damn about people liking me, but they discredit my work. Have you read those articles? I’m seen with a man and suddenly, I’m not even seen as an artist anymore. I’m not even my own person in some of them, just a girl who is linked to you. How is that fair?” “It’s not, but stressing yourself about it until you’re sick is not gonna help anything,” he retorts in a firm voice.

“So I should just sit around and so nothing while watching all my work go to shit?”

“Nothing is going to shit! This is how it goes, there’s always something people talk about but they will forget about it in a week. That doesn’t take anything away from what you’ve proved through your career.”

“Now that’s a lie. Because if they did forget about things in a week, they wouldn’t be bringing up the whole Jordan thing now. I dared to stand up for myself against a man and look where it took me to! I’m the drama queen, the lying bitch who likes to ruin men for apparently no reason and they see me as a threat when it comes to you too. People are talking about how I’ll take you to court as well, they think I’m just using you even though they know nothing about me! And the worst part is that it wouldn’t be like this if I weren’t a woman. Whatever happens, however we react to the situation, it will never have the same effect on your career than it will have on mine.”

“So what, you’ll just live your life without ever doing anything that’s gonna upset people? There will always be someone who’ll judge whatever you do, you can’t do anything about that and if you let them get to you now, they’ll know they can mess with you easily.”

“So I’m just supposed to ignore everything? And not do a single thing about it? It’s easy for you, you’ll walk away from this without a scratch on your name, because you are a white man who can do no wrong in the eyes of the world.”

“Okay, now you are being mean for no reason.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” you retort. “And you know what else is part of the truth? That I’m not even having it the worse. There are women who are even more targeted because of their religion, their skin color, their nationality or sexuality and people don’t even realize how hard it is for any of us. I’m sick of the injustice we have to live with just because of our gender!”

“I do acknowledge the problem on hand, I’m aware of it and I’m all for doing against it, but we are not gonna solve it instantly, it’s a long process. Sometimes we just have to pull back a little, be smart about things.”

“They will never stop about this,” you shake your head, stubbornly clinging onto your opinion. “I won’t be seen as a serious artist anymore, just some girl who was linked to you. It’s fucking done, over.”

“Y/N, what are you trying to say?” Harry asks with caution.

“Exactly what you are thinking about,” you reply with a bitter laugh. “I can’t be a respected artist if I’m with you.”

“That’s not true. It will die down, they will see that you are more than just who you’re dating and everything will be fine.”

“What’s not fair is that I have to work for it to be fine while you are still the same artist you were before it all blew up. Don’t you think it’s unfair?” you call him out and part of you knows you’re being mean and unnecessarily rude to him, but you just can’t control it any longer. You need to let it out and unfortunately, he is the one who is here to take the blame.

“It is, but what are you expecting me to do about it? Release a statement asking people to only talk about my dating life to make it equal? What can be done is that we try to fight this together, show them that you’re more than just a woman who is linked to a man in any kind of way.”

“Yeah, like realization is just gonna hit them,” you snap. “I’m at a turning point in my career, Harry. Whether I win a Grammy or not, this time is going to have an impact on my future. If I’m seen as just a girl linked to you, I’ll never make it. I’ll be forgotten and dragged again and I can kiss my career goodbye.”

You know you were way too harsh, but it’s what you think to be the truth. You didn’t fight your way to this point in life just to be seen as a man’s girlfriend rather than the artist you truly are. And right now, you can’t see yourself get out of this situation without letting go of Harry.

“Y/N, please don’t let this ruin what we have. We can get through this, you can’t let them control your life this much. Who are they to tell you what to do? That’s not the Y/N I know, come on!”

He tries to step closer, reaching out for you, but you take a step back, wanting to keep the distance between the two of you.

“I would prefer to be alone now,” you sternly say, folding your arms on your chest, closing yourself off from him as you don’t even look at him, because if you did, you know you would break.

“Y/N, please don’t do this, we—“

“Alone!” you snap, cutting him off.

He stares at you, hoping you might change your mind, but you’re quite set on this. He knows you well enough to know you won’t budge anytime soon. He lets out a shaky breath and slowly turning around, he heads towards the door as you’re already fighting your tears back. He stops right before he is about to walk out.

“I’m really sorry, Y/N,” he quietly says before walking out, the door shutting closed behind him.

The sobs start immediately and you fall to the ground, tears soaking your cheeks, already missing him more than anything in your life. You really thought it would be different this time, that things might get better, but you were naïve.

The next two days go by in a blur. The whole fucking internet is filled with those damn pictures of you and Harry, nothing has been about any of your Grammy nominations or even about your music, you’ve officially became the woman Harry Styles is dating.

Harry was titled as a Grammy nominee in every goddamn writing that surfaced, he was completely credited for his work while you could be happy if your name was written correctly. With every new article, your faith in having the career you worked so hard for lessened until you felt hopeless. You’ve officially became a dumb celebrity, just a woman who was known to be dating a man in the industry.

On the evening of the second day you have enough. You just read yet another degrading piece of you that was clearly written by a man, they once again talked about your case with Jordan, joking about history repeating itself and you swear you could scream and throw a tantrum like a baby at how useless and helpless you feel.

You put your laptop to the side and reach for your phone, dialing Taylor’s number.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asks right away, knowing well how hard these past days have been. She came over the evening you sent Harry away and tried to comfort you, but nothing could help you that night.

“Hey, I want to ask you to do something and not try to talk me out of it.”

“Oh God…” she sighs, already knowing you’re about to do something stupid according to her.

“I don’t want to perform at the Grammy’s.”

“What? With all due respect, are you fucking stupid?”

“I’m not stupid. But I don’t want to do it.”

“Well, this has got to be the most ridiculous move you’ve ever tried to pull. Why do you want to throw such a huge thing away?”

“I can’t… sing that song with Harry. If I stand on the stage and sing with him… I just can’t do it, Tay.”

“Of course you can! Suck it up! I know you miss him and it fucking sucks what’s happening, but you have to do it!” she tries to convince you, but you’ve already made your mind up.

“No. I’m not doing it. Please let them know that it’s going to be just Harry performing.”

And with that, you end the call.

Taylor knows better than to try to fight you, she doesn’t call back though you know she wants to murder you right now probably, but she’ll come around, she always does. You make yourself a tea hoping to relax your nerves with it though you know nothing can help you now. You wish you had someone to rely on, someone you could talk to right now, but usually Taylor is that person to you and lately Harry has been your support, but you can’t call either of them. The rest of the people you consider friends… they are just not that close to you. You’re left alone, again.

As your gaze wanders over to your phone, a thought pops up in your mind that makes your hands sweat. You think back to the conversation you had with Harry about your parents and you can’t shake the urge off to finally make that call.

“Fuck it,” you breathe out and grab the device, opening up the contacts until you find what you’ve been looking for. Your thumb hovers above the call button for a while before you finally tap on it and start the call. It rings four times before a voice speaks up on the other end.

“Halo?”

“Hi mom,” you reply and hear a gasp from her at your voice.

There’s less than a week left until the Grammy’s. For your own sake, you haven’t been online outside of answering work emails, you just can’t deal with the shit show your life has become on the internet.

You haven’t left your home unless you really needed to go somewhere, did most of your meetings over the phone or videochat and postponed a fitting as well. You’ve officially caved yourself up in your apartment and you are not planning on leaving anytime soon.

Taylor keys herself in, she hasn’t even mentioned that she might drop by, but you’re not surprised. She is probably here to try to bring you out of this pity party you’ve been holding for days. When she sees you lying on the couch in sweats and messy, unwashed hair, she sighs, shaking her head.

“You really need to pull your shit together, Y/N.”

“I’m fine,” you mumble, pulling your fuzzy blanket up to your chin.

“No, you’re not. This is not the bad bitch I know.”

“Bad bitches have bad days too.”

“This is not a bad day, you look like a fucking zombie. This is not what a Grammy nominee should look like days before the big show.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not like I’m performing or anything,” you shrug, but the look in Taylor’s eyes make yours go wide. “Taylor, I’m not performing, you informed them about it, right?”

“This is why I’m here,” she sighs walking closer, sitting on the other end of the couch. “I never cancelled on your performance.”

“I told you I’m not doing it!” “I know, but I was hoping you might come around. But you seem to be still acting like a stupid bitch, so that didn’t happen. However, I’ve gotten an interesting email today.”

She pulls out her phone and opens the email before handing it over to you. Shooting her an unhappy look you start reading.

-

Hi Taylor!

I got your email address from Jeff, wanted to write to you myself. I’ve officially pulled out of the Grammy performance so it’s going to be only Y/N in it. We are also working on a statement to release over the whole ordeal and my lawyers have been after the bigger gossip sites to get the articles down. I want Y/N to have the Grammy experience she deserves and I know it can’t happen with me in the performance. Tell her that I’m sorry for ruining it for her, she deserves so much more. I’m sorry she was brought into this.

I hope to see you soon, take care!

Harry

-

With parted lips, you look up at Taylor who is smiling softly at you.

“He… pulled out for me.”

“He did. Talked to Jeff on the phone, they have already let them know Harry wouldn’t be performing, they will make it official tomorrow.”

“But he deserves this just as much as I do. He is a nominee too.”

“Well, seems like he values you more than his own success.” Taylor lets out a long sigh and scooting closer she places a hand to your knee. “Look, I know you’re upset about how the media treats you just because you were seen out with Harry, and I know that you’re afraid of getting labeled as just the girl he dates and not get taken seriously as an artist, but you can’t let them stop you from living your life how you want to. There will always be judgment, there will always be men who are worse than trash and want to bring you down, but you are stronger than that. Pushing Harry away and being alone for the rest of your life is not a solution. What you can do to put them to their place is give them a big fuck you, date the hottest man in the industry and continue being the bad bitch that you are, fighting against the way you are being treated. Speak up, show them who they are dealing with, share your truth, like you always do! But you can do all of this with Harry by your side. You deserve to be happy and he makes you happy, don’t make yourself miserable because we live in a world where men are still placed above women. Fight for the change but don’t forget to think about yourself as well in the process.”

You feel the tears sting in your eyes. The weight of this past week is just way too heavy to carry, but Taylor is right and you are realizing that you’ve made it harder for yourself. The sobs come before you could stop yourself and Taylor pulls you into a hug.

“I know, I know. It fucking sucks, but you can’t let them win,” she soothes, running her hands up and down your back. “Show them how big of a bad bitch you are and get the man too.”

“You think Harry still wants to be with me?”

“I think that man would be on his knees for you in a heartbeat if you asked,” she chuckles pulling back. “Statement about the performance will be released tomorrow. That’s how long you have to figure it out,” she tells you with a knowing look before leaving you alone with your thoughts, however you don’t have to think long what you have to do.

You have not been the only one these past days took a toll on. The fight the two of you had left Harry completely drained, angry and helpless. He hated that he was the reason you weren’t credited as the talented artist that you are and he couldn’t stop thinking about ways to make it better. That’s when he came up with the idea of pulling out of the performance.

Now he is ready to spend the remaining days until the award show hidden from the world, not even leaving the house. Everyone close to him knows he is better not to be disturbed now, so he is quite surprised when the security system lets him know that someone has arrived.

As you drive up to his house you spot him immediately, stepping out the front door with a shocked look on his face, probably expecting you to be the last person to be there at the moment. You wipe your sweaty palms against your thighs as you walk up to him, feeling anxious to see him and talk to him, especially after the last conversation you had.

“Hey, I’m sorry for coming here without calling or anything…” you shyly start, stopping in front of you.

“Don’t be silly. Come… Come on in,” he clears his throat inviting you inside.

You’ve walked through this front door so many times in the past almost two months, but this is the first time you feel so odd, standing out, like you have no place in here and it’s all thanks to yourself.

“Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?” Harry walks past you but then turns to face you, talking to you with such warmth and kindness, even after how you acted, putting blame on him for something he has no control over. It completely breaks you and can’t stop your eyes from watering as you look at him. You really hoped you’ve run out of tears in the past days, but it seems like that’s not the case at all.

“Harry, I’m so sorry,” you breathe out shakily and you step closer to each other at the same time, he envelopes you in his strong arms and you fist his shirt at his chest. “I know it was none of your fault, I just got so desperate and afraid that it might ruin what I worked so hard for.”

“I know. And you were right about everything. Everything you said was true and I’m sorry you have to deal with it.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t right to be mad at you just because you have different privileges, it’s not like you can change who you are. So I’m really sorry about that, and also for pushing you away when you were just trying to be there for me. I was so stupid,” you breathe out, wiping the tears sliding your cheeks down away.

“You just panicked, it’s okay. Don’t apologize for wanting to protect yourself.”

Resting your forehead against his shoulder you wait for your sobs to die down before you look back up at him. Reaching up he tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, smiling down at you warmly and that smile alone ensures you that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, with the right person.

“Taylor showed me the email you sent her,” you bring it up, clearing your throat.

“You deserve it all to yourself so people can see how amazing of an artist you are.”

“I’m not doing it without you,” you shake your head stubbornly. “We wrote the song together and we’re gonna perform it together or else I’m not doing it either.”

“Y/N, you know if we step on that stage together they are gonna twist the whole thing and make it about something else. I want you to have this opportunity for your career without me ruining it with just my presence.”

“Fuck them, if they take it as something it’s not. They are not gonna take the chance away from us to perform our song. If they are such fucking dumbasses that they make it all about what’s between us, that’s their own personal problem. If I need to, I’ll go on a Twitter rant and tell them this myself. I want you on stage with me or else I’m not doing it either.”

Harry breathes out through his nose, pressing his lips together as he stares back at you, probably realizing you are dead serious about pulling out of the performance and he is right. He doesn’t even know you were the first one to cancel on it, you’d do it again without hesitation.

“I guess we are performing then,” he cracks a small smile and throwing your arms around his neck you pull him down, lips smashing against his, the kiss mingling with giggles and smiles.

Harry wraps his arms tight around your waist, pulling you up from the ground as he spins you around, making you squeal as you hold onto him.

“I have to call Jeff to call the Grammy’s not to post the statement,” he hums against your lips and he pecks them a few more times before letting go of you to quickly make a call to his manager.

You move over to the couch in his living room as he talks to Jeff, who is luckily very understanding about the sudden change. Hugging your knees to your chest you watch him pace the floor, exchanging a few more words with the man on the phone before ending the call, his gaze dropping to you again. Sitting beside you, he kisses your temple, dropping an arm around your shoulders as you lean against him, head resting on his chest.

“I called my mom,” you drop the bomb suddenly and you can feel him tense up for a moment, probably shocked by your words.

“You did?”

“Yeah.” Lifting your head your gaze meets his as you carry on. “She was… very shocked to hear my voice.”

“I bet,” he hums. “What did you talk about?”

“I just… asked how they are doing and told her that I’ve been thinking a lot about them. She sounded genuinely touched by it and said I’m always welcomed for dinner or lunch if I’d like to see them.”

“That’s amazing! See, I told you they would love to hear from you!”

“Yeah,” you smile at him softly. “I think I want to go over sometime after the Grammy’s.”

“I’m sure it’s going to go well.”

“Would you please come with me?”

Your question catches him off-guard he seems surprised that you would want him there, but then his expression softens as he leans down and kisses your forehead.

“I would love to, if you want me there.”

“I do,” you nod.

“Then it’s settled,” he smiles warmly as you lay your head back to his chest, his fingers gently dancing up and down your arm and for once in your life you finally feel settled, like everything is going to be fine.

Highlights of the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Y/N Y/L/N blows up stage with new hit duet

The killer duo surprised us all with a brand new duet titled Floating Through Space, performed it together on their big night. Wearing matching galaxy themed suits, Y/L/N and Styles have closed off the evening with probably the most success, the latter winning two out of his three nominations, receiving the award for Best Music Video and Best Pop Vocal Album with his latest album, Fine Line, while Y/L/N was titled best new artist, becoming a Grammy winner early in her career.

Tabloids blew up earlier this month when the two singers were photographed cozied up at dinner with friends, speculations started about their possible romance, but Y/L/N has made a clear statement on the question with her red carpet appearance before the award show. Wearing a head to toe black Gucci gown paired with a dramatic cape, the message “I’M AN ARTIST, ASK ME ABOUT MY ART” painted onto it in red, making a bold statement about her opinion on the way the media has been treating the star.

Both singers remained silent on their alleged romance, but proved to be the best of their time with their joined performance with their new emotional duet. Following the song’s debut on stage it was released to the public as a single right away, taking over all charts with its overwhelming success.

Listen to Floating Through Space now on Spotify and Apple Music!

Your knuckles are turning white from the tight grip on the steering wheel as you stare up at the home you grew up in. It looks almost the same, sometime through the years you haven’t been around your parents have painted it a light blue color from the paste yellow, but it’s still… the same.

“Hey.”

Turning to your right you look at Harry who is smiling at you warmly as his hand reaches over and squeezes your knee gently.

“It’s going to be fine. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you, you’re still their daughter.”

“That’s not what they told me the last time I was here,” you whisper, feeling your throat closing up.

“We all say things in the heat of the moment. Seeing how happy they were about this lunch proves that they regret what happened.”

Nodding you take a deep breath to get ready for whatever is going to happen. Leaning over the console you pull Harry in for a kiss and it calms your nerves a little. Getting out of the car he takes your hand and squeezes it to let you know he’ll be right by your side all along. As you walk up to the front porch a sense of strong nostalgia washes over you.

You didn’t have a bad childhood, your parents provided you so much growing up, it’s sad to think what it has become. In a way you feel more anxious than walking the red carpet a week ago for the Grammys even though you’re just meeting your parents, but this is a turning point in your life that needed to come sooner or later.

“I’m right here, baby. It’s going to be fine,” Harry murmurs, kissing your forehead before you ring the doorbell, feeling weird that you come here as a guest, not as someone who belongs here.

You hear footsteps approaching on the other side, two frames appear through the clouded glass of the front door and then it flies open, pushing all air out of your lungs, clinging tightly onto Harry’s hand. There’s a moment of silence and just staring at each other before the tiniest smile tugs on your lips.

“Hi mom, hi dad.”

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