#i wish i could live so carelessly that my drawings could give off this exact aesthetic

[alilaro]

my peak aesthetic is the living island / hr pufnstuf music video

[luffles424]

Luminous

☼ Pairing: Jimin x reader 

☼ Genre: tentacle monster!Jimin, some fluff, smut, mostly just pwp

☼ Count: 9k

☼ Warnings: 18+, public sex (no ones around but they’re on the beach), tentacles (kind of a given), big dick jimin, manhandling, lots of cum, some cumplay, creampie, cum inflation/belly bulge (not a whole lot, just a small bump) unprotected sex, restraints, choking, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, tit fucking, thigh fucking, oral (m recieving), deep throating, anal, double penatration, minor nipple play, praise kink, mating cycles, slight impreg kink

☼ Summary: The Busan summer festival is your favorite event of the year. You like all the food and things to do, but your favorite part is watching the fireworks at the end of the night, gathered with friends and family. It’s fun and joyous. Except this year you’re spending it without them. So you find a secluded spot on the beach to watch alone. Except... you might not be as alone as you thought you were out here. 

☼ a/n:  This was written for Sol’s (jamaisjoons) collab event ‘The Summer Bucketlist’ and my prompt was ‘watching fireworks.’ Uhhh this idea was originally very different and then I started thinking about tentacles and now here we are 🥴🥴🥴 Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! My ask box is always open ~ 💙💙💙💙

☼ Banner made by the absolutely amazing @jamaisjoons​ (who did such wonderful work on it and I hope the fic lives up to the beautiful banner she made me 💕💕💕)

You let out a small contented sigh as you slip your feet into the water. This is your favorite place in all of Busan, this hidden little jutty of rock just off one of the smaller, less popular beaches, more popular among locals only. You’ve spent more time than you can count out here hanging out with your friends, passing the time and using the salty sea breeze to help combat the heat of summer. You’ve been out here plenty on your own too, just like how you’re out here alone right now. 

The sun’s dipping below the horizon, the sky slowly turning an inky black. The perfect backdrop to what’s going to happen soon and the main reason you’re out here at all to begin with rather than at home. The summer festival is happening and once the sun disappears, the sky will be decorated with fireworks, and you and your friends discovered years ago that this is the best spot to watch them, unobstructed and no one around to fight for seats. 

You kick your feet idly in the water, enjoying the warmth of it as you lean back on your hands as you watch the last few rays of light slip away. You wished your friends could’ve made it though. But Namjoon was stuck in the city for work and Taehyung was out with his girlfriend at the festival. A brief feeling of sadness overcomes you because you had been planning to go with Taehyung and his girlfriend and your own boyfriend as a double date. Until he dumped you a week ago over text because he’d moved to the otherside of the country and apparently was nothing like the man you met since he didn’t even have the balls to break up in person. 

You suspect that there was a lot more than his flimsy excuse of it’s just not working and long distance is hard. It most likely has something to do with the new girl that you’ve been told about that has shown up on his socials. 

For what it’s worth, Taehyung and Namjoon both offered you company but you waved them off. Namjoon’s job opportunity is much more important and as much as you love Taehyung and his girlfriend, you didn’t particularly feel like being third wheel to their (normally adorable and heart warming) love. 

You think this is better anyway. It’s peaceful out here. The smell of salt being carried by the breeze brings a myriad of memories that all bring a smile to your face and it’s easy to forget about the hard things in this moment. It’s healing to be out here. As much as it sucked that you got dumped, you can’t be too upset. You saw the cracks forming the more he opened his mouth and talked, if he hadn’t done it, you likely would have been doing it soon anyway. You let your head fall back, letting your eyes slip closed as you simply enjoyed this. You should tell the others that you all need to make another trip out here soon. 

Plus you’d come much earlier when the sun was still high and swam some. Using the ebb and flow of the ocean to erode your worries and stress. Then you’d sprawled out on your beach towel on your rocky perch and let the sunset dry your skin before you slipped back into your shorts and tank top and allowed the peacefulness to swallow you. 

You startle slightly when there’s a loud, echoing boom and color flashes across the sky. You’d been lulled into such calmness and had almost forgotten why you were out here to begin with. You watch the sky passively, watching the occasional flash of color and shapes as the firework people warm themselves and the crowds up. You know the real show won’t start for at least another 45 minutes, knowing the tell by the fact that there’s still the faintest of traces of blue on the horizon. 

Your feet continue their idle movements in the water, until something slick brushes the bottom of your foot and you scream on instinct, quickly jerking your foot free from the water. You back up an extra foot from the edge, to the safety of the blanket that you spread across the rocks, just as an extra precaution. You’re sure that whatever touched you was probably just seaweed. Maybe a plastic bag or some other trash that someone carelessly threw into the ocean. But anything touching you in the water when the water is nothing more than an inky black expanse is enough for you to decide that’s enough soaking for the night.

Just as your heart rate is returning to normal, something slips over the edge of the rocks where you’d just been sitting. It gleams in the moonlight, silver, smooth, and shiny, as it makes a cursory probe at the edge, like it’s looking for something. It’s probably no thicker than your thumb and you deliriously wonder if octopi are even capable of coming up on dry land, let alone the reason why one might be coming up right now. Though the longer you stare at it, the more you realize that it’s far too smooth to be from an octopus, completely devoid of the telltale suckers. 

You shuffle a little further away. You really don’t want to move too quickly, not if you don’t know what it even is and if it can follow you or how fast whatever it is. But your slight movement only seems to catch it’s attention and to your growing horror, it lashes out almost faster than you can see and wraps itself firmly around your ankle. You scream again, because aside from that, there’s really very little you can do out here all alone with it on you.

Any attempts to free yourself prove futile, the slender appendage is far stronger than you would’ve expected from such a jelly-like creature. It gives its own experimental tug, one that pulls you marginally closer to the water before you once again scramble backwards. It lets you and that just serves to freak you out more.

Then, a few more tentacles appear over the edge of the rock, watering dripping and spreading out around them and then there’s a… hand? You frown as a seemingly human hand, if perhaps a little ashen looking, plants itself on the rock right alongside the tentacles. The fingers flex for a moment before something, somehow even more surprising, appears. A fairly human face, or at least up to the eyes as that’s the furthest it raises, peaks up over the edge, gaze quickly zeroing in on you. Your heart stutters in your chest as your eyes meet and its pale silver eyes gleam like its tentacles. It’s hair is wet and slicked back and, though the locks are currently water logged and a few shades darker, it’s clearly also a similar shade of silver as its tentacles and eyes. 

Another hand joins the first along the edge of the rocks and for a moment it doesn’t move at all. You stare at it, you know it’s definitely bigger than an octopus now. You don’t think you could take it. It’s dead silent aside from the gentle lapping of the waves and you’re terrified to move for fear of what it’s going to do to you. It gives the slightest of tugs on your ankle and when you don’t budge it finally lifts itself from the water. 

You try to back away again, but it’s grip keeps you in place and you let out a startled scream when another tentacle darts out to wrap itself around your other ankle. The… monster… sits on its knees at the edge for a moment after pulling itself from the water. 

It, he?, looks almost perfectly human. Skin a dimmed golden shade, frame small but packed with lean muscle… apparently well endowed in human terms. You jerk your gaze quickly away when you realize just where you're staring. Your life is on the line, now is not the time to to fucking ogle the monster and think about if he can get hard like a human and if it possibly gets bigger. You force yourself back to his face, cheekbones prominent and lips plush as he seems to be looking you over as well, though his gaze continually seems to dart behind you, brows knitting in confusion. 

His eyes appear almost human except that it doesn’t seem like he has a pupil, silver swallowing the whole of the iris. It’s slightly disconcerting. His tentacles shift behind him, drawing your attention to them finally. The ones not on you shift behind him restlessly, never seeming to settle. A thin one drapes itself on his shoulder before slithering across his skin to the other side, forming a strange sort of living necklace. It’s hard to pin down an exact number with them constantly moving, but there seems to be a lot and they seem to come in primarily two sizes, thinner ones like the one draped around his throat and wrapped around your ankles and thicker ones easily the width of 3 or 4 fingers, you try very hard not to compare their girth with what you had glimpsed between his legs. 

You’re trying to formulate a plan to get away when there’s another boom of a firework, bathing everything pink for a moment. And what you’re certainly not expecting is for the way the monster startles at the sound. The tentacles around your ankles tighten almost painfully and then before you can completely comprehend what’s going on, you’re being pulled closer to him. Once you're close enough, he’s leaning down over you and you squeeze your eyes shut, unsure of what’s about to happen but positive that it’s unlikely to be good.

But nothing happens and as the seconds stretch, you slowly peek an eye open. His face is almost directly above yours, but it’s not you that he’s looking at. Instead, he’s studiously scanning your surroundings, looking tense and on edge. When you glance at the way that he’s leaning over you, you realize that he seems to be almost… protecting you? Which only serves to confuse you more.

Deeming there to be no immediate threat, his gaze turns down to you and you freeze now that you're faced with him this close. He blinks down at you before his lips part and he makes a strange sort of clicking sound, but you’re more focused on the sharp teeth revealed when he makes noise. Definitely sharp enough to tear into you and eat his fill.

“Please don’t eat me,” you squeak out, hands coming up to cover your face.

There’s silence for a moment before a deep chuckle sounds from him. You peek between your fingers at him and there’s a smirk stretching his lips. 

“Oh, I have met your kind before.” His voice is soft and surprisingly melodious given the higher pitch the clicking was. 

You can’t help the words that slip from your lips. “My kind?”

His lips twitch and he tilts his head. “Humans. Are you not human?” He pushes himself up slightly to inspect you again. “You do not appear to be one of my kind.”

“There’s more of you?”

His gaze darts around. “A few.”

You swallow, about to speak again when another firework goes off. He startles above you and drops closer once more, body pressed firmly to yours as he glares around, trying to discover the source. 

You’d laugh at his constant startling if your throat wasn’t suddenly so dry. His chest is every bit as firm as it looked and you can feel every shift and ripple as he looks around. It’s incredibly distracting. Why did the monster have to be hot? You squeeze your eyes shut again. You should not be thinking about how it’d feel to touch the monster with your hands. Or how other parts of him would feel. 

He shifts off of you slightly. “It is safe for now.”

You blink your eyes open, frowning at him. “Safe? What are you talking about?”

His head tilts and he reminds you of a confused puppy. “Do you not hear the loud noises?”

A giggle slips out and that seems to perplex him further. “No, no. I do. It’s just… Have you not been around here before?” 

“I have always lived here.”

“Have you… been on land before?”

His brows pinch and there’s the slightest of flushes coloring his cheeks a deep blue-gray. “I come up here every year.”

“How have you not heard them before then? They’re just fireworks.” You see the streak of a new one and point to it quickly, drawing his attention to it just before it reaches its peak and explodes in a sparkling cascade of gold. “They’re for entertainment. They’re not dangerous.” You pause. “Okay they are. But not at this distance. The only people who could possibly be in danger would be the ones firing them.”

“Fire… works?” He mumbles, sitting back on his haunches as his face remains tilted towards the sky even though the phosphorus has long since burned out. “Will there be more?”

You slowly push yourself up, cautious of what he might do but his focus remains firmly upwards. “Yeah, they’ll keep shooting some singles off for a little bit longer then they’ll start the big show.”

He says nothing else and you wonder if you can use the time to slip away before you realize that he still has two tentacles wrapped around your ankles. There goes your chance for escape. At least he doesn’t seem interested in eating you. Yet.

Another firework goes and you watch his eyes widen as he follows its trajectory up until it stops in an explosion of color and sound. But you’re far more taken watching the childlike glee on his face and the way the colors gleam on his skin and tentacles. The colors add another level to his already stunning looks, making him look far more ethereal and angelic. He grins as he watches and he looks much less like a terrifying monster. Though you worry what will happen once the fireworks stop and there’s nothing to distract him. Maybe when the real show starts he’ll be so engrossed that you can slip yourself free of the tentacles and make a quick and quiet escape. 

You shake your head, looking away and up at the sky too. There’s nothing much you can do right now with their grip on you still too tight, so you might as well also watch the show. The fireworks are slowly starting to increase in frequency and he seems to squirm in excitement the closer together the pops of color come. 

“Do you have a name?” You ask suddenly, looking back over at him. Maybe you can text Namjoon or Taehyung and tell them that if you disappear to look for something with that name. Probably Taehyung. He’d be more likely to believe that you’ve been taken by a monster than Namjoon. He’d probably ask if you’ve drank or smoked anything. Get too drunk camping once and claim that bigfoot tried to kidnap you and you never get believed again. 

He doesn’t answer right away, doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that you spoke. But then his lips purse and he looks over at you for a moment. “Jimin.”

“Jimin?” He bobs his head and turns back to catch another firework going off. “My name’s Y/n.” You murmur, unsure if he’s even interested. 

It hurts a little that he didn’t seem interested in you back, but you suppose that you don’t know whatever his monster customs are. And you really shouldn’t look too deeply into why it hurts that a monster doesn’t seem interested in you. That should be a good thing. It means you have a better chance of getting away. 

There’s a long break in the fireworks and Jimin’s lips push out into an adorable pout as he turns to you with sad eyes. “Is it over?”

You laugh and shake your head. “No. It’s actually just getting ready to get started. Now it’s the big show. You thought it was good before. Just wait.”

He gives a simple nod and turns back to the sky, content to wait patiently for the rest. Silence descends on you both and you feel like you should be more worried about the tentacle monster sitting in front of you. But Jimin seems harmless enough, he certainly hasn’t tried to eat you or anything and that’s certainly got to count for something. He seems far more interested in the fireworks than in you now anyway. 

You’re just starting to relax when something cool and damp brushes the skin of your lower back. You freeze, back stiff as whatever it is tentatively touches the warm skin before slithering further up your shirt. You bite down on the urge to scream, you don’t want to startle Jimin again. Just because he was protective before, doesn’t mean that a scream coming from you would produce the same result. And before you can twist to see what is crawling up your shirt, the tentacles around your ankles slide a little further up your legs, ends timidly probing along your flesh as they go.

Another tentacle, one of the thicker ones, slides across your arm, wrapping once around your wrist and nestling the tip into your palm. The cool sensation is bizarrely familiar and it takes you only a moment to realize that whatever crawled up your shirt a moment ago is another tentacle. You’re about to speak when a thin tentacle trails up your arm to rest against your shoulder, gently tracing your jaw and neck. 

You swallow. “Um, Jimin?” All you get is a hum in response. Does he not realize what’s going on? “Jimin? What’s happening?”

Either your words or tone finally pulls his attention to you and when he sees his tentacles wrapped around you, he flushes a pretty blue. He scoots away, working to encourage them to release you, but this time of year they always have a bit more mind of their own. He makes an irritated clicking noise when they don’t move.

The one in your hand seems to respond to his sound though you’re not sure if it’s the way he wanted it to or not but it tightens around your wrist slightly before becoming… slicker?

You look at it, a weird mix of horror and maybe a little arousal. Maybe you shouldn’t have watched so much hentai when you were younger. You look back up at Jimin, at a complete loss. “Jimin?”

Jimin looks incredibly embarrassed, burying his face in his hands and making more distressed clicking noises. Probing tentacles aside, he looks adorable all flustered like this. A few of his tentacles wrap around his wrists and shoulders, patting his skin soothingly but that only seems to make him more distressed. 

The tentacle at your back has reached the tie to your bikini top beneath your shirt and is prodding at the knot with interest. You don’t know what to do to stop the distress you can practically feel coming from Jimin. The tentacle in your hand squirms slightly, drawing your attention back to it. You swallow, sneaking a quick peek at Jimin as you do the only, seemingly illogical, thing you can think of right now and you close your hand around the rowdy tentacle and squeeze. 

The result is instantaneous and certainly not what you had expected. Jimin moans. So then even if he’s not in control, he can still feel through them. Interesting to know. Jimin’s mouth hangs open for a moment before his gaze is meeting yours and you suddenly feel like maybe that was the wrong thing to do. 

There’s simmering fire in his eyes as he tries to speak as calmly and evenly as possibly. “I told you I come here once a year, correct?” You nod and he continues. “I come here to mate.”

You blink at him, mind completely blanking out. “M-mate?” You hate how high your voice sounds. 

He nods, sending a glare at the tentacles touching you. “When I saw you here, I had assumed you were one that I have spent the mating period with before.”

“Fuck, did I ruin your hookup?”

“Hookup?”

Your body heats with embarrassment. Maybe if you ask nicely, Jimin will let you go drown. “Whoever you were supposed to meet here. Did they not show up because I was here?”

He’s quick to shake his head. “I did not have plans. But sometimes if someone is near they will stop by. If they are not, I can take care of myself.”

The image of Jimin splayed out on the rocks by himself, tentacles sliding across his skin, wrapped around his cock, drawing more of those noises from him shoots straight to your core. Your pussy clenches around nothing and your hand accidentally tightens around Jimin’s tentacle again, drawing a gasp from him. 

“I apologize for not warning you sooner. The fireworks distracted me but it appears that it did not distract them.” He gestures to his tentacles. “Give me a moment and I should be able to free you so you can leave.”

His eyes slip closed and your gaze drags over him, startling slightly when you realize he’s started to grow hard too. You feel crazy that the first thing you think is how badly you want to touch. 

This is such a bad idea, but before you can stop yourself or second guess, you’re speaking. “What if... you didn’t though?”

Jimin freezes, but the tentacles seem to grow more restless at your words. Another thick one stretches the distance between you both to rest against your thigh, slicking your skin wherever it touches.

“You do not know what you are saying.” He grits out.

The tentacle in your hand squirms and you give it a small squeeze, maintaining eye contact with Jimin as you do so you get to fully enjoy the shudder that ripples through him. “I um, think I have a pretty good idea what I’m saying.”

He shakes his head, hair falling over his eyes. You didn’t think it would be so hard to convince a tentacle monster that you wanted him to fuck you. This was by far the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. For all you know, he could eat his partner afterwards. If you live past this encounter, no one would ever let you live it down. If they even believed you. Your gaze drops involuntarily back to his cock and you find that he's fully hard now. And it’s almost a little intimidating how big he is, longer and thicker than anything you’ve ever taken before. You don’t think your fingers would be able to wrap around the girth. But any apprehensions you think you’d feel normally are nowhere to be seen, all you feel is overwhelming want. You want to try to fit him, to feel the burn as he stretches you out. You want to taste and you want him to absolutely ruin you. 

Unsure of any other way to convince him that you do want this, you switch tactics. If you can’t convince him with words, you’ll just have to show him what you want. You release the tentacle in your hand, though it keeps itself wrapped around your wrist, and move to remove your shirt. Seeming to know your plan, or maybe just through a stroke of luck, the tentacle that has been exploring your bikini top seems to have discovered how to undo the ties and as your top hits the ground beside you, your top slips to your lap.

His eyes dip to the scrap of fabric in your lap before they trace slowly back up, expression worryingly blank. You belatedly realize that this might not even be a good signal to him that you do want this. You don’t know what others of his kind look like, if any of them look anything like you. For the most part, he looks human enough, you’d think that maybe this was enough, that maybe this is at least sort of familiar to him. You feel suddenly self conscious, this was such a dumb idea. You really shouldn’t let the horny brain lead. You’re just about to cross your arms to cover yourself when the tentacle that had been on your thigh slithers up your stomach to sit between your breasts. 

You glance at Jimin and his eyes seem darker, jaw clenched tight. His tentacles seem to grow more agitated behind him and the ones around your ankles tighten to tug you closer, both to your surprise and apparently also Jimin’s. He flushes, staring down at you with wide eyes as your thighs come to rest against his. 

The tentacle on your chest squirms and Jimin’s gaze drops to watch. Your gaze drops too, intending to look at the tentacle currently writhing around on your chest and smearing slick there but you only make it halfway. Because Jimin is now fully hard, thick cock curving up towards his belly and the sight of it has you enraptured. He looked big when he was still soft, but now fully hard, or at least what you assume is fully hard, he looks positively massive. The skin of his cock is the same muted tan of the rest of him, the tip almost blue-gray, close to the color his cheeks turned but deeper in color, and it’s leaking more silvery looking fluid. You wonder if it’s the same thing that is leaking from his tentacles. 

Jimin shudders and it takes only a moment for you to realize that the reason is because a thin tentacle has wrapped itself around the base of his cock. It makes you want to touch too. So tentatively, you reach out, gaze flicking between his cock and his face to gauge his reaction and giving him more than enough time to pull away. 

He watches your fingers brush against the tip, dragging a smear of slick further down the shaft but he makes no move to stop you. He lets out a shaky exhale and, emboldened by the noise, you wrap your fingers around him. Or you at least try your best to because his girth keeps your fingers from meeting. 

Jimin makes a rumbling noise and then there are two more tentacles massaging at your thighs, working their way up until they meet the edge of your shorts. They only probe along the fabric for a moment before slipping beneath and continuing their exploration towards the apex of your thighs. They trace the edge of your bikini bottoms before one of them presses against your pussy through the thin fabric. 

You gasp and Jimin’s gaze is back on your face, attention wholly focused on you as his tentacles press again, but this time with a little more pressure. One happens to brush past your clit and you jolt, a moan slipping from your lips and the tentacles seem desperate to recreate that reaction as they narrow their focus to your clit. 

Jimin groans again and his hands come up to cup your cheeks, his tentacles all stilling for a moment. He waits until you look up at him. “Are you sure? It will be harder to stop once we start. Are you positive you can handle it? I do not mind spending the time alone.”

It’s sweet how concerned he is about you. But now that he’s started, all you can think about is being fucked by him while his tentacles play with every inch of you. You squirm back slightly and he seems to take that as rejection, if the flash of disappointment you catch on his face is anything to go by. You quickly undo your shorts, tugging them down your legs, assisted by his tentacles once they reach your ankles. 

He swallows and you watch as the tentacles from your ankles relocate to your thighs to keep you spread wide as the two that had been in your pants resume their work on your clit, now free of the hindrance of cloth. You bring your slick fingers to your mouth and keep eye contact as you lick them clean. It’s salty like the sea, but rather than the bitterness of cum, his has a hint of sweetness to it. It’s slightly addictive.

He stares at you for a moment and then he’s making another clicking noise and the tentacle that had been around your wrist unwraps itself and slips between your legs to join the other two already there, though it bypasses your clit to circle your dripping hole instead. 

“Needy.” He coos, though you’re not sure if it’s directed at you or his tentacles. Maybe both. 

He shuffles in close again, seemingly content to just watch his tentacles play with you. You whine, you like the feel of his tentacles, but you want him to touch with his hands and lips too. You want more. Maybe the needy was directed at you after all. He glances up at your noise, watching the way your mouth drops open as his tentacle finally wriggles it’s way into your pussy. It’s firmer than you expected from touching it, but still much more malleable than a cock would be. But it’s softer nature allows it greater freedom to explore your walls as it moves slowly in and out of you, certainly a different experience for you but you definitely can’t find it in you to hate it when it can reach all the right spots inside of you easily.

You reach out, grabbing the first part of Jimin you can grab, his arm, and tug him insistently down on top of you. He complies easily, seemingly curious as to what you want. You wonder if he’s ever kissed a partner before, if that’s something that his kind does. You hesitate and Jimin immediately notices, head tilting in curiosity. 

“What is wrong?”

You’re gasping before you can formulate your question, the tentacle inside you having quickly found your g-spot and is now making sure to rub it with every thrust, sending waves of pleasure rippling through your body. Jimin’s head dips down and his nose rubs against yours. 

“Are you okay? I have never been with a human and so I am unsure of what might hurt or bring pleasure. Please tell me if they are hurting you.”

He looks so sweet and it makes your heart stutter a little. You tilt your head, capturing his plush lips in a kiss. They’re warmer than you expected, giving the cooler temperature of his tentacles. It takes him a moment of inaction before he seems to catch on to how to kiss back. He makes a small noise when your tongue brushes his lips but he easily parts them for you. His sharp teeth skim your lip and it leaves you gasping into his mouth. He seems pleased with the response and he trails his lips across your jaw and down your neck. 

“You did not answer my question.” He murmurs, teeth gently teasing the skin of your neck, mindful of their sharpness. 

His tentacles are driving you mad, bringing you so close to your orgasm but seeming to know exactly when to slow back down to draw it out even longer. “What… question?” You gasp out.

“Are you okay?”

You’d scoff if the tentacles around your clit hadn’t started circling in tandem, winding the coil in your belly tighter. “So… so okay… Fuck, Jimin, are you sure you’ve never been with a human before?”

He pulls away from your neck enough to look down at you, a pleased smile stretching his lips. “I have not. Am I doing good?”

You nod enthusiastically, hands tangling in his hair to pull him back in for a messy kiss. He makes a pleased sort of clicking noise in the back of his throat and his tentacles speed up. And this time when your orgasm draws near his tentacles keep their speed rather than slowing again and you cum, back arching off the blanket as your pussy convulses around the tentacle. His tentacles continue their ministrations and Jimin pulls away to stare down at where his tentacle disappears inside you with wide eyed wonder. 

He groans as he watches with rapt attention. “Does it do this every time?”

You squirm, oversensitivity quickly setting in as his tentacles refuse to let up. The borderline painful feeling robs you of words to tell him to slow down and give you just a moment to breath. The tentacle inside of you swells and then everything grows a little slicker as Jimin chokes on a gasp. You struggle to reach out to grasp any one of the tentacles, to just lessen the sensations ravaging your pussy just a little, but before you can even make contact, another tentacle is wrapping around both wrists and dragging them above your head. 

“J-Jimin, please…”

Jimin pays you no mind, tentacles working faster under his focused gaze and it doesn't take long for you to be thrown into a second orgasm, though it feels almost like the first one never ended. You cry out, much too loud even if the beach is seemingly deserted right now. You shudder as your orgasm crests and Jimin’s tentacle seems to stiffen inside you before you feel suddenly wetter and stickier and full. The tentacle slips out of you after a few weaker thrusts and a small gush of thick liquid follows and the tentacle suddenly seems much less enthusiastic than its counterparts. Fuck, did that mean…?

“Jimin,” you whine, waiting until he finally tears his gaze away from your dripping pussy. “Do… do your tentacles cum too?”

His head tilts in confusion. “Come?” He thinks for a moment before realization seems to overcome him. “Ah. Do you mean do my tentacles also release?”

Embarrassment creeps over you. Something so clinical shouldn’t have you aching to be filled again when you just came twice and apparently already filled. You nod shyly. 

“Yes. They also release. It is to give the best chance of a successful mating.”

You swallow, eyeing the tentacles behind him wearily. “Do they all have to?”

He shakes his head, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. “They do not. Only the big ones release. And from those, they do not all release every mating.”

You feel equal parts relieved and disappointed, though you know that you should probably question your disappointment. But you’ve already come this far, no reason to start questioning your potentially bad decisions now. 

He tilts his head. “Does it bother you? They do not need to do it near you if it makes you uncomfortable.”

You choke, unsure how to respond for a moment. This whole situation should really terrify and appall you. But you only find yourself growing hotter at the idea of being used by his tentacles and covered in their cum. You chew your lip before giving a small nod. 

His eyes trace over your face before he seems to light up and he leans down to press a kiss to your lips. “Does the thought of that arouse you, sweet? I must admit, most of my previous partners were less than enthused about that aspect of mating.”

You groan, wanting nothing more than to bury your face in your hands in shame but Jimin’s tentacles keep your hands studiously bound above your head. Even his own kind didn’t like it. Why were you so weird? He giggles, leaning down to brush your nose with his own. His face is set with a kind smile, but his eyes still dance with mirth and lust. 

“I find it very arousing that you like it so much. Tell me what you are thinking about, sweet.”

To punctuate his words, another tentacle slips between your legs, rubbing along your sticky slit. You moan and Jimin’s eyes shine with fire. “I… was thinking about you fucking me and filling me up and leaving me all messy.”

He smirks. “I can do that, sweet. Just ask.”

“Jimin, please, fuck me… Fuck, ruin me…”

Jimin’s grin turns positively feral, sharp teeth on display. And for a moment, fear ripples through you as Jimin looks truly like a monster for the first time since he’s surfaced. But then his tentacles shift around him, eager for their chance to touch. Jimin shoos the thick tentacle away from your pussy, the ones around your thighs assisting him in situating you how he wants. He runs the tips of his cock through the mess left there by his tentacle and a pleased chirp leaves him. 

“You are already so full. Do you think you can take more?” He purrs.

You nod and his cock presses against your entrance. He presses just the tip in and he stretches your pussy more than the tentacle did. You gasp, breath robbed from you as the stretch borders on too much. But Jimin seems to sense it and pauses with just the tip inside, allowing you all the time to adjust to his massive cock. 

Jimin’s hands skim up your thighs, the tentacles resting passively on your clit once again coming to life and the jolt of pleasure has you squirming on Jimin’s cock. His hands rest on your hips, gripping them with bruising strength to keep you from moving. You whimper at the casual display of strength, at the way that he seems to not even be trying to hold you still while his tentacles slowly circle your clit to get you to relax. 

Two other tentacles slip up your body, pressing against your breasts and kneading at the flesh experimentally. The sensation is different, while the tentacles don’t have the surface area the way a hand does, they are capable of moving in ways a hand simply can’t. They grope at the flesh, exploring and testing the limits. One brushes past your nipple, causing you to gasp and suddenly both are on the pebbled buds, playing with them to draw even more noises from you. Their motions mimic the motions on your clit and pleasure sparks across your body once again. 

The tentacles shift slightly, long bodies draping down the sides of your breasts and then they press the mounds inwards, forcing the flesh together around the tentacle still resting on your sternum. Jimin grunts at the sudden pressure around his tentacle and your gaze drops to watch with fascination as the tentacle starts to thrust into the tight space, silvery tip gleaming with each press through. 

Your pussy clenches at the thought of it slipping a little further up and into your mouth, of tasting that salty, sweet slick from the source. A high pitched noise sounds in Jimin’s throat as his hips stutter forward at the feeling of your pussy tightening around him and you moan as he slips a little further into you, stretching you just a little more. Now though, the stretch makes you ache for more, the burn finally passed with the aid of the tentacles playing with your clit and nipples and slowly pulling your pleasure back to the surface. 

You really need him to be completely inside of you and when you dig your heels into his ass to try to get him to move, he seems hesitant. His tentacles, however, seem more than thrilled at the idea and more than happy to help you in your pursuit. The ones around your thighs tighten and pull you closer, until Jimin is buried to the hilt in the clutch of your pussy. The noise is filthy, the mess from his tentacle spilling out around his cock to smear on your thighs and drip down your ass. 

Jimin goes rigid when he’s fully inside you, eyes trained on where you’re joined. He seems transfixed by the sight of your cunt swallowing down every inch he has. Your whine has his head snapping up to look at your face, drinking in the way you’re moaning. The tentacle between your breasts slips a little further up, tip bumping your chin once before it’s shifting to your lips. Your tongue darts out, swiping through the salty fluid. Jimin shudders, hips flexing where they press into you and you let your mouth fall open for his tentacle to slip in. 

Your tongue swirls around the tip and it squirms, pushing in further than you expect and causing you to gag. It pulls itself from your mouth with a pop and you frown at it’s loss before shifting your gaze to Jimin, who seems to be glaring at the tentacle like it did something wrong. 

“Jimin?” When he looks at you, you give him an amused smile. “It’s okay. It just takes me a minute.”

His head tilts but the tentacle makes its way tentatively back to your mouth, hovering until you open again for it to slip back in. It goes a lot slower this time, keeping its thrusts shallow. You hum encouragingly, tongue pressing and massaging the underside as it moves and the tentacle slides a little deeper. You gag only slightly this time, much more prepared now, and after a few thrusts you grow used to the intrusion and it can slip just a little bit more down your throat. 

Jimin watches for a moment before groaning and then he’s pulling his cock out until just the tip remains before slamming back in. You moan around his tentacle, noise muffled as it delves further down your throat. It stays there for a moment and the lack of oxygen has your head start to spin. Your hands twitch where they’re still bound above your head, but before the real need for oxygen comes and you have to try to alert Jimin that you need to breathe, the tentacle is pulling out, switching to shallow thrusts while you get a quick break to breathe. The sudden rush of oxygen has you feeling nearly euphoric and you can only hope that the tentacle does it again. When you whine around it, it pushes back into your throat and the rest of the whine is muffled by it’s girth. 

Jimin’s fingers flex against your hips as he watches and feels how much of his tentacle slips into the waiting warmth of your mouth and with a moan he starts fucking into your pussy with a quick pace. Your hands grab at the tentacle binding you, needing something, anything, to ground yourself as Jimin fucks you senseless. You feel wholly overwhelmed at the way his cock fills you, the way the tentacles swirl around your clit, your nipples and breasts, at the way the one in your mouth begins to stiffen up. 

The tentacles shift on your breasts, kneading the soft flesh once again before pinching at your nipples. You moan around the tentacle in your mouth and it gives a shudder before flooding your mouth and throat. You choke slightly, jerking your head slightly at the sheer volume being released into your mouth, far more than you can handle. Spit and cum drip from the corners of your mouth as you struggle to swallow and the tentacle pulls itself from your mouth before it's finished, painting the lower half of your face even more in its silvery essence. Jimin’s eyes gleam at the sight, seeming to become even more frantic with his thrusts. 

“J-jimin…” You whine, voice rough from use. You’re not entirely sure what you’d finish that statement with.

“You are doing so well.” He coos and the praise has your mind going fuzzy. “You look so pretty like this.”

He reaches up, sliding a hand through the mess on your cheeks before letting his hand drag the mess back down your body, leaving a shiny trail down your throat, in the valley between your breasts and across your stomach. He slams in particularly hard and you cry out, voice echoing across the empty beach and ocean, much too loud but you no longer care.

Jimin glows golden, the light haloing him and your fucked out mind is sluggish to make sense of the sudden color change. Then you remember why you were out here to begin with and you make the connection just as the resounding boom of the firework follows just after the shower of color. The fireworks show must be finally starting because the next second Jimin is bathed in blue, then pink.

But as quick as your attention was taken by the colorful shadows splashed across Jimin’s beautiful face, it’s taken back as he shifts suddenly, hands leaving your hips to push your thighs together as he continues to fuck you. Your calves come to rest on one shoulder and Jimin uses the new position to fuck you even harder. 

Something slick drags along the crease where your thighs are pressed together and a second later a tentacle is pushing into the tight space. Your skin tingles where it presses into your skin and with every thrust it makes through the tight press of your thighs, it bumps the tentacles on your clit. Jimin presses a kiss to your leg and you feel the breath leave him as his tentacle speeds up and he hisses.

The sensations are nearly overwhelming, to the point that you almost miss the new slim tentacle kneading the flesh of your ass. It delivers a pinch to the skin that leaves you gasping and you’re much more aware of it as it runs along the seam of your ass. You squirm, or at least attempt to, because between the tentacles restraining you and Jimin’s firm grip on your thighs, you’re left nearly immobile as you get fucked. The tentacle slips a little further up, gathering some slick before it’s dipping back down to prod at the tight ring of muscle of your hole. 

You shudder and if you could move, you’d press down onto the tentacle, force it to fill you because you need it as much as you need Jimin’s cock in you. “Fuck, please, don’t tease…”

Jimin’s face is set in concentration and you don’t think he heard you, except a second later the tentacle breaches your ass. You moan, glad that it was a smaller one to start. It thrusts tentatively, growing bolder as your noises raise in pitch and then a second slim tentacle is joining, slipping past the tight ring of muscle to thrust in counterpoint to the first. 

Jimin’s thrusts slow, his head tilting back as he pants. He looks like a sculpture, so beautiful that it aches a little. Something that people should look at and marvel over. A moan slips past his lips as the tentacles in your ass speed up a little, taking some time to also shift apart and spread you open even more. 

“You… are endless…” Jimin breaths out. It sounds reverent. 

The tentacles slip from you and you have no time to mourn the loss before they’re being replaced by one of the thicker tentacles. The stretch hurts a little, but with so many other things happening to your body at the same time, you’re quickly distracted from the ache. The tentacle stills anyway, allowing you time to adjust to its thick girth. 

“You are so full of surprises.” He says, head dropping forward once more to let his gaze rake over your shuddering figure.

The tentacle in your ass thrusts in response to Jimin’s words and when you don’t indicate any pain, both pull out and thrust roughly back in. The tentacle between your thighs and in your ass thrust opposite Jimin, keeping you full and stimulated when Jimin pulls out. 

“Please… Jimin please, fill me up, you said you would…” You feel slightly delirious with need, every thrust of his tentacle adds extra pressure to your clit and you feel so close to cumming, teetering on the edge. 

Jimin gives you no verbal response, only that of him pressing your thighs together a little harder. A few more thrusts of the tentacle between your thighs has you clamping down on Jimin’s cock and the one in your ass as you cum, body shuddering as the tentacles and Jimin continue to thrust. You squeeze your eyes shut, vision nearly whiting out entirely as your orgasm slams into you. The tentacle between your thighs lasts only a handful more thrusts before its stiffening and releasing, splattering your chest, belly, and thighs in the silver cum. It gives a few weak final spurts before slipping back through your thighs as Jimin parts them once more. 

His cock twitches as his gaze falls over you messy form, the normally silvery liquid lighting up in splashes of color with every new explosion that happens above you both. He’s never seen a more beautiful sight. One of his hands lands on your thigh as the other bats his tentacles away from your clit, an action that you're grateful for for only a moment because he quickly replaces them with his fingers. You arch and cry out, jerking your hands with enough force that you seem to startle the binding tentacle and it releases you. Your hands wrap around his wrist, tugging futilely at it to get him to let up. 

You moan his name desperately, trying to squirm away from the sensation as his tentacles keep you held close as he continues to fuck you through your overstimulation. 

“Can you do that for me one more time? You feel so good when you do that, sweet.”

You whimper. You want to say no, that it hurts a little and that you really don’t think you’re capable of another orgasm. But the pout he wears stops you and you find yourself nodding without even thinking about how you’re going to get past the too much feeling currently overwhelming your body. 

Jimin gives you another feral grin, eyes roving over your figure as his fingers work quick circles around your clit. For no experience with a human, he’s an incredibly fast learner. He seems to know your body better than your ex had and the two of you had been together for almost 2 years. 

The tentacles on your breasts move to collect some of the slick covering you, smearing it around your nipples as the pinch and play with them, the slick adding a new layer of feeling to the actions. 

“Come on, sweet.” Jimin purrs as his cock seems to swell ever more and the tentacle in your ass starts to stiffen. 

Another rough thrust and a few twists of his fingers and you’re cumming again with a cry of his name. Your pussy and ass convulses around him and Jimin lets out a series of clicks and chirps as he finally cums, flooding your pussy and ass with more silvery slick. There seems to be a never ending stream from his cock and after a few moments, pressure on your lower stomach makes you look down, groaning at the sight of your slightly distended belly.

Jimin makes a contented noise, rubbing gently over the swell. “You would look so beautiful swollen with my children.”

His cock gives another twitch and a feeble last spurt of cum and Jimin and his tentacles seem to deflate. His chin presses to his chest as he takes in slow, deep breaths. The tentacles all slowly slip from your body and you mourn the slight warmth you lose. Another few moments pass and then Jimin is gingerly pulling his cock from your abuse pussy and gazing over your whole body with almost reverence. 

You feel too exhausted to do much more, but you can feel his cum dripping from you, forming a puddle beneath your ass. At least you're next to the ocean for easy clean up. If you had the energy to do that. Maybe in 5 minutes… Or an hour. You can’t even feel your legs right now. You’re pretty sure you’d just drown.

Jimin stretches out beside you, arm coming to wrap around your middle, seemingly unbothered by the fact that it lands in a mess. You blearily realize that his tentacles seem much smaller now too. His head tilts and you realize that he’s watching the fireworks again. Like he didn’t just fuck you within an inch of your life and leave you ruined for anyone who comes after him. 

You watch in silence for a while, endeared by Jimin’s ohs and ahs as he discovers new types of fireworks, the different shapes and effects that can happen. 

“Jimin.” You call softly. His nose brushes your shoulder in response. “Will… Nevermind. It’s stupid.”

Jimin pushes himself up enough so that he can look down at you, frown marring his pretty face. “What is it?”

You fidget, suddenly hating that you’re naked and still covered in him. You glance over at the water.

“Do you wish to go in, sweet?”

It’s an easy out and you don’t feel strong enough to ask the real question yet, so you give him a simple nod. He grins, scooping you up and gracefully sliding you both into the water, arm wrapped tight around your middle to keep you afloat. 

Colors flash around you as you stare into Jimin’s eyes, every color reflected there as well. Before you can second guess yourself, you lean forward and press a kiss to his lips. He lets out a surprised noise and then giggles when you pull away. 

“Do you wish to go again?”

Embarrassment fills you and you shake your head. “No. Um…” You take a deep breath. You can do this. “Will I see you again?”

Jimin’s face is unreadable for a painful stretch of time, though you’re sure it’s only a few seconds before he’s grinning. “I find myself quite taken by humans. I could certainly use a guide.”

You grin back, pecking him again. “First lesson, when humans like someone and want to spend time with them and go on dates, they give them kisses.”

He hums, giving you a kiss of his own, just a little deeper than yours. “I think I quite like kisses.” Then he grins and it’s full of mischief. “I think fireworks are my favorite though.”

You snort, prodding him with a finger. “You sure it’s the fireworks you like?”

He makes a thoughtful noise before nodding. “They make you luminous, sweet.”

[anntoldst0ries]

shinrin-yoku (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count/Rating: ~1.7k, PG Summary: When life's difficulties hit, Noelle navigates her way through them by turning to the nature. Category: Hurt & Comfort Warnings: mentions of trauma

A/N: May is a Mental Health Awareness month and here in the UK the theme is nature. My MC, just like me, runs to the woods when things get tough. It helps her clear her head and reconnect with inner strength.

I struggle with mental health myself and it’s important for me to speak up and address the subject. There is nothing worse than shaming or discrediting someone’s difficult feelings. It’s fine not to be fine.

If you struggle alone, please don’t. My inbox will welcome you with open arms. Two heads are better than one, even if we just complain, at least we can complain together 💜

For @choicesmaychallenge2021 Day 13 - Mental Health

SHINRIN-YOKU - A Japanese term for ‘forest bathing’ or the sense of well-being you experience while in nature.

~~

It all starts with a seed. This tiny element which, without aid, is sentenced to certain death. But give it the right soil. Give it water, sun. And it can grow. Into something big. Powerful. Scary.

~~

She is five years old.

They live in a townhouse, a classy Victorian era building. Undistinguished, one of many merging into the background of a typical London street. The colors are also very standard,  dirty white married to ivory beige, bar for the deep green door - their rebel child.

For the random passerby, it’s nothing special. But for her, the walls of a storey house encapsulate the whole world.

The garden behind the house is neat and clean, visibly well taken care of. She doesn’t remember exact details anymore, but she remembers begging her parents to go camping in the garden with her brother. The ticklish feeling of long and slim blades of grass on her tiny feet. Looking at the stars with pure awe and delight, that only the unspoiled mind of a child is capable of.

The plot of land that the house has been built on borders a beautiful forest. A wooden fence separates the two.

To her, it’s a passage to a magical world.

A world without any particular order, living its own life, unconstricted by rules. Not in the slightest does it resemble the garden on her side of the fence, where things grow according to the rules laid out by the adults.

There is a feeling inside her that she’s too young to name, to throw it in lingual context. It’s not until years later that she realized what it had been. Freedom. To grow however you please. To be what you want to be.

Robust, effuse trees tower over her, making her feel so small. As if she hasn’t already been feeling small enough, living in a world full of giants.

But they mean something else too. They bring a secret and a promise. Promise of a bigger world out there, far from the confines of the place she calls home.

The forest draws her, singing a melody that only her heart can understand. One day, she will be a part of it.

~~

She lives the teenage dream life.

That’s what everyone says.

She doesn’t have any real problems. She’s lucky not having to worry about money. She’s got friends. Her family is great. She just needs to stop whining. Her life is perfect.

Their words, not hers.

None of them know what happens behind closed doors.

The childhood forest is a cloudy memory. Her home is now thousands of miles away, in a city with a giant red bridge, which for some bizarre reason has ‘golden’ in its name.

But the call from nature doesn’t care about distance. It can find you about anywhere. It’s different and yet the same.

Because nature beats in one rhythm and speaks in the same language, everywhere.

The morning is chilly and humid. She’s wearing a wooly coat, carelessly threw on a pair of PJs hiding underneath.

Her steps are brisk, breathing short and heartbeat elevated. Something’s bothering her blanched face.

The voice, again.

When it first appeared, she thought it had her best interest at heart. Used to give her advice and like a good friend, ream her out when she did something bad.

Over time, things took a turn for the worse.

Snarky comments. Casually mentioned wrongdoings. Feedback on what she could have done better, differently.

Noelle hoped the voice would go away on its own.

It hasn’t.

Not only did the voice not go away, but it was actually growing stronger with each passing day. Became more vocal. Judgmental. Openly hostile.

It fed on her fears.

It’s your fault - it told her - that your parents are getting divorced.

You are not good enough.

Even a lie, repeated enough times, will finally become the truth. And so it did for her, to the point where she couldn’t distinguish her own voice from the voice of the tormentor. Sounds faded into one.

Whoever said words can cut like a knife was right. But those who knew thoughts could leave scars that are much deeper, were truly wise.

The young, beautiful girl who never hurt a soul, became a hostage. A prisoner locked in the jail of her own head.

A giant tear rolled down her face. Made of all the words her heart couldn’t say.

She hugged the tree tightly and inhaled the woodsy aroma, the scent filling her lungs fully.

It’s sensuous.

Just like that, she is small again.

~

She’s got all that she ever wanted.

Degree from one of the best medical schools. Graduating with honors and glowing recommendations from even the strictest professors, who kept assuring her that her future in medicine is so bright it’s actually blinding. Then, a dreamy residency in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country.

Pretty impressive, right? Even a fool could see that. But the only fool whose opinion she cared about, couldn’t. All these things were clearly not good enough for Ethan Ramsey to stay.

She wasn’t good enough for him to stay.

Not longer than a year ago he was just a concept, an ideal without a face, body and voice. To her, he was a celebrity, a hero, someone whom mortals don’t have access to.

It was preposterous to consider for even a second Dr Ramsey could actually see something in an intern.

Standing among the moss-covered trees, every fiber of her being was filled with the thought of him.

Did the Amazonian forest remind him of her, just like every forest around reminded her of him?

Just when she won the battle for her career, she lost another. Because life had to be a zero-sum game.

As painful as that would have been, she wished she had something to hold onto. A scene she could replay in her mind. An image of him walking away. Or saying goodbye.

But he left without a word.

That was the pattern. That was history repeating itself.

She took her shoes off and stepped on the soil frosted with morning dew. It’s cold and wet. It’s refreshing. She is grounding. Reconnecting with Earth.

Tunes in with the rivers of grass, towers of trees, fences of bushes.

If the trees could speak, they’d tell stories not many people would believe in.

Tales of heartbreaks. Parables of spirits.

They are all nature’s poems.

Hauntingly beautiful. Riveting. Written without a single word.

Because nature speaks its very own language that only the soul, not the mind, can understand.

Pain is ripping her apart. But it reminds her that she’s alive. And this, in itself, is a miracle.

~~

She doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Some people call her a survivor. But it doesn’t feel like the right word. So many things in her died. So much was lost.

The attack took a lot from her. Danny. Bobby. Sense of security. Identity. Direction.

Right and wrong, good and bad, righteous and vicious. These are all just words. Someone needs to come and teach her the meaning of them anew. Draw lines, mark out frontiers. Save her from herself.

The ground is soaked. Torrential rain turned the soil into soft mud, warm and easily slipping through her fingers. She falls on her knees, praying for the ground to consume her.

Fill every part of her. Silence the internal cacophony. To sink into oblivion.

Not many people knew about the panic attacks and recurring nightmares. They’re always the same.

She’s standing in the middle of a swamp. Danny and Bobby are drowning, their arms reaching out for her. She knows she can only save one of them. She runs out of time trying to figure out how to save both. As a result, they both die. Time stands still and yet everything is spinning, moving, racing. The reality is a riot of overbright colours.

Suddenly, a ring breaks the silence. A polyphonic intruder. She looks at the screen through hooded eyes and notices the caller’s name. It’s him. He’s petrified. Worried to death. Asks her to stay where she is.

Some time later, maybe 10 minutes, maybe an hour - who knows? - he emerges from the gathering of stocky oaks.

The moment he catches the sight of her, he starts running. She notices a lab coat underneath the jacket. He’s soaking wet.

Even though he is so close, he doesn’t slow down. Crashing into her, he scoops her in his arms. Catches her in the tightest of embraces.

Asks her if she’s fine. No. Not that question again. She’s tired of people fussing over her and gets angry.

Had it not been for the attack, would he even be here? The voice asks mockingly. It doesn’t matter to her. He’s there now.

Deep baritone is gentle and full of concern. It’s not like that. It’s not his intention to fuss. He’s simply worried. Because she is the most important thing to him in the whole world. Yes, he wasted so much time. That’s why he refuses to lose even one more second.

A dam breaks within her. Eliciting a quiet sob. She clutches his shirt, holds onto him for dear life. Moments later, she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Singing her poignant birdsong.

How is she supposed to cope? Will things ever go back to normal? What is normal anyway?

In the confines of the infamous patient room she never felt more scared in her life. But here, out in the open, she feels so safe. As if she’s had a silent agreement with nature, which vouched to protect her at all costs.

And this time, nature had an ally. Because Ethan will protect her, even if it’s the last thing he does. Holding onto each other, they stand in the nothingness.

It keeps them grounded. Connected to their roots. Turning over new leaves. Bending before they break. Growing.

They get lost. Mother Nature has a reward for those who do. They have a chance to find themselves. Over and over again.

~~~

If you made it this far - thank you & you're awesome 🥰

Tag list: @genevievemd @gryffindordaughterofathena @terrm9@starrystarrytrouble @the-pale-goddess @jamespotterthefirst @lisha1valecha @writer-ish @maurine07 @drakewalkerfantasy@iemcpbchoices @liaromancewriter @lem-20 @lucy-268 @oldminniemcg @queencarb @qrkowna @mercury84choices @lsvdw-blog @utterlyinevitable @stygianflood @udishaman @romewritingshop @romereadingshop @alina-yol-ramsey @stateofgracious @xxsugarplumfluffsxx @binny1985 @tsrookie @fayeswiftie @archxxronrookie @tinkertailorsoldierspy @schnitzelbutterfingers @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @theinvisibledreamergirl @custaroonie @irisofpurple @chasingrobbie @ethandaddyramseyx @quixoticdreamer16 @coffeeheartaddict @takemyopenheart @aworldoffandoms @potionsprefect @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

[butsomeofusarelookingatthestars]

Forgotten: Part 2

During one of the BAU’s most difficult cases, Luke meets a dedicated journalist who is committed to fighting for the underdog. Reluctant to trust the authorities at first, she finds a friend in the compassionate FBI agent. But as they draw closer, the challenges only grow with fear, hostility and a relentless unsub whose attention turns to her…

Masterlist (x)

AN/ Here’s part two! I hope you enjoy reading it. We’re starting to get to the good stuff, so please let me know what you think. What are you most excited for? What are you most dreading? ;) x 

You let out a sigh as you pulled up at the abandoned road just off the busy highway. Cars sped past blissfully unaware of the horror that lay around them. It felt like a painful reminder of how even the most horrific crimes went forgotten in the city.

It wasn’t the first time you had been here. It wouldn’t be the last either. Sometimes it was a longer wait than usual, but the one depressing certainty you had was that a new body would be discovered every month or so.

You flashed a grim smile at the one of the police officers stood guard. “Hi Joe.” You greeted him cordially, earning you a friendly wave in return. It was strangely nice to be on good terms with your ex-boyfriend. Even if the relationship hadn’t worked out, it didn’t mean you couldn’t be pleasant to one another.

Not to mention it came in handy when you need a favour with investigations…

“Can I take a look?” You asked quietly, a part of you wishing you didn’t have to ask the question. It never grew easier seeing them.

His colleague shot you a disapproving look, clearly unimpressed with anything he deemed to be ‘interference’. It wasn’t unusually for you to receive a frosty reception from some of the other officers. The ones who claimed your reports ‘damaged their reputation’.

Whereas, in your experience and that of countless others, they were more than capable of doing that by themselves.

Joe nodded, giving you a sympathetic glance before gesturing for you to approach. He had seen the fallout all too often after you had returned home from a day of crime scene photos and victims’ families testimonies. Clearly, it still pained him to see you putting yourself through the misery.

It was a sadly familiar sight, similar to all of the photos pinned to the board in your office. She had been dumped carelessly, her clothes tangled and ripped, exposing her body in what seemed to be a final act of cruelty. Dirt and blood were smeared across her skin and dark bruising covered her face. But it was her eyes that troubled you the most.

The emptiness was something that haunted you night after night, just like the others.

You were so caught up in the horror, you almost didn’t hear the clicks echoing behind you. The noise feeling so intrusive as if it were disturbing her resting place. A frown crossed your face as you glanced over at the huge media presence that had gathered to the side.

It felt so out of place. You had been out here countless times (usually thanks to a tip-off from Joe or a friendly colleague) and not once had you witnesses this type of frenzy over a murder.

So, you decided to ask. “What’s with the circus? They’re never usually out here.” You asked disdainful, part of you felt horrified as one of the photographers leant closer to try to get a shot of the exposed body. It felt as if each click took away more of her dignity.

Joe grimaced, leaning closer as if he were worried about being overheard. “We believe the remains belong to Lara Hughes.”  

A chill ran down your spine. Lara was a wife of an influential figure in the city, part of a family that ran in high-up circles. A friend of the mayor’s. A lot of coverage for the past week had been focused on her disappearance. Although the assumption had been that she was more likely to have disappeared for an impromptu holiday than become a murder victim.

You stared at the eager photographers in shock as the realisation sunk in. You had been out here for the past three years, investigating every grim discovery and not one had warranted a presence like this. But were you saw similarities with other victims, you suspected these journalists didn’t.

After all, this was a woman from a highly respected family with good connections and an unblemished background. Of course, it made horrifying sense why the media would suddenly have an interest in the disturbing high crime rate in this part of town.

You felt sick for more reason than one.

“What’s next? How are you going to handle it?” You asked under your breath, keen not to attract the attention of Joe’s less-than-helpful colleague. It wouldn’t be well received if you were seen to be getting special attention, especially in regards to this case.

However, you couldn’t bite back the slight bitterness in your tone. Knowing that this case would be treated so differently to the countless others you had witness was hard to swallow. Didn’t everyone deserve justice? To be treated the same in the eyes of the law?

Joe gave you a meaningful glare, well aware of your feelings towards certain elements of the local police department. “That’s just it, we’re not. The FBI have been called in.”

   “The body of Lara Hughes was discovered in the last few hours. Local PD reported it straight away to us.”

The team continued to listen in respectful silence to the briefing Prentiss was given them. However, the underlying tension in the room couldn’t be ignored. They didn’t have to be profilers to understand the significance of the FBI senior directors being called in before them.

Prentiss paused for a moment, glancing around the room as if debating how to approach the delicate topic. “The brass want their best on this case.”

“That’s why we were blessed with the presence of Barnes this morning?” Tara questioned, grinning as Luke unsuccessfully tried to conceal a snigger at her joke. Understandably, no one in the BAU was her biggest fan.

Rossi hummed quietly, shooting Emily an apologetic smile. Out of all of them, he had the least patience for undeserving authority. “Any particular reason why?”

Emily nodded, pointing at the board. “She’s well connected to influential figures, including local politicians with big ambitions.

“With the ripple effects being felt all the way in DC?” JJ asked curiously.

“It looks like it.” Prentiss replied, turning back to the screen. “But I want to make it clear that this case isn’t any different to any other. We treat it the same. We work it the same.” She said, her voice firm and her gaze determined.

A murmur of agreement echoed around the table. Prentiss flashed them a tight smile before gesturing to Penelope. “Garcia’s already done some digging for us.”

The bubbly blonde gave a small smile as she stood to present her findings, but she seemed more subdued than usual. It was the first hint that this case would be particularly awful.

“Listen up crime fighters, you have a doozie on your hands here.” She told them, grimacing as she launched the gruesome photos up on the screen. “At least five other women have been found along this exact same stretch of highway over the last two years.”

Matt frowned in confusion. “That’s an absurd coincidence isn’t it? Why have they waited so long to ask the FBI for assistance?”  

“In regards to the location of the bodies, it statistically makes sense. An abandoned location where an unsub would have privacy to dump his victims…no witnesses.” Spencer hummed quietly, perching forward in his seat to survey the group. “In fact, just recently the FBI itself launched the Highway Serial Killings Initiative in response to suspicious killings along routes across the US.”  

Luke stared at him in amazement. He didn’t think he could not be impressed by the amount of knowledge Spencer held. He was definitely in the right job. “But what is strange is why local PD haven’t called us in until now?” He glanced up at Prentiss who had unreadable expression on her face.

Garcia sighed heavily before gently placing down a set of files on the table, prompting confused glances from the team. “That’s all I could find on these existing cases so far. It’s difficult to even tell if they match our MO.”

“That’s not much to go on at all.” JJ murmured, thumbing through one of them with a flick of her finger.

Luke stared at the pathetically small pile in shock. Sheets were spilling out of one of the folders, not even attached properly and from his seat he could see some of them were almost blank with dust even collecting on a few. This was where the lives of five people ended up.

“Why is there barely anything about these women?” He asked quietly, holding a file in his hands. He glanced around the room to see his more experienced team members exchanging a gloomy look.

“We’ve seen it before. Sadly, too often. Under resourced forces and overstretched officers. It leaves investigations vulnerable to a lack of attention.” Rossi told him, his unhappy tone making it clear what he thought about the situation.

“This case is bound to draw a lot of attention.” Prentiss said, her tone even but her stormy expression betraying her true thoughts. “That why they want to be seen doing everything they can to solve it.”

“We can expect some hidden resistance then.” JJ commented, her past experience as liaison officer showing through with her instant understanding of the delicate situation.

Luke remained silent, glancing down at the thin file in his hands with a new sense of sadness. Things were different in the Fugitive Task Force. They would never stop chasing their criminals. They lived for the hunt. So, how could it be so seemingly easy for other law enforcement agents to give up?

“But never fear my kick ass justice warriors because I will get my spade out and dig up more about these past cases.” Garcia told them, determination shining in her eyes as she clapped her hands together and picked up her fluffy pink pen. “If there’s any information out there, I’ll find it.”

  You took a deep breath before knocking on the flimsy wooden door. It felt as if the house would fall apart even despite the gentleness of your action. The sounds of crashing echoing down nearby alleys and shouting in the next street was sadly all too familiar.

The door creaked open to reveal a woman inside. She glanced at you wearily before taking a step back and opening the door more widely to survey you properly.

“Hi Belinda, it’s been a while.” You greeted, flashing her a small smile as she gestured for you to enter the house. “I’m glad you called.”

She hummed in response, pattering through the hall in her slippers before taking a seat at the kitchen table. Her fingers twitched as if she wanted to reach for the cigarette packet laying nearby.

“Trying to quit?” You asked kindly, taking a seat opposite her.

She let out a croaky laugh. “Not so much. I just don’t like doing it in the house, not with Daniel around.”

“Daniel?” You asked, a small smile creeping onto your face. “How’s he doing?”

She nodded her head and pointed outside the window. “See for yourself.”

You felt the familiar ache in your heart as you glanced outside to see the young boy playing by himself, sat on the floor running toy cars up and down the wooden planks.

“Wow, he’s so much bigger than the last time I saw him. He’ll be a man in no time, huh?”

Belinda chuckled warmly, shaking her head. “I sure hope not.” She replied, her tone affectionate as she followed your gaze. “Do you want a drink Y/N?”

You raised your hand to stop her from getting up. “Don’t worry, I’ll do them Belinda. Coffee with two sugars right?”

“That’s right. Thanks.” She nodded appreciatively before folding her arms across her chest. A moment of silence passed before she spoke again. “He misses his mum. I worry that-” She paused, closing her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do for him. I can’t replace her. I can’t bring her back…ever.”

A lump rose in your throat as you placed the coffee down in front of her, clutching your own tea for comfort before sitting down opposite her. “You’re doing everything you can Belinda. No one, not even you, can ask for more than that.”

Her lips turned upwards into a small smile as she wrapped a hand around her mug. “You’ve always been so kind to us. Even after all these years. Louisa died-” She choked on the word, promoting you to outstretch a hand towards her. “I thought it would get easier, but it doesn’t.”

You didn’t say anything, knowing that she just needed someone to listen in that moment. Nobody had ever seemed to have the time to listen to her. A moment of silence passed once before she pointed at the paper with a shaking finger. “Is it true?”

You froze as you glanced down at the headline. Brutally slain. Police hunting dangerous killer after Lara Hughes found murdered.

“This woman? Do they think it could be connected to what happened to Louisa? She was found not too far from there.”

The desperation in Belinda’s voice was evident. And, it was difficult not to share it. After all these years, the murder of her daughter still went unanswered and no peace could be found for her family whilst her killer remained free. For all they knew he could be living next door or roaming the local neighbourhood…

You wanted to give her something, but false hope was the worst kind of all.

“That’s for the authorities to investigate.” You told her kindly, gently squeezing her hand as a tear dropped down her cheek. “You have done everything you can Belinda. You can never stop believing that.”

She gave you a grim smile. “I just wish I felt like they had too.”

And, in that moment, you knew you had to do something more. Whatever it took.

  You flew through the doors of the building, barely stopping to greet a very confused Jennifer and Archie as you stormed past them to your boss’s office. You barely had time to catch your breath before he saw you standing outside, flashing you a tight smile as he waved you inside.

“I had a feeling I’d be hearing from you today.”

But this time you didn’t want to exchange pleasantries.

“I want in.”

His brow furrowed in confusion as he perched on his desk, his eyes carefully scrutinising you and asking a very clear question silently.  

“They’re calling the FBI in. I want to meet with them.” You clarified quickly, running a hand through your hair. It had always been your nervous tell. “I don’t know how you’ll swing it with local PD, but-”

Your boss raised a hand, requesting your silence before he pointed at a nearby chair. You twisted your hands anxiously as you took the seat he gestured towards. Perhaps you’d overstepped the line. So, you decide to pre-empt his strike.

“I’m sorry! I just- I have to do something and it feels like they’re the best way to get anything done around here.” You exclaimed, wincing at the evident exasperation in your voice. Sometimes you wished you could better conceal your frustration. But Belinda’s despairing expression from earlier still haunted you… “What if the FBI can help the families I’ve been working with?”

Your boss rubbed his forehead for a moment, considering your words before deciding to speak. “Well you’re in luck Y/N. I had a Penelope Garcia on the phone earlier asking about your stories.”

You shot him a confused look. Was that name meant to mean something?

“She’s from the FBI. They’re sending their behavioural analysis unit in. They want to meet with you.” 

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[villainousshakespeare]

Just one bed fluff with a character of your choosing, if it isn't taken yet?! I'm partial to Loki and Tom, but whoever floats your boat in the moment! Congratulations on 200 followers! You deserve them and more, sweetheart!

Sorry this took so long my dear! Hope it was worth the wait. I decided to do Tom for this. :-)

Kicked Out

Rated T - alcohol use, kissing, implied smut

Lots of fluff!

Tom Hiddleston/Reader

The music pulsed around you too loud for the small space. Mechanically you sipped your watered down margarita, trying to push down the depression that threatened to overcome you. If your friends back home could see you now they would be laughing at how excited you had been. Here you were, sitting alone at a hotel bar. This was not how you had envisioned things at all.

It had not all been bad of course. You loved the play you were acting in. Well, of course you did! It was Shakespeare! Even though you had only a bit role you were understudying Desdemona. And the cast was all first rate. You had already learned so much in just a few weeks! The upgrade in quality from your scrappy theater company where it was a struggle to get male performers who came anywhere near the talent level of the women such as yourself to an internationally renowned ensemble boasting genuine stars more than made up for going from playing the lead to a glorified extra.

If only you didn't find yourself feeling so cursedly shy. You had always had a bit of social anxiety, but until this tour it had never been an issue with castmates before. The theater was the one place you had always felt in your element, confident in yourself and able to mingle with everyone. You wished that were the case now. 

Being assigned to room with Tisha had seemed like a wonderful stroke of luck at first. Like you she was on her first international tour, and was therefore playing several smaller parts in the ensemble. She was bubbly, outgoing, and talented, immediately drawing the attention of everyone around her. Unfortunately for you, that everyone included Michael, the actor playing Othello. He had become visibly smitten with her during the first read through, ignoring everyone else to shamelessly flirt with her whenever the opportunity presented itself. You would have been happy for her if he wasn't married with a child. The situation didn't seem to bother Tisha, who carelessly told you that she saw the whole thing more as a career move than a real relationship. What happened on the road, she breezily said, didn't effect real life, except for possibly leading to bigger roles down the line when he recommended her for future shows.

It was none of your concern, you had told yourself. They were grown adults and for all you knew he had an understanding with his wife. The problem had begun tonight, when they decided to take their relationship to the next, inevitable level. You had assumed that when this occurred, as you had guessed from the start it would, they would avail themselves of his room. After all, as one of the stars of the production he had a large room all to himself. Unfortunately for you, this did not turn out to be the case. As a married celebrity, Tisha had explained to you in hushed tones, Michael's meant had to be careful in situations such as this. He could never be seen having a woman enter his room, much less stay over night! Of course you wouldn't mind vacating your room for a while, would you? She had pleaded with big puppy eyes in a tone that clearly said she did not expect you to say no, and had somehow ushered you out the door, blithely commenting that you should be able to come back in a few hours, just knock before entering to be sure. The door shutting in your face had been cruel and final.

So here you were, sitting by yourself at the hotel bar with a bartender who looked like he would dearly love to cash you out and head home. You could have found one of the other actors to let you crash wish them, but you didn't really know anyone that well yet. The insecurity that flooded you when you thought of knocking on a virtual stranger's door and asking to sleep on their floor was too overwhelming.

"Trouble sleeping?" a voice like melted caramel asked from just over your shoulder.

You choked on your drink, splashing a bit of it onto your lap and the bar in front of you. You would have recognized that voice anywhere. You heard it often enough in your fantasies. But though it had been three weeks since you had begun working with him you still could not believe that you were now hearing it in person as well. Never in your wildest dreams had you believed that you would actually book a show with Tom Hiddleston.

Turning on your stool you saw the man himself standing behind you. He was so attractive it made you want to cry sometimes. You had come into contact with other celebrities over the years, and in almost every case seeing them up close and personal had somehow ruined the fantasy of them. In real life they had each just seemed... ordinary. With Tom, it was the exact opposite. He was handsome on screen or in pictures, in real life he was literally breathtaking. From the top of his burnished gold curls to the soles of his well worn grey boots and everywhere in between he was perfect. 

"You could say that," you laughed uneasily, face turning crimson. You had never spoken to him alone before, and never anything other than vague platitudes at the end of rehearsals or addressed to a group at large. 

"Me too," he said, giving you a half grin. "Would you mind if I joined you?"

What could you do but shake your head and gesture to the seat next to you. Pulling out the bar stool he folded his long, lean frame onto it, stretching his legs out. Your feet dangled like a child's from the stool, but his reached the floor with ease you noticed. Damn, but his legs were long!

"I'm always nervous before opening in a new city," he admitted, signaling for the bartender to come over. He ordered a single malt scotch and another daiquiri for you, requesting that the waiter make it with top shelf tequila.

"Still?" you asked, surprised that he would get nervous given his lengthy resume.

"Of course," he shrugged. "Never trust an actor that tells you he's not nervous. He's either lying or not pushing himself hard enough. The day my nerves go is the day I pack it in. The challenge is everything."

"Well, it's good to know it's not just me," you said quietly with a soft smile. You were nervous of course, even if that wasn't why you were there now.

"This is your first professional show, isn't it?" he asked.

You nodded, surprised that he knew. Was your acting that clunky that your lack of experience showed in just your few scenes?

"I watched your audition tape," he told you, grabbing a handful of bar nuts and arranging them on a napkin. "I wanted to come to the auditions, but Ken thought it might make people nervous. I made sure to watch all the tapes though. You were very good. The passion you put into Lady Anne was remarkable."

You blinked at him, all words deserting you. He had seen that? You were quite proud of your Lady Anne, but he was right. It was hard enough to have Kenneth Branagh watching you audition. If Tom had been in the room, you doubt you would have been able to do it.

"Thank you," you said at last after a long pause while he snacked on peanuts. "I had no idea."

"I like having a say in things like that," he shrugged. "When you're doing a show that's this intense, who you're on stage with is a big deal. Also, both Ken and I are firm believers in giving new talent an oppertunity. After all, him taking a chance on me is how I ended up with my career. What kind of person would I be if I didn't pass on the favor. I was the one who pushed for you to be Desdemona's understudy, by the way."

"Really?" you wished the word didn't come out like a squeak.

"Mhm. In fact, I thought you could have played the part. Producers wanted a name though, and I guess you can't blame them. Have to make their money back. Still, you were quite impressive."

You were saved the trouble of responding by the arrival of your drinks. Tom thanked the bartender and asked to have the drinks, including the one you had had before, charged to his room before leaving a large tip on the bar.

"Thank you again," you said, sipping on your new and much stronger drink.

"No need," he waved it off. "Othello was my big break, you know. I played Cassio in a production with Chewitel Eijifor and Ewan McGregor. It was fantastic, but I always wanted to do Iago. I try not to make dream part lists, I'm a bit superstitious that way, but now that I'm actually doing it I can admit it."

"I would think it would be on any actor's list!" you said, trying to hide the fact that of course you knew about his previous Othello, along with every other part on his lengthy cv. "I would like to tackle it myself some day."

"I would love to see that," he smiled, looking sincere. "You have a great facility with the language. And there is no reason why Iago should have to be male. I must say that I greatly appreciate that we live in a time where the gender barriers for such superb parts are beginning to break down. What other roles do you dream of tackling? I promise I won't tell a soul!"

You weren't sure whether it was the alcohol warming you or the way he smiled and listened to you like you were the only person in the world, but you soon found yourself engaged in a long discussion of Shakespeare that ranged from contentious - you would never agree on who the ultimate Richard III was, with you preferring Ian McKellan and Tom being loyal to his good friend Benedict - to the ridiculous. He had you in stitches when he recounted the story of an actor (he refused to name them) who had so completely missed an entrance on press night for Much Ado that Tom and his scene partner had to improve in verse for three minutes. When the poor man had made it onto stage, he had not had time to put his shoes back on. The review in Time Out the next day had gone on for two paragraphs about the social commentary of having a barefooted Don Pedro. By that point you were on your third drink and laughing like old friends, hunched over and shaking with mirth.

"Oh! Yes!" Tom said suddenly, pulling himself up to standing and holding out his hand to you. "Come on!"

"What?" you asked, totally confused.

"This song!" he replied, enthusiasm shining from his face. 

"It's a good song," you agreed, listening to Michael Jackson's Beat It blaring out from the speakers.

"Well then?"

"What?"

"Dance with me!"

"Tom..."

"I refuse to take no for an answer," he insisted, dragging you to your feet and onto the dance floor.

Tom's energy was infectious, there was no avoiding it. Abandoning the last shreds of your dignity you surrendered to the music and the exuberance of the man spinning you around the floor. He was good of course, you had seen it on videos often enough, but he made you actually feel like you could dance as well. Michael Jackson turned into Prince and then Tina Turner as the two of you made idiots of yourselves in the empty bar.

"Last call," the beleaguered bar tender called, ruining the vibe. 

Looking around you realized that he had put up all of the chairs and wiped down the bar. As tempting as it was to order another drink and prolong the fun, you knew that it was not fair to the poor server. Still, you didn't know what to do with yourself now. Would Tisha and Michael be finished with whatever they were doing? Had it been long enough to go up?

As Tom helped put up the remaining bar stools and finished off his scotch you collected your purse. You stared at your phone, trying to decide whether or not to text Trisha.

"Okay, out with it," Tom said, looking at you with an unwavering stare.

"With what?" you evaded.

"The truth. Why were you down in the bar by yourself? And don't say nerves. I've talked to you enough now to know that you are not the sort to drown your anxiety in alcohol."

"You did," you said, not believing your audacity.

"I came down for tea," he said.

"Tea?" you parroted.

"There was no earl grey in my room. I like to have a cup in the morning while I get ready."

"But you had a scotch! Two of them!"

"Well, I would hardly be a gentleman if I let a lovely lady drink alone," he shrugged. "So. Spill it. What brought you down here all by yourself?"

"Um... it was just... a little crowded in my room," you tried to sound as noncommittal as possible.

"Ah, I see," his quick brain filled in the pieces. "You're rooming with Tisha, aren't you?"

"Yes," you answered slowly.

"So Michael has made his move has he?"

"You know?" you asked, somewhere between mortified and relieved.

"Well, they haven't exactly been subtle," he said with a wry laugh. "Also, he has a bit of a reputation. I had hoped it was just rumor, God knows there are enough of those about me, but it appears in this case there was some truth behind it. Don't tell me they kicked you out?"

"They told me I could come back later," you said quickly, trying for some reason to make them look not quite as selfish and failing miserably.

"Why couldn't they just have gone to his room? No, never mind. Foolish question. You poor thing. I am so sorry you have to deal with this. Would you like me to check with the front desk and get you another room?"

"Oh, no, that's really not necessary!" you said. You could only imagine the talk if that were to happen, trying to explain to the tour manager why there was an additional expense on the invoice. True, it was Tisha and Michael who should be made uncomfortable by it, but you just knew you would be the one to squirm from the scrutiny.

"Well, there is only one thing for it," he said, placing his large hand on the small of your back and ushering you out of the bar. "You shall stay with me."

"What?" for the second time your voice, pride of your acting arsenal, was rendered little more than a dog whistle.

"It's no problem," he shrugged, walking towards the elevator and taking you with him. "I have a large single room all to myself. I'm sure it will be much more comfortable than breaking up whatever your roommate and Michael have going on."

You looked away and bit your lip, trying to decide what to do. It was such a tempting offer. Not that you would ever get any sleep in the same room with this man, but at least you wouldn't have to face the love birds.

"Darling," Tom said, gently turning your face to look you in the eye, "you have no reason to worry. I am not Michael. I would never take advantage of a costar. I just want you to have a comfortable place to get a good night's rest before your performance."

"I never thought... Of course you wouldn't take advantage!" you said with a laugh. As if someone like Tom would try to take advantage of you, you thought. It would be hilarious if he wasn't standing there looking like an overly attentive angel.

"Good, then it's settled," Tom's smile beamed at you. "Come on."

And just like that you found yourself in the unbelievable position of movie star Tom Hiddleston showing you into a large corner hotel room on the top floor. The comparison to your small shared double was insane. You were fairly sure your whole room would fit into his en suite.

"Oh," you gasped, not intending it to be audible.

"What's wrong?" he asked, turning to you all solicitous.

"Nothing," you said miserably, trying not to stare at the giant king size bed. You didn't know why you had expected there to be two beds. He had told you it was a single room. As it was there was not even a couch for you to sleep on. Two large over stuffed chairs took up space on the other side of the room, and hard backed ones surrounded the table near floor to ceiling the windows.

"Ah," he said, perceptively following your thoughts. "Yes. One bed. If you like I can sleep in the chair."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" you blurted out.

"I assure you, I have suffered much worse," he smiled. "If you feel uncomfortable sharing, I will gladly curl up in the armchair."

"No, that's just silly," you said, swallowing around the lump in your throat. "After all, the bed is so big you could fit five people in it. As long as you don't mind, that is."

"Not a bit," he said rubbing the back of his neck. "Now, let me find you something to sleep in."

To no surprise you soon found yourself in a pair of long running shorts and a Legend t-shirt. You surreptitiously pinched yourself to make sure this was real. To be dressed in one of the patented Hiddleston outfits was surreal to say the least. 

You walked out of the bathroom to find Tom sitting on the edge of the bed in his own pair of jogging shorts, glorious broad chest bare. Trying desperately not to stare, you shyly walked around to the other side of the bed.

"Left side alright for you?" he asked, always the gentleman.

You nodded and quickly got yourself under the covers, pulling the blankets up to your chin. Tom turned off the light and got himself situated, leaving the bedding down at his waist. In the dim light you could just make out the whirl of hair on his chest as he curled onto his side facing you. Your fingers itched to reach out and feel it, but you managed to keep them to yourself. You could feel the heat radiating from him, like a live fire warming your body. He reached out gently and touched your face with the backs of his fingers, still staying to his side of the wide mattress.

"It was lovely getting to know you, darling," he said quietly. "Rest well."

You smothered the whimper threatening to erupt and rolled onto your side, facing the window as far away from him as you could get without hanging off the edge. Attempting to ignore the pooling desire in your center you settled in for what was sure to be a long, sleepless night.

When the alarm went off you almost jumped out of your skin. Blearily you tried to sit up, but a strong arm around you kept you anchored to the bed. A murmured curse sounded behind you and the beeping stopped. A face buried itself in your hair as you were pulled closer to the wall of chest at your back.

Oh sweet lord! you thought, as awareness of your location flooded into your brain. Gingerly you opened one eye just enough to confirm that you were half way across the bed in the center of the mattress. You must have rolled over in your sleep, you realized. Which of course meant that Tom had also drifted to the middle of the bed to meet you in what could only be described as he the most comfortable and simultaneously uncomfortable embrace of your life.

He felt divine. He body was all pliant skin over hard muscle, Warm and soft and deliciously scented. His obscenely large hand splayed across your waist, just below your breasts, to rest against the stripe of bare flesh where your borrowed t-shirt had ridden up in your sleep. His legs, those impossibly long limbs you had admired in the bar last night, were pressed against you, one rising up to hook over your own. It was heaven. If only it was intentional. Silently as you lay in his embrace your mind cringed awaiting the moment he woke the rest of the way and realized that the woman in his arms was only you, a pathetic cast mate he had taken pity on when she was cast out of her own room.

When you could bear it no longer, you tried to gently pull away from him. Once again his arm tightened around you, holding you close to him. You closed your eyes and tried to think of a way to delicately extricate yourself. That was when you heard your name, mumbled in his honey warm voice made rough by sleep into your hair.

"Stay," he said, snuggling further into you. "Please."

Well, when he asked so nicely! Really, you decided, when would you ever have such a chance again. Surrendering to the bliss, you allowed yourself to sink back against him. You would soak up these moments, you decided. Save them for when you were feeling lonely, or needed a happy memory to see you through a hard time. After all, what could be better than being held in Tom Hiddleston's strong arms?

It was too short a time before the alarm went off again. Tom swore, lifting his arm from around your body to turn it off. You felt him, more fully awake this time, realize the situation you found yourselves in. His body stiffened and his leg quickly slid off of yours.

"I am so sorry," he said, pulling his head from where it had lain in the top of your hair. "Please, darling, forgive me. I didn't mean to take advantage."

"No need to apologize," you assured him, trying to sound as though this sort of thing happened to you every day. "After all, we were both asleep."

"It's just been so long since I've had a beautiful woman in my bed," he sighed, arm rising to cover his eyes. "My body just reacted instinctually."

"Beautiful?" you heard yourself say, a note of disbelief in your voice.

"Can you doubt it?" he asked, sounding surprised himself. 

"Generally speaking," you laughed, thinking that this man calling anyone beautiful was like the sun calling a lightning bug bright.

"My darling, you are stunning," he said, rising up on his elbow to look at you. "You are also intelligent, funny, and delightful. I thought I had a crush on you before I got to know you last night, but now..."

"You have - a crush?" 

"Damn," he said quietly. "Forgive me. I should not have said that."

Slowly, not daring to believe what you had just heard, you rolled over so that you were facing him. Hair mussed and eyes slightly unfocused Tom looked even more devastating than usual. A light growth of stubble shadowed his jaw, and in the dawn light his freckles stood out against his pale skin.

"Did you mean it?" you asked, stunned.

"There are few things as attractive... as sexy as talent," he said quietly, not meeting your eye. "When I saw you act, well, I could scarce keep my eyes off of you."

"You do realize that you are the most talented person I have ever seen," you told him, shock bringing out your candid side.

"You are very kind," he blushed.

"I am very honest," you answered. "You really think of me like that?"

"I think of you all the time," he replied, looking at you at last. "Often like that. I have spent the last three weeks trying to work up the courage to speak with you. When I saw you sitting alone in the bar last night, I thought someone must have heard my prayers."

"I am in a dream," you said. "I am in a dream and any moment now I will wake up and be back in the small black box theater performing for ten people."

"If you are in a dream than I am too," he smiled. "Darling, I understand if you want to leave. Things with me are never simple. It is an unfortunate side effect of the career I have chosen. But if you are willing to try, I would love to court you."

"Court me?" you grinned at his archaic turn of phrase. "Like with flowers and poems and such?"

"If you would like," he said, surprising you once more. "I have written a poem or two in my day, though I am more adept at songs. They are more forgiving. For now, we could perhaps start with breakfast?"

"Breakfast sound wonderful," you said, realizing suddenly that you were in fact hungry.

"I will order room service then," he nodded. "But first, sweetheart, would it be too forward of me... may I kiss you?"

Unable to speak you nodded your head once. Tom smiled, and reached down to grasp your chin gently between his thumb and finger. With an aching tenderness he brought his lips to yours. The kiss was soft and sweet and full of promise. You felt it all the way down to your toes in ways that far more invasive kisses had never moved you. Your back arched and you molded yourself to him, his free arm encircling you to hold you close. Emboldened by the embrace, you let your own hands find their way around him and to his back where they slid down the naked skin in a caress. With a quiet moan he pulled away, and you briefly felt his arousal brush against your let as he let you go.

"The things you do to me," he sighed, fingers lightly tracing your face. 

"I know what you mean," you breathed, feeling light headed from the kiss.

"I started this leg of the tour irritated at Michael," he confided. "Now I am tempted to send him a thank you gift. What do you thing? Champagne? Chocolates?"

"If we give them all that, won't it just encourage them the next night?" you giggled.

"Ah, now you see my clever plan," he teased. "How else can I hope to get you back in my bed?"

"Tom," you spoke seriously, "clever plans are not needed. All you need do is ask."

"Hmm," he grinned, pulling you close once again. "I am suddenly more happy than I can say that they forgot my tea."

"So am I," you smiled, nestling in against him. "You have no idea."

"Well then," he said. "You will just have to show me. Fortunately, we have months to go, and I for one have never been so happy to start a tour."

As you burrowed back together under the covers you could not help but agree.

@yespolkadotkitty @hopelessromanticspoonie @nonsensicalobsessions @hiddlesholic

[deerlyloved]

drops of jupiter

under cut: a long story about my oc mei finding a piece of her past...and breaking down

Sweat dripped from Mei's forehead, and she raised the back of her hand to wipe it off, eyes flicking from end to end of the metal corridor as she walked. Rea was behind her, a fact that made her ever-growing nerves slow just a bit. And then, he spoke.

 "What was that?"

 Mei gulped, shaking her head, "I don't know. I just… I just don't know, Captain."

 The use of his title from the blue-haired woman made Rea almost grimace, and he felt the need to mention it-- She only used. titles when she was too nervous to think of a funny comeback, some small rebellious comment.

 "We just… Let's keep moving, okay? Let's find the other two, safety in numbers. One thing at a time, you know me." Mei gave a nervous laugh, and the anxiety she felt seemed to strike Rea as well, the patch of scales above his eyes glowing faintly before they dimmed like they did when he felt 'connected' with someone's feelings.

 After a few more steps, Mei slowed down, putting a hand up and then tapping her ear to tell Rea to listen. There was some noise from deeper in the collection of junk, echoing off so many walls and metal barriers that it was distorted and broken, but still audible. Rea looked confused, just as Mei did, and she motioned to keep walking, though more slowly.

 The longer they walked, the louder the noise grew, until a noticeable tune could be understood. Something seemed to dawn on Mei once this new rhythm could be understood, and her face fell once they reached a door. It connected to another ship that was connected to it through chains, the two ramps from the doors resting on each other to form a bridge.

 Across the bridge that dropped into the void, barely encircled by fiberglass, there was a door spray painted with pink stripes, graffitied with 'No Entry!' and a crude drawing of a gun and bullets. Mei stared at it for longer than she wanted to admit, until Rea put a large, rough hand on her shoulder. She didn't hear what he asked of her, but she answered anyway, "Let's go." She murmured, moving across the bridge. She opened the door easily, it had been busted through ages ago, and moved inside.

 The corridor led to a wider space, what was supposed to be a control area had been obviously used as a living room at some point, though any valuables in it had long been stripped from it. Wires hung from walls where valuable material had been ripped out, holes in the window in the perfect shape of projectiles from a typical war ship that went straight into the floor and wall behind it, the whole place was a mess.

 And yet, Mei looked upon the whole area with bitter knowing, and Rea wondered briefly if she knew this ship. The woman took a slow, almost cautious step in, like she was expecting it to snatch her up and swallow her whole, but nothing happened. Debris floated carelessly around them, the artificial gravity barely holding down the few pieces of furniture that remained, sparks from the wires with what must have been the bare minimum amount of power left, trying their hardest to continue their work.

 The tune that bellowed out from ships away rung clear and true inside this one, though through busted intercoms, slightly staticky and echoing off empty walls and stagnant air. Rea shut the door behind them, the air that had left the room returning through a barely functioning aerator. It made a rattling noise when it activated.

 The intercom blared out an old song, and Rea remembered so distinctly hearing Mei sing it in her free time. Drops of Jupiter.

 Whoever owned this ship before it was made junk, they were clearly skilled to have equipment still functioning, or at least trying to. The place looked like it had been dead for years, if not longer.

 "Do you think it's in here too?"

 "No." Mei answered, more matter-of-factly than she had been with anything before, "Internal defenses work better the longer the ships offline. The run off technology from Icka's species."

 "Mei…?"

 "They kill anything that doesn't belong. Hostile life, basically. Anything that doesn't come in with me or my seal is eliminated."

 Rea didn't reply, and Mei didn't say anything further. She simply walked in further to the ship, glancing towards the cracked and broken window, sealed with last minute expanding foam. She remembered when it was cracked. The fear she felt for a split second when the projectile went whizzing over her head. The instant beeping from Karen over the intercom, the warning of the broken window.

 The song began to replay the song, repeating for one of the hundreds of thousands of times.

 Now that she's back in the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey

 "Let's go."

 "Mei, what is--"

 "Not now. Not now, Rea. Anywhere else, any time else, but not…"

 She started walking before she finished, walking down the corridor that split off from the main room. "This leads to the escape pods and the emergency exit. Hopefully they're connected to more junk."

 She acts like summer and walks like rain, reminds me that there's a-time to change, hey, hey

 Rea followed, though hesitantly, face grim as he watched the usual perky, upbeat woman brought so solemn by a rundown junk ship. She had her gun drawn, lowered towards the ground as she walked carelessly. She obviously was confident in those defenses she was talking about, and Rea once more found it contagious.

 Mei stuttered to a stop after a few seconds of walking in silence, turning her head to the right with a frown. She moved to open the door, pressing her hand into the metal before she pushed it open, the sliding door screeching but eventually giving in. It opened up to a room that was just as bright as the door outside. Decorated in pink, torn and faded posters barely clinging to the walls with tape, obviously scavenged through knick-knacks and missing weapons from weapon racks, and in the corner, a bed.

 Since the return of her stay on the moon, she listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey. Hey, hey.

 It had a blue bed set, decorated with stars and planets like a child's, messy as could be. A poster of an Earth singer hung above the bed, smiling out into an empty room. Mei stood in the doorway for a few silent moments before she moved further in, slinging her gun back over her shoulder as she looked around the room.

 It had, funnily enough, barely been touched. Just as messy as she left it, with a few things missing.

 "This room was the only place I could feel safe." She managed to say, though breathlessly. "Only place that made me feel like I was home. Back with my dad. Safe again. I don't know why I ever left him."

 But tell me , did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded? And that heaven is overrated?

 "I thought it was my destiny, I guess. It just ended up being why…" She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence as she spotted a floating picture frame, barely hovering over a nightstand next to her old bed.

 Her feet moved before she could even realize it, and soon she was reaching for the frame, hand outstretched shaky as she grabbed it and pulled it back to her. Mei flipped it in her hands, face contorted into a look of sorrow.

 It was a picture of her and her dad. She was a little younger than she was currently, lacking the trademark scar across her eye, hair just as bright blue as ever but this time short and covered by a yellow beanie. She had her arms around an older Japanese man, wearing the exact contrast to her outfit, a button up shirt with a vest and tie, while Mei was in a bright pink tank top and jean shorts in the picture. The man looked kind, a loving smile to match Mei's excited one, arms wrapped around her just as tight.

 Tell me, did you fall from a shooting star? One without a permanent scar? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

 Mei clutched the picture close to her chest, staring into the darkness outside of the small, untouched window above the nightstand. She didn't hear Rea approach her, barely noticed when he put a large, clawed hand on her shoulder.

 The song echoed through the halls. Mei turned it on before she left. As she rushed through the halls, she had slid into the computer room, uploading Karen's consciousness onto a flash drive as she leaned over to the intercom system. She figured if there was a chance she wouldn't make it, she'd go out listening to a good goddamn song.

 Now that she's back from that soul vacation, tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey. She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo, reminds me that there's a-room to grow, hey, hey, yeah

 Mei remembered running through the halls, her robotic friend tucked safely into a flash drive where the ship falling apart around them couldn't hurt her. She remembered barely managing to get into an escape pod, crashing to an unknown planet with the first injury she'd received in a long while.

 Most of all, Mei remembered being captured. Hauled in to the ship she couldn't outrun on land with her new injuries, face dripping blue blood as she was thrown behind bars for a reason she still couldn't understand. She remembered a human walking in, and the confusion that struck her before she spoke.

 "Ms. Amari. We regret to inform you that your father, Richard Amari, was murdered two nights ago. You are a suspect in the case opened on this atrocity, as your sealed records have revealed...” They sighed at her, like they were bored, “You have the right to remain silent, as anything you say will be used as evidence in the case. You have the right to defend yourself in this case, if you wish. Do you understand what I have told you, and do you agree to a discussion of your involvement in this situation?"

 Such a mouthful. So many words for 'we're framing you for murder, dumbass, also we killed your dad', now wasn't it?

 Now that she's back in the atmosphere, I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane, told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land.

 "Mei."

 The voice was different, and it snapped her back to reality, though just barely. Just barely. It was rough, deep, has a hint of a hiss to it.

 "Mei, are you okay?"

 "I'm fine." Mei replied, shrugging off the hand on her shoulder, the picture still clutched close to her chest.

 "Mei, what happened here?"

 But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet? Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day? And head back to the Milky Way?

 Mei winced, her frown deepening, a permanent grimace on her face now as she stared at Rea. Where would she even start?

 "I…I was framed. You know that. The story of Mei, a supposed martyr. An Earth official from the US was xenophobic, he wanted to start a war again to ruin Earth's relationship with the Citadel. So, he killed a handful of important humans, one of which…"

 "Was your dad."

 "Yeah. They tried to frame me for it, and tried to frame others for the other murders, and… It worked. But you know me, right?" Mei gave a saddened chuckle, "I don't go down without a fight… So I escaped. I stayed on the run, found evidence, and when that bastard was giving a speech--"

 "I know. You killed him."

 And tell me, did Venus blow your mind? Was it everything you wanted to find? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

 "Killed him? I pinned him down on stage. I played all the recordings I had, showed all the proof that he had plotted it all and set it all up. Karen had a slideshow going past on every channel. I made everyone watch those poor people being murdered. I ruined him. He couldn't even defend himself, hard to think with a gun in your mouth."

 "Those below, Mei, that's--"

 "Less than what he had coming for him. That was him getting off easy. So was getting the quick way out when I pulled the fucking trigger."

 Rea seemed almost uncomfortable, but he didn't show it, just watching, listening, waiting.

 Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken? Your best friend always sticking up for you, even when I know you're wrong. Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance? Five-hour phone conversation, the best soy latte that you ever had, and me.

 "They destroyed my ship. Tried to shoot me down, didn't work, so they captured me. I ran through here thinking I was going to die. Downloaded Karen. Kept running. I was planning on…On going back to Earth when I was shot at. To see him."

 Rea had nothing to say in return. It was evident on his face that he was at a loss for words for once, and he stared at her with some mix of shock and sympathy on his face. To Mei, however, it just looked like pity, and she glared at him.

 "Don't look at me like that. Don't. I got revenge. I fixed it. It's why I'm here, they couldn't convict me of murder without making me a martyr. Couldn't kill me without riots. So don't look at me like that."

 But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet? Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day? And head back toward the Milky Way?

 "What way?"

 "That way! Like you're sad for me! Don't be sad for me, don't think this is sad!"

 "It is sad!"

 "It's a goddamn travesty! You shouldn't be sad here, you shouldn't think the worst moments of my life are sad, because you have no idea what it was actually like, Rea!"

 And tell me, did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded? And that heaven is overrated?

 "I can still feel bad for you, Mei!"

 "No you can't. You can't because feeling bad that my father was murdered, that my life was ruined, that the only people that could protect me mocked me in a jail cell after I brought that fucker to justice because I was a vigilante, because I should have trusted the system."

 The air between them grew tense, and Rea bristled as she clenched her fists around the picture frame in her hands.

 "You can't feel bad for me because you're a CCF officer, Rea, you serve the Earth government."

 "So do you--"

 "Because they made me. My choices were rot in jail or join the CCF. One more attempt to control me and keep their public image while they were at it."

 And tell me, did you fall from a shooting star? One without a permanent scar? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself…

 They stared at each other, Mei with a contempt she'd hidden since she'd joined the CCF, Rea with a look of surprise and his trademark disapproval. The room was silent, save for the blaring music from the intercom, but Rea broke the silence between them with a sigh, a groan, and a shake of his head.

 "We will…discuss this later. We need to find the other members of our team. We have a mission, let's finish it."

 Mei didn't reply. She just kept the picture frame cradled against her chest, face heavy as she turned to walk out of the room and through the broken sliding door. The tune played as she trekked through the corridor, Rea just behind her like before, but this time the silence wasn't one of strategy and trust, but rather quiet seething and a fear of losing someone else.

 And are you lonely looking for yourself out there?

[anartic-monkeys]

[fanfic] opiate this hazy head of mine (chapter 1 of 2)

Summary: The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

TRIGGER WARNING: Character is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). If you are triggered by mentions of suicidal thoughts, depressive episodes, panic attacks, or even medication, please skip this story or proceed with caution.

Title is directly lifted from the lyrics of Medicine - The 1975

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23413189

FFN Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13537767/1/opiate-this-hazy-head-of-mine

CHAPTER 1

la douleur exquise: the heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable 

 August 4, 2002

He knows for certain that she’ll be leaving soon.

The timepiece on his wrist tells him it’s well past one in the morning, but he keeps his eyes open and trained on the woman lying next to him. Hermione Granger’s face is peaceful in sleep, the lines that usually mar the space between her eyebrows hidden from sight. He wants to touch her, her cheeks and the exposed skin of her shoulders, but he’s terrified of waking her up.

He knows that once those eyes open, she’ll realize what a colossal mistake it had been to sleep with him, then she’ll be gone from his life.

Forever.

So he stays still, tries to keep his breathing as even as possible so as not to rouse her. Just minutes ago he had been drowning in a sea of her—her eyes, her warm heat wrapped around him, her hands everywhere, her lips leaving marks that are not his to keep. Now he’s lost, the constellation of freckles dancing across the skin of her nose and cheeks drawing him in deeper into what would be very dangerous territory.

He has never been this close, despite the many cruel efforts on his parts to be physically near her.

The taunting.

The dirty looks.

The insults thrown at her face, right at her face, allowing him just a moment to be that close to her face.

Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but for now he allows himself to live in the reverie that she is his.

 He wakes and feels his chest constrict in panic, his breath catching in his lungs and his limbs freezing up. In the back of his mind, he imagines that this is how it would feel for her to wake up the morning of their N.E.W.T.s, realizing that she had fallen asleep in lieu of studying. The space beside him is empty, only the ruffled sheets and some stray strands of hair on the pillow serving as evidence that Hermione had spent the night with him. He had meant to watch her to the very last minute, savour the very last moment before she’d leave, and he had fallen asleep instead and wasted precious time. He doesn’t even try to get up, choosing instead to close his eyes and will the sharp pain in his chest to fade into a dull throbbing. He doesn’t know how much time passes but he finally moves his head to face the other way, discovering a kink in his neck.

“Draco, are you awake?”

His eyes snap open at the voice and he imagines that his body visibly stiffens.

“Do you mind if I use your kitchen to make breakfast?”

He rises slowly, leaning on his elbows, and finds her sitting on the wide windowsill. He swallows at the sight of her wearing his shirt, a book propped open on her exposed legs. For a moment, he entertains the idea of sleep-induced hallucinations, wracking his brain for an explanation for the anomaly that is Hermione Granger.

He opens his mouth to ask her a dozen questions, each one an attempt to explain why in Salazar’s balls she's still here in the poor death eater’s lair, but his mind blessedly decides to kick in before his mouth can do any damage.

She had said his name. His given name.

“I’ll make breakfast,” he says instead, swinging both legs off the bed and turning away from her for a moment to search for his pants. Only half-naked, he takes note of the time and beckons for her to follow him into the kitchen.

She doesn’t move from her spot (he has no idea how many hours she’s been sitting there but he knows for certain that it couldn’t have been long enough for it to justify him referring to it as her spot) and the minutes tick by with the two of them merely staring at each other. She would never hear it from him, but he would much rather stare at her than cook breakfast. A few heartbeats pass and then she’s pushing off the ledge, raising her eyebrows at him and he answers the unvoiced question with a roll of his eyes. “I can cook.”

“Here, I’ll give you your shirt back," she replies, ignoring his declaration.

He shakes his head, not even trying to hide the appreciate way his eyes roam over her body. He doesn’t know why she decided to put his shirt on, it doesn’t seem like something she would do, but he wants to keep her in his clothes for as long as possible.

Maybe then her scent would be permanently engraved into the fabric.

 She says she wants pancakes and Draco pretends he’s not thankful that she chose something he actually knows to make. He doesn’t burn anything, even when he feels her eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he barely stops himself from going overboard with the blueberries.

Little triumphs.

He’s plating up a high stack for her, ignoring the curious stare she’s been maintaining ever since he poured her a cup of tea. He wants to run away from the scrutiny and jumps on the opportunity once he hears a light tapping sound coming from the window. His owl delivers him letters that he leaves in a drawer for later and a copy of the paper that he brings back to Hermione, wordlessly handing it over to her just to get her to stop studying him.

“Do you have powdered milk?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just,” she pauses, glancing up from behind the face of an elderly wizard being tried for tax evasion. “I usually put some powdered milk on my pancakes, but these are fine. You’re surprisingly good at this.” She makes a show of taking a rather large bite that has him hiding a smile behind his tea.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger,” he says, not without irony. She catches on his meaning and then they’re sharing a smile, an inside joke that only the two of them know, and Draco wonders at what exact moment did the universe tilt the wrong way and allowed him to have this with her.

To have her.

“This is odd,” she finally says, looking at him in a way that tells him its not his culinary skills she finds bizarre. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she means them, that she means it’s odd that she had slept with him and him with her and that he had made her pancakes with far too many blueberries and she had just shared a smile with him that made the darkest parts of his mind recede for a moment—

“Don’t overthink it, I can hear the cogs in your brain turning all the way here,” he responds, hoping against all odds that he sounds as nonchalant as he wants to be about it. He knows for a fact that if he wants to keep her from finding out the mess that is his thoughts around her, he best start putting up the occlumency walls he had so carelessly torn down last night.

He tells himself he will, in a minute, when she finishes her pancakes and she’s had enough tea. He’ll put up the walls when she stops looking as if she doesn’t hate him, doesn’t hate that she had fallen into bed with him, doesn’t hate that he’s standing shirtless in front of her because she’s wearing his shirt.

He tells himself he couldn’t have expected her to stay any longer. She has work, she tells him, and he doesn’t tell her that of course you’re working on a Sunday. He watches her tiptoe her way back to his room and he watches her emerge once again dressed in her own clothes, her healer robes tucked in the crook of her arm. He tells himself he isn’t disappointed when she only kisses his cheeks, tells himself he doesn’t feel his fingers warm when she tells him that she had a good time, that she’ll see him around soon.

He tells himself it’s not the hope that she would come over again that has him purchasing the tin of powdered milk from the muggle pharmacy. It sits in one of the cupboards, right next to the tea that she had picked out.

  February 11, 2000

Draco grits his teeth, mentally listing off a number of hexes that he could fire at the beady-eyed wizard sitting in front of him.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, struggling to keep the drawl in place. To the untrained ear, they would hear an almost bored quality to the question. To anyone who pays attention, they would hear the unnatural lilt that his voices takes on right at the beginning.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, we need to perform legilimency on all ex-Death Eaters wishing to apply for a job at the ministry,” he eyes Draco, one hand coming to scratch at his whitened beard. “Of course, everyone knows you’re a skilled Occlumens, which is why we’ve prepared a special potion that will ensure you do not… keep things from our knowledge.”

Draco feels a muscle twitch somewhere on his jaw. “And why exactly would such a thing be necessary in the first place, if I may ask?”

The veil covering the cruel sneer falls away and the man in front of him openly shows him just what he thinks of Draco. “Mr. Malfoy, you can’t honestly expect the ministry to let you work here without the reassurance that you do not have any ill plans tucked away that mind of yours. Think of it as a way of earning your future employer’s trust. That is, if we do end up hiring you.”

Draco has no response, choosing instead to steeple his fingers against each other and stare back at the other wizard. When the silence stretches on, with no attempts from Draco to end it, the other man speaks up in a tone brokering no argument, “This is an absolute requirement. If you do not wish to go through with it then I will be bidding you farewell.”

“When?” he asks, feeling the last dredges of his pride slipping away from his grasp.

 A healer performs the spell. When it’s over and he feels like his mind has been repeatedly stabbed by a blunt knife, he turns away from the judging eyes staring right at him. There’s a flurry of papers and the sound of a book rapidly being flipped through. The healer furiously scribbles on his chart while Draco awaits the verdict.

“Mr. Malfoy, you’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Here’s a prescription for anti-depressant pills that you are to take if I’m to clear you for work at the ministry.”

He turns back to the healer with a deliberate slowness, as if reducing the speed of his movements could aid his brain in keeping his mouth from falling wide open. “I beg your pardon?” he finds himself asking for a second time that day.

“Mr. Malfoy, you have suicidal tendencies—”

“Harry Potter has suicidal tendencies, did you also diagnose him with depression?”

“We value patient confidentiality, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you. You won’t be hearing about Mr. Potter’s medical business as he won’t be hearing about yours,” the healer states this with a pointed look, no doubt alluding to the fear she saw in Draco’s head about his thoughts becoming of public access. Draco takes little relief in this.

“I also know for a fact that when you say suicidal tendencies, you’re referring to the things he did during the war,” the healer continues. “Unfortunately, that was a case of reckless heroism, not a sign of depression.”

Draco raises his eyebrow at this, finding that the comment made him like his healer infinitesimally better than before. “I’m not depressed.”

“Would you like me to read to you all the signs I just picked apart from your mind? Aside from constantly thinking about your own death, you have severe insomnia, you have very little interest in doing things you like, you have virtually no appetite to speak of, you’re conflicted between the belief that your mother would be better off without you and the guilt of leaving her now that your father is gone—”

“Enough.”

The healer pauses, adjusting the spectacles that had started to slip down her nose. “As you know, depression is not something you need to be ashamed of. You’d be surprised how many of the British wizarding folk have been diagnosed with various mental health issues following the war.” 

For the second time that day, he chooses to answer with cold silence. The healer meets his gaze and wordlessly hands over a small sheet of paper. Draco takes it and his eyes drop to read the messy scrawl. His eyebrows draw together at the unfamiliar words staring back at him. “This is muggle medicine.”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

The question catches him off-guard and he looks up, realizing his mistake a second too late. The potion hasn’t fully worn off and he is unable to build up his occlumency walls in time to counter the healer’s legilimency.

Scared.

Don’t know how to buy these.

Don’t know where to go to get these.

Not depressed.

Can’t be depressed.

“Stop,” he finally grits out, turning away from the healer and finally breaking the spell. He wants to scream, wants to get up and run away from the room, job at the ministry be damned. He almost does the latter when he hears her ripping out a small piece of parchment.

“This is the address of a pharmacy I frequent. You may think of it as a muggle apothecary of sorts. Just hand your prescription over and make sure you have muggle money on you.”

Draco takes it, hating the trembling of his fingers as he fights the urge to crush both pieces of paper in his fists.

“Come back with the filled prescription and I’ll give you your medical clearance. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy.”

 He likes to think he makes a graceful exit, but he knows that he all but stumbles out the room and into the lit hallway. The walls, white and suddenly so oppressive, seem to close in on him as he feels his breathing grow laboured. A panic attack, his mother had described it on the one occasion he had been weak enough to show her that he wasn’t as put-together as he would like everyone to believe. She had scoffed at him, her aristocratic face wet with tears, and had pulled his head to rest on her shoulder.

Now he thinks the healer would have listed off sporadic episodes of panic attacks if he hadn’t interrupted her.

His legs miraculously carry him towards the floo networks and he struggles to fight off the last vestiges of the potion remaining in his system, already working on constructing the ever-trusted wall around his mind. His throat has gone dry, all moisture seemingly travelling to his now-clammy hands, and his vision starts to blur when he’s only steps away from the floo that would get him away from this wretched place—

“Malfoy?”

Fuck.

If someone were to slice his ears off, damage the sensory organ enough that he would only be able to hear anything if one were to use a sonorous charm and shout directly into the mangled hole on the side of his head, he would still be able to recognize that voice. The last time he had heard her, last time he had seen her, was during his trial shortly after the culmination of the Second Wizarding War. He had been more surprised to see her than when he’d seen Potter, more surprised to hear her testify for him than when it had been Potter doing the same thing.

His hands had been bound before him, but his heart had soared at the sight of her then. He had been so certain that he would never see her again, not when he had been on his way to be locked in Azkaban. He had barely paid attention to the words she was saying, his focus trained on the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes. Not once during her speech did she glance at him and he had only been given the chance to look into her eyes when she had been about to exit the room.

He had sworn that day that he would never forget that image, would hold on to it through the horrors of Azkaban. When he’d been told that the Wizengamot had decided to put him under ten years of heavy probation instead of 10 years in Azkaban, he had let himself foolishly hope that he’d be able to see her again under different circumstances.

Nearly two years later and he finally gets his wish, but the circumstances are only marginally better than before. He attempts to take a steadying breath and only succeeds in affirming that he still can’t breathe quite properly. The last of the bricks fall into place and he turns to face her. A lesser witch would see nothing amiss, only an ex-death eater making a hasty escape from St. Mungo’s, but she’s no lesser witch.

Hermione Granger takes one look at him and the suspicion in her eyes is replaced by that of concern and he fucking hates it. He pretends to appraise her, feigns the slightest bit of shock at her healer robes, only enough that she would think he had failed at trying to hide his surprise at the knowledge that she works here.

Of course he knows she works here; he had almost worked himself up into an early panic attack worrying that she would be assigned his healer.

“Granger.” He notes that there’s only the slightest bit of a tremor to his voice and he imagines his godfather would have been proud. Still, he keeps his hands behind him where she won’t be able to see how badly they’re shaking.

“Malfoy, are you—” she cuts herself off, eyes narrowing at him. “Are you okay?”

He manages a smirk and a slight inclination of his head. “Never better. Goodbye, Granger.”

“What?” is the indignant cry. He’s already stepping into the floo and tossing down a handful of the powder when she calls to him. “Malfoy, wait—” 

He doesn’t think about the possible repercussions of fleeing from a healer, of fleeing from Granger of all people, the only thought running through his head as he’s engulfed by the flames is how he needs to get away from her and her worried eyes.

He doesn’t deserve her concern.

  August 8, 2002

He startles awake, hanging suspended between grappling for consciousness and holding on to the last images of sun-kissed skin against his tongue. He blinks away the fog clouding his mind and searches for the source of his sudden waking, feeling a throbbing behind his eyebrow that somehow falls into beat with the knocking outside his door—

He’s on his feet and rushing out of the bedroom, wand at the ready. The frontal lobe of his brain catches up to his adrenal glands just as he reaches the front door. He reasons with himself—the  wards wouldn’t have allowed just anyone within 20 yards of the door, and since the knocking isn’t a figment of his imagination, he can only imagine that it’s someone from the ministry on the other side of the door. With a wandless flick of his wand, the door opens.

Draco hadn’t known who exactly to expect, but he had not expected to see her. Her hand is raised mid-knock, her hair is flattened down by the knit cap keeping her ears warm, and her eyes are wide and bloodshot as they stare back at him in shock.

He barely has time to open his mouth and call her name before her face contorts and she starts crying, right there by the doorway. Something in his chest constricts at the sight and he almost rubs at it to soothe the sudden painful throbbing radiating right above his left breast.

In the back of his mind, he suspects that it might be his heart aching at the sight of her tears.

“Can I come in?” she asks, uselessly wiping at tears that are only followed by others. She all but collapses into his arms when he moves to pull her into the flat.

He tries to lead her over to sit on the settee but she shakes her head at him, hands clinging to the collar of his shirt and effectively wrinkling the fabric. He blames the epinephrine still coursing through his blood vessels when he finds himself leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He freezes, lips still pressed to her skin, waiting for her to shove him away for daring to do something so intimate to her of all people.

Hermione releases her hold on his collar, her hands travelling upward to cradle his face. She tugs him down until their lips meet in a soft kiss, Draco all too cautious to deepen it and risk scaring her away.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asks against his mouth, breath washing over his face and leaving behind a distinct scent of chamomile and peppermint. He wonders if he’s being manipulated, wonders if he should allow himself to be manipulated by soft lips and cold hands.

Why?

“Please.”

“Okay.”

Hermione transfigures her clothes into something more sleep-appropriate and Draco slips away to prepare her a cup of tea. When he returns, she’s already settled in the middle of the bed, hands fidgeting with the edges of the quilt. She spots the cup he’s holding and reaches out to take it from him.

“Thank you, Draco,” she says, turning to him as he moves to sit net to her. “For all of this.”

He frowns down at his own hands, the adrenaline from before already well out of his system by the time he’d finish preparing her tea. Chamomile, the same thing she had chosen the last time she was there, with one heaping cup of honey and enough milk to turn the drink an ugly shade of Dutch white. She doesn’t comment on how he’s already committed to memory the way she takes her tea and he doesn’t ask her the barrage of questions assaulting his brain.

When the tears start flowing down her cheeks in a silent current, he takes the hand that’s not holding on to the delicate china in both of his. He feels foolish, offering her comfort when the whole wizarding world knows he’s the last person qualified to do as such, but she doesn’t pull away from his touch and the trembling of her lips still just enough for her to keep sipping her tea. Draco spots her wand lying on top of his bedside table and his grip on her hand tightens, the sight making him wonder when exactly he started to earn that level of trust from her.

He watches her lower the empty cup and start to pull away from him, moving to put the cup beside her wand. He vanishes the china with a wandless and non-verbal flick of his hand and allows himself to revel in the impressed look she gives him.

“Sleep, Granger,” he tells her. He moves to lie down, giving her enough space to decide the distance that would exist between them, telling himself that whatever she chose he would keep it that way all through the night. He watches her chew on her lip for a moment then promptly slide down to lie with her sides pressed against his. A few moments pass and then they simultaneously move, him raising his arm to circle her shoulders and her moving to place her head right above his erratically beating heart.

The silence stretches out long enough that he suspects she’s fallen asleep, her breathing even and her heart finally calm in its thumping. His own eyes start to drift close when he hears her soft voice whisper against his skin.

“Goodnight, Draco.”

 He wakes up to lips pressed against his neck and he thinks this is how he dies, a bite to his jugular that will drain him of his pure and ancient blood. When Hermione does move to bite him, he finds himself moaning in pleasure instead of pain, his hands shooting out to cradle her head and keep her mouth firmly in place. She soothes the bite with a languid drag of her tongue.

“I thought you just wanted to sleep?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and dick already half hard in his trousers. “Granger.”

“Draco,” she responds, her own voice just the right amount of rough. Her hands move down to work on the buttons of his shirt and he finally gathers enough sense to still her movements.

“Granger,” he grounds out, firmer this time. “We can’t. We shouldn’t. Not when you’ve been crying all night.” He wants to add not when you’re vulnerable but thinks better of it, suspecting it would only grant him a hex or two.

“I’m sorry,” she says, extracting her body from his hold and completely turning away from him. She hunches forward on her sides, curling into a position that makes her look so small and makes Draco’s eyebrows draw together into a frown of genuine confusion.

“Why do I feel as if you’re under the impression that I don’t want you?” he asks, tugging on her shoulder to make her lie on her back and face him again.

“Because I am,” she responds right away. The next part comes a few seconds later, in a much quieter voice. “Because you don’t.”

The occlumency walls fall apart and he grabs her hand and places it right where he wants it, rubs himself using her palm for a few wicked seconds before stilling them both. “You’re as much of a fool as I am.”

Hermione resumes stroking him through his trousers, her eyes alight and her mouth parted. She pushes him down to lie on his back and moves to straddle him, her hand still on his cock while the other works on completing the mission of removing his shirt. She helps him out of the garment and runs warm hands down his chilled torso, leaning down to once again attack his neck with her lips.

His hands map out an exploration of their own, gripping her hips through soft cotton shorts and seeking out the skin hidden underneath her jumper. His hands reach up until the tips of his fingers tease the edges of her bra, feeling up the lace and groaning when he feels her hand leave his crotch.

She pulls back and whips off the jumper, watching his steadily darkening expression. Hermione reaches back and unclasps the final piece of clothing holding her back from being equally half-nude as he is and he watches with rapt attention. The bra falls away, tossed to lie forgotten somewhere on the floor, but his eyes never stray from the sight of her full breasts just inches away from his face. He swallows and her eyes follows the motion, smiling down at him and grabbing his hands to pull them to her chest.

The first time he had seen her tits, he had ended up worshipping them for the better part of an hour, not neglecting to tell her she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever laid his eyes on. He had been granted a sharp laugh for his eloquence, a laugh that quickly evolved into a drawn-out moan when he had wrapped his lips around one nipple and used the nail on his index finger to tease the other.

Now he holds both of her breasts in his hands, testing out their weight much like the last time, caressing the underside with his palms and watching the skin breakout in goosepimples. She leans back to rest her hands on his thighs, pushing her chest out to him and letting out breathy little moans that fill the room. Her hips start a steady grinding motion, the heat of her clothed arse rubbing against his cock enough to drive him half delirious with need.

He rolls her nipples between his fingers, alternating between slow rubbing and fast swiping. He leans forward, sitting up, and catches one hardened nub in his mouth. The answering moan eggs him on to suck harder, switching between breasts with an almost desperate edge to his movements. This close, her scent invades his senses and overwhelms the part of his brain that usually has him questioning every move, every thought, every word coming out of his mouth.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he tells her, lips pressed against a reddened nipple. She responds by further pushing her chest into his face and he is happy to oblige, continuing his ministrations on her breasts. He feels her hands fumbling to pull down his trousers and he lifts his hips high enough to assist her.

“It’s been days but I can still feel you inside me.”

Her words make him groan and he bites down on one nipple, just a light graze of his teeth. He helps her out of her shorts and her underwear, leaning back down to his original lying position with his hands firmly on her hips. “Think you can ride me, Granger?”

She takes his cock into her hand and the shock from the difference in body temperature has him biting down on his lip. She smiles at him, teasing her entrance with the tip of his length. “Not if you keep calling me that.”

“Hermione, fuck, Hermione,” he gasps, the syllables of her name rolling from his tongue with practiced ease. The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

He watches her sink down on him, her heat engulfing him and obliterating any coherent thought he was previously capable of making. His muscles burn from the effort it takes him to not move, to keep still and let her do everything in her own pace. He thinks his grip on her hips may leave bruises in the morning, but he allows himself the selfish thought, forgives himself when he doesn’t loosen his hold on her.

She stops when he’s fully inside her, their skin flushed against each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. Hermione leans down and kisses him, her face overheated and her lips slow and wet against his. He lets her take charge of the kiss, following her lead, matching her peck for peck, tongue for tongue. When she pulls back, he catches a glimpse of the scar on her arm and he’s immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of guilt. He swallows, hoping to physically push back the thought.

“Take what you want from me, Hermione. Take what you need.”

For a moment she looks like she’s about to cry, but she swoops down and kisses him with ardour, catching his bottom lip in between her teeth and giving a painful bite that she quickly soothes with a swipe of her tongue. She doesn’t break the kiss when she starts moving, moaning against his lips with every thrust.

He kisses the side of her mouth, making his way down to the spot beneath her ear that had her screaming his name last time. She whimpers when his lips touch the sensitive skin, her hips picking up speed. Her mouth attaches itself to the back of his neck and he feels her sucking, biting, leaving marks that he won’t hide with a concealment charm. The forward-backward canting of her hips transforms into a circular motion and he knows she’s close. Aside from the constant assault of his mouth on her neck and his hands groping her breasts, he keeps still, feeling her walls clamp down on him and her teeth press down on his neck almost hard enough to break the skin.

She lifts her head, kissing him while riding the waves of her first orgasm for the night. Her body collapses on him and he pulls out of her, still painfully hard, and moves her to lie down on the bed. Even in the dim light of the room he sees the flush of her skin, the light sheen of sweat on her chest and on her legs. He kisses her face, pushes away the curls stuck to her forehead, kisses the arch of her brow, both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose and the dip of her upper lip, and kisses his way down her body.

She shudders when he takes his time kissing her shoulders, biting and sucking and selfishly leaving marks that she’ll have to hide with a concealment charm. Her hands shoot out to tangle in his hair when he reaches her breasts, torn between pulling him away from the over-sensitive flesh or pushing him to keep sucking on the spot just centimetres from her right nipple. He promises to worship her tits later, when he’s inside of her again, and begins to move further down her body.

As he draws closer to her centre, her scent grows stronger. He kisses her inner thighs, careful not to touch the swollen folds of her cunt. Hermione has grown progressively louder as he grew progressively bolder in his exploration, his tongue dipping into her wet hole. They moan in unison and he thinks he may get drunk on her taste. He fucks her with his tongue, letting her grow accustomed to the feeling, waiting for her to come down from the high and demand for more.

When the last of the tremors from her orgasm fade away, his lips find her clit and he sucks the sensitive nub into his mouth. Her hold on his hair borders on painful, her hips bucking up into his face. He pushes her down with his hands, keeping her in place as he uses the flat of his tongue to massage her clit.

He alternates between swiping and circling the kernel with his tongue, using two fingers to fuck her hole. He feels her walls tighten around the appendages and he withdraws them, determined to make her cum using just his mouth. He sucks on her clit, pulling her impossibly closer to him and allowing her to mindlessly fuck his face. When she comes for the second time he barely hears his name pouring from her lips, her thighs clamping down on his head and effectively blocking out the world.

He doesn’t give her time to ride out her orgasm, pushing into her in one swift thrust. He makes good on his promise, kissing her to let her taste herself on him then moving down to worship her breasts once more. Draco only half recognizes the things she’s saying, a mix of familiar swears words and his name and then things his orgasm-deprived mind just can’t seem to put together.

“Your cunt feels amazing,” he replies when she tells him how good he feels inside her. “You feel so goddamn good, Hermione.”

“Harder, Draco, please,” she mewls, fingers clawing down his back and leaving even more marks for him to keep. “Please, please, I’m going to come again.”

She comes a third time, not nearly as intense as the first and the second one, but enough to pull him spiralling into his own orgasm. He spills himself inside of her, the euphoria of his release settling deep into his bones. In those blinding seconds he forgets that they’re former enemies, that they were only tentative acquaintances before this whole fling started, forgets that he doesn’t understand her motivations and forgets to question his own.

He doesn’t pull out of her, remembering how she had asked him to stay inside of her the last time, and he’s rewarded with a smile and a tender kiss. He moves them so she’s half-lying on top of him, the sheets shielding their naked bodies from the cold. He’s internally debating with himself on whether he should go back to sleep when she makes the decision for him.

“Sleep, let’s give it another go when we wake up.”

 “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He only nods, moving to gather his clothes from the floor. He finds his trousers first and slips them on, facing away from her.

“Not yet,” she amends, as if she had somehow known her response had hurt him. “In the morning, I will.”

He doesn’t point out that it already is morning. They had woken up multiple times during the night and had satisfied each other countless times. The first time he had been the one to wake up, pulling her warm body into his arms, kissing her shoulder as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude took over his heart at the sight of her still curled up beside him. She had taken it as him initiating and things had quickly escalated from there. That had been followed by more sleep and even more sex, and now the sky is tinged with a warm orange and he can’t bring himself to feel regret at the prospect of being sleep-deprived at work. 

He looks down at her and catches her watching him, his shirt from last night hanging open on her shoulders. He wants to know if this is her own cruel way of revenge—false hope, a taste of what could have been and what may be but will inevitably never happen. He wants to know why he’s been allowed to feel as much as he has only for it to be violently taken away from him in the end.

“Come back,” she says, delicate hand patting the empty spot beside her on the bed. “It’s far too early to get ready for work, isn’t it?”

“I’ll make you breakfast later. Get some more sleep.”

He retrieves a fresh shirt and leaves her alone in the bedroom, not turning around to give her a chance to seduce him back into his own bed. He waits by the door for a few seconds, listening for any tell-tale signs that she’ll follow him out, and breathes a sigh of relief when his ears are met with silence. The papers he had been reading before turning in for the night lay abandoned on the coffee table, the sight of them prompting images of Hermione stumbling upon them and asking him questions he can’t and won’t answer, even for her. 

His legs carry him to the sitting room and he hastily shoves the papers into the drawer, eyeing the half-empty bottle of pills staring back up at him. He grabs it, pops one pill into his mouth and swallows it dry, then tosses it back in to join the papers. The drawer is locked with a flick of his wand and he starts to breathe easier.

There are many things he doesn’t know about whatever it is going on between them, but one thing he is certain of is that she must never find out about his depression. The thought that she had only slept with him four days ago out of pity had plagued his mind during the interim between then and now. It had taken him every logical cell in his body to convince himself that the impossibility of her finding out about his illness came second only to the impossibility of her sleeping with anyone out of pity for their mental predicament.

He had spent hours every day thinking about what had happened between them, thinking about how and why it happened, how he wanted it to happen again. He wouldn’t go as far as deluding himself into thinking that he was anywhere near done thinking about it, and her showing up in his flat and then fucking him senseless for hours certainly did not offer any help.

What he didn’t have any problem accepting was that there wouldn’t have been a repeat after the first time. Another thing he had been certain of—that Granger would never set foot in his flat again, that it had been a one-time thing. Then last night happened, and now she’s in his bedroom, possibly sleeping, and he’s in his kitchen preparing the ingredients for pancakes.

He’s finally going to put that tin of powdered milk to use.

 Draco suspects that it’s the smell of food that has her emerging from the bedroom, his shirt buttoned up around her form and her hair resembling a nest of some large bird species. He’s torn between the desire to fix her hair for her (with his hands, not using magic) and the desire to see if it would be possible to mess it up even further. He slides her a plate of pancakes and pulls the tin from the cupboard, presenting it to her.

“Is that… did you get me powdered milk?”

His brain tells him to lie, to downplay the gesture, make up a story about seeing it during one of his grocery runs and purchasing it out of curiosity. He knows she would stop believing him the moment he tries to pretend he does his own grocery.

“Yes.”

She stares at him, mouth hanging slightly ajar, and he braces himself for the questions to come. “I have so many questions about that, but I must admit I’m more hungry than curious.”

It’s his turn to gape at her. The many years between them has given him the privilege of knowing enough about her to know that she must be burning to ask him, to clarify, to make sense of whatever it is that isn’t making sense to her brilliant brain. He watches as she pops the lid open and spoons out a generous amount of the milk, pouring it all over her pancakes. The sound she makes when her lips close around the first bite is devilish and he feels his face heat up.

“Here, try some,” she says when she catches him still staring at her. She catches him by surprise when she leans forward to feed him off her own fork. “Go on, it won’t bite you back if you bite it first.”

The milk is too sweet and it dries out the edges of the pancake. He tries to hide his grimace by drinking from his tea but she catches it and openly laughs at his reaction.

“Bit weird, is it?” she asks him, still eating the ruined cakes. “My parents made me these, but they had forgotten that we’d already run out of syrup. They were arguing about it, so I just grabbed a tin of milk and poured it all over my pancakes so they would stop fighting about the bloody syrup.”

He finds that he’s at a loss for words. He’d heard about what happened to Hermione’s parents, what she’d been forced to do to keep them safe from Death Eaters, from people like him. The sweetness from the milk turns sour in his mouth and he feels his hands begin to tremble. Once again he’s left wondering why she would ever associate herself with him, why she would ever trust herself to be vulnerable in his presence, why she would look at him and talk to him like he isn’t scum on the bottom of her shoe.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. The words are inadequate, useless, but he continues to speak. “I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry you had to do that. I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you during the war. I’m sorry about everything I did to you, every nasty word I told you before the war. I’m sorry, Granger, I’m sorry I stood by and did nothing but watch when my demented aunt did that to you—”

“Draco, shh.” He hadn’t even realized his voice had risen and had taken on a hysterical tone before she was suddenly standing before him, his face in her hands. “It’s okay, Draco, I forgive you. I’ve forgiven you. We were children. I don’t blame you.”

“Well you should,” he says, stepping back from her reassuring touch. “I was your bully, I was a Death Eater, I let those people into Hogwarts and let them torture and kill children. I called you that word, that fucking word, for years.”

She looks like she’s ready to argue but he doesn’t let her, speaking over her attempts to placate him and tell him he’s not a monster. “I let her do this to you,” he says, grabbing her arm and pointing at the word engraved there. The letters are still an angry shade of red against her skin, framed by other tiny scars that have already faded. “You lost your family trying to hide them from us, from me. Many people hate me, Granger, but none of them should hate me more than you.”

She looks like she’s on the verge of tears and he doesn’t know which one of them is shaking harder. He thinks she might slap him, maybe wake up from whatever delusion she had the he could be someone she should be sleeping with. Whatever they had, surely she’s going to end it now that he’s talked some sense into her.

“Are you sorry?”

The words are spoken so quietly that he half believes them to be a figment of his imagination. He stares down at her, into the fire of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Forget a slap, he thinks she might punch him.

“More than anything,” he replies.

“Then I forgive you,” she tells him, moving to wrap her arms around his waist. With her head pressed against his chest, her voice comes out muffled when she adds, “And don’t you dare presume to tell me that I shouldn’t forgive you. That’s for me to decide.”

He doesn’t doubt her words, doesn’t doubt for a second that her Gryffindor heart has forgiven him. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if she’d forgiven him before he asked for her forgiveness; it’s simply her character to be the forgiving one, to be the person to look for the good in people even when they’ve been swallowed whole by the bad.  He allows himself a moment to embrace her to him, pull her body even closer to his and kiss the top of her wild hair.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t meet her gaze. “Eat your pancakes, Granger.”

 She’s redressed in her old clothes and about to floo in to work. He wonders if she’s not worried about people commenting that she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday sans the knit cap but decides to keep his mouth shut on the matter. There’s a myriad of questions in his head that he’d much rather voice but, just like the last time, he chooses to savour the last moments. He doesn’t know when he’ll see her again, but he knows last night had only been another moment of weakness on her part. She had been emotional over something and for some twisted reason he had been the one she sought comfort from.

It’s never going to happen again, he knows. A one-time fluke that just so happened to be repeated a second time, but he wouldn’t dare raise his hopes up for a third. The world simply does not work that way.

She looks like she wants to say something, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. She looks up to meet his eyes and they just stare at each other for a few moments, her working something out in her brain and Draco just waiting for whatever it is she’s going to say.

“I never got to tell you,” she finally says.

“Tell me what?”

“I never got to tell you what happened, I said I would in the morning,” Hermione explains. There’s a hint of a smile playing at her lips but she looks nervous and he immediately regrets asking in the first place.

“It’s okay, Granger, I won’t pry into your personal business,” he says, feigning boredom. He sees a flash of trepidation in her eyes and wonders if he could fuck things up any further than he already has.

After a few terse moments, she seems to come to a decision and clenches her fists at her sides. “Would you like to talk about it over dinner?” she asks, her chin raised and her eyes staring directly into his.

He feels his mask slipping through his fingers, the surprise showing in his face and fuelling her confidence. His mind is reeling with about a dozen thoughts per second. She looks less scared and more determined, and she looks beautiful like this. She looks beautiful brandishing her Gryffindor courage. She looks beautiful in old clothes and with her hair smelling like his shampoo. She looks beautiful standing in front of his floo, standing inside his flat, she looks beautiful wearing his clothes—but she’s not his and why is she asking him out to dinner?

“Why?”

“To eat and converse, obviously,” she replies, her cheeks coloring. He thinks she looks beautiful like that too, flustered and annoyed at him. “Do you not want to, then?”

Draco decides then and there to stop trying to pretend that he would ever understand the inner workings of Hermione Granger’s head. He knows very little about her—she’s the most brilliant witch of her age, she eats her pancakes with powdered milk and takes her tea with one heaping cup of honey topped with an obscene amount of milk, and she uses about half a dozen drying charms on hair. She’s the poster girl for all Gryffindors, she’s a reluctant war heroine, she’s a healer and she probably overworks herself to near death. She’s the only girl he’s ever been in love with and she can never be his but there she is, asking him out to dinner.

“I would like to have dinner with you. When and where shall this take place?”

She giggles at his words and he decides that when she leaves his life for good (in the very near future, he knows) he would endeavour to keep the sound of her laughter playing in his head.

“Would tomorrow work for you? I have the day off,” she says, still smiling up at him. “I’ll bring takeout here.”

He realises that it’s only to be expected that they would have dinner at his place, not outside, not where people can see them and judge her for her choice in company. Whatever they are, it could never become public information, which is why he nods his head even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea as to what takeout is.

Her smile grows bigger and she also nods. She seems to hesitate for half a second before pushing on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. The contact only lasts for a few blissful moments but it’s enough to leave him the slightest bit breathless.

“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Draco.”

[levirens]

[fanfic] opiate this hazy head of mine (chapter 1 of 2)

Summary: The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

TRIGGER WARNING: Character is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). If you are triggered by mentions of suicidal thoughts, depressive episodes, panic attacks, or even medication, please skip this story or proceed with caution.

Title is directly lifted from the lyrics of Medicine - The 1975

CHAPTER 1

la douleur exquise: the heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable 

 August 4, 2002

He knows for certain that she’ll be leaving soon.

The timepiece on his wrist tells him it’s well past one in the morning, but he keeps his eyes open and trained on the woman lying next to him. Hermione Granger’s face is peaceful in sleep, the lines that usually mar the space between her eyebrows hidden from sight. He wants to touch her, her cheeks and the exposed skin of her shoulders, but he’s terrified of waking her up.

He knows that once those eyes open, she’ll realize what a colossal mistake it had been to sleep with him, then she’ll be gone from his life.

Forever.

So he stays still, tries to keep his breathing as even as possible so as not to rouse her. Just minutes ago he had been drowning in a sea of her—her eyes, her warm heat wrapped around him, her hands everywhere, her lips leaving marks that are not his to keep. Now he’s lost, the constellation of freckles dancing across the skin of her nose and cheeks drawing him in deeper into what would be very dangerous territory.

He has never been this close, despite the many cruel efforts on his parts to be physically near her.

The taunting.

The dirty looks.

The insults thrown at her face, right at her face, allowing him just a moment to be that close to her face.

Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but for now he allows himself to live in the reverie that she is his.

 He wakes and feels his chest constrict in panic, his breath catching in his lungs and his limbs freezing up. In the back of his mind, he imagines that this is how it would feel for her to wake up the morning of their N.E.W.T.s, realizing that she had fallen asleep in lieu of studying. The space beside him is empty, only the ruffled sheets and some stray strands of hair on the pillow serving as evidence that Hermione had spent the night with him. He had meant to watch her to the very last minute, savour the very last moment before she’d leave, and he had fallen asleep instead and wasted precious time. He doesn’t even try to get up, choosing instead to close his eyes and will the sharp pain in his chest to fade into a dull throbbing. He doesn’t know how much time passes but he finally moves his head to face the other way, discovering a kink in his neck.

“Draco, are you awake?”

His eyes snap open at the voice and he imagines that his body visibly stiffens.

“Do you mind if I use your kitchen to make breakfast?”

He rises slowly, leaning on his elbows, and finds her sitting on the wide windowsill. He swallows at the sight of her wearing his shirt, a book propped open on her exposed legs. For a moment, he entertains the idea of sleep-induced hallucinations, wracking his brain for an explanation for the anomaly that is Hermione Granger.

He opens his mouth to ask her a dozen questions, each one an attempt to explain why in Salazar’s balls she's still here in the poor death eater’s lair, but his mind blessedly decides to kick in before his mouth can do any damage.

She had said his name. His given name.

“I’ll make breakfast,” he says instead, swinging both legs off the bed and turning away from her for a moment to search for his pants. Only half-naked, he takes note of the time and beckons for her to follow him into the kitchen.

She doesn’t move from her spot (he has no idea how many hours she’s been sitting there but he knows for certain that it couldn’t have been long enough for it to justify him referring to it as her spot) and the minutes tick by with the two of them merely staring at each other. She would never hear it from him, but he would much rather stare at her than cook breakfast. A few heartbeats pass and then she’s pushing off the ledge, raising her eyebrows at him and he answers the unvoiced question with a roll of his eyes. “I can cook.”

“Here, I’ll give you your shirt back," she replies, ignoring his declaration.

He shakes his head, not even trying to hide the appreciate way his eyes roam over her body. He doesn’t know why she decided to put his shirt on, it doesn’t seem like something she would do, but he wants to keep her in his clothes for as long as possible.

Maybe then her scent would be permanently engraved into the fabric.

 She says she wants pancakes and Draco pretends he’s not thankful that she chose something he actually knows to make. He doesn’t burn anything, even when he feels her eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he barely stops himself from going overboard with the blueberries.

Little triumphs.

He’s plating up a high stack for her, ignoring the curious stare she’s been maintaining ever since he poured her a cup of tea. He wants to run away from the scrutiny and jumps on the opportunity once he hears a light tapping sound coming from the window. His owl delivers him letters that he leaves in a drawer for later and a copy of the paper that he brings back to Hermione, wordlessly handing it over to her just to get her to stop studying him.

“Do you have powdered milk?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just,” she pauses, glancing up from behind the face of an elderly wizard being tried for tax evasion. “I usually put some powdered milk on my pancakes, but these are fine. You’re surprisingly good at this.” She makes a show of taking a rather large bite that has him hiding a smile behind his tea.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger,” he says, not without irony. She catches on his meaning and then they’re sharing a smile, an inside joke that only the two of them know, and Draco wonders at what exact moment did the universe tilt the wrong way and allowed him to have this with her.

To have her.

“This is odd,” she finally says, looking at him in a way that tells him its not his culinary skills she finds bizarre. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she means them, that she means it’s odd that she had slept with him and him with her and that he had made her pancakes with far too many blueberries and she had just shared a smile with him that made the darkest parts of his mind recede for a moment—

“Don’t overthink it, I can hear the cogs in your brain turning all the way here,” he responds, hoping against all odds that he sounds as nonchalant as he wants to be about it. He knows for a fact that if he wants to keep her from finding out the mess that is his thoughts around her, he best start putting up the occlumency walls he had so carelessly torn down last night.

He tells himself he will, in a minute, when she finishes her pancakes and she’s had enough tea. He’ll put up the walls when she stops looking as if she doesn’t hate him, doesn’t hate that she had fallen into bed with him, doesn’t hate that he’s standing shirtless in front of her because she’s wearing his shirt.

He tells himself he couldn’t have expected her to stay any longer. She has work, she tells him, and he doesn’t tell her that of course you’re working on a Sunday. He watches her tiptoe her way back to his room and he watches her emerge once again dressed in her own clothes, her healer robes tucked in the crook of her arm. He tells himself he isn’t disappointed when she only kisses his cheeks, tells himself he doesn’t feel his fingers warm when she tells him that she had a good time, that she’ll see him around soon.

He tells himself it’s not the hope that she would come over again that has him purchasing the tin of powdered milk from the muggle pharmacy. It sits in one of the cupboards, right next to the tea that she had picked out.

  February 11, 2000

Draco grits his teeth, mentally listing off a number of hexes that he could fire at the beady-eyed wizard sitting in front of him.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, struggling to keep the drawl in place. To the untrained ear, they would hear an almost bored quality to the question. To anyone who pays attention, they would hear the unnatural lilt that his voices takes on right at the beginning.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, we need to perform legilimency on all ex-Death Eaters wishing to apply for a job at the ministry,” he eyes Draco, one hand coming to scratch at his whitened beard. “Of course, everyone knows you’re a skilled Occlumens, which is why we’ve prepared a special potion that will ensure you do not… keep things from our knowledge.”

Draco feels a muscle twitch somewhere on his jaw. “And why exactly would such a thing be necessary in the first place, if I may ask?”

The veil covering the cruel sneer falls away and the man in front of him openly shows him just what he thinks of Draco. “Mr. Malfoy, you can’t honestly expect the ministry to let you work here without the reassurance that you do not have any ill plans tucked away that mind of yours. Think of it as a way of earning your future employer’s trust. That is, if we do end up hiring you.”

Draco has no response, choosing instead to steeple his fingers against each other and stare back at the other wizard. When the silence stretches on, with no attempts from Draco to end it, the other man speaks up in a tone brokering no argument, “This is an absolute requirement. If you do not wish to go through with it then I will be bidding you farewell.”

“When?” he asks, feeling the last dredges of his pride slipping away from his grasp.

 A healer performs the spell. When it’s over and he feels like his mind has been repeatedly stabbed by a blunt knife, he turns away from the judging eyes staring right at him. There’s a flurry of papers and the sound of a book rapidly being flipped through. The healer furiously scribbles on his chart while Draco awaits the verdict.

“Mr. Malfoy, you’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Here’s a prescription for anti-depressant pills that you are to take if I’m to clear you for work at the ministry.”

He turns back to the healer with a deliberate slowness, as if reducing the speed of his movements could aid his brain in keeping his mouth from falling wide open. “I beg your pardon?” he finds himself asking for a second time that day.

“Mr. Malfoy, you have suicidal tendencies—”

“Harry Potter has suicidal tendencies, did you also diagnose him with depression?”

“We value patient confidentiality, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you. You won’t be hearing about Mr. Potter’s medical business as he won’t be hearing about yours,” the healer states this with a pointed look, no doubt alluding to the fear she saw in Draco’s head about his thoughts becoming of public access. Draco takes little relief in this.

“I also know for a fact that when you say suicidal tendencies, you’re referring to the things he did during the war,” the healer continues. “Unfortunately, that was a case of reckless heroism, not a sign of depression.”

Draco raises his eyebrow at this, finding that the comment made him like his healer infinitesimally better than before. “I’m not depressed.”

“Would you like me to read to you all the signs I just picked apart from your mind? Aside from constantly thinking about your own death, you have severe insomnia, you have very little interest in doing things you like, you have virtually no appetite to speak of, you’re conflicted between the belief that your mother would be better off without you and the guilt of leaving her now that your father is gone—”

“Enough.”

The healer pauses, adjusting the spectacles that had started to slip down her nose. “As you know, depression is not something you need to be ashamed of. You’d be surprised how many of the British wizarding folk have been diagnosed with various mental health issues following the war.” 

For the second time that day, he chooses to answer with cold silence. The healer meets his gaze and wordlessly hands over a small sheet of paper. Draco takes it and his eyes drop to read the messy scrawl. His eyebrows draw together at the unfamiliar words staring back at him. “This is muggle medicine.”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

The question catches him off-guard and he looks up, realizing his mistake a second too late. The potion hasn’t fully worn off and he is unable to build up his occlumency walls in time to counter the healer’s legilimency.

Scared.

Don’t know how to buy these.

Don’t know where to go to get these.

Not depressed.

Can’t be depressed.

“Stop,” he finally grits out, turning away from the healer and finally breaking the spell. He wants to scream, wants to get up and run away from the room, job at the ministry be damned. He almost does the latter when he hears her ripping out a small piece of parchment.

“This is the address of a pharmacy I frequent. You may think of it as a muggle apothecary of sorts. Just hand your prescription over and make sure you have muggle money on you.”

Draco takes it, hating the trembling of his fingers as he fights the urge to crush both pieces of paper in his fists.

“Come back with the filled prescription and I’ll give you your medical clearance. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy.”

 He likes to think he makes a graceful exit, but he knows that he all but stumbles out the room and into the lit hallway. The walls, white and suddenly so oppressive, seem to close in on him as he feels his breathing grow laboured. A panic attack, his mother had described it on the one occasion he had been weak enough to show her that he wasn’t as put-together as he would like everyone to believe. She had scoffed at him, her aristocratic face wet with tears, and had pulled his head to rest on her shoulder.

Now he thinks the healer would have listed off sporadic episodes of panic attacks if he hadn’t interrupted her.

His legs miraculously carry him towards the floo networks and he struggles to fight off the last vestiges of the potion remaining in his system, already working on constructing the ever-trusted wall around his mind. His throat has gone dry, all moisture seemingly travelling to his now-clammy hands, and his vision starts to blur when he’s only steps away from the floo that would get him away from this wretched place—

“Malfoy?”

Fuck.

If someone were to slice his ears off, damage the sensory organ enough that he would only be able to hear anything if one were to use a sonorous charm and shout directly into the mangled hole on the side of his head, he would still be able to recognize that voice. The last time he had heard her, last time he had seen her, was during his trial shortly after the culmination of the Second Wizarding War. He had been more surprised to see her than when he’d seen Potter, more surprised to hear her testify for him than when it had been Potter doing the same thing.

His hands had been bound before him, but his heart had soared at the sight of her then. He had been so certain that he would never see her again, not when he had been on his way to be locked in Azkaban. He had barely paid attention to the words she was saying, his focus trained on the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes. Not once during her speech did she glance at him and he had only been given the chance to look into her eyes when she had been about to exit the room.

He had sworn that day that he would never forget that image, would hold on to it through the horrors of Azkaban. When he’d been told that the Wizengamot had decided to put him under ten years of heavy probation instead of 10 years in Azkaban, he had let himself foolishly hope that he’d be able to see her again under different circumstances.

Nearly two years later and he finally gets his wish, but the circumstances are only marginally better than before. He attempts to take a steadying breath and only succeeds in affirming that he still can’t breathe quite properly. The last of the bricks fall into place and he turns to face her. A lesser witch would see nothing amiss, only an ex-death eater making a hasty escape from St. Mungo’s, but she’s no lesser witch.

Hermione Granger takes one look at him and the suspicion in her eyes is replaced by that of concern and he fucking hates it. He pretends to appraise her, feigns the slightest bit of shock at her healer robes, only enough that she would think he had failed at trying to hide his surprise at the knowledge that she works here.

Of course he knows she works here; he had almost worked himself up into an early panic attack worrying that she would be assigned his healer.

“Granger.” He notes that there’s only the slightest bit of a tremor to his voice and he imagines his godfather would have been proud. Still, he keeps his hands behind him where she won’t be able to see how badly they’re shaking.

“Malfoy, are you—” she cuts herself off, eyes narrowing at him. “Are you okay?”

He manages a smirk and a slight inclination of his head. “Never better. Goodbye, Granger.”

“What?” is the indignant cry. He’s already stepping into the floo and tossing down a handful of the powder when she calls to him. “Malfoy, wait—” 

He doesn’t think about the possible repercussions of fleeing from a healer, of fleeing from Granger of all people, the only thought running through his head as he’s engulfed by the flames is how he needs to get away from her and her worried eyes.

He doesn’t deserve her concern.

  August 8, 2002

He startles awake, hanging suspended between grappling for consciousness and holding on to the last images of sun-kissed skin against his tongue. He blinks away the fog clouding his mind and searches for the source of his sudden waking, feeling a throbbing behind his eyebrow that somehow falls into beat with the knocking outside his door—

He’s on his feet and rushing out of the bedroom, wand at the ready. The frontal lobe of his brain catches up to his adrenal glands just as he reaches the front door. He reasons with himself—the  wards wouldn’t have allowed just anyone within 20 yards of the door, and since the knocking isn’t a figment of his imagination, he can only imagine that it’s someone from the ministry on the other side of the door. With a wandless flick of his wand, the door opens.

Draco hadn’t known who exactly to expect, but he had not expected to see her. Her hand is raised mid-knock, her hair is flattened down by the knit cap keeping her ears warm, and her eyes are wide and bloodshot as they stare back at him in shock.

He barely has time to open his mouth and call her name before her face contorts and she starts crying, right there by the doorway. Something in his chest constricts at the sight and he almost rubs at it to soothe the sudden painful throbbing radiating right above his left breast.

In the back of his mind, he suspects that it might be his heart aching at the sight of her tears.

“Can I come in?” she asks, uselessly wiping at tears that are only followed by others. She all but collapses into his arms when he moves to pull her into the flat.

He tries to lead her over to sit on the settee but she shakes her head at him, hands clinging to the collar of his shirt and effectively wrinkling the fabric. He blames the epinephrine still coursing through his blood vessels when he finds himself leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He freezes, lips still pressed to her skin, waiting for her to shove him away for daring to do something so intimate to her of all people.

Hermione releases her hold on his collar, her hands travelling upward to cradle his face. She tugs him down until their lips meet in a soft kiss, Draco all too cautious to deepen it and risk scaring her away.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asks against his mouth, breath washing over his face and leaving behind a distinct scent of chamomile and peppermint. He wonders if he’s being manipulated, wonders if he should allow himself to be manipulated by soft lips and cold hands.

Why?

“Please.”

“Okay.”

Hermione transfigures her clothes into something more sleep-appropriate and Draco slips away to prepare her a cup of tea. When he returns, she’s already settled in the middle of the bed, hands fidgeting with the edges of the quilt. She spots the cup he’s holding and reaches out to take it from him.

“Thank you, Draco,” she says, turning to him as he moves to sit net to her. “For all of this.”

He frowns down at his own hands, the adrenaline from before already well out of his system by the time he’d finish preparing her tea. Chamomile, the same thing she had chosen the last time she was there, with one heaping cup of honey and enough milk to turn the drink an ugly shade of Dutch white. She doesn’t comment on how he’s already committed to memory the way she takes her tea and he doesn’t ask her the barrage of questions assaulting his brain.

When the tears start flowing down her cheeks in a silent current, he takes the hand that’s not holding on to the delicate china in both of his. He feels foolish, offering her comfort when the whole wizarding world knows he’s the last person qualified to do as such, but she doesn’t pull away from his touch and the trembling of her lips still just enough for her to keep sipping her tea. Draco spots her wand lying on top of his bedside table and his grip on her hand tightens, the sight making him wonder when exactly he started to earn that level of trust from her.

He watches her lower the empty cup and start to pull away from him, moving to put the cup beside her wand. He vanishes the china with a wandless and non-verbal flick of his hand and allows himself to revel in the impressed look she gives him.

“Sleep, Granger,” he tells her. He moves to lie down, giving her enough space to decide the distance that would exist between them, telling himself that whatever she chose he would keep it that way all through the night. He watches her chew on her lip for a moment then promptly slide down to lie with her sides pressed against his. A few moments pass and then they simultaneously move, him raising his arm to circle her shoulders and her moving to place her head right above his erratically beating heart.

The silence stretches out long enough that he suspects she’s fallen asleep, her breathing even and her heart finally calm in its thumping. His own eyes start to drift close when he hears her soft voice whisper against his skin.

“Goodnight, Draco.”

 He wakes up to lips pressed against his neck and he thinks this is how he dies, a bite to his jugular that will drain him of his pure and ancient blood. When Hermione does move to bite him, he finds himself moaning in pleasure instead of pain, his hands shooting out to cradle her head and keep her mouth firmly in place. She soothes the bite with a languid drag of her tongue.

“I thought you just wanted to sleep?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and dick already half hard in his trousers. “Granger.”

“Draco,” she responds, her own voice just the right amount of rough. Her hands move down to work on the buttons of his shirt and he finally gathers enough sense to still her movements.

“Granger,” he grounds out, firmer this time. “We can’t. We shouldn’t. Not when you’ve been crying all night.” He wants to add not when you’re vulnerable but thinks better of it, suspecting it would only grant him a hex or two.

“I’m sorry,” she says, extracting her body from his hold and completely turning away from him. She hunches forward on her sides, curling into a position that makes her look so small and makes Draco’s eyebrows draw together into a frown of genuine confusion.

“Why do I feel as if you’re under the impression that I don’t want you?” he asks, tugging on her shoulder to make her lie on her back and face him again.

“Because I am,” she responds right away. The next part comes a few seconds later, in a much quieter voice. “Because you don’t.”

The occlumency walls fall apart and he grabs her hand and places it right where he wants it, rubs himself using her palm for a few wicked seconds before stilling them both. “You’re as much of a fool as I am.”

Hermione resumes stroking him through his trousers, her eyes alight and her mouth parted. She pushes him down to lie on his back and moves to straddle him, her hand still on his cock while the other works on completing the mission of removing his shirt. She helps him out of the garment and runs warm hands down his chilled torso, leaning down to once again attack his neck with her lips.

His hands map out an exploration of their own, gripping her hips through soft cotton shorts and seeking out the skin hidden underneath her jumper. His hands reach up until the tips of his fingers tease the edges of her bra, feeling up the lace and groaning when he feels her hand leave his crotch.

She pulls back and whips off the jumper, watching his steadily darkening expression. Hermione reaches back and unclasps the final piece of clothing holding her back from being equally half-nude as he is and he watches with rapt attention. The bra falls away, tossed to lie forgotten somewhere on the floor, but his eyes never stray from the sight of her full breasts just inches away from his face. He swallows and her eyes follows the motion, smiling down at him and grabbing his hands to pull them to her chest.

The first time he had seen her tits, he had ended up worshipping them for the better part of an hour, not neglecting to tell her she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever laid his eyes on. He had been granted a sharp laugh for his eloquence, a laugh that quickly evolved into a drawn-out moan when he had wrapped his lips around one nipple and used the nail on his index finger to tease the other.

Now he holds both of her breasts in his hands, testing out their weight much like the last time, caressing the underside with his palms and watching the skin breakout in goosepimples. She leans back to rest her hands on his thighs, pushing her chest out to him and letting out breathy little moans that fill the room. Her hips start a steady grinding motion, the heat of her clothed arse rubbing against his cock enough to drive him half delirious with need.

He rolls her nipples between his fingers, alternating between slow rubbing and fast swiping. He leans forward, sitting up, and catches one hardened nub in his mouth. The answering moan eggs him on to suck harder, switching between breasts with an almost desperate edge to his movements. This close, her scent invades his senses and overwhelms the part of his brain that usually has him questioning every move, every thought, every word coming out of his mouth.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he tells her, lips pressed against a reddened nipple. She responds by further pushing her chest into his face and he is happy to oblige, continuing his ministrations on her breasts. He feels her hands fumbling to pull down his trousers and he lifts his hips high enough to assist her.

“It’s been days but I can still feel you inside me.”

Her words make him groan and he bites down on one nipple, just a light graze of his teeth. He helps her out of her shorts and her underwear, leaning back down to his original lying position with his hands firmly on her hips. “Think you can ride me, Granger?”

She takes his cock into her hand and the shock from the difference in body temperature has him biting down on his lip. She smiles at him, teasing her entrance with the tip of his length. “Not if you keep calling me that.”

“Hermione, fuck, Hermione,” he gasps, the syllables of her name rolling from his tongue with practiced ease. The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.

He watches her sink down on him, her heat engulfing him and obliterating any coherent thought he was previously capable of making. His muscles burn from the effort it takes him to not move, to keep still and let her do everything in her own pace. He thinks his grip on her hips may leave bruises in the morning, but he allows himself the selfish thought, forgives himself when he doesn’t loosen his hold on her.

She stops when he’s fully inside her, their skin flushed against each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. Hermione leans down and kisses him, her face overheated and her lips slow and wet against his. He lets her take charge of the kiss, following her lead, matching her peck for peck, tongue for tongue. When she pulls back, he catches a glimpse of the scar on her arm and he’s immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of guilt. He swallows, hoping to physically push back the thought.

“Take what you want from me, Hermione. Take what you need.”

For a moment she looks like she’s about to cry, but she swoops down and kisses him with ardour, catching his bottom lip in between her teeth and giving a painful bite that she quickly soothes with a swipe of her tongue. She doesn’t break the kiss when she starts moving, moaning against his lips with every thrust.

He kisses the side of her mouth, making his way down to the spot beneath her ear that had her screaming his name last time. She whimpers when his lips touch the sensitive skin, her hips picking up speed. Her mouth attaches itself to the back of his neck and he feels her sucking, biting, leaving marks that he won’t hide with a concealment charm. The forward-backward canting of her hips transforms into a circular motion and he knows she’s close. Aside from the constant assault of his mouth on her neck and his hands groping her breasts, he keeps still, feeling her walls clamp down on him and her teeth press down on his neck almost hard enough to break the skin.

She lifts her head, kissing him while riding the waves of her first orgasm for the night. Her body collapses on him and he pulls out of her, still painfully hard, and moves her to lie down on the bed. Even in the dim light of the room he sees the flush of her skin, the light sheen of sweat on her chest and on her legs. He kisses her face, pushes away the curls stuck to her forehead, kisses the arch of her brow, both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose and the dip of her upper lip, and kisses his way down her body.

She shudders when he takes his time kissing her shoulders, biting and sucking and selfishly leaving marks that she’ll have to hide with a concealment charm. Her hands shoot out to tangle in his hair when he reaches her breasts, torn between pulling him away from the over-sensitive flesh or pushing him to keep sucking on the spot just centimetres from her right nipple. He promises to worship her tits later, when he’s inside of her again, and begins to move further down her body.

As he draws closer to her centre, her scent grows stronger. He kisses her inner thighs, careful not to touch the swollen folds of her cunt. Hermione has grown progressively louder as he grew progressively bolder in his exploration, his tongue dipping into her wet hole. They moan in unison and he thinks he may get drunk on her taste. He fucks her with his tongue, letting her grow accustomed to the feeling, waiting for her to come down from the high and demand for more.

When the last of the tremors from her orgasm fade away, his lips find her clit and he sucks the sensitive nub into his mouth. Her hold on his hair borders on painful, her hips bucking up into his face. He pushes her down with his hands, keeping her in place as he uses the flat of his tongue to massage her clit.

He alternates between swiping and circling the kernel with his tongue, using two fingers to fuck her hole. He feels her walls tighten around the appendages and he withdraws them, determined to make her cum using just his mouth. He sucks on her clit, pulling her impossibly closer to him and allowing her to mindlessly fuck his face. When she comes for the second time he barely hears his name pouring from her lips, her thighs clamping down on his head and effectively blocking out the world.

He doesn’t give her time to ride out her orgasm, pushing into her in one swift thrust. He makes good on his promise, kissing her to let her taste herself on him then moving down to worship her breasts once more. Draco only half recognizes the things she’s saying, a mix of familiar swears words and his name and then things his orgasm-deprived mind just can’t seem to put together.

“Your cunt feels amazing,” he replies when she tells him how good he feels inside her. “You feel so goddamn good, Hermione.”

“Harder, Draco, please,” she mewls, fingers clawing down his back and leaving even more marks for him to keep. “Please, please, I’m going to come again.”

She comes a third time, not nearly as intense as the first and the second one, but enough to pull him spiralling into his own orgasm. He spills himself inside of her, the euphoria of his release settling deep into his bones. In those blinding seconds he forgets that they’re former enemies, that they were only tentative acquaintances before this whole fling started, forgets that he doesn’t understand her motivations and forgets to question his own.

He doesn’t pull out of her, remembering how she had asked him to stay inside of her the last time, and he’s rewarded with a smile and a tender kiss. He moves them so she’s half-lying on top of him, the sheets shielding their naked bodies from the cold. He’s internally debating with himself on whether he should go back to sleep when she makes the decision for him.

“Sleep, let’s give it another go when we wake up.”

 “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He only nods, moving to gather his clothes from the floor. He finds his trousers first and slips them on, facing away from her.

“Not yet,” she amends, as if she had somehow known her response had hurt him. “In the morning, I will.”

He doesn’t point out that it already is morning. They had woken up multiple times during the night and had satisfied each other countless times. The first time he had been the one to wake up, pulling her warm body into his arms, kissing her shoulder as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude took over his heart at the sight of her still curled up beside him. She had taken it as him initiating and things had quickly escalated from there. That had been followed by more sleep and even more sex, and now the sky is tinged with a warm orange and he can’t bring himself to feel regret at the prospect of being sleep-deprived at work. 

He looks down at her and catches her watching him, his shirt from last night hanging open on her shoulders. He wants to know if this is her own cruel way of revenge—false hope, a taste of what could have been and what may be but will inevitably never happen. He wants to know why he’s been allowed to feel as much as he has only for it to be violently taken away from him in the end.

“Come back,” she says, delicate hand patting the empty spot beside her on the bed. “It’s far too early to get ready for work, isn’t it?”

“I’ll make you breakfast later. Get some more sleep.”

He retrieves a fresh shirt and leaves her alone in the bedroom, not turning around to give her a chance to seduce him back into his own bed. He waits by the door for a few seconds, listening for any tell-tale signs that she’ll follow him out, and breathes a sigh of relief when his ears are met with silence. The papers he had been reading before turning in for the night lay abandoned on the coffee table, the sight of them prompting images of Hermione stumbling upon them and asking him questions he can’t and won’t answer, even for her. 

His legs carry him to the sitting room and he hastily shoves the papers into the drawer, eyeing the half-empty bottle of pills staring back up at him. He grabs it, pops one pill into his mouth and swallows it dry, then tosses it back in to join the papers. The drawer is locked with a flick of his wand and he starts to breathe easier.

There are many things he doesn’t know about whatever it is going on between them, but one thing he is certain of is that she must never find out about his depression. The thought that she had only slept with him four days ago out of pity had plagued his mind during the interim between then and now. It had taken him every logical cell in his body to convince himself that the impossibility of her finding out about his illness came second only to the impossibility of her sleeping with anyone out of pity for their mental predicament.

He had spent hours every day thinking about what had happened between them, thinking about how and why it happened, how he wanted it to happen again. He wouldn’t go as far as deluding himself into thinking that he was anywhere near done thinking about it, and her showing up in his flat and then fucking him senseless for hours certainly did not offer any help.

What he didn’t have any problem accepting was that there wouldn’t have been a repeat after the first time. Another thing he had been certain of—that Granger would never set foot in his flat again, that it had been a one-time thing. Then last night happened, and now she’s in his bedroom, possibly sleeping, and he’s in his kitchen preparing the ingredients for pancakes.

He’s finally going to put that tin of powdered milk to use.

 Draco suspects that it’s the smell of food that has her emerging from the bedroom, his shirt buttoned up around her form and her hair resembling a nest of some large bird species. He’s torn between the desire to fix her hair for her (with his hands, not using magic) and the desire to see if it would be possible to mess it up even further. He slides her a plate of pancakes and pulls the tin from the cupboard, presenting it to her.

“Is that… did you get me powdered milk?”

His brain tells him to lie, to downplay the gesture, make up a story about seeing it during one of his grocery runs and purchasing it out of curiosity. He knows she would stop believing him the moment he tries to pretend he does his own grocery.

“Yes.”

She stares at him, mouth hanging slightly ajar, and he braces himself for the questions to come. “I have so many questions about that, but I must admit I’m more hungry than curious.”

It’s his turn to gape at her. The many years between them has given him the privilege of knowing enough about her to know that she must be burning to ask him, to clarify, to make sense of whatever it is that isn’t making sense to her brilliant brain. He watches as she pops the lid open and spoons out a generous amount of the milk, pouring it all over her pancakes. The sound she makes when her lips close around the first bite is devilish and he feels his face heat up.

“Here, try some,” she says when she catches him still staring at her. She catches him by surprise when she leans forward to feed him off her own fork. “Go on, it won’t bite you back if you bite it first.”

The milk is too sweet and it dries out the edges of the pancake. He tries to hide his grimace by drinking from his tea but she catches it and openly laughs at his reaction.

“Bit weird, is it?” she asks him, still eating the ruined cakes. “My parents made me these, but they had forgotten that we’d already run out of syrup. They were arguing about it, so I just grabbed a tin of milk and poured it all over my pancakes so they would stop fighting about the bloody syrup.”

He finds that he’s at a loss for words. He’d heard about what happened to Hermione’s parents, what she’d been forced to do to keep them safe from Death Eaters, from people like him. The sweetness from the milk turns sour in his mouth and he feels his hands begin to tremble. Once again he’s left wondering why she would ever associate herself with him, why she would ever trust herself to be vulnerable in his presence, why she would look at him and talk to him like he isn’t scum on the bottom of her shoe.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. The words are inadequate, useless, but he continues to speak. “I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry you had to do that. I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you during the war. I’m sorry about everything I did to you, every nasty word I told you before the war. I’m sorry, Granger, I’m sorry I stood by and did nothing but watch when my demented aunt did that to you—”

“Draco, shh.” He hadn’t even realized his voice had risen and had taken on a hysterical tone before she was suddenly standing before him, his face in her hands. “It’s okay, Draco, I forgive you. I’ve forgiven you. We were children. I don’t blame you.”

“Well you should,” he says, stepping back from her reassuring touch. “I was your bully, I was a Death Eater, I let those people into Hogwarts and let them torture and kill children. I called you that word, that fucking word, for years.”

She looks like she’s ready to argue but he doesn’t let her, speaking over her attempts to placate him and tell him he’s not a monster. “I let her do this to you,” he says, grabbing her arm and pointing at the word engraved there. The letters are still an angry shade of red against her skin, framed by other tiny scars that have already faded. “You lost your family trying to hide them from us, from me. Many people hate me, Granger, but none of them should hate me more than you.”

She looks like she’s on the verge of tears and he doesn’t know which one of them is shaking harder. He thinks she might slap him, maybe wake up from whatever delusion she had the he could be someone she should be sleeping with. Whatever they had, surely she’s going to end it now that he’s talked some sense into her.

“Are you sorry?”

The words are spoken so quietly that he half believes them to be a figment of his imagination. He stares down at her, into the fire of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Forget a slap, he thinks she might punch him.

“More than anything,” he replies.

“Then I forgive you,” she tells him, moving to wrap her arms around his waist. With her head pressed against his chest, her voice comes out muffled when she adds, “And don’t you dare presume to tell me that I shouldn’t forgive you. That’s for me to decide.”

He doesn’t doubt her words, doesn’t doubt for a second that her Gryffindor heart has forgiven him. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if she’d forgiven him before he asked for her forgiveness; it’s simply her character to be the forgiving one, to be the person to look for the good in people even when they’ve been swallowed whole by the bad.  He allows himself a moment to embrace her to him, pull her body even closer to his and kiss the top of her wild hair.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t meet her gaze. “Eat your pancakes, Granger.”

 She’s redressed in her old clothes and about to floo in to work. He wonders if she’s not worried about people commenting that she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday sans the knit cap but decides to keep his mouth shut on the matter. There’s a myriad of questions in his head that he’d much rather voice but, just like the last time, he chooses to savour the last moments. He doesn’t know when he’ll see her again, but he knows last night had only been another moment of weakness on her part. She had been emotional over something and for some twisted reason he had been the one she sought comfort from.

It’s never going to happen again, he knows. A one-time fluke that just so happened to be repeated a second time, but he wouldn’t dare raise his hopes up for a third. The world simply does not work that way.

She looks like she wants to say something, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. She looks up to meet his eyes and they just stare at each other for a few moments, her working something out in her brain and Draco just waiting for whatever it is she’s going to say.

“I never got to tell you,” she finally says.

“Tell me what?”

“I never got to tell you what happened, I said I would in the morning,” Hermione explains. There’s a hint of a smile playing at her lips but she looks nervous and he immediately regrets asking in the first place.

“It’s okay, Granger, I won’t pry into your personal business,” he says, feigning boredom. He sees a flash of trepidation in her eyes and wonders if he could fuck things up any further than he already has.

After a few terse moments, she seems to come to a decision and clenches her fists at her sides. “Would you like to talk about it over dinner?” she asks, her chin raised and her eyes staring directly into his.

He feels his mask slipping through his fingers, the surprise showing in his face and fuelling her confidence. His mind is reeling with about a dozen thoughts per second. She looks less scared and more determined, and she looks beautiful like this. She looks beautiful brandishing her Gryffindor courage. She looks beautiful in old clothes and with her hair smelling like his shampoo. She looks beautiful standing in front of his floo, standing inside his flat, she looks beautiful wearing his clothes—but she’s not his and why is she asking him out to dinner?

“Why?”

“To eat and converse, obviously,” she replies, her cheeks coloring. He thinks she looks beautiful like that too, flustered and annoyed at him. “Do you not want to, then?”

Draco decides then and there to stop trying to pretend that he would ever understand the inner workings of Hermione Granger’s head. He knows very little about her—she’s the most brilliant witch of her age, she eats her pancakes with powdered milk and takes her tea with one heaping cup of honey topped with an obscene amount of milk, and she uses about half a dozen drying charms on hair. She’s the poster girl for all Gryffindors, she’s a reluctant war heroine, she’s a healer and she probably overworks herself to near death. She’s the only girl he’s ever been in love with and she can never be his but there she is, asking him out to dinner.

“I would like to have dinner with you. When and where shall this take place?”

She giggles at his words and he decides that when she leaves his life for good (in the very near future, he knows) he would endeavour to keep the sound of her laughter playing in his head.

“Would tomorrow work for you? I have the day off,” she says, still smiling up at him. “I’ll bring takeout here.”

He realises that it’s only to be expected that they would have dinner at his place, not outside, not where people can see them and judge her for her choice in company. Whatever they are, it could never become public information, which is why he nods his head even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea as to what takeout is.

Her smile grows bigger and she also nods. She seems to hesitate for half a second before pushing on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. The contact only lasts for a few blissful moments but it’s enough to leave him the slightest bit breathless.

“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Draco.”

[idont-know-what-im-doing]

The Protector

Warnings

Sympathetic Deceit, swords, threats of violence, panic attacks (it's probably really inaccurate), some cursing

______________________________________________________________

👑

Creativity was just minding his own business, lying on his bed and creating epic fantasies about the party  Thomas had just been invited to. 

Thomas was going to be the bell of the ball, and he'll meet a dashing prince who will sweep him off his feet, no, Thomas would sweep the prince off his feet. He would impress him so much that they would slow dance together, and sing a beautiful duet that they made up on the spot, and the party in the background would fade away and they would be in a beautiful forest and animals would sing the background vocals and- 

Suddenly he felt the attention being torn away from him. His beautiful fantasies were being twisted and corrupted, turned into the worst possible outcomes. 

Anxiety. This must be his doing. Ruining his perfect creations with his edgy, and honestly unrealistic, scenarios. 

He absolutely would not stand for this. He was Creativity, after all, he was the prince of the imagination, nay, the entire mindscape. He's non-stop And it's his sacred responsibly to stop this vile villain from hurting his friends and his host.

He jumped up and grabbed his sword, (he would never dream of hurting another side, he wasn't a dark side, after all, but it might be useful if Anxiety needs any convincing.), and sank straight into Anxiety's room. 

(Well, not straight.)

When he got there he couldn't help but be taken aback at the state the room was in; for one thing, it was freezing cold, and nearly pitch black. And once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the clothes, books, and other items carelessly tossed everywhere, and the spider webs in every corner! How could Anxiety live like this?  There is no way any of this stuff sparks any joy. Did he really care so little? 

Creativity felt a shiver down his spine as the fear began to set in. Right, he had forgotten this room had that effect. No matter, he thought, a dark and scary room was no match for a prince. he just had to talk to Anxiety and then he could leave. He could do this, he had to.

He looked around and saw a dark figure sitting on the bed.

"ANXIETY!" 

He had to stifle a laugh as the figure jumped and let out a yelp, clearly not expecting the sudden noise. He walked over to Anxiety and noticed that he was shaking. Good. He should be scared. 

"Wh- what do you want Princey?" 

He said in Tempest Tongue™, Ha! As if that pathetic parlor trick could intimidate a brave prince such as himself. And the darkling was stuttering, Creativity smiled to himself, this is going to be easy.

"I want you to stop ruining all my hard work!

" what do you-"

"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME!"

He yelled, pulling out his sword and pointing it at the villainous side.

"This party is going to be perfect. And you are going to stay out of it. Understand?"

"I- uh- y-" 

He was trembling like a leaf, pathetic. Just quit stuttering and answer! Then this would be over. It's so easy. But noooo, he had to draw this out as long as possible and make Creativity stay in this disgusting place even longer.

"UNDERSTAND?!" 

He yelled, gesturing with his sword for emphasis.

"Creativity."

Said a voice, from behind him. he turned to face this stranger and saw nothing but a long black cloak. (God, dramatic much? That's supposed to be his thing!) Nonetheless, he knew exactly which snake-faced side was lurking in the darkness beneath the hood.

Deceit.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't-"

He began before he was so rudely interrupted by the dark side before him

"I'm not in the mood for your games Princey, get out."

"How dare you?!" 

He gasped, he was preparing to go on a totally reasonably sized rant about respecting royalty and how he could have his head for this when he was rudely cut off again! With a wave of Deceits' hand, Creativity's own hand slapped over his gorgeous lips, silencing him and causing him to drop his sword. Deceit picked it up and pointed it at the regal side.

"I said Get. Out. UNDERSTAND!?" 

He yelled, gesturing with the sword for emphasis, it nearly cut him

Creativity nodded and Deceit lowered the sword and Creativity's hand.

"And take your stupid sword!" He said tossing it at Creativity. It could have cut him! Again!

 What a freak.

                                                         ***

Logic was furiously attempting to fit in as much studying as possible before the frivolous social gathering that Creativity suggested they attend. And naturally, Morality was all for it. After that, it would be futile to try to convince their host to stay home and study. Even if he was not out-numbered 2-1 no one would have listened to him anyway, they never do.

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed that he was not alone in his room. Deceit was standing near the doorway. 

He did the logical thing and tried to call for help. But before he could even get a word out Deceit flicked his wrist and silenced him.

"I don't have a lot of time, so listen to me very carefully. You are going to give me the information I need as quickly as you possibly can and you are not going to ask any questions. Are we understood?" 

Logic nodded and Deceit lowered his hand.

"Good, I need all the information you have on panic attacks."

He requested.

What could he possibly want to do with that information? Deceit probably wants to find a way to give Thomas a panic attack, so Logic should make sure not to give him any information that he could use for that. But what if that is not his plan? What if Logic ends up giving him the exact information he needs to hurt Thomas?  There is only one way to be sure. Ask him.

"Why do you need-"

Deceit silenced him again. 

Oh, never mind that was not a smart plan.

"Ya know…" 

Deceit said coyly 

"This trick is really handy. You can't say a thing, can you?"

Logic shook his head, but Deceit didn't seem to notice and just kept monologuing.

"No need to try to answer, I know you can't. It even silenced Creativity, so of course, it’ll work with you."

Logic believes that would qualify as a "burn"

"in fact… I bet no one could even hear you if you tried to scream."

Logic's eyes widened with fear.

"But I don't think you want to test that theory right now, do you?" He grinned, his fangs and scales glinting despite no light being shined on them. Illogical, but dramatic and threatening nonetheless.

Logic shook his head desperately. Whatever Deceit had planned for him, it would probably be a better idea to just give him the information he needs.

Deceit dropped Logics hand and for a split second it looked like his smug look morphed into something else, Logic wasn't good with feelings, but he could have sworn it looked like… guilt?

But naturally, that's impossible. Dark sides don't feel remorse. They're evil. Or at least that's what Creativity said, and, as Creativity, he would know the most about this illogical, make-believe world they live in.

                                                            ***

Deceit lightly knocked on Anxiety's door before entering. 

"Who's there?!" 

Anxiety asked in Tempest Tongue™. God, Creativity must have really scared him.

"It's Deceit, can I come in?"

He didn't hear a response, technically Anxiety didn't say no…?

He really should have asked Logic more questions.

He decided to just walk in anyway.

Anxiety was curled up in a ball on his bed, shaking, with tears falling down his face. He looked so weak.

Deceit was going to f*cking kill Creativity! Did he have no compassion? No sympathy for others? Of course, he didn't; he was the "prince" and therefore he mattered more than the rest of them. And naturally the "dark sides" didn't matter at all. 

This hellish society is ruled by a tyrant child who thinks his actions don't have consequences. And yet he dares call them the vill-

That's not what this is about. He had to comfort Anxiety. He could focus on dismantling an unjust society later.

"Anx?" 

He asked softly, sitting down next to him.

"Can you hear me?" 

Anxiety nodded

"Good. Everything will be okay. I just need you to breathe with me, okay? Breathe in for four seconds; 1, 2, 3, 4. Good. Now hold for seven seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. You're doing great. Now breathe out for eight seconds; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. You got it! In. Hold. Out. In. Hold. Out." 

It took awhile for Anxiety to match his breathing, and once he did they kept breathing together for a few minutes.

"Do you feel better?" 

Deceit asked, making sure to keep his voice soft.

Anxiety nodded

"Can I hug you?"

"Y- yes" 

His voice was already starting to return to normal.

Deceit wrapped the smaller side up in his arms.

Anxiety clung to Deceit, gripping the back of his cloak, and burying his face in his shoulder.

"Tell anyone about this and I will murder you"

He whispered in his ear

"Of course, "

Deceit replied sarcastically

"Wouldn't want to ruin your reputation of being a fearless badass, now would we?"

"Shut up"

He complained, his voice muffled by Deceit's cloak.

They sat there in silence, wishing they could stay like this forever.

Deceit soon felt his shoulder grow damp. Anxiety was crying.

Deceit pulled leaned away and looked in his eyes.

"Hey, look at me. I know things suck right now, they really suck. But I will fix this." 

He said with finality

"One of these days, everything will be different."

[chocobostrinket]

Hibiscus

LeviathanxReader

Notes: PFFT This is a pairing I never thought I’d be writing, but I saw this odd/hilarious/cool post about how to woo Leviathan. Like, this small idea took off in my head and the only way to get it out was to write it. (This is all @joioliviapolaroid‘s fault pfft, hope you don’t mind I wrote this.)

Summary: You’ve spent your life in love with the sea, and she just happened to like you enough not to kill you on sight the first time you met. 2969 words. 

It started when you were young.

At the time, you were a child playing in the ocean. The waves pushed at your shins as you danced in the tide. The water was a soundless song, the tempo dictated by the moon’s cycle. Part of you wondered why the water followed it so closely, but the rest of you didn’t want to think, enjoying the water in the way only a child could. You saw beauty and peace where adults would look at the waves with fear.

Maybe that’s why you saw her.

Playing in the water had caused you to lose track of time. The sun was almost all the way down, and moon just beginning to rise. A rare twilight, where both moonlight and sunlight met on the beach. What pulled you out of your revelry was the sight of a woman in the water as you were. Only she wasn’t dancing. She stood still and looked to the horizon.

She was gorgeous, in a way you couldn’t quite name. Her skin was dark, the color of sharp rocks near the cliff, darkened by the water that was constantly sharpening their points. A rich black that could only come from the combination of earth and sea. Across her body were bright blue tattoos. So reflective was the ink, it was as if the waves depicted on her were taken right from the sea in the middle of a bright sunny day. Her face was warm and strong, and her eyes were hard. But not cold. Rather, they were deep. Dark and soothing. There was no other way to describe them. And her dress blended seamlessly with the sea foam at her ankles, flowing around her legs as if there was a gentle breeze.

And while she was so gorgeous, you were a child. So the only thing you fixated on was the bright red flower tucked behind her ear, held in place by her many braids. It didn’t take long for you to walk up to her, and while normally, the sight of another person to play with would have brought you running, something inside you told you to walk. To be on your best behavior. And upon reaching her, she turned to look at you, a subtle look of surprise on her face. With her eyebrows slightly raised, she knelt in the water to be on your level.

“Hi.” You said softly, shyly, which was out of character for you. “Why do you have that flower in your hair?”

She tilted her head slightly, and seemed to regard you with rarely used curiosity. When she spoke, it was the same song of the tides that met your ears.

“It was made for me, and so it is my favorite.”

And with that, she rose back to her feet, seemingly having sated her curiosity.

“Child, run back the way you came.” Without touching your shoulders, she guided you to turn around. “Go, and do not look back.”

With words so grave, you felt compelled to listen, and did as she wished. It wasn’t until you were back on the grass further up from the beach, your family’s home in sight, that you felt safe enough to turn around. You watched as she stepped out of the water, and walked along the beach. But then, while you were watching, she slowly faded out of sight. Where her hand had hovered above your shoulder, a mark of two lines appeared. Like her own tattoos, they depicted waves. Only, it looked like a birthmark rather than the blue of her own, and for years to come would be unnoticed by you.

That night, your mother told you to story of Leviathan, a feared beast, the anger of the ocean. Mother of the tides and spirit of the deep. Your mother also told you of how people used to worship her, pray to her, and she never listened. Taking loved ones and drowning them. The vicious waves and currents that could steal someone from the beach if they dared turn their back on her. Cruelly ending lives before they’d begun. People vanishing on the water never to be seen again. She was to be feared, reviled, but respected.

But that day, the woman had given you a gift. Now, when you looked at the tides, the song that was once silence had turned into symphonies of creation and destruction in equal measure.

~

When you were a teenager, you’d gone back to the beach many times, nearly daily, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman again. The threat of daemons rising from the sands nearby, and the long trek home in the dark, did not daunt you. You’d learned from the hunters how to evade, and were aided by the sand refusing to give under your feet when you ran. Of course danger was ever present, but there was no where you felt safer than the beach.

Now that you were older, you were sure that the woman you had seen that day had been the goddess of the sea herself. Only, you’d never seen her again after that night. But you held faith in your heart, and had nothing but kind thoughts for the goddess. In the water, before the sunset and after the moon rose, you would leave flowers on the edge of the waves. Red ones. Always red. The next morning when you’d come back, some of them would be returned to you, sitting on the sand as if the water had rejected them.

But the red hibiscus flowers were always gone.

Eventually, you’d stopped bringing all others, and even made a ritual out of talking to the waves about your day when you’d sent them. As long as you knew that someone was there, listening silently, it helped you when you were hurt, and made you happy when you weren’t. Occasionally, on certain days, you’d whisper old prayers that you’d learned from an old woman in town. Ones that still remembered the goddess before her rage, and offered her the respect and reverence that had been stripped from her when all that man spoke of was her anger.

They spoke of protection, and of a long-forgotten title.

Sometimes, you’d read from your journal that you kept of writing and drawings. Poems you’d written for her, made from the memory of a child who didn’t know she was supposed to be feared. And as you aged, you spoke of her beauty, never mentioning the danger she was known for. You wrote of the sea as a person, capable of anger and love. Some of them were ever written to the melody of the waves, becoming instead songs of the sea. Drawings of the memory of her tattoos, colored to match their brilliance. But you’d never been able to capture their exact color. Portraits of her eyes. The hem of her dress as it had blended into the foam. There were also drawings of ships and sailors preparing to leave the shores. Or the hibiscus flowers you grew and would pick just for the ocean.

And for the first time that day, you’d finished a journal.

As you thumbed through its contents while sitting on the sand, you realized you didn’t know what to do with it. Poems no one else had read, drawings never seen by anyone but you.

It felt right, when you cast it into the waves with the flower.

“It’s for you.” Was all you said that day, and then you turned and left to go back home.

~

As an adult, people were beginning to whisper about you. You’d grown unparalleled in beauty, unrivaled in kindness, and known for having a strange connection to the sea. There were many suitors that you’d rejected in your small seaside town, and all would meet unlucky fates at the hands of the waves. As if the sea itself was warning them away from trying again. And for the few that insisted on trying to force you into a relationship you didn’t want, it was rare they came back from their next trip on the sea.

Some began calling you Leviathan’s kindness. Her priestess. The woman who was given gifts from the waves. Whereas people knew that the goddess was anything but kind and would only hurt those who dared to try crossing her waters, you could heal with what she would use to hurt.

Women would come to you for multiple reasons. Some for love spells, to give a man’s heart a nudge, or to grant him the courage needed take the next step. Those spells were easy, but would take time. Others to escape. For a way out of their situation. To heal their bruises and their souls. Those were longer, but took effect almost instantly.

“Take this seashell, and when you see him next, crush it over your heart. And then you shall be free from the love you feel for him.” You told one woman, who’s eye you had helped heal with sea water when it had been swollen shut. You ensured that she wouldn’t be blind in that eye, and the rest of her bruises, after being massaged with a paste of hibiscus petals and sea foam, were gone by the next day.

You placed the seashell in a sachet of linen, easily hidden in the front pocket of the woman’s shirt, and handed it to her. “Then you must take a boat away from here, but have no destination in mind. Cast away your oars and lay down in the boat and sleep. She will take care of you if you trust her. When you arrive at safety, throw a bottle with words you feel are right back into the water.”

“Thank you,” The woman said, “Thank you so much.”

Others began to call you a sea witch.

“Where is she?!” The man raged, days after the woman’s visit, throwing the things in your home into disarray. Papers strew about in rage, books thrown carelessly on the floor, bottles of water upended, and seashells, the gifts the sea left for you, smashed to pieces. Outside, you could feel a storm building in your bones.

With the sea behind you outside the window, with its song ever present, you were brave.

“Gone. You’ll never hurt her again.”

Your eyes were as cold as the sea in winter, and he continued raging. The man wanted to get his way. He threw a piece of broken bottle at you, it’s jagged end catching your cheek. You allowed the blood to drip down your face and fall to the floor, where it mixed with the sea water he’d spilled. The cut was deep, but you didn’t care.

But she did.

The sound of a bellowing scream came from the sea, and the man paled.

“Witch!” He spat, before fleeing your home to run back to the town.

You’d never heard that sound from the sea before, and went outside to see what could have made it. But also, to show that you were unharmed. And the only thing you saw was the crashing of the waves on the sand.

~

That night, the song changed. Creation had never sounded so soft, nor destruction so soothing. Barefooted, you left your home and walked down to the beach, and then into the water to stand where you were when you were a child. This time it was fully night, but the moon was already setting. Yet, even with the difference, you could feel her there. You took a few steps further out into the sea, and waited. And when you felt that it was time, you turned around.

There she stood, ankle deep in the ocean, looking exactly as she did all those years ago. It was as if she had never left that spot. But this time she beckoned to you. The movement was like a siren’s call, and you couldn’t do anything else but follow.

Slow measured steps, following her at a respectable distance. You never took your eyes off her, a feeling warning you away from doing so. Not that you wanted to. The woman, goddess, you’d been talking to and offering prayers for years was in front of you. The same deity that granted you gifts and your connection to the sea. Why would you look away?

Upon stepping on the sand, it felt different, but you didn’t dare look down. It was as soft as powder, yet you knew if she willed it, it could shred your feet in seconds. It was the feeling of the sand, cool yet warm under your feet, that let you know this wasn’t the beach you had just been on. No, this was a place between the water and the sea sand of your home. A place only she could come.

And she’d brought you.

You followed her on this endless beach, the water behaving strangely to the right of you. Your connection to the water, to her, allowed you the knowledge of knowing not to touch the water again now that you’d left it. The song was wrong.

When the sun started rising, you could see a small cottage. The wood was weathered, like it had seen many sea storms and was rubbed smooth by the sand around it. She entered first, and given that she hadn’t told you to stop following, you went inside too.

Your eyes, even though you just came in from outside, didn’t need to adjust to the change in lighting. A strange sort of ease settled over you the moment you came through the door. It was like coming home. And all around the cottage, you could see the flowers you’d sent her. Eternally kept alive, some gathered in bushels, some strung up on the walls. But the best ones had their stems held in the pages of the journals she had collected over the years.

When you went to walk further into the cottage, strong arms wrapped around you from behind. Her skin was cool and thrummed with energy unending. You wanted nothing more than to turn around to see her face. But you held still. One of her hands drifted up to your face, turning your injured side toward her. You closed your eyes the moment she pressed a kiss to the cut, and suppressed a hiss of pain as it healed. The healing she did always felt like rubbing salt in the wound until it was finished.

After she finished, it was then that she reached down and held your hands in hers, trapping you in her embraces and your own. You leaned back, pressing your head against her shoulder, and finally allowed yourself to look up at her. She met your stare with her own, and you found something like love there. You knew that gods could not love like mortals do, but what was in her eyes rant as deep as the deepest part of her domain.

It was then that she interrupted your thoughts. Her hand resting against your cheek again, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, teasing. But then she pressed her lips to your and let you turn around in her arms. Her hand then slid back to fist in your hair, pulling your head back to kiss at your neck, lingering on your pulse. It felt like the tide had swept you away and soon you lost yourself to her.

~

It was after, when you lay in a tangle of blankets at her side, with her eyes watching your every move, that you spoke.

“Why me?” You asked, your voice as small as the day you met. You were human, insignificant compared to the eternity of her life. And while you loved her, you knew it was not returned. A god couldn’t feel love as a human does after all.

She was silent for a moment, appearing to gather her thoughts while tracing your collar bones with feather light touches. But then her hand trailed over to your shoulder and slowly, she began to hold you so tightly, her nails began to leave indents in your skin.

“I think you were made for me, and so you are my favorite.” Was her answer, and a part of you felt uneasy at the thought of being a belonging of the goddess. But another part of you recalled her fondness of the Hibiscus flower, and how it has spanned centuries. Since the first moment, according to the story, that Titan created it and gifted it to her, in memory of a woman she had failed to protect, coloring the petals with the woman’s blood.

And so you smiled, and leaned forward to press another, this time chaste, kiss to her mouth which she gladly returned.

~

All the town’s people found on the beach, the night after you went missing, was your footsteps going into the tide. Some side that Leviathan had finally killed the last of her compassion, and now only her anger was left. But the women whispered of Leviathan calling you home. Of you having gone to her side as your reward for being so faithful to the sea.

Sometimes, people would see the image of you walking on the beach, hand in hand with a woman who’s features no one could quite make out. And it is said, to this very day, that if you were in trouble and needed to find safety, that you could walk the beach and a woman might appear before you, offering advice and magic to aid you. People, every year on the day you vanished, would set red hibiscus flowers onto the sea. Both for Leviathan, and the woman who remembered that the goddess, though thought of as cruel, was kind.

[ineverhadmyinternetphase]

In My Way - Chapter 18

AO3 link, First Chapter

Genre: Chaptered. Actor!Dan AU, fluff, bit of angst, slow burn, getting together (eventually)

Summary: Fiction. Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.

Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.

Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor   Daniel Howell.

Warnings: Swearing, Ace!Phil, Bi!Dan, slight a- and bi-phobia, discussions of sexuality

Word Count: 3000-5000 per chapter (ish)

A/N: Once again, sorry for the delay in this chapter! I’m just gonna say this once: I have M.E., a medical condition that effects my energy levels and gives me chronic pain and nasty things. Sometimes it affects my ability to write, which is why updates can be slow. But good news: I know this fic is going to be 25 chapters long, and I have them all planned exactly. I’ll update as regularly as I can ^_^

Again, giant thanks to my beta @mecaka! This is only possible because of her hard work. Go send her love if you’ve got time because honestly, she is the best thing that could have happened to me with this fic

—

Two months, it turned out, was the length of time left on the film set.

“Well, actually, it’s closer to a month and a half,” Dan elaborated from his place sprawled across Phil’s lap, eyes narrowed as he tore around another corner in Mario Kart. “And did you have to bring this up now?”

“I’ve been trying to talk to you about it all day,” Phil grumbled gruffly. Which, in his defence, was true. Ever since the call with Tyler last week, Phil had been working up his courage to bring the subject up with Dan, and this morning he had finally done it only for Dan to distract him by dragging him out to the sofa to challenge him to a duel.

Which Dan was going to win, because this was Mario Kart and Dan was insanely competitive.

“So after the set,” Phil started again, barely even focusing on the screen and much more occupied with the warm person lying across his lap, “Are you, um, are you going away?”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “Away where?”

Away from me, Phil thought, half-heartedly firing a shell. It went backward, straight off the course, completely missing Dan’s little figure that was racing far ahead.

“There,” Dan said satisfactorily as he crossed the finishing line, then paused the game and rolled onto his back. He narrowed his eyes at Phil. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing’s up with me,” Phil answered immediately. Perhaps not the best method for improving communication, or generally getting anywhere with Dan, but denial was still and would probably always be Phil’s first defence mechanism.

Thankfully, Dan had been around Phil for long enough now to recognise this, so he wasn’t dissuaded at all. Instead, he sat up, tossing his controller carelessly onto the cushion beside him, and fixed Phil with a stern look. “So something is definitely up.”

“It isn’t,” Phil insisted unhelpfully.

Dan had one brow arched at him in a perfect expression of disbelief. Practised many times for several film roles, probably, and now Phil was being subjected to it in all its realness.

“If nothing’s up,” Dan said calmly, “Then we can just carry on playing, and you interrupted a perfectly fun round for no good reason.”

“Yes,” Phil replied quickly, then stopped. “Well, no. Um. Maybe.”

“Congratulations on giving every possible answer.” Dan rolled his eyes, but there was a fond smile at his lips. He flopped himself back down over Phil’s lap, arranging himself to be perfectly comfortable so he could still see the screen, and grabbed the controller again, starting up a solo level. Phil’s eyes traced Dan’s character, and he felt his heartbeat calm down a little. Watching Dan do things always calmed him down – there was a level of professional confidence about everything Dan did, as if he’d thought every action through at least four times. It was… reassuring. Especially when every aspect of Phil’s life was currently being made up as he went along.

“So you asked if I’m going away,” Dan said evenly after a few moments of silent playing.

Phil swallowed.

“I’m guessing you don’t mean leaving the country, or, like, dying,” Dan continued, and was that a hint of laughter hiding away in his tone? “But you still brought it up, so something must be on your mind.”

“Yeah,” Phil answered softly without thinking. His fingers had somehow found their way into Dan’s hair. It was comforting to have the knowledge that Dan was still right there. For now.

“So what is it?” Dan asked again after another moment of watching his character easily cruise the level. Dan really was insanely good at Mario Kart. How did he even have time to practice as an actor?

Phil gave his head a small shake. He shuffled around a bit, until Dan made a noise of complaint, and then went very still with his fingers still curled in Dan’s hair.

Phil just didn’t want to lose this.

“I suppose,” he started slowly, “I mean what your roommate said in the call.”

“Tyler?” Dan sounded surprised. He had no idea at all, then.

Phil gathered his courage and said, “Yeah. When he said he was getting you back. That means… that means you’re leaving me, right?”

The words sat heavily. Phil winced as soon as he realised their full meaning. He hadn’t meant it quite like that, but… but therein lay his fears, really.

Dan squawked. He dropped the controller, not even bothering to pause the level this time, and rolled around to face Phil just as his character made a squealing noise as it fell off the course.

“What?” Dan asked, staring at Phil, a picture of surprised disbelief.

Phil shifted awkwardly. “Tyler said he’d be getting you back.”

“Yeah!” Dan narrowed his eyes. “And you think that means I’m leaving you?”

Phil bit his lip. He considered for a moment. “Um. Well. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Leaving… me.”

“No!” Dan sat up properly then, giving Phil the full extent of his glare. “Why? Do you want me to?”

“No, not at al! I just—” Phil paused, realising he’d done an extremely bad job of explaining himself. He deflated in place a little. “I just – don’t understand.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” Dan answered after a moment of silence. He shook his head, sitting back a little on Phil’s sofa cushions so he could draw his knees into his chest. Defensive, Phil realised. He’d made Dan go all defensive again.

Desperately, Phil tried to salvage the conversation and make it go back in the direction he’d originally intended. “What I’m trying – very badly – to say is, you aren’t staying here forever. In Manchester, I mean. Are you?”

Dan blinked. Slowly, comprehension started to show on his face, and Phil thanked every lucky star he’d ever wished on for it. But there was also fear tugging at Phil’s stomach, because he’d brought this up now. They were going to have this conversation, to face the issue that had been itching at him all week.

“No,” Dan answered slowly, his tone cautious, his eyes fixed on Phil’s face. “No, I’m not staying in Manchester forever.”

Phil’s heart plummeted.

“But you knew that, right?” Dan added, leaning in a little bit closer. “I’m only here for the set. That’s over in a couple of months, then I’m going home. You knew that, right?”

Phil swallowed. Dan said home so easily, and he was referring to a place where Phil wasn’t. That shouldn’t hurt, they’d hardly known each other four months, but somehow Phil’s idea of home already had a Dan in it. “And then back to London. And Tyler. Right?”

Dan didn’t answer straight away. Instead, he tilted his head, regarding Phil closely with something warm hiding in his eyes. “I mean, yeah. London is home for me.”

Phil nodded once. He kept his face clear of expression.

After a moment, Dan asked, “Does that bother you?”

Phil shifted, considering the question for a moment. He reached out to grab Dan’s hand, smiled a bit when Dan gave a startled movement that settled into a small smile. He squeezed Phil’s fingers.

“It doesn’t really bother me,” Phil answered slowly. “I mean, it’s your home. Tyler seems nice.”

“He is,” Dan agreed, his gaze still intent on Phil. “My best friend.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you have a best friend.” Phil glanced at Dan, tried not to let jealousy slip into his tone. “How did you meet him?”

“Oh, I met him years ago,” Dan answered with an easy smile and went on to tell Phil that Tyler had met Dan on Dan’s very first set. Dan had been a nervous wreck, unsure of everything around him, and Tyler was his make-up artist. He’d taken one look at Dan’s pasty face and gone Oh no, we can’t have that. Dan at first thought he was being mocked – it turned out Tyler was just very exuberant and exacting in what he wanted.

After that, they’d become fast friends. Tyler was new to England, and so Dan took it upon himself to show him around the main sites. After a year, they’d decided to move in together, and when Dan hesitantly stuttered out that he was maybe attracted to boys as well as to girls, Tyler had embraced him in a warm hug and welcomed him to the party. (Tyler was as gay as a pink elephant, and as exuberant about it as he was about make-up).

“So he knows?” Phil interrupted, surprised.

Dan nodded. “He’s the only other one who does. You and him.”

“Not even your family?” Phil asked without thinking, and then winced. “No, wait, you don’t have to answer that.”

Dan’s eyes had tightened up a bit, but he hadn’t removed his hand from Phil’s. Dan glanced downwards, at where his fingers linked up so easily with Phil’s. “I just – I didn’t want to risk the exposure. You know. If the press ever got wind of it…”

“I get it,” Phil spoke into the silence quickly. “Honestly. That’s not what I meant.”

Dan sent him a tiny, grateful smile.

Phil fidgeted for another minute, then reached out to pull Dan into a hug. Dan muffled a chuckle as he leaned into Phil, speaking into his shoulder, “You can’t solve everything with a hug, Phil.”

“I can try,” Phil said adamantly, and then added, “I just… don’t want you to be gone.”

“I won’t be gone,” Dan murmured, his own arms slotting easily around Phil. “Not really.”

“But London is far away.”

Dan tilted his face up until he was looking right at Phil, and suddenly he was very, very close. “I’m not in London now.”

Phil was frozen, immobile, still taken aback by these moments of intimacy. But he was very sure that was happiness bubbling up inside him, so he leaned closer at Dan’s invitation and kissed him lightly.

Dan smiled, kissed him back, and for a moment everything was perfect. Things like this got easier every time they did them, and Phil was growing in confidence every time, more and more sure that yes, he liked this. As long as it didn’t go too far, and Dan was wonderful and soft and never pushed him.

When Phil pulled back, Dan didn’t complain at all. He didn’t even look insecure, which Phil always worried about because he had a feeling that Dan would kiss for longer if it was up to him. But Phil always started to feel weird after a few minutes, and he was endlessly grateful that Dan never brought it up, but just smiled happily every time Phil pulled away.

Dan was smiling happily at him now, and then he whispered, “You could always come with me.”

Phil blinked. His voice squeaked a bit. “Come with you?”

“To London.” Dan’s eyes were bright, but a bit guarded. He didn’t look away from Phil’s face. “When the set is done with. You could come back to London with me.”

Phil’s eyes widened. He’d never even considered that as a possibility – that Dan might ask him to go with him, that maybe there was a solution that didn’t involve Dan staying in Manchester forever.

Dan couldn’t stay in Manchester. He had a job, and friends. Obviously.

But Phil still felt the tiniest tug of disappointment. Manchester was his home. He’d deliberately moved back here after doing his undergrad in York, because York felt too far away.

It was closer than London, though.

Dan was still looking at him, but that guarded something in his eyes had grown. He was shrinking back a bit, shrinking into himself, behind all those walls that Phil had started to break down.

Phil grabbed for him again. “I want to be with you.”

Dan brightened up again immediately. “So you’ll come?”

“I’ll…” Phil took a breath, bit his lip. “I’ll… I’ll think about it. London is… far away.”

Dan’s eyes had clouded over again. Phil hated that, wished he could banish it away in an instant and have Dan happy and smiling again, but… but he’d learned not to dive straight into scary things. He needed to think, to process.

And they still had time.

“There’s a month and a half left, right?” Phil added almost desperately. “There’s time to… to think. We can figure it out.”

Dan nodded slowly, his gaze clearing a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, we can figure it out.”

Phil smiled back at him, and really, really hoped it was true.

---

A few days later, when Dan was away at the film set and Phil was sitting at home half-heartedly tapping away at his thesis, the idea crossed Phil’s mind again.

Moving to London.

It didn’t seem quite possible when Dan mentioned it. Like a dream, something to be imagined but never to be lived, at least not for someone like Phil. Dan’s world was full of glittering lights and camera flashes and interviews – hell, that was why they never went on proper dates outside. Phil could still remember with a shudder the day a camera had followed Dan back to Phil’s bookshop.

That was Dan’s world, not Phil’s. And if he was honest, Phil wanted no part in it.

Except… except he did want to keep Dan. He really did. To the extent that thinking about Dan going away to London without him had Phil’s chest constricting until his breathing was difficult.

This was crazy. He’d only known Dan a handful of months, and the majority of that had been spent trying to avoid him. Phil had hated Dan when they’d first met, he was sure of it – he remembered that arrogant smirk, the way Dan had looked down on him.

Knowing Dan as he did now, Phil could see that had been because Dan had believed Phil snubbed him deliberately. But he hadn’t. Phil was just a bumbling mess, he always had been, and he probably always would be.

Dan shouldn’t even want him around anyway.

Phil shook away the thought with a sad little frown. He was staring blankly at his thesis document, on its way to finished with a month left to the deadline, and then his course would almost be over. Just another month after that until his official graduation. His mum had already invited everyone over for the celebration – Phil the Doctor, Phil the smart one, he’d always been the brains of the family, she’d proudly say.

But then what?

There’d be a big celebration, and then… then what? Phil had never been one to look at the future too hard, never been one to wallow in worrying. He’d just enjoyed what he did without thinking too much about where it would lead him. But now… now, he was facing a gaping hole with no more education to fill it.

And he didn’t want to face that alone.

So Dan. He had Dan, he wanted to keep Dan, and miraculously Dan wanted to keep him. That had to be worth all the worry, right? All the stress? There had to be something worth holding onto in the feelings he had for Dan, in the feelings Dan had shared with him.

He hadn’t had a text from Dan yet that day. Phil had messaged him in the morning but hadn’t heard anything back. That wasn’t too unusual. The film set was getting busier every day, with the closing deadlines looming. Then everything would be moving down to London.

London, where all the post-production work would be happening. Phil’s speciality. Phil’s favourite aspect.

If only…

Phil chewed on his inner cheek, having a staring contest with his laptop, until he relented and pulled up a new internet tab.

Post-production film jobs in London.

Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of results. Phil trailed through the first few, registering some of the company names, recognising some. There were a lot of internship programmes that he’d be eligible to apply for.

He didn’t have to make any decisions yet. But it was an option.

Just then, his phone buzzed against his desk. Phil snatched it up to see a new tweet from Dan: literally starving at the set @amazingphil where is my coffee

Phil snorted. They were still being publicly open on Twitter, and while they’d never explicitly stated the exact nature of their relationship (Phil still got a fuzzy little feeling whenever he remembered that Dan was his boyfriend), it was a good thing. Having Dan happy with them being public, even in this tiny way – it gave Phil hope.

Hope that this was actually ok.

Definitely a possibility, Phil decided as he glanced at the results on his laptop, and then bookmarked it before answering Dan’s tweet with another public one of his own.

@amazingphil: @danisnotonfire on my way right now

---

The days continued in their easy pattern, but the time was constantly being eaten up. Without even meaning to, Phil found himself subconsciously counting down the days to their deadline, the deadline when Dan would be leaving.

He’d visit the set with coffee for Dan and think, only five more weeks of doing this.

Dan would crash into the bookshop during Phil’s shift and regale him with stories of the day’s filming and Phil, in between fits of laughter, would find himself saying, “Not much longer left, now.”

Dan’s eyes always went cautious. He answered carefully, “No. Not long left.”

Phil tried not to think too much about the way Dan’s eyes lingered on him, as if he was waiting for a response, for something more from Phil. Something more that Phil wasn’t sure he could give.

They’d be curled up together on Phil’s sofa, or cuddled under the blankets on his bed watching Netflix on Phil’s laptop, and Phil would stay silent but the thoughts running around his head were full of not much longer, you don’t get to have this for much longer. He tried to quiet the doubts, knew that Dan moving away was very different to Dan breaking up with him, but it was still hard.

He tightened his grip around Dan and buried his face in Dan’s hair.

Dan made a questioning noise and wriggled a bit, so Phil batted at him until he stayed still. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to face the questions that he knew Dan was going to want to bring up. In all honesty, Phil just didn’t want to face the future. He wanted this present to extend forever, with Dan in his arms and something easy on TV and blankets and cuddles and nothing else more complicated going on.

Why couldn’t he just have that? Phil didn’t think it was too much to ask for.

It was when there were only three weeks left that Phil came home from a shift at the bookshop to find Dan sitting on the sofa on Phil’s laptop.

Phil blinked, and then let out a heavy sigh. Coming home to Dan invading his flat wasn’t exactly unusual, not since Phil had given him a key, but still. There were privacy limits. Weren’t there? Or shouldn’t there be?

Dan grinned at him impishly, and then pulled Phil’s laptop further into his lap. “Mine for now. Sorry.”

Phil rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “I guess I shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.”

“Probably not,” Dan agreed, already buried back in whatever he was doing. As long as it wasn’t another skype call to Tyler that Phil could embarrass himself in front of, then Phil didn’t really mind. It was an excuse to forget about proof-reading his thesis for a bit, after all.

“Hot chocolate?” Phil offered on his way into the kitchen.

“Mm, please!” Dan called back, and Phil’s smile was widening before he even realised it. Having Dan around just made Phil feel… buoyant. Like there was something under his skin lifting him up, making his feet hardly touch the ground. It didn’t quite feel real, except when he could feel Dan in his arms, breathe in his scent, see the possessions he’d slowly left scattered around Phil’s place. Honestly, Phil didn’t even know the last time Dan had actually spent long periods of time in his hotel room.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Dan said when Phil returned with two steaming mugs. He curled his legs out of the way, making room for Phil to join him, and grabbed eagerly for the mug.

“Don’t spill that on my laptop,” Phil warned him, but otherwise settled in happily. He cast Dan a slightly worried look. “Also, that doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not bad, exactly,” Dan hedged, casting another quick look at Phil. He grimaced. “I just – I saw a car.”

Phil arched a questioning brow.

“A black car,” Dan elaborated, “Um, outside.”

“Wow, amazing, anyone would think we were in a main city.” Phil grinned. Some of Dan’s sarcasm had rubbed off on him.

Dan kicked at him delicately. “No, you idiot. Outside here. Outside your building.”

Phil blinked, taken aback. “…Oh?”

“Yeah. It looked like a journalist to me.” Dan was looking steadfastly at the laptop screen again, not meeting Phil’s eyes. “So, um. They might have seen me, and my guess is they could call you at some point."

Phil’s stomach dropped.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Dan added in what was clearly a carefully researched speech. “You can just refuse to comment if they badger you. And if they do it too much, threaten the police, it’s harassment.”

“The police?” Phil asked a bit faintly.

Dan shot him a look, then bit his lower lip. He shifted a bit closer to Phil. “I did try and warn you this might happen.”

Phil remained silent. That didn’t help very much. Sure, he remembered when Dan was first trying to get closer to him, that Dan warned him what his lifestyle meant – but Phil wasn’t anyone interesting. He hadn’t really given much thought to people bothering him, or what he was supposed to do or say. He was far too awkward for any of it.

And it wouldn’t even matter soon, with Dan going away.

Phil shook away all those thoughts, a crease appearing in his brow. Dan reached out to smooth it away with his thumb, a sweet gesture he’d started doing whenever Phil was stressed or worrying about something. “You don’t have to say anything, Phil.”

“I just,” Phil started, and then turned to look straight at Dan. “Do you want me to say anything?”

Dan blinked. He looked startled for a moment before casually schooling his expression back into a careful blank. That was the problem with Dan being such a good actor – when he didn’t want to show his emotion, he really didn’t show it.

“I didn’t think you’d want to,” Dan answered delicately.

“I don’t,” Phil agreed, “I mean, not if you don’t want to. I just. Does that mean you want it to be a secret?”

Dan looked a bit pained. “That isn’t a fair question.”

“What do you mean?”

Dan squirmed, but Phil pressed him, leaning in a bit closer. “What do you mean, Dan? Communicate, remember. Talk to me.”

Dan made a face at him. He took in a breath, slowly, and then let it out. He closed Phil’s laptop and slid it onto the floor, and then made grabby hands at Phil in a gesture that Phil had come to realise meant come closer, need to hold you.

Phil obliged, and let Dan wrap him up in long arms, hold him against his chest. He laid his head comfortable on Dan’s shoulder.

“Saying something would mean that this is something that’s going to last,” Dan eventually murmured into Phil’s hair.

Phil’s mouth went dry. He froze.

“I don’t mean that would be a bad thing,” Dan hastily continued, “I mean, like, it would make it official.”

Phil managed to unstick his mouth enough to say, “And that would be a bad thing?”

“No, no, I don’t mean anything like that.” Dan let out a cross little sigh. “I mean – um – it would mean we’d both face a lot of questions about it, and if you’re… if you’re in Manchester, and I’m in London, um. We’d have to face them alone.”

Phil took in a careful breath. The weight behind Dan’s words told Phil that he’d thought about them a lot, probably been thinking about the coming month just as much as Phil had, in fact. Maybe if they’d talked about it sooner, Phil wouldn’t have had to do as much worrying on his own.

“I mean,” Phil started, and then stopped again.

Dan nudged at him. “What?”

“I mean, we might not be apart forever,” Phil answered quietly. He felt Dan quiver against him, and he bit his lip. He didn’t know if now was the time to bring this up, or if there would ever even be a better time, but Dan sounded worried and Phil didn’t like Dan being worried.

He leaned back enough to look at Dan, right in the eyes, and the worry he saw there made Phil want to dispel it immediately. “I mean, London is a thing.”

Dan smiled briefly. He didn’t look away. “London is indeed a thing.”

“I’ve been looking,” Phil confessed quickly, “There are internships. Places that do the kind of thing I’d want to do.”

“Really?” Dan was obviously trying really hard to keep the hope out of his voice, but he wasn’t quite succeeding. That warmed Phil. He was wanted, obviously, desired by Dan Howell, and that still didn’t quite make sense in his head.

“Not yet,” Phil warned him. “My PhD doesn’t finish until two months after you’ve gone back to London.  I have to be here for that.”

Dan wilted a bit. But he nodded. “I’d expected something like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’ve been working for ages on your degree, I’m happy for you.” Dan smiled at him, the expression a little shy, a little vulnerable. Phil felt his heart give just a little bit more. He loved this man – he really loved him, and that was still hard to come to terms with.

Phil smiled back. “But after that – after that, well, I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”

Dan was staring at him almost disbelievingly. Phil didn’t like it much when he did that, but his options to make Dan happy were still fairly limited. Phil just wasn’t very good at it, much as he’d like to be.

Phil leaned in, pressed a kiss to Dan’s cheek. “It’s a possibility.”

Dan’s cheek had gone red. That was nice. He also still had his arms around Phil, which was also nice, and he was smiling a bit as he answered, “To be clear – are you saying you coming to London with me is a possibility?”

Phil thought about it for a moment. Then he nodded a bit hesitantly. “After my degree. Maybe.”

Dan’s eyes were a little wide and a little wild. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Well,” Phil amended, “I’m thinking about it. It’s not something to rule out.”

Dan kept staring at him for a bit, and then he was grinning and holding Phil tighter. “Good enough for me.”

---

There was hope, but there was also sadness, because time was running out on them too fast and Phil still hadn’t made a decision.

Three weeks disappeared like sand rushing through Phil’s fingers. It didn’t matter how much he tried to grab onto it, the time just went faster and faster, rushing on and inexorably on until he was left standing alone and forlorn in his own apartment with boxes of Dan’s stuff gathered up all around him.

All the things that had collected in Phil’s flat over the past few months, every little memory of Dan being here, was wrapped up carefully and packaged and taped and shut away, all ready to be moved out. Including Dan himself.

Phil felt sick to his stomach.

Dan stood opposite him, an awkward distance away, playing with the ends of his sleeves. He wasn’t looking at Phil, seeming to find it easier to study his carpet instead. The air between them felt charged. The last bag was sitting packed by Dan’s feet.

“It just makes more sense to leave tonight,” Dan was explaining, still steadfastly studying the carpet. “The cars are leaving the hotel really early tomorrow. I don’t want to disturb you in the morning.”

You wouldn’t, Phil was desperate to say. But he didn’t. He stayed quiet, except for the ringing in his ears and the slightly wild thud of his heartbeat.

The boxes were moved, one by one, into the car waiting outside Phil’s flat. They did it together, woodenly, not talking but not staying far apart either. Phil treasured every brush of Dan’s elbow, every minute left in his company. They were rather rapidly disappearing, after all.

The last box was in the car. Dan was hovering awkwardly on the pavement, one hand on the car door, his eyes fixed on Phil.

Phil should turn around and go back inside. They were in public, and even if they weren’t, Phil was bad at goodbyes. This was why he’d always returned home. He couldn’t deal with last times, with never-seeing-people-agains. He left everything open-ended, and always came back to the place that meant the most to him. He didn’t do well at leaving.

Was he ever going to see Dan again?

Dan was staring at him with carefully masked emotions. Phil hated that too. He wished he could push back past those boundaries, get back to where he and Dan had been. They’d been so close, they’d been so open and honest with each other. Eventually. Dan was the one person Phil had never wanted, and then everything he’d wanted but never thought he’d have, and then, miraculously, been the person to openly accept him. Everything about him.

Phil couldn’t lose that. He didn’t want to let go.

Dan swallowed. His hand awkwardly fumbled on the car door, and for a moment Phil thought he was going to step away from the car and back into Phil’s arms, and this whole hellish ordeal could be over.

But he didn’t.

Instead, the car door flew open, and Dan turned as if to climb inside.

Phil’s heart stopped.

Dan paused, turned back to face Phil. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Instead, he just stared at Phil’s face some more.

Phil hung in stasis. His body tipped forward, telling him to take the step and go, to stop the best thing in his life from walking away from him.

But the crease in Dan’s brow was back, and he turned away again with a muttered, “See ya, Phil,” and then he was climbing into the car.

“Wait,” Phil’s mouth said without his permission.

Dan paused, span back around again in an instant. His face was still carefully blank.

Phil stayed still for a moment, counting the racing beats of his heart, tracing the planes of Dan’s face that he’d come to know so well. Dan Howell, the Dan Howell, famous actor, blind fool at times, but most importantly, Phil’s Dan.

There was no way Phil could let him go like this.

“Stay,” he begged.

Dan’s mouth dropped open.

“Just tonight,” Phil pleaded, because, apparently, he wasn’t above actual begging. He took a step forward, grabbed one of Dan’s hands in his own.

Dan’s blank expression was melting.

“I know it can’t be forever,” Phil continued, his tone shattering a bit. “Just stay. You can wake me at whatever hellish time you have to tomorrow, just – just stay one more night. Please.”

Dan hovered, his gaze quickly flicking left and right. They were in the middle of a public street, Phil’s street, and there was a suspicious looking car sitting up the road that had been there all morning and was still directly facing them, but Phil just couldn’t let Dan go like this.

He prayed he was doing the right thing.

“Please,” he said again and tugged once at Dan’s hand.

Dan’s face finished melting, and he was standing there looking at Phil with the warmest, most vulnerable gaze Phil had ever seen. His fingers were trembling a bit, but he closed them firmly around Phil’s and took a step towards him, until Phil was forced to look up to meet his eyes.

“Ok,” Dan whispered, and then span to say to the driver, “Go back to the hotel. I’ll meet you there in the morning.”

The driver, as discrete as ever, simply nodded and disappeared.

Phil felt a little bit faint. His fingers tightened in Dan’s, the world swaying around him. Dan was still here. For now. He was here.

Fingers tightened around Phil’s arm, gently pushing him towards the door. “Inside, now,” Dan whispered into his ear, “Quickly, I need to – Phil, I need to—”

Phil understood. He knew exactly what Dan was talking about. He fumbled for his keys, got them both back inside his building, and hurried quickly to his flat door.

They didn’t make it two steps before Dan was pushing Phil against the wall, still metres from his actual flat, and this was still dangerous because anyone could walk past, anyone could see them—

“Phil,” Dan whispered, and the sound was broken and almost desperate and Phil couldn’t think about anything else, not right then. He stared right back at the man in front of him, the man clutching at his shirt sleeve hard enough to pinch his arm, the man who looked so young suddenly with no hint of sardonic amusement on his face.

Phil reached up for him, leaned in, and kissed him.

Dan sagged into him, like he was melting all over again, fitting perfectly in Phil’s arms until Phil was the only one holding him up. Phil wasn’t the only one this was taking a toll on. Not with the way Dan reached for him, held onto him, kissed him like a drowning man.

“Not yet,” Phil whispered against his lips, dragging him down the hall into the safety of his flat.

---

They did the most kissing they’d ever done in one go that night. Up until then, kisses had been small, gentle things, sweet nudges of affection against each other’s lips, nothing more. They hadn’t needed anything more.

But this time – this time, Phil felt like a desperate man, like someone who was about to lose everything under his fingertips. He clung onto Dan, remembered the feeling against him, tried to lose himself in someone else’s arms.

They stayed fully clothed, which held off Phil’s repulsion. And the kissing was still just kissing, aside from when Dan occasionally leaned down and pressed his lips to Phil’s throat, which sent a shiver down Phil’s spine which was just this side of good. Any more, and he’d have been pushing Dan away, but Dan had grown to learn his reactions and knew not to push him any further.

Dan needed this, too. He never left Phil’s side, never left any unnecessary space between them, until the warmth was almost unbearable. But Phil would never have had it any other way. They stayed wrapped up in Phil’s bedsheets in a tangled heap of limbs and faces and breathing and kisses, and neither of them got much sleep that night.

“I’m going to miss you,” Dan mumbled at some point with his face buried in Phil’s hair.

“Shush,” Phil muttered back, swatting at him, and then rolled them over so he could lie himself down on Dan’s warm, sturdy chest. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to hold Dan here, in his bed, and remember what it felt like to have another person in his flat.

He fell asleep soon after, but Dan remained awake, eyes hiding a shadow as he stroked his fingers through Phil’s hair.

In the morning, Phil woke up to an empty bed and a note scrawled hastily on the back of an envelope and left on the bedside table. Car arrived. Didn’t want to wake you. There were a few scribbled out lines, and then, finally, Don’t break anything before I see you again. All my love – Dan.

Phil stared at it for a very long time, until his vision had blurred and his breathing sounded funny.

All my love – Dan.

He’d thought that word would terrify him. Phil still hadn’t said it, wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to without it feeling like some sort of lie. But he felt it. The emotion blossoming in his chest, constricting his heart until he thought it would burst – there was no denying what that was.

Phil blinked, hard, grabbed the note, screwed it against his chest, and flopped back into his pillows. Dan was apparently just as bad at goodbyes as Phil was, but Phil couldn’t help wishing Dan had at least woken him up. Just to have one last hug.

But would Phil really have been able to let go?

Honestly, Phil wouldn’t put it past himself to just upend everything on a whim and head down to London with Dan, his PhD be damned. But that wasn’t the sensible, adult thing to do. Phil needed some thinking time, time to actually consider his own future and how best to keep Dan in it. Maybe he did need space to do that.

But no amount of rationalising would stop the hollow ache in his heart when he rolled over to find the other half of the bed empty.

Phil bit his lower lip, glanced down at the note still squished between his fingers, and then tucked it securely under his pillow. He’d leave it there, he decided, until Dan was back with him again.

They wouldn’t leave it too long. Phil didn’t think he could cope.

But for now, he had work in a few hours and a thesis to finish, so after a few minutes more of moping, Phil forced himself out of the bed for day number one without Dan.

A/N: A note before you go: (incredibly) this fic is up for several phanfic awards (thank you so so much to anyone who nominated me, I couldn’t believe it!!) so if you’re interested in the awards and want info on how to vote check out this post here

[roxiegladys594-blog]

Personal Advancement Contents.

If you desire to get as well as fulfill a great guy married, there is zero much better location to begin compared to at the wedding event, especially at the wedding party. The issue along with blaming other people for our error is that our team will endure the discomfort and also outcomes of our oversight, but will not pick up from that, and so bingo! Clarifying in a non-defensive means what led to the mistake can easily aid people better understand why this happened as well as the best ways to avoid that in the future. Mistake # 4)) No Dating Funnel: A guy walks up to a girl, customers an ingenious opener, obtain's her contact number, contacts her a few days later on, he puts together a first day and then they head out. See that you do not supply an excessive repercussion for an oversight that was offered good attempt. At that point you will definitely not view oversights on your profile that can be actually costing you a whole lot of money, if you do not appear at your statements appropriately. MISTAKE 7: Having obsoleted records- Developing an excellent site is actually certainly not the end of job, when it pertains to internet search engine optimization. Buying points that coworkers possess is an additional common mistake created through folks who are actually attempting to improve their appeal, specifically their professionalism and trust at the workplace. The only blunder that could genuinely injure you is actually preferring to don't do anything just considering that you are actually too scared to create an oversight. If you can take care of to stay away from bring in some of these five blunders outlined above, you'll be actually effectively installed to win back your ex lover guy's center ... and reconstruct a happy, caring connection that is going to stand up the examination of your time. Yet, some of the most significant reasons our company confine our own selves from new knowledges is actually because-- although we have actually all brought in and come through plenty of of all of them-- we hate blunders. Our team asked participants of the Young Business owner Authorities just how they deal with blunders and also exactly how they learn how to move past them to perform better down the road. In the course of a treatment, massage therapy counselors could be actually made aware of private medical health conditions or even procedures - these should regularly be maintained strictly personal as well as personal. An excellent advantage of making a mistake is that you will certainly find out one thing you really did not know previously, as well as maybe you could utilize this training in your future. I am actually not sure that the decisions I created as procedures manager of the Orbital Handling Automobile (OMV) plan nearly 3 decades ago were essentially errors, but the issues that essentially killed the OMV were definitely genuine. Blunders massage therapy counselors frequently create are actually to either come under a regular where they offer the very same massage over and over again, or to ignore the client's ask for stress/ concentration and also rather just pay attention to what the therapist thinks is crucial. The best factor to do is admit that and also try to produce up for this; not saying sorry for an oversight is actually yet another mistake when you produce a mistake. Each opportunity you think about an error you've created, this's as if you are actually creating that oversight across once again. If you loved this post and you would love to receive details regarding yellow pages residential directory uk - diventare--sano11.info - assure visit our webpage. Having said that, a lot of residents make a collection of blunders when that concerns installing this type and also getting from windows and several of these oversights are likewise below. This will alert the medical center or surgical procedure to the process in question as well as they will have the capacity to make certain that the exact same oversights to certainly not occur again. They sought that, learned what would make that better the next opportunity, brought in the renovations and also always kept practicing. Syntactic oversights give a really bad impact and this does not matter if you are from a technical history or otherwise. The 3rd blunder is that once the firm experiences a tough time, they reduced their advertising spending plan as well as draw inside their shell like a tortoise. 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If you carelessly throw away relevant information associating with your account then you are actually a very easy intended for identification crooks and defrauders. Blunders could hurt, however if we do not 1eaai from the oversight our team have actually made, the discomfort we've experienced it has actually been actually for nothing at all. The only individuals that don't create oversights are those which relax alone pondering their navels. The moment you've chosen an oversight to magically change in to true blessings, try to find the things to become grateful for. Counting on the Center East, he punished the 2003 invasion of Iraq as perhaps the most awful decision ever created in the background from the nation, as well as pointed out safe zones ought to possess been actually created within Syria and also spent for by USA' Basin allies. You drop concentration when you live in the past times, when you keep the baggage of all the failures you've created in your lifestyle. 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