#it shows a compassion between two people that made me smile a lot

[penguwastaken]

Nobody Understands Mukuro Ikusaba (aka Mukuro Character Analysis)

...except for the people that do (lol).

But first I want to clarify what I mean by this title and why I even wrote this thread in the first place. Mukuro is my second favorite Danganronpa character, only beaten out by Kyoko. There's a lot of reasons why I really like Mukuro, but one of them is her writing.

I think she's one of the best written characters in the series. But unfortunately, she also happens to be one of the most misunderstood characters as well. Not even by the people who don't like her, but also by her own fans.

"Mukuro has incestuous feelings for Junko" "Danganronpa 3 retconned her character" "Mukuro was just a plot device" These are all claims that baffle me because simply just consuming the media will say otherwise.

To many, Mukuro is either a one note incest freak or a pure innocent cinnamon roll who did nothing wrong and both of those interpretations are wildly incorrect. I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but we're finally here.

Nobody understands Mukuro Ikusaba (a ""🧵"") (Spoiler warning for the entire series)

Story Overview

We don't actually know too much about Mukuro's backstory aside from the fact that at a young age, she was separated from her younger twin sister Junko. Before being taken away, she claims that she was homeless and after she was taken she was forced to become a member of the military group Fenrir.

So clearly Mukuro never really had the chance to have a normal life, and more importantly: never had a chance to feel the care of another person.

Her sister, who Mukuro had not seen in years, suddenly got in contact with her and called Mukuro over to participate in her plan to overthrow Hope's Peak Academy (and the world). Mukuro, who already felt bad for losing her sister and was desperate for any kind of affection, accepted and began working for Junko.

Junko took advantage of Mukuro's desperation and had her basically work as a servant to her plans. She started by having Mukuro wipe out the entirety of a middle school in order to prove Mukuro's skills and how far Mukuro would go for her.

With that out of her way, Junko made Mukuro obey like her servant in order to overthrow Hope's Peak and cause the tragedy. Mukuro did so without batting an eye and disregarding any second thoughts she might have had, all while facing Junko's abuse.

During her time attending Hope's Peak, Mukuro met Makoto Naegi. Unlike most of her classmates, Makoto was friendly to her and showed her compassion. This confused her as we already established that Mukuro wasn't used to affection. Because of this and her tendency to latch onto anyone who shows her even an ounce of care, she began to develop feelings for Makoto (that even Junko acknowledged).

"In the past two years, Ikusaba had gained an interest in the world beyond her sister. And in that world, Makoto Naegi--the first person who smiled at her and bridged the gap between her and the world--had become like a sapling of sincerity taking root in her heart." -Danganronpa IF confirming Mukuro's feelings for Makoto

"Upupupu… I wonder what kind of fun you were having in the infirmary? Did you take care of your rival in love, or did you wish them a happy marriage? Either way, don't you think our nice guy Naegi standing side-by-side with Kirigiri makes for a wonderful picture? If this were a thriller, they'd be the last surviving couple!" "Upupupupu… Or how about just killing all of the others? If everyone but you and Naegi die, then the two of you can spend the rest of your student lives together! After all, we can't even hold a trial if there's only two people left. Maybe it'll be best if you just hole up here, safe in the building forever!" "And what're you going to do once he goes back to his old self? It's not as if you were dating Naegi, right? You were just watching him from afar all this time! Now this is a shock. You can shoot right through people's heads and hearts without even blinking, but you can't even steal away some skinny little boy's heart! You want me to tell you who Naegi had a crush on before his memories were erased? Upupupupu…" -Junko teasing Mukuro about her feelings as she aids Makoto in Danganronpa IF

Once the tragedy occured, Mukuro was locked inside of Hope's Peak with Junko and the rest of their classmates and she helped orchestrate the killing game. She disguised herself as Junko, under the impression that Junko would fake her death and they could spend the rest of the game together.

This is when the seeds of doubt began to sprout inside of Mukuro. I wouldn't say that she necessarily began to go against her sister, but she definitely was starting to get a little more hesitant.

"It was only recently that she began to question her mindset. Hearing about this plan from Junko and watching the world burn at the hands of people in Monobear masks did nothing to sway her, but when she heard that Junko was intending to plunge Naegi and the others into a game of murder, something within her began to move. The seed of doubt soon took root, sprouting into a thorny vine that twisted around her feet. And the moment she met her friends for the first time under the identity of Junko Enoshima and realized their memories were truly gone, the vines quickly tightened around her ankles." -Danganronpa IF describing Mukuro's feelings when the killing game began

To Makoto and the player who are under the impression that this is Junko, they assume that she's referring to not wanting to be a model anymore. But given her backstory of never being able to live a normal life and always having to fend for herself or follow the orders of others, we can infer what she actually means. She expresses disappointment in the fact that she never really had a chance to do what she wanted.

This all culminates in the moment where Junko was supposed to fake the death of Mukuro, but that isn't what happened. Instead, Junko killed Mukuro and betrayed her. To say that Junko felt no remorse from this action would be a lie, however. Junko only did this because she knew it would hurt both of them.

...but what if that wasn't what happened? What if Mukuro wasn't killed? What would happen then? That brings us to:

Danganronpa IF

Danganronpa IF answers the hypothetical question of what if Mukuro survived Junko's attack. Of course this means it isn't canon, but due to Kodaka being involved with its creation and its existence as an event that hypothetically could have happened, it is canon compliant. This means that while the events didn't happen in canon, they could have and things like characterization are all accurate. Think of it like an extended free time event. While the events themselves aren't canon, the things they say and imply are. I'll also be referencing Danganronpa IF a lot because since it's told from Mukuro's perspective, it gives a lot of insight on her thought process.

After regaining his memories, Makoto recognizes and rescues Mukuro seconds before her would-be death and he gets impaled by one of the spears. Mukuro rushes to save him, abandoning her disguise and goal.

During this time, Mukuro does a lot of thinking. Why did Junko try to kill her? For all the time they've been working together, Mukuro always assumed that her job was to prop Junko up and help her achieve despair.

It turns out that Junko didn't want Mukuro to obey Junko's every order, Junko wanted Mukuro to retaliate. She didn't want Mukuro to submit to her, but instead to fight back.

With this Mukuro changes her mind, choosing to fight Junko instead of assisting her. Not because she's on the side of hope, she never cared about hope or despair, but because she only wants what's best for the only person in her life who cared for her.

"'That's why… I'll take responsibility. I'll make you happy, Junko . I'll make youdespair. I'll save Naegi-kun… I'll make sure none of our friends die. I'll get them all out of here. And I'll kill every last one of the ones on the outside. You planned this for years and killed so many people to make this work… so I'll destroy every last trace of it.' She was not driven by resentment at the sister who abandoned her. Ikusaba would do all this for her sister's sake." -Mukuro changing her approach to making Junko happy in Danganronpa IF

Who is Mukuro Ikusaba?

Now this is the part where I finally exit the synopsis phase and finally get into the character analysis, explaining why Mukuro acts the way she does in all entries.

Now, I want to begin with a common critique of Mukuro's character, specifically one that's attributed to Danganronpa 3. The one that says that Mukuro's behavior is not only out of character, but also claims that she has romantic feelings for her sister.

First point out of the way, Mukuro's blushy and flustered attitude is nothing new when it comes to her character. It's been an aspect of her since the very beginning of her characterization.

"'I don’t know if… she attracts despair, or despair attracts her, but… she’s lived her whole life with despair by her side. She lived while immersed in despair. That’s why she began looking for despair in others; she began to enjoy pushing people into despair. But you know… that’s normal. It’s no different than someone cursed by misfortune falling into hatred for those who are better off than them. But what’s special about her was that… she learned to enjoy inflicting despair upon herself. That’s how the link to despair began: as she chased down despair, she pushed it onto others along the way. Doing so caused her to crave falling into despair even more… and because of that chain to despair, the Ultimate Despair was born.' While she spoke, it was like she fell into a fever; the expressions on her face slowly turned into ecstasy. It was so completely absurd that it would have been difficult for anybody to think of it as anything but a joke, but I could tell that this was real. It might have been the hazy memories of Junko Enoshima inside me that led to that conclusion. 'You don’t get it right? That’s fair, I don’t think anybody could… But you know, only I can understand it…' Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba’s breathing had begun to turn ragged." -Mukuro describing Junko in Danganronpa Zero

The second (and more important) point to address is the one that Mukuro holds some kind of romantic feelings for her sister. Now, in all honestly, I can't hold this against anyone for thinking this even if I think it's a wild misinterpretation of her behavior. Danganronpa has a track record of using incest for comedic effect (to always poor results). However, Mukuro's relationship with Junko is not used to comedic effect and it's portrayed in a negative light. Not only that, we know that Mukuro does not enjoy behaving that way.

"'She hoped that, perhaps her sister on the screen would say something like 'Not! You seriously thought I'd say something that sappy? Jeez, you're annoying! Can't you just disappear forever or something?'. She hoped that Junko might criticizeher and call her useless. Ikusaba was no masochist, but she would have preferred to hear scornful laughter and be shot at rather than continue to endure this pain." -Danganronpa IF explaining Mukuro's "masochism"

Mukuro doesn't behave the way she does because she has feelings for Junko, she does so because she believes that's how Junko wants her to behave. Danganronpa Zero and IF makes it clear that Mukuro was wrong about how Junko wanted her to behave.

“'You don’t get it right? That’s fair, I don’t think anybody could… But you know, only I can understand it…' Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba’s breathing had begun to turn ragged. 'Only I’m able to understand her… That’s why she needs me. She still hasn’t realized it, but… maybe she’s only pretending not to. Ufu… It’s because she’s so shy. Ufufufu…'” -Mukuro explaining that Junko needs her in Danganronpa Zero

"Ikusaba knew that not even she herself was her own ally. After all, despite the fact that Junko had betrayed her and very nearly killed her, Ikusaba still believed that she was the only one who could understand her little sister. And that was why she felt that she had to protect her. That's right… you were just being you, Junko. You just wanted despair, right? It's because you love me. You wanted to kill me and fall into despair. That must have been it" -Mukuro in denial in Danganronpa IF

"Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion. The moment Junko said, 'I love you', Ikusaba realized--to her agony--that she never truly understood her sister. Only now had she come to realize Junko's feelings." -Mukuro realizing that she didn't understand Junko in Danganronpa IF

Because of Mukuro's incorrect interpretation of understanding Junko, Mukuro believes that Junko expects her to respond to her abuse with acceptance and masochism. Even if she was uncomfortable to, as long as it made Junko happy, that's what mattered. Of course, we learn that Junko wanted Mukuro to respond her abuse with retaliation, and as soon as Mukuro realizes that her behavior immediately shifts. Mukuro holds a great deal of admiration for Junko, so much so that she only wants to do what would please Junko the most.

She does not have romantic feelings for her sister and to say so misses the point entirely. She isn't behaving that way because she's a masochist, she behaves that way because she believes it's how she's expected to, even if she's visibly uncomfortable. Once she learns this isn't what's expected, she immediately changes course.

Danganronpa 3 also has official relationship charts that depict the relationship between characters. In this chart, crushes or explicitly shown romantic feelings are labeled with a heart (as seen with Kazuichi's attraction to Sonia or Toko's attraction to Byakuya). Mukuro's relationship does NOT feature this heart. You would think that if Mukuro's very obvious admiration towards Junko was romantic it would have a heart, but it doesn't because it isn't. If what I said before didn't convince you, I think this itself is proof enough.

Mukuro's admiration doesn't extend to just Junko though. Due to her unfortunate upbringing, Mukuro has a tendency to get attached to anyone who shows her the affection she's desperate for. So much so that her behavior changes completely around the people she cares about.

"The mass of monochrome spun round and round, making it look as though they were projecting a hypnotic image from three directions, but Ikusaba remained expressionless. In fact, the bizarre sight unfolding before her compelled the Super High School Level Soldier to regain her focus. She was an entirely different person from the girl who had panicked at Naegi's injury in the gymnasium." -Mukuro while fighting in Danganronpa IF, behaving completely differently from when she panicked over Makoto's injury

"Not only that, if anyone who knew her as the Super High School Level Soldier and mercenary were to see her now, the difference in her attitude might even make her look like another person altogether. And Monobear continued to drive the girl into a corner." -Mukuro panicking over Makoto's injury in Danganronpa IF

"The mask of ice she wore around others was entirely unlike the face she showed her sister, making it almost seem as though she had multiple personalities." -Danganronpa IF explaining that Mukuro's behavior around Junko is different from her typical icey expression

This is why around most people, Mukuro has a pretty blank expression. However when she's around Makoto or Junko, the two people who she cares about, she displays a much more soft and emotional side.

That being said, an often overlooked aspect of Mukuro is that she actually has a slight ego and is proud of her skill. This is especially obvious in her fight with Peko in Danganronpa 3. Of course, if I spent years in the military without getting a single scratch, I'd probably have an ego too.

Mukuro is also capable of turning off her feelings and going into a "killing machine mode" whenever the situation demands it, mostly when she's carrying out some mission. It's not because she doesn't feel bad for what she's doing or isn't having any second thoughts, it's that she pushes any doubts to the side to focus on getting the job done.

"In battlefields, where she made her home, her main mission was to kill and survive. And in that setting Ikusaba was invincible. She could put her own emotions on a leash in order to become a killing machine." -Danganronpa IF explaining how Mukuro is capable of ignoring her own feelings

"With a single whisper that was drowned out by the sound of gunfire, Ikusaba went completely silent. Thanks to her status as a member of Super High School Level Despair, her heart was filling with joy. And as if to offset the sudden surge of emotions, the sparkle in her eyes disappeared." -Mukuro turning her emotions off while fighting in Danganronpa IF

So Basically...

Due to her upbringing Mukuro is someone who gets attached to people easily, particularly those who give her attention. Junko took advantage of this to make Mukuro essentially act as her servant. Believing that Junko expected her to return the abuse she faced with enjoyment, she forced herself to do just that. Even if it made her uncomfortable, making her sister happy at her own expense is better than being alone. She's capable of turning off and ignoring her emotions to following orders when necessary and is generally a proud and skilled soldier, though she has a softer side that she only shows to people who she cares for.

That is who Mukuro Ikusaba is.

Conclusion

There's a lot of reasons I really like Mukuro. I think she's silly and cute and I like her singing voice. But I also think her characterization is really good in all of her appearances. I think a lot of the critiques made towards her (especially towards her appearance in Danganronpa 3) are misguided or just a result of her being misunderstood.

She's not a plot device or a character exclusively there to act as an extension of Junko. She's filled to the brim with character depth and interesting writing and has plenty of characterization on her own. I'll admit that her presence in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a bit limited, however she doesn't just become an important character in four other entries without getting some kind of development.

Many think her characterization is inconsistent or different across entries, but I honestly think it couldn't be any MORE consistent. The only times where I'd say she acts out of character is in the comic anthologies, but those are non-canon media that's kinda known for flanderizing characters for the sake of comedy.

Basically, I like Mukuro. I hope I managed to change some minds or shed a new light on her to anyone who didn't before. And if you already liked her, I hope maybe I could make you appreciate her a bit more or just help you explain her in some way.

anyways follow me on twitter cough cough

Also special thanks to Twitter user @LKSixtyfour for their tweets about Mukuro's characterization, many helped me organize my thoughts to form the thread that you just read.

Edit: didn't make any changes to the post, just fixed some typos

[anemonelovesfiction]

Colors of Pandora 7: Pink

Jake x Fem! Omatikaya Reader

Emotion: Romance

Warnings ⚠️: none SAFE FOR WORK

Essentially a part two to this work

Last day of Colors of Pandora and I’m sad but also happy?!

A huge thank you to @xylianasblog for having come up with this event in the first place, thank you for your hard work darling❤️

Translation Station

Ikran: Warriors Mount

Olo’eyktan: Male Clan Leader

Kelku: Home

Word count: 1.4k

“Why do you feel the need to take care of others?” His voice was a soft timber breaking through the silence of the early morning.

I’d managed to wake up and just as he promised the night before we had to talk, but we’d decided on taking our ikran out toward the forest to speak privately, climbing the tree we were currently on being careful with my arm to ensure I didn’t damage it any further. The view we were seeing involved a lot of the forest, but it was too vast for us to be able to see a majority of it, but the bits we could see were beautiful.

The sun was rising from between the mountains and sky, the orange, red, and pink hues capturing its essence in a wonderful way. My heart beating slightly faster after having processed his question as I realized I’d have to finally open up about my past to the leader of our clan.

“It helps me forget about the war,” I answered honestly, attempting to take in a breath to explain further if needed, knowing I would have to as my answer was somewhat vague.

“Who did you lose?” It was a simple question really, but it was one that brought slight pain, the pain of having to remember the reason I often buried myself in my work.

“Both my parents.” I answered as I lowered my head to view my fingers starting to pick at one another, something I often did when I was growing nervous.

“I’m sorry for the pain I have caused you.” He apologizes but it doesn’t change the past. We knew what he had done after he had explained once he came back from mating with Neytiri, a lot of us were upset with him, but I always kind of knew he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Having to follow orders just to keep his place here, it wasn’t hard to read him, and I could tell he was honest with his apology, but our people were quick to anger and it didn’t matter to them how sorry he was. And now he was our leader, how strange, the great mother must have plans for him if he was still alive, and holding a place of importance within us.

“I have forgiven you a long time ago.” I answered honestly, letting my shoulders fall as I pick my head back up to stare at the beautiful view before me, the sun still rising slowly above the sky.

“I guess your compassion runs deep,” He jokes with a smile and his comment makes me smile as well.

_________

That had been weeks ago, my arm had healed and had been allowed out of the cast, which I had been thankful for. My friendship with my Olo’eyktan had grown into something wonderful and I could finally say I had made my first friend.

“I have a question for you,” He walks up towards me right as I began to walk the opposite direction.

“You always have questions for me, Jake.” I stated as I continued walking, he’d asked me to instruct him as such and I was always one to follow orders, he followed behind me as I continued walking to grab my bow and arrow, ready to head out to hunt for Sepwa and Antuk once more. Sepwa had fallen ill and needed help with taking care of her children while Antuk had gotten injured while hunting and managed to injure his leg.

“I want to show you something.” He stated as his hand reaches out toward my arm, stopping me in my tracks as I felt the warmth leaving his palm and encasing my entire body, I fight a blush as I turn to face him with a serious look.

“That is not a question.” I stated and he rolls his eyes playfully, a smile tugging at his lips as he fights a laugh before straightening himself up, taking his hand off my arm, and I honestly missed the contact.

“Will you come with me?” He asks.

“I need to hunt for Sepwa and Antuk-“ I began to shoot his invitation down, knowing I didn’t want to, but knowing I had a sense of responsibility for my people.

“I’ve taken care of them already, I knew you were going out of your way again, so I was one step ahead of you the entire time,” He crosses his arms in a cocky manner, but all I could focus on were his bulging biceps, I only look up at his face with a blank expression to attempt to hide my own feelings as my heart rate quickens.

“And you have taken care of who will watch their children this morning before they go learn?” I raised a brow while crossing my own arms.

“Of course I did. Do you honestly think so little of me?” He asks with a palm on his chest while feigning hurt.

“Yes I do,” I teases with a smile on my lips before breaking out into a small laugh with his chuckle following soon after.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked after our laughter was out of the way, wondering where he planned to take me now, he had taken the last couple of weeks to show me the forest through his eyes, often choosing good places to calm down after a long and hard day of work, but surely he had to run out of places by now, the forest was only so big.

“Just wait and see,” He offers his hand out to me with a slight nod of his head and I take it without hesitation.

_________

I had been nervous to say the least, I hadn’t expected to have grown feelings for someone so quickly after meeting them, but there was something about her that made my heart flutter alive after a while of it being in a dormant state. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was about her, but she made me feel alive again, made me feel as though I could start living once more.

“What is this place?” She asks in awe as she hops off of my Ikran, taking a careful glance around the cave that glowed with bioluminescent plants, the opening of the cave having a waterfall covering half of it, keeping this place well hidden from anyone.

“This is the place I come to when I have a tough decision to make.” I answered honestly only to have her turn with a confused look on her face.

“And what tough decision has this Olo’eyktan had to make recently?” She raises a hairless brow and I had to admit my heart was beating faster than it ever has within the last couple of years.

“You,” I stated honestly before clearing my throat and looking away quickly before looking back at her.

“What do you mean, me?” She asks as she tilts her head sideways and her ears flick over to place her full attention on me.

“I have grown to have feelings for you, and I wish to court you, but I only want to do that if you return my feelings. I don’t want you to agree to doing it if you don’t see a future with me.” I stated sternly, expecting her to have weighed her options before answering, I was about to tell her she could have some time to think about it before she gleefully runs up to me and embraces me in a hug, a squeal leaving her lips as she jumps up and down excitedly.

“Yes, the answer is yes, I don’t need time to think, I feel the same.” She answered quickly and I could feel my heart ready to burst at her reaction.

“Honest?” I asked as if I were about to wake up in my kelku to realize that it had only been a dream.

“I promise,” She smiles as her tail wriggles from side to side in an excited fashion.

“Good, because I’ve been waiting long enough to do this,”

I place my hand onto the side of her face to hold it gently, her eyes widening slightly as she stares at me, ears having gone down to show submission and I smile before leaning my face down to meet our lips in the middle, having closed my eyes to enjoy our kiss, and feeling her arms wrap around my neck loosely as she kisses me back.

[ficjoelispunk]

CH 03 - ARCHIVE ROOM

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Author's Note: Guys, let me know if you like gifs in the middle of the text to illustrate the narrative. 🥹 And, like always, I'm sorry for any grammatical errors, don't give up on me, translating is not easy, but I did my best. Correct me as much as you can. Thanks.

Pablo Escobar was a guy who would never be without allies. He was basically a Hydra, if you cut off one head, two more would be born in place.

And with the smaller cartels, which formed the Medellin cartel, there were no treaties of trust. The gangs did what it took to keep themselves standing and alive.

Peña and Murphy would spend time in Medellin, start the day in La Catedral harvesting evidence. Then they went to the Central Agency, a former police academy that was transformed into a base, which would be heavily used in the hunt by Pablo Escobar.

This would give you a little peace at the embassy, since that way you didn't have contact with them, so often. And you could swear that the two of them were already missing you, since now to go out in operations the requests were made directly to the Colonel.

The biggest enemy of the police in the capture by Pablo was the people themselves. He used the children and the people as a shield and protection, in exchange for money, and small services.

So the president of Colombia offered on the national network, a reward of 1.4 million to those who provided information, worldwide. Anyone would think he was fucked. But Pablo wasn't just anyone. And that only set precedents for him to start a show.

This particularly doubled everyone's work. Since many calls arrived, but without any foundation. And Pablo started working with the media, messing with the head of the Colombian population, putting himself in a place of victim.

The guy was a genius. It was so cunning that it made the population forget all the deaths and blood that was on their hands. And many people ended up feeling sorry and compassion for Pablo.

President George Bush offered appropriate support from the American army. When President Bush says "appropriate support" it is worth remembering that, we were talking about a man who had been head of the CIA.

To begin with, you got a new boss, Ambassador Arthur Crosby. A navy guy specializing in Latin American issues and counterterrorism. And to the joy of Murphy and Peña, they also won a Chief, Messina. What you still had no idea if she made your life even easier or made your life even more hell, due to the bad mood of the duo of agents.

And finally, you had to leave Bogotá and go to Medellin.

When you arrived in Medellin, you were faced with a much more terrifying scenario than you imagined. The more Escobar felt threatened, the worse things got.

As soon as they arrived in Medellin, your new boss called a meeting between all of you. You had the opportunity to meet the new members on the plane on the way to Medellin.

When Peña entered the room, you were already there, next to Crosby. And strangely, you were happy to see him. Known face maybe, the feeling is not known.

But where was Murphy?

Peña took his eyes on you, you felt his eyes on you. But you were focused on keeping your attention in the words of your new boss. It was a gift that you were not relocated along with Noonan, a sign that your work has been observed.

You would follow the DEA's operations, the intelligence team and also the Centra Spike eavesdropping, which should all be sent to your Boss, outside of course, everything else. It was a lot of work

The meeting is over, and you were careful to reorganize the room while everyone leaves. Less Peña.

While you were collecting the folders and papers, you looked at him.

"Miss me?"

He smiled, walking around the room slowly.

"I thought you'd come back with Noonan."

"Disappointed then?"

He smiled again.

"I think I must be doing a good job, after all," you completed.

"With so many new bureaucracies, you will be the highlight."

"Ha ha ha, funny" you made a face at him.

Javier kept looking at you through his eyelashes smiling maliciously.

"Where is Murphy?" You fixed all the folders in your arms, and walked towards the exit of the room. "Is he okay?"

Javier offered help with the folders, but you dodged him. He rolled his eyes.

"He's fine. He's having some problems at home..."

You walked to your new table, which eventually Javier would do this way a lot. You dumped the folders on the table, opening a file behind your table, to start storing them, between one movement and another you looked at Javier who was leaning his hands on the table.

"Is Connie okay?"

"Yes... she went back to Miami"

You took a break. Looking at Javier.

"That's bad." You furrowed the corner of your mouth.

"Agent Peña? Have you a minute?" Messina appeared in the hallway behind you calling Javier.

He turned around, and nodded to her. But before he went, he took another look at you, from top to bottom, so as not to lose the habit.

"Good to see you," he said with a crooked smile. The dimple in the smile was a little appealing in those moments.

You smiled and nodded to him, continuing the automatic movement of saving the files in the archive.

That was weird. There was no provocation. You don't hear a pin. Just a normal conversation. Were Medellin's airs different? What was going on? Maybe it was everyone's nerves the best of the skin.

***

You hated Escobar more every day. After an interview that a newspaper published. The movements began to drive the department crazy.

First of all, the police were everywhere. Blockings searching everything and everyone. On the streets. In the houses. Everywhere.

The whole department moved to the Central Agency, and you being the Ambassador's representative were also there. So basically all the sectors were together and reunited.

This meant that from where you were you could hear Javi's typewriter typing in your head. It meant that you bumped into him in every corridor. It meant that you saw him every day. It meant that you were sleeping in the same place. Because they gave up dorms for you.

It was a big nightmare.

You watched from the box Colonel Pizon put the two DEA agents to the corner, making them work as if they were telephone operators, answering the calls of the tracks behind the millionaire reward.

Javi and Murphy were completely out of their mind.

It was already late, when you went down to the file room, and you were smoking in hiding, so you didn't have to leave the complex just to smoke a cigarette.

You heard the door creaking when someone opened it. And he put out his cigarette as fast as he could.

"Are you smoking in the file room?"

Peña.

"You know it's a room full of papers, right?"

"I'm already leaving"

"Sorry" Peña passed through the corridors looking for you, and when he found you at the bottom near the window he walked more wandering following in his direction in the middle of the paper box corridor, "I didn't want to be a nuisance"

You closed your eyes ignorantly, and sighed.

"Yeah, your presence is very pleasant."

You walked towards the exit, but Javier came in front of you preventing you from passing.

"Excuse me?!" You looked at him with your eyes snapped, faking a surprise.

"What did I do for you?" He spoke in that tone that you hated, because it gave you goosebumps.

You sighed.

"What do you mean?"

Javier approached, shortening the distance from you, with his head tilted running his eyes for you, from head to toe, in a way that made you disconcerted.

"What did I do to make you hate me so much?"

You snorted while letting out a low laugh, and decided to ignore it, taking a step to the side, so that you could access the hallway and leave the room.

Javier mirrors your movement, hitting his hand on the bookshelf next to your head, preventing you from passing through it.

He leans over you, shortening the distance from your faces even more.

"I asked you a question"

His darkened eyes danced in your face.

Your mouth opened, looking for the words, trying to remember how to speak, as he entered the silent dance that Javier's eyes did under you.

It's been a while since you were like this, ready for provocation and exchange of free pins with each other.

"I don't hate you Javier, you don't deserve so much sentimental space inside me. I just can't stand the fact that you are egocentric enough not to respect my work and realize that what I do also saves lives. That without my work, without my arguments in your requirements for licenses and authorizations, you would not get a single unit of reinforcements."

Javier frowned, straightening his posture. You continued.

"You get all the merit, all the euphoria, but who is behind the table doing the operational service, it's me. The tactical only works because I use this little head of mine and deliver a perfect system for you. I think about everything. For you to execute. And I never received a thank you"

He looks to the side, and smiles. Putting the arm back under the shelf.

"So that's it?"

You frowned.

“What?”

"Do you want recognition?" He shrugs his shoulders.

You close your eyes and shake your head.

"Unbelievable" you pass by him, bumping into his shoulder.

But he holds your arm. The hands are so large that your fingers are easily circling the circumference of your arm.

You look at where his hands hold you.

"Let me go"

He pulls you close to him. You are frightened by the abrupt movement and let out an air through your mouth in surprise. You are so close to each other that you feel the heat of his body radiating over yours.

He almost touches his forehead on yours while talking.

"This beautiful little head should know that in this environment no one will congratulate you for doing your job. And that doesn't mean you don't do it very well."

You smile ironically. Maintaining eye contact, not knowing exactly what to say, because all this contact with him, the force with which he holds you pressing his body into yours, makes you feel your core throbbing.

"Funny, I see you being congratulated. For me, this is nothing more than a sexist excuse, so that a woman is not recognized in the proper way. Now excuse me, that I need to keep working so that imbecile men get their decorations"

He shakes his head without letting you go, while the eyes stuck in you are darkened.

"You always have to have the last word"

"Let me go Javier" you pull your arm to yourself "or me..."

Javier smiles when he hears your mouth pronounce his name. He pulls you back to him, holding your face, with your free hand, and pressing a kiss on your lips.

You stay still at first. Your eyes are shatangled, seeing Javier with his lips stuck to yours.

He releases your arm, and uses his hand to hold your back. Your heart is racing. Jumping from the chest.

His hands on your back press your body on him. And from then on, something took over your body.

Surrender.

He was right all along, if you couldn't escape, you would give in to your desires.

Your hands held the lapel of his jacket, gently. He breathed, with his head falling to the other side. And you tilted yours to the opposite side, so that your lips would fit. Your eyes close slowly.

Javi's index finger, gently brushing against your cheek, a soft moan coming out of his throat, with the feeling of your soft lips merging with him.

A kiss like that had nothing to do with the profile described by the other women you've heard of. It was a soft, soft kiss.

He pulled back gently, his mouths opening, his tongue running out to slide into your mouth. His nose brushed against yours as he continued to push a little forward, but then back again - your breaths mixing in the tight space between you.

You were totally delivered. Your arms went up to intertwine in Javi's neck. And his hands went down to his waist. His fingers pressing his flesh. He kissed you stronger, more intense, more in need, you heard his breathing getting heavy.

Your fingers melted over his hair. And he moaned on your lips. In response, your body pressed against his, and it was like waking up a hungry man.

Javier took a step forward, pushing you back, so that your back pressed on the shelf behind you.

His hands on your waist opened full of fingers, slide down the side of your breast. You let out a heavy air from inside you, moaning deep in your throat, while Javier's tongue fought a friendly battle inside your mouth with your tongue for the first time.

You pulled his hair, with the feeling of his fingers caressing the side of your breasts. You arched to him, and Javier lowered one hand to your ass, squeezing you flesh so hard that you could have the marks of his fingers the next day, you both moaned with the feeling.

He slid his hand to the back of your thigh, raising your leg on his side, so that he could position himself in the middle of your legs.

He held your thigh next to his hip. And he pressed his rigidity in your middle. You shuddered. Javier was so hard, it seemed like he could break the fabric of his pants. His greeting was so big and thick, you unconsciously grinded your sore clitoris against him.

Your lips parted, and the two moaned. Your two foreheads glued to each other.

"I think I found a way to make you quiet" his voice was a panting murmur, he kissed your jaw, tracing a path to his earlobe, biting it lightly. You get goosebumps, instinctively tilting your head back.

Your breathing is erratic.

You open your eyes. And it's like regaining consciousness.

"Stop!" You push Javier's shoulders.

You're panting. Taking steps backwards. Fixing your skirt.

He looks at you scared. Open your hands wrapped around your body in surrender. Confused.

You turn around, and walk away so fast, you believe you might be running.

In high heels. For The Academy. With a whole department housed there.

Shit!

[finger-lakes-ghostbusters]

[BEGIN VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[Security camera footage shows a room off to the side of where the holiday festivities are taking place, Damien sitting alone and hanging his head as if in thought. Sounds of music and general merry-making filter from below, but he seems to show little to no reaction to them.

After a moment, Taya enters the room as well, sitting down next to him with a soft smile.]

Penny for your thoughts, old man?

[Damien visibly startles as he turns towards her, trying and failing to keep his face neutral.]

Heh. That obvious, huh?

[Though her expression is off-screen, Taya's gentle smile can be heard through her tone.]

It's been obvious to a lot of people, honey. That you're getting withdrawn again. And who knows what else. And I thought we went over healthy coping mechanisms after all that nonsense with Zygna happened.

[A soft grumble. Damien leans away from her.]

Eva put you up to this, didn't she?

Honey, Eva didn't put me up to anything. I decided to do this myself. Eva's a great girl, don't get me wrong, but subtlety isn't exactly one of her strong suits. You two are too alike in personality for her to get much in the way of anything helpful out of you. I thought you'd like having another friend around to vent to this time.

[Taya scoots closer to him, slowly.]

So tell me what's up, hon. I promise, nothing you say is going to leave this room. And I won't judge you for it, either. Scout's honor.

[Damien looks away from her for a moment, visibly considering. He takes a noticeably shaky exhale, hand running through his salt-and-pepper hair almost absent-mindedly. And then he turns back to her, nods solemnly, and begins.]

Alright.

I just....moving on and moving forward should mean I'm better than constantly overthinking things at this point, shouldn't it? But dios, if I can't stop. I keep thinking that Craig and Marvin would be here if I'd been stronger. If I'd been smart enough to read into what we were getting ourselves into. That this whole situation could have been solved so much earlier if I'd just studied why we were dealing with so many fantasmas in the first place. Around and around it goes. I shouldn't be thinking about it. Sounds estúpido when I say it out loud, even, but....

And then it was our anniversary a few weeks ago. The anniversary of when Marv and I first....and I couldn't stop thinking about that, either. Even though I talked to them both, and I know they forgive me for what happened. I still miss both of them, and....and I shouldn't be so stuck in the past! I should be moving on! I should be trying to be better! But I'm just some stupid anciano who can't stop overthinking things, and...and I still don't think I deserve to be around you. Any of you. How can I be a good leader when I'm caught up in everything that's ever happened to me?

[Damien's voice, which has risen to a shout, now becomes soft. Hushed. As if he's realized that the outburst of emotion was uncalled for.]

I should be....I....I don't know how else to be. I'm failing all of you.

[For a long moment, silence stretches between the two of them. And then slowly, as if she is interacting with a skittish horse rather than another human being, Taya extends her hand to place it upon Damien's knee, squeezing slightly in an attempt to gain his attention. Her voice is strong but gentle as he glances at her, her kindness and compassion shining through even if her facial expression can't be seen.]

You listen to me, Damien. If someone else is going through a rough time, do you judge them for dwelling on those things?

....No.

Exactly. Honey, I'm not a doctor of the mind. Never have been, probably never will be. But what I do know is that healing isn't linear. You're allowed to feel good one moment and like garbage the next. You're allowed to dwell on the things that made you happy or sad in your past. You're allowed to take as long as you need to to feel alright again. You're allowed to take steps back, even. The important thing is that you don't let it consume you. That you reach out for help when you need it. And Damien, you should know by now that we're all here to help you.

[Damien stares at Taya for a long moment, his mouth working but no sound coming out. He seems utterly pole-axed as he sits there, words eventually coming out in something of a strangled whisper.]

....but what if I keep messing things up?

Then you let that happen, Damien. Hon, if you try to strive for perfection in every single aspect of your life, you're gonna work yourself into an early grave. Trust me on that much. You're not broken, you're human. And if there's one thing that working in healthcare for so long has taught me, it's that humans are messy little creatures sometimes. But they're also there to pick each other up when it matters the most. And if you trust us to pick you up, I think you're gonna be better off for it. Now, come on.

[She offers her outstretched hand to Damien, and the very corners of a bright smile can be seen upon her face.]

Stop mopin' in the dark like some kind of vampire and come join the festivities, alright? Everything's gonna be alright.

[Damien tries his best to mirror the smile as he takes the proffered hand, pulling himself into a standing position.]

Gracias, Taya. I think I'll take you up on that offer, see if there's any--

[Suddenly, the ear-splitting squeal of radio static is heard. As both parties in the room reflexively put their hands to their ears to block the noise, the door to the room is heard bursting open, Eva's voice ringing out loud over the commotion.]

GET YOUR ASSES DOWNSTAIRS NOW.

SOMETHING'S GOING ON.

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[relatablyreid]

Important Notice - SR & LA

This should have been said such a long time ago, Spencer had felt incredibly stupid at this point. Even if it possibly was something so clear, that you could visibly catch onto. It was proper to warn your partner of these issues before you delve into a passionate relationship, and last for more than three months, right? You try to get the bad out of the way, so there isn’t much to scare him away at a later date? Now was sadly the later date, and Spencer had never regretted his cowardly decision to misinform Luke of his stimulation issues and sensory issues.

“Spence? Querida mia, eh, dónde estás? ¡Necesito que te dé mi sorpresa! No puedo dar un regalo sin mi querida cerca.” Luke rang, placing his bag beside the doorway and slipping both shoes off near the front door as well but to the left. Where all the other shoes were. Only Luke had much diversity in shoe choice, and that was clear to see beside the door. A pair of black and white splattered pool slides, a pair of nice faux fur covered slide on boat shoes, two different pairs of running sneakers with one more tattered than the other and then a pair of proper attire fitting sneakers for work. Then, sat Spencer’s two pairs of shoes he adored. His converse, and his nice work shoes with their brown twine laces and white stich thread leather. Besides that, there were no other pairs of shoes that showed further residents to the Reid and Alvez home.

“Spence! I’m not kidding, quierdo, I want to see your handsome face, it’s been a long day. Where are you?” Luke continued on, hoping that if Spencer had fallen asleep that he’d have been awoken by the calling. By now, Spencer likely would have woken up so Luke had no other real option than to assume he was in danger or in harm. “Spence!?” Luke shouted, walking through the kitchen and into the hallway to the right exit of the little kitchen. There was no way he had left, without the car or a note. Strict rule that the two had made considering the jobs they worked was that if anyone left the home without being able to text or verbally inform the other of it that they were to leave one another a note. Where, when, and when they’d return and a proper signiture on the front with a tiny star on the back. The tiny star was what let them know it was the real deal, only they knew about that little code detail. Instead of screaming for Spencer once more, he silenced himself and froze. Maybe he’d hear shuffling or crying, to find where he would be in the home. Hoping he was in the home, so to speak. There it was, and Luke thankfully traced the whimpering to the bedroom they shared. Much like that of a freshly scolded child, the whimpering was persistent and seemed to match pace to the male’s rocking.

“Spence, hey, are you okay?” Luke asked, and he bent down besides Spencer. There had to be a trigger, but nothing was in the room. The window was open, the candle was burning as it seemed to have been for a while and the cell phone that belonged to him was laying on the bed with the screen on and bright, too. This didn’t seem like a regular panic attack due to the way Reid had been balled up this time, or the rocking.

Spencer shook his head as much as he could manage from right to left as if to try to say no, and he gripped his nails as hard as he could into the back of his calves that held close to his chest. He had his knees directly to his chest, and he was so tense and tight that it visually was painful to even see. The head tucked in as much as it was physically able to hide, without the neck snapping and dislodging the head from the spine and shoulders it was bound to. His rocking was fast, and his balls of his feet were doing all the pushing and he seemed so stiff with these motions.

“Spence, can you let go of your legs, please? You’re hurting yourself, Spencer.” Luke kindly asked, whispering. This was now piecing together like something he’d seen before. Much earlier, as in his beginning of his college days was when he saw something similar to this. Yes, Mr. Luke Alvez had a brief passion for daycare and babysitting. He had always went to this one house at the end of the block towards the start of the next one onto the main street of his little town which he resided in. The boy was a maniac for music, he even walked and talked to a tempo consistently kept with his fingers, and he lived by it. Self titled, a two one one tempo. He’d tap his fingers twice, then once and then one more time. He stepped twice and then once and then once but if he was going fast enough it seemed so normal. To mimick it was so near impossible due to the natural tempo you set yourself to. This boy one afternoon had all his toys scattered and unorganized, thrown around the room as if they were worthless. Besides that unusual mess, the boy was beating at himself in his tempo pattern. There was constuction going on outside of the house, and music playing inside of the house. After a panicked call to the mother, he’d been told to shut all windows and turn off all music. ‘Try to make it as quiet as you can so he can breathe easy again. He’s overstimulated.’ As instructed, he even turned the lights down low. Slowly, the boys breathing evened and he stopped hurting himself. Luke waited for a little to give him an ice pack or two in hopes to avoid setting him off, again. It was something he figured he’d have to copy the process to and apply to Spencer but more specific and gentle to his situation. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid and blank in the brain after all.

“Querido, please, you can loosen your hands.” Luke whispered, getting up and blowing the candle out and fanning away the smoke. Then, slowly and smoothly shut the window to prevent the outdoor commotion of the rainy streets and cars from interrupting the genius mind that Spencer had from calming down, and on that same note, he put their phones both on silent so no one from the outside world would be able to stop the soothing process that was leading Spencer back to stability. After closing off all sources of noise he could, he sat back beside Spencer but left plenty of room so he could feel like he would be able to breathe. “There’s plenty of air around you, you are okay, Spencer.” Luke tried to further verbally encourage some sort of calm because he didn’t like seeing Spencer in pain, or in fear. It was a pair of emotions that he didn’t think Spencer had deserved to suffer with any longer, really. The boy had seen and been through so much, he figured that all he really did earn at this point was a warm and comfortable home to come back to at the end of a stressful day and some nice loving arms or a sweet and protective chest to lay beside and curl into when the world was making him tense. A pair of gentle hands looking to massage out all the kinks in his back, and to smooth out all the stressors sitting on his brain. That was what Luke wanted to give Spencer properly so, because the turmoil he’d already slid through was so excessive and he truly had better things in store with Luke by his side.

Spencer’s bony hands shook with such a strong tremble, but only were lifted in order for him to bring his hands together for a moment or two to make a heart out of them, and then press a finger to his lip. It was an; ‘I love you and your words, but please not now.’ Not in a rude way at all, it was just a lot for him to think about and it put more pressure on his threatening to pop brain. Luke signalled back his affection, and with the same little heart. Sitting there, he waited patiently as Spencer rocked out and squeezed out each and every little ounce of overwhelming feeling he’d processed, and he eventually fell somewhat limp. Looked much like someone who’d performed an soulfully draining surgery, and needed to sleep. He loosened his tight fingers off of his calves and he let his khaki covered legs leave the console of his chest, and loosen to lay flat on the wooden floor, plopping so. His hands and arms lay loose, still across his chest and his head leaned back, hanging at the seams basically. It was a pose of pure exhaustion, and that was how Spencer felt. Tears that had fallen had now left brief stains of previous existence on his face, his pants with ripples and bents in them where they’d been pulled up, and his fingers so red and sore looking from the consistent pressure he had them forcing on his calves. Speaking of his calves themselves, they were all pale except the ten spots where Spencer dug his nails into them. Each fingernail left a prominent mark, and about four of them were bleeding. With the rocking, it moved the nails so slightly with each shift and that scraped some of the skin with it and it bled, quite literally tearing the skin apart. His breathing had taken the time to slow and regulate, and Luke decided it was go time.

Now was the clean up crew, or well— really just Luke’s time to shine. Shine with all his love and compassion he had for his boyfriend and to demonstrate with caring for him. Standing up and taking his time doing so, he made his way into the bathroom linked to their room and reached for the drawer under the sink. The sink was hooked to a series of drawers and the plumbing system had gone through the wall behind the drawers, and the mirror covered the entire gap between the two. The first aid kit, barely touched was taken from the drawer with the bottle of peroxide and sterile gauze, prepackaged and separately packaged. New gauze for each use, nice and clean. Luke was highly considerate to Spencer’s germaphobia, and always tried to make things comfortable for the man he loved. “I’m going to try to be slow, so I don’t do anything that will be offputting.” Luke said softly, nearing a soft tone of talking but it was still a whisper. Easy to say, Luke was really awful at whispering but right now, he sure as hell was going to try his hardest. Silently his hands moved, taking the plastic wrapping around the gauze off and dousing the tabs of it in peroxide, pressing them into the four wounds. It was hard to stay calm when he was still worried internally for Spencer. He wanted to know what set him off, if it was something specific or not. He pulled out a large bandage, and he placed it over two of the cuts that were closer together, then a second large bandage over the other two wounds to protect them for a day or two until they would need to be uncovered. He then slid Spencer’s pant leg down, as with the other one. The poor man in front of him was exhausted. Drained like a case had never done to him, he looked like all his energy had been sucked out of him like air from a balloon. Lids to his beautiful eyes were shut, but he was awake. It seemed hard for him to currently put forth much energy into regaining his control or organization, and he didn’t seem like he was planning on moving much for the rest of the evening. His loose hands, once squeezed tightly around his calves to push out the pressure of his brain were now laying palm up and relaxed, none of the tendons in his hand currently tense. His fingertips had been red and furious, moments ago and now were soothed by the time given to calm down. Nails of his finger tips were clean for the most part minus the four with glimpses of blood, which would have to be scrubbed off at a later date. Hair disheveled, and a loose strand brought over his right eye and laid over his lip a bit too. Finally at peace, but at such a high cost that it didn’t seem too worth it for Luke. It lit a little bulb in Luke’s head, so he could comfort Spencer in a simple and non-problematic way.

“Hey, querido. Open your eyes for a moment, okay? I’d like to show you something, alright?” Luke asked, making sure Spencer was awake and would be okay with this. He didn’t want to spring something massive and intense on his partner, because he’d just released all these massive and intense feelings. It wouldn’t make sense to clean him up and then break him down. Unintentionally or not, it would be rude.

A small nod from his boyfriend would do plenty for him, and to see his eyes helped add to the assurance of his plan. Although the beautiful eyes of his partner were seemingly empty, and lacking much energy as the rest of him was, it soothed Luke to see them. The emotion— lack thereof in Spencer’s eyes instilled a minor fear in him, and he hoped he wasn’t annoying him inadvertently so. Still, Luke got up to retrieve the gift he’d purchased for Spencer. It was a small stuffed animal, a tiny little sea otter. No bigger than the size of a regular roll of black electrical tape. Something minor for Spencer to hold onto, or pet as need be and comfort himself with if Luke were not around in case of occasional sadness, or a possible meltdown. Maybe even if he needed to have something to fidget with, to internally soothe him beneath his surface. It didn’t have to have a specific singular purpose, Luke just bought it for Spencer because he loved it, and he loves Spencer and decided to combine both. Making his way back and beside his boyfriend of whom he loves so much, he tapped Spencer’s hand to get him to open it. He does, and Luke places the small stuffed animal there for Spencer to observe.

The eyes once not filled with any other emotion besides exhausted were not lightly brimmed with gratitude and appreciation, for Luke. The action may have been small, and seemed awfully childish but it filled Spencer’s heart to know he was cared for, and thought about through Luke’s day. It set a tone that reminded him just how considerate and compassionate his boyfriend Luke was, and it cracked a smile on his once plain countenance. Laying his right leg down against the floor, he’d placed the tiny otter on his thigh, and he put his hands together again to make the heart for Luke.

“I love you, really. I mean it. Thick and thin as blood will run, I’ll be here as well.” Luke promised, picking one of Spencer’s hands to give a gentle kiss to. They had a code. Kissing the back of one another’s hands gently was a signal of everything being okay. Right now, it was.

[jasontoddiefor]

A gift for @thenegoteator :D

It took a Temple to raise a child, and Mace Windu was very much aware of this. However, it did not explain what Ahsoka Tano was doing at his door in the middle of the night. Ahsoka had deep bags under her eyes, which wasn’t too much of a surprise considering the current living arrangements of her lineage. While little Luke and Leia were relatively well-behaved newborns, they were still only a few weeks old. If their human caretakers didn’t wake up at every single little whimper, then the togruta with the superior hearing certainly would.

“Do you want to come inside?” Mace asked, not letting his confusion show. He was used to people coming to his door at the oddest hours.

“If—if I can?” Ahsoka replied as if only now becoming aware of her actions. In this, she reminded Mace of her Grandmaster and the many nights Mace had found Obi-Wan coming to his doorstep during the first months of Anakin’s stay at the Temple.

“My door is always open, Padawan,” Mace said – and watched her wince.

Ah.

So there was the problem.

“Caleb is currently sleeping in my bed as Depa is away,” Mace explained. “So please keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake him unnecessarily.”

The boy had already had a hellish enough month behind him, he needed all the rest he could get. Even though the war was officially over, enough planets refused to surrender, drawing out the battles until they had nothing but children left to sacrifice. It weighed on Mace’s shoulders, making him wonder whether he wasn’t too old to carry such burdens still.

Ahsoka nodded and followed Mace inside. He couldn’t recall whether Ahsoka had been in his room before, but from the way she eagerly looked around his quarters, taking in the sight of old instruments, books, and holos, he guessed she hadn’t. Well, at one point in their life, every Jedi had set a foot inside Mace’s quarters, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Ahsoka tore herself away from the sight and looked at him with surprise. “I—yes? That would be nice.”

“Then I will make a cup. Do you have any preferences? I believe I even have Obi-Wan’s favorite blend here.”

Mace had no idea whether he had bought it or if Obi-Wan had just left it here from himself when he came over. Knowing the other man, it was likely that the latter was the case. For a man claiming to be so very polite, Obi-Wan could be a right brat.

Mace’s kitchen was small, with only a few cabinets and one shelf, two cooking tiles, and an oven. He wasn’t much of a cook himself and preferred to eat in the cafeteria with everyone, frequently taste-tasting what the Initiates had prepared. He selected two uneven cups Depa had made for him when she’d been young from the shelf. Why she had decided to pick up pottery of all hobbies was beside him, but he supposed that she found the motion soothing. Devan did enjoy parkouring through the lower levels and Echuu was quite content playing the guitar to calm himself.

Perhaps Mace should focus less on why all three of his Padawans had decided they wouldn’t follow him into theatre so they could continue to make fun of him. Setting the water to boil, Mace searched through his cabinets until he found Obi-Wan’s favorite blend. The fruity tea was far from the blend he preferred, but Mace prided himself on being a good host. While he waited for the tea to finish steeping, Mace enjoyed the quiet of the night. For all that there were few sounds as dear to him as that of people walking, or in the case of some younglings and few selected Knights, running, down their large hallways, Mace could appreciate the quiet when the world came to rest.

With two finished cups in hand, he returned to the living room, where he found Ahsoka curled up on the sofa, no longer studying his quarters for any hidden secrets.

“Thank you,” she said when she accepted the cup from him. She held it in her hands as if to warm them, letting the steam hit her face. She breathed in once, twice, finding her rhythm again. Mace waited until she’d calmed enough to speak up.

“What brings you to my door, Padawan Tano?”

Ahsoka flinched and appeared to make herself even smaller as if attempting to vanish. When it became apparent that it didn’t work, that silence hadn’t been what she had sought him out for, she let out a sigh. “You keep calling that.”

“Calling you what?” Mace asked, his brow raised, playing oblivious.

“… Padawan.”

“Are you not? I was under the impression that you had returned to the Temple.”

“I did, but I still left,” Ahsoka replied. “I left and I was convinced that I had to leave and that it was good that I did. I still think I had to leave the Temple behind.”

“Then why are you torn?”

Ahsoka’s hold on her cup tightened and so, perhaps in wise anticipation, she set it on the table and buried her hands in her robes instead, hiding their twitching from view. Mace could trace all her mannerisms to her teachers and couldn’t imagine what it must be like to purposefully rip all those pieces from yourself when they had become so ingrained in your very being. Even Dooku, who’d fallen so far from their beliefs, had been unable to fully rid himself of Yoda’s lessons. Maybe it was for the best. Hope had become a scarce commodity during the war, yet Mace considered the possibility that in a decade, they wouldn’t be imprisoning a Sith anymore.

“But am I still a Padawan? A member of this Order?” Ahsoka asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she shook like the leaves on the trees in the courtyard.

“Has your Master told you anything different?”

Ahsoka paused. “…. No.”

Seeing that realization was settling within her, Mace nodded. “Then you should not doubt him. You are a Jedi, Ahsoka Tano, and you will remain one as long as you live by our tenets.”

That teased a startled laugh from her. “Compassion for all except people who cheat at push-n-pull?”

As if transported back ten years, hearing Anakin say the same, Mace snorted. “The similarities between you and your Master astonish me every time. Yes, Padawan Tano, compassion for all.”

This seemed to calm the youth as she reached for her cup again and emptied it slowly. “It’s good.”

Mace smiled into his own cup. “I’d be insulted if it wasn’t. Obi-Wan forced me to memorize all the steps for making it.”

The then young Knight had been frazzled, and Mace honestly couldn’t tell what it had been about and had forced Mace to learn how to make this tea until he’d more or less collapsed on Mace’s sofa, completely knocked out until morning when Anakin had picked him up.

“He does do that,” Ahsoka agreed. “I think this is the only thing anyone can make reliably now.”

“Sleep-deprived much?” Mace inquired.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe. I love Luke and Leia dearly, but they are demanding and need a lot of attention.”

That was honestly kinder than Mace would have described newborns at her age.

“There is a reason why we usually don’t have children this young in the Temple,” Mace said. “They are very handful. Do you get enlisted to help very often?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No, Obi-Wan, Skyguy, and Padmé got it covered, and I’m mostly just helping out somewhere else.”

She trailed off a little. This, perhaps, was another issue, but one that could be equally easily dealt with.

“Thank you then for going where you are needed,” Mace told her.

Ahsoka blinked. “Huh?”

“You will grow into a specific role someday, Ahsoka, and that needs time. Do not feel as if you need to earn back your place in the Temple. You don’t need to earn yourself a home you have always had. For now, trust me when I say that everyone you’ve helped is glad that you were there. It is an admirable quality to have a sense of where you are needed. Do not see it as being the odd one out.”

This was the hardest lesson to teach and learn, the fact that there was a path out there for you, but that it took time to see where it would lead. Too many of their Padawans now felt utterly lost without the structure the war had provided them with.

“Oh. I guess if you say so.”

“Yes, I do say so,” Mace agreed. Then, eyeing Ahsoka’s empty cup, he added on, “do you want another?”

“No.” Ahsoka yawned. “I think I might best head back.”

“You can also sleep here if you want, and don’t mind Caleb hogging the blanket. I won’t go to bed tonight anyway.”

Ahsoka squinted at him as if attempting to discern whether he was lying. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really—”

“Ahsoka, go to bed.”

Clearly feeling better already, she saluted and, after Mace showed her his bedroom, made herself comfortable in it. She took off her shoes and tossed her robe over a chair before climbing into the bed. Ahsoka had barely laid down when Caleb already turned around to curl around her, clinging like a little monkey. After a moment’s apprehension, she relaxed and was fast asleep. Stealing one last glance at the two Padawan, Mace returned to his living room, looking through the incoming reports.

Hectic as the aftermath of the war was, as much effort as caring for their children was, Mace wouldn’t trade it for a single thing in the world.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

The Birds & The Bees (S.R. | Pt. 4)

Summary: Reader has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which her Professor is hellbent on making a little bit better. A/N: If y’all thought you hated Kyle (bathroom bitch boy), just wait until you meet the new antagonist (of the female variety) here... I hope you all enjoy! 😚 Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Sexual themes/fantasies Word Count: 6.3k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

——————————————————

Einstein once attributed his genius to his childlike sense of humor. Studies performed since then have largely proven his point — funny people tend to have higher IQs, which makes sense when you consider the cognitive and emotional intelligence required to produce humor.

Spencer Reid was no exception. The only problem was that his humor was so remarkably niche and impossibly specific that barely anyone could understand the punchline. He insisted to me that he’d gotten better over the years, which I only barely believed… until he told me a joke that hadn’t left my mind since. A joke that he described as ‘just crude enough to make it palatable to the layman.’

"Caffeine and Viagra are both phosphodiesterase inhibitors,” he’d said — a slow start if there had ever been such a thing. But I held on to hope, hanging on the ecstatic, guileless smile he wore. And boy, was I glad I did, because what he’d said next broke me into a frankly embarrassing fit of giggles that returned with the memory every time.

“Which explains why both of these drugs keep you up all night."

The poor barista stuck working the busy early morning shift eyed me like I’d grown two heads when I once again devolved into laughter for no apparent reason. I almost felt embarrassed about it, but then I reassured myself that if she’d heard Dr. Spencer Reid tell a drug-induced-boner joke, she would also laugh about it forever.

I’d been thinking about him a lot lately. Not in a perverse way, either, despite his increasing comfort in breaching such topics in my presence. It was more like I’d started to infuse him into my every day, finding him in whatever way my brain would allow. While I made my way to his office, I breathed in the soothing scent drifting from the cups that were precariously perched in flimsy cardboard.

The smell took me back to quiet moments in his office. The kind of simple serenity that accompanied silence between two people who need not speak to share ideas. Where the second you looked away, you felt their eyes follow you, like the universe couldn’t maintain its structural integrity without one of you looking at the other.

It was intoxicating and alluring; so easy to lose myself in. Something I knew was dangerous for a number of reasons.

For example, when I am not paying the utmost attention to my surroundings, I have a tendency to lose track of where I am and what I’m doing. I also tend to… drop things. Especially hot and otherwise dangerous things.

Things like the two cups of coffee that finally became too much for shallow, defective cardboard.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I screeched as I became acutely aware of every place where scorching hot, drenched clothing hung on angry skin. Normally, I would at least try to sound more dignified while on my way to work, but it hardly seemed like it mattered anymore.

I was too busy hurriedly tearing at my shirt and dropping everything else I was holding. I’d gotten three whole buttons on my shirt popped by the time I remembered it wasn’t technically necessary. I dropped my bag immediately at the thought, tugging on the hem of the shirt and trying to bring it over my head.

Unfortunately, I still hadn’t regained my grace, and in the muddled mess of fabric, I’d also grabbed hold of my undershirt. Which meant that whoever was walking through the empty halls of the early morning in academia would find me, with my stomach exposed and clothing dripping while unintelligible curses flowed freely from my lips.

I expected most people would probably just turn around and leave. I probably would’ve. The giant splatter of coffee and the absolute idiot slipping in it were beyond saving.

But there was at least one person who saw the mess and stayed.

I smelled his cologne before I felt his hand was pressed over the bare skin of my lower back. Despite the fact my skin was burning, it welcomed the warmth of his touch. My body stopped at his command, waiting for him to break me free of the paradoxically frozen state I was in.

He pulled the shirt back down, just enough that I could see him when he wrapped his cardigan around my shoulders and started guiding me into his office, which I’d somehow managed to almost walk straight past in my daze. I wished that I could go back there, to the imaginary world where he hadn’t just seen me half disrobed and cursing while covered in the coffee that I’d meant to give to him.

Spencer’s hands left me once the door was shut, probably trusting, or at least hoping, that I could figure out the mess on my own. Oddly enough, I didn’t notice any signs of him staring at me. Like he only felt comfortable looking when I was clothed.

I tried not to think about it. Once I did manage to free myself of one of the shirts — without further flashing my boss — the anxiety brewing inside of me burst out in the form of frantic shouting.

“Hi Professor! I’m so sorry, I spilled the coffee!”

“Yeah, I... saw the puddle,” he mumbled, throwing a cursory glance back at the hallway before his eyes met mine with a terrifying level of compassion, “Are you alright?”

“Besides the boiling liquid on my skin and the horrid embarrassment? I guess,” I mumbled back before shouting, “Shit! This is why that woman sued McDonald’s! Why do stores serve coffee like that?!”

Spencer didn’t really say anything. In fact, he kind of just stood as frozen as I had been, staring at everything around me rather than meeting my eyes again. But while he seemed somewhat cool and composed, I continued to tug at my clothes to try and avoid the friction. It was then that he cleared his throat, covering his face just like he’d done when he saw me in an arguably more provocative position the week before.

Arguably, I said. I should have known that Spencer would win any argument. I should have considered why he was making such a point of not looking at me while I clawed at the white undershirt turned beige. But I didn’t. Not until I looked down to inspect the state of my skin.

I realized then that Spencer had been trying to figure out a way to inform me that not only had the coffee turned my shirt a different shade — it had also eliminated the opacity.

He could see my bra. Spencer Reid, my boss, was trying not to stare at my very clearly visible bra.

“God, this is the worst Monday of all Mondays!” I whined between half-sobs, “and Mondays are already bad, Professor!”

There must have been something else in that cry, too. Something akin to permission. Enough for him to step closer, managing to avoid looking at my chest in the process. I’d entirely forgotten that he’d wrapped me in his cardigan until he pulled it tighter around my shoulders like his own version of an embrace.

“That they are, Bunny.”

If my skin had been heated before, it turned to flames at the use of the nickname. It was honestly a pure work of magic that the liquid on me didn’t turn vaporize the second I’d heard the word.

Bunny?

I pushed the thought away as quick as humanly possible, focusing instead on the way my clothes were going from uncomfortably hot to frigid as a result of the usually refreshing air conditioning. But when I was once again reminded of the obvious undergarment, I sighed.

“I can probably ask a friend to bring me a replacement shirt, or just go to class like this,” I thought aloud, “No one really looks at me, anyway...”

Spencer’s response came immediately, his hands flying up in protest as he shouted, “No!”

I wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that, or even which part of the statement he was objecting to, so he was met with a wide-eyed, slow blinking stare.

“I-I mean, I have a shirt you can borrow. I don’t want to subject you to any further embarrassment,” he explained at a significantly more appropriate volume, “You can just wear my extra shirt.”

He turned away from me before I could respond, shuffling through something hidden beneath his desk that created more questions than answers for me.

“Why do you have an extra shirt?”

“Go bag,” he said in the most nondescript manner. It wasn’t necessarily abnormal, either. The question I’d asked didn’t spark any concerns in his mind, but it also wasn’t the question that I felt needed to be asked.

What I really wanted to say was caught in my throat. My hands clamped together in front of me tighter than my jaw that resisted opening to make way for the thoughts that felt more scandalous than they should’ve been.  

“U-Um, Professor don’t you think—“

“Here you go,” he offered with a smile. I took the large, plain black shirt with a hefty dose of caution, my hands shaking along with my broken voice that still couldn’t finish the sentence from before.

Spencer finally noticed the struggle on my face, and I watched his body move from comfortable to defensive in a matter of seconds. Like he was worried he’d done something wrong in trying to be kind.

He hadn’t, but I felt like I had.

“Won’t people... you know?” I mumbled, motioning a hand between the two of us, “I’m showing up to your class at 8AM wearing your clothes…”

I thought that the words alone would be enough. I thought that the gesture was overkill. But Spencer was still staring at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed in thought.

I was going to have to say it.

Won’t they think we’re having sex?

There was no way I was going to be able to say it.

“Aren’t you concerned about people getting… the wrong idea?” I blurted out, instead.

The confusion on his face shifted to a clever little self-assured smirk so fast that I almost missed the transition. My stomach flipped from the sight, but then he spoke again, and what had felt like it was filled with butterflies turned to rocks.

“I’d much rather them gossip about something that’s not happening than watch the young boys ogle you instead of paying attention.”

It wasn’t the words, but the way that he’d said them. Like they were silly, like the idea of us being together was so preposterous it could only be entertained by people he perceived to be children.

I was foolish, too.

“Don’t worry about them,” he said with a wave, “Just worry about making this Monday a little bit better.”

“O-okay. Thanks,” I whispered, turning and running from the room only to be reminded of the mess I’d made. But the pool of tawny liquid on the floor wasn’t the most disastrous thing anymore. That honor was reserved for the state of my heart, begrudgingly continuing to beat despite being broken.

Scooping up my bag that I’d abandoned before, I tried to allow myself to be happy about the little things. For instance, the fact that the shirt Spencer had handed me was probably the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life. It made sense, considering the sensory issues he always described.

Still, I waited until I was in the safety of a bathroom stall before I buried my face in the fabric. It smelled just like him, a mixture of freshly done laundry and vanilla. Much better than the cheap, burnt coffee that covered me. Funny enough, that sort of smelled like him, too.

By the time I slipped into his clothes, I had almost forgotten his joke entirely. I was too lost in the joy of sweater paws from his cardigan and fabric that felt like a hug. Or at least, what I’d imagined a hug from him would be like.

The energy it provided me was a better pick-me-up than any cup of coffee had ever been. I kept my squealing as quietly as I could, bouncing in place just like the nickname he’d chosen to let stick. But before I returned to him, I felt something. A small, noticeable weight in one of the cardigan pockets.

If I’d thought about it for longer than five seconds, if I’d reminded myself that they were his clothes and not mine, I would’ve let it be. I wouldn’t have pulled the little object from its safe hiding spot. It would have stayed locked away, leaving me none the wiser of its presence.

But I didn’t think about it, and then there I was, holding onto the sobriety token I should’ve seen coming.

Not that it was a bad thing; I already knew Spencer had a history with drugs. He’d mentioned it in passing in class and was deeply involved with a number of volunteer programs around the area. At one point, I’d even taken it upon myself to research his history.

That research, while I regretted it now, feeling that it violated his privacy some way or another, led me to a second conclusion. As my thumb ghosted over the embossed number five, I realized that Spencer had been sober since he was released from prison.

My heart swelled with pride and relief that felt shameful. I didn’t want the token to have such a profound effect on the image of him I’d already crafted in my mind. Lord knew I didn’t need any more reasons to idolize him. And, at the end of the day, I’d only discovered this information by happenstance.

Part of respect, I decided, meant ignoring the way that fate seemed to push us together. If Spencer ever wanted my opinion on his sobriety or strength, surely, he would just ask. So, I slipped the chip back into the pocket and made my way back to him without worry for what it meant.

While I had no worries, Spencer was another story. I’d barely even made it through the door when he saw me. All of the papers he’d been holding immediately fell from his hands the same way the coffee had fallen from mine.

“Oh no! My clumsiness was contagious!” I laughed, bolting over to help him only to find his face an unhealthy shade of red. He chuckled back but said nothing else as he scrambled to pick up the loose-leaf that had splayed itself all over the floor.

Once we were back on our feet and as collected as we could be considering the circumstances of the morning thus far, his eyes met mine again. His cheeks were still flushed, unable to focus on anything specific and choosing to traverse my body the same way his hands had on Halloween.

“Sorry,” he mumbled in a way that made me wonder if he knew I could hear him, “I was distracted by how unfair it is that you look better in my clothes than I do.”

It was my turn to be flustered, but Spencer didn’t let the moment drag on. He tore himself away from me in every sense of the word, marching past me and halfway exiting the room before he found the courage to look at me again.

“Are you ready to head to class?” he asked as if it were an option.

I suppose to him, it was. For a second I imagined what the future would hold for us if I’d said no. What would he have done if I begged him to stay with me, instead? What if we rebelled against expectation and remained locked away in his office until we grew tired of one another? What if we never did?

My mind filled with fantasies of Spencer’s hands freely feeling my skin the way his clothes could. I could hear soft, breathy sounds of desire shaped like my name. For all of my inexperience, he would still find me intoxicating. He would grow drunk on me the same way a child finds endless joy in sweets that really ought to make them sick.

Then again, maybe he had grown used to the sugar. Maybe he wanted something more mature, a bitterness like molasses that was only earned from years I hadn’t had yet.

Regardless, I couldn’t really get into any of that. Instead, I just flashed a very awkward thumbs up to the man fifteen years my elder when I droned, “Sure am, Professor man.”

As stupid as it felt to do something so juvenile, the smile he gave was worth it.

“Alright then, Bunny,” he answered with his own little peace sign, “Let’s hop along.”

——————————————————

It hadn’t even been a week since I saw her, scantily clad in the plush, socially acceptable equivalent of lingerie. It’d been even less time since I admitted my own weakness to her. I’d replayed the memories of her visceral responses to my touch enough times that I should be sick of it. But there was no tiring of her.

I considered deleting the photos she’d sent me, convinced that it was cruel to keep them when she’d only sent them while inebriated and undoubtedly exhausted beyond belief.

But when I woke up in the morning, my stomach still reeling from the knowledge of what I’d done, all that she’d sent was a curious collection of emotes and a very brief note.

“Oops!” she’d written, “Bad bunny?”

I put that phrase out of my mind immediately, unable to handle the way it incited the desire for destruction in my veins.

“I’m always glad to hear that you are safe.”

That was the end of the conversation, and I was grateful for that much. Even the few words we’d exchanged would haunt me until I saw her again. Of course, the torture ended there, but only for a few seconds before it was replaced with other images and words.

It’d been hours since I’d found her flailing about half-naked in the hall while uttering rushed curses that sounded too crude for her lips. It’d been hours since I felt the soft skin of her lower back and became lost in an entirely different set of fantasies.

It’d been even less time since I saw her standing at my door, pulling on the sleeves of my sweater and staring at me with nervous, shifty glances. Completely unaware of just how beautiful she was in her simplicity. How much more torturous it was to see her wearing my clothes than any lustful suffering that lingerie or nudity could elicit.

I thought that it would get better throughout the day, but it didn’t. It only got worse.

I’d stepped out of my office for barely half an hour, but I returned to find her curled up on the plush chair. Her shoes were slipped off, revealing colorful socks that clashed with every other neutral color she wore. It somehow made me want her even more.

I stayed stuck for a few seconds longer, watching her with bated breath and shameless admiration. She was so caught up in the papers on her lap that she didn’t even notice my presence until the door clicked shut. It was then that she turned to see me, allowing a smile to blossom across her face despite eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What’s all of this?” she asked, gesturing to the collection of bags hanging from my wrists.  

“Did you know…” I started before my heart stopped at how she always leaned forward with excitement whenever I started a sentence that way, “that food is one of the best ways to solve a terrible Monday?”

“Which scientific study did you get that from?”

I paused again, debating telling her the many studies that would support such a theory, but then decided against it. Instead, I sought out her laughter and childlike joy that always brought out the best of her.

“Garfield,” I answered.

Sure enough, the office filled with the melodious sound of her happiness. I moved as quietly as I could, thinking back to when I was younger and thought of how powerful bottled laughter would be if I could capture it. Hers would surely right so many wrongs.

“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”

She approached me to assist before I’d even made it to my desk, and although I thought her hands were far too soft to be bothered with something like this, I allowed her to help.

“You could do nothing, you know. It was my own fault.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to.”

She laughed again, shier and shrinking into the sweater as she tried to find her place in such a domestic activity as sharing a meal with me in private. I thought of how it was a taste of my dreams.

Because as often as I did fantasize about her, undone, bare-skinned, and defenseless to my desires, I just as often envisioned her just like this. In fact, I found those fantasies more dangerous. They couldn’t be written off as mere lust. They were another, scarier thing.

“Well, lucky you I am an exhausted, broke grad student, so free food will always win me over,” she muttered, half-sarcastically but just sad enough to bother me.  

“Duly noted,” I said.

I hid away the promises I wanted to make. That if she were mine, she would want for nothing. That I would give her everything she needed to bloom. That I would prune away any neighboring flower that dared get in her way or block the sunlight. There would be no need to worry of predators or pollinators intruding, because she would belong to me and only me.

I would be her earth, her rain, and her sun. I would be surely and shamelessly selfish.

Her shoulders rose with a cheeky, excited little giggle once she had collected her food. I wanted nothing more than to let her enjoy it to her heart’s content… but there was a problem.

“Nuh-uh, no way,” I chuckled before she had a chance to return to the chair with her precarious paper plate, “Get in the other chair.”

Her face scrunched up, bouncing back and forth between the two seats in the room like she’d heard something so strange that it must have been a mistake.

“Wh— your chair?”

“I will not have you ruining another shirt today,” I explained. It caused the confusion to quickly shift to an embarrassed frustration within seconds. Just as she opened her mouth to protest my teasing, I continued with something I knew would tie her tongue until she could no longer argue.

“If you’re so worried about what they’ll say when you show up in my shirt, just think of how they’ll talk if they catch you wearing nothing.”

That stubborn little thing still tried. Her mouth floundered, strange sounds of protest starting but never finishing until she gave up. She sulked over to the seat with an odd amount of self-satisfaction. She settled into my space as comfortably as she always did. With an ease that was almost unsettling to my tired, tortured heart.

Swapping places with her for that little bit of time was a good idea. I hadn’t expected that it would bring me as much serenity as it did. My usually busy lips kept their focus on the food, opting to listen to her ramble about any and everything that came to mind.

It wasn’t until she was fifteen minutes into an explanation on her paper that I realized how little I’d tried to learn about her life outside of me. Whether it was self-preservation or narcissism, I’d never decided. But what I was certain of was that it had been a brutal form of self-sabotage.

Because as I sat there, watching her clumsily, excitedly swinging her fork and proving my point that it had been a good decision to give her the desk, I saw her for in a different light than before.

She was not just a beautiful, mysterious flower peeking through the concrete. She was the trembling giant, the clonal colony of thousands of quaking aspen trees. An extravagant network of roots that flowed far beyond the seed that started them.

This sprout might be new, but her soul was ancient and celestial, wise and immortal.

“Who knows?” she sighed, coming to a natural conclusion of a story I had almost missed while lost in daydreams and metaphors, “Maybe one day I’ll be a professor, too.”

“You’d be good at it.”

For once, it felt like she accepted the compliment without a fight. I considered it progress all the way up until she shot back a thinly veiled taunt.

“Thanks. Means a lot from someone who has 4 stars on rate my professor!”

“Don’t forget the chili pepper,” I jokingly returned.

“Not sure I’d get one of those.”

I knew that my disagreement wouldn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for a slightly-self-centered flattery instead.

“Just show up in that outfit,” I said with a nod that barely hid my actual intention of focusing my eyes on the rest of her, “you’ll be golden.”

“You gonna let me borrow it in ten years?” she hummed.

It was a dangerous proposition, an implication that made the pitter-pattering in my chest unbearable. Rather than chasing her down the rabbit hole of fantasies, I just chuckled before I answered, “You know how to find me.”

Then it happened again. Her face slowly changed, growing from a cautious optimism to a yearning. A subtle hint of words left unsaid. And although she wet her lips and set down her fork, the words never came out. They stayed stalled in her throat, and there was no discernible way for me to drag them out of her without hurting the both of us.

When a loud knock resounded through the room, the thought ended altogether.

“Come in,” I grimly announced, recognizing the intrusive sound as the death rattle for whatever might have been said.

As the door opened, I realized the same time (y/n) did that we had forgotten that the rest of the outside world wasn’t familiar with our dynamic. They didn’t have the backstory of how she’d perched herself on my chair with her shoes off and wearing my clothes.

Torn between scrambling to take more socially acceptable positions and the knowledge that our hurry would make us look even more suspicious, we both opted to remain frozen in place like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.

When the door opened, however, I was somewhat relieved to see someone I found completely unthreatening. My closest colleague, a woman that should really terrify me all things considered, seemed mostly perplexed when she found a young girl in my seat.

She quickly turned to me, drawing out her words as she asked, “Oh. I’m sorry, am I... interrupting something?”

“No, what can I help you with, Candy?”

“I was hoping we could talk about my current paper proposal.”

She paused, and I took the moment to follow her glower to the flower still stationary behind my desk. (Y/n) stared back, seemingly frightened by the presence of the other Professor.  

“If you’re busy with... office hours…” Candy muttered before turning back to me, “we can always set up a meeting for a better time.”

Before I could address the possible tension or implication, the girl at my desk sprung to action, clearing off any sign of her presence as she spoke.

“You know, I actually need to get going.”

“Are you sure?”

She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, I’m sure your papers are more important.”

If I’d turned back to Candy, I might have seen the condescending scowl that was driving her away. If I’ve had any inclination or desire to look at Candy, I would have realized that (y/n) wasn’t trying to escape from her connection to me. She was just trying to get out of my way.

It didn’t make it any harder to watch her leave. I took solace in the fact that she held tighter to my cardigan, trusting me to keep her warm by proxy as she ventured back into the real world. The world where we couldn’t be in peace.

“Thanks for the advice, Professor,” she said before she left, “You were right. As usual.”

One last smile was shared, somber but sobering. A necessary break from the intimacy of the moment.

“See you in class.”

The office felt so much duller without her radiance, but my disappointment would have to wait. As much as I actually didn’t mind the world knowing how my heart hurt from her absence, I knew that it was best I didn’t let it impact her academic career.

“Sorry again for the intrusion,” my colleague said in a much happier voice.  

“It’s not a problem at all.”

She must have noticed the way it sounded like a lie, because her tone quickly shifted back to a slightly disgruntled confusion.

“I didn’t realize she was your student, too. What class is she in?”

It was juvenile, really, the way my heart fluttered so ridiculously at the mere mention of her existence. The excuse to discuss her again.

“Oh, did she not tell you?”

Candy just shook her head with a blatantly false smile.

“Unsurprisingly modest,” I laughed, making my way back over to my seat and running my fingers over the wooden armrests like it would be the same as touching her ghost, “She’s my TA.”

“Oh… I see.”

“She was the only one who would put up with me,” I offered with a chuckle. Self-deprecating humor was the only reliable personality trait I had. It was also, unfortunately, one that most women in my life despised and refused to let sit.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

It sounded less sweet coming from her. I wrote it off as a product of the differences in their species. While the hummingbird of a girl who’d just flittered away was used to only drinking the sweetest, purest nectar, the bird of prey who’d entered relied on the work of others to gather the sweetness before they were devoured.

That wasn’t to say she was cruel; hawks are as much a miracle of nature as hummingbirds. I simply related to one more than the other. I understood one while the other remained a mystery. And I loved mysteries more than myself.

“So, you wanted to talk about your paper?”

“Oh! Yes,” she chirped, passing the packet over to me now that I’d found my way back to what she probably deemed my rightful place. “The conference is coming up so much faster than I anticipated, and I would love to hear your opinions on my first draft.”

I’d already started to read the first page when she spoke again, uncharacteristically bashful and anxious, “Since we’ll be presenting together, I figured...”

“Yeah, no problem at all,” I interrupted, not wanting her to dwell nor expand on the thought of us doing anything together any more than necessary, “I can send you mine.”

It felt curt, blunt, and off putting when I said it, but she didn’t take it as such.

“Wonderful. You have such a unique voice when you’re writing. It’s very refreshing.”

Immediately, a memory appeared at the forefront of my mind and led to a laugh that I couldn’t contain. Candy seemed pleased at the sound, and I felt the need to explain.

“Thanks. (Y/n) likened it to Ray Bradbury at one point, although in different and less flattering words.”

I could hear her clear as day, quoting my words with an overdramatized effect before laughing, ‘Pack it up, Bradbury, you’ve got more science stuff to explain.’

Of course, we both found her laughter-ridden explanation of the ‘meme’ far funnier than the original joke. She was probably the only person in the world who never seemed bothered by explaining everything to me ad nauseam.

“She is... certainly a choice as a TA,” Candy strained upon scrutinizing the smile that had returned to my face for the first time since (y/n)’s departure, “Will she be joining us at the conference?”

But then the guilt returned, wiping the smile from my face and replacing happy memories with deviant thoughts and fears.

“Oh... you know, I haven’t asked her.”

“That’s perfectly alright! I think we’ll do just fine without her.”

“Right...” I whispered, glancing back down at the stack of papers in my hand before setting it in the tray designated for (y/n). “I’ll have her look at your paper just in case.”

A lull in the conversation stretched past the point of comfort for both of us, and I glanced up at the woman I actually felt guilty for ignoring in place of fantasies that would probably never come to be. She hadn’t even done anything to warrant my disregard. She was an attractive woman — as beautiful as she was brilliant, really — she had worked very hard to garner my trust and academic collaboration. At one point, I had considered her one of the few potential candidates for something more than a purely academic partner.

But there was something about the way she looked at the honeyed girl that made my hair stand on end. A defensiveness and instinct that couldn’t be ignored.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, that was all,” she said as she broke from what I presumed to be her own daydream, “I hope your semester keeps going well.”

“Thanks, I hope yours does, too.”

I meant it, despite the aforementioned concern. I wished her well in the semester for both selfless and selfish reasons. I wished her well because she deserved it, certainly. But the other reason, the larger one, was that I hoped she would remain distracted. I hoped that she didn’t notice the way I would slip away from her affections to chase those from a more interesting challenge. One that remained mysterious, with hair covered in pollen and lips sweet with ambrosia.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid.”

I failed to respond to her again before the door shut because my hands were already busy with rekindling contact with another.

“I have a proposition for you, Bunny.”

“Sounds ominous. I’m in.”  

The fact that the response came before I could even shut off the display was so characteristic of her that I had to laugh.

“You haven’t even heard it yet,” I observed, to which she once again immediately responded, “Your point being?”

“I’m afraid this is an obligation that does require some expansion before agreement.”

Her response was slower, then, and I could almost see her with a slight panic and overwhelming curiosity that grew stronger by the second.

“Ominous and vaguely unsettling,” she said.  

I considered drawing it out further, letting her imagination truly run wild with the possibilities. But then I realized that if she thought hard enough about it, she might reach the same place that had immediately come to my mind.

“Would you like to attend the upcoming conference with me?” I relented, almost stopping there but then frantically tagging on the conditions I knew would be most likely to cause hesitation. “You’d have your own room, of course. The department and I will help with funds.”

But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried.

“A cheap weekend away from school where I get to be a nerd with you?” she sent with another set of small, smiling faces I was only just starting to understand, “Of course I’m going to say yes, Professor!”

“Perfect. I’ll arrange it.”

“I can’t wait!”

Although I felt the same, I forced myself to end contact again. I put my phone out of reach to prevent myself from spoiling any more of my fantasies than I already had. I didn’t need her to second-guess the possibilities of a weekend away together now that she’d already agreed to it.

The thought alone sparked guilt anew. Through the entire interaction, I’d infused each word with a charge that shouldn’t have been. Each line was far more provocative than it needed to be.

It was just an academic conference. Most people found them terribly dull, not to mention physically exhausting. It would not be a time away like most couples dreamed of because we were not a couple in any sense of the word.

Yet… I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps there weren’t as many differences as one might think. Because while yes, most people would be bored, I didn’t think Bunny would be. Clandestine meetings made between conference meetings sounded exactly like the kind of dreams we would share.

I believed it so strongly that my mind had already drafted several narratives that would suit her. I pictured her and I sharing company in public, unafraid of public displays of affection — innocent, childish kinds, of course — because we were miles away from those who might care.

That drunken, lust-inducing, half-lidded gaze from the week before would return. Except this time, I would taste the wine on her tongue, my hands sliding not over fluffy fabric, but the same skin that I’d felt for the first time that morning.

Behind our door, I would teach her so many things. Things that she would have begged me for. Things that others would see written on her skin in the shape of my fingers and mouth. Things that she would carry with a straighter back and dripping down her legs.

I didn’t just want to destroy her. I wanted to break her so that I could build her back with gold-laced lacquer. She would be my kintsugi creation full of sugar and honey, just imperfect enough that the sticky residue of her sweetness would slip through the cracks to coat everything she touched.

And then she would touch me, and I might finally feel like I deserved anything at all.

——————————————————

| Part Five |

[collecting-stories]

Purple - JJ Maybank

Request: hey can i request a fic where both jj and his gf are bi. she had come out to him but he hasnt yet and its just him figuring it out and telling her and its a bit angsty cuz he is scared but with a happy ending? :))) 

A/N: Hopefully this lives up to your request!

Outer Banks Masterlist

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

JJ was good at putting on a show for the people around him. He could adapt to any atmosphere, had no problem being everybody’s friend. When people outside of the pogues talked about him it was always that he was funny or nice or loud...all just surface traits. They couldn’t tell you anything really about him. Did he like mayo on sandwiches? Did he cry at sad movies? Did he have a favorite song, or color, or season? They could describe him to a T, he was easy to recognize because he was always drawing attention to himself but no one really knew him. 

When you’d first started dating him, it was all those surface things that you knew about him too. That he was funny, and charismatic, and liked to be the center of attention. Or at least, you assumed these things about him. He never seemed too bothered by anything and when he did it was like a crack in his armor, like a little piece of himself had been chipped away at until the real JJ showed himself.

It only ever lasted for a second though.  

At your second ever date with him you’d been completely honest with yourself, laying everything out for him. You were bi and you’d dated a girl before him. You expected a lot of things from JJ but not how chill he was.  

“Kind of expected you to make some joke about a threesome.” You admitted. It wasn’t just him; you’d heard them so many times before that it was just what you’d come to think of as a normal reaction.  

JJ cracked a smile, the teasing kind that hid whatever he was really thinking, though you didn’t realize that yet, and replied, “all my jokes about threesomes are tasteful and not...biphobic.” He tested the word like he was saying it for the first time.  

“I bet.”  

You didn’t know it then, wouldn’t know it for months after, but that little piece of him that was so quiet when you talked to him about being bi, that listened intently and seemed genuinely happy that you had felt comfortable confiding in him, it was a seam in his armor that had split.  

Dating JJ was like dismembering a suit of armor but starting at the bottom. It was realizing that he hadn’t actually shown his face to people in years. That all along they’d been looking at a mock-up, a caricature of the real boy. It took months of chiseling away at that guard for you to realize that there was a storm beneath the surface. Noticing the tells, the minute tics that gave away JJ’s less cheerful moods, was something that you became almost an expert in. You started to recognize the bad even when he was putting on a show for everyone else.  

“I think you would feel better.” And maybe you were nagging but realizing that the sunny indifference was all a lie made you ache and you just wanted to help him, make him happier in whatever way you could.  

“I’m fine.”  

“JJ-”

“Why do you wanna talk about it?” He snapped, sitting up a little further in the doorway of your kitchen. The screen had come off it’s hinges a while back so you could only keep the door open if you were sitting in the doorway, like you were now, JJ against one side of the doorframe and you facing him, legs intertwined.  

“Cause,” you stressed, “I can tell that something is bothering you and that bothers me.”

“Nothing’s bothering me.”

“If it is...”

JJ sighed, laying his head back against the wood and closing his eyes. You were relentless and determined. You knew something was wrong and had decided that you would fix it, as his girlfriend, as someone he confided in even when he felt he couldn’t confide in his friends, you owed him that much. The absolute care and compassion of someone who loved him. “It’s...something I’ve been thinking about. A lot, recently.” He finally admitted.  

“Okay...” You nodded, noting the way he pulled gently at your hand, as if trying to separate the entanglement so that he could run away faster if things didn’t go the way he wanted them too. If they went the way he thought they would.  

JJ was good at pretending because he didn’t let himself be alone for too long. The more time he spent surrounded by friends, or high as a kite, or drunk on someone’s bathroom floor, was less time he had to spend with his own thoughts. He could pretend as long as he didn’t let himself linger too long on the truth. But this thought, the one that had been plaguing him for months, wouldn’t leave. No matter how many times he blacked-out.  

“You know how you told me you’re bi?” JJ asked, hesitantly.  

“Yeah.”  

He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, frowning up at the ceiling. You frowned, squeezing his hand to catch his attention. When he looked at you, you smiled. He relaxed. It was almost impossible to see but you caught the slight droop to his shoulders, “I think I’m bi.” He finally said.

“Really?” You didn’t ask out of malice, genuinely surprised that your boyfriend was telling you this and seemed so meager in it. JJ was always confident, especially about liking someone. He’d been completely confident that you would date him and he was right...it was surprising to see him so stripped of that confidence.  

“After you mentioned it to me...kinda started thinking about it, about myself and what that meant.” He replied, trying to find the words to express how he was feeling. Relieved to have said it, still scared though. “I just...didn’t wanna tell you.”

“Why?” You asked, quickly explaining, “I mean, you know I’m bi, I told you. I’m not shy about it. Why would you think that I wouldn’t be 100% supportive.”

“It’s just...different.”

“Cause you’re a guy?”  

JJ nodded, looking away from you again, “yeah, I mean...I guess it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” you sat up on your knees and shifted closer to him, finally breaking your hands apart so that you could cup his face, making him look at you, “J, it’s not stupid. I’m sorry you were so worried, you shouldn’t have to feel like that. I love you, no matter what you tell me...I would never judge you.”  

He nodded slightly, leaning his face into your hand, “I just got in my head.”

You smiled, closing the gap between the two of you so that you could place a kiss to his forehead, “anytime you’re in your head, feel free to share. I certainly wouldn’t mind knowing what’s going on up there.”

[light-yaers]

Fools in the Darkness: Chapter One

Darkling x Reader

Warnings: Death, violence, drugs (Parem), NSFW and sexual content. This content is explicit and 18+ at some points.

A/N: I caved. I am a wildly stupid individual who has no control over her actions. I know I might come to regret posting this so fast and thus forcing myself into my third ongoing x reader fic, but I also just generally don’t care. I’m still working on No Saints and Sweet Esacpe, just as a slower pace due to my mental health, but this baby here floated out of me like melted butter. I’ll be alternating between uploading this fic and my currently ongoing others! I just had to get this shit out of my system about Shadow and Bone, fr. 

Fic Masterpost

Word Count - 3.4k

Chapter One

Ketterdam covered up your secrets perfectly. It’d only been a matter of weeks since you’d fled there, after travelling the exhausting journey across East Ravka until the Fold had stood before you; brooding, dangerous, a death-wish just to look at, let alone enter it.

Maybe you had to thank him for one thing, General Kirigan, because without him—

You never would have crossed the Fold on your own.

Maybe Ketterdam was made for a person such as yourself. Dark, danger around every corner, full to the brim with power-hungry men and women trapped behind silks. You’d never warmed to anyone yet, but that wasn’t a surprise—it was easy to hate people in the Barrel, but even easier to take their kruge and send them sailing upon the True Sea without another glance.

Kerch was a merchant port, stuffed with expensive clubs and those with no money troubles, armed and ready to open their pockets if they so wished. There were two sides of the docks—Fifth Harbour; the lavishly bright sector for the rich and wealthy—and the Barrel; a breeding ground for crime, killings and losing all of your kruge in one night.

You’d made acquaintances with the Barrel rats from the very beginning, hearing stories about the destruction they caused. You’d much rather not be on the side of the wealth, but the side of fear.

“I found her wandering the harbour, Kaz,” A petite lady in dark clothes spoke to her boss. She’d dragged you from the bustling harbour, flying you through the dark streets of Ketterdam. You tried to hear her footsteps across the cobblestones, but she left no footprints, like a Wraith in the night.

Kaz approached his desk then, stepping into the small lamp light of his office in the Slat. Kaz Brekker was a man that no one wanted to cross. With his clenched jaw and unforgiving stares, the Bastard of the Barrel was cut-throat in every sense of the description.

“She’s a rat, Inej. Not our responsibility—,”

“Do you see the clothes she’s wearing?” Inej cut over Kaz, stepping towards him abruptly. He stayed in place, looking at his Wraith in the eyes, unwaveringly. He regarded her for a moment, taking all of her in, before turning back to you.

His eyes skimmed you up and down, traversing the darkened and muddied fabrics on your body.

“A Kefta,” He whispered it, his eyes widening. “It doesn’t look like the usual Second Army attire,” He added. You perked up, trying to keep your expression as blunt as possible. After your journey, it wasn’t hard not to show anything—you’d been forced to endure a quiet and agonising journey for a month, while trying to stay in the shadows at the same time.

“Because it’s not,” You spoke up, for the first time since entering Brekker’s office. Kaz turned his attention to your face, stepping forward menacingly. His crow-headed cane slammed the wooden floorboards threateningly, but you weren’t scared—

You’d crossed the fucking Fold on your own. Nothing scared you anymore.

“Who are you?” He questioned, trying to keep his voice steady. Men like Kaz tried not to show off what they felt either, but the curiosity in his tone was undeniable. You cleared your throat.

“How much time have you got?”

Fjerda, 1 Year Ago

It was a risk to take, that was for sure. But choosing whether to go through the Fold or around it was a no brainer. Evidently, it had paid off so far, as you and your sister travelled through the barren coldness of Fjerda, headed for the Ravkan border.

“How much farther?” Your sister chided. She was older than you by a year, but on this mission, you’d taken charge. You shuffled into your pack, pulling out a tattered map and a compass. You set the point to North, calculating the miles you had left to trudge to safety.

Your sister wasn’t Grisha, no—you were. A Squaller; untrained, unenthusiastic about your power and utterly afraid of the Druskelle. But you’d had no choice in getting you and your sister safely around the Fold. There was no other way to go from where you’d first found asylum in Novyi Zem; going through Fjerda was the safest route to the Ravkan army.

You smiled at the map. “Five miles. Then we’ll be in Ravka,” An exhausted but relief filled scoff fell from your lips. You locked eyes with your sister, before the two of you embraced tightly. “We’ll be safe soon,” You whispered in her ear, enjoying the small warmth you got from her bare cheek pressing against your jaw.

“You’ll be safe soon,” She replied, bringing a hand to rest on the back of your neck. She pulled away then, as the tears began to well in her crystalline eyes. “You put yourself in this danger to keep me safe. I’m the older sister—I should be keeping you safe,”

“It was this, or through the Fold,” You spoke, furrowing your brows at her. “I’d rather take on twenty druskelle than step foot in that heaping mound of darkness,” Laughter trickled from both sisters, floating over the snow-covered trees and giving you hope.

You both continued forward tirelessly, mercilessly, trudging through inches of untouched snow and praying to whichever god out there who was listening. You prayed for your sister’s safety, for a safe life for her in the First Army. You prayed that you could stay with her—

A Squaller you were, yes, but over your dead body would you be taken to the Little Palace. You knew that’s where Grisha were trained for the King, you knew it was different. Your abilities didn’t define you; Saints, you barely even used them.

They were unpredictable. And you were scared of hurting those around you without meaning to. Ever since an incident when you were younger, you’d almost been afraid of your own power. You kept it hidden from those who you didn’t know closely.

Those who knew you were Grisha in Novyi Zem called you zowa—blessed, in Zemeni. It also meant Grisha, so you didn’t know if they were simply calling you what you were, or if they were commenting upon how strong your Squaller abilities were.

You’d never even met another Sqauller. You had nothing to compare yourself off of.

With a mile until you hit the Ravkan border, you stopped abruptly. Plumes of smoke rose high above the skies, coming from somewhere further on before you. You stuck your hand out, halting your sister from walking any further.

You were silent, listening for any signs of breakings twigs, compacted snow, or other indications of druskelle being near.

“Saints, you look like a fentomen,” Your sister scoffed beside you.

“Quiet,” You hit back with.

“What is it?” She spoke again, quieter this time, but not by much.

“Quiet,” You hissed.

You both waited another few minutes, silently standing like statues in the garden of the Grand Palace. You let out shaky breaths as you eventually straightened yourself once more, clutching onto your sister’s forearm for dear life.

“It’s okay. We just need to be wary,” You whispered. She nodded in response.

You both set off once more through countless trees and untouched snow. But you didn’t get far—until two druskelle spotted you. Neither of you could speak Fjerdan, and you were a fucking Grisha. This couldn’t have been any worse, when you were so close to being free.

“Hje marden,” One of them spoke. They were both tall, with broad shoulders and the white hair and blue eyes of Fjerda. Neither had beards—they were in training to being full druskelle. The trainees were always worse than their commanders, you thought. They would do anything to prove themselves to their superiors.

You tried not to shake as they circled you and your sister.

“I’m sorry, we don’t speak Fjerdan,” You said honestly. The druskelle immediately changed. Their hands rested upon their guns, ready to fire if need be. You raised your hands to the sky as your expression dropped. “Please! Please, we are just travellers—uh—we are perjenger—,”

“Perjenger? Travellers? To where?” The second druskelle spat.

You glanced at your sister quickly, knowing that if you answered Ravka, you’d both be shot immediately. Ravka was at war with Fjerda—Grisha were at war with Druskelle.

“Kerch,” You said strongly. “We have to go through Ravka and Shu Han. We can’t cross the Fold,”

For a moment, you thought it had worked. The druskelle looked at each other gruffly, muttering some words in Fjerdan. You clutched onto your sister’s arm tightly, not planning on letting her go now until you’d both crossed the border.

“Wait here,” One of the men said, as he began trudging back through the snow. He disappeared in the white landscape, leaving you with one druskelle.

You stayed quiet, feeling the warmth of your sister next to you. You glanced at her then, traversing your gaze over her side profile. Her nose, which was the same as yours; her eyes, brighter and more beautiful than your own, mimicking your mother; her hair, lighter and softer than yours. She was shorter than you, smaller than you, getting a lot of genetics from your mother, while you took from your father greatly. His height, his broad shoulders, his darker hair.

But she was your only family left, your only love and focus and everything.

And you were less than a mile from getting her to safety. You were less than a mile from being free of this Saint forsaken country, full of killers and fascists and men who only cared about power.

It was one druskelle against a Squaller. One against one. You could do that. You could beat him.

That’s what made you push your sister back, falling into the snow slowly as you brought your hands together. The druskelle yelled as he saw your movements, trying to aim his gun at you between your eyes, but it was too late—

In a flash, you summoned a storm that whipped him off of his feet. It circled him, gliding him backwards through the trees as you kept pushing and pushing, ignoring the raging winds as they whipped your hair from your face and agitated the snow on the trees.

“Come on!” You yelled behind you, as your sister scrambled up from the floor to stand beside you. She held your arm sturdily, watching fearfully as the druskelle struggled against the rapid winds that you wielded.

You thought that was it—you could both run with the time you’d bought—but that’s when the entire druskelle camp rocketed through the tree line. They yelled and boomed as they came to aid their brother, pushing back against the furious winds you were trying desperately to wield.

“Drüsje!” The commander yelled, storming through the group as he set up the largest of their guns—a machine gun, aimed and ready fire. You gasped, and for a second the winds wavered—they wavered long enough for the machine gun round to penetrate the small snow snuffed tornado that you’d created—

Until those bullets trickled over the blanketed ground, moving steadily closer and closer—

Until one landed straight through the heart of your sister.

All you remembered was that time slowed, then, as you saw the bullet exit her shoulder blade. She fell to the floor, unclasping her hands from your forearm and collapsing into a shocked heap on the floor. You remembered the way her blood dyed the snow. You remembered the way her eyes stayed open—

And then you remembered screaming.

It was a blur, as you tensed all of your limbs to the point where they yelled beneath your skin. You mustered all of your strength into this one storm; one that was merciless and unforgiving, circling all the druskelle in the clearing around you. You knew that soon all of the air would fade from within the eye of the storm that whipped devilishly around them.

You knew that soon they’d all begin to run out of oxygen and pass out, or better yet—maybe their hearts would stop. Cease to beat, drained of any energy to fire more rounds of bullets or kill Grisha for no fucking reason.

The storm was the largest you’d ever summoned, engulfing the entire druskelle camp and uprooting trees from their homes in the cold, hard Fjerdan ground. You saw them get sucked into your whirlwind, flying high, high, high until they eventually slipped out of the storms’ gusts; then they fell back down to earth, landing aggressively and dangerously on the ground below and being spat out at any random location.

You didn’t stop the storm, not even when you saw a tree fall atop a druskelle, crushing him where he’d stood moments before. The commander was the last one standing, rising above his suffocating men to look at you, face on, menacingly.

“Drüsje like you deserve to lose that which you love,” He boomed, using his remaining energy to cast you to Hell.

You wasted no time when you adjusted your stance, focusing the brunt force of the storm onto him—you decreased the eye of the storm until it flowed over him, and only him, grunting all of your strength into the circling winds that now surrounded him utterly and completely.

You collapsed at the same time that the commander did, falling into inches of snow and crawling exhaustedly to your sister. She was motionless, cold, her lips turning blue by the second as her blood continued to flow on Fjerdan soil. Dead. Gone.

Tears cascaded down your cheeks without any indication of stopping, but you couldn’t sob. It was impossible when you were already holding your breath, too afraid that if you were to breathe, only screams would pour from your coarse lungs.

The clearing was deserted, now, as druskelle bodies laid motionless on the snow-covered ground, their camp up ahead completely destroyed. Broken branches, twigs, tree trunks were dotted around, acting as just another indication of the destruction that you were truly capable of. Saints, you wanted to know if you were a normal Grisha, a normal Squaller, since those old women on Novyi Zem had looked at you like a weapon from the first day you could summon and control hurricanes and tornados at will.

Your fingers found your sister’s forehead then, swiping the hair off of her face. You cupped her cheek, laying your other hand upon her stomach. “Vaarwell,” You whispered shakily. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—,”

“Who’s there?” A voice spoke up from just beyond the clearing. You got up from the floor immediately, feeling a strange sense of power surrounding you. You waited silently, until First Army soldiers made their way to the clearing. A few stopped and checked the pulses of the druskelle upon the floor, before continuing forward until you were finally spotted.

A young man approached you slowly, holding his gun tightly, draped against his shoulder. “Was this... you?” He asked, looking you in the eye. His gaze dropped to the ground by your feet, seeing the blood-stained snow where your sister lay dead, before he looked back up to you.

He was joined by the rest of his crew. They slowly approached you, almost as if they were trapping you within a circle of their bodies. You stepped back once then, keeping your chin high and proud. The young man at the front was trying everything to keep you calm, you could see it in his eyes, but what he didn’t know was that you were seething—

And nothing would stop that.

Without your sister, you’d be taken to the Little Palace. Without knowing she was safe in the First Army, nothing would get you through the rest of your life—

You were dead. Inside and out. Nothing would change that.

Without a word, you brought your hands together, far too quickly for any of the soldiers to raise their weapons in defence. You ignored their begs and pleads as you circled them within in your storm, slowly suffocating the air out of their lungs and seeing the way their eyes bulged uncomfortably in their skulls.

“General!” The young man shouted, clutching at his throat as he tried desperately to suck air into his lungs. His voice echoed throughout the clearing, travelling through the trees slowly, until an eery type of silence settled into the air around you.

That’s when he arrived—his horse just as black at the Kefta on his frame, the stubble on his chin and the irises of his eyes. He dismounted, ignoring the cries from the soldiers within your raging storm as he began to approach you, step by step by step, crunching through the snow broodingly.

You knew who this man was; General Kirigan of the Second Army.

The Darkling.

He got ever closer, walking around the circular storm. The gap was beginning to bridge, and the more it did, the more you faltered. He took one more step, and you lost it.

“Stop!” You yelled. “Don’t come any closer, Darkling,” He stopped on command, keeping his arms by his sides, but the corners of his mouth upturned into a smile. “You find me amusing?” You spat.

“By the looks of this,” He gestured to the druskelle. “You were trying to get to Ravka. We’re here to help, yet you’re trying to suffocate my men,” You ignored his words, but you found your energy waning slightly—or maybe your heart was finally giving in. It didn’t really want to hurt anyone else, didn’t want to cause more damage than was already on your hands. “You’re a Squaller?” Kirigan asked, and that surprised you.

“Isn’t this how all Squaller’s are?” You asked in reply. Kirigin raised a brow at you.

“Not usually,” He said honestly. “You’ve never met another Grisha before?”

“I know what you’re doing,” You furrowed your brows at him. “You’re trying to distract me, to make me let my guard down and go with you willingly. I’d rather die than work for the King at the Little Palace,” Your breaths were getting more laborious the longer you held on to the storm. You were losing energy rapidly.

“Interesting,” The Darkling muttered.

There were a few moments then, where he was simply staring at you. Regarding you, analysing you, or perhaps— waiting for you to lose all of your energy. You were in a somewhat sticky situation, losing a grasp on your power with every passing second and feeling the intense gaze of Kirigan to your left.

“Let go,” He spoke softly. “I can see you’re tired, you don’t truly want to kill these men,”

“You don’t know anything about me,” You forced your eyelids to stay open as a wave of exhaustion flowed through you.

“And you know me?” He chided. You moved your gaze to him then, as your limbs finally lost momentum. Your hands dropped to your sides, your storm dissipating into the cold air at the Fjerdan border. Soldiers sucked in breaths noisily, gaining back their vision.

You stumbled back once, forcing yourself to stay standing despite the immense urge to pass the fuck out. Kirigan stayed still the entire time, a softness on his jaw that you hadn’t been expecting.

“Everyone knows you,” You mumbled. “I never wanted to meet you, though,”

Your heart jolted then, when the General let out a scoff. You forced yourself to move. Step by step through disturbed snow, until you were back where your sister lay on the floor. You collapsed to your knees unwillingly, as your body threatened to blackout at any moment.

You laid a shaky hand on her collarbone, curling your fingers up to her jaw. Kirigan moved slowly in your peripheral, turning towards you but staying at the distance he’d always been.

“Don’t take me to Os Alta,” You muttered. “Please, don’t take me,” You looked up at the General with pleading eyes.

“Why?” Kirigan whispered with furrowed brows, as if he was trying to work out why on earth you didn’t want a life within the royal Ravkan walls, living in luxury, fighting with other Grisha and honing your power.

Your vision began to blur then, as black spots dotted the white snow that surrounded you.

You never answered the General, your body gave up before you could—

And all you saw was black.

Tag list of those who were interested from my earlier post (tell me if you want off/on the list): @notawritergettingtherethough @rbg1993 @mayallyourbaconburn @luminous-99 

[watchmegetobsessed]

ALL IS FAIR

a/n: woohoo!! finally a harry fic! lol sorry i got very into marvel these past weeks but im finally bringing you some harry content! this one was originally requested by an anon sometime and then we kept talking about it until i actually got around to write it! hopefully you’ll like it and if you do, please like and reblog!

pairing: ceo!Harry x ceo!plussize!reader

warning: sexual content

word count: 16.7k

masterlist

“Stop being such a stuck up dick, it’s your birthday, bro!”

Harry rolls his eyes at his friend who walks into his penthouse as if he owned. Niall Horan was so well-known in Harry’s building that he could have easily walked into any homes in the tower and people would still welcome him warmly. It might have a few things to do with the fact that half of the residents in the Compass Tower are women who are hopelessly in love with either Niall or Harry, hoping for a chance to drag either of them into their bed one day. They have a lot more chance to do that with the Irish bloke than with Mr. Styles. Not that Harry doesn’t find them attractive, but he is not the type to have one night stands, something his friend gives him quite a lot of shit for.

“Would you fuck off for twenty more minutes?” Harry sighs, shooting him a look as he covers the speaker of his phone, in the middle of a call.

“You have ten minutes and we are leaving. I’m not letting you work on the night of your thirtieth birthday!” Niall warns him before walking into the kitchen to roam the always full, neatly stocked fridge.

As much as Niall Horan comes off as an irresponsible cocky child, he is quite the businessman himself as well. As the Lawyer of one third of New York’s most influential people, he surely doesn’t have to worry about making a living, enjoying his luxurious apartment a few streets away from Harry’s place on the Upper East Side. It’s not as expensive and impressive as Harry’s penthouse on the top of the tower his father built in the heart of the posh neighborhood most people only know from TV shows, but he couldn’t complain.

“Another designer refused to sign with us, H. We are running out of options,” Lambert’s voice rings through the phone as Harry turns to the floor to ceiling window, staring out to the city skyline in front of him.

“We have quite a few left, right?” Harry asks clenching his jaw.

“Yeah, but I heard that Cometa is planning on announcing something big next week so I think a lot of them are waiting for that to happen.”

“Do you think it’s another collab? But they just had fucking Chanel have a line sold through them!” Harry growls, his blood boiling at even just the thought.

When it comes to fashion in the virtual world, there are two businesses that totally dominate the industry. In the men’s wear, Twisted is definitely the number one selling place. The idea started off as just a freshman school project that originally wanted to sell tech stuff, but a few years into the project Harry met Lambert who was already a rising star in the fashion industry and they joined forces, creating the most classic yet affordable and user friendly online empire: Twisted. Though Twisted mostly features men’s clothing, they’ve been trying to venture to the field of women’s fashion, but it hasn’t been as easy as they thought it to be. And the reason for that is Cometa.

Cometa was originally a website where anyone could sell their own clothes, make their online wardrobe sale. But eventually the business grew itself out and stepped up a few levels, collaborating with various designers and brands, selling exclusive lines and a highly praised seasonal variety four times a year, earning a well-deserved top spot in the online fashion industry. It’s hard to compete with what Julia Bianchi built up through sweat and blood and Harry Styles has been working on stepping up to be a major competition for Cometa in women’s fashion, with not much luck so far.

To top the cake with a delicious looking cherry, Cometa has been trying to set feet into men’s fashion as well in the recent years, bringing out several lines with some mentionable designers, but they never made it be as big as Twisted. The two businesses have been trying to outdo each other for about a decade now, with not much luck so far and Harry’s patience is running low by now.

“I don’t know what it is, but keep an eye out. I’ll call you on Monday, alright?” Lambert sighs through the line.

“Okay, thank you,” Harry nods, feeling a little defeated.

“And happy birthday, man. Go and celebrate!” he chuckles, making Harry’s lips curl up as well.

“Thanks, have a good weekend,” Harry bids his goodbye before the call ends.

Wandering into the kitchen Harry finds Niall with the thickest ham and cheese sandwich between his hands, sitting at the kitchen island.

“So where exactly are we going tonight?” he asks, grabbing himself a granola bar as he joins the Irish lad on the stool next to him.

“Oh, that’s a surprise,” he grins, mouth full as he chews mercilessly. Harry grimaces, not sure how this is the same man who can convince a judge about basically anything, wearing his designer suits, putting on an intimidating and serious act for his cases.

“I have a switch,” Niall once told him when he asked how he does it. “I just turn it off when I’m off the clock.”

“You know I hate surprises,” Harry informs him matter-of-factly, but Niall doesn’t seem to be bothered by his comment.

“You’re thirty now, no one cares what you hate.”

“Says who?” Harry huffs.

“Me,” he grins, making Harry roll his eyes.

The bass is throbbing, red tinted lights illuminating the exclusive bar in the heart of Manhattan where Niall chose to gather some of Harry’s close friends to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. Sitting in the leather couches at a restricted area at the back of the place, they are hidden enough not to draw too much attention to themselves but still feel like they are part of the party.

“Cheers to three decades of this cocky motherfucker!” Niall beams as their glasses meet in the middle, everyone laughing and wishing Harry a happy birthday before they all chug their drinks.

Harry is not necessarily the type of person to enjoy going out too often, but he admits it’s been a while since the last time he let loose. It feels nice to have the evening to himself, leaving the business behind for just a couple of hours before he returns to his busy everydays.

Though the occasion is Harry’s birthday, Niall is surely enjoying the evening a tad bit more than his friend. After Harry sees him send down three tequilas in a row he realizes it’s not gonna end well if he doesn’t get some water into his system as well. Excusing himself from the group he heads to the bar, pushing his way through the dancing bodies until he finally reaches his destination.

Given how it’s a Friday evening, the place is packed and he waits in the line patiently while the bartender is fixing up the order of a group of girls a few stools down from Harry. Leaning onto the counter Harry runs his gaze over the dancing crowd, tapping his fingers against the surface to the beat, even bopping his head a little when he feels a push from behind him.

“Oh, sorry!” A female voice calls out and as he turns around he spots the owner of it, a young woman, her curvy body wrapped in a tight mini dress that leaves very little to Harry’s imagination as his eyes run up and down her figure. He has never seen a curvy girl as confident as her, she is radiating, drawing every male’s attention to herself like she is feeding off the hungry stares and dirty thoughts birthed by her.

Her eyes meet Harry’s gaze and the sly smirk that tugs on her perfectly shaped lips gives it away that she is not that sorry to be bumping into him.

“No worries,” is all he manages to say, the urge to drop to his knees right then and there stronger than anything he has ever had to fight.

“He won’t notice you,” she tells him and his eyebrows knit together in confusion. “The bartender. If you just stand there like that… he will never come here,” she explains.

“I’m not sure I have what catches his eyes,” he jokes, making her laugh and he swears his stomach drops at the heavenly sound.

“May I?” she arches an eyebrow and Harry nods, letting her step in front of him. He stands tall above her, eyes fixed on her figure as she leans onto the counter, the marble pushing her breasts up just enough to spark the bartender’s fantasies when he glances in her way. She waves at him with a charming smile and a moment later the guy is standing in front of her, ready to please her in any way she desires.

“Three vodka sodas and…” she turns in Harry’s way, her lips slightly parted and his breath hitches in his throat. “What did you want, handsome?”

“Just, uhh—Just two water, please.”

Her eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t comment on it, just adds the two water to her order. The bartender nods and disappears to fix up her drinks. Harry takes a deep breath and sticking his hand out to her he introduces himself.

“I’m Harry, by the way.” She takes his hand, shaking it firmly.

“Y/N. Nice to meet you, Harry. Are you here alone?”

“Um, no. I’m here with a few friends,” he replies nodding towards the back of the place. “Are you here with someone?”

Please don’t say your boyfriend, please!

“A few of my girlfriends,” she smiles, brushing her hair over her shoulder, flaunting a better look at her naked neck and just one glimpse is sending a whirl of dirty thoughts into Harry’s mind. He wonders how soft her skin would feel under his lips, what her moans would sound as he sucks on it, leaving a mark on her, letting every man in the house know that he made her feel good.

“Are you guys celebrating something?” Y/N asks, a knowing smile on her lips as she most definitely saw Harry staring at her.

“Actually, yeah,” he chuckles a little nervously. “It’s my birthday.” Y/N’s eyes brighten up as she beams at him.

“Really? Happy birthday then!”

“Thank you,” he smiles shyly. “Are you guys celebrating something too?”

“Well, I…” she starts, her thoughts wandering off for a second before she continues. “I kind of got promoted,” she explains and Harry smiles down at her warmly.

“Congrats then!”

The bartender returns with the drinks and she is already about to get her card from her little clutch when Harry pulls his card out, handing it over to the guy behind the bar.

“Birthday boys shouldn’t pay for others,” she smirks, but doesn’t try to fight him that hard.

“You can pay me back later,” Harry shrugs with a suggestive smirk on his lips. He doesn’t want to part ways with her, but she is obviously expected to be back with her friends and he needs to get back to Niall as well before he absolutely loses control. Stepping closer to him, Y/N slides a hand up his chest, her palm resting at the base of his neck as she leans to his ear.

“Save me a dance, birthday boy?” she murmurs into his ear, her lips brushing against him for a split second before she steps back, grabs her drinks and winking at him one last time she disappears from the bar. Harry stands there for a few more seconds before the bartender hands him back his card and snatching the waters from the bar he heads back to his friends.

 Luckily, Niall is slowing down a little, The water does him well and Harry finally doesn’t feel like he’ll have to take care of him, dragging him home once the night is over. Sitting by the table Harry is trying to focus on the conversation, but his gaze keeps wandering over to the dance floor, looking for one particular curvy figure in the sea of dancing bodies.

It takes him some time to spot her, but when he does, he is not able to tear his eyes away from her.

She is almost perfectly in the middle with her friends surrounding her, lips and shoulders swaying to the rhythm perfectly. He catches her chug down the last sips of her drink before she disregards the glass and gets back to dancing. Watching her every move intently, Harry feels his lips slightly part at the sight of this angel who is for sure a devil in the sheets. He can’t stop himself fantasizing about what it would feel like to dig his fingers into her thighs, kiss her neck, her cleavage that’s on show now, how her curves would fit into his hands perfectly. He wants to praise this woman, make her feel good and not just because he wants to be selfless and please her, but also because seeing this woman reach her high because of him would be the biggest ego boost for him and he just needs that.

“Go dance with her!” Niall wiggles his eyebrows at him when he catches Harry staring at her.

“What? No, I’m not a dancer,” he shakes his head, shifting his eyes away from the dancing goddess on the dance floor.

“Oh come on, don’t be a pussy!”

“I’m not a pussy, I just—“

“You’re a pussy. I saw her looking in your way as well, she wants your dick!”

“Jesus, Niall!” Harry whines rolling his eyes. He doesn’t like it when he gets so vulgar, but luckily no one heard their conversation. Glancing back in Y/N’s way Harry sees how men are eyeing him, probably building up the courage to go up to her and that has his blood boiling. He needs to be the one to touch her.

Chugging down the rest of his drink he snaps the glass on the table before standing from his seat, ignoring Niall’s cheering as he makes his way into the crowd.

Harry didn’t lie when he said he is not a dancer, he feels uncomfortable, awkward and uncoordinated most of the times he tries to dance, but he is pushing all of those to the back of his mind for now as his eyes are set on one person in the crowd.

When Y/N spots the man approaching her, she can’t push a pleased smile off her lips, slowing her movements down as Harry finally reaches her, leaning closer to her ear so she can hear his voice over the music.

“Here to collect that dance,” he smugly tells her, making her laugh, though the music is too loud to let him hear her. She just nods and turning around she presses herself up against him, her backside fitting his front perfectly. Harry’s hand snake around her waist, his large palm smoothly moving through the silky fabric of her dress as they start moving together.

She is intoxicating, makes Harry feel like he is some kind of horny teenager, like he hasn’t dealt with women before, but in a way, she makes all of his past flings appear to be only girls. Her confidence in her own body is easily one of her best traits, the way she handles herself, moves her body, the look in her eyes, Harry is getting drunk on just watching her and now he is able to touch her as well.

When he feels himself getting hard in his pants, he knows he should be at least a slightly bit embarrassed by himself, but as Y/N turns around in his arms and he sees the pleased smirk on her lips, the feeling vanishes in a heartbeat. She wraps her arms around his neck as she pulls him close, her lips brushing against his lips.

“Enjoying yourself, birthday boy?” she prompts before pressing a kiss to the soft skin under his ear and he can’t hold a growl back. The friction is almost unbearable, as his hands slide lower on her back, stopping on her ass, he knows he won’t be able to control himself any longer. Luckily, he is not the only one having this inner fight.

Snapping around Y/N grabs his hand and starts pulling him through the crowd towards the hallway of the bathrooms. He follows her eagerly, lucky for them, the club doesn’t have restrooms with several stalls, but single bathrooms with a lot more comfort and privacy. Just what they need right now.

They find the third bathroom empty, pushing their way inside and locking the door before Harry pushes her up against it the moment it’s just the two of them, their mouths hungrily meeting in the middle. He almost grunts against her lips, she tastes even better than he imagined and the way her tongue is the first one to come into action has got his mind blown. His hands roam up her body, running up all her curves until they reach her face and he cups it in his palms, pressing his hips against her. She moans against his mouth when his hard cock pokes against her, both of them desperate to take it further.

Tumbling further into the small bathroom, he helps her up to the counter next to the sing, her legs instantly opening for him, her tiny dress rolling up her thighs, revealing her clothed sex. Harry eagerly kisses his way down her neck and chest, her skin feeling so smooth under his lips. His fingers hook under the thin straps of her dress, tugging them down so he can push the dress past her full breasts and thank God she is not wearing a bra underneath!

“Fuck me, you are so hot!” he breathes out, making her chuckle at his reaction.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she cockily answers before Harry’s mouth attaches to her nipple, his hand working on her other breasts before he switches.

He quickly gets down on his knees, pushing her underwear to the side before his lips and tongue meet her sensitive clit.

“Oh shit!” she moans, a hand coming to tangle in his hair while she tries to hold herself steady with leaning on the other one behind her. There’s no time for teasing now and they both know that.

She is so lost in the experience, Harry is licking and sucking just the right spots and she tries to close her legs, locking his head between her thighs. His arms come to curl around them, ring clad fingers digging into her flesh and the situation might be a little suffocating for him, but he doesn’t mind it a bit. In fact, if he died this way, he would die a happy man.

She doesn’t let him finish what he started, pulling him up, his lips still glistening from her own juices as she kisses him messily, wiggling herself out of her underwear while he undoes his pants as well.

“Shit, do you have a condom?” he breathes out when his palm wraps around his throbbing cock. She nods, reaching for her clutch she dropped to the counter and digging into it she grabs the package, smacking it against his chest playfully. “Were you planning to do this tonight?” he grins cockily as he rips the package open and starts rolling it down his hard length.

“No, I’m just smart, unlike you,” she retorts, her sass dripping from her tone and it just riles him up even more.

Grabbing her thighs he yanks her to the edge of the counter, a gasp leaving her plump lips as she tries to find her balance quickly.

“Don’t be a brat,” he growl against her lips before kissing her, while he lines himself up with her, the head already pushing in.

“Then fuck me, birthday boy,” she challenges him again and it’s the last straw.

Harry slams into her, both of them moaning at the sensation before he starts thrusting in a fast pace, needing all the friction he can make to get them to finish as soon as possible. Y/N’s head falls back as she holds onto the back of his neck, her other hand on the counter behind her again and Harry glances down, watching her breasts bounce every time he rails into her, slamming his whole length into her every time their hips meet.

She reaches for one of his hands that’s holding her thigh and she boldly brings it to her core, tapping his fingers to her clit, letting him know that she wants some extra effort. Harry doesn’t say it, but he is blown how she didn’t just do it herself, she made him do it. It’s got to be one of the hottest things he has ever seen.

“Fuck, go harder!” she gasps, wrapping her legs around his waist as he picks the pace up, feeling his orgasm building rapidly with each thrust.

They both are a whimpering, moaning mess, the bass of the music is thumping outside and for a moment, Harry feels like he is finally living his life to the fullest.

“I’m gonna cum!” she breathes out, his name falling from her lips moaning after that and when she pulls him down to kiss him, biting into his bottom lip and tugging it, he loses himself.

He feels himself jerking inside her, still sliding in and out of her as he grunts, releasing himself into the condom. He flicks his fingers on her clit at the same time, creating just enough friction to push her over the edge as well. He is coming off his own high when her walls tighten around his cock, dragging his orgasm out even longer as she basically screams, gasping for air, riding her orgasm out to the last bit.

Leaning down he kisses her again though they are still panting, this time making it a lot less rushed than the time their lips met for the first time. Her legs fall from around his waist and he pulls out, both of them cleaning themselves up in the aftermath of their little session.

“I know this was quite rushed and all that, but can I have your number?” he asks, even feeling a little nervous. She puts her underwear back on, smoothing her dress down as she smiles up at him, cupping his face in her palm.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to skip on that,” she tells him simply, shocking him for sure.

“D-Do you have a boyfriend or something?”

“No,” she shakes her head and now Harry is confused.

“You didn’t enjoy it?” he then asks, trying his best to figure out the reason behind the rejection.

“I did. But it was a one time thing. If it’s supposed to turn into more…” she sighs, grabbing her clutch from the counter. “Then I’ll leave it to fate if we ever meet again,” she shrugs before turning around she just unlocks the door and walks out, leaving Harry stand there in complete and utter shock.

This is definitely a first for him, a woman who doesn’t want to see him again. He is not that egoistic to think that everyone is in love with him, but he never had an encounter similar to this. Not after the most amazing sex ever.

Harry fixes himself up, still not believing she walked out that easily, but there’s not much he can do now. Walking back to his table, he acts like nothing happened and when his eyes scan over the crowd again, he can’t see her anymore.

Harry lets out a tired sigh when Zayn, head of the graphic design department walks into his office with a familiar brown paper bag with the logo of Harry’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

“Has it started already?” Zayn asks, though glancing at the big screen on the wall he can see the stream is still waiting to be started.

“No, I’ve been staring at it for like twenty minutes,” Harry grumbles, pushing himself away from his desk to join Zayn on the couch in front of the screen as he unpacks the food. “What do you think it’s going to be?”

Today is the day of Cometa’s big press conference and no one knows what they are about to announce. It’s been keeping Harry on the edge for the past few days, because whatever it is, it has got to be major. Julia Bianchi is not the type of person to hold press conferences, she is a private person who has managed to keep most of her life behind closed doors. That’s something Harry admires in the woman even though they are competitors in the business. He can relate to wanting to keep her life just for herself, he has been doing the same thing. No public appearances, no lengthy interviews, no photoshoots. He likes to let his work talk for himself and it’s proved to be a successful move so far.

“I don’t know, but I hope they don’t suddenly announce a full graphic makeover right before our update,” Zayn chuckles. He has been working on an entirely new appearance for the website these past weeks and it’s supposed to go live sometime later in the month. A change for Cometa would totally throw their attempt off, making them look like they are just copying Julia’s move.

They eat and wait for the stream to start when the screen finally comes alive. There’s an empty stage shown with just two mic stands in the middle and nothing really happens for a few minutes before clapping is heard from behind the camera and Julia finally walks on the stage.

The woman is a real diva. Wearing a matching pant suit with bold floral print all over it, her short hair is neatly straightened into a bob cut, her red lips smiling lightly as she waves around in the room. Julia has been in the fashion industry for almost three decades now and she surely made a name for herself, sitting front row in every fashion show she attends, her words on any new trend being basically the standard.

Stepping to one of the mics, she clears her throat as the clapping dies down and her calm, gentle voice rings through the speakers.

“Welcome, everyone, thank you for coming, as you might already know I’m Julia Bianchi, head of Cometa, the world’s best online women’s fashion house.”

Harry leans back in his seat, eyes fixed on the woman on the screen as he is patiently waiting to hear what she’s got for the people this time.

“I’ve spent twenty-seven wonderful years in the business, building my own one for the past two decades. I fell in love with fashion as a child and moved to Milan to study designing from the bests. Though designing has always and will always hold a special place in my heart, I saw an opportunity in the early years for a brand that would hold together every other brand in the industry, bringing it to everyone’s home thanks to the rapidly developing technology. Cometa has always been my little baby and I’m proud of everything I achieved as head of such a great company.”

Harry realizes what it’s about before Julia could even say the words herself. The phrasing, the nostalgic tone, it’s all adding up to the obvious: Julia is about to announce her retirement.

“I gave the best years of my life for this company and I regret nothing, but recently I’ve realized that it is time for me to slow down for a little bit and enjoy a life that’s not filled with work anymore, and spend more time with my beloved husband, Fabio and my family who supported me on my long way here. Therefore, I am now announcing it with an aching heart and a lot of excitement as well that I am stepping down from my role as CEO of Cometa. I might be leaving now, but my business will not. So it is a pleasure to introduce you the person who will carry my legacy on, my amazing niece, the absolutely most perfect woman to carry on the work I started, Y/N Y/L/N.”

The moment another woman comes into the picture Harry almost chokes on his own saliva, seeing the same curves he had his fingers dug into last Friday. Y/N smiles and waves around as she steps to the other mic next to her aunt, exchanging a short look with her before turning towards the people in the room and the camera that’s streaming the event.

“Dude, you alright?” Zayn asks, patting Harry’s back a few times as he is still struggling to breathe normally.

He refuses to accept that the woman he fucked in a bathroom on his birthday, the one that made him moan like never before, is the same woman who is going to take over his biggest competitor.

“This has got to be a joke,” he breathes out with teary eyes from all the coughing.

“It is an honor to be here,” Y/N starts speaking as the clapping dies down once again and the two men are staring at the screen. “Just like to be the one to step into the perfectly stylish shoes of my aunt. I hope to live up to not just her and everyone else’s expectations, but also to mine as well. I grew up watching my aunt build up this empire with basically dust so to be the person to take her place is a dream come true. I promise to keep the quality the same and work on improving Cometa to its possible best while being in charge.”

As she finishes talking, questions are thrown in her way, but Harry doesn’t pay attention any longer. Standing up he walks to the window, staring out to the city as he chews on his bottom lip anxiously.

“What the fuck is your problem, H? It wasn’t as bad as we expected, right?” Zayn questions.

“It’s fucking worse!” he snaps turning around. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

“Would you just tell me what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that… I told you about what… happened on my birthday.”

“The bathroom fuck, oh yeah,” Zayn chuckles with a playful shine in his eyes.

“Well, that woman… the woman I fucked was her.” Zayn stays silent for a moment before he turns towards the screen, eyeing the woman on the stage as she is still answering questions, standing confidently in her tight, black dress and red heels.

“You fucked Julia Bianchi’s niece? And she is now taking over Cometa?” he raises his eyebrows at Harry who just nods, pressing his lips together into a thin line. “And she is also the one who didn’t give you her number?”

“Don’t… bring that up. But yes, it’s her.”

Zayn starts laughing, clearly finding Harry’s misery entertaining, but Harry doesn’t feel like taking it that easy. He wonders if she knew who he was, if she did it on purpose or it was fate’s horrible joke on both of them.

“Ah man, that charity event on Saturday will be one hell of a show then!” Zayn points it out and Harry’s face falls. He totally forgot about the charity event he was invited to, one that would have the biggest names in the fashion industry together in a ball room to raise money for a chosen good cause. It happens every year and it’s a major event, the perfect place to network and also to see your biggest enemies. That means that Harry will see Y/N again in a few short days and if he is being honest… he is not ready to face her, not after the information he learned today. Sighing he steps to the minibar he insisted on having in his office and though he never drinks during the day, he now thinks that now might be an exception. He pours himself some whiskey and before he chugs it down at one go, he lets out a long, tired sigh.

“That’s just my luck…”

Leslie helps you with the zipper of your dress, the silky, red fabric hugging your body like a second skin. She smoothes the wrinkles out while you fix the straps, staring back at yourself in the mirror with judgment. You need to look perfect, this is going to be your first time appearing at an event as CEO of Cometa, your big entrance into the industry, you can’t let anything go wrong.

“You look gorgeous, babe,” Leslie smiles at you, bringing your hair behind your shoulders as her eyes meet yours in the mirror. Leslie might be your assistant, but she is a lot more than that. You’ve been friends for almost a decade and when she lost her job a few years ago you didn’t hesitate to offer her a spot next to you. You wouldn’t be here without her, she doesn’t try to use her privilege of being your friend to not do the work, she is always on top of her game and you’ll always be grateful for her to not make it awkward at all.

“I think you need some diamonds though,” she winks at you, stepping to the table where all kinds of jewelry is sprawled out. She reaches for a simple one, not too much, quite elegant and you nod as she holds it up for you. Walking behind you she brings it around your neck, the diamond brilliantly sitting on your chest now, giving that little extra shine to your outfit.

“You’ll make every man fall in love with you,” she smiles at you and breathing out you nod, hoping to believe that everything will go perfectly.

While you make a few last minute calls she gets dressed as well before the car arrives for the two of you. She is wearing a less daring but still beautiful black dress, her curly hair pinned up into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, her heavily freckled face bright from her happy smile as the two of you make your way to the event.

“I know it’s ridiculous, but I tried to memorize the faces and names from the guest list,” she grins at you, earning an eyeroll.

“Les, I told you, this is not The Devil Wears Prada,” you chuckle softly. She is obsessed with that movie and hasn’t shut up about feeling like she is literally living in it since your aunt has shared her plans with you about your future position last year.

“I know, but it might be impressive if you already knew everyone!”

You have to give that to her, it would earn you a few good points if you knew the names already, you’re just still nervous about the whole thing. So many things could go wrong and you want it to be perfect.

 At first you feel intimidated by all the influential people around you. Everyone here is one of the bests in their own field and you feel like an impostor, but then you remind yourself that you earned your spot. Your aunt wouldn’t have given you the company if she didn’t trust you entirely with it. You worth no less than anyone else in this ball room and that reminds you that… you’re that bitch.

Leslie’s knowledge of names actually comes handy. You love seeing people get shocked when they try to introduce themselves to you, but you already greet them saying their names. It earns you some appreciative looks as you make your way around the room. Everything is going smooth, right until you spot one particular man in the crowd.

You’re in a little circle with a few designers when your gaze falls on Harry who is standing across the room, talking to two men. The champagne almost slips from your hand when you realize it’s him.

“Leslie,” you grab her wrist catching her attention. “Les, who’s the man in the blue Gucci suit?” you ask in a whisper and she follows your gaze, finding the man in talk.

“Oh, that’s Harry Styles, head of Twisted.”

“Fuck,” you mumble under your breath as you quickly excuse yourself from the conversation and head out to the balcony to get some fresh air before you faint right on the spot.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Leslie follows you.

“I messed up,” you squeak as you step outside, the chilly evening air hitting your uncovered skin immediately. “I messed up big time!”

“What? Why? What happened?”

Stepping to the edge, you wrap your hands around the railing, staring out into the void for a moment. Leslie Stands beside you, quite puzzled about your sudden panic.

“Remember the guy I told you about from Friday night?” you ask, keeping your voice down even though there’s no one really around. Leslie nods. “Well… he was the guy.”

Leslie glances back inside and then at you before her eyes widen and lips part in shock.

“You fucked Harry Styles at a club’s bathroom?!” she whisper-yells at you and you feel like a teenager who is getting scolded.

“I didn’t know who he was! And I genuinely think he didn’t know me either, how could he?! But now he is here and… Oh God, this is so bad,” you whine, your head dropping backwards as you let out a frustrated growl.

“Okay, don’t panic. Maybe… maybe he doesn’t remember you.”

“You can’t make me believe he doesn’t remember me after fucking me on a counter,” you tell her giving her a look.

“Alright, alright. Then… you just have to suck it up. It’s not like you can unfuck him,” she shrugs and though you know she is right, you just wish you could leave right now.

You never planned on seeing him again. Your bullshit speech about letting fate decide it was just an excuse to not give him your number. You didn’t want to because you thought he is not the kind of man that would be good for you. From his look you thought that he was either a fuckboy, not willing to commit to anything serious, or the kind of man that seems all nice and respectful at first but then turns out to be a total asshole and you’ve had enough of those in your twenty-eight years.

Soon enough you head back as the auction is about to start. Luckily, your seat is far away from Harry and it seems like he hasn’t noticed you yet. Though you wish to keep it that way, you can feel it coming already.

The auction goes by fast, you buy a new painting that will look amazing in your living room and almost twice as much money is raised through the evening that was the goal. You leave Leslie behind at the table as you go to the bar to get yourself another drink, probably your last one of the evening if you don’t want to end up making a fool out of yourself.

Patiently waiting at the bar you’re already thinking about watching Grey’s Anatomy when you get back and out of this tight dress. You look hot, but it’s not the comfiest look, if you’re being honest. There’s only one more person in front of you when you feel a little tap on your shoulder and turning around your stomach drops when you see the man you’ve been trying to avoid all evening.

“Fancy seeing you here, Y/N,” he nods shortly, his expression is quite blank, but he is definitely not shocked to see you. You tighten your jaw before looking away from him, squinting your eyes a bit.

“You don’t seem surprised,” you point out.

“I was kind of expecting to see you here tonight.”

“So you knew who I was all along?” you snap at him, but he shakes his head.

“Not until the stream this week. I was pretty shocked when you walked on stage.”

Nodding shortly you brush your hair over your shoulder and you catch Harry glimpsing down your body, but decide not to comment on it.

“Did you know who I was?” he then asks, digging his hands into his pockets.

“No, I wouldn’t sleep with my biggest competitor willingly.”

“Just from the abrupt ending I had a feeling that you might have known me.”

“Just because a woman doesn’t throws herself into your arms after a fuck, doesn’t mean she had ulterior motives,” you scoff. “Get off your high horse,” you add before turning back towards the bar so you can order your drink. Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t want the conversation to end just yet. His hand is laid flat on the counter in front of you as he stands on your right, a little too close to your liking. You can smell the expensive cologne on him, the same that hit your nose on Friday as well and suddenly your body is betraying you.

However crazy the situation is, you can’t deny that he gave you one of the best times last Friday. Men you dealt with were more concerned about their own pleasure and most of them didn’t even get you to finish. But Harry made it happen so fast and didn’t even bitch about it when you made him rub your clit. He just obeyed like a grownup man who is willingly take care of his partner. That almost made you change your mind about leaving, but once you came down from cloud nine, you returned to your original plan.

But not as he is standing in front of you and you can smell him, your senses trick you into thinking that you’re in that bathroom again, almost aching for him to touch you the way he did then. He leans closer to your ear as he speaks up again.

“Leave the drink, dance with me,” he tells you as the bartender places your drink in front of you. You debate what to do before grabbing the drink and chugging it down in one go. You’ll need the alcohol if you are about to dance with your enemy.

Harry takes you to the dance floor in the middle of the ball room, one of his hands finds the small of your back while the other takes your hand as the two of you start swaying to the gentle music played by the band.

“Your aunt set my company back in women’s fashion every time I tried to take a step forward. Are you going to do the same?”

“She didn’t do anything to set you back but to build her own company. Not everything is about you.”

“You sound a little naïve, Love. It’s pretty clear you are new in the business.” This statement riles you up big time. How dare he degrade you like that? He knows nothing about you, yet he assumes things that are not at all real.

Smirking to yourself you lean back enough so your gazes can meet. Your hand slides up from his shoulders to the base of his neck so your fingers can gently brush against his skin and you notice the shudder than runs down his spine. He is not the only one having flashbacks from your last encounter.

“Wanna know what I know about business?” you purr, his eyes glued to your red lips as you speak. “I know that… Twisted was one of the last sites to participate in personalized ads on online platforms, failing to reach it’s targeted audience as fast as literally everyone else. I know that your company and my company use the same security system in our server rooms yet I can assure you that it cost me twenty percent less because we waited a month before installing it and got a huge last minute discount because the security company was trying to boost their numbers for their end of year closing. And I also happen to know that you are working on a new design for your website that could easily be outshone if I just did the same before you could do it.”

Harry’s lips part, probably mostly at the last information. He has no idea how you know these stuff, but you have a wide circle of connections in the city, you have an insider at every big companies in the industry without them even knowing. You’ve given countless tips to your aunt through the years, that’s how she managed to stay on top of her games.

Leaning closer your lips almost brush against him and you see how he weakens, he is expecting you to kiss him and he wants it. But you just smile at him, your eyes snapping down to his lips before up to his eyes.

“I will not do the same as my aunt, Harry,” you softly speak, your fingers grazing the back of his neck. “I will do way worse things.”

And with that, you slip out of his arms and walk back to your table, leaving him standing there alone at a complete loss of words.

“What the fuck had gotten into you?” Niall grimaces upon hearing everything he told you on the evening of the charity event. And quite frankly, Harry has no answer to that. He has absolutely no idea what had gotten into him to act like such a dick when you didn’t do anything against him.

The situation just messed with his head, seeing you in that breathtaking dress, mingling with everyone, smiling and laughing, oh how he wished you were laughing on his jokes! But then you seemed so tensed when he came up to you and something just switched in him. He wanted to take dominance, to somehow get out of it on top, but he miserably failed. When you brought up their plans to change the design he completely froze.

“No idea, okay? I just…lost it,” he growls, sinking into the couch. When Niall found out that Harry met the woman from the club again he insisted on coming over with some wine to talk it out, but he was not expecting this kind of story at all.

“Dude, you just put yourself on her radar big time, maybe she wouldn’t have even bothered to compete with you like her aunt did, but you surely changed her mind now.”

“I know, Niall!” Harry growls, not in the mood to be scolded like a little child. “Do you think she’ll change their design before we do?” he peeks at his friend, but Niall just shrugs.

“No idea, but I would try to speed it up before she actually does it.”

 Harry made you into a ticking bomb and you successfully got under his skin about the whole design project so first thing the next morning he went to Zayn to discuss a possible earlier debut for the new designs. Though it would be a close stretch, they agreed that it would go live by the end of the week and that got Harry somehow a little relieved, but in the middle of that he failed to put the right amount of effort into finding designers for their female lines.

When he meets up with Lambert a few days later he is not there to deliver great news. Apparently, three out of the four designers they were negotiating with recently pulled out of their deal and signed a contract with Cometa.

“We have one last designer on the list, but then… we are out of the bigger names,” Lambert sighs as Harry chews on his bottom lip anxiously. He feels like he has fallen into a hole a while ago and instead of climbing out he is just digging it deeper underneath him.

“Okay, do we have an appointment with them?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, I’m meeting her this afternoon.”

“I’m going with you,” he nods before standing from his chair and opening the door he calls out for his assistant. “Rebecca, please clear my schedule for this afternoon, I’ll be out of the office.”

Rebecca nods behind her desk, already starting to make calls about Harry’s meetings and appointments.

It’s obvious he is anxious about the meeting, because if it falls through they are forced to look for less known designers and that won’t bring the change for the company they’ve been seeking for a long time. Arriving to the showroom where the designer is working, Harry is setting his thoughts straight, determined to convince her to sign a contract with them. The two men are let into the building by the nice assistant working at the front desk and she shows the way to the showroom where Kennedy, the designer is waiting for them.

Harry is confident, he trusts his skills to make this happen, but when they walk inside he instantly freezes upon seeing an all too familiar figure standing with Kennedy

A maroon colored pantsuit is hugging your curves, a Hermés handbag hanging from your arm, your hair falling in loose curls. As if you could sense his presence, you peek over your shoulder, a devilish smirk on your lips when you see the shocked expression on Harry’s face.

“What a great surprise!” you beam, selling how happy you are to see him and in a way, you are. You wanted to see his face drop when he realizes you snatched yet another designer from him.

“Oh, Mr. Styles!” Kennedy smiles nicely at him and he finally snaps out of his trance, shaking hands with her and then turning to you, doing the same but in a lot colder manner.

“Y/N, nice to see you again,” he fakes a smile as your hand falls from his palm.

“I could say the same. But I’m heading out now. Great talk, Kennedy. I’ll be waiting for your call,” you wink at the young designer who seems to be thrilled by your words as she walks you to the exit.

“Fucking hell,” Harry mumbles under his breath and Lambert shoots him a look before Kennedy returns.

The three of them take a seat on the couches in the corner of the room and Harry is quick to get down to business, trying his best to make his offer appear more appealing than anything you told her right before their arrival. Kennedy listens intently, even takes notes and then she shows him some examples of what she was thinking about for her next line and Harry is beyond thrilled.

Unfortunately, soon comes the painful part.

“Harry, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Kennedy starts and Harry already knows what she is about to say. “Your offer is very tempting and it would be an honor to design a line for Twisted, but in my situation it would be more beneficial if I collaborated with Cometa. It is nothing against your company, it’s more about my personal path and growth.”

Harry can feel his stomach dropping and he clenches his jaw as he listens to Kennedy’s worth. He understands, of course he understands, she has the right to selfishly look at her own benefits upon signing with a new company, but he wished she would take the risk and chose his company instead of yours.

“I’m keeping the offer open for you still,” he forces a smile on his face. “If you change your mind, Twisted would be more than happy to work with you.”

Kennedy walks the two men out and the fake smile quickly vanishes from Harry’s face upon stepping out of the building.

“What are we going to do now?” Lambert asks, clearly worried about how they’re gonna move forward with their last chance falling.

“If Y/N wants a war, that’s what she’ll get,” Harry growls, revenge burning in the greens of his eyes.

It’s a quiet Friday afternoon, only hours left from the day before you are headed home finally. You’re sitting in your office with Leslie, going over next week’s schedule to make sure everything is set and clear.

It’s been almost an entire month since you stepped into your aunt’s shoes as head of the company and though the start was a little rough, especially with finding out who Harry was, but you feel like you have everything under your control by now. After all, you didn’t learn business for years from the bests for nothing, right?

Harry’s comment on you knowing nothing about the industry made you bitter, because he knows nothing about you and the struggle you went through your life to get to this point. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbow, being Julia’s niece might have been a hugely influencing aspect of you taking over, but you worked your ass off to be the best leader you can and not just ruin everything she built up through her whole life.

Though you didn’t always want to be the one following her, but you like to think that things worked out to your favor and you are where you should be.

“Alright, everything is looking fine,” Leslie smiles at you over her laptop. “I’ll send you the notes from today’s meeting.”

“Thank you. Can you call in with the delivery company about next month’s transactions?” you ask her and she nods, already adding it to her list of tasks for the rest of the day. “Alright. I’ll do the rest of the signings and then we can head out,” you smile at her.

Leslie is grabbing her things from the table when there’s a soft knock on the door. You give your permission and one of the tech support guys walk in with a worried look on his face.

“Miss Y/L/N? I’m afraid we have a problem,” he clears his throat and you can already feel your anxiety crawl up on your spine.

“What is it?” you ask firmly. The guy steps farther inside, fumbling with his fingers as he presents the issue.

“There’s been an attempt to break our software’s security system where we keep our data about the sellings. A-And I’m afraid it wasn’t just an attempt, they succeeded.”

You take a deep breath, glancing over at Leslie for a moment before you follow the man to the tech department to investigate the issue further. You don’t know shit about these stuff, but from what he said you know the trouble is huge and if you don’t solve it as soon as possible, valuable data could leak out to the public. They try to explain you what they are working on as of right now and that there’s not much you can actually help with.

“Make sure to put your extra hours on your attendance sheets and let me know when you are able to restore the system,” you tell them and you earn quite a few thank yous on your way out for actually paying the overtime. Then you turn to the guy that first came to your office. “Do you have any information about who it could have been?”

“We weren’t able to track them back, but whoever it was, they’re surely professionals and they might know the system from the inside.”

“What do you mean from the inside? Someone did it from the company?” you ask, eyebrows knitting together as you fold your arms on your chest.

“No,” he shakes his head. “We would have been able to track that back. I mean that they know the system, maybe they worked somewhere where the same one was used and they could see into it.”

It takes you a few moments before you realize what this really is and it has your blood boiling right away. Nodding shortly you exhale sharply through your nose.

“Thank you, please call me when it’s up and running again, I’ll take care of the rest,” you tell him before turning around you walk away.

When Leslie sees you approaching your office with a head practically turning red she is quick to jump to her feet, following you into the office.

“What’s happening?”

“Harry Styles, that’s what happening,” you snap as you grab your phone, purse and coat before heading out, not wasting another minute.

“What? Where are you going now?”

“To the devil himself,” you growl back and enter the elevator, leaving her alone with her questions.

Sitting in your car on your way to the headquarters of Twisted, you imagine every scenario you want to make happen when you arrive, most of them including hitting the man across his ridiculously handsome yet annoying face. He crossed a line with breaking into your system and stealing valuable data. Though you’re sure he wouldn’t dare to sell or publish it, because he would be in a big legal trouble if he did, he still had a glimpse into your numbers and that’s already an advantage. He is playing dirty and you’re not having any of it.

Arriving you burst through the doors and demand to see him. Though the woman behind the front desk tells you that you can’t see him without an appointment, you still get her to make a call up and naturally, Harry allows you to see him. The fucker might already have been waiting for you to show up. As you stand in the all glass elevator, on your way up to meet him you take a few deep breaths to keep your cool and not snap like a maniac, however it all vanishes when you see him waiting for you with that shit-eating grin on his face when you step out of the elevator.

“You’re lucky I didn’t go straight to the police with your little stunt, you fucker!” you snap, not able to hold back your swearing any longer.

“Do you have any evidence?” he tilts his head to the side and you don’t miss how his gaze runs down your body as you march towards him. You’d find it flattering in another situation, but right now you just want to punch him in the face.

“I’ll show some evidence down your throat, Styles, if you don’t stop messing with my security system,” you growl back, standing so close to him now that you see every tiny freckle and blemish on his face and the way how he clenches his jaw, holding his gaze on yours.

Without a word or invitation, you walk into the room that you suppose is his office and he follows with a soft chuckle.

“Did you hire a hacker just to mess with me?” you throw the question at him as he closes the door so his employees don’t hear everything.

“What if I did?” he shrugs, stepping to the tray on his desk that already has a glass of whiskey on it. He grabs the glass and simply lifts it to his lips, taking a tiny sip from it. “Oh, excuse my manners. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m driving,” you answer shortly. “You crossed a line, Harry,” you warn him.

“What line?” he chuckles, rather entertained by your rage. “After what you pulled with Kennedy, I think I went easy on you.”

“I didn’t pull anything, I just gave her a better offer! It’s not my fault she has better chances with my company!” you snap back, feeling your heartbeat fastening from the anger that’s boiling in your veins.

“You knew I wanted her to design for me, why couldn’t you just let one person out of your endless list? You already have everyone else, she was my last fucking chance!” Harry barks back, clearly having some built up tension in him as well.

“If you didn’t act like an arrogant asshole at the charity gala, I would have happily let you work with her, but then you felt the need to fucking degrade me! That’s why I didn’t let you get away with it!”

Harry opens his mouth to answer, but he quickly closes his mouth, probably knowing well you’re right. He did act shitty towards you that evening and he has no excuse for his behavior. You walk closer until there are just a few feet between the two of you, your eyes glued to his burning green gaze that’s staring back at you, but before you could speak up, he cuts you off.

“Well, you know. All is fair in… war and business,” he shrugs and you honestly barely can stop yourself from laughing at how stupid that just sounded. You can’t miss the twitch in the corner of his mouth as well and you can’t believe how easily he made you break out of your rage.

“Don’t try to make money out of writing slogans,” you huff shaking your head and now he is grinning widely. “Do you have the data?”

“I don’t,” he answers and you narrow your eyes at him.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles. “I had it, but I already deleted it. I know it wasn’t ethical so as soon as it was handed to me I deleted it. I didn’t even look into it. I just wanted to scare you.”

“And how do I know your hacker doesn’t have it either?”

“Because he signed a contract that would cost him millions to break and I don’t think a junior in college who is still living in a dorm can afford that,” he points out and now you are somewhat convinced. You stare back at him for a few more seconds before nodding.

“Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours, how does that sound?” you offer generously.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he questions with a smug smirk that makes your arch an eyebrow at him. “What are you doing tomorrow evening?” he then asks and you can’t mask your surprise in front of him.

“That does not concern you, Styles,” you scoff, though it boosts your ego that even through all the hate you’ve been targeting at each other, he still wants you the same way he did at the club that evening. You can’t deny, this rivalry has sparked a few thoughts in you as well, but you are not going to fall into the same mistake you made that evening. You pay him another smirk before turning around and heading towards the door. “Stay out of my way, Styles!” you call back without looking at him, but you just know he is grinning at you, a growing sexual tension thickening the atmosphere in the room.

“Or what?” he smugly questions and you stop at the door, glancing back at him over your shoulder.

“Or… You said it yourself. All is fair in war and business,” you smirk before walking out of the office.

Following your visit to Harry’s office things take a… playful turn in your rivalry. The attempts and competing don’t stop, both of you are on each other’s radar, ruining and messing with each other’s projects and works whenever and wherever it’s possible, but it’s not as hateful as it was at the beginning. If something, it even helps you to always be on your toes and watch out for possible threats, not just from Harry but from everyone else.

Neither of you succeeds in evolving in each other’s field, Cometa keeps thriving in women’s fashion with a quite small variety offered for the gentlemen while Twisted fails to grow out of men’s fashion and venture to the ladies, but somehow it’s not as frustrating as it used to be before.

Harry keeps up his flirty acts and tries to ask you out every time your paths cross each other, but you relentlessly turn him down every time, only fueling him to keep chasing after you more the next time. It’s a thrilling and flattering little game, knowing that even with all the rivalry between the two of you, being the biggest competitors in the business… he still wants you.

New York fashion week rolls around and it’s by far one of your favorite times in the year. You managed to snatch an exclusive deal with YSL to release a special line just for the fashion week and it sold out in the first two hours, now waiting to be restocked in a few days. Cometa is thriving and your aunt has expressed her pride towards the work you’ve been doing at the company, so things are heading the right direction.

You knew Harry would be attending the same shows as you, but it’s fate or just luck that you are seated next to each other at one of the shows, giving you the chance to talk without any of you attempting to corrupt the other this time.

Harry is already sitting in his seat when you arrive wearing a custom made Gucci dress, something that immediately catches his eyes since he is a huge fan of the brand himself.

“Your fashion sense never disappoints, Y/N,” he beams up at you as you take the seat next to him.

“Hope that’s not surprising, Styles,” You smirk at him, taking a glance at his own Gucci outfit, the checkered pants fitting him perfectly while the pussy bow adds some spice to the whole outfit, you have to admit. He looks good, he always does.

“Any plans after the show?” he asks right before the lights go out and the show starts. You leave him without an answer, just let out a soft chuckle as you glue your eyes to the first model who walks the runway.

Once the show is over you head out with Harry by your side, having an actually entertaining discussion about the designs you just saw. He might not be an expert in fashion, but he has developed a good sense through his years.

As you make your way out of the venue you are stopped by an interviewer and Harry remains on your side as the woman asks you a few questions about the show.

“I’ve always wondered, does it bother you that you couldn’t be on the runway yourself? You’ve been sitting front row the past years, but you once had aspirations of being a model yourself, is that right?”

The question makes you tense up and you can feel Harry’s puzzled look on you from the side.

“It’s not like it was my fault for not making it up there,” you sass back, forcing a smile to your face.

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” the woman chuckles and it has your blood boiling, because you know the real meaning behind her words.

It’s your fault you didn’t become a model because you were never thin enough to be one. It was your fault and not the industry’s to hold impossible standards to women who wanted to succeed as a model.

The smile falters from your face and you take a long, judgmental look at the woman in front of you. Because if she is brave enough to talk like that to you, you’re not gonna shy away from bringing her spirits down either.

“Judging from your appearance and attitude you wouldn’t make it either,” you spitefully reply and her smile quickly fades, clearly shocked at your answer. You open your mouth again, ready to continue, but then you feel a hand on the small of your back and you realize Harry is still standing next to you.

“Come on, we have somewhere to be, right?” he smiles kindly as you just simply nod and walk away from the woman before she could offend you again.

Harry senses your tension as the two of you leave the venue but doesn’t try to talk to you and that’s a wise choice from him. As you step out of the building you realize that if you went home now you’d probably get drunk on your own and let that comment get to you more than you should. So instead of doing that you turn to Harry.

“So, what are our plans?” you ask and you don’t miss the small smile on his lips as he stares back at you.

Not in the mood to stay around people at a bar you accept Harry’s invitation to his place, since it’s also close. The contrast between his extravagant penthouse and your cozy but still quite modern townhouse in Park Slope is major, but you didn’t expect anything less from the man.

You’ve managed to calm down since you left the venue, but you’re still quite bitter about the comment the woman made. Harry hasn’t tried to ask you about it, but you can tell he is dying to know more about the situation that’s behind the madness.

He fixes you a drink and you find yourself sinking into his comfortable and probably ridiculously expensive couch in his living room area.

“I used to want to be a model,” you start, breaking the silence that settled between the two of you. “When I was a teen. I was a lot thinner, I was a competitive dancer until I was seventeen, but I had a knee injury, so I had to quit.”

Harry sits on the other end of the couch, listening to you with patience as he sips on his own drink.

“I was never as thin as the other models at the agency I was trying to get into, but I definitely wasn’t overweight. Yet, they labelled me as a plus size model. I was a healthy, strong young girl with a perfectly good body, yet they told me that I was too fat to be a model.”

Glancing at Harry, you can tell that he is surprised at the information he just learned. He is probably picturing you thinner now, going to model castings and if you’re being honest you enjoyed that part. The trouble came when you got rejection after rejection, telling you to lose weight and come back after that.

“I quit my whole plan to be a model and studied fashion and business instead, consciously working my way towards this point. But I never got over how the industry made me feel less of a person because I wasn’t a size zero.”

For a few long moments Harry just stares at you and it’s actually nice that he doesn’t try to make you feel better right away, praising you how you are perfect just the way you are. Because you’re not, but that’s fine because no one is.

“I’ve honestly never seen a more cruel industry than fashion before,” he then speaks up. “I didn’t grow up in it and still don’t really have that much and deep connection with it, but I know how fucked up it is. And it’s nice to see that you know your worth even after everything that happened.”

Your gaze meets his and you’re looking for any sign that gives away that he is just messing with you, but it’s all genuine. You just shoot him a small smile before lifting your drink to your lips. It’s the most intimate moment you’ve shared with him, including the ones you had in that bathroom.

“Okay, now you tell me something about your life,” you prompt, wanting to divert the conversation on him a little bit.

“What do you want to know?” he asks with a soft chuckle.

“Why did you name your brand Twisted?” you ask. The question has been on your mind for a while.

“It’s coming from my mum’s name. Anne Twist.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, you weren’t expecting such a deep and personal reason behind the name, connected to a family member.

“Why her?”

“Why not?” he smirks shrugging his shoulders. “She raised me and my sister up, I wouldn’t be here without her. It was obvious I would make her be part of it in some kind of way.”

“That’s actually very nice. Who knew that you could be something other than an egoistic asshole!” you joke, making him laugh as well.

“Okay, what’s the meaning behind your brand?” he then turns it back around.

“Well, my aunt met her husband when they were very young, maybe eighteen. She fell in love with Fabio on her trip to Italy and being the impulsive and adventurous woman that she is, she stayed for a month there just because of Fabio. He is a very passionate man and he was always ready to bring the stars down for Julia. He always used to tell her that he would even catch a comet for her, if that’s what she wanted. And that was my aunt’s favorite saying from him. Cometa is comet in Italian. It’s her tribute to the love of her life.”

“That’s easily the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Harry hums and you just smile nodding at him. It really is like a fairytale and it’s also one of the reasons why you were so happy to take her place at Cometa. Julia is still just as in love with Fabio as she was at eighteen and she deserves to spend more time with her beloved husband. She earned the time off after all the sacrifices she made for the company and all through them Fabio stayed by her side. It’s their well-earned happy ending now.

“You know a lot about romantic things?” you cock an eyebrow at him, finishing up your drink.

“Actually, I’m a quite romantic guy.”

“Are you now?”

“Yeah, you just never gave me the chance to show it to you.”

“Oh, so now I’m the bad guy?” you chuckle, handing him your glass when he stands from the couch to get you a refill.

“Exactly!” he chuckles holding up your empty glass on his way. “I hope you know you absolutely broke my heart when you didn’t give me your number that night.”

“Oh, you poor little thing,” you chuckle, resting your head in your palm, your elbow on the back of the couch. “I’m not sorry though. You didn’t give out the right vibes.”

“The right vibes?” he huffs as he returns with your drink and now sits a little closer to you. “What vibe did I give you?” “The vibe that told me I shouldn’t mess with you,” you simply answer as you take a sip from your refilled drink.

“You were so keen on hating me even before you knew who I was, I can’t believe you,” he chuckles shaking his head.

“I’m just cautious!” you protest. “I’ve dealt with some problematic men in the past, I can’t let myself walk right into another one that easily.”

“What did they do?”

“Some men just can’t treat women right. Especially confident ones with a body like mine,” you simply shrug.

Men like to think that bigger girls are so terribly insecure about their body that they need the validation of a male to feel good about themselves. But when you’re confident and feel good in your own skin without needing them to praise you, they think that you’re egoistic, so full of yourself and they are quick to try to drag you down. That’s something you can’t tolerate. You don’t need a man to feel good about yourself, you don’t need anyone for that. You know your worth and that’s all that matters.

Harry’s eyes travel down your body, taking his time on your curves and you smile shaking your head as you reach out and cupping his chin you pull his head up so he is looking into your eyes.

“I honestly can’t see what problem anyone could have with your body. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since our bathroom fiasco,” he bluntly comments making you chuckle, even flattered by his words.

“You are such a flirt,” you grin at him and he doesn’t try to protest.

You stay for a couple more drinks and you drop the heavier topics, venturing over to music, fashion and any funny stories that come to your mind. Harry is actually amazing company when you’re not trying to jump at each other’s throat and for a few short hours you forget that he is supposed to be your competitor.

You’re a little tipsy, but you are definitely not drunk, so when Harry offers you to stay the night you turn it down, calling yourself a car since you are not in the right state to drive.

“I’ll come and pick my car up in the morning,” you breathe out as you put your heels back on that came off your feet sometime during the evening, making yourself home in his place.

“I’ll text you the security number to the garage,” he nods, walking you to the elevator.

“Thank you. And… I guess thank you for the evening,” you smile at him, turning to face him. He is standing close, but still takes a step closer, one of his hands finding your waist as he pulls you against his chest. Your palms lie flat on his chest as you try to get yourself to the right mindset to leave now before you regret doing something. Leaning down his nose nudges against your cheek, before he presses a soft kiss under below your ear, a sigh escaping your lips.

“I should go, the car is here,” you breathe out, but don’t move.

“Mm, okay,” he hums, his lips peppering kisses on your jaw and your cheek, as if you didn’t say a word. You want to continue it, not just because of the alcohol but because the sexual tension between the two of you has been growing since that charity gala, but the remainder of your rationality stops you before your lips could meet.

“Bye Harry,” you smile at him softly as you push him away and you walk into the elevator, leaving him hanging. Again.

“Bye Y/N. I’m still going to try to ruin your company!” he calls after you as you turn around to face him, the sliding doors slowly closing between the two of you.

“Same back at you, Styles,” you smirk before the door closes and you are taken down.

Well, that was a lie. Following your evening at his place neither of you really tries to work against the other, leaving each other be without any fuss. It might also have something to do with how you kept in touch after that day. You’ve been texting occasionally, attending some events together, even had a business dinner together with a few other peers from the industry. Things have been quiet and you’ve been feeling content with the current state you’ve managed to reach. Or so you thought.

It was a silent agreement between the two of you. You both put your projects aside that targeted the other’s profile. Harry stopped looking for designers for his women lines and you put your men department to the side as well. There were a lot to work on beside these fields so you felt like you were in peace. Right until Leslie bursts into your office on a casual Tuesday.

“Have you seen this?” she asks, placing a tablet in front of you with an Instagram account open on it.

You want to ask what you’re supposed to look at, but then you realize what it really is. A shiny new account for a new brand that promises to take online shopping to the next level; female and male as well.

“You think it could be…?” you ask, not quite convinced that Harry is behind this.

“Well, the wording is similar to theirs and creating a new brand might be a solution to their gap in women’s fashion,” she points it out, though you don’t want to believe he could have been working on this all along, basically in front of your face.

But it’s a possibility and you have to consider this option before jumping into defending him without any proof.

“Men can’t be trusted,” you grumble under your breath before jumping into work.

What you didn’t know is that an eerily similar situation goes down in Harry’s office as well when Zayn bursts in, showing him the ad he found for the new brand called Farfalla.

Harry immediately digs up everything about the company, though there’s not much other than their new Instagram account and heavy marketing that started just yesterday.

“What is Farfalla even?” he grimaces leaning back in his chair.

“It means butterfly in Italian,” Zayn explains and Harry’s eyes flicker up to him.

“Italian? You think it’s her?”

“It’s possible,” Zayn nods. “Starting a new brand to finally reach men’s fashion is a good idea.”

“She wouldn’t have done this,” Harry shakes his head in disbelief. Could you be working on this all along? Was this your plan from the start? To make him fall for you and forget about business while you built up your new empire to ruin him?

“What if she did?” Zayn prompts and in a way his suspicion is valid, but Harry is having a hard time believing it. You would never play him this dirty, not after how the two of you have grown closer in the past weeks, almost became friends.

“What are you going to do?” Zayn asks him as he pushes himself away from the desk and quite obviously starts getting ready to leave.

“She is not getting away from this,” Harry mumbles under his breath as he grabs his coat and phone before storming out of the office.

It’s past six when Harry gets to Cometa’s building and he is informed that you’ve already went home. He could have just come back in the morning, but he knew he would just stew in his own anger if he didn’t talk to you as soon as possible. So using his charm he gets the woman sitting behind the front desk to share your address with him, saying that he needs to talk to you urgently. That’s how he finds himself heading to Park Slope, slightly surprised you are not living somewhere in the heart of Manhattan.

As the scenery around his changes, skyscrapers turning into brick buildings and townhouses, Harry tries to figure out what he even wants to say to you. Should he just get straight down to business and accuse you? Snap at you? Or should he give you the chance to explain yourself? He can’t really make up his mind, mostly because he still feels like you betrayed him even though he can’t be sure Farfalla is yours.

Parking down at the address he got from the woman, he stares up at the deep red brick townhouse, a simple, black door at the top of the stairs that’s lined with a few potted plants and flowers. This is not what he would have imagined your home like, but now that he is standing on your doormat, he realizes it kind of suits you.

Ringing the bell he hopes that you’re home and not out and about somewhere in the city, but when he hears the familiar sound of heels clicking on the floor he knows you are on the other side. When the front door flings open and you come into his sight, for a split second he forgets why he is here and his anger vanishes. As always, you look amazing, a tight, black dress hugging your curves, the middle part appearing like it’s a corset, emphasizing the dip of your waist. Your hair is let down in loose curls and your feet are bare, but he knows you probably wore heels all day. You must have gotten home not long ago and as your eyes fall on the man at the door, your expression hardens on him.

“You really had the balls to come her, huh?” you cock your head to the side, keeping your eyes on his green ones for a moment before you let him inside.

“Did you think you could get away with it?” he huffs walking into the hallway and stopping as you close the door and turn to him.

“Me? I could say the same! You thought I would just ignore it or what? I proved you a few times that I’m not stupid, Harry,” you retort, folding your arms on your chest as you walk past him, into the kitchen and he follows.

“You surely are not stupid, playing me so dirty behind my back!” Harry spats standing his ground. “Playing all friendly and nice and then make a fool out of me!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” you question narrowing your eyes at him as you lean against the kitchen island’s counter. “If anyone played dirty it’s you! And you have the balls to come here and talk like this to me in my own fucking home?!” you snap, walking closer to him, keeping your deathly glare on him.

“What the fuck did I do?!” he scoffs throwing his hands into the air.

“You created a whole new brand just to fuck with me! Or did you think I wouldn’t find out about it?!”

“Me? You made a new brand! And you didn’t do a great job hiding the fact that it was your work, even the name is Italian, like your current one!”

You stare back at him, tilting your head to the side as you process what he is talking about. All along, the two of you were accusing each other of something neither of you did.

“Harry,” you breathe out, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Farfalla is not my brand.”

“And I’m supposed to believe it?!”

“Well you better be because it’s the fucking truth!”

“Prove it!” he hisses at you, taking a step closer, his face only inches away from yours now.

“Until about twenty seconds ago I thought that it was your new brand, Harry. I thought that you were the one who backstabbed me!” you snap back, standing up for yourself in this giant misunderstanding you fell into, accusing each other without any proof.

Harry stares back at you, his gaze burning into yours as he stands his ground and you can almost see the gears turning in his head as he processes your words.

“So… it’s not yours? You didn’t do it to fuck me up?”

“Of course not!” you breathe out, suddenly quite tired of all the anger that’s been eating you away through the afternoon. “I thought that we had a kind of silent agreement not to mess with each other so I wasn’t planning anything anytime soon. That’s why I got so mad when I thought you did it!”

“I thought the same!” he growls shaking his head. “I thought you did it all to just make me look stupid, that the friendly act was just so I wouldn’t notice a thing and I fell right into your trap.”

“There was no trap,” you simply tell him and you hope he senses the hidden meaning behind your words.

Luckily he does. But for your biggest surprise there’s no snarky comment or smug smirking, he just steps closer and before you could even protest, his hands find your waist and he pulls you against his hard chest, lips hungry attacking yours. He makes you back until you bump against the kitchen island, his hips pressing against yours as he pushes you against the hard surface, his hands wandering on your sides and back, up and down, exploring every curve of your body while his kisses never slow down, your tongues meeting in the middle.

Bringing up a leg you curl it around his hips, your heel digging into his round ass as he leans forward, making you arch your back, leaning onto the counter as his lips move from your lips to your jawline and neck, his fingers digging into your waist and the thigh that’s lifted by his side. He nibbles on the soft skin of your neck, definitely leaving a mark, but you just comb your fingers through his hair, letting yourself get lost in the sensation.

“As much as I would love to fuck you on a counter again, can we take this to a bedroom?” he mumbles as he kisses his way back up to your lips, smirking against them as he captures them again.

You don’t answer, just grab his hand and pull him upstairs with you, right into your bedroom. He is all over you, lips, hands, tongue, pressed up against you as the two of you stumble your way to your king sized bed. Harry’s fingers fidget with the corset on your dress, but he soon realizes it’s a little trickier than he expected, so leaning back he furrows his eyebrows as he glances down at the dress, still trying to figure out how to get you out of it.

“Harry,” you smile at him softly. “It’s faux. There’s a zipper at the back,” you inform him and he sighs in defeat as he kisses you again, his fingers quickly finding the zipper. The dress pools at your feet and you rid him from his jacket and shirt, revealing his inked chest, a sight you’ve been thinking about way too much lately.

By the time the two of you fall to your bed, neither of you are dressed in more than just your underwear. Because both of you like to be in charge, you roll around for a while, trying to get on top of each other but eventually Harry stays up when he starts going down on you, kissing his way through your heated skin. You don’t shy away when his hands snake under your back and easily unclasps your bra, being bare in front of him is not something that makes you feel uncomfortable or insecure. The way he looks at you, the way he makes you feel brings you so much confidence, you have absolutely no problem being nude.

When your bra flies to the floor, Harry leans back a little to admire you lying there, before his lips find their way over the curve of your breasts, down your stomach. Hooking his fingers into the elastic of your panties he tugs them down easily as you lift your hips, your thighs parting as you bare yourself in front of him.

“Don’t be shy about screaming my name,” he smugly tells you before his lips and tongue meet your clit. Your fingers lace through his hair immediately as you gasp out at the sensation, his tongue drawing the whole fucking alphabet to your bundle of nerves. His arms curl around your thighs, ring clad fingers digging into your flesh as he sucks on the sensitive skin.

“Fuck, Harry! Yes!” you moan out, tugging on his locks when he teases his tongue around your hole, your walls tightening around nothing as you are growing desperate to feel something inside of you.

You pull on his hair, signaling him that you want to get it on with, Hands reaching down to get rid of his boxer briefs before you blindly pull out the drawer of your nightstand, grabbing a condom. His lips eagerly meet yours as he wraps his erected cock and though you would love to have a taste of him like he did with you, you just want to feel him inside you.

“Tell me how bad you want it,” he growls against your lips, teasing you with running just the head up and down your slit.

“If you don’t fuck me right now I’m gonna rip your guts out,” you warn him, earning a soft chuckle as he kisses you again, tongue pushing into your mouth as he finally pushes inside you, his long, thick cock filling you up perfectly and it somehow feels even better than the first time.

“Go hard,” you gasp, a hand coming to grab his ass as you push him even further into you. He doesn’t need more, he starts slamming into you, his hips meeting yours roughly with each thrust, his whole length disappearing inside you every time.

He buries his head into the crook of your neck, licking and sucking on the soft skin. You almost think about telling him not to mark you, but it just turns you on even more so you let him do whatever he wants.

“I want to see you on top,” he pants, lifting his head so his gaze could meet yours. You nod, before the two of you turn around and you straddle his hips, guiding him back inside you as you sink down his length. Your hands are sprawled out on his hard chest as you find your balance in the position, Harry’s eyes roaming your body up and down, not able to get enough of how blissful you look, sitting with his cock buried inside of you, enjoying yourself to the fullest. His hands run up your thighs and upper body until they find your breasts, kneading them as you start moving your hips up and down, back and forth. When you moan his name or gasp because his cock reaches that one particular spot inside you, those are the moments he wishes he could capture on camera and watch whenever he wants.

“I want it from back,” you pant as you lean down and kiss him roughly. That’s all he needs, he helps you get off of him before you get on all four, pushing your butt up in the air while Harry kneels behind you, the sight in front of him hardening his cock even more, if that’s possible. His hands grab onto your waist as he pushes inside you, making you both let out a satisfied moan before he starts moving again.

“Fuck, you look so good like this, Y/N. I love your ass,” he growls, giving it a smack that surprises you, but you absolutely love it.

“Harry, go faster!” you whimper, feeling your orgasm nearing as you grip the comforter on the bed, desperate to reach your climax. You’re just about to reach down between your legs to play with your clit when Harry not only picks his pace up but also reaches around you, two of his fingers starting the circling motions on the bundle of nerves, making your legs shake from the pleasure.

“Come on, baby. Cum for me, cum all over my cock,” he growls, railing you from behind without missing a beat.

“Harry!” you scream when he thrusts into you so harshly, your whole body rocking in the motion.

“Come on, angel. Cum for me,” he murmurs and leaning down he wraps his arms around you, bringing you up straight, your back pressing against his sweaty chest, his hands coming to cup your breasts as he keeps thrusting up into you, pushing you over the edge.

You moan and gasp and scream his name as your walls tighten around his length, riding out your bliss and it helps him reach his own high, his hot breath hitting the back of your neck and shoulder, grunting and cursing under his breath as he fills the condom.

As his thrusts come to a halt, he sinks into a sitting position, bringing you with him, you lean against him feeling like jelly as you’re still just trying to catch your breath. Harry peppers your shoulder with small kisses before you muster the energy to break the position and lie down on the bed.

“Towel is in the bathroom,” you tell him knowing that’s what he’ll look for as he stands from the bed and you point at the door that leads to the joined bathroom. Harry nods and pads his way in there, cleaning himself up before he returns with a small damp towel, doing the same for you. He drops it to the floor next to the bed before joining you, cradling you into his arms as you take a breather together.

One hand is on your shoulder, fingers dancing on the naked skin, the other one is holding your thigh that’s across his lap while your head is resting on his chest.

“You really thought I would backstab you like that?” he hums after a while, breaking the comfortable silence.

“You did the same,” you answer, lifting your head, resting your chin on his chest.

“Touché,” he chuckles, before leaning down he kisses you shortly. “So, if neither of us did it, then we have a quite major problem on our hands.”

“I know,” you hum. “That shit looks promising and they can easily ruin both of us.”

Harry stays silent for a little, but you can see the gears turning in his head. When his gaze snaps back at you, you know he has an idea.

“Unless… we join forces.” Your eyebrows arch as you stare back at him. “I know it’s a risky move, but this is the only way to stay on the top.”

“How much you want to be joined?”

“We could start with just one line, the men part designed by someone from me and the women by someone from you. And if it presents well we can just figure out where to go from there. Obviously, the men part would be sold by us and the women by you, but we could join the pages and direct users to each other’s sites in connection with the lines.”

“That could… actually work,” you nod shortly, thinking about the idea. It needs a lot of planning, but it could actually be a big hit if you do it right. “And you’re willing to partner with me?” you ask cheekily as you push yourself up into a sitting position, Harry doing the same.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m willing to do about anything with you,” he chuckles, making you smile at his playful answer. “I hope you know I’m not talking about just business,” he then adds with a meaningful look.

“You are still so keen on this?” you sigh, tugging your hair behind your ear.

“Do you not like being with me?”

“I do, surprisingly,” you roll your eyes, making him laugh.

“Do you not like having sex with me?”

“I think the answer is pretty obvious to that,” you give him a look as he smirks back at you.

“Yeah, but I want to hear it.”

“I enjoy having sex with you, Harry,” you roll your eyes again, but he just kisses you short but hard before leaning back.

“So then why shouldn’t we date?”

“Because we are competitors?”

“We just agreed that we should join forces. We are partners now.”

“You are running a little ahead, Harry,” you cock an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know, I haven’t been in a relationship in ages. I probably suck at it at this point,” you shrug, but it’s just a lame excuse and you both know that. Leaning closer Harry smirks at you smugly.

“I have something else you can suck.” You smack his chest at his nasty remark, but can’t push a smile back. His hand finds the back of your head as he pulls you in for another kiss. “I want you, Y/N. I really do. You are all I think about even when you are an annoying piece of shit, getting under my skin. I still want you.”

“Wow, so romantic,” you chuckle shaking your head. “What if we can’t get over our differences in the business? That can easily poison any relationship.”

“Then we’ll have a lot of mind-blowing angry and makeup sex. Those are the best. We can put all our frustration into sex, I think that’s just perfect.”

“What are you, a horny teenager? Sex is all you can think about?” you chuckle.

“It is when I’m lying in a bed with you naked. You can’t blame me,” he grins smugly and you want to hate him, you want to hate him so badly, but you can’t. You want him just as much as he wants you.

“So… partners?” he prompts, tilting his head to the side with a sweet smile as he waits for your answer.

“Partners in business and life?”

“Mhm, that’s the plan,” he nods, his smile growing wider with each passing second.

“Alright,” you breathe out. “So… it’s not—All is fair in war and business?” you ask teasingly, using his own words from earlier.

“Just shut up and kiss me,” he laughs, pulling you in for another kiss.

Thank you for reading! Please like/reblog if you enjoyed!

[inhonoredglory]

another character based question - how do you feel about mikasa? a lot of fans dont like her, im curious about how you feel! - armin anon

Hellooooo Armin Anon. OMG it’s been forever since I had the time to sit down and do a proper meta, and I apologize.

First off, I finished the manga!!! (So, spoilers ahead for anyone else reading this.) I had to lie down after reading 139. It’s a tremendous story and I’m still taking it all in. The set pieces and personal/emotional stakes of everything that happens is just astounding. If it’s one thing Isayama does good, it��s the gut-wrenching personal anguish that underlies the action. I’m absolutely floored. My favorite bit was probably the timey-wimey stuff in Paths and Eren. That blew my freaking mind. But onto Mikasa!!

A Cruel Yet Beautiful World

I remember way back when I started the anime that I started liking Mikasa first out of the group. I liked how sullenly silent and no-nonsense she was, and I liked her loyalty to Eren. Her emotion, especially when Eren died in Trost, was palpable and terrifyingly beautiful. Her grief was incredibly realistic––rushing off with a death wish that even she couldn’t succumb to in the end, because of the drive to fight that she got from Eren. In a world like SNK, her relentlessness breaking through her grief was incredibly moving. And her philosophy is basically the driving theme of SNK: “This is a cruel world, and yet so beautiful.”

This is the same moral message she gives Eren when he can’t find the strength in him to fight Annie––and gives him that warm, understanding, inscrutable smile that allows him to finally accept his own monsters, fight Annie, and save her and Armin. (One of my favorite panels of her from the manga, actually.) Mikasa is basically the first character we meet who embodies this contradictory morality, which grows to engulf SNK and other characters as well (Levi, Reiner, and Armin especially come to mind). Which could be why I was drawn to her at the start, since the complex moral outlook of SNK was the primary reason I fell hard for this story.

(And gosh, it’s tragic to realize that it’s teaching moments like the scene above that made Eren into the person who could influence his own child self to murder, the person who could wipe out so much of humanity, the person who could take Ymir’s challenge to free her by destroying the love of the person who cared the most about him. I’m still processing yo.)

Acker-parallels

I started really analyzing Mikasa when I had to defend her from a friend of mine who accused her of resenting Levi (for beating up Eren) and that’s why she attacked him so violently in the RTS serumbowl. Because of my research into rebutting that, a lot of my affection for Mikasa now comes in seeing the little ways in which she cares and trusts other people, including Armin, Levi, Gabi, and Jean. And her quiet sensibility that goes beyond her love and protectiveness of Eren.

With Levi in particular, I find a lot I like about her. Because you can definitely see her annoyance at him, but she also trusts him more than anyone else in the Corps outside of Armin. After Levi’s violent encounter with Historia, she was the only one who implicitly trusted Levi’s judgement, backing up Armin’s more reasoned logic. She sees beyond her own emotions and even moral feelings and realizes the world is cruel enough that sometimes people have to do dark things to help others and survive.

This is very much the same statement Levi made to the 104th when he had asked them to follow Erwin’s orders when the commander’s plans were questionable on the surface: “Do you trust him? Those dumb enough to say yes… come with me.” These two understand each other on a moral level, and they ask for their comrades’ loyalty without demanding it, because they each know that everyone’s conscience is their own.

There’s a clear parallel between Mikasa and Levi, not only because of their Ackerman heritage and sensibilities (loyal to a fault to their chosen person, impossibly strong, quiet and grim), but their frustration when they cannot protect the people they are responsible for. They both know they are the strongest around, and if they cannot fulfill on that power, a lot of people will die.

There are many moments in which Mikasa puts aside her personal feelings to do her soldierly duty, from leaving Eren to help with the evacuation of Trost to leaving Eren and Armin to fight the Colossal Titan alone in Shigonshina.

And then there’s the fact that Levi’s the one who could break past Mikasa’s headspace and distraction so that she can do the right thing. He understands her strong emotion, he respects it, but he also knows when that has to be put aside for the greater good. But he doesn’t put her down for having those emotions, either.

Strength from Eren, Humanity from Armin

Mikasa’s love and loyalty to Eren challenges her tremendously after the timeskip and her sorrow at Eren’s change is what really stands out to me about her character in the Marley arc. The absolute grief in her eyes when she tells Eren what he’s done is devastating, and it shows just how much goodness and compassion she does have.

And yet she longs to understand Eren, to trust him, to believe there can be something redeeming, and not merely jaded and tired, in what he taught her so many years ago––to fight, to win, to live.

There’s such a difference between these same words said here by Mikasa, so many years later, after so much heartbreak, to the anger and flame that were in them when she first heard them, back when she realized that this was the way of the world. That death and killing happens in the natural world everyday and that’s how you survive. That the world is both cruel and beautiful.

And yet as the years wore on, as Mikasa grew closer to others, found purpose in protecting others, sought a life with Eren… as she wandered further into the forest of life and society and relationships, she lost some of that simple injunction... to live is to fight, to fight is to win. She, like so many of the 104th and the others on this journey, found that it’s not enough to just fight and live and be satisfied. We really want it all to mean something, to have our actions be redemptive. To allow ourselves to believe that we do what we’re doing because we’re not just saving ourselves, but saving others, “saving the world” like Yelena points out (in the forest therapy session pfff). And it’s that drive for something bigger in our actions that grieves her so much with Eren, because as she wants her own actions to be fundamentally good and selfless, she wants his actions to be moral as well.

So while Eren is the person that frustrates Mikasa and motivates her to become stronger and braver than she ever was, Armin is the person who humanizes Mikasa and allows her the space to be gentle and vulnerable. She comforts Armin, confides in him, puts her faith in him, and puts her life in his hands.

She trusts Armin with Eren, and she values Armin’s intellect and compassion, qualities she doesn’t have in nearly as much quantities as he does: “There are only so many lives I can value. And… I decided who those people were six years ago. So... you shouldn’t try to ask for my pity. Because right now, I don’t have time to spare or room in my heart.”

This bit from her confrontation with Ymir and Historia was a defining moment for me with Mikasa. It’s honest and realistic in a way that few of us care to admit about ourselves, and it’s just super chilling and badass coming from her, too. It also shows how much she fights for Armin and Eren both. They are the two people she loves the most in the world, and she never gave up on saving either of them––from death or from themselves.

I’m looking back on Trost now and finding so much irony with the ending to SNK. In Trost, she was the one to give up on Eren, telling Armin that it was hopeless to try to extract Eren’s personality from his Titan form. And yet, like in the end, it’s always been between Armin and Mikasa to try to salvage Eren’s humanity. In Trost, Armin tells Mikasa to leave––to go do what she’s good at (saving lives)––and to entrust Eren to him.

It’s a huge expression of both Mikasa’s trust in Armin, and her belief in Armin’s abilities and friendship for Eren. And in the end, it’s the two of them again debating on if there’s any humanity left in Eren. The bond they share is intimate and deep. With all the military doubting Eren and scheming to take away his Titan (with even Jean and Connie unavailable to them emotionally), it’s only Armin and Mikasa against the world––the only two people who can truly consider Eren’s actions and hold off on judging him. And you can feel their love for him even as they doubt him.

And like back then, it has always been Armin who understands Eren most, the one who recognizes his own evil and Eren’s and finds a redemption in having others stop you, because you cannot stop yourself.

And that’s the thing I really take away from SNK and from Mikasa’s journey, that we all have devils inside us, and yet there is still beauty to be found, within us and in the world––from the natural wonders that Armin dreams of, to the comfort of purpose and companionship that Mikasa has in Eren. Love and wonder is what redeems us of our devils. And yet love itself is complicated, and can turn ugly in its obsession. That giving up that love is what makes the love selfless and beautiful, what absolves us of the selfishness within us. That’s what Mikasa learned. And in the end, she was able to release that love for the good of the world.

So I guess to sum up, I really love Mikasa. I can see why her dogged loyalty to Eren might annoy some fans, but I think there’s a lot more to her than simply that, and in fact, her journey and growth is heart-rending and one of the most symbolic arcs of SNK and fundamental to its entire theme. She’s a badass with a lot of emotion and depth behind her cold mask.

[evilspiritsgoneloose]

The Mind Behind

(C!Dream x GN!Reader)

_____

!Warning! Manipulating, Villious thoughts, Mentions of killing, Fluff Grammatical Errors (please just oversee them, if there are there)

Characters Mentioned Dream, Tommyinnit, Ghostbur

Summary You were getting lonely and decided to visit your boyfriend at work.

Word Count 1763

____ Masterlist

It was getting late. The sun was long gone but he would usually be here by now. But he wasn't. He still must be at work. You stood up from the couch and looked outside. The surrounding forest made it ever so darker. The resident is located far away from the SMP. He calls it an escape from the storm and also for your safety. The first was understandable, you hated it to be around many people, the second thought wasn't reasonable. He knows pretty well that you can defend yourself. And even if the opponent is stronger, you were quick on your feet.

Time passed and he didn't show up. Besides, you hung a compass, which always pointed in his direction. A reminder for you that he was still alive when he's gone for longer. You didn't mind him working longer but this time you wanted some more affection as usual. Your Boyfriend left early this morning. It's night and since noon all you wanted were some cuddles up in front of the crackling and cozy fire.

You never interrupted his work or visited him but it would change today. You picked up your cherished netherite armor, put it on, and now, with the compass in hand, you were on the way to him.

Monsters occasionally started to attack you but they were mere child's play. You traveled a lot by foot through forests, plains and even a little dessert. But you never thought you must cross an ocean.

The deep blue stared at you and it felt like it also laughed at you. You began to mumble swearwords at the deep large puddle and began to chop down a tree. Of course, you don't have a boat with you. Why even would you?

Minutes later you crafted yourself a little oak boat and placed it on the ocean. While flipping the water off, you climbed into the boat and rowed away.

You rowed along for a few minutes until you could see land, a beach to be exact. The was a little tent built on a little hill and to the left was a log camp. A little further you could see two beings talking to each other. The pointer of the compass points directly at one of them.

The shorter one notices you rowing and looked puzzled even more when he realized you were getting to them. The taller one turned around to the ocean as he noticed his opponent was distracted.

You could feel the smile he was giving you. Others couldn't see it but you knew for sure he was smiling.

The shorter one walked up to the edge of the beach to have a closer look. He stood there until you arrived and claimed out of your boat.

"Y/n!" Tommy shouted out "What are you doing here?" You happily ignored him and walked further to the other male.

"Did I forget my lunch or why do I have this honor?" His comment made you grin "you forgot me" you answered. Dream, the male in front of you placed one hand on your cheek. Tommy was still behind you and switched glances between the both of you. He fore sure knows you. You were the most innocent person he knows. Always there for your people and great advice giver. But seeing you being all lovely-dovely with madman Dream over here, destroyed his whole world. Hundreds of questions ran around in his head. Were you tricked? Poisoned or even threatened to act this way around him? Did you were held hostage against your own will? And so on.

"Y/n!" Tommy shouted again. Now you gave him your attention "What are you doing? You know he's the devil don't you? He's-" he could not talk any further due to a sword being pointed at him. For a moment Tommy thought Dream finally snapped and would kill him now. But seeing the truth was way worse. You were holding the sword and your ever so shining e/c eyes turned darker almost into black. Dream just stood behind you, arms crossed and his mask smiling mockingly down at him.

"Shut Tommy, No word, or that's it for you"

You lowered your sword again.

"you know, you should thank me"

Tommy just wanted to talk again but you interrupted immediately with a loud voice "I said shut!" A sigh escaped you "Now I look like the bad person. Look, Dream here would have killed you on the spot as you got exiled, but thanks to me you're still alive. You can still see your oh so beloved Tubbo. Oh wait-" you looked at Tommy with a sad face "He didn't even visit you once. I'm so sorry Tommy. I really am"

Again Tommy wanted to talk but you just raised your hand and he listened.

"Good thing that you still have Me, Dream and Ghostbur. Or else you would be so lonely"

You walked a little further to the child and placed both of your hands on his shoulders. "You must know. I will always be there for you. I will always have an ear for you" you smile up at him, a pure smile. One of your hands reached over to his cheek while smiling.

"If you ever need help, just tell Dream and he'll let me know" you turned over to your boyfriend "isn't it so?"

He nodded and said "I will contact y/n immediately"

Tommy couldn't understand what's going on. He was getting so many mixed messages from you, but hearing you offering help, made him somewhat weak. At the time he didn't have someone to talk to. Well only Ghostbur, but he always avoided sad or depressing topics. Maybe you really wanted to help him.

If he would know...

You retreated your hands to yourself again "remember Tommy, you are good enough and if you ever feel down again. I'll have an ear open for you" you again gave him another motherly smile "we only want the best for you"

You walked back to Dream while getting rid of your armor. It's getting all tight and sweaty underneath it. It also gave Tommy a sign of peace. You handed Dream your armor knowing it will be in good hands as well as your life.

"Let us go back home" you called "It's getting late and I think Tommy wants to sleep as well" A little did you pull Dream down on his chest plate to better look him in the smiling face.

You definitely noticed that Tommy was tired but you also wanted to get out of here.

Dream tried to argue "I'm not done with-" You saw how the child's eyes widened in terror so you pulled up your best puppy eyes and claimed "but you've been gone all day. The whole day I was alone and just waited for you. Come one Dream~" you hung yourself onto his armor like a child throwing a tantrum. Perks of being shorter. You were almost about to fall to the ground but he quickly hold onto your waist before giving in.

"Okay, you got me. But at least wear your armor"

You began to giggle while walking to the boat "who needs armor when they have the best warrior out of all of them"

Tommy again smiled because Dream will be gone too. Finally having some free time from him. Even with the rough start today. He thinks you have more power over Dream and he appreciates it that you stopped his doing for today.

Dream first hopped into the boat. You glanced back to the blonde one and waved with a smile "See you soon Tommy"

Now you climbed into the second seat and the two love birds rowed away. Leaving Tommy to his own.

Just as the beach was out of sight, you placed your head on Dreams back. "I really don't have the strength to see Tommy every day. He's just so annoying even when doing nothing. I really admire you for being so calm"

"you did a pretty good job too, love. But why did you really offer your help?"

Your arms slip around him and begin to cuddle a little bit "I just wanted to make him feel safe around me. Even if I'm the reason for his crippling loneliness and sadness. He'll see me as a savior against you. Calling me to make you stop. Begging me to make him feel loved again. But all I do is desocialize him even more" A mischievous smile crept onto your lips.

The boat stopped and you both walked the rest of the way back home.

During the walk, you felt how your and Dreams hand stroked each other a good amount of times until Dream's patience ran low. He grabbed your hand and gently pulled you closer. Walking hand in hand till you arrived home.

As you entered home the first thing Dream did was get rid of the heavy armor. You sat down on the couch and watched him. As he was done placing yours and his armor back on the stand he walked closer to you but not sitting down. He was literally towering over you, making you feel smaller than you actually are.

You were just amused by his behavior. Your arms raised up to his shirt to pull him down till you could reach his mask. With gentle hands, you also got rid of it. Dream smiled lovestruck from one ear to another. He placed his hand on the back of the Couch, trapping you between his arms and got closer to your face.

"one thing" he started "you don't hold all power over me. I only gave in because I saw what you were trying to accomplish" but you just sat there smiling to yourself "yeah, keep telling yourself that. We both know the truth. Now sit down. My side is getting cold"

Without any complaint, Dream fell down onto the couch next to you. He placed one arm around your shoulder and pulled you closer to his side. Your head fell down onto his chest while pulling a fluffy blanket over yourself. Dream took the initiative to press a button, which activates a dropper with a flint and steel in it, to get the chimney fire started.

He looked back down at you, his love, his better half, the planner of all his crimes. He pressed a long-lasting kiss on your head before stealing some of the blanked and placing his head on top of yours.

---

Masterlist

PS: I also take requests. Running low on ideas right now.

Leave a follow if you like. It's free and... YouCanAlwaysUnfollowLater (sry... Not)

[goingmorry]

Trafalgar Law [A-Z Alphabet Fluff]

Synopsis: How is Trafalgar Law like as your romantic partner? 💖

Count: 2813 words

Activities

Reading. Law is an avid reader. He loves to read all kinds of material, both fiction and non-fiction, such as short stories, novels, comics, articles, news, and medical textbooks. As such, you took it upon yourself to read together with him. During nights, when the rest of the crew retires to their quarters, you and Law take turns reading to each other. As your quiet and gentle voice fills the silent room, Law visibly relaxes. A faint but genuine smile graces his normally impassive features. When it's his turn to read, you enjoy the calm and soothing nature of his voice.

Resting/pillow talk. While Law is known to suffer from insomnia, he enjoys resting in bed together with you. This is usually accompanied with reading, but when you're both exhausted, both of you lie together in silence or in hushed sounds through light conversations. For the most part, you talk while Law listens. Law also tends to overwork himself so you being with him ensures that he unwinds for the day.

Medical assistance. Law is the doctor of the ship. As such, one of his primary duties is to perform both minor and major medical procedures when his crew sustains injury. He typically doesn't need assistance to conduct his minor medical duties; however, your insistence in helping him whenever possible has prompted him to seek your support. Despite your lack of medical knowledge, Law is not opposed to instructing you. You've proven yourself to be a reliable assistant. Truthfully, he enjoys having you adopt a nurse role by his side.

Beauty

Your compassion. Despite Law's outwardly aloof demeanor, he finds your kindness endearing. He’s used to incessantly berating you during the many times when you put your life in danger to save others; however, he's resigned to the fact that your compassion for others is one of your defining qualities. It's what drew him to you after all.

Comfort

Law is perceptive. He can tell when you're feeling down, and he can definitely tell when you're about to have a panic attack. He's quick to shift to his doctor persona, guiding you through breathing exercises as you breathe in and breathe out while slowly coming to your senses.

Law is not overly affectionate, but if you desire hugs or other forms of physical contact, he will give them to you without hesitation. You have his undivided attention.

When you recover, Law is cautiously optimistic and takes your vitals. He asks if you're feeling better and if you'd like to talk about it, but he's not forceful if you're not willing to disclose information to him.

Dreams

In the moment. Law is happy to live in the moment with you. Thinking of the future unnerves him, as his carefully arranged plans do not always develop the way he expects them to.

Fate. Just like his meeting with Cora-san during the most tragic part of his life, he believes meeting you was fate. Your fates were intertwined from the moment you first encountered each other, and they will continue to be until the day both of you breathe your last.

Equal

Dominant. Law has expressed his aversion for being told what to do. As the Captain of the Heart Pirates, he prefers to issue orders. While his dominance extends toward your relationship, this doesn't mean that he doesn't respect and value your opinions. He treats you fairly, as an equal, always making sure he listens to your input when you have something to say.

Law is dominant but not overbearing. As someone whose freedom was stripped away the moment he was born due to the Amber Lead disease, Law would never dream of taking away your freedom in any capacity.

Fight

Forgiving. It might surprise you to know that Law is an extremely forgiving person. He understands that couples get into disagreements; it's natural. So long as you don't betray his trust, he is willing to forgive and learn from most arguments.

Law usually appears collected when arguing with you; however, he loses his cool when you are quick to put yourself in harm's way. Law is not one to hold resentment after making up with you, preferring to be with you here and now.

Gratitude

Attentive. Law is aware of what you do for him. You try to be subtle, but he's quick to catch on. He tries to keep a calm façade, but he's overwhelmed with affection for you on the inside. You can expect him to snuggle closer to you tonight.

Law shows his gratitude indirectly. "Here. I got this on the way to town," he says, handing you a bag of your favorite sweets. He doesn't say it, but he loves watching your face light up in excitement at the prospect of stuffing your cheeks with delicious desserts.

Honesty

Although Law is honest, he tends to fill you in with the details after the fact. He doesn't do this out of malice but out of necessity. As Captain of the Heart Pirates, ally of the Strawhat Pirates, and a member of the Worst Generation, his life is in constant jeopardy. Now, with you by his side, he's paranoid and won't risk being caught off-guard until the threats have been neutralized. He prefers to do now and talk later.

When reminiscing about the past—as it relates to his childhood in Flevance and being under the care of the Donquixote family, specifically Cora-san—he struggles to share these painful memories. Although he opens up to you eventually, he won't willingly share all the moments when something reminds him of his past. How your kindness reminds him of Cora-san. How your love for festivals reminds him of Lami. He refuses to burden you with these thoughts.

Inspiration

Law is kind. Cora-san's sacrifice made sure of that.

Although Law regained his humanity, he doesn't put himself out there to assist others in need if doing so will jeopardize his plan. Instead, your insistence to help others forces his hand.

While Law believes that pirates should not do kind things, his actions contradict his statement. He will honor the Hippocratic Oath and use his Devil Fruit powers (Ope-Ope no Mi) to treat others to the best of his ability.

Law takes issue with being seen as a kind person by strangers. He refuses to accept others gratitude. When confronted, he will make up an excuse in an effort to portray himself as a selfish and ruthless pirate. Regardless, the recipients of his acts of kindness are not fooled.

Jealousy

Watchful. Law is protective. How could he not be when you look so radiant? So full of life, warmth, and affection? He trusts you. It's strangers he doesn't trust. He's worried other people will take advantage of your benevolence.

He deals with his jealousy by keeping you in his sight whenever feasible. If he can't be with you, he'll ask his crewmembers to accompany you. The life of piracy is a dangerous one, so one can never be too certain if danger lurks around the corner. "It's best to be prepared," Law states decisively.

Kiss

Great kisser. Law did not have any prior romantic experiences prior to being in a relationship with you; however, since then, he's had a lot of time to practice. He's able to perfectly balance sucking, biting and using his tongue when kissing you. When he initiates a kiss that's more than a peck on the lips, such as kissing your erogenous zones, it leads to a full-blown makeout session.

First kiss. Law's lips moved hesitantly over yours, his tattooed fingers skimming your blushing cheek, before deciding to gently cradle the side of your face. You were pleasantly surprised at how soft his lips were considering his roughened exterior. The kiss remained tentative at first, both you and him feeling overwhelmed with each other's company. You weren't certain when his hand moved from the side of your face to the back of your head. You felt his calloused fingers interweave with your flowing hair, lightly tugging until you opened your mouth to moan softly. Law deepened the kiss by slipping his teasing tongue inside, eager to hear more of your voice as you moaned for him once more.

Love Confession

You are the first to express your love for him. Law is flabbergasted. How could someone, as kind as you are, have romantic feelings for a man like him? It's a dangerous thought, one he refuses to answer. Meanwhile, Sengoku's words in Dressrosa echo in his head. "Don't ever attach a reason to someone's love." His recklessness presents itself and he allows himself to act.

Staring at you with you such longing in his golden irises, he grabs your arm, intent on closing the distance between your bodies. His grip is gentle yet firm as he drags you over to him, and your face flushes under his observant gaze. Although you were nervous, you refuse to break eye contact, determined to show him how sincere you were. Law responds by molding your eager lips against his. After all, actions speak louder than words.

Marriage

Indifferent. There is no doubt that Law loves you; however, he is indifferent about marriage. If you bring it up as a discussion point to him, he will start to consider the prospect of marriage life. Growing up, he’s seen how happy his parents were, and how much love and affection they showed him and Lami. He wonders if that reality is plausible for him too.

Once the way has been paved for the New Generation of Pirates, Law proposes. In the Captain’s Quarters of the Polar Tang, he presents you with a small velvet box with an inscrutable expression on his face. His golden eyes betray him as they waver in intensity, carefully scrutinizing your face and eyes for movement, for your reaction during this vulnerable moment. When Law proposes, it’s direct and sincere. No flowery language. He speaks from the heart.  “Marry me. I love you.” You were more than happy to oblige.

Being married to Law is primarily the same as it was when you were dating—with two differences being the wedding rings in your left hands, and that you can now refer to one another as a wedded couple.

Nicknames

Law doesn’t use nicknames. He prefers to address you by your actual name. Prior to being in a relationship with you, he addresses you by your epithet as described in your wanted poster. Now, “S/O-ya” is his go-to.

On Cloud Nine

Inconspicuous. Law is the king of keeping your relationship concealed to strangers. While Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin were the first to discover your relationship with the Captain, the rest of the Heart Pirates weren’t aware of your relationship with Law until one year in. Outside the privacy of your bedroom, don’t expect anything more than occasional longing glances passed between each other.

When Law falls in love, he does so gradually. He doesn’t mean to fall in love until he realizes that you have been increasingly pervading his thoughts. At this point, he's in denial. Love is an inconvenience, a weakness that will distract him from his goal in finding the true meaning of the Will of D.

Law eventually comes to terms with his love for you. He feels undeserving, attempting to distance himself from you until you confront him about his aloof behavior. Your stubbornness convinces him that he can't escape. A smile tugs on the corner of his lips before he can stop himself.

PDA

Discreet. You can expect your relationship with Law to be on the down-low. Most people, outside of his crewmates, won't be able to tell that he's in a relationship as he treats you the same way as he would a member of his crew. If people observe him long enough, they'll be able to catch his eyes as they settle on you, wandering a little too long on your form, from across the room.

On the off-chance that someone asks about your relationship with him, Law won't explicitly confirm or deny his relationship with you. He's afraid that word will spread that he’s found a lover, leading to his enemies targeting you to get to him.

Quirk

Competitive. While Law doesn't willingly participate in contests, he finds himself reluctantly dragged into them by you. Due to his physical prowess and mental aptitude, Law is quite skilled in winning a variety of competitions, such as carnival games, trivias, and sports events. He gives the prizes he wins from them to you as a reward for cheering him on.

Romance

Cliché. Prior to being in a relationship with you, Law does not familiarize himself with the ways of courting. Hesitantly, he approaches Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin for advice on how to woo you. Within five seconds of that decision, Law regrets it as the trio begin to pester him with the details of your affair. He knows they mean well, but he can't help his annoyance. "You can't go wrong with flowers and chocolates, Captain," the trio states. He glares at them in acknowledgment, gathering the aforementioned gifts, away from prying eyes.

Law quickly learns that if he wants to make you happy, he needs to be upfront and ask you directly. He is thoughtful, tailoring his gifts toward your preferences. You do the same.

Support

Supportive. Having spent over a decade planning for Donquixote Doflamingo's downfall, Law understands what it means to be committed to achieving one's ambitions. He has nothing but belief in your ability to achieve your goals. With him by your side, he will do everything in his power to assist you. You need only ask.

Thrill

Routine. Law doesn't have the liberty to ponder over new and creative ways to show his love for you. You and him have settled into a comfortable routine. If you're feeling neglected, he expects you to be direct with him. He's not opposed to trying out new things to spice up your relationship; however, he's not a creative man so you should expect to be the one to initiate and propose new ideas.

Understanding

Law is an observant man. He understands you as a person, what makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what motivates you. He also has an exceptional memory and has made it a point to remember your favorites and your least favorites as they come up in conversation.

Having experienced pain and grief through losing his loved ones, Law is especially empathetic to those who have suffered the same fate.

Value

Above all else. The love Law has for you is different to the love he has for his crew—his nakama. He loves you above all other things in his life. He is reckless, but knowing that you love him and will never forgive him for being negligent with his life makes him value himself more.

You are worthy of his love, but often times, he thinks to himself, is he worthy of yours?

Wild Card

Law enjoys brushing your hair. He loves the feel of your silky smooth hair and the way you hum in contentment under his care. His hands are always so gentle as he grasps your hair, treating you with a delicacy one can expect from a pirate handling their most prized treasure, which adds to the intimacy of the act.

XOXO

Law is not overly affectionate. Prior to being with you, he was touch-starved. Expect to be the first to initiate intimacy. Kissing and cuddles took some time to get used to. But once that period passes, Law does not hesitate to initiate romance by trailing kisses along your neck, playing with your hair, and feeling your smooth skin beneath your clothes. He prefers the privacy of his quarters when showing you any sort of physical affection.

Yearning

On the surface, Law hides his yearning for you well. During times of separation, he thinks of you as he lies in bed. He thinks of your warmth, your body heat combined with his as you snuggle against each other underneath the comfort of your bed. He thinks of your lips, curled up in a carefree smile, turning into subdued laughter. He returns your mirth with a smile of his own. He thinks of your face and how much he wants to caress your cheeks, feel the smooth skin beneath the roughness of his fingertips. He misses how your face would warm up in response to his touch, how you lean into him, eager for more. He reaches out instinctively, before realization kicks in. You weren't here. He misses you.

Zeal

Law is willing to go to great lengths for your relationship. He's grieved so much at such a young age from losing his mother, father, Lami, and Cora-san. His life is yours. He'll be damned if anyone stands in the way of him and you.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Content note: This episode has a lot of lightning, but this post does not have lightning flashes--I’m using mostly stills for those parts, or I’ve snipped out the unfriendly frames before giffing.

Qing-Jie

Having successfully ruined Jin Guangshan’s party plan to get the Yin Tiger seal, Wei Wuxian dashes off to tell Wen Qing where her brother is. She hops up to hit the road with him, but then sorta-faints because she’s starving. In a rare moment of tenderness between these two, he catches her and gently sits her down again. 

Normally they’re busy out-toughing each other, both before and after this moment, but right now Wen Qing is openly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian responds to that, predictably, with all of his kindness and with his usual slew of unwise, impossible-to-keep promises.

As she eats the bread he’s brought her--a parallel to an important piece of bread in his early life--he says they have to believe in Wen Ning’s survival. Cut to: Wen Ning, not surviving. 

I mean, yes, yes, he’s only mostly dead, but he’s never going to be fully alive again, so.  

24 Hour Party People

Back at the party, Jin Guangyao, deliberately, I think, goes to offer his pops a drink while his pops is still super furious and looking for someone to take it out on. The servant lady is like, better you than me, pal, and helps JGY get his drink ready. Pops, predictably, knocks the drink onto Jin Guangyao.

(more behind the cut)

Lan Xichen is standing by with a hanky and a face full of worry. Lan Xichen is so Lanny that he thinks JGY needs to go change clothes after getting clear alcohol spilled on him, rather than just letting it evaporate and smelling pleasantly of booze for the rest of the evening like a normal party guest. 

JGY launches into a criticism of Wei Wuxian, which Lan Wangji listens to very carefully, frowning. Lan Xichen, Nie Huasang and Jiang Cheng listen as well, and don’t speak up. 

A Clear Conscience

Then Lan Wangji *literally* steps out of his brother’s shadow, and speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian. This right here is Lan Wangji’s turning point, as far as I’m concerned. Xichen is gazing at JGY, totally on board with JGY’s spin of the situation, and his shadow falls away from Lan Wangji’s face as LWJ steps forward.

Lan Wangji says, isn’t what WWX said true? JGY puts on his customer service smile and says that the truth isn’t something you’re supposed to go around saying out loud. 

I’d like to say this is what’s wrong with cultivator society but this is really a universal human thing; every society has rules about upsetting the social order, and they are very frequently at odds with basic compassion and morality. 

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng stay silent but Lan Xichen goes and throws Wei Wuxian under the bus carriage, saying his character has changed. 

Lan Wangji nods decisively at this, and bows to Lan Xichen, silently asking permission to follow Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen grants permission, telling Lan Wangji to do his best. Lan Xichen probably thinks he and Lan Wangji are in agreement, in this moment, but that nod of Lan Wangji’s was nothing of the kind.

That nod was Lan Wangji agreeing with himself; he is going to try to bring Wei Wuxian back but he is also going to listen to him.  Meanwhile Lan Xichen is tying himself in knots to appease Jin Guangyao. The divergence between the brothers will just grow, from this point onwards.

Lan Wangji leaves to go follow his boyfriend conscience, while Jiang Cheng continues to silently listen to the commentary of others, and gets so mad he crushes a wine cup.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night.

Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian arrive at the prison camp, and the first person they encounter is Granny, with a defaced Wen Banner in her hand and Wen Yuan on her back. 

Whenever I read a meta or a fic that talks about how the juniors are so sweet partly because they are “untouched by the war” I want to point to this moment. A-Yuan endures an absolute truckload of war trauma by the time he’s four years old, and while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both deserve a lot of credit for saving him at great risk to themselves, Granny and Uncle Four are the first heroes of A-Yuan’s story. His kind, mellow personality has a lot in common with theirs. 

This is followed by an eternity of Wen Qing running around asking if anyone’s seen her brother. Eventually Wei Wuxian gets tired of this and gathers the guards together, threatening them with Chenqing. 

He doesn’t need to play it; just holding it up has every Jin dude instantly kneeling and scared. 

The guards send him and Wen Qing go to a giant field of corpses, where Wen Qing runs around checking to see if any of them is her brother. Wei Wuxian starts off kind of detached and angry, but eventually snaps out of it, tucks away his flute and starts helping her to search. 

Wen Qing finds Wen Ning, mostly-dead with a lure flag speared into his belly. Wei Wuxian grimly takes in the situation from across the field of corpses. 

When he arrives at Wen Qing’s side he sees this talisman in Wen Ning’s hand. 

This is the talisman that Wei Wuxian made for Wen Ning back in Gusu summer school, before the war. It’s the one that Wen Ning was wearing at his waist when they met up after the massacre of Lotus Pier. It’s supposed to literally protect Wen Ning from having his spiritual consciousness snatched, as well as being a symbol of Wei Wuxian’s sense of responsibility for, and affection for, Wen Ning. 

Wei Wuxian, understandably, loses his shit at this point. Less understandably, he is about to decide that the best way to express his sorrow and rage is to re-animate the corpse of his friend, right in front of the corpse’s sister. Like, seriously, dude. Dude. 

Ghost General

This super-questionable decision leads to one of the most badass sequences in the show, which is unfortunately chock full of lightning flashes, so not everyone can watch it. Wei Wuxian and his flute and swirls of resentful energy come marching out of the darkness of the corpse field, back to the guards. 

The guards have decided to slaughter all of the prisoners and then run away, which would be a good plan except they should really have skipped right to the running away part of things. When Wei Wuxian accuses them of killing the prisoner in the corpse field, they claim that the Wens have a habit of falling off of a hill and dying. Wei Wuxian can relate. 

At this point Wei Wuxian summons up Wen Ning 2.0, ultra badass edition, who comes flying through the air with his odd, straight-armed fighting stance and cool solid-black eyes and rock-and-roll hair. 

Soundtrack: *Four Sticks*

Wen Ning proceeds to whale on the guards and scare the shit out of his relatives.

Then Wen Qing shows up and begs Wei Wuxian to stop. She explains that Wen Ning is only mostly dead. Like, if he was fully dead would she be okay with this? 

Wei Wuxian tries to reel Wen Ning in and realizes that he is not actually in control of Wen Ning. Ok, see, right from the first day of Wen Ning 2.0, WWX is aware that his control is iffy. Why does he think he’s going to be able to control him later? 

Anyway, this is where we learn Wen Ning’s grown-up name is Wen Qionglin. Wei Wuxian yells this name, and Wen Ning looks up like a cat hearing the “food noise,” and then proceeds to get control of himself. 

This is such a nice symbolic moment, that will be replayed later in the temple, when Wen Ning saves Jin Ling from Baxia. 

Wen Ning has a remote-code-execution OS vulnerability throughout the story; his soul is at risk of being stolen, and he is magically controlled by Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, Su She, and Baxia.  Meanwhile Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and random kids on the street mostly treat him as a child, despite his clear adult capabilities. Wen Ning’s journey in The Untamed is at least partly about asserting his full adulthood, and his ability to overcome magical control is directly connected to that journey.  

After getting Wen Ning to chill, Wei Wuxian calls the floating resentful energy back into his own body, which looks about as comfortable as swallowing a burp. 

On the plus side, apparently resentful energy keeps your hair dry even when it’s raining.

Wei Wuxian should take a page from the guards’ book and slaughter all the Jin witnesses to this situation, but he decides to be the better person and let them live. They go running off down the road, where they encounter Lan Wangji and give him the 411, saying that Wei Wuxian resurrected dead people.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian collects Wen Qing--half-fainted, again, in an echo of the start of their journey--and collects the Dafan Mountain Wen group, who are hiding, wisely. When they see Wen Ning, Uncle Four and some others start to freak out, but Wei Wuxian tells them that fierce corpses are cool, and they all grab horses and mount up.

Where Are You Going?

Lan Wangji is waiting for them, nonconfrontationally indulging in some visual poetry while he waits. 

In a show where every prop is exquisitely, carefully designed to enhance our understanding character, his Gusu-toned umbrella reveals surprising red and yellow threads woven in, right above his eye line as he looks at Wei Wuxian. 

Wei Wuxian speaks first, saying “you came to stop me?” Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but asks him where he’s going. Then Lan Wangji warns him that he’s about to abandon orthodoxy forever, if he follows through. 

Wei Wuxian challenges this idea of orthodoxy, asking if Lan Wangji remembers the promise they made together, back in Gusu. It’s worth noting that they both appear to think of it as a co-promise, even though Lan Wangji didn’t speak aloud at the time. 

The conversation will continue in the next episode, because what’s better than a rainy romantic cliffhanger?

Soundtrack: Four Sticks by Led Zeppelin

[cosmicjoke]

So I just got through chapter’s 51 and 52 of Attack on Titan, and one thing that stuck out to me in 51, other than Levi’s obvious, deep anger with Erwin, which I’ll talk about in a minute, was how Levi made it a point to tell Connie that he’d done a good job after coming back with Hange from investigating his village.  Once again we see here Levi’s immense compassion for other people.  Nobody else really thought to give Connie that encouragement, despite his obvious distress in that moment.  They all were aware that Connie had lost everyone in his village, including his family, so it really demonstrates Levi’s thoughtfulness, once again, for other people and what they’re going through, that he takes the time to say just a few, kind words to Connie here.  

Then of course, there’s the big exchange in this chapter between Levi and Erwin, and there’s so much going on here.  But the first thing I noticed is the shift in Levi’s attitude, after he notices Erwin smiling upon hearing Hange’s theory about the Titan’s being humans.  At the beginning of this scene, Levi is showing Erwin a great deal of concern for his physical state, apologizing to him for him and Pixis showing up to talk, knowing how tired he must still be, saying to Erwin that he’ll understand if he would rather him and Pixis just come back later so he can keep sleeping.  Levi is giving Erwin the option here to deal with all of these new developments that they’re all dealing with later, and that offers a really insightful glimpse into the kind of respect and consideration Levi has for Erwin leading up to this point in the story.

What’s really interesting is the shift in Levi’s attitude here, after he sees Erwin smiling.  Levi starts to try and ask Erwin a question, after Hange’s revelations about the Titans, and he sees Erwin smiling to himself with a glazed, distant look in his eyes, and Levi’s horror is readily apparent.  He figures out almost immediately that Erwin is excited by this news, and Levi’s reaction is one of repulsion.  He even tells Erwin that he’s going to make him sick.  I think Levi’s reaction here is also partly fueled by his own feelings of deep dismay and horror at learning that all this time, he’s been killing other human beings.  So to see Erwin seemingly HAPPY about this revelation must seem particularly grotesque to Levi in that moment, while he’s dealing with his own feelings of guilt and despair and hopelessness.  Levi’s anger here is REALLY obvious, as he asks Erwin if this is the real reason he joined the Survey Corps.  We see Levi’s belief in Erwin starting to erode here, in real time.  Part of Levi’s anger, I think, must also stem from knowing that he’s put his faith entirely in Erwin, followed him with full belief in Erwin’s altruistic intentions, but now he has to face the possibility that his faith has been misplaced, that indeed the very REASON he joined the Corps to begin with, his faith in Erwin and his greater vision, may have been built on a lie.  This coming on the heels of realizing that Titans were actually humans, and he’s dedicated himself to killing them for years.  All of this leads you to really understand Levi’s controlled fury at Erwin in this scene.  When Erwin gets annoyed himself at Levi and tells him to lay off of him, and asks him to show him some pity, Levi says with obvious derision that, yeah, Erwin IS pitiful.  We see later in the scene Levi turn Erwin’s own words back on him, about him being mentally and physically exhausted, almost mocking Erwin with them as he reveals to him that he’s chosen to make the 104th his new squad and had Eren and Historia moved to an isolated location.  Levi’s anger here is really palpable, and it demonstrates the tension I think Levi’s probably always had with Erwin and their relationship.

Levi respects Erwin immensely, and I have no doubt he’d been ready to tell Erwin about his plans for the 104th with a lot more cordiality and willingness to involve him in that decision before Erwin’s motivations became revealed to him here.  But there’s always been that kind of conflict between them too, where Levi was willing to put his faith totally in Erwin’s vision, and in his ability to make the right choices, in order to advance the cause of humanity, but at the same time, felt deeply uncomfortable at times with Erwin’s methods towards achieving that goal, his willingness to sacrifice the lives of so many to that end, often resulting in the deaths of soldiers with no, substantial gain to be had.  He’s deeply aware of Erwin’s ruthlessness in getting the job done (we see that awareness later in chapter 52, when he asks Hange if they should run or kill their enemies before they can strike, and says it’s just like something Erwin would do when Hange says both).  It was Levi’s faith in Erwin, though, and his belief in Erwin’s purity and the righteousness of his cause, that allowed Levi to put his misgivings about Erwin’s methods aside, because he fully believed Erwin’s intentions were only to benefit humanity, and win them back their freedom someday.  So seeing Erwin smiling here, and having that faith in Erwin’s intentions thrown into question, alongside the awful revelation that Titan’s are actually humans, is obviously a pretty devastating blow to Levi’s own sense of balance and place, throwing into doubt what it is he’s been fighting for all this time, whether it was even real or not.  It’s like in one, fell swoop, Levi’s lost any amount of certainty in both what they’ve all been fighting for this whole time, and in the person he had put the most faith and trust in to guide them in the right direction.  I’m not sure how people could miss Levi’s anger towards Erwin here, or the reasons for it.  Levi is shown something in Erwin that makes him seriously doubt whether Erwin actually cares about humanity at all, or people at all.  Erwin appears happy that it turned out that Titan’s were humans, and Levi has no context, no way of knowing WHY Erwin would be happy about that.  He doesn’t know about his father, or the things his father told him, or how his father died.  So to Levi, it must just seem like Erwin is getting some sort of sick joy out of the revelation.  Again, to see something like that in the person you believed in the most, a person you admired deeply and thought of as superior to you, as holding a greater vision than you ever could, would be really, really hard.  It’s like Levi’s hero letting him down in the worst way possible.  

I think this should also be looked at in the context of Levi’s own experiences in life, and how that shaped his world view.  Levi comes from an extremely hard, deprived background, one of extreme poverty and desperation and violence.  That background, that difficult childhood, resulted in a necessary cynicism and jadedness in Levi.  He knows the way the world works, knows how hard life is, and how cruel and ruthless people can be.  He grew up in a world where there was no pretense, no civility or politeness to hide behind.  He grew up in a world where it was kill or be killed.  We see this weary understanding of how things really are later, again, in chapter 52, when Levi is explaining to Hange and the rest that they have two options, because the MP’s and those they work for aren’t going to just give up on getting their hands on Eren and Historia.  He knows they’re only going to try more forcefully and violently to get what they want, because that’s the way the world works, and that’s the way people are.  He also shows his worldly understanding of these sorts of things when he asks Hange how many of Nick’s fingernails they pulled, and knows that Nick likely didn’t talk because they pulled more than one.  It tells us about Levi’s experience and how he’s been exposed to the darker, crueler side of humanity, more than anyone else in that room.

So Levi also understands that if they just wait around, they’ll all eventually be killed.  He understands they can’t be passive here, and have to act immediately.  He impresses that reality unto Hange, who’s still reeling from Nick’s death, and forces her to make a decision as to what their next move should be.  He doesn’t allow her to wallow in her despair, and he does this for the sake of Eren and Historia, and all of them.  Once again, we see Levi being most concerned for the greater good, ready to act however is needed to help the most people.  He knows Hange is hurting, but he knows also that none of them can afford to be, as he says to her, timid.  They have to move.  Well, anyway, my point that I’m trying to make is that Levi’s life experience has forced him to be cynical about other people’s motivations and characters, about concepts of nobility and morality.  To look at other people’s true intentions with a skeptical eye, because he grew up in a cut-throat environment, exposed to deep poverty, trauma and pain, where people no doubt would turn on you, or abandon you in a moment for nothing more than a scrap of bread.  With that in mind, you have to realize that Levi’s faith in Erwin is rather remarkable.  That he’s able to BELIEVE that deeply in another person, to believe in another person’s goodness, and purity of intention, given Levi’s background and the life he’s lived, is extraordinary, and really tells us so much about who Levi really is.  Despite every experience in his life informing him  that he should be skeptical and cynical and mistrustful of people and their intentions, despite his every experience telling him that the world is a cruel, ugly, awful place filled with loss, pain and grief, Levi still wants so much to believe in something better.  To believe in purity of hearts and intentions, to believe in a higher morality and goodness.  And despite all of his life experience telling him otherwise, Levi is able to believe that’s who Erwin is.  A person with a higher, better moral standing, a person with a pure and true heart.  He believes it all the way.  So, to then have that faith, which Levi somehow held onto against all odds and reason, dashed against the rocks in a single, terrible moment of realization, would be horrible.  Levi is someone who wants so much to believe there can be a better world, with better people in it.  And I think Erwin represented that possibility to Levi, for a long time.  And so to learn that his belief in Erwin was, perhaps, too idealistic, to have that skepticism that his life’s beaten into him affirmed, rather than rejected, must have felt like the worst kind of betrayal to Levi, and just a crushing disappointment.

Of course, Erwin later is able to prove to Levi that his faith in him wasn’t misplaced, as he lives up to the ideal Levi saw in him to begin with, with Levi’s help and encouragement.  But that’s a different post altogether!  When I get to that part of the manga, I’ll be positing about it as well.

Also, Hange’s own sense of horrible guilt and remorse in these chapters, both over realizing she’d been experimenting on human’s this whole time, and over Nick’s death, was an amazing parallel to Levi’s.  I think the two of them share so many similar feelings and such a similar depth of feeling over everything.  Always trying to do the right thing, and struggling so much with whether the choices they make are the right choices, or whether any of this is worth the sacrifices they’re forced to make.

[technowoah]

Revolutions Always Fall

You should've learned from L'Manburg. The Butcher Gang was a mistake.

- REQUESTED!

- I tried to put 2 requests in one here.

- its really long 🤧🤞🏽

Prompts!

13) "You made me lose all my faith and trust in you"

38) "They warned me about this.” “About what?” “You.” 

47)“Are you satisfied now...?”

⚠︎ memtions of blood, voilence, fighting, swearing, Technoblade's execution episode. Angst.

Masterlist!

Dear Technoblade,

I wont make the same mistakes again

- an old friend. ♤

Technoblade was always a threat, and you learned that from L'Manburg. You had befriended him when he joined Pogtopia and very quickly you two seemed to click. He saw the world through different eyes and that intrigued you. You wanted to be him, live life the way he does it for just a day.

He was a killing machine, he was smart tactical, but still had the thirst for blood that made him be so smart and tacitcal with how he kills.

You on the other hand were not a big fan of killing, but this war was an exception. This war made you practice, it made you angry, it lit a fire underneath you that you didnt know you had. Along with the other members of Pogtopia, Technoblade helped you fight, how to wield a sword, knife, gun, anything that you can get your hands on you turned it into a weapon, you Soon enough you had mastered weapons and you werent so passive.

You questioned yourself if this was living through Technoblade, the need to fight, hunt, to protect. You felt poweful. As you hold your own crafted swords in your hand you know what you can do. You could do so much damage with this sword, he gave you that sword. It wasn't special at all but you made it special, because in your eyes it was.

"You can do so much with a sword, people just don't know how to use it to its fullest potential. They dont know their full potential either. But now you do."

Thats what he said to you in between those stone walls called Pogtopia.

After what he said to you had done so. Used the sword to your full potential, used anything to your full potential. You wanted to be more and more you became.

"You ready?" Technoblade smirked.

"Hell yeah Im ready to kill that bastard." You smiled

"Woah-oh! You weren't saying this a couple months ago."

"Schlatt deserves it. That's not L'Manburg. This is L'Manburg." You stretched out your arms to the others who were gathering armor and polishing their weapons for the battle yet to come.

You smiled knowing this will all end soon, you wouldn't be in a cave anymore, you wouldn't have to hide the fact that you knew where Wilbur was and that he was planning the attack, Pogtopia will be no more and L'Manburg would be back.

"L'Manburg will be back." You said while taking a sword out of a chest.

"Sure." You heard him scoff beside you.

"What's that supposed to mean?" You asked slightly offended. Wasn't he fighting for the same thing?

"I dont know. Revolutions always fall." He turned his back to you and walked away leaving you to your own thoughts.

You hated it. He was right, he was always right and you hated it. And everyone else did too, they knew he was right. It wasnt what the majority wanted, we wanted L'Manburg while he didn't want to be held by government in the first place. That's what he meant that day in Pogtopia.

L'Manburg, one defeated, was now growing once more. After the "end" of L'Manburg you couldn't forgive him. Your anger and the feeling of betrayal kept growing and growing everyday, every time you picked up that damned sword he gave you. It was the best sword you had, you had enchanted it multiple times. You had to use it, but the only thing was the memories that came with it.

Your anger only worsened as time went on, having to hear about Technoblade and how he was such a threat to L'Manburg only made you want to destroy him and the past you two had created. That would be the closure you needed, but someone was already three steps a head of you.

In spite of your anger you and Quackity had the most magnificent idea to make a gang to finally kill Technoblade for the sake of L'Manburg. The idea was to go confront him at his house and take him back to L'Manburg for an execution. You were on board with the idea 100%. This was better for L'Manburg and better for yourself, finally someone who got you.

Quackity and you planned tirelessly to try and get Technoblade's location and bring him back. The Butcher Gang was made from the cabinet of L'Manburg. During these long days you two grew closer, you two were so different in ways of thinking, but you two shared the same end goal which worked out in your favor. You two went through hell and back just to find out that the easiest way to get to Technoblade was sitting in L'Manburg right at that moment. Philza, some may say Technoblade's only friend at the moment. He was loyal to Technoblade and you dont blame him at all, but you needed to find out where his companion was.

It was all going well, the Butcher Gang had put Phil on house arrest and Tubbo had found a compass that led them straight to Technoblade's location. Everything was going well and according to plan, you didnt want to show it on your face as you saw Technoblade's house from the spot in the woods the Butcher Gang was hiding in, but you wanted this so badly. You didnt where he was going to be, he could've came and bestowed more destruction. It was like knowing he was there, but not knowing when he was going to strike.

The anxiety that came with not knowing where Technoblade was always with you, but now it wont be.

The Butcher Gang ended up taking Technoblade by force back into the city. You were proud that you were all able to get the blood hungry pig-man to come back with you all. He was behind bars with an anvil hanging high over his head. As Tubbo gave his speech your short lived happiness soon faded as a man appeared and smoke filled the area. You started to get attacked by what seemed like Dream and Punz while Tubbo continued to yell for Quackity to pull the lever to finally kill Technoblade.

"Pull the lever Big Q!"

"Kill him Quackity!" You yelled with him.

He did it. The anvil fell fast towards Technoblade's body, but as fast as the anvil landed on him his skin, bones, and blood regenerate and return to its normal state. Your eyes widened as the totem in his hand began to disintegrate into gold dust.

"DAMMIT!" You yelled in agony while Ranboo and Fundy continued to fend off Dream and Punz until they retreated.

Once they did you realized Technoblade was gone, you saw him in the distance running away from the scene, but you couldn't let this happen. You couldn't let the fear of Technoblade being out there doing God knows what forever. The fear of him boiled in your heart as you broke out into a sprint towards Technoblade.

As you ran into a more secluded area you heard footsteps behind you. You glances back to see Quackity following your lead with an axe in his hand. Slowing down a bit you both ran side by side.

"Let's get this son of a bitch!" Quackity huffed as you both came across a cave.

You both knew Technoblade was in there so you both prepared for the mental and physical pain you would both endure. This wasn't like the Butcher Gang where it was 5 against 1, it was 2 against 1 and you've seen Technoblade fight this fight before.

"You ready to kill this bastard?" He calmed his breathing down.

"Of course I am." You kept your eyes foward.

You walked deep into tha cave to see 6 chests and a sign that said "final control room", that bastard. Wanting to be quiet you tried to sneak up on Technoblade, but Quackity's anger got the best of him.

"What the fuck is this Technoblade?! What the hell are you doing here?" He asked gripping his sword too tight.

"It not what it looks like." Technoblade airly laughed. He had an enchanted pickaxe in his hand and an open chest with netherite armor.

"How the hell did that anvil not kill you?!" Quackity yelled.

Technoblade started laughing, he was laughing, he was taunting us. "Do you really think that death can stop me? That you could kill me that easily."

Your emotions tried to get the best of you as you tried not to let frustrated tears fall onto your cheeks.

"How did you do it? What... How did you even do that?"

"You think that can stop me Quackity?" Technoblade asked again.

"Just answer the fucking question!" You yelled before either of them could speak. It was silent for a while before Technoblade slowly spoke up.

"A totem. I used a totem of undying. I always have it on me." He smugly said.

He continued on. "You know what?! You know what? Ive got a lot to say, I was gonna say it at the trial, but we got a little bit interrupted. You know I tried convincing you guys that government was not the answer, the government was actually the cause of all your problems!"

You rolled your eyes as he continued his infamous speech.

"I tried to convince you guys by fighting alongside you as brothers and you cast me aside, you used me. I tried to use force, but you still formed a government! And when I went into hiding, when I retired, when I swore off violence, you hunted me down, you hurt my friends." Technoblade finished.

"Techno you dont understand what we're fighting for!" You started finally finding your voice. "I thought you were for us! You were always against us!"

"I was always for you! I needed you guys to understand!"

"We needed YOU to under-"

Technoblade interrupted you. "You dont understand me! You never did!"

"At least I fucking tried and you gave me so much shit for it! I wanted to be you Technoblade. I wanted to see life through your eyes, I was fascinated by how you walk, fight, your mind."

Your anger began to subside as you continued to speak. "But, you made me lose all my faith and trust in you."

Technoblade laughed again. "Same here! You guys left me! Betrayed me so-"

"So the feeling is mutual." You growled.

It was quite for a minute, but you could feel Quackity's sympathetic stare as you poured your feelings out to a man who dosen't even matter to you.

"They warned me about this." Your arms gestured to the area the three of you were in.

"About what?" Technoblade scoffed.

"About you." You stared at Technoblade. It wasn't a glare, it was more calm.

"Quackity, Tubbo, Fundy...Even Ranboo." You airly chuckled.

You had stopped talking trying to get yourself back together. Quackity caught that you weren't talking anymore so he spoke up.

"What we have up there is a country and what we need here is organization and power. And I dont care how long it fucking takes me or what I have to do to get you Techno. Im going to fucking kill you. Im going to kill you Technoblade." Quackity gripped his axe in his hand.

"I just have one question Quackity." Techno smirked.

"What do you have?" Quackity responded and you took the sword out of the sheath hanging on your hip.

"Do you think you two are enough to kill me? Even unarmed with iron armor?" Technoblade closed the chest that held netherite armor signaling he didn't need that. "Do you think you both could take me?"

"Oh we do." You spoke up. "We need this, Technoblade."

"You know what?" Quackity rose his axe and you followed suit. "Lets find out you son of a bitch!" He charged towards Technoblade and you followed close behind.

Technoblade started running out of the long cave, but you two followed. He threw potions on the ground as he turned around and fought us head on. You were able to get a couple of cuts and hits on him, but he was cutting you more with his pickaxe.

The thing about Quackity was that he thought he was invincible. He kept going full force towards Technoblade, hopefully he would focus on him so you could finally get a critical hit on him. Your heart rate kicked up as your face came too close to his pickaxe. And it kept going, each swing he took towards you became closer and closer until Quackity slashed his arm with his axe.

Technoblade whipped his head his way. "I have a pickaxe and I'll put it right through your teeth!"

Technoblade swung his axe and slashed Quackity's face, including his eye. He then turned his pickaxe to the flat side and swung it, hitting the side of his head. The blow to his head sent him flying against one of the walls of the cave, knocking him out.

He then turned to you and in a flash you could tatse the metal of his pickaxe as it swiped across your face blinding one of your eyes as well as Quackity's. He had hit you on the side of the head like he did with Quackity. Your body was aching as you fell to the ground, your mind slowly shutting down. You were loosing a lot of blood quickly, and so was Quackity. You two knew you were going to find the strength to get out of this cave and follow Technoblade's path out.

You laid on the cave's cold floor realizing that this was a mistake. You were too loyal, easily swayed, you were a follower. You never knew when to stop, from L'Manburg to Pogtopia to The Butcher Gang you seeked things you couldn't have. You couldn't have L'Manburg, neither Pogtopia, you couldn't kill Technoblade and ease your fears snd anxieties. You need to seek that some where else.

Your mind began to slip, and you fell into unconsciousness.

You should've learned. He was right. Revolutions always fall.

The Butcher Gang was a mistake.

Dear Technoblade,

I remembered the day. It still pains me. The day you spawned those wither. I thought you were the traitor, but turns out I was wrong at the time. Im sorry for that.

I also remember when you left me for dead. But I made it out as you see.

But now I am resigning from L'Manburg. Im going my own way, my own path, and I don't want you on my path.

Think of this as closure, something I never got. As I am writing this I dont know why I am giving you closure, lifting a weight off of your shoulders, you dont deserve it.

I know people say that to you alot.

You really made a dent in this damned place.

I hate what you're doing. You get to live in solitude while we get to live in the debris you left here. I wanted to be like you.

I hate to say it, but I learned a lot from you. I hated what I learned, about myself, about you, about the current state of this horrible place.

I wont make the same mistakes again

Are you satisfied now?

- an old friend ♤